‘Eggy bake’ is a common meal in our house and one of our all-time favorites – named by the kids.

Eggy bake – this version with grated cheese on top from local cheesery. Typically we eat it plain. Rarely we have leftovers.

 

Another household favourite is pumpkin soup (veggie soup really) using all freshly harvested vegetables – pumpkin, Choko, potato, herbs, turmeric, ginger, garlic chives, mustard spinach, and many other veggies and greens we find.

 

I think our 4yo will discover one day that usually pumpkin soup is orange, not green, but both these meals are great ways to get him to enjoy lots of freshly-plucked organic greens.

 

Weeping rosemary hanging over the terrace wall gets plucked for most meals.

Anyway, I started typing up a recipe for the book I am working on, The Good Life Guide and realized that this meal was far more than the recipe could communicate. A simplicity of just listing the recipe ingredients and steps seemed somehow to diminish the inherent qualities of the food.

 

Tulsi leaves and seeds also end up in most salads, soups, curries, and bakes.

 

 For me it is the rich tapestry of connections that are cultivated through this food that brings it’s true quality to light – the connections with the seasons, with our local environment, with the soil, with neighbors, with friends, with each other in our family, with our play, with our home education, and our workplace.

 

Garlic chives and their flowers have an amazingly powerful garlic flavour.

Here is my first attempt to describe the eggy-bake process…

 

1. Send the kids up to collect the eggs from the chook house we built using timber our neighbour harvested in his woodlot and a gift of reclaimed iron sheeting. We have an eclectic mix of rare breed chickens that the children look after. The eggs are all different shapes and sizes – but all have superbly orange yolks because they free-range often.

 

2. Wander around the garden with a handmade basket collecting a wonderful array of herbs, flowers, and leafy greens (and purples). I take a leaf from this and a leaf from that so I don’t harm the plant and can come back again day after day for more. It’s a peaceful way to garden and harvest.
   
   I collect things like soft pumpkin leaves and shoots, sweet potato leaves and shoots, mustard spinach, any brassica flowers, and soft flower stalks, many varieties of kale, welsh onion leaves, the bolting shoots from coriander/cilantro, tulsi leaves, garlic chives and garlic chive flowers, Brazilian spinach … there are so many things to collect, even pea leaves, bean leaves, beetroot leaves, young chia leaves, young amaranth leaves, weeds – chickweed, dandelion leaves. The more diverse the selection, the more diverse the nutrients in the food.

   The magnificent red mustard spinach is making its way into every meal in these cooler months.

   I love this time in the garden, watching the birds, noticing things – new shoots on trees, self-seeding veggies, subtle changes, and simple beauty. I think about what I can add to the garden to increase diversity or adapt to the changing season.

   Brassica flowers are a wonderful treat. I often snack on them in the garden.

   
   I notice where I need to add some more compost or mulch. The compost is made from the chicken bedding, and the Azolla we harvested by hand from the lake. The mulch is often chopped and drop materials, but we do also go and pick up some local bales of grass straw that another neighbour orders in bulk for us all to use. The kids love to ride in the trailer with the bales slowly back along the little internal road within the ecovillage with the wind in their hair, singing in the breeze,  watching for hawks and kangaroos.
   
   I could ask the kids to harvest the greens too because they know where all the great greens are at any moment – the garden is their playground – and sometimes I do, but I just love this time in the garden pottering for a few minutes.

 

There’s always a surprise somewhere in the garden.

 

3. Ask my children to whiz it all together in the food processor with a bit of fresh milk from the neighbour and handmade ricotta from another neighbour.

 

4. Cook it in a solar cooker (for a lunchtime meal) or a solar-powered electric oven (for dinner).

 

5. Duck out to the garden again just before the eggy bake is ready and collect some salad greens. I like to wrap little bits of eggy bake in a leaf.

   Fresh mixed salad with self-seeding tomatoes and lots of perennial greens, edible weeds and edible flowers.

