Sunshine on my Shoulder

19 solar panels for electricity generation, 2 on extreme right for hot water 

I am way, way excited!  Never before have I ever experienced such elation at receiving a power bill!!    The last one was $80, but did not reflect a full month of our solar system in action so we were curious to see a full month's solar power gathering.  Our solar system is humming along quite nicely - thanks to all the wonderful sunshine hours the Land of the Long White Cloud is blowing our way.  Our bill for the month of January is (drum-roll please....drrrrrrrrr) a total of (minus) -$136.75!  Yes, you read right!  We are in credit for that amount.  Which means not only did we generate ALL the power we used for the month, but we generated extra energy to run other homes (okay, maybe just an average or small sized home).  That is so freakishly amazing!!!!  Come on people, this is obviously the way to go!!     Invest in your own power company!

Now I eat a little humble pie here.  Since, during the building and set up of the solarium and solar system, I declared that this was Mike's project, so I would not accept the responsibility that came along with it!!  My plate was full and as it was his project, he needed to sort all the nitty gritties - builder mess-ups, challenges and financial payments etc.  Unfair I hear you mutter?  Yep!  At the time I became a little negative as I was not sure the system would actually work!!  After all, we had already had to replace our hot water solar panels not once, not twice but three times in 7 years!!  So I was  enormously sceptical of the whole thing!  Wahell, now tis me with egg on mah face!  It really works!   I am fully excited, I feel like doing a little jig!  Singing a little song "Summertime, and the livin' is easy!"  I can see we'll pay that $16 000.00 off in no time at all (definitely in my lifetime!).  Should apparently take 5-7 years.  

A little holiday project I completed in 2 days was fitting out a tricky little cupboard space underneath our stairwell.  It became the dumping ground for a multitude of unwanted or uncertain destination goods.  In other words - it was a mess!!  Real scarey!  So I set about rummaging in our garden shed for wood that would do the job, leftovers from building projects, measured up and designed a system that would store goods effectively and visibly.  It challenged my meagre woodworking skills to the MAX!  And then the challenge to get the shelving system into a confined little space was even a greater trick!!   A few strong expletives later.......

Dead space...

becomes a functional, good looking storage place!

On the creative front, we had a family contribution effort to making our son's 20th birthday present.  The first he sort of helped to achieve by washing the raw ingredients - I made him 6 litres of home-brew nettle beer.  Not sure what it will taste like and he was given strict instructions to wait at least 2 weeks till uncorking it.  Nasty prickly thing, nettle.  Luckily someone else did the deed for me (thanks Rex!).  I figured that even though Mike and I are tea-totallers, if our son is to drink alcohol (what young guy can resist), then it may as well be healthy stuff!  Nettle has a high iron content - wonder if the home-brew preserves the iron?  Anyway, time will tell if we were successful or not.  The other gift was a monetary contribution to a music programme he needed for his laptop to compose music - not very personal but we work on needs rather than wants.  So  to acompany his somewhat rather impersonal monetary gift, we (my husband, daughter and self) all worked to recycle 2 bits of wooden boards that had once been part of our wood store (dismantled), into a multi-use piece of furniture.

 He took one look at it and said "Random!", which in teenadult-speak means "I don't quite know what to make of it".  I pointed out it could be a bedside table - "But I already have one!",.... or a little coffee table - "We already have a big coffee table", or a foot-stool when playing guitar - "Hmmmm..." (said while deep in thought), or it could even be a laptop table if you didn't want to put your laptop on your lap  (he snorted).  A few hours later, I spied him using it as a laptop table!!  He's since declared that it quite useful in his flat.

Bits of old dismantled wood store ready for a new life

Multi-functional stool starting to take shape

Tools of the trade, along with imprint footprints

Top gets screwed onto base and cut smaller

Sanding crew

A few stamps cut out of old kitchen sponges and a coat of stain
completes the look

Home-brew Nettle Beer

Perhaps our son is sitting at his little multi-function table this very minute, sipping at his healthy nettle brew.....

4.03.13  Post Script:  A recent catchup with my son has confirmed that the homebrew is definitely worth repeating.  He is keen to make more, and may try to experiment with Kale beer.  We could call it Kale Ale!

