Selfsufficientish.com

The joys of living on the edge of the semi-arid zone - 30% is our 3 pm summer average - winter is around 60% - our lowest 3pm this January was 7 %. it makes growing soft leafy veg difficult and kicks our water use way up. Clothes do dry quickly, we often dry some inside to avoid the hot sun.

Rain and cooler now thankfully - only 11mm for January but daytime temps down to low 30's c; we maxed out at 47c earlier this month. Humidity is creeping up to 20 -30 % so the evaporation rate is dropping accordingly. The drought is not over but at least the weather is bearable.

Same in OZ although it seems to be only in apartments so far - often the base design only allows for a kitchenette; just enough to make a coffee, sandwich etc. ("houses" still have kitchens) Perhaps this is actually more sustainable and eco-friendly? fewer places generating waste (more opportunity f...

the "Poor Bugger Me" generation!

Maggie The Fowlers Vacola jars, and process, is the "Australian" way for preserving for over 100 yrs and are still the most commonly used - they must work. The lids are not screwed on. They are sealed with a rubber ring, pressed on by hand when contents are hot and held on with a metal clip - as the...

Preserving jars - Fowlers Vs Kilner Vs anything else. Any opinions?

yes, I found out that bread is a green also

Mrs Weedo has been reading innumerable websites etc. looking for the answer to this - the best answer was a research report that looked at the actual composition (carbon / nitrogen) of a range of materials as to their levels of brown vs green. So the short answer is that the browns are not all brown...

Mens and Womens sheds are going strong here; naturally I am not old enough to participate yet.

very windy here too but not over 25 km thankfully - something to do with a rare heating of the upper atmosphere over Antarctica displacing lower level air. Unfortunately the wind is dry and with rising temps the last soil moisture has gone. It's a balmy 32c at 1340 today; 40c forecast for tomorrow r...

Any ideas about substitutes for the green when making compost? Green is becoming very very scarce around here and the tiny lawn area still being watered yields little.

I don't know about up your way but packaged, pre-prepared vegetables and meats - sliced and diced ready to cook - are becoming more common down here. What's next? Predigested foods to save the time and effort of preparing, cooking and chewing? Enough gripe for today; I think I will just plug lunch i...

Carp tool steel! Doesn't anyone make decent tools anymore? In particular thing like spades and axes are now made out of some strange material that is either very soft or very hard and usually weighs twice what they should. What my father used to call "dead steel" is the norm these days; dull, lifele...

I remember tea arriving in one pound wooden boxes (still have a couple of the boxes somewhere) It was normal for the more "remote" rural residents to order this through the stock agents and either they would bring it out when doing their rounds or it would come via the mail car. Surely someone could...

Hi Viper, welcome to the forum. As the resident ignoramus on ishish stuff I can assure you there are no silly questions; ask away