    
6. Sometimes I go the extra bit and drizzle a salad with homemade dressing – shaking together a little organic olive oil made just down the valley (sourced from the local organic food store), with some homemade kombucha vinegar (using a SKOBY dropped off by a neighbour, a chopped up garlic clove hand-delivered from a friend in Tasmania (traded for limes), and some herbs and spices from the garden like rosemary, oregano, thyme, or chilli, ginger and lemongrass. Even simpler, I grab a lime, lemon, or grapefruit and squeeze it over the salad. Delicious just like that!

    

   Fresh greens, snowpeas. tomatoes, citrus and garlic

    

7. Ask the children to set the table. Often they gather a little posy of edible flowers and lemon myrtle leaves and make a beautiful arrangement.
8. Sit down together and enjoy, discussing the particular flavours and textures that we like in today’s version. You see, they are always different – and that’s the beauty of it too. 

 

It sounds quite complicated, but really it’s ultimately simple. All the ingredients are all just here around us, it’s seasonal, it connects us with our neighbours and friends, and our local environment,  we all help to make it happen, we all enjoy it immensely because of the heart and soul that we know has gone into every part.  And, from start to finish, cooking from scratch, it usually takes us around 30 minutes to prepare and cook as long as we keep it thin in the glass cooking trays.

 

Brazilian Spinach has leaves all year round for harvest.

This is slow food, but it’s not slow, quite rapid actually. With three children – two of them boys with huge appetites – preparing good food quickly seems to be the best approach, as well as getting them involved in the process.

 

Keep in mind too that I typically garden for about 10 minutes a day to maintain this garden – not a huge commitment, but an enormous benefit to our health and to the education of my children.

 

Some other reasons I love this way of cooking:

• this is community food
• it’s package free – the natural packaging of the eggs goes back to the soil. The milk comes in re-used bottles.
• it’s part of nutrient cycles in the garden and is waste-free
• it is so satisfying and just makes me smile so deeply when I sit down to share this meal

What’s a simple meal you cook from scratch?  What does it mean to you?

The post Good Food: Good Life: My recipe for simple eggy bake straight from the garden. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Some of the bags of clothes waiting to head up to the charity stores in Maleny.

Living like a backpacker

Back in the early 1990s, Evan and I were travelling around the world a lot with our backpacks and lived amply on a handful of simple clothes. However, since we’ve had kids and settled a bit more, things have accumulated. As much as I promised myself this would never happen, it did. It was definitely time for a big clear out. I’m pretty sure what I’ve kept would be able to fit into a backpack again.

I love wearing sarongs here in the subtropics – they are lightweight and easy to store and care for.

Special souvenirs of musty space-fillers?

Not only were my own clothes filling up the wardrobe space, but clothes I had kept from when our children were little – things I thought were special souvenirs of their baby days. What they had become really were musty, stained and old (storing things in humid subtropics is difficult). I have kept just a few really special items and packed them very well.

Getting up my nose

All these surplus clothes were collecting dust which I was really starting to find was getting up my nose – literally.  Today, everything got washed with soapnuts and eucalytus, and the entire wardrobe and room was wiped down with diluted vinegar. It feels so fresh again.

How did I sort through it all?

Basically I just made one big pile on the floor  in the middle of my bedroom and methodically went through each piece.  It took me half a day to sort, wash and clean out all the dust from the back of the wardrobe  – a big commitment of time, but one that is going to save me lots of washing, sorting, putting away etc. later.  

As I went through the clothes I placed them in nine different piles and bags: 

• Keepers –  I went through this pile a couple of times to refine my choice to pick natural fibres, ethical items and ones that are biodegradable.
• Storage box – a selection of a few things for different seasons and some favourite skirts which will be good when I lose a few kilos (!?)
• Gift bag – almost new children’s clothes that are suitable for friends with young children.
• Hand-me-down pile – some retro pieces of my clothing that now fit my daughter
• Charity store bag – all the good quality clothes that were left
• Upcycling box – a few pieces I liked that had fabulous fabric, but no longer a good style are awaiting redesign (when I get a new sewing machine pedal – Monty was experimenting with scissors recently).
• Rag bag – too bad to fix but good for rags.
• Worm pile – too bad to fix and fully biodegradable.
• Rubbish – too bad to fix and not good for rags or worms. (thankfully this was the smallest pile)

My small selection of clothes for storage for another season.

