Slow Living 2012 -April Report

Hello.  

Today I have decided to join in with Christine at Slow Living Essentials and her Slow Living 2012 diary project where you report on a variety of topics each month. 

 I thought this would be a good way to keep track of garden progress and other achievements through the year.  

Sometimes it feels like time is passing and each day goes by with little happening, but when I write down what has actually been completed/achieved in the month it really makes me feel like I am doing something worthwhile here at my little home.

Slow living is something that I like the idea of, yet it is quite a challenge these days to slow down and get off the fast paced life occasionally.  

I find some areas of my life are much slower than others !

Anyway, here is my first report,

April 2012

 Nourish - ( Cooking successes, great recipes, etc) 

Have been doing a lot of cooking as usual in April.  The standard baking of sweet stuff, and Easter gingerbread, cooked for a crowd at Max's birthday, lasagna with home preserved tomatoes and homemade pasta was a hit. Soups are starting to appear with the cooler weather, I made lamb shank and barley, minestrone and pea and ham soup this month.  I also made some sweet potato and lentil pasties that were yum, must post the recipe at a later date. Using home grown garlic and lots of fresh eggs too.

Prepare - ( Preserving / Stockpiling)

I didn't do much preserving this month, we were eating things fresh too quickly.

I did restock the pantry a bit with bulk flour and oil when it was on sale.

Reduce - ( Cut down on household waste)

Um, didn't really do anything towards this in April, except have a bit of a clean out of my hall cupboard and send a few big bags of thing up to the op shop.  More cleaning out and decluttering to continue through out the year.

Green - ('Greening' up your life)

In April I have started riding my bike around a lot more as an alternative to the car for short trips.

Grow - (Garden progress)

Things are really going well in the garden in April. I cleaned out a lot of the finished summer stuff, prepared beds for Autumn plantings, made teepees for climbers, reclaimed weedy areas for more growing space and tried to stick to my plant something at least twice a week rule.

Harvesting beans, lettuce, silverbeet, spinachbeet, bok choy, kale (for the chooks), beetroot, and lots of herbs.

Sowed tuscan kale, broccoli, red cabbage, green cabbage, cauliflower, sugar peas, snowpeas, brown onions, torpedo onions, rainbow silverbeet.

Planted garlic, lettuces, celery and broccoli seedlings.

Plenty of mowing and whippersnipping as the grass has been growing as I watch!

Create - (Crafty)

Finished the Star stitch blanket and started another one, and knitted a sock.

Discover - (Learning, Reading, etc)

Learnt how to knit socks!

Read a good book called 'Garlic and Friends' by Penny Woodward, all about growing the allium family.

Enhance - (Community Involvement)

Worked in the Community Garden, Made Anzacs for a fundraiser at School, joined the fundraising committee at school to raise money for there kitchen garden program.

Enjoy - (things we did for fun!)

Easter and the school holidays were generally fun, I like the change of routine. We also celebrated Max's 12th birthday with a party here and had a nice family dinner out for my dad's birthday too.

There we go, April in a nut shell!

Roll on May!

Have a look over here if you are interested to see how other slow lifers have gone in April!