A very good start to the day. I put a high score for 'joy' on my waking emotions questionnaire.
The rest of the day was good too... although I did lots of washing up and jarred up dried fruit, washed the drying racks and refilled them with apples and pears. I also did some assorted paperwork... fulfilled a Good Energy request to send them my gas meter reading, and had several Fiddlesticks enquiries and phone calls.
Towards the end of the afternoon I got out into the garden and dug out a builders sack of very mature compost and put it into a long line of plastic sacks, ready for riddling over the next few days or weeks. The builders bag will be refilled with the material which is currently in the metal-sided compost bin... the sides of which are both corrugated iron in a J shape, from an air raid shelter. I love digging out old compost heaps! I never know what I'll find... although this lot was quite 'clean' with relatively little plastic and glue strips.
I came in at 7pm for tea... Gill had added some macaroni into the chunky veg soup I made a day or two ago, and it was a delicious meal.
Later, after dark, I got a message from a Freecycler who wanted some compost, manure or topsoil. They asked how much a tonne might cost! Well i sell carrier bags of riddled compost for a pound or two or three, and sacks of unriddled for £2 to £5, these sacks might be 20kg or so. Which means that a tonne of unriddled compost, at £2 per 20kg, would be £100. I hope that price didn't put her off! I did say I could do a bulk discount, but I wouldn't want to let it go for much less than that, after all it is lovingly and carefully made!
Several good moves on Scrabble, but my top opponent Gael is on good form and I'm falling behind again.
Showing posts with label Freecycling compost. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freecycling compost. Show all posts
I woke at 8.30 feeling awful. I was sneezing and coughing and had blocked sinuses. I wondered if it was the pollution I'd inhaled yesterday putting out the St Nicks bin fire, or whether it was just a virus.
I didn't feel like breakfast, which is more or less unheard of for me. But also, I'd run out of muesli, so I made some up with the 10kg bag of Suma organic muesli base plus chopped-up home made dried bananas, apples, pears, homegrown pumpkin seeds and some assorted nuts which were in their shells, so I spent the best part of an hour shelling local almonds (thank you Melody!), hazelnuts and I think the walnuts might be local too. Then I had breakfast.
So I had a quiet day. Gill went to town by bus to meet up with Melody, Natalie and Alison for the Ladies Who Lunch meeting... and also Melody's birthday.
When Gill came back I got dressed and did some housework, although still feeling very grotty.
At about 5pm, freecycler Fraser, who posted a message saying he wanted some topsoil or compost came round. I had offered him a free sack of compost, but told him that I could also let him have some more for a donation. He was really pleased, as he is making raised beds for vegetables. He was fascinated to see my composting set up. I took the wheelbarrow down the garden and loaded up 5 sacks for him. He gave me £10 for the four sacks and also found out he is living in Katharina and Ulrich's old house!
I decided not to attend the York in Transition meeting... I'd already done several emails and facebook messages with regard to some of the content for tonight's meeting, so it wasn't that important for me to go.
I tried to fix our vacuum cleaner which has the spinning brushes not working. We need the motor fixing. What a nuisance. I successfully repaired the indoor clothes airer, which has a pair of plastic clips which hold it up... or held it up until it broke. Some while ago, I fixed it with a length of wood with two grooves cut out of it, which did work. However, the metal bars the wood went around had bent with the weight of the damp towels and other clothes, so I suggested to Gill that I affix some string between the bars, using hooks to hold them in place. Gill got a packet of hooks from the fix it shop round the corner and I used four of them with the strong but thin string that I take out of the potato sacks. It seems to work.
During the evening the whole family watched a remarkable documentary on BBC2 (Natural World) called 'A Killer Whale Called Luna' which had us all enthralled. A young male Orca had become separated from its pod in the waters off Vancouver, and had become used to the company of humans in boats and had seemingly been friendly and enjoyed the company of humans. I strongly recommend watching this programme... despite the commentary being just a bit schmaltzy, it is a brilliant story, very moving.
Still felt poorly and hope to go to bed relatively early... but will the decongestant keep me awake?
I didn't feel like breakfast, which is more or less unheard of for me. But also, I'd run out of muesli, so I made some up with the 10kg bag of Suma organic muesli base plus chopped-up home made dried bananas, apples, pears, homegrown pumpkin seeds and some assorted nuts which were in their shells, so I spent the best part of an hour shelling local almonds (thank you Melody!), hazelnuts and I think the walnuts might be local too. Then I had breakfast.
So I had a quiet day. Gill went to town by bus to meet up with Melody, Natalie and Alison for the Ladies Who Lunch meeting... and also Melody's birthday.
When Gill came back I got dressed and did some housework, although still feeling very grotty.
