Last January post

Last night at 1am when we were setting the alarm for 5am, so we could get to the Torrens Island Market by 6am, we couldn't remember if there was a reason we'd planned to be there so early or if we'd just thought it sounded like fun when things were less crazy.

Four hours later we almost didn't get up, but we did because we wanted the adventure for the last day of the 31 Things. It was beautiful and surreil. The dawn was coming up behind us and the full moon was still glowing ahead of us. After a brief detour involving Garden Island and then the Torrens Island power plant, we found out (from the power plant security guard) that the market is actually opposite rather than on Torrens Island.

The moon was still up, but it was light by this stage. We sleepily wandered around admiring all the fruit and veg that seemed particularly large, uniform and sort of glowing with colour (in a healthy, dawn-lit, rather than the radioactive way that I've made them sound) and quickly spent our allotted $15 on: two pieces of pizza bread, onions, tomatoes, banana peppers, potatoes, plums, nectarines and eggs. The seller assured us they were free range, but in fact they turned out to be caged. Here's a link about caged hens. The compost bin will eat well tonight.
We took a lot of pretty photos, but I dropped my camera the other day and it seems to have developed a serious malfunction. I'm hoping to get them off the camera somehow later.

I'm still recovering from seeing "The Road" the other night. Researching into Peak Oil simultaneously wasn't the best idea. I honestly do not think the future after oil becomes scarce will be like "The Road", or anything like it. Later we'll be doing a long piece about it, but at the moment I think we've overdosed on unstructured, open-ended peak oil research and it hasn't been constructive. We're going to look at it further though and as the days go by the concept is becoming much more acceptable. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, we've finished or at least set in motion all of the 31 Things (minus one!) Check the list out below, with some comments.

The 31 things.

1. weed tea DONE
2. get Jules' worm poo DONE
3. make gift for Anne's baby DONE
4. pesto with zucchini and basil DONE
5. work on quilt, cut patches DONE
We're making a quilt! John cut some patches in January for the challenge. We're on the look-out for vintage fabric from op-shops, or if anyone's relatives have an old bag of fabric scraps, let us know! Anything up to '50s is great.
6. investigate home brew DONE
Coopers homebrew kits at the local Foodland, and Alison's partner Mike makes his own.

7. join Sustainable Communities started
We have the details, but no money to join til Thursday!
8. food co-op started
Flinders Food Co-op and Clarence Park Food Co-op are our options.
9. get shower timer and use it DONE
10. soil test started
There's a soil testing lab really close to us who offer a free kit. We've emailed for it.
11. investigate Peter Singer's thing about income started
This challenge was to try to work out what we thought about Peter Singer's book The Life You Can Save, about donating to charity to help end world poverty. I've read it and John's going to. The idea is about the ethics of giving as much as you can to reputable charities. I don't know if we can afford it; this challenge is about trying to work out what being able to afford something means in this context. Would we give up a few beers a week to donate to Oxfam, for example? A meal or two out? What's a luxury and what's a necessity in our situation? And so on.
12. call Rudd etc. DONE
13. call Harry re: rotten wood DONE
14. make a climate change info pack for Maja started
I'm putting together a "pack" of helpful links, not yet complete.
15. smoke alarm DONE

16. book permaculture course started
Bad news on the permaculture course front. Even with the early-bird discount, it's $1427.50 each! We'll do it eventually, but not this year . Meanwhile we'll read our books and maybe go to some short courses and workshops.
17. find a source of eggs DONE
Jules suggested a colleague from the Conservation Council who sells her eggs, so fingers crossed this will work out. After today's free-range egg deception, we're really over trying to find any free range eggs that aren't actual backyard pet hens. (By the way, check out the Con Council's website. I haven't been for a while and it's looking very swanky.)
18. get a compost screw started
We've contacted a permaculturalist guy I know who told us about compost screws ages ago, but have yet to hear back.
19. Torrens island market DONE
20. go for massage DONE
We went for a joint massage down the street in one of the many swanky beauty parlours around Norwood! My "massage epiphany" (the insight you get when you are relaxed and having a massage) is that I need to relax more! Yoga and exercise would be good. And more massage!
21. go for bush walk DONE
22. Tiny Towns pieces and zine and climate change zine DONE
23. go to an escapist movie not done
"The Road" did not cut it! Nor did "Sherlock Holmes". We considered "Fantastic Mr Fox" today but we were working on the last few pieces for the show on Tuesday and didn't have time. We were also knackered after the early market start. Here's what is a complete escapist treat, and it's embarrassing, but we don't care. It started in the heatwave, when we were zonked out, but we're watching it now: "Friends". That's right. "Friends". When I was cool in the 90s I scorned it to the point of not watching it ever. Now it seems to hit the spot - back to back episodes, funny, clever, social and good for John's facial recognition practice. What can I say?
Update - "Fantastic Mr Fox" was also not very fun, (despite the impressive stop-motion animation), with the Americanised woodland creatures being hunted and a horrible orange sky throughout. We'll keep an eye out for our escapist movie. Though we want to see it, "Precious" isn't going to be in the running either.


