Sustainable September 2017 - Day Twelve

SEPTEMBER 12 (TUESDAY)

FOOD & STORAGE - COMPOST BIN

Helloooooooo... how you doing?

What did you make for Meatless/meatfree monday? Did you find a new yummy recipe? Did you have any left overs? Did you have vegetable or fruit scraps that you chucked in the bin?

By now you would have figured out that this September is all about 'Making life a little kinder for our planet and all those who live here' by REDUCING, REUSING & RECYCLING.

One way we can do that is to REDUCE the amounts of food waste we have, by REUSING it in new and exciting ways and then RECYCLING it in our compost bins.

If you dont have a compost bin do not worry... that is what todays Sustainable September Eco Kindness is all about.

Sustainable September Day Twelve: Create or use a compost bin

There are hundreds of "How to" guides when it comes to creating a compost bin.

I quite enjoyed video from the USA... mainly because it is short and sweet.

Do you already have a compost bin? Do you know how to maintain it? We have a compost bin here at home that probably need some maintainance. Here is a video from an Australian Gardening Guru Costa Georgiadis about how to look after and maintain a compost bin.

Don't think you can compost becuase you live in an apartment? Well I have a solution for you...

If you don't have a farmers market that takes compost, perhaps you could talk to a friend or family member and contribute towards their compost bin. Or if none of your friends or family have a compost bin set up maybe you could even organise to set one up at their house/property (with the owners permission of course).

Whenever I house sit for friends and family, if they don't have a compost bin, I will stash my scraps in the Freezer, like Lauren. Then I bring them back home when I come for a visit and deposit it at the compost bin before it defrosts. It helps reduce the smell. I often use paper mushroom bags until one is full and then I will put the whole thing in the freezer (usually in a reused plastic bag - which I can keep reusing because it rarely gets dirty).

Enjoy Composting!

ACTIVITY: Get into the garden. Plant some flowers or some vegetables. If you have a compost bin its time to check it and if you can use some of the soil in your garden, do it. It is now spring time in Australia and all of the gardens are coming alive. If you don't have a garden of your own, go out and find a park or green area to spend some time in. You don't have to DO anything, just spend time there.

I hope you all are well,
Love Daena 

Sustainable September 2015 - Day Twenty One

Good Evening my dears (for those in Western Australia) and a time-specific-greeting to you too (wherever you may be),

How did you go at the Farmers Market? Buy anything delicious? Mmmm... foood! :)

Sadly, my nephew had his Soccer Grand Final today so I missed the farmers market! On the plus side, he and his team WON!!! Yay! Go kiddo! I am a super proud Aunty (and not just now either!)! I enjoyed the fact I was there to watch it.  So I guess that just means...next weekend I'm off to the farmers market. 

The Sustainable September idea for today is...

September 21: to find a local bulk supply store and buy what you need for your pantry! 

I recently discovered a bulk buying store called the Wasteless Pantry. Mum & I went there the other day & bought a few things.

The Wasteless Pantry can be found in Mundaring, WA, Australia.

So many things to choose from!!!!

The Spice cabinet part of the Wasteless Pantry!

Buying the Almond meal I need to make a delicious Almond and Orange cake! mmmm.

For our first trip we only bought a few things I knew we needed (whilst staying at my sisters house & for home later too).

The best part was we could bring our own jars and containers and they would just weigh them and then we filled them up and re weighed them. We paid the difference! So awesome! Prices were pretty good & we got exactly enough to fit in the containers we had! Pretty great of you ask me. :) no waste! No packages to return to our homes to them be chucked in the bin! They had a HUGE range too! They are fairly new in Perth, WA! One awesome feature was that they had a couple boxes of glass jars of all shapes and sizes that were clean and that could be used if you forgot to bring your own. They also had matching ones you could buy... but i love the rustic look, and I know now another place where I can take my excess jars to be used instead of ending up in recycling! :)

When I was in Sydney a few weeks ago I found another store just like it! It is called Scoop Wholefoods :)

Being my first experience at a store like this it was kind of like Daena Heaven or Nirvana! :) Paradise!