At about 5pm, freecycler Fraser, who posted a message saying he wanted some topsoil or compost came round. I had offered him a free sack of compost, but told him that I could also let him have some more for a donation. He was really pleased, as he is making raised beds for vegetables. He was fascinated to see my composting set up. I took the wheelbarrow down the garden and loaded up 5 sacks for him. He gave me £10 for the four sacks and also found out he is living in Katharina and Ulrich's old house!
I decided not to attend the York in Transition meeting... I'd already done several emails and facebook messages with regard to some of the content for tonight's meeting, so it wasn't that important for me to go.
I tried to fix our vacuum cleaner which has the spinning brushes not working. We need the motor fixing. What a nuisance. I successfully repaired the indoor clothes airer, which has a pair of plastic clips which hold it up... or held it up until it broke. Some while ago, I fixed it with a length of wood with two grooves cut out of it, which did work. However, the metal bars the wood went around had bent with the weight of the damp towels and other clothes, so I suggested to Gill that I affix some string between the bars, using hooks to hold them in place. Gill got a packet of hooks from the fix it shop round the corner and I used four of them with the strong but thin string that I take out of the potato sacks. It seems to work.
During the evening the whole family watched a remarkable documentary on BBC2 (Natural World) called 'A Killer Whale Called Luna' which had us all enthralled. A young male Orca had become separated from its pod in the waters off Vancouver, and had become used to the company of humans in boats and had seemingly been friendly and enjoyed the company of humans. I strongly recommend watching this programme... despite the commentary being just a bit schmaltzy, it is a brilliant story, very moving.
Still felt poorly and hope to go to bed relatively early... but will the decongestant keep me awake?
Got up at 9 as I'd arranged to meet a Freecycler who had asked for some compost. My response was to offer one free sack, which I could deliver (for free too!) But I said that if he wanted to have more than one sack, then I wouldn't be willing to give him the extra ones for free, and that I'd swap, barter or be happy with a donation for the extra ones.
He emailed back absolutely delighted! And asked when would be convenient to visit. We arranged this morning at 10.30. But when I got up I saw that it had snowed quite heavily overnight. I sent him a message suggesting that it might be best to reconsider this morning's meeting, and postpone it until later in the week. He phoned me back and said he'd been thinking the same thing. We arranged another meeting.
So I had a lazy morning in some ways... watched Country Tracks, which had some info on the new Feed In Tariff (or was that Countryfile this evening?) and did bits of washing up and fruit preparation.
After Gardeners Question Time on R4 I cycled down to see Richard who told me the saga of how he cut his hair, by accident (!), and I bought a large pile of goodies, and loaded up my trailer with 2 x 20kg sacks and 3 x at-least 15kg boxes of compostables, and slowly cycled home, stopping off at the Co-op for hommous, margarine and goats milk.
I was asked to come in to ensure that peace had broken out, and when this seemed to have happened, I had half an hour in the back garden to take the compostables down to the current heap... which has an internal temperature of over 60 Celcius, even though there's snow all around.
I got too cold to continue chopping up green potatoes so I came in.
Gill had made a spaghetti and Quorn mince thing, just as an experiment, but neither child liked the Quorn, although I didn't mind it. The mince version is far better than chunks. I like the fact it's made from a soil mould! Watched Countryfile.
The rest of the evening was peaceful. Thank goodness!
He emailed back absolutely delighted! And asked when would be convenient to visit. We arranged this morning at 10.30. But when I got up I saw that it had snowed quite heavily overnight. I sent him a message suggesting that it might be best to reconsider this morning's meeting, and postpone it until later in the week. He phoned me back and said he'd been thinking the same thing. We arranged another meeting.
So I had a lazy morning in some ways... watched Country Tracks, which had some info on the new Feed In Tariff (or was that Countryfile this evening?) and did bits of washing up and fruit preparation.
After Gardeners Question Time on R4 I cycled down to see Richard who told me the saga of how he cut his hair, by accident (!), and I bought a large pile of goodies, and loaded up my trailer with 2 x 20kg sacks and 3 x at-least 15kg boxes of compostables, and slowly cycled home, stopping off at the Co-op for hommous, margarine and goats milk.
I was asked to come in to ensure that peace had broken out, and when this seemed to have happened, I had half an hour in the back garden to take the compostables down to the current heap... which has an internal temperature of over 60 Celcius, even though there's snow all around.
I got too cold to continue chopping up green potatoes so I came in.
Gill had made a spaghetti and Quorn mince thing, just as an experiment, but neither child liked the Quorn, although I didn't mind it. The mince version is far better than chunks. I like the fact it's made from a soil mould! Watched Countryfile.
The rest of the evening was peaceful. Thank goodness!