Coming out about "Friends".

24. free hair cut for John DONE
25. leaflet for Critical Climate DONE
After the massage we walked past a local eatery, Vego to Go, and the guy called to us frantically to stop, then gave us some leftover apple and walnut muffins. We were then approached by another guy advertising a free wine tasting at the Norwood Town Hall, which we attended forthwith. When we were drunk, we still had to leaflet for local climate action group, Critical Climate, so we did, had a lovely evening walk, and discovered an old tram barn that had been turned into apartments. It's fun getting to know the neighbourhood on foot.


"Look at my tongue, it's wearing a purple sock!" At the Town Hall in Norwood. The guy in the background, who seemed to be in charge of the tasting, was, I swear, the same person who was in the pizza delivery to Kylie Minogue ad from the 90s. This must be his new line of business.


Leafleting in Norwood.


The old tram barn in Stepney.

26. go to gym once to twice a week started
We started, but haven't been going, because we're too busy doing the 31 Things. Ha.
27. make Moroccan lentils and send others a recipe DONE
28. bake bread DONE
29. research the depression and peak oil started
This is on the list because it's hard to do. It's started but definitely not finished.
30. go for a meal at Sterling Organic DONE
Yesterday we borrowed John's parents car and went to the Sterling Organic cafe in the hills. Then we spontaneously went to Murray Bridge, where it was boiling hot (we wanted to go to the butterfly farm, but it had closed years ago. Even the mechanical bunyip was broken!) It was nice, though, to visit the Murray. Despite the drought and lack of environmental flows, it felt good to look out over a big body of water where the locals were swimming, paddling, boating and waterskiing. We're so used to dry creeks in town, and thinking about the river as an abstract concept.
The land changes dramatically once you get over the Mt Lofty Ranges (the hills) and onto the plain between Mt Barker and Murray Bridge. It was so hot and dry and yellow it was like driving through a dried out Van Gogh painting. By contrast, the hills felt incredibly lush, weirdly so to some extent, a little micro-climate enabling a European fantasy on the edge of the aridlands. We ended up grabbing a punnet of strawberries from the Beeremberg strawberry farm and then eating tea at Grumpy's microbrewery and pizza joint near Hahndorf. Here are some pics.


Perusing the brochure at Stirling Organic.


Delicious spicy tahini, babaganoush and tabouli sandwich at Stirling Organic.


Hello, Murray!


Cheeseless wood oven pizza, strawberries and a pint of Tomcat at Grumpy's Microbrewery.

31. Make a zine or a blog or both about this DONE

We're done! That's it.

Follow-up posts on the 31 things started but not complete to follow, at a more leisurely pace. Meanwhile thanks so much for everyone whose taken an interest, offered advice or otherwise encouraged us. See you soon!
xx Cass and John.

STOP PRESS!!!
John became an uncle to Jessica Ellen, two weeks earlier than expected, on the night before the Fairyfloss show!!!
Welcome little niece!

22. Tiny Towns pieces and zine and climate change zine

Things are gearing up for the start of February for the 2010 Adelaide Fringe! Yay! This is an exciting and busy time of year for us. Thing number 22, for me, is all about doing the work and starting to promote the three events. Check out our Fringe Guide blurbs!

To start with Ferris Wheels & Fairyfloss.
From a cowboy's fairyfloss-induced dream, from carnies to acrobats, to ferris wheel tattoos, John Willanski and Cassie Flanagan combine black and white drawings, colour-saturated photography and digital art to enter the hyper-real world of the traveling showground.

Princess Fairyfloss

Secondly Urban Jungle.
The city can be a stark unwelcoming place but the jungle is coming back to play. Street artist John Willanski invites you to come play too.

Some dresses waiting to be part of the Urban Jungle show.

and Finally Tiny Towns.
Exploring a new future of technology, energy and community Tiny Towns holds a mirror up to the way we live now and the way we will need to change.

Desert winds, a part of the Mini Art exhibition related to Tiny Towns.

I'm hoping that my work will entertain and enlighten. This year I'm also hoping to get to grips with timelines and trying to go that extra mile to turn something good into something very good. In the past I've over-committed and found that once the hatchet fell I'd fulfilled the briefs but I felt I could have done a bit better. By focusing on three smaller exhibitions I hope to have a bit more control and a bit less stress.

In other related news I'm going to be starting a short stint at the Science Exchange where I'll be learning about curating and running a space, managing a bump in and out and a marketing and media campaign as well as a whole bunch of other stuff.

There's a also session about Science Blogging at the Science Exchange that I'm really looking forward to next Monday.