This is all that is left in my wardrobe –  a couple of skirts, shirts, singlets and long sleeve tops – and my favourite jacket with all the pockets for collecting seeds while I’m out and about.

The post How I downshifted my wardrobe by 80 percent. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

I just discovered a neighbour of mine in this ecovillage has started making organic tempeh – free of GMOs.  I love tempeh and I have been meaning to make some for ages, but unfortunately it has only stayed on my wish list so far. I fell in love with it in Indonesia when I was teaching permaculture over there in 1999 (and the many times I returned), particularly the fresh local village made tempeh.

Tempeh is a good way to eat beans and grains because they usually lose a lot of their lectin and phytate contents in the fermentation process. I really enjoy it added to a big cook up of our homegrown veggies and spices.

The texture and taste of my neighbour’s tofu was amazing – not like the hard and sometimes slimy tempeh in supermarkets. I had thought that was OK (because really I wanted to like it), but now I know where to get the ‘real’ stuff, I’ll be putting in a standing order! Luckily I have lots of plants and food in my permaculture garden to trade with them.

What is tempeh?

Tempeh is typically made out of fermented soya beans but can also be made out of other things such as things such as mung beans and chickpeas, but also grains. Partially cooked whole soybeans are aged overnight in an incubator at a tropical temperature with a starter culture. During that time a thick, white mat of mycelia, a kind of fungus, covers the tempeh and this binds the beans together as a ‘cake’. 

A local fresh source …

Every Monday the tempeh maker and his family invite people over to their place for a falafel and baclava feast – a lovely opportunity for people in this community to get together informally and chat.

It was there a few days ago, that on the table I saw the tempeh they had prepared as a taste test.  My three year old son absolutely loved it and asked if I could get some for his kindy lunchbox. How could I resist such an earnest request?

I picked up a couple of blocks up today – it was still warm. Fresh tempeh! 

This is how I prepared it.

How to make simple and delicious tempeh – for meal protein, or a snack.

Ingredients: 

• Tempeh
• Cononut Oil
• Chilli
• Fresh Ginger Root
• Garlic

Method:

1. Slice tempeh into 4mm slices
2. Heat fry pan and add the following – 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, a sliced chilli, 5 mm ginger root – grated finely, a crushed and chopped clove of garlic, a sprinkle of himalayan salt.
3. When oil hot add the tempeh to the pan. 
4. When brown on one side, turn over and brown the other side

The freshly fermented tempeh.

Chopped and cooked with a 2 tablespoons of coconut oil, grated ginger, sliced chilli, crushed garlic, and a sprinkling of himalayan salt.

After a couple of minutes, they were brown on one side, so I gently turned them over for another minute or two before moving them to a towel to absorb the excess oil.

I laid it out ready for my family to come back home from their outing.

Then I realised that it didn’t quite looked enough, so I cooked up the other half.

… and in the few moments after they walked in the door, it was gone! Even my picky food critic son loved it – so it must be really good. Now I have to make some more at 6:30am so that little Monty can have some in his kindy lunchbox.

A goal of mine is to grow some grains and more legumes in my permaculture garden to make my own tempeh!!! I’ll let you know how I go when I get to this point, and I’d love to hear your experienced of making various sorts of tempeh.

The post My neighbour’s tempeh & a simple vegan recipe for delicious tempeh slices appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

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Growing your own fresh produce is such a healthy and satisfying way to simplify your life, and save thousands a year. I typically grow so much that I need to give much of it away – mostly as cuttings at the workshops I give, to help other people’s gardens become more abundant.

