Today was Mother’s Day. 

I got some special presents that the kids made.

And I got a special present that Michael made too:

 










I love my recycled red brick steps!!!

Last weekend, we had a campfire - and it cooked our dinner:



 











This is what was inside:
 



 











Yep, it was Yum!

This weekend, we did the same J.

Last weekend, I took photos of bean and pea flowers:
 

 

 



 










This weekend, I took a photo of a different pea flower:

 



 














They are so very pretty, aren’t they?

Last weekend, Michael was on the bobcat – to flatten out the massive pile of gravel, sand and clay that was dug out for our house pad.

He did a fantastic job!  Check out these swales for our future fruit trees:

And he finished off that rockwall and did some other great work!

This weekend, he is on the excavator:

 














Look at my beautiful path!  He said he was going to “take the top off the hard bits” – while I took the kids to soccer.  Apparently, he really had to dig it all up again!

Then he dug holes for the fruit trees…and lots and lots of other holes!
I think maybe the bobcat should have been planned for next weekend instead!!!

I wrote this blog post on our last night of the “plastic-free” experiment…so remember that time as you read….

The kids are revolting!  We’ve been out of their usual quota/brands of cheese and milk for over a week and yesterday they “had nothing to eat for breakfast and nothing to pack for lunch”.  Funny how I found frozen mini quiches, fruit bread in the freezer too, plenty of cereal and fruit and tin spaghetti for those who wanted it.  The day was saved!

And this experiment in plastic-free is over tomorrow – I do need to shop (in a fairly normal fashion) to feed the masses – but I will be sure to take my own bags and consider what I can – but tomorrow it will be back to plastic bottles of milk and quite a few cheeses!  We do have a big cheese producer near here, so I will be making time to pay them a visit and see if it is possible to buy some plastic-free “bulk” cheese.

And excuse me while I have a moment – “It is all too hard L” – ok now I have got that out.

I had a bit of a moment last night while I was searching for bulk milk powder (to try and cut down on packaging) and came across an article that was very convinced that we should all only be drinking raw (unpasteurised, unhomogenised, organic) milk – preferably goats’ milk, maybe even fermented – as the only healthy version of dairy.  Yes, it reminded me that powdered milk is quite far from eating “as nature intended” (“being close to nature” was very important to me while we were choosing building products – how did I lose that perspective??? L) – and it made me feel bad – so time to remind myself that we are all on a journey to do what we can – and it is pretty darn near impossible to get it right!

What I didn’t tell you at the time was that Michael was actually away for the duration of the plastic-free experiment…I had a feeling he might have been a little harder to convince than the kids were, so I took my opportunity while I could – and the big shopping expedition was to get ‘normal’ milk in the house for his homecoming ;-)

My shopping “focus” has changed again (more on that another time).  I am definitely not plastic-free (ie I am buying milk and cheese!) – but I am using those gorgeous string bags and I am still making bread on a weekend, and we do still make our own yoghurt (from packet mixes though, I just can’t get a good one yet otherwise).  And it was good to read what I wrote above to realise “we are still on this journey” to work out what is right for us.