Human Lifestyle

Another good day, the morning mainly inside and a good bit of the afternoon outside.

At 3pm I went round to see Lynn, who had asked me to help her 'do' her compost bins.  The fullest one needed the top layers taking off, which I'm happy to do by hand... the stuff washes off, and doing it by hand means lumps can be broken up and bits of plastic removed easily.

So the top layers, with bountiful worms, went in the less full bin, and then Lynn found a dustbin with a lid which I filled with more or less finished compost.... I'll lend her a riddle and that will enable her (or her children!) to separate the fine compost from the unrotted sticks and plant stems. 

However I could only spend an hour there as Gill had gone to the Steiner School for a meeting with our lad's teacher, and so I had to get home to make sure our eldest was OK.  But instead of Yorkys or money, Lynn gave me several good sized leeks that she'd grown.  I was very pleased with this barter.

When I got home things were a bit fraught, Gill hadn't managed to get to the Steiner School and was wondering where the taxi was... it came and she got to school on time.  Our youngest came home in a taxi and Gill, after the meeting, took the usual two buses.    However, our eldest was happy helping a friend with his homework, so I went out the front to split logs, and got distracted by a possible chainsaw sound, which turned out to be a strimmer.  However, I collected the last of the sticks from Jamie... except he said there was another load coming, as he'd done a bit of tree surgery work for someone.  Suits me... except I have to sort out a chainsaw!  Argh!

I made myself some tea... the second lot of home-grown Shiitake mushrooms (had some yesterday too) fried up and put with a bit of couscous salad, some olives and a few bits of tomato, alongside a potato and chive salad, and an unwanted hommous sandwich rejected by one of the boys.

Then at about 9pm I loaded up my bike trailer with 4 sacks of compost, and one on the pannier rack, and cycled it down to St Clements.  I was back home 25 minutes later.

Had a peaceful evening, prepared melon slices for drying.

I got up at 9; Gill had taken our youngest to school in a taxi and we were expecting Will to come and do maths with our home-schooler. 

Gill came back and I got busy in the garden, doing more mechanical riddling and filling sacks with mature compost for Edible York.

I came in for lunch and went out for another short time, to load my trailer... 2 big sacks in the trailer plus the little one's bike, and a sack on my pannier rack.

I cycled down to the Building Society to get out a cheque for Jim Semlyen, to renew http://www.novaterium.com/ and delivered that cheque.  Then on to Cycle Heaven to get a new cycle helmet for our youngest, who's grown out of his old one.  He wanted a green coloured one, so I picked the only green one.  However, this was £54, and I'd wanted to pay only half of this!  So he got a red one for £30.  I then delivered the compost to St Clements, and headed off to the Millennium Bridge to go to the Steiner School.  I did 15 minutes of compost heap management there... the new bin is now ready for some fruity stuff from the daleks next to the playground.  So that's my next job.

My son liked the new skid lid, and we cycled home together... but he did the last bit on his own as I wanted to pop in to Freshways to collect compostables.

I did more work in the garden until just after 6 when I came in (with a good crop of Shiitake!) and Gill told me I could do my own tea... so I did.  Rice based, with Shiitake mushrooms, home grown and fresh off the log!

Then it was the LETS meeting.  I took notes, and wrote them up afterwards.  I seem to have a lot to do.  Not an early night.