By simplifying my life and avoiding unnecessary daily purchases, I am easily saving over $23,000 a year in just a few areas of my life.

What this means is that:

1. I don’t need to earn that amount (and can spend that time with my family, volunteering in my community, developing new skills, writing, riding, being in nature…) or
2. I have more freedom to spend the money on more interesting things, or things that will last…. or
3. Perhaps go on a journey and worldschool our kids.

I’ve found that reducing our daily cost of living can be a simple, yet powerful series of actions that can help us live a more sustainable, low-impact and relaxed way of life.

I feel happier like this – more connected to myself, my community, the place I live, the planet and global society. I feel better too knowing that I have not contributed so much waste and pollution, or impacted so much on other communities. This is important to me.

Slowing down and exploring our own backyard – finding dragonflies, turtles, waterbirds, waterlily and other interesting plants, insects and animals.

So how do I simply save over $23,000 a year:

Go Shopping With a List – save $5000

I find it’s too easy to fill shopping baskets with spontaneous buys especially when I don’t take my list or I shop when I’m hungry. I’ve noticed my register bill almost doubles. I also avoid shopping at big stores that encourage over-purchasing. Even shopping at small ethical stores, I have found this saves me around $5000 a year.

Eat a Simple Dinner at Home – save $5000

I love to cook and kindly my kids say my meals are really good  – they even go so far to say they prefer my food to meals out (phew!). We eat simple, tasty and healthy meals together at home and enjoy the laid-back vibe. Eating out with a 3yo can be ‘not-so-relaxing’.  Some days (for no particular reason) we set the table really nicely, put on some music and make it a special meal. Taking a family out for dinner weekly can be costly. I think we easily save over $5000 a year by eating at home, and taking food with us.

Maia loves creating colourful little table decorations from garden flowers, old jars, socks and fabrics scraps. Delightful!

Pack Lunch and Snacks when we go out – save $3000

Go on picnics and local outings – save $3000

A favourite local outing is a picnic at the river. It is even something we do on special occasions. We pack up our little basket with little goodies and a thermos, sometimes even a bag of potatoes to through in a riverside campfire – yumm!  By reducing the number of expensive outings and choosing to entertain ourselves in our local environment I estimate saves us over $3000 a year.

We all love heading to the river, exploring, having a picnic and cooking potatoes in the fire.

Make a Coffee Thermos at home – save $4000

We love coffee and I think we still spend way too much on coffee when we’re out.  By taking our coffee thermos from home I estimate we could save around $4000 a year  – wow, oh dear, that’s huge.  Perhaps I should just drink my herb infused waters instead – which I already carry everywhere!

Grow fresh greens – $3000

By cultivating some super-easy home-grown food –  fresh salads leaves, bunches of greens, a range of culinary herbs, bundles of cherry tomatoes and delicious snow peas, not only is your food far fresher and more nutrient dense, I’ve worked out that we easily save over $3000 a year. If we took into account all the food we grow and the eggs, it would be much more.

I grow at least 20 different types of greens for teas, salads, stir-fries, soups, curries and other meals. This is super spicy red mustard spinach and one of the open-hearted oak-leaf lettuces behind.

The self-seeding tomatoes are so delicious and abundant. I don’t have to do anything and there are many many kilograms every year.

Other ways to save money by living simply

• Assess needs against wants – check in with yourself. I find I can often easily put things back on the shop shelf if I stop to think about it. Stepping out of the consumer lifestyle can be very liberating. It helps to avoid big shopping centres too. It’s hard to come out having bought just what you needed, and quite often items are not as good as expected.
• Choose good quality items that last – It’s better to spend money on something that will last a long time and is fixable, rather than on cheap disposable versions.
• Choose good quality second hand things – there is so much scope here! Furniture, cars, bikes, computers, musical instruments, clothes…
• Declutter – finding a clarity of mind in clear spaces, spaces not filled with ‘stuff’ we own.