As for the second part of thing number 22, the Climate Change Zine is Cass' and here she is!

The as yet untitled Climate Change Zine will be the third in an annual series of enviro-poetry zines presented by "Triple Bottom Line" - originally a trio but now a duo of environmentalist poets. (Why am I talking about myself in the third person?) When the three enviro-poets in question started the zines, we were all working as campaigners with different Adelaide environmental NGOs, but as of zine number two, there didn't seem to be room for both sorts of work simultaneously in our lives.

Jules remains with the Conservation Council of SA, and not with the zine, and Rachael and I are both studying higher degrees in creative writing at Adelaide uni, doing the zine, and no longer working at jobs in the movement.

I've been looking for other ways to stay involved though. Sustainable Communities is one, and this latest edition of the zine is another. It's going to be about the emotions involved in coming to terms with climate change and peak oil.

Rach and I also both take photos that have been part of the zines to date.

We were planning to launch it at this year's Format Zine Fair as part of the Fringe in March, but we have ambitious plans for length and content that make it seem more sensible to hold off until mid year. So we're now planning to release the climate change zine at a joint photo show, as part of SALA month in August.


Photo show meets zine and a powerful blend ensues!

Stay tuned, and please do come out to our fringe shows meanwhile!

Which reminds me, our friend Anna from next door has taken a challenge to go to as many fringe shows that her friends are in this year as she can! I'm planning to tag along to some as a way to narrow down the otherwise overwhelming options.

Things are good!

My journeying/travelling analogy from the last post seems to be ringing true.

The 31 Things "journey", if you will, really is generating all these positive changes or spin-offs in just the same way that a trip away from home opens up new perspectives, behaviour, brings epiphanies and insights and gives you energy to change for the better, and the space and insight to set new goals and be more like the person you really are underneath the daily distractions and crap.

The main changes we've noticed are these:

• We are having all these adventures, and I know why - it's from being open to trying new things.

• We're more open to talking to strangers in the community, more observant of everyone around us and everything, more curious and interested in them.

• We're spending more time being active in the present, rather than procrastinating, ruminating and being anxious or depressed.

• Ticking things off the list and the wonderful feedback from people we know, as well as others that one or the other of us have never even met, is giving us a fantastic sense of momentum.

• We've got past the initial "Christ, we've overcommitted!" freakout and have worked out how to fit the 31 Things challenge into the rest of our lives.

• Other people are getting inspired!

• Being in something together is bringing out the best in both of us.

Meanwhile, it's hot.

Most people who are following the blog are our friends in Adelaide, so you all will be very much aware that we're having another heatwave. Interstaters will have seen the weather reports too, but for Nicole, Chris, Em and anyone else in the northern hemisphere, it's so hot here.

Doing the challenge is helping us keep empowered while the evidence of climate change is melting our senses.

The heatwaves are coming in a pattern of on-again-off-again, around every ten or so days. By heatwave, I mean a few days over 40 degrees Celsius at a time. In between, it can be anything from low twenties to high 30s. Anyway, it's new and weird and messing up things like vegetable gardens and orchards, not to mention causing distress to the entire population, human, animal and vegetable. It's also starting to feel normal, as we adjust to the extreme weather patterns ("Oh, it's only 37 today, perfect picnic weather"). I resist this adaptability, even as I pride myself on my physical acclimatisation and crafty heat-repellent household routines, because this shouldn't be normal and I don't want us to slow-cook like the frog in the bath and suddenly realise it's 50 degrees out there for 3 months of the year.


The cat door snake attempting to keep the heat from the western sun at bay. All the same insulating techniques that you use in winter apply equally well to summer heat.

For the last two years, we've had record-breaking two week heatwaves over 40 degrees, and I dread a repeat of this this summer. I guess we'll see.

We have an air conditioner as of this (very hot) spring. The serious alternative was going to be evacuating our two cats to my sister's place during extended heatwaves (last year one of them got heat stroke and had to be rushed away to safety!) and ourselves to Tasmania on a WWOOFING holiday. We were hoping to get housesitters to water our garden, but who would volunteer to live in an inferno?


Thanks for trying to kill my cat, Rudd.

The aircon is a strange wonder. We're trying to use it as efficiently and sparingly as possible, but for me it literally means the difference between being able to live here functionally or basically having to move away. Obviously it's not a long-term strategy.

Something for a near-future list has to be investigating insulation. Apparently there are government rebates that apply to rental properties (for example). We could also look at ceiling fans as a good alternative to aircon.

Longer-term we need to think about living somewhere else (either house-wise or geographically) that doesn't require aircon. A massive shout-out to those who are enduring this climatic craziness without aircon. Come visit.

For people without aircon or houses, the heatwave is just unbearable. We met a guy today collecting cans who was railing at the government spending on the Tour Town Under cycling race, as opposed to homeless shelters. He said that there are only three men's shelters in Adelaide and not enough places. All we could do was agree as we stood together on the sweltering footpath. I wish I'd got it together in time to offer him some money but he'd already stormed off down the street by the time my heat-slowed brain had thought of it.

