It was warm enough yesterday for Poppy to take all her piglets oout into their backyard. The babies will come out with her for a while then scamper back under their warm light. Poppy has collected some sticky weed seeds in her tail again, I must deal with that today.
See that cheeky piglet having a quick sip on the way past.
I think today is forecast to be even warmer – so I am going to clean the floors of the West Barn and prepare the big room for the tweeny piglets to move into when it gets cold.
Also today I hope to shift Aunty Anna to the bull and the two steers to the fields on the West side – their early winter feed is waiting over there. Although it looks like being warm (warm being above freezing) for a while yet we are beginning to move into the winter groups.
My autumn garden is doing amazingly well though – soon I will be picking baby beets and turnips and baby carrots and already we are eating the new kale and lettuce. Yesterday I picked tomatoes!
The forecast for today is 78F/25C – in October. I am afraid that when winter hits it will hit us hard after such a long mild autumn .
Save the Planet. I heard an interesting and very short podcast yesterday about the rising use of the available resources that sustain life on our planet and what we can do to decrease our energy use and husband our resources. Stop wasting food he said. 1 in 3 calories produced using our precious resources of water, soil and fertiliser is wasted. That means a third of our water and a third of our soil and a third of our hard won organic fertilisers is wasted by the consumer. Plus remember the consumer demands of the planet are growing fast but soil and fossil fuels and water are finite resources. And in some areas very limited.
Lucky for me that I have pigs and chickens because I am the worst offender – I always cook too much. I grew up cooking for a family of eight, then had five children on my own and you know what my summers are like – to go down to cooking for only two (even counting the portion for John’s lunch the next day) is a very big challenge for me.
We all need a personal crusade, a code of living, a belief, a motto and this one is mine – “to grow and live and eat in a manner that sustains my body, my family. and the environment that my family will inherit”. This is written on the blackboard. It is not easy, it is a silent revolution. Usually unsupported. There is no fitbit around the wrist of my home to cheer me on when I manage a day without waste. So it is hard. But take heart because our contribution is important, each one of us can contribute to the health of our wonderful planet. Ourselves and in our groups if you are lucky enough to have a family or community group who will work with you.
Here are a few more things I took from this talk. It is all so very simple really.
LESS WASTE.
- Cut down on wasted food. Set up a well managed pantry.
- Turn the taps off – do not waste water. EVER.
- Use less fossil fuels – this includes that product made from fossil fuels-plastic.
- Educate ourselves on how to obtain sustainably managed fish – or our grand children will not be eating wild fish, ever.
- Plant trees every year or donate to the groups who do plant trees every year – the deforestation of this planet is terrifying.
I bet all of you, the readers of thekitchensgarden, do one or more of these things already.
I am planting trees for you – I have plenty of room for our trees. It occurs to me (just this second) that maybe in the spring or fall you can send me trees if you want them planted for you? What do you think about that? The internet delivers? I have a favourite site for native trees – https://www.nativnurseries.com/. Shall we think about the pros and cons of that? (Or if you are close by come on down and plant your trees – we could have a tree planting day). Let’s think about that too. For the spring.
I know I swing back to this every once and a while but I would like to personally encourage you: that every individual person counts when it comes to keeping our planet healthy. You CAN make a difference. It is global but it is also individual. Just you all by yourself, join me in my silent revolution to eat and live with planet health and personal health in your mind. You can call it house health or backyard health if that makes it easier.
And please add to my list if you have any other simple ideas.
OK – enough talk – now to work.
I hope you have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
42 responses to “Sneaky Sip and Save the Planet”
I made my husband get up and come in here to see those pictures of the darling piglets. You can’t help smiling at the sight of them.
We have two bins in our alley–one for garbage and the other for recyclables. Our recyclable bin is about 2/3 full at the end of the week and our garbage not even 1/3 full. This is because we are only 2 and my husband is diabetic. We are at the produce dept at least twice a week because he makes an enormous salad for dinner–lettuce, mushrooms, cuke, red onion, red peppers, goat cheese, radishes, cauliflower, sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, black olives, tofu, egg (white only), carrots. I buy as much organic as I can.
