Sunday, November 4, 2012

Slow Living October



Hello.
Another month has rolled around and it is time to reflect on my Slow Living goals and join in with Christine and the other lovelies for my Slow Living report for October.
There has been beautiful sunny skies and a much warmer feel
 to the days in October, summer is on the way!

Nourish - We have been eating our normal range of foods I think, with a greater emphasis on home grown vegetables as I was able to provide broccoli, spinach, snow peas , podding peas, lettuce, kale and celery from the garden this month.  We mostly ate these in raw form as the boys don't like cooked veggies, although I did steam the spinach, kale and broccoli, because that's how I like it!  The snowpeas have been a star performer, I have been weighing my harvest and in the last 2 weeks of October I picked 5.5kgs !! That's a lot of snow peas, and they are still going strong.  
The chooks are producing a steady supply of eggs, so I have been making quite a few meringues to use them up, and because the kids really like them.

Prepare - Haven't really prepared much this month, we tend to eat things fresh and give away any excess.  This is an area I should try and improve. 

Grow - Things have been busy in the garden, I have been cleaning out beds ready for spring/summer plantings. I planted potatoes, zucchini, climbing beans, and a bed of capsicums, and there are lots of seedlings in the hothouse ready to go into the garden - tomatoes, basil, perpetual spinach, cucubers, cantaloup, pumpkins, 3 types of beans, snow peas, kale and lettuces.  My first sowing of sweetcorn didn't work so I am going to have another go soon.  
Also planted sunflowers and zinnias which are all up. 
 The raspberries are covered with flowers and plenty of buzzing bees, Yay!
In the garden, it has been all about flowers, with the poppies, iris and roses all putting on lovely displays, not to mention the blossom on the fruit trees and ornamentals, just gorgeous!


Green - Um.... I've been picking my own bunches of flowers and using extra blankets instead of turning on heating for the few cooler evenings as winter leaves us, It does feel like warmer weather is on the way.  Also looked into window coverings for our back room to keep out the sun this summer and help keep the house cooler, we have no air conditioning so it can warm up quite quickly inside.








Create - Didn't get much interesting creating done in October. I am continuing on with my crochet along blanket, although I didn't make a lot of progress, and I have started a Christmas decoration for a swap I have joined.




Discover - In October I was reminded that it is important not to take people and relationships for granted, you just don't know how long any of us have on this earth, and things can change very quickly.


Enhance - I took part in Blogtoberfest as part of the blogging community, I don't do a lot to connect with other people on my blog, so I thought it would be a good way to try and rectify that, I had mixed results. I found it hard to fit in a post a day, without feeling like the posts were very boring! Must try and find more interesting things to post about! 


Enjoy - We had family gatherings, a birthday and I had a night out to a great concert in October.  Also enjoyed a bit of day dreaming about some new crocheting, hope to get onto that soon!

So that is my wrap up of October, overall the time flew by so quickly that I didn't really get to achieve a lot.  I am finding with more work days away from the house, I don't have the 'Slow' life I am aiming for.  I am certainly going to take steps to address this in 2013, I haven't really got a lot of joy out of the last few months, and I think it is just because I have been so busy.  I really don't think the extra bit of money is worth it, so am going to rebalance things in the new year.

Have a great day!








13 comments:

  1. In response to your "Enhance"
    I thought all of your Blogtober Fest posts were very interesting <3 You did a brilliant job and were much braver than I for taking on such a task.
    Happy November! xox

    ReplyDelete
  2. What an amazing pea harvest! I find I'm not great on putting food aside either. I' just happy if we can eat from the garden! Your flower photos are beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a pleasure to see this morning your peas (mmmmmm) and flowers. Overhere the leaves are falling down, it's autumn time, but also beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Jules,
    Your photo of a plate of peas (impressive photo by the way) reminds me of the good life,not that I don't have a good life now but there was another good life as a child when we picked fresh peas from the garden ....with a clip over the ear from mother for eating some of them and dug up potatoes,carrots picked, brussel sprouts. It just seemed so everyday then and I would love to have that again.
    The rose at the end of your post is impressive I ca almost smell it!

    keep well

    Amanda :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. All your vegetables are very inspiring. All those raw veggies, you must all be very healthy! Nice to slow the moment down, not always so easy to do in the spring! All the best, Heather

    ReplyDelete
  6. Inspiring. I really like reading your slow living monthly round-ups. I keep thinking to myself "I will do this too" ... maybe 2013 is the year of slow living?

    ReplyDelete
  7. great post- your garden is beautiful! love that rose and those peas :)

    creating wise, I've put aside my hexagon blanket to work on a stole- its been an enjoyable knit! Here is my recent post on my Woodland Stole: http://www.thorntonjournal.blogspot.com/2012/11/im-morning-person-now.html

    xo

    ReplyDelete
  8. The blossoms in your first picture are solovely you really must enjoy looking upon them.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I loved reading your blogtoberfest posts. So don't be worried. They were great. I'm amazed at how much you have growing in your garden. It must be very big. Being Irish when we do our veg garden it's mainly spuds cos the Hubbie refuses to plant much else!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I love your poppies. They are tops on my list of favorite flowers. I have plans to fix up our flower bed (someday) and add several kinds of poppies. They're just so lovely. :-)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Great recap of your month. You have been busy. You are right about doing a post a day. I could never do that.
    These are some great pics!
    Just to make your week sweeter I gave you a mention in my blog today!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I hear you with trying to fit more Slow in..I work a little from home and really take my hat off to those who work out of the home..although the juggling act is huge and really something to think about. I hope your solution presents itself soon.

    Your poppies are gorgeous, ours have just opened their first blooms..so pretty! Enjoy the month, Julie. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for taking the time to add your comment, I love to receive comments and read them all, even if I don't get around to responding to you, I am just not that organised!