Voluntary simplicity

Choosing to live more simply, moving away from the work-spend cycle and finding a broader definition of richness and wealth, is often known as downshifting or voluntary simplicity. This way of thinking and living embraces the notions such as:

• bigger is not always better,
• focus on quality rather than quantity,
• see that accumulating more stuff does not make us happier, and
• a simpler life creates far less impact on the environment and society.

Did you know that every year, the average Australian family produces enough rubbish to fill a three-bedroom house, producing about 2.25 kg of waste each per day. Cool Australia 

I also strongly believe that we do need to “Live simply so that others may simply live“ as Gandhi said.

By embracing voluntary simplicity ideals, it is embracing an ethical life, that values other people, other communities, other species, other ecological communities… This is certainly connected to the third ethic of permaculture.

The three ethics at the core of permaculture are:

1. earth care
2. people care
3. fair share

The post Save over $23,000 a Year and De-stress with a Few Simple Living Strategies appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Mother’s Day is this Sunday in Australia – here are some superb gifts to make.

Making creams and lotions at home is relatively new for me and I just love it – how simple they are to make, how affordable they are, how fabulous they feel, how you can take charge of what you put on your skin, and that these are almost good enough to eat! I wish you could smell too them from where you are.

I don’t typically buy or use many beauty products because I react to the ingredients and scents in many products, but I do like to use a good night moisturiser and some after-gardening hand cream – and the recipes below are just great. Buying organic products for sensitive skins can become quite expensive,  so it is liberating to be able to create my own personalised blends with the various thickness I like to use.

HAND CREAM

INGREDIENTS

SOME SUGGESTED OPTIONAL EXTRAS

RESOURCES

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Place the beeswax and oil in a wide-mouth jar and sit in a pot of water.
2. Heat the water and gently simmer until the beeswax has melted and combined with the oil. If using cocoa butter, add into this mix and melt too.
3. Take off the heat and allow to cool almost to room temperature (just starting to solidify on the edge, but still soft in the middle.)
4. While the beeswax/oil mix is cooling, blend the aloe vera and water together in a small food processor. 
5. (Variation: instead of aloe vera water, you can use plain water, lemon myrtle tea, rose water etc – it’s up to your imagination really)
6. As soon as you notice the beeswax mix is cool enough, place the stick blender in the jar and blend thoroughly.
7. While the blender is still on, slowly add the aloe/water mix – bit by bit. 
8. Almost magically, it will turn into cream (the oil and water will emulsify).
9. Transfer into jars and seal well.
10. Because this recipe contains water and no preservatives, it is less shelf-stable. It should last a month so make it in small batches.

Notes:

HAND LOTION BARS

INGREDIENTS

• 125gms coconut oil  
• 125gms cocoa butter
• 125 gms beeswax

SOME SUGGESTED OPTIONAL EXTRAS

RESOURCES

• Wide mouth jar (approx 500 -650 mls)
• Saucepan
• Moulds

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Combine all ingredients (except Vit E and essential oils if using) in a jar and place in a small saucepan of water.
2. Gently heat the water and stir ingredients constantly until they are melted together.
3. Remove from heat and add the essential oils and stir gently in.
4. Carefully pour the liquid into moulds or whatever you will be allowing the lotion bars to harden in – silicone cupcake forms, paper cupcake forms…
5. Allow the lotion bars to cool completely before attempting to pop out of moulds.

MOISTURISING BODY LOTION

INGREDIENTS

• 125 mL olive oil
• 65 gms coconut oil
• 65 gms beeswax (grated)

SOME SUGGESTED OPTIONAL EXTRAS

• Medium Jar (approx 500 -650 mls)
• Saucepan
• Jars or tins

1. Combine oils and beeswax in a glass jar (and cocoa butter if desired)
2. Place the jar in a saucepan of water and gently heat and stir until melted. 
3. Take off heat and add vitamin E and essential oils.
4. When all ingredients are completely melted, pour into little jars or tins. (It will not pump well)

Enjoy, experiment, and create lots of wonderful gifts to share.