I remember reading during the heatwave in 2007 about how terrible it was for homeless people. I hope there's at least some sort of van driving round with bottled water and sunscreen, and hats if there aren't enough places in shelters. Does anyone know?


Still high 30s at 7.30pm.

Even with aircon, our house is pretty bad. Last night, after a 40 degree day - with predictions for three consecutive days of 43 degrees to follow), John and I decided to get in a walk while we could.

We meant just to go around the block, but with our new 31 Things-inspired energy and openness to giving things a go, we soon found we'd wandered right into town. A nice adventure would have been to run into a random friend and maybe be shouted a beer! (we'd set out without any cash), but we didn't, so we picked up some information about massages, some cheap movie ticket vouchers and then, like animals drawn to water, wandered through the uni and down to the River Torrens.

Night walks! The ducks and carp swam towards us, hoping for a snack. We sat on the springy lush grass and talked about the way the river has been regulated since European settlement.

We've become interested in urban watercourses because they feature so heavily in our local area, where five heavily modified creeks cross under roads and through backyards to join the Torrens and eventually reach the sea.

The night before last, on the way home from dinner with John's parents, we took a short detour along one of the creeks. It was currently empty, concreted over and graffiti-ed with beautiful colourful pieces. Again the 31 Days Sense of Adventure, as well as some amazing lit up sunset colours, pushed us to check out a small section of this route that had, unbeknownst at least to me (John kindly didn't spoil the excitement by revealing he'd known about it for years until we were on the way home) co-existed the whole time with our usual walk between Norwood and St Peters. We turned back at a tunnel with no source of light visible at the end, that turned out on subsequent Google maps investigation to disappear under suburbia. (We couldn't actually find where it reappeared; it must have been after a long way).


The heavily modified creek. Don't try this at home because you can't get out the sides in the case of flash floods! (But we felt pretty safe given the current weather (we kept out of the tunnels).)

On the way home we met Kelly, from the Sustainable Communities group. Then yesterday we met Rapsodie in Foodland, shopping to keep cool. Eleanor, where are you??

While walking last night, we devised the best adventure yet. We needed to work out a way to integrate the 31 Things, especially blog posting, into our crazy January and February schedules, which are of the sort that make you so avoidant you...devise challenges for yourselves for the month of January that preclude you from addressing any of them.

Not this time! We decided to Face the Stuff We Have To Do.

Step 1.
Check weather. Discover that it is predicted to be hellish until next Tuesday.


Wait. How hot?

Step 2.
Call an emergency meeting for the following day, to simultaneously avoid the heatwave-induced household languishing/cabin fever and address the serious priority imbalance you have got going.

Step 3.
(Next day)
Get up early to avoid the heat. Make it fun by dressing appropriately.
Oops, this one didn't go as planned, and we found ourselves at the busstop at midday, a time where only mad dogs and descendants of colonial Englishmen go out in the midday sun.


Cass wills the bus to appear, but it is on the Saturday timetable.

Step 5.
Hold your breath as the bus breaks down due to a heat-related computer error, but restarts. Arrive in town. Walk a few city blocks in your finery, complete with sun-shielding parasol, and arrive at your destination...

The Hilton Hotel Adelaide!


Chin chin! Still a little pink, John declares the meeting open.

Why didn't we think of this before? Ensconced in comfy chairs by a delightful fountain, we immediately ordered G&Ts and settled in for a serious planning meeting and the rest of the day.

Actually we made some really good schedules and plans, proper meeting style (thanks TWS for all the on the job experience in strategic planning and facilitation). I think we were slightly nuts; we did the whole meeting thing in our hippie-ish attempted dressed-up outfits (at different times we decided we had been mistaken for part of a wedding party, or the entourage of the Tour Down Under, or perhaps not for anything other than the eccentrically innovative climate refugees we were. (I think the drinks waiter smirked when he said goodbye).)


Booze was confined to the initial G&T and this very tasty local beer from the Barossa Valley, that somehow involved shiraz grapes.

We stayed til 6pm, resisted the urge to put our drinks on the wedding party's tab, were assisted in infiltrating the 18th floor of the hotel to check out the view by a friendly guest with a swipe card, and worked out among other things that I need to spend 3-4 days a week on uni work, 1 on everything else (a zine, this blog, and a photography show for the Fringe), and the weekend on leisure (and overhang, I guess). John has to go to a course, do work experience at the Science Exchange, make work for 3 art shows in the Fringe (this one, this one and this one) and do the blog.

So there'll be some changes around here!, but we're not stopping the challenge. We'll do a "thing" every day or so, but probably report less frequently, or maybe as frequently but much more briefly. Hurray for balance, and thanks to the philosophy of permaculture for realising that, as I paraphrased in the gym post, your own house has to be in order first before you can functionally tackle the outside world.

