Unbought Delicacies

Wednesday, 21 March 2012

Bread

Bread. Make it. Simple.

Monday, 19 March 2012

Don't believe anyone who says..........

I don't have space and time to grow any of my own food!

This little pot of cress was ready for cutting this morning; I had extra eggs to use up, so boiled up a few, made egg mayonnaise and cut the cress into it - enough for a good few days' sandwiches there.
The little tray is the bottom of an Ecover washing up liquid bottle that I turned into seed labels last week; inside is a folded piece of paper towel - I use the blue dairy wipes, half a sheet, folded to fit, soak well in cold water and sow the cress seed thickly on top. Keep watered and cool, and 6 days later, you will get this result. I used Sutton cress seed, £1.45, and there's enough in there for at least 6 little trays like this I reckon. When cut and used, the rooty stalk ends go into the compost bucket along with the paper, and the tray is re-sown immediately to give a constant supply. Minimal time, minimal space - maximum flavour and freshness, not to mention satisfaction :)

Sunday, 18 March 2012

Yarnbombing

Why don't we listen?

“We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy--sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”
― Thomas A. Edison (1931)

Hat for a forager

Field mushrooms, leaves and wild raspberries under a darkening and starlit sky, finished off with a swinging acorn tassle :)

Saturday, 17 March 2012

Fascinating film that says it all really..............

I've been interested in Ladakh and its culture for a very long time now, since I read Helena Norberg-Hodge's book Ancient Futures - Learning from Ladakh. A link to this wonderful film was put up today in a group I belong to on Facebook - it's well worth watching, there is so much to be learned from it. I liked the fact that as well as showing the general greed and consumerism, poverty, loneliness and isolation that can be experienced in the west, she took time to show the two woemn some of the positive aspects too - the farmers' market, the ethical shop, etc.
A real eye-opener of a film from which everyone can learn something, a joy to watch.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/Watch/Paradise_with_Side_Effects_2004/

I don't watch rugby..............

- so I spent the afternoon doing this:

Details here: http://figheade.blogspot.co.uk/

I have found such joy

I have found such joy in simple things;
A plain, clean room, a nut-brown loaf of bread,
A cup of milk, a kettle as it sings,
The shelter of a roof above my head,
And in a leaf-laced square along the floor,
Where yellow sunlight glimmers through the door.
I have found such joy in things that fill
My quiet days: a curtain's blowing grace,
A potted plant upon my window sill,
A rose, fresh-cut and placed within a vase;
A table cleared, a lamp beside a chair,
And books I long have loved beside me there.
Oh, I have found such joys I wish I might
Tell every woman who goes seeking far
For some elusive, feverish delight,
That very close to home the great joys are:
The elemental things- old as the race,
Yet never, through the ages, commonplace.

~ Grace Noll Crowell

Ideas for handmade gifts

Small knitteds - gloves, scarves, hot water bottle covers, hats, tea cosies, phone covers, little toys,,cushion covers, bags. Some of these can be felted/fulled for extra interest.
Edibles - chutneys and jams, pickles, nice teas in a vintage/retro tin, sweeties, toffees, mustard, home made wine and liqueurs, home dried fruits, ketchups.
For the home - trimmed tea towels, handknitted dishcloths, quilted wallhangings, small samplers, restored picture frames, pot pourri, lavender bags, covered coathangers, little scented bags for hanging on handles, framed photos of family,etc you've taken yourself, pincushion,needle book, scissor keeper, book of promises (eg babysitting, 1 hour's housework, the ironing, etc)
Bathtime - homemade soap, bath oils, bath salts, knitted washcloths, herbal bags for the bath, hand sewn toilet bags, trimmed hand towels, homemade lotions and potions packed in pretty jars and bottles.
For the garden - home saved seed in handmade decorated packets; homemade handcream, exfoliating soap, wheat bag for those digger's aches and pains!

Handmade books, personalised printed notepaper and envelopes.
Hamper of bits and bobs from the above lists, packed in a pretty lined basket.

I'll add some more as and when I think of them; These can be used all year round and easily tailored to the recipient - everyone loves a homemade gift. :)

Inspiring thoughts.............

I saw a man, an old Cilician, who occupied an acre or two of land that no one wanted.
A patch not worth the ploughing, unrewarding for flocks, unfit for vineyards;
he, however, by planting here and there among the scrub cabbages or white lilies and verbena and flimsy poppies, fancied himself a king in wealth, and coming home late in the evening, loaded his board with unbought delicacies.
Virgil

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independently as far as possible from a system of division of labour in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smell as it burned in the hearth I had made. I wanted to grow my own food, or forage after it. In short I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realised from partial experience the inexpressible joy of doing so.

Harlan Hubbard, Shantyboat: A River Way of Life

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