Greasilocks and the three bears

The three bears of course are BB, Cannonball, and Satchmo. Especially BB has the most lush, soft, beautiful hair of all - Cannon is a close second, and Satchmo a very poor third as his hair is getting rather unruly with his daily adventures in the dam. Greasilocks, well, it would have to be me.

In my ongoing quest to save money, reduce the use of chemical items and reduce what we have to go to the supermarket for, I am currently one week into trying to wean myself off shampoo and conditioner. Here is the article that made me want to give it a go: Ditching shampoo a dirty little beauty secret.

So I have 2 more weeks to go of greasy funny hair, then it should settle - and then hopefully I can keep this going until my Soapwort patch is big enough that I can start harvesting some roots!

We've had two days of frost, it was beautiful but cold. However, our house is now cosy and warm, such a difference with a year ago, when we had no heating or insulation in the house at all. The first day the world looked rather white and frosty outside, Satchmo had a ball. First he was a bit worried about walking on this funny stuff, but it didn't take long before he was biting it, rolling in it...

Frosty grass

Satch looking alert in a frosty field

We harvested our pumpkins, courgettes and potatoes. The curly kale (3 varieties!!) is doing great, as is the wombok and silverbeet. We still have a great crop of lettuces and radish going in a coldframe, and the kohlrabi, parsnip and beetroot are coming up nicely too. We've had trouble with the carrots, but we'll keep on trying. It's time again for the garlic and onion to go in as well, but we have to find a new spot for them so we can apply proper crop rotation. It's still hard getting everything done with both of us working now, a bit frustrating really, but hopefully not for much longer!

Hmmmmm potatoes!!!

Nothing like the colour of homegrown vegies I say....

Our beetroot

Curly kale - my favourite

PJ worked on our water recycling idea, and this is now finished as well. Basically we are collecting the water from our shower, sink and bath, pump it up to a small tank outside, and then use that water to flush the toilet. So we're still using a water toilet as opposed to a waterless toilet (too expensive, and it doesn't work well in cold climates) but at least it's recycled water, which makes us feel less wasteful -- this is what 10 years living in a Perth climate has done to us.

Here we collect the water, and the little pump inside the bucket pumps it up to a header tank, which in turn is used to flush the toilet.

Anyway... time to do some emergency swineflu shopping :P

Toodlepip!