Please stay tuned for follow-up posts on the shower timer, the gym (yes! we went back on Friday), and new, teed-up or started "things" we haven't had time yet to blog about (research peak oil and the depression, Tiny Towns, Peter Singer, the smoke alarm, worm poo, John's haircut and have a meal at Stirling Organic).

And thank you again for your wonderful feedback. It was a factor in us wanting to keep going with the challenge. That and the fact that it's SUCH GOOD FUN!


Adelaide bakes. From the 18th floor of the Hilton Hotel.
CLIMATE ACTION NOW!

26. go to gym once to twice a week

We went to the gym!
Some of you might be wondering what the gym is doing on the list and for me it goes something like this.

There are big global things as well as cool personal ones going on that I want to engage with fully this year, so I want to be fit, both physically and in other ways. It's kind of like getting your house in order so you can interact to the best of your ability with the rest of the world.

I also spend a lot of time caring for things in the world, and this lends itself to noticing the neglected areas. I think one of them is me - at least, my health and fitness.

I put on a lot of weight in the last year or two, and I want to feel good in my body again. Exercise and relaxation are such obvious tools for self-sustainable behaviour but the effort to start them up and maintain them feels like a giant road-block (until you actually do it).

I joined up at the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre's gym with my friend Taryn last year. We'd been swimming semi-regularly since winter, and then we saw that they had a Christmas special offer where you got 3 months membership to the gym and pool for about $130 concession.

But since joining I hadn't braved the gym, and had only been for one swim.
The day last year that I was all set to go, John and I received a call-out from 350.org to take part in a 24 hour fast for Climate Justice. Absurdly, not eating for a day and a night seemed easier than exercising for an hour; I happily put off the gym for another day.

There's something about passive self-denial that is easier for me than actively doing stuff. When we were thinking of ideas for our Sustainable Communities challenge, I was seriously advocating spending no money for the month of January, but John found the idea depressing and I think he's right. Doing something, 31 things in fact, is much more of a challenge for me, because it's active rather than passive.

But like exercise, once you get into it, it's much more rewarding and fun.

We went this morning and it was great.
I really like having a "thing" to get done each day. It feels like being on a journey in the geographical sense, or rather, it incorporates some of the elements I love about travelling - the idea that it's your "job" to get up and go and do something new every day throughout the trip.
This feels like that. Even the boring double bus ride to the Aquatic Centre this morning was "fresher" than usual, as if being on the list made the activity more mindful and interesting; we were noticing the architecture opposite the bus stop and the characters walking along King William Street. We talked all the way.

When we arrived I realised that wearing crocs instead of the sneakers I don't have felt a little too daggy. But I was with friends - John, our friend Taryn, and her daughter Annise (who spent the first part of the excursion colouring in animals at the creche).

We braved the entrance (via the weights room, full of giant men) and posed for cheesy pics.


Looking good Taryn!


A fairly relaxed John.


Huzzah! (Crocs!)

I was heartened that there were a couple of middle-aged, unglamorous, overweight women in the changeroom. It was by no means a gym of beautiful bodies, just ordinary people. A nice staff member showed us around and then we were let loose on the cardio machines.
Somewhat discouraged to realise that exercising felt effortful (don't the machines do the exercise for you?) we kept going and soon started to sweat and feel good.
We tried something that was like walking uphill through heavy snow, the cross-trainer and the speed walker. Then we rowed (collectively) about 3.5 km up on the rowing machines and then somehow it was already time to swim.
Gym braved!

The pool was packed with teenagers and families and had a really nice sort of communal vibe. There was even a family having a barbeque in an outside area. You could live here!
Maybe it was the endorphins from working out and if so, great! But everyone seemed to be having a good time. We swam a little and had a quick sauna where we made plans to reconvene on Friday for our new members' fitness assessment. Making a date to come back seems to be the way to go. John gets to join us free for a week after which they obviously hope he'll sign up. I think he's seriously considering it.

John and I had to head home so we left the Water Baby and Mermaid in the kid's pool.

27. make Moroccan lentils and send others a recipe

This post is epic, but it's central to the whole 31 Days Challenge, as it features among other things lentil shopping, our monthly Sustainable Communities meeting where the challenge originated, numerous photos and links, a book review and three recipes.

Bon Appetit!

The lentils are still soaking and may by now have reached gigantic proportions (if anyone's seen the Young Ones episode where Vyvyan's hamster gets soaked overnight and blows up like a giant farty balloon, you'll know why I am slightly afraid to check on their progress after all this time submerged.)

No, actually, we're going to eat them for tea tonight to complete the number 27. "make Moroccan lentils and send others a recipe" challenge, but sadly not entirely Moroccan-ised as per Kelly's recipe as we are nearing the end of a pay fortnight and so will be substituting some of the ingredients we don't have for others that we do. Plums or apple instead of fresh ginger?

