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mend: reuse fabric

It has been such a busy week for us. The subtitle of our website absolutely describes us: better living in a busy world.

This time last week the UK had some deeply unpleasant. During the worst here we were under 10cm of snow, with bitter temperatures down to -6C at night. Worryingly we hadn’t set up the chicken run to be able to provide enough shelter from driving snow. With temperatures in the day failing to rise above zero, we struggled to keep their water from freezing. In the end we did the only thing that was right by our hens. We moved them into our unheated back porch for a few days so that they had decent shelter.

But I digress. We will post about that in more detail early next week.

Today is not for talking about hens. I was looking through my old photographs and was delighted by some of our past work. So today I want to share two projects from 2012 that reuse fabric. Continue reading “mend: reuse fabric”

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make: beautifying a project book

Use what you have

I love stationery. I was very gleeful when I told Theo that I needed a new A5 project book for work and that meant I could go shopping.

“Wait a moment, I’ve got a spare one,” he said, and fished around in a box.

He presented me with this.

Original a5 project book.
It’s functional. Very functional. Not pretty enough.

One of our philosophies is that we should use what we have before we think about alternatives. It certainly is an a5 project book. Shame it’s so, well, ugly. Not just ugly. The cover was pretty flimsy and for something I wanted to carry around at work and put in my bag, I didn’t think it would hold up.

So. The book is good. It’s just the cover that needs changing! Continue reading “make: beautifying a project book”

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Cold weather on the way

A very cold weather snap is due in the UK over the next few days.

This is probably because I declared we didn’t need an extreme weather kit for our chicken coop until next winter.

Sorry, everyone, clearly my fault.  In a desperate attempt to win back some sunny weather, I’ve ordered the extreme weather gear.

~ Suse

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Less plastic waste in our house: 3 more little steps!

We’ve already talked a bit about our journey to use less plastic, and we gave you some great places to get started by swapping out straws, cooking sauce sachets and bathroom sponges.  A few days ago, Suse committed to not buying any more teabags due to the hidden plastic polymers in heat sealed teabags.

Remember, ours is not a zero-plastic or plastic-free journey. It seems too overwhelming to consider that in our modern busy life.

We are approaching this one little step at a time and we really hope that some of our little steps inspire you to make one little step yourself.

Here are our less-plastic options to share with you today. Continue reading “Less plastic waste in our house: 3 more little steps!”

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Most teabags contain plastic.

Teabags. Plastic.

So much is going on in our complex and busy world that it is getting a bit hard to startle me. I’m often a bit sad or, worse, resigned about learning something new. But last week I actually managed to feel quite startled to learn that most teabags contain plastic. Continue reading “Most teabags contain plastic.”

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One week of chickens

 One week later…

It’s been one week since our chickens arrived in our newly constructed chicken zone.

In just one week

  • we learned not to mix treat food with layers pellets as they dig out the pellets messily to eat the treat food
  • remembered to put grit out for them
  • marvelled at how well they have settled in
  • introduced one of our two dogs very carefully
  • been delighted to see the chickens every single day
  • Robin now gets ready for school in less than 5 minutes in order to rush outside and open the pophole every day (this is nothing less than extraordinary)
  • collected no less than 9 eggs!
  • eaten the most delicious omelette
  • named all our chickens

Continue reading “One week of chickens”