Last weekend we discovered the boiler had broken and we were without hot water or any form of house heating. It was suddenly very cold and felt just a bit damp. So we called an engineer out and he was with us the same day.Now, let me point out at this point that we live in a council house and these are council staff we’re dealing with. He was brilliant, efficient, polite and explained things as he went along.

The boiler is a good one, a condensing boiler that uses noticeably less fuel than the one we had before they decided to replace it – but the old one never broke down. Swings and roundabouts huh? But it’s broken, very broken and needs a new control board to get it fixed. The part is on order. It’s been a week of no radiators and feeling cold. But we’ve coped. We were loaned 2 emergency heaters – small electric blower things that do warm a room nicely, but we actually don’t have them on a lot, just to warm things up a bit in the evenings and I have one blowing at the washing as otherwise it’s go stale and stinky.

This happened last year too – same problem and same cause – and it got me thinking then and I’ve been thinking again now. When I was growing up we had houses without modern central heating and we were ok. We’ve coped fine here for a week with extra layers of clothing, going to bed a bit earlier, plenty of hot drinks through the day and hot water bottles at night. Oh and an extra layer of bedding at night. but it’s been fine and we’ve thought a lot more about how we use fuel to heat our home and about how we can preserve what heat we have. We’ve appreciated things a little more.

It should be fixed next week and I think I’m going to turn the thermostat down and carry on wearing a vest. I will, however, thoroughly enjoy the luxury of a steaming hot, deep bath – which is something our back up immersion heater just can’t cope with.

Today it’s thawing outside and noticeably warmer, the grass is green and I can see the first tiny daffodil shoots poking through the earth in a pot outside. I have crocuses growing in a cupboard in the kitchen and I’m going to clean and oil my Paper Potter this afternoon because I’m starting to feel all spring like. I may even dig out left over seeds and list them so I know what I’ve got and what I might want for growing this year.

But first it’s time for a nice fresh cuppa…..

The main ingredients of The Little Green flea clear up recipe are essential oils, water and a few drops of washing up liquid – eco friendly of course. Soap nuts have an insect repellent property so you could use soap nut solution instead of washing up liquid.

• put 2 tablespoons neem oil in a plant mister.
• Top up with warm water and a tiny squirt of eco friendly washing up liquid.
• Then add your essential oils. I used 5-10 drops of each of cedarwood, citronella, peppermint and eucalyptus. Label and store in a cool, dark place.

That mixture needs to be sprayed on your carpets, floors and soft furnishings – please test on a small area first as some essential oils can cause some staining on some fabrics!

You can also use regular kitchen salt on your carpets but make sure there’s no damp in the room or the salt will attract all the moisture and make a sticky mess that won’t hoover up.  To use your salt, first whizz it in the blender to make a fine powder and then sprinkle it evenly all over the carpet and leave it for at least 48 hours before hoovering up.

Any natural method here is going to need a couple of weeks of repeating the treatment because they rely on killing the adult fleas or preventing breeding but they don’t kill any eggs so you have to break the egg laying cycle. If you want something to penetrate the eggs and kill them then you need nasty chemicals, sorry.

Now, I’d disagree with the paper tissue thing and I’d say use a reusable cloth hankie and then wash it hot with a few drops of tea tree essential oil as an antibacterial agent in the wash.  But hygiene is vital if we’re to fight off infections, avoid spreading viruses and stop secondary bacterial infection sneaking in while our immune systems are being battered.

Regular and thorough hand washing can help prevent the spread of all sorts of bugs – including swine flu, food poisoning and tummy bugs. It’s something we should all do as a matter of course and especially when someone in the house is sick. One way to achieve thorough hand washing is to use a liquid soap that will make less mess on your kitchen/bathroom sink and is easy to dispense. It’s also fun for smaller members of the family to squirt it themselves! Soap and washing are one of the areas where it is very easy to choose a more natural alternative that won’t leave your skin dry and cracked while still doing the job effectively.

If you are concerned about infection then you’ll need to choose a soap with an anti-bacterial agent in it, such as lavender or tea tree in either a bar or in a liquid form.

Good luck, look after yourselves and I hope swine flu passes you all by.

Now one is not laying at all – but I’m not bothered about her and I’m happy to carry one as a non laying passenger, after all this isn’t a commercial egg production arrangement. One lays an egg pretty much every day, she has the odd day off but again, that’s fine.

But Red is proving to have some egg issues. She was fine for the first few months, moulted and refeathered beautifully and was laying a regular egg every day, lovely mid brown eggs with some speckles on. But over the past few weeks she’s been laying eggs with shells so fragile that they’re laid pre-broken and of course she is pecking at and eating the broken egg.

This is a huge problem for a flock of laying chickens as it can lead to an egg eating habit which is almost impossible to break – not to mention that Red’s egg production facility is clearly so damaged that she’s now unable to make the shells.

We have decided that we have a number of options.

1. Give her some more time to sort herself out.
2. Cull her before she either does herself more internal damage or she teaches the other 2 to peck at and eat eggs.
3. Rehome her with someone who is not bothered about the egg problem.

To be fair, she’s had weeks of increased calcium in her diet, she’s had homeopathy and we’ve tried everything we can think of and I suspect she is just coming to the end of her egg laying. But it’s going to cause longer term problems if we let her carry on. So she’s had several weeks of option 1 and there’s no signs of improvement.

I’m not willing to cull her seeing as we rescued her so she wouldn’t be minced into pet food. It’s not her fault that her shells are so fragile.