Here is the original recipe from Kelly, the founding member of our Norwood-Stepney Sustainable Communities Group (I finally found out the name last night at the meeting.)

This is one of my favourite recipes of late - sooo yummy and good for you.
I cook up a batch then freeze some. Happy cooking!

2 cups brown/reddish lentils (soak them overnight first in a large bowl of water)
(2 or) 3 fresh tomatoes grated or finely chopped
1 medium onion chopped
3 - 4 cloves fresh garlic crushed or finely chopped
4 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley or coriander (fresh coriander is best, and put it in near the end so it doesn't go too mushy)
2.5 teaspoons cumin powder
2.5 teaspoons paprika
1.5 teaspoons fresh chopped ginger
1/2 teaspoon black pepper 2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup olive oil (or thereabouts)

In a large soup pot, fry onion, garlic and ginger for 2 mins or so then add spices and continue to fry for another minute.
Add lentils and stir in.
Add 2 litres water and fresh tomatoes and bring to simmer.
Simmer lentils over medium heat about 1.5 hours, or until lentils tender and sauce is not watery. Add extra water if required to prevent lentils burning.
Add coriander or parsley near the end.
Adjust seasoning if desired and serve with rice or bread.

And this is Kelly!


While I'm at it, let me introduce the others in our little group. These pics are from the meeting last night at Rapsodie's place.

Rapsodie.


and Eleanor.


But to backtrack to yesterday's lentil mission. I don't know if the aforementioned Young Ones conditioned me at an impressionable age, but until recently I always associated lentils with the character Neil and his giant vats of bland, brown slop, a props department's dream.

My sister became a vegetarian as early as she was allowed to, which was 15, and I joined in when we moved out of home together when I was 20, due to a combination of the example she set, having to cook all our own food and so chop up a lot of meat, and reading Peter Singer.

I've been vegetarian for years now so I love beans, tempeh, hummous and so on, but I never really got lentils. Hippie friends would wax lyrical about the virtues of their dahl, but I continued to carry this prejudice towards lentils as a desperate last resort, a source of protein for the last few days before pay. This meant that I have actually hardly ever tried them.

Which brings us to challenge 27. make Moroccan lentils and send others a recipe!

I was excited when the N-SSCG (the Norwood-Stepney Sustainable Communities local group) decided to share recipes and Kelly mentioned her Moroccan lentils. Would we finally learn the secret mysteries of dahl? If I can get into lentils, they are such a good cheap food.
Let's do it!

Step one
Plan to eat the lentil meal a day in advance to incorporate the overnight soaking. I'm not sure if the soak is just to soften the lentils for cooking and make them less farty or if it's also to remove toxins in the way that for soaking beans is an absolute health requirement. So we'll soak overnight until further clarification.

Step two
Head to the market, bulk food store, food co-op or other place of dry goods. We're trying to use less cans, to save money, waste and because they have a plastic lining that isn't so great for your health, but this means allowing enough time for the soak. When we first started with beans I found it a real hassle, but now it seems pretty simple (and even fun) to whack them in a bowl and cover with water overnight (and there's always the cans or the falafel house if you forget or don't feel like it).

This is us at the Adelaide Central Market, the repository of all things fresh, preserved and delicious.
About to grab a chai. But not with Bonsoy!


Despite the drought, Adelaide is blessed with an abundance of good, local food - anything that grows in a Mediterranean climate, plus a few adaptable varieties of produce that really thrive in more tropical or temperate places - like our tough little banana tree (half the size of its Queensland cousins), or apples and berries in the cooler pockets of the Adelaide Hills.
Unfortunately I was so busy taking a photo of John and me in the mirror that I forgot to take a shot of the market stalls - another time!
Actually it was Monday, which is not a market day, but a few shops stay open all week, including...Goodies and Grains.
Here we bought red, South Australian lentils for $2.50/kg. We bought 500 grams and I think it's going to make left-overs.

There were about five different varieties of lentils, some local and one organic. We went for the local.


Step 3. Soak lentils overnight, then next day follow Kelly's recipe!
(Later tonight.)

While we were in Goodies and Grains we also checked out the eggs. We've recently stopped being vegan and become ovo-vegetarians - with specific requirements for the eggs to be genuinely free range. We're really looking for eggs from chickens living as pets in suburbia (close to us) so we can buy or trade them regularly (zucchinis anyone?), visit the chickens ourselves to make sure they get to run around the garden permaculture style, and have no rooster to fertilise the eggs.

Our objections to commercial free range set ups are that even free range commercial hens can be the offspring of battery hens, and the male chicks in these operations are killed as unproductive (this is why we're not eating free range dairy, because of the male calves). It was hard to figure out this decision, which was for health-convenience reasons - strict veganism is a lot easier to follow than this nuanced version - but we don't think unfertilised pet hen eggs are dodgy, for us.