The post Handmade Mother’s Day Gifts – Affordable, Natural DIY Hand Cream, Moisturising Body Lotion and Hand Lotion Bars appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Voluntary simplicity is a way to work towards debt-free living. When I first heard of this concept back in the early 90s I was impressed at how this is such a positive earth-friendly way of living and have tried to live this way ever since. I’m so glad I found this approach before I launched into a career and mortgage package. Instead we have created our own work and built our own house – simply and based on the environmental and social justice ethics I value.

Voluntary simplicity to me is about reducing consumption, streamlining possessions, increasing community self-reliance, simplifying needs, simplifying diet and finding more space to breath, being happy and connecting with my community, my environment, my family and myself.

Getting involved in a community tree planting project.

I feel a great sense of freedom and flexibility by living simply, being conscious of my consumption and avoiding debt. I also feel a richness that cannot be defined in dollar terms.

We spent ten years building and saving, building and saving – living in simple accommodation on-site while we did. This helped so much in avoiding going into debt to build our house. (Visit my post about the house: http://our-permaculture-life.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/our-affordable-mortgage-free-eco-house.html)

By simplifying my needs I have found that I can:

• reduce my ecological impact (less resources used)
• reduce my social impact (reducing pollution, factory-made stuff and supporting fair trade)
• reduce my costs (less purchases)
• reduce the time I need to work for money (I work part time, independently, based from home)
• reduce my stress
• increase the time I have to spend with my family (including time to homeschool 2 children and look after a pre-schooler)
• increase the time I have in nature and the garden
• increase the time I have to write and relax
• increase the time I have to grow, make and build
• increase the time I have to volunteer and contribute to my community

Growing hardy edible perennials like Brazilian Spinach means that, here in the subtropics, there is always food in the garden. (Read my post about growing abundance: http://our-permaculture-life.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/abundance-in-garden-simply-growing-more.html)

CHILDREN’S CLOTHES
Pass on good clothes that your children have grown out of and accept bags of from friends.  Children usually grow out of clothes before they wear them out. I love getting bags of surprises from friends. The kids like the fact that it’s come, for example, from their older friends – it gives it extra meaning. With three children, trading clothes provides a big saving. We also have found some excellent things in the local second-hand stores, and like to sew up our own things too.

There is a lovely little second hand shop in our ecovillage run by volunteers. Maia always finds lovely clothes and shoes there – she is wearing them here. The kids also find gifts there. For my birthday today, they found knitting needles and yarn, a new coffee mug…

Becoming an active member of your local libraries is a fabulous way to access great books and toys – and then pass them back when the kids have had a good look and play, and ready to move onto the next thing.

AVOID BIG SHOPPING CENTRES
Mostly I find that I can get just about everything I need in my local town. The popular thinking is that you need to go to big box stores for discount buying, but typically I find the prices are comparable. Also I save buy not buying spontaneous purchases I don’t actually need. Every now and then I do find myself in a large shopping mall (sometimes I do community seminars in libraries embedded in these places).  I watch myself as I wander around – things catch my eye and I start feeling drawn into needing this and that. Our place is already filled with enough ‘stuff’ – I really do not need any more. I think I save thousands this way.

One of my favourite shops – the organic food coop in Maleny, my nearest town.

FOOD SHOP WHEN YOU ARE FULL
Have you ever gone shopping late in the afternoon when you are really hungry and come home with a whole lot of things you wish you hadn’t bought. I try now to always shop when I am full and have a clear list of the things I need.  By avoiding plastic packaging as much as I can, I find this also limits the purchasing of unnecessary items.

GROW FOOD
Simply by having a small herb and vegetable garden you can save lots of money – even if it’s just to grow the greens. Buying fresh bunches of herbs, dark leafy greens and salad greens can add up over a year.  With a bit more space and growing perennials, a small garden can have more food than you can possibly eat.