Beauty and the Blissful Holiday

Hand made stepping stones

Okay, so I think we have already ascertained that I LOVE holidays!  Time to bliss out and work on 101 projects stewing away in my head.  Sometimes the projects work out really well and I feel such a thrill knowing that I have created something, be it out of wood, fabric or food.  Sometimes I experiment and see if I can achieve extending the life of something that little bit further (you know, reduce, reuse and recycle).  And sometimes what I do is a waste of time and a great little look-back-and-laugh opportunity.  Well here is one of those moments, captured visually forever......  the object was to extend the use of my dying jandals (or thongs or slops, depending on what neck of the woods you're from).  The heels and upper part were thinning and I thought I might just get another couple of months wear out of them if I padded them out a bit on the thinning bits.  So an old leaky water-bottle would do for the padding out bit. Yep, I'm a terrible hoarder - keep things in case I can put them to good use later on.   Actually, it would have worked a treat 'scepting that my heel of the jandal decided to actually tear right across!  Now I am sure some of you will think this is a really anal thing to do - mend a $10 pair of jandals!  But for me, it's the challenge of keeping things out of landfill for longer than is obvious.  Well, I guess that my project was only about 2 - 3weeks successful since the sole ripped right through the bottom of the sole!   Nice while it lasted - it was kinda like a reflexology feel to the jandals with the ribbed water-bottle patches!  Nice.  

But I have learned from the experiment that it would work quite perfectly next time, if the sole was not going to rip across the heel!

Thinning jandals... starting to rip at heel

Voila!  A bit of glue and we have a pair of funky reflexology jandals!

The garden:

The garden is always a source of beauty, wonderment and awe!  I have been doing some serious weeding and culling of undergrowth to create some definition between beds and pathways!  It has paid off, with lots of open spaces now and less hiding places for fungal infections and nasty bugs.  The chickens are enjoying scratching around in these newly worked areas, utilising the mobile scratching cages made out of chicken wire.  By closing them in at night (locked in their bedroom) and only letting them out when we get up, we have solved the noisy skrawking they were doing early morning, now it only happens when we forget to close them in at night!  Those mornings still elicit the response they are seeking to create - someone running to feed them to quieten them down!  

There are lots of flowering shrubs and plants - still lots of bees around!  Beauty abounds!

Echinacea flower

The beauty of an unfolding leek flower!

An enclosed humble leek flower head - stunningly designed Arabian architecture!

Visiting Monarch butterflies caught momentarily sipping away at the Flower Bar

Yams a-growing

Another thirsty patron at the Flower Bar

Handy having your own straw at your constant disposal

Garden delights... oranges, strawberries, nectarines, artichokes, leeks, figs and lemons

In the shed:

Putting some old jandals into artwork was another crazy shed project.  Made a junk crucifix (no offense meant) out of bits lying around - an old broken Aztec necklace, bits of copper foil, an old red beaded Thai sandal upper, purple rubber jandal strapping with diamante studding and an old Indian-inspired watchstrap.  Quite happy with the end result, using up bits that should have long ago ended up in the rubbish!  I love all religious artifacts and icons, hence the crucifix.  Not meant to be blasphemous by calling it a junk crucifix - it's just that that is what it is made from!

And on repurposing goods - Mike got a new phone for work (from work) and the protective case he used to hang it off his belt did not fit anymore - look at the great new job it is assigned to:  safe secateurs pouch!!  Many years ago, the secateurs lost it's safety catch and was always a bit dangerous to use as it never closed, I was often poking myself as I would put it into my pocket to keep it safely stashed till I needed to use it.  Now I just attach the old phone holder to my belt and it keeps my secateurs safely within reach!

Handy dandy secateurs pouch!

Junk Crucifix

Remember our cat got stuck in the lining between the wall and roof when our solar panels were installed?  There was a gaping hole left behind where my husband had desperately punched through the boarded up hole.  Concerned that Shanti might try to explore and get lost again, I enjoyed a little girl time in the shed (who said sheds are a guy thing??) figuring out how to make a little door out of our off-cut pieces of wood.  I know you are supposed to make a Z door for strength, but mine ended up as an back-to-front N door, as my pieces of off-cut pallet wood had to be used horizontally rather than vertically!  End result is a pleasing little door which can be opened if the solar guys need to get to the wires in the future, but can be safely latched to keep little kitties out.  Now why didn't they think of that in the first place instead of boarding her up inside there???

Doorway to the inside....

Safe little kitty door!

Of course no room is untouchable when I get let loose on holiday!  My husband had scored 2 shutters from a company that he collects sawdust from.  The shutters were made for an order but were the wrong size and the company was just going to dump them.  What a score!  Each one costs about $80 - $100!  One was used as an insert in our bedroom wall.  It acts as a ventilator between the solarium and our upstairs bedroom.  It can be closed in cold weather, or opened up to allow the accumulated hot air to rise from the solarium below, into the upstairs bedroom  in winter.

