Take up the challenge to reduce your food miles for one week...

Over the last couple of years I have become increasingly aware of what we are eating, how it is grown and where it comes from ..... so to develop my awareness even more and to evaluate how successfully I manage to feed my family, I have signed up for Local Harvest Challenge.

This challenge takes on the goal of intentionally reclaiming your food choices and decreasing the degrees of separation between us and our food. 
The challenge takes place between Monday 1st April — Sunday 7th April 2013

There are heaps of useful resources on the Local Harvest website to help you with your challenge and with everyday living. I particularly like the 'Finding Good Food Close to You' tool where you type in your postcode and up comes lists of farmers, produces, food sources within a chosen radius.

In my area it shows me details of great producers and suppliers such as Purple Pear Farm , the Beanstalk Organic Foods, Food Integrity Group (FIG) and Kooragang City Farm.

 Visits to our local farmer's markets will be fun.

I will also start planning my garden plantings to ensure that I can provide a lot of my own vegetables during the challenge - I will be planting carrots, lettuce, spinach, some late tomatoes, squash and Asian greens to be ready for April.

If you would like to join the challenge, register at Local Harvest Challenge.  

I would love to hear how you reduce your food miles ... leave me a comment ;)

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!

Today in Australia, we are celebrating Australia Day.

We have spent the day with family having an Australian BBQ lunch followed by lamingtons.

The weather is typically Australian - hot, humid and then torrential rain .... no wonder Dorothea MacKellar penned the beautiful poem, 'My Country' back in 1904.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

Source: NationalArboretumCanberra

This sculpture at the National Arboretum Canberra was created by Marcus Tatton, Futago and Chris Viney and inspired by Dorothea Mackellar’s poem My Country.

Holy Bat Post!!

Yesterday, we ventured off to the Avoca Beach Picture Theatre for a Batman Mini Fair and screening of the 1966 Batman movie.

Knitboy was in his element, enjoying dressing up in costume and getting into the action with villains.

RIP Emma Love

Some of you may have followed Emma's battle with cancer via her Mum's blog.

I first 'met' Emma in 2011 through a request through blogs to send her stickers to help her during her treatment. 

This photo (so wonderfully scrapbooked by her mum) shows Emma and her Blythe doll wearing the beanies that I knitted for her.

Emma's bravery and determination touched many people, as has the love shown by her parents and family.

Sadly, Emma lost her battle on January 15th.

RIP Brave Emma Love.

Heatwave happenings..

As we  swelter on another hot day, I have continued to use my time indoors to de-clutter, clean and re-organise the house.
Today, when I changed the sheets on the bed and re-arranged the cushions, I thought that I need one more!!
When I de-cluttered my kitchen, I found two aprons that I never wore but I still loved the fabric - so I made them into a cushion.

Now it sits happily with all of the others in a miss-matched kind of way!

Hopefully tonight will be cooler - thunderstorms are forecast.

I hope that you are safe from bushfires, heat and storms - take care.

Washed ashore ....

Did you know ...

• That an estimated 18,000 pieces of plastic float in every square kilometre of ocean.
•  It is only when it washes ashore that most people get an idea of how much rubbish must actually be out in our oceans and the impacts that this has on marine life and seabirds.
•  This is also our best opportunity to remove it from the environment before the next tide washes it back out to sea again. 

              Source:   http://www.tangaroablue.org

The last couple of visits to our local beaches has highlighted to me the amount of plastic that does get washed up with each tide.  Most of the beaches that we frequent are graded with machinery each day or so to make them safer for the public - despite this plastic products are left behind by beach-goers or washed up with each tide.

Last visit, as we walked back to the car park I made a conscience effort to pick up each piece of plastic that I saw. I found nine plastic items (on a walk about 100 metres) ...

I'm sure that I could have collected more (and encouraged the rest of the family to do the same!!) but I already had my hands full with bags, towels and other beach paraphernalia .... so, this started me thinking.

I had seen 'beachcomber bags' before on different websites designed for collecting shells, rocks etc, so I had a look around the house to make a version of my own.

I have used some nylon flyscreen netting (around 60cm x 30cm). I folded this in half and stitched along two sides with my sewing machine to make a pocket shape. I then used some vintage sheeting (as it was the first thing I stumbled over in my craft room) and made a casing for the top. Into that I threaded some cord to make a drawstring top. 

The completed bag - the mesh is a bit hard to photograph

Here is the completed bag with the plastic items that I collected.

The beauty with the mesh is that you can give it a dunk in the water to remove any sand.

It folds up and can be tied into a bundle to fit in your beach bag .

I find it is sometimes best to bring the rubbish home and place it your recycling bin, if appropriate, as often bins at the beach or picnic spots become full quickly especially over holiday periods.

Next beach visit, I will encourage the family to play a 'Treasure Hunt' game to pick up plastic litter - for example, points allocated to the person to find 3 red pieces of plastic, 3 lollypop sticks, 3 spoons etc. - most points win a prize!

If you are playing with your family, make sure that you educate your children about dangerous plastic items that may be found at the beach such as syringes, condoms and cigarette lighters.