One of the cool things was they had paper bags for you to use and you could also buy little cotton bags too. I bought one for me to use again here in Perth.

These were the jars at Scoop that you could purchase. All of them looked so Pretty!

I got SO excited they had WHEAT FREE Licorice! I know Licorice isn't everyone's favourite sweet. But i love it. Technically now that i am grain free its still off the table of things I can eat, but its great to know other options now exist for others with weird food intolerances.

I wanted to taste all of the delicious grain free goodies. I however didn't have enough time to sample them all and probably not enough money at that point either! hahaha. So good!

So much deliciousness! I loved this store in Sydney! :) I love these stores generally too! We need more of them around! :) I love the whole waste free idea! 

I mean it all fits in to the Zero Waste Home idea too! It is one of Bea Johnsons biggest suggestions! :) I am almost finished reading the book now and I cant believe that I am still learning so much. I was so proud of myself when I went to the shops yesterday to meet my best friend for "coffee" (neither of us actually drink coffee), and I only bought two things. Both of them for other people. My sister needed some dishwasher tablets that are environmentally friendly, and I went to buy a birthday gift for a friend. Usually when I go shopping I have lots of things I buy. None of it is vital. Its just bits I think I might need, things I can usually do without! Using Bea Johnsons book has helped me plan a bit better too. And I like that! I am now a more conscious shopper.

Anyway, I need to head to bed now. The cooler weather has not helped me coughing! It must get better soon, i have stuff to do! Things to achieve! :)

I hope this finds you all well, 

Much love, 

Daena x

Sustainable September 2015 - Day Twenty

Hello my awesome blog followers,

So tomorrow is a Sunday (obviously) and the exciting thing is that this coincides with an event that happens every Sunday in my area, and other areas. Farmers Market Day! :) Guess what tomorrows Sustainable September idea is?! You guessed it!!

Photo take from Houston Farmers Market via Google.

September 20: Do your fresh food shopping at the farmers market. 

There are a lot of awesome reasons to go to the farmers market. One is if local farmers produce the food then they are able to provide you with local food, which means it has very little food miles. So lower carbon footprint that some supermarket foods that are shipped from Chile, China, Spain or Argentina (these are amazingly just some of the places Australia often gets food shipped from).

Not only that but Farmers Markets usually have seasonal fruit and vegetables. Eating seasonally means that you mostly wont be eating food from a random country that is not your own because there is no need to ship a food in because of a desire for year round access to it. You can also buy cheaply and in large quantities and preserve extras for the coming months. Which leads me to the Kindness idea....

Photo from Wikipedia - Food Preservation

KINDNESS IDEA: preserve some fruit or vegetables. This means you can then give them to a friend, family member, acquaintance or even a community group or stranger. You can also save some preserved goodies for months when they are not available in their actual season.

I hope this finds you well!
Love Daena x

Sustainable September Day Twenty-Nine kindness

Hey my lovelies,

So tomorrow is my mums birthday! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!! :D 

Today I went to the Farmers Market and bought a whole lot of fresh fruit and veggies to make yummy food for my mum and I. Yesterday I bought a new-to-me Thermomix. I bought it second hand, which is another way of saving the environment because there is less waste in landfill!!

I took this whilst hiding from the rain under the coffee stand tent! :) Mmmm... Soy Chai Latte... Any excuse will do! ;)

I have to say I am a little bit of a Thermomix convert! In 24 hours of having owned it I made chocolate dairy free custard, hummus, two batches of strawberry jam, vegetable stock, zucchini slice, and strawberry sorbet! So I think it's been a good investment! And something I can tick off my goals list! :) Which is awesome! I always feel so blessed when I can tick something off that list! :)

My first ever time using the Thermomix I made Chocolate Custard for mum to go with some home made Jaffa Cake (To use up some of the excess oranges we had in the house! So YUMMY!!!