So, we’re rehoming her. I hope she’s happier elsewhere.

The front page is now much cleaner, less busy and leads to only two places – this blog and the all new, all singing and dancing Shop! I haven’t worked out how to get it to make my tea yet…..

I will be loading more products into the shop over the next few days so do keep checking back in to see what’s new. There’s a regular Sale Rail in there for you to hunt through the bargains on offer and a new Health range offered in conjunction and consultation with Fiona Dilston of Moonlight Essence.

It’s looking a lot better now, don’t you think?

Also blogged at My Zero Waste:

I thought it might be fun for us to come up with a list of Earth Day celebrations that tick all the boxes for creating zero waste too. What do you think?

Here are five suggestions from me and I look forward to reading yours!

• Make a morsbag from some old bed linen or clothes

• Seed or plant swap with your neighbours

• Organise a clothes, toys or tools swap party

• Make a meal from leftovers

• Email your MP about whichever environmental issue you feel strongly about

I added a couple of small scale ideas in the comments there:

• Plant something special in your garden.
• Create a living garden if you don’t already have one.
• Help clean up a local green space, like a park.
• Swap a book with a friend – that way you both get something new to read. If it’s a favourite don’t forget to ask for it to be returned!
• Do some guerrilla gardening! Plant some wild flowers or herbs along the roadside or in a public place!

What else will you do?

• Turn your heating down or off.
• Make sure all your light bulbs are energy saving ones.
• Turn the lights off for a bit longer than normal.

More ideas welcome in the comments, and please do re-blog and link back here. Let’s see how far this can get around the internet!

It’s almost here isn’t it? It’s scarily close and if you’re like me you’re looking at the Christmas shopping you’ve done, knowing there’s a few things left to get and you really don’t want to go into town because it’s just mad isn’t it?

So, are you shopping online?

Yes, you know where this is leading don’t you?

The Ethics Trading site has been upgraded, and new product ranges added. The Yaoh skin care and hemp fibre bags make particularly good gifts and all natural and eco friendly. But do check out the Gardening page too if there’s a gardener in your family.

You need more incentive? OK, no problem – put “December” into the voucher box on the shopping cart and you’ll get a discount off your order. I’m not going to tell you how much so it’s a surprise and I might change it, just to keep things interesting! Don’t forget that if you spend £30 or more then postage is free and if you are close enough to come and pick up your order there is now a Postage Option of “Collection in Person” but please do check that we can arrange that before you order and note that Collection will not be possible between December 22nd and 28th.

Last Christmas orders will be processed up until the end of December 18th but after this, although orders will be processed and sent out, neither Ethics Trading nor Royal Mail can promise that your order will arrive in time.

I know I’m meant to be promoting Ethics Trading in this newsletter but a friend of mine has a site that is also worth you going to take a peek at if you have a knitter or crocheter in your family. Eco Knits stocks yarn sourced mainly from UK suppliers, fair trade, eco friendly and the needles and notions to go with it as well as gift vouchers if you really can’t decide! Go and take a look, it’s lovely stuff and makes great gifts.

As always do feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested.

So, all that’s left for me to do now is to wish you, your friends and families a warm and happy festive season and I hope to see you all in 2009.

Season’s Blessings,
Sarah

Proper wool is tricky to wash safely without felting, shrinking or matting it nastily and ruining that perfect, soft and squishy scarf/hat/whatever you made for your best friend for Christmas.

Now Kris at Eco Knits sells lovely natural yarns and some are hand spun, hand dyed and generally fairly exclusive and very nice indeed. There are wood and bamboo needles, notions and other knitting type things to drool over but I’m considering that lovely yarn. When you’ve bought some, made something with it then you want that something to stay as gorgeous as the day it was finished don’t you? But things get mucky and need cleaning now and then, and that yarn was cool or hand wash only, and as the yarn was hand dyed then maybe the colour could fade?

Considering that soap nuts are the most natural and gentle cleaning agent I know of, it stands to reason thay they’ll do the job for you.  I do know that soap nuts preserve colour better than modern powders that have a harsher action and they definitely don’t leave any residue in the fibres of whatever you’re washing.  They release saponin from 30 degrees, so a cool machine wash will be fine, or you can use the bag and shells, or some soap nut solution, in a hand wash too.

It’s a challenge raised by the My Zero Waster‘s too – Do you really need those bin liners?  Isn’t it just another bit of plastic sealing away the pile of stuff we pile into landfill? We each throw away far too much as it is – Mr & Mrs Green, and Little Miss Green, have reduced their average weekly landfil contribution to under 100g, so it’s possible, it’s doable and it’s not that hard really. It’s all about rethinking from the start.

For example – When you buy sausages – where do you get them from? Prepacked in plastic from the big supermarket? Is there an alternative packed in recyclable material of some sort? Could you buy them loose?  Could you get them from a local butcher instead? Would he put them into a container that you provide instead of a plastic bag?

What about that squash that you get for the kids? It comes in a plastic bottle right? Do you reuse the bottle? I do, I use an old bottle to make up squash to keep in the fridge, and another to keep a bottle of chilled water in the fridge, after that they get cut into mini cloches if it’s the right time of year and only then do the bits go into the recycling centre. But I could change squash brand and use a glass bottle instead…..

So, going back to the bin…. If what goes into it is rinsed and dried and not sticky or slimy, then do you really need that bin bag?