Anyway, more of this in a forthcoming egg post (and thanks Leticia for the "egg route" suggestion - we'll make that excursion part of the challenge!)

Meanwhile, here is a weirdly shaped biodynamic freerange jumbo egg at Goodies and Grains!


We bought some as backup before we find the pet hen eggs, but later heard at the meeting (from Kelly, who's doing a vegan challenge for January) that if they don't have an Animal Liberation sticker on them, they're not kosher free range. Does anyone else know more about this?

Soap.


Ghee. What is ghee? Is it vegan?


We also bought some organic wine from the market bottle-o, as planned for the meeting. I had hoped to take photos of the delights of the institution that is Wilson's Organics, where we first discovered these gorgeous wines and much more wonderful organic goodness, but it was closed for the holidays.

Here's the wine.


I might add that yesterday's excursion was undertaken with 10 kilogram weights strapped to our legs, or rather what felt like 10 kilogram weights due to the 48 hour post-exercise rule - that you will feel it the worst two days afterwards. We were crippled after the Mt Lofty bushwalk - the bracing to walk 4k down the hill. But we want to go back (it can only get easier, right?)

We borrowed John's parents' car and drove to the meeting, which was one suburb over. We rarely drive anywhere, yet we've driven to 2 out of 3 meetings, one of which was about 1km down the road. I don't know if it's some sort of balance redressing thing ("We're doing something good so we can "afford" to drive there") or a rebellion ("We're sick of being righteous all the time, let's just drive!").

More likely it's that we're running short of time. I want to write a post about juggling environmentally sustainable behaviour with full-time work (we're studying and creating stuff using savings and government pensions for money, so we have more flexible schedules, but I'm starting to realise not much more time than people with jobs).

Last night, I was fighting a cold (which has now gone), we had to get to the meeting, and we remembered that we needed to water my folk's garden before the next hot weather period, which has started today. (I want to write another post about enviros and feeling the need to make excuses. Whatever - our legs hurt!) So we borrowed the car and made it home after everything at about 11pm. I don't feel bad. Absolutism can kill any enthusiasm for trying to change.

We had a good night. Here are some pics.
Rapsodie's cute little street seemed to have a fashion for painted garbage bins.




The house we assumed was hers due to the shade cloth and lemon tree watering systems.


Check it out. I'd been wondering how to water our own four trees effectively and now we know!


Rapsodie's actual house, or rather, garden, built on top of a former swimming pool!


Rocket gone to seed.


Rainwater tank!


Slightly hijacked by the wine, the one we brought plus a bottle of organic red of Rapsodie's, we nevertheless made plans to attend a screening of the movie "Fresh", which will be put on by another sustainable communities group in western Adelaide, for John and me to have our soil tested for toxins from our railway sleeper garden bed (Rapsodie lent us a soil testing kit to check out the PH, too), and heard about the other's January challenges - Kelly to go vegan, Eleanor to cook a vego meal once a month for 2010 and Rapsodie to try for no waste for a month.

We found out that the soft plastics waste recycling depot is no longer taking household plastic, and planned to contact Zero Waste SA to demand an alternative, that I have been overwatering our tomatoes and tomato-related veggies and need to give them tough love so they'll fruit, what people's eco footprints are in hectares and what's making them that size, various details about government rebates for solar, insulation and water tanks, and more that I'll remember when I see the minutes.

We also invited Kelly, Eleanor and Rapsodie to contribute to this blog about their January challenges, so hopefully we'll feature some of their posts in the next couple of weeks.

Meantime here is Eleanor's recipe, this time a dahl soup option. Don't forget the lemon!

Madhur Jaffrey recipe.

Serves 8 people

275gm green or yellow split peas (washed)
1.5L of vegetarian stock
24 peppercorns and 15 whole cloves (tied in cheesecloth)
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2-3/4 tsp salt to taste

Garnish
8 lemon wedges
croutons

Combine the split peas and stock in a pot and bring to the boil. Remove scum from the top.
Add the spices in the cheesecloth, the turmeric, and the salt. Cover, lower heat, and simmer gently for 1-1.5 hours or until the peas are tender. Remove cheesecloth from soup, squeeze its juices into soup, and discard.
Press the soup through a strainer (well worth it guys), using the back of a wooden spoon, or put it through a food mill.

Serve with lemon

Freezes well - just make sure you use the lemon!


And here is our recipe. I realised at the meeting that my current infatuation with eggs would leave Kelly hungry throughout January, so pancakes are off the menu and a garden salad (literally, woo!) is on.

You will need:

One salad plot.


You could also use ingredients from the market - super, farmers or whatever, but I have to rave about growing salad because it is so amazingly rewardingly fun I want to share it! So, even if this is the lengthiest recipe you've ever followed, if you some time make it from your own salad plot it'll blow your mind, your tastebuds and make you happy.