5 jars of Strawberry Jam and 2 Jars of Home-made Vegetable Stock! Lots of the stuff from the stock came from my own garden!!! How awesome is that! :)

Literally straight out of the oven, my Zucchini Slice - looked more like a loaf here because I over blended it! (Accidental Thermomix accident, that actually turned out alright!).

Made fresh Strawberry Sorbet for my mum and niece tonight! Turned out alright! Yay! :) Learning! lol

Anyway, back to Sustainable September!

Did you borrow a book from the library? Was your library even open today?

I may have not planned the library day very well! As some are only open on weekdays and occasionally a Saturday! But If you DID manage to get to the library, what book did you borrow? 

I saw this one in the library and was keen to read it! :)

Me undertaking my favorite pass time - READING! Not Selfies! lol! You all know how much I love BOOKS!!!!!

So, tomorrow is the second last day of Sustainable September! Time has been flying right? So tomorrow's Sustainable September kindness idea is...

Monday – 29 September – Plant a tree to offset carbon emissions.

You can use a carbon calculator to figure out how much carbon you are emitting into the atmosphere. You can do that here through Carbon Neutral. You can then also plant trees to offset that amount of carbon you emit each year through the same website... check out the specific link.

Or join a group like Men Of the Trees. The plant seedlings to “prevent the spread of deserts, erosion and salinity.” They have made a huge difference when it comes to planting trees in Western Australia specifically. To read more follow the link here. 

I hope this finds you all well. Only one more Sustainable September Kindness to go! And Its my favourite one of all!!!! 

Much Love, 

Daena x

Sustainable September Day Seven kindness

Hey my wonderful followers... 

Did you know the Facebook page is almost at 200 followers! How awesome is that? If you are not a Facebook follower and you have Facebook and love the blog I recommend you check it out here.

So today was the Compost Bin Challenge, how did you go? Did you buy one? Did you make one? Do you have awesome photos that I can see and cheer you on with? 

 Here is a photo of my compost bin! :)

Were you even braver? Did you start a worm farm? If so was it very hard?

So for tomorrow I wanted to go more into the “buy local produce” type of thing. I know we have already talked about this but I love the idea of using what you have and not wasting anything. That's what has led me to write about the next kindness.

Sunday – 7 September - Buy seasonal produce. When you buy local and seasonal produce it means that you are reducing the shipping cost and environmental impact. Things that are out of season have to travel from a location where they are in season... longer distances, quarantine, different rules in each country about what is safe practice and what isn’t.

I have recently discovered there is a Farmers Market in my neighbourhood on Sundays, every week (Which is why I put this idea down for tomorrow/Sunday). I have also discovered that you can get BIG boxes of produce cheaper than the big chain Supermarkets. 

The other day my niece and I went to the farmers market and bought a box of strawberries and apart from just eating (about half the box of)just strawberries, we shared the strawberries, we made strawberry jelly, Strawberry smoothies, added strawberries to breakfast cereals and porridge... OH Strawberries... you are so yummy! Thank you for being in season! :)

I also made one of my favourite meals of Zucchini Slice (Its delicious) with some really cheap Zucchinis I bought from the Farmers Market. Usually in our house the Zucchini Slice doesn't last long. I made it and we have it as a hot meal (with a small salad) and then we have it cold the next day. IF... and I do specify... If we have any left it can be frozen. Or we occasionally cut it into bite size pieces to take as a finger food for some events. Remind me later to post the recipe later.

Sorry this is a bit late today, I was unwell and had an unplanned trip to the hospital. Spent 5 hours with the nurses and doctors. All relating to the surgery I had last year. I will be okay with a day or two's rest and some medication.

Hope you are keeping up with the Eco-Kindnesses! :)

Much Love,
Daena x