Bedroom ventilation shutter

What to do with the second shutter......... too good not to do something with it....... so after mulling it around for a while, I figured it would fit one of our bedroom windows, with a little space all around.  So I set out to install it.  Hinges cost $3 and latch cost $2 and with my son to hold it in place, it was screwed into position and a little latch attached so it can be opened to allow access to the window.  It works a treat!  These last few weeks it has been really warm at night and we can leave the window open and control the amount of air passing through!  Am very pleased with my $5 cedar shutter!

Window before... A makeshift curtain out of an old sari

New shutter in place, can be opened to allow light or draft through.

Marmalade Jelly Bag

Take one basket full of old-fashioned hard-to-peel mandarins.......... no-one is eating them, so what to do......... a quick recipe hunt comes up with mandarin jelly.  So let's go for it - try it, nothing to lose really.  Waste not, want not!

 For mandarin jelly recipe, one needs a jelly bag.  This can be easily made from an old cotton t-shirt.  Cut off the lower half of the body, cutting rounded edges for the bottom.  Sew up the rounded edge and then thread ribbon through the lower hem (which forms the top of the jelly bag).  Pulp can be spooned into the bag and strung up overnight to drip into a stainless steel pot.

One cotton shirt ready for jelly bag surgery...

Cut a rounded edge and stitch it up.

Thread ribbon through the bottom hem.

Some kiwi ingenuity - a wood clamp to suspend the rope to the overhead beam.
Stainless steel pot placed under jelly bag to collect citrus juice.

End result: golden Mandarin Jelly.  Great with kumara and pumpkin dishes or spread on toast.

Think of the endless jellies one could make with excess fruit............. apple, quince, crabapple, mint, orange......

GreeNZ Christmas Celebrations

Ukulele stand made from cedar offcuts

 Gifts.  "Something that is bestowed voluntarily or without compensation.  The act, right or power of giving."

Looking back on our 2012 Christmas celebrations, it warms the heart to think that we did our bit to gift sustainably.  While some family gifts were purchased, many were handmade.  I have read that this says much about the giver, but I think it goes further, it says much about the relationship between giver and giftee.  It says "I care enough to spend time thinking about you and then making something specifically for you." A handmade gift puts you out on a limb, exposes you, often hand-made means slightly imperfect.  But isn't it precisely that imperfection which makes hand-made gifts perfect!!  

I know I sometimes feel a sense of overwhelm on birthdays or Christmas - what to do with all the extra things??  I know it sounds terribly ungrateful but I think it is because I feel I already have so much!  We live a simple life, and each new thing we bring into it, creates clutter!  And yet, giving and receiving are our lot in life.  We cannot just give and not receive.  We have to show gratitude to all that comes to us in life.  The blessings are abundant and each gift proclaims that we have a special place in that person's life.  That they have taken time to think of us.

Christmas heart decorations for my daughter

A variety of stitching, old recycled jewellery and glitter used to " szouch"
up little felt hearts filled with lavender

My sister and I had a conversation about what Christmas means personally to each of us.  For her, she loves the "magic" of Christmas, the baubles, shiney, sparkly and ornamental representations of childhood memories and times past.  The smell of home-baking and family.    Being creative in the kitchen.  For me, it means the opportunity to get really creative, to think of people who mean something to me and to set about making gifts for them.  To both of us, it represents a time for Family.  So for my son, I made funky guitar car fresheners with pine essential oil and recycled a beautiful shaped pre-loved wooden salad bowl.  For my daughter I made felt heart decorations and for my husband, I made a food cover for the kefir which he does every night.  I also made him a recycled coffee bag which advertises the organic coffee which he sells!  This was a small token gift as we always buy ourselves a combined gift each year, rather than individual gifts.  This year we replaced our ageing and ailing back massager.  It is heavenly and helps keep the back vital and in sync.

An old "doiley" with hand-knotted beads for a food cover

Our son marvels at his hand-made sculpture
made by his sister

Wire sculpture hand-made by Shayni

My daughter spent many days banging away in the garden shed, making her gifts.  She made an ingenious little ukulele stand for us (top).  Funky and functional!  She spent ages trying to figure out how to balance it out and we were amazed by her level of craftsmanship   She also handcrafted a wire sculpture of an acrobatic skateboarder for her skateboarding brother.  Last year, she made a wire sculpture of a guitar player for her guitarist brother, so these 2 characters now form a little duo.    I still wear the cedar heart necklace she made for my Christmas gift last year.