This is a revolutionary, invaluable book:
One Magic Square
After reading the introduction you are basically inspired to go outside and make a 1 metre square garden bed on the spot. (The author is a local woman, Lolo Houbein and she is appearing at a session at the Friends of the Earth Reclaim the Food Chain convergence on all things food, From Plains to Plate, this February in Adelaide.)

Magic squares are great, but large pots are good too. You can even pick up ready to eat herb pots already containing chives, basil, lettuce etc etc, or some cheap seedlings from a nursery to transplant into a big pot, or keep in several small ones. Then just pick the ingredients for the salad leaf by leaf. So good!

I made this salad while John was pulling up weeds for the weed tea the other night. You can use anything that's to hand for the greens. Our salad plot is an old bathtub gleaned from down the street (the one that drains onto the lemon tree).

Summer Bathtub Salad



Ingredients

a handful of various greens (in this case cos and other lettuce leaves, basil, baby rainbow chard and beetroot leaves)

4 small zucchini, preferably with flowers attached (we have 4 zucchinis and admittedly the plants are enormous, but you could grow just one in a big pot, or substitute zucchini for tomatoes that are very pot-friendly.)

handful of walnuts

Dressing -
1/8 glass olive oil
1/7 glass balsamic vinegar
teaspoon mustard
teaspoon honey/brown sugar/maple syrup - anything dark and sweet
herbs finely chopped (we had chives, marjoram, sage and basil in the bathtub)
1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

Steam the zucchs until tender but still crunchy (about 10 minutes) (or slice up 3 tomatoes) and arrange on top of a bed of the various greens.
Sprinkle walnuts on top and toss.
Mix dressing together with a fork til mustard and sweetner dissolve and pour over raw salad.
Toss salad and taste, adding another batch of dressing if needed to coat all the salad with a generous amount of delicious dressing.

Ok John's home and I think it's time for the Moroccan lentils.

Here's some Kelly made earlier.


I'll post a pic of our version later, and email the link to this page to the rest of the group to fullfill the "send others a recipe part", but having got this far I think I can say that we're already converts to the way of dahl.

Neil would be proud.

A few more pics.

I can't work out yet how to create a permanent slideshow of photos, so in the meantime here are a few more pics from today.
By the way - thanks so much to everyone who've written comments on here, joined up as a follower of the blog or posted encouraging messages on fbook. I had a small freakout this morning at what seemed like the self-imposed overcommitment of doing this January challenge, (see the Go for a Massage post still to come, which will be about self-sustainability).
For background, I'm part-way through a research Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide, after resigning from my job as a Community Campaigner with the Wilderness Society a little over a year ago. Like so many in the movement, before I quit I came a bit too close to burnout for my liking, and have been spending the subsequent year redressing the balance - falling in love, learning how to live with someone, learning how to grow veggies and putting in the occasional activist (not to mention academic!) appearance.
Not having received a scholarship for 2010, this leisurely pace is set to change for the remainder of my degree. At the same time I've started to feel ready to emerge from my balance-redressing chill-out period. Last month Copenhagen tapped me on the shoulder, and I felt a strong urge to get re-involved in the climate justice movement, sustainably of course!
Transition work and sustainable communities seemed perfect for this sort of thing. But the temptation to apply impossible standards of dedication and overwork seems to attach itself to anything vaguely smacking of environmentalism for many in the movement. I thought I'd learned how not to, but all it takes is a few sobering articles about climate change or peak oil, a modest commitment to activism here or there and suddenly you're convinced again that your smallest action or inaction is going to save the world (or abandon it to its 770ppm fate)!
I sort of felt like that a bit this morning. This world view is self-imposed, false, and must be avoided! It's not easy, but it is possible to be involved in working for a sustainable world while making your own inner peace the first priority.
I think I'm learning how to behave more like the tortoise than the hare and I do think we are going to win the race. If I come up with any tips along the way, I'll share them on here.
Anyway, I live with a very easy-going man. We reminded ourselves that "self-imposed" means that the pace is up to us. And then we got into the hills and I realised it had been so long since I went to the source of why we are doing this. That tree hug today was so good. Suzi and Maja walk up Mount Lofty regularly, and I'd love to do more walks. I'd like one of those hiking sticks too that we saw people using - apparently they take about 30% off the load (and they look hilarious).
Daydreams of long overnight hikes along the Heysen Trail, or in Tasmania...
John's ankle is fine now, and I'm looking forward to picking tomorrow's activity.
Environmentalist's Sustainability Tip #1 - go for a bushwalk!


John and Maja checking out the view during a particularly knackering stretch of the climb.



Ok it wasn't quite this big, but almost!



The bush was dry but gorgeous.



Suzi and Maja our Mt Lofty veteran guides! Thanks ladies!