Community gardens are great places to learn how to grow food, or to get a plot of land if you don’t have space at home.

This is my chicken house enclosed by wonderful self-seeding pumpkins – so much food. I eat the leaves, the flowers, the shoots, and the pumpkin seeds and all. Self-seeding annuals are such abundant plants that keep giving.

MAKE OR GROW GIFTS
Homemade items, hand-made cards and homegrown plants are great gift ideas that are lovely to both give and receive.

EAT SIMPLE HEALTHY FOOD
Our diet is simple, healthy and tasty – a lot of fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, eggs and home-baked foods. We are a meat free household, except for a little from our neighbouring organic farm and I make a most things from scratch. It’s actually quite quick and easy, really yummy and much cheaper.

Foraged from my garden for lunch.

EAT IN AND SHARED MEALS
We love sharing a great meal, and we love cooking up our fresh produce at home – creating interesting meals from whatever is seasonal and looking great that day.  When friends come over with a plate to share we have a great feast. Family parties are always a simple shared meal at home or a picnic in the park too.

SIMPLIFY YOUR WARDROBE
I have worked out that the clothes I wear would fit into a smallish suitcase. Anything else in my wardrobe is superfluous and I am gradually shedding it. Having a couple of basic items and that can be dressed up or down makes life much simpler. Same with shoes – I have 2 going-out pairs, a garden pair, a pair of thongs for the beach and a pair for riding my bike. That’s all I need.

EXERCISE IN NATURE
Going for a striding walk or swift ride around my neighbourhood is part the way I try to keep fit, but so is gardening, chasing the kids… Also, seems a silly thing to say, but it is possible to walk and ride without having specialised fitness clothing for each activity. A simple but good bike, with simple clothing and a reasonable pair of shoes is really all that is necessary.

LOVE PRE-LOVED ITEMS
If we need something, we save up and buy it rather than borrowing money, using credit. Often this means we choose preloved items rather than new – which saves both resources and money. We have some lovely dining chairs that we found at the tip shop – a set of nice bent wood chairs that just needed a good clean.  Our car was 10 years old when we bought it. We picked one with low mileage, good service records, excellent safety features and great fuel economy – and saved ourselves over $30,000.

AVOID CREDIT CARDS
We purposefully have debit cards rather than credit cards. It’s an easy limit on consumption. We need to have the money in our account before we can buy things. With all the other voluntary simplicity measures and conscious consumerism, we are able to make this work.

BE OPEN TO EXCHANGES
Everything doesn’t need to be a monetary exchange – we can give and share our products, services and skills in other ways. For example, when people come to my house, they often go away with some produce or cuttings from my garden – and same happens when I visit friends. I often give talks and workshops in exchange for entry to festivals and events. In a year, this alone saves me well over $1500.

Community meet-up and produce swap at the local bakery on a Saturday morning.

HAVE A ‘DAY OUT’ IN YOUR GARDEN
Going out with the family can get so expensive, and it’s amazing how much we use and waste to do this –   take-away food packaging, fuel etc. Particularly with little ones, it can also be quite stressful and exhausting. Having a simple unplugged ‘day out’ at home is so much fun – organise a picnic in the garden, a treasure hunt, games, maybe invite some friends over, make your own music, put on a show…

An afternoon of unplugged garden play with children from the neighbourhood (grandad made the swingset, the sandpit is surrounded by logs from the local woodlot and the cubby is at least 4th hand).

SHARE AND JOIN CLUBS
We recently joined a local sailing club for a very modest fee. Rather than buying our own boat, we decided to share the club’s boats and windsurfers. Each of these little boats gets used so much – again, it saves resources and lots of money. It’s quite liberating. On a Sunday morning we just turn up and help set up  – we don’t need to take all our own gear – they even provide life jackets and a rescue service.

The post Live simply: 14 Ways to Save Money and Avoid Debt appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

If you relate to more than half of the above, you possibly could have already been labelled a ‘hippie’.  I reckon though, the real hippie days are long gone.

It could be said that a lot of the actions and values I’ve described above have been influenced by the radical hippie movement of the 60s and 70s – living and working for social change, peace, freedom and the environment –  but there have also been many other philosophies, discoveries and ideas that have contributed to this way of thinking and living over the past 40 years too.

Am I a hippie?

I relate to all of the above points, but I don’t identify as a hippie (I’m too young). I particularly try to avoid the hippie tag because of the negative connotations that typically come with it – I don’t smoke or drink or have never been into drugs.  I try to avoid other tags too – it becomes to easy to be parcelled up and dismissed. Tags and labels seem to close people’s minds to new possibilities and interesting ideas that are worth exploring.

I know I hold a bit of fear of being labelled a hippie. Considering where I live and what I do, I am an easy target. A recent article about my way of life had the title “Earth Mother, Eco-teacher“. I admit I shuddered when I first read the words ‘Earth Mother’ describing me. It felt like a hippie label, but when I read the article, I realised the title had been given with much respect not condescension.  I think in that moment, I let go of some of my fear and I felt encouraged that this way of life is seen as a positive aspiration.

I love my work, particularly the Nature Kids and permaculture programs I run for kids and the community.

I am not trying to drop out of society. I have my whole life been dropping into living a positive, healthy, community-connected, earth-connected way of life. This feels purposeful to me and brings me a deep sense of joy and meaning. I live in an ecovillage, grow food, teach permaculture, live simply, dress simply, homeschool my kids… Does that make me a hippie? No.  I perhaps embrace a number of hippie culture qualities – love, peace, care for the earth, care for people, living simply and ethically – but I’m just me – me in relation to my community and environment.

Relaxed and happy – barefoot in the garden spreading compost, mulching and planting.

Labels are a great way to be boxed, dismissed and/or marketed to – best if possible to be avoided! Be free, be open, live well, love life, connect and make a positive contribution.

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Furoshiki – Japanese wrapping cloth

Some simple suggestions on how to use the wrapping cloth.

The post Wrapping cloths (Furoshiki) – a plastic bag alternative from ancient Japan. appeared first on Our Permaculture Life.

Maia’s community came support her initiative and to taste the yummy food – so did friends from around the region, and several international visitors. This time she chose her wearable art shirt.

Our Japanese WWOOFer (Willing Worker on Organic Farms) has been a great help to Maia setting up, and enjoyed some of the chocolate cake while Monty delighted in a babycino. Over lunch, Rin offered Maia and Hugh a Japanese lesson. Each day she is teaching them new phrases and words.  WWOOFers are so fabulous.

Hugh’s Bike Shed

Bike-mad Hugh  had some bikes out to remind people of his community service project – Hugh’s Bike Shed.  He fixes bikes – squeaky brakes, clunky gears, flat tyres… affordably and quickly.  He also accepts donations of bikes that he can repair and either give away or hire to visitors. Today he received another bike donation and a request to hire two bikes for a week. He’s so happy too! Hugh and I will write more about his bike project soon.

Maia and Hugh were absolutely delighted when one of the cafe customers brought them some sunglasses as a gift.

The Social and Environmental focus of Maia’s cafe

Maia’s cafe had both social and environmental purposes. Amongst the many were:

• to create a midweek meeting space for the locals
• to cultivate community connections and conversations between all ages
• to create a safe and interesting play space for the village children
• to raise awareness about and give people a taste of deliciously healthy foods.
• to create a waste-free cafe and demonstrate this
• to raise awareness about endangered animals
• to fundraise to support the protection of a different endangered species each time the cafe opens.

Some of the first customers to Maia’s Owl’s Den Cafe today.

Some of the environmental initiatives of The Owl’s Den Cafe:

Maia’s Owl’s Den Cafe menu:

Drinks:

Sugar free frosting:

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