Oh what a lovely tea party.

draw back the curtain.


The teabag is a little well-brewed.

The weeds have been decomposing anaerobically for a good month and a half now (just a few weeks longer than was recommended by Gardening Australia). The basic process of anaerobic decomposition is that the microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. This releases the energy into the water rather than the air. It's used a lot to treat waste water and reduce the release of gases and such from landfill. On an industrial scale anaerobic digestion can be a renewable energy source. Methane and carbon dioxide rich biogas can be harvested and burnt to drive a turbine. What we did was a little more lo-fi, not in an air tight vessel or set up to siphon off the gas, but none the less the same process. We are more interested in breaking down the nutrients in the biomass (the weeds) into a form that the plants can use easily. Unfortunately this works too well so the final mix needs to be mixed with more water to dilute it or it will burn the plants.

Black with one.

Anaerobic decomposition happens naturally in mangroves; their leaves break down in the oxygen starved mud; however in that instance the mud is high is salts and so they smell like sulphur (rotten eggs). The "beautiful, brown, sludge" that formed in our weed tea smells like death. The water is releasing many of the gases that have dissolved into it over the weeks.
There was also an abundance of invertebrate life gathered in the pot. Many small compost flies and about six spiders had taken up residence. To these bugs the rotting smells means food or food for their young.

We haven't put it onto the garden just yet. We are making some seeds for Autumn planting and I hope they like tea. The tea bag on the other hand had can go on the compost heap.


Lars comes in for a whiff...



... and feels a little overwhelmed.

Liquid bread

I was given a beer making starter kit for my birthday a few weeks ago so it seems as good a time as any to start planning. We have some recycled bottles, the kit and now all we need is a bit of cooler weather or my father's cellar. Beer needs to be kept at a constant temperature and it's easier to keep it warm in cool weather than cool on a hot day. It can easily be wrapped in a blanket to keep in the heat that the fermentation produces. Another tip is to use long neck bottles or short stubby bottles as they provide less surface area for the secondary fermentation of the yeast. I've been told that oil in additives such as chilli is the key to enhancing those flavors. Also water purity and general cleanliness is paramount, as the less other junk there is in there the nicer the beer is at the end.
We're looking forward to the experimental side of brewing. I have had some experience with preparing wine for bottling, on my uncle's vineyard, and in that situation too, cleanliness in all things is paramount. One year everyone forgot the metabisulphite, used to stabilize the fermentation in the bottles, and corks popped all over the place. The next year too much was added and the wine was undrinkable.
Here's some link love
www.coopers.com.au
http://store.coopers.com.au/products/home-brew
www.aussiehomebrewer.com

Autumn is here and with it a whole new season of work in the garden. I think the weed tea is about done and it's going to rain this weekend. I'm hoping to bust open a bail of pea straw and get mulching.
Speaking of mulching I've been tearing up the cooch grass and turning it in on itself. It seems to be keeping it down to some extent but it's so dry and thirsty under it that it's like sawing through wooden skewers.
I've been trying to get my head around a philosophy that Cass found about weeds. They improve the soil and get it ready for the plants you want. Weeds are part of biodiversity and soil health. All monocultures are doomed to collapse. In short weeds are a good thing if managed properly.
I'm going to put up a "no spray zone" sign on the footpath and start encouraging some of the purslane growing in the cracks.

9. get shower timer and use it (part 2)

The heat is not conducive to short showers. But we have a little hour glass in the bathroom that has nice blue sand.

I'm quite chuffed, even if we did have to get a lift from Taryn to the City of Charles Sturt council area to get it. Charles Sturt has a wealth of info from coping with extreme heat to native gardens. Councils have a lot of resources if you ask. I guess this is the end of reading in the shower. I would have liked to have one that makes a noise when the time is up. I look over and see the sand is run out and think "oops." The pack has a fair bit of useful info on stuff like rebates and planning. I think we are making good inroads on reducing our water consumption.

Also here's some watery links.
GreenPlumbers.com.au
WaterRating.gov.au

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!

9. get shower timer and use it

A dry creek bed near our house.

I've been reading about water in South Australia. As a state South Australia is often touted as "The driest state in the driest country in the world". As such, Adelaide is heavily dependent on the River Murray for our water needs. With lower rainfall in many catchments, including the Murray-Darling, and increased demand from farming and domestic water users, our state's water use is far from sustainable. Meanwhile the aquifer under us is, in some parts of the state, running dry while others have to deal with rising salt. Mining requires a huge percentage of this. There are plans for a desalination plant to clean seawater but that's at least four years off and has many environmental and social impacts.

Help me! I am a giant Australian Cuttlefish! (image from here)

While it will supply domestic users, the desalination plant is basically being made to keep the world's largest uranium mine in water. The environmental impacts have been sidelined and South Australia is in danger of making a big mistake.

Cass sending a letter to the Mike Rann about uranium mining.

Stormwater recycling is an under-examined option with a great deal of potential. On the domestic front, we're interested in grey water systems and rain harvesting and storage tanks. As we are renting this gets a little more tricky but not impossible. Inspired by Cass' defacto sister-in-law Em, we've done some rain water harvesting into a spare green wheelie bin in the last few big rains we've had. Em is the executive director of Riversides, a Torontonian water conservation NGO.


This is a picture of Em impersonating a kangaroo on her recent visit to Adelaide.

It was taken on the rooftop garden at Christie Walk, Adelaide's inner city eco-housing community. When she and Cass' brother Chris were here we got all fired up to build a mudbrick rain water tank but time only permitted us to wheel a green bin into position under the overflow from our shared backyard neighbour/housemates Anna and Lily's gutter. If you do have the dosh to get something done right rebates are available, and it's not too expensive.


Our system isn't the most glamorous in the land but it works.

Another lo-fi watering measure is to place a hole in the lid of a bottle and put it upside down in the soil at the base of a tree. That way the tree gets water all day long.

A hole in the lid

This is great for plants that are establishing themselves as it gives a good steady supply. I got the idea from the bottles near the meeting the other day.

Also good for plants in recovery, the lemon tree's leaves are getting greener by the day.

Alison giving us some info.

The Water Wise Communities initiative which Cass' sister Alison put us onto seems like a good place to take some action. She saw number 9 on our list and said there are Water Wise kits available which include a shower timer. As our council is not yet on board with this we are going to try to get one from someone in another council area. I'll post an update with a bit more when we can get our hands on one. The pack will be most useful but till we get it we'll just have to rely on being late to give us the incentive for short showers.


Water wise communities


We've sent them an email and stopped round.