We microwave one grilled chicken breast each from the deli and add that to the salad. And that’s it. For him. I can’t eat half that stuff–I’d be in the bathroom the entire evening.
Sadly, however, we are pretty much forced to bag these products in plastic. Sometimes I’ll put red peppers, cukes, red onion all in same bag but then the checker has to differentiate them which isn’t fair. We do bring our own cloth bags though–including the six-pack for wine.
Have you seen these? https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B005E2QRPG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477881483&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=mesh+produce+bags&dpPl=1&dpID=51FUoZ6UO-L&ref=plSrch
I hated putting plastic produce bags in my cloth grocery bags. My MIL got me some like these.
Darling photos of darling piglets, especially because they have those pointy Star Trek ears.
Darling piglets and inspired photos.
Here is the link to help us make better choices for healthy oceans. http://www.seafoodwatch.org 🙂
Thank you Chris – I had heard of this – i think they have an app too – which would be helpful
wonderful post- we try our best to step lightly on our dear sweet planet.
We still tend to cook for an army, as we had three adults (and sometimes more visiting) and five kids. Now we freeze the extra and don’t have to cook as often. I try to look for plastic containers which I can reuse around the house as some of them are very sturdy and have tight fitting lids or are a good shape for holding household items. I did see the “recycling” here and it’s nothing but a different truck taking it to the landfill, there isn’t any recycling really going on. If the cardboard from food containers is clean and failry sturdy I will make things with it (book covers, backing boards etc). I know it could be shredded and put on a compost heap but we can’t have one in the temporary quarters we’re in at present. The squirrels got the corn I had planted in the big pot, they didn’t get much, mostly a dozen of so kernels on each ear. It was fun though seeing that it grew and produced something. Those are fine sturdy little piglets. I do have another place to get fruit and nut trees, they’ve been in business for 200 years – quite a record (http://www.starkbros.com/) and the plants are mostly hardy much further north that the area you’re in.
Thank you – i will check out this site for fruits and nuts, I often plant native fruits and nut trees – so I feed more than me! c
I only wish I had a place to plant, nothing but concrete and ashphalt where I’m at presently. I did have a couple mulberry trees from Stark Brothers which had wonder fruit, large and juicy, started sort of white then almost black when ripe.
Can you have pots? I know it’s not the same but I grew in pots and composted in one, too, for a couple of years.
I had a big pot with Indian corn, didn’t get much, but it was fun. I’m in temporary quarters, we were supposed to be in permanent ones by now, but now I’m hearing maybe in spring. I thought about pots, but I also thought about getting someone to help me move them, I suspect I better wait till we’re actually in a more permanent residence before I start planting anything.
If Celi will allow me: from today onwards everyone will be able to watch Leonardo di Caprio’s roughly one-hour-long highly regarded documentary ‘Before the Flood’, easiest perchance of YouTube but available for free on all social media outlets. Please don’t laugh at the source: LdC’s work over a year is highly regarded and I just hope my local transmission holds out this afternoon. Celi’s five comments: take them seriously – if already you do not, why not . . . what every single one of us does counts . . .
I love Leo – and will find his doco – thank you! c
I go perking along with my own endeavors to save the planet, while family and acquaintances poke fun and tell me I’m over the top about the measures I take. It is disheartening to hear – especially from young people – that it is a waste of time. It’s even worse that so many folks engaged in big agriculture profess that herbicides, pesticides and GMO’s are necessary. I get overwhelmed by it all. I feel like one wee little person fighting to make a difference.
The good thing is that ALL the young people who come here over the summer think like us and they are movers and shakers they will make a difference I am sure of it. And luckily there are many of us – wee little persons – and when you look at the rest of the world there are heaps of countries making a real difference though they are small, smaller than many american States – America is just so big.. However you and I and many of the Fellowship are winning in our own backyards and that is the most important thing – our Silent Revolution is from the ground up..
I loathe waste .. And recycle like mad. You are a good girl Celi .. Keep planting those trees 😃