Trade Aid mbira

We bought a little hand-made mbira for our son from Trade Aid, which he loves experimenting with the sounds of Africa.  It is great to support initiatives like Trade Aid and Oxfam Unwrapped.  This latter organisation allows you to purchase gifts on behalf of the receiver, which supports initiatives for helping others trapped in the cycle of poverty.  So when in doubt of what to give to someone - another ornament or pretty nic-nac, why not gift them something that will improve the life of someone else?   Or take something destined for the rubbish dump and breathe a new life into it!  That often makes the gift feel good!  Imagine all the extra plastic and packaging that went into landfill this Christmas, from store-bought goods??

Our friends and neighbours received hand-made goods, like lavender sachets, home-made jams, home-grown plants and trees, compostable Christmas decorations and kitchen crafts.  I LOVE Christmas!!!  A time of giving and gifting!

Shanti loves the spirit of Christmas and all that tissue paper!

A Christmas snooze

 Inca-Fe recycled coffee tote bag with fun Atiu (Cook Islands)
front pouch

Coffee tote bag with reinforced fabric liner and pocket

And now that Christmas is past and gift-giving is over and done with for another year, I am free to explore other options of making....... like my son's 20th birthday coming up............off to the shed I go.......

New Year's Resolutions

Flax flower

Yup, said I wouldn't do it, but here I go again!  For the last 18 years, it's been the same NYR: to get fit!  I can work a whole day in the garden, but that just builds upper body strength, not cardio-endurance stuff!  Am dreadfully unfit.  Embarrassingly so!  People assume that because I am slim, I am fit!  Huh?  The two are not synonymous.   In fact, I know heaps of bulkier persons who would leave me gasping for breath in their dust, at a small walk.  I know, it is a complete dichotomy to what I stand for - all my values of healthy lifestyle and sustainability!!  But don't we all need a vice?  It's not that I'm lazy.  Just don't totally love walking or exercising!

Beauty of Bird Walkway

So my long-suffering husband, who walks at least 3 times a week, tries hard to coax me out of my exercise-phobia.  Always tries to encourage me and insisted that we buy some decent walking shoes for me a couple of days ago.  Part of my late Christmas present and early New Year's resolution solution.  Insisted on taking me to an upmarket store called Hikoi (must admit, they have really cool eco-footwear).  After spending what can only be described as an equivalent of kitting out a small African village with footwear, we left the store with my ever-impending sense of anxiety.  Now I was expected to honour the amount spent on my new footwear and actually walk!!  Oh, dear!

Haiku boulder:
"migrating birds
my father sends the next son
on his way"

New Year passed quietly, with my hubbie and I watching episodes of New Girl (with ever-increasingly bizarre scenarios) while the world around us raged - stereo music blared from at least 3 points around us as fireworks lit the night sky in 2 opposite directions.  Our teenadults were respectively heralding the New Year in Rotorua and Coromandel.  That's okay.  We have always maintained our family tradition - Christmas is for Family, New Year for Friends.  So this morning, when said husband made us a strawberry smoothie and suggested a walk, I felt obliged to accept.

Ducks coming in........

Setting off at a breakneck pace, I thought, "I'll show him, I can keep up!".  Now any thoughts of starting off on a slow-paced, incrementally reduced distance was not a shared objective for him.  He took me on a hike!  50 minutes later, huffing and puffing, I managed to eke the last power in my muscles to wobbily carry me home.  What a blissful sight.  Home!  I was glad I took my camera, stopping often to take a picture!  A great excuse to catch my breath.

Thing is, it's a nice way to get to see the charm of the place you settled in.  And to really connect to the place and the people.  We met Ian on the way....... a retiree who told us he's new to the area, and that he lived in France with his first wife, then lived in Taupo for summers, going abroad for 6 months in our winters and now he's settled here in Mural Town.  Nice.  Took all of 5 minutes to glean all that!  And a good breath-catching moment!

White-faced heron pair

Mike's favourite on the walk - the kingfisher

Trying to keep up....

Anyway, it's day one.  Wonder if I can do this 3 times a week?  Would be great if I was disciplined but I am too much of an addict.  A New-Year's-breaking-Resolutions addict.  Bets on, how long it will take before I break this one again - a week?  A month?  I reserve the right to be the first to call it off!  I'm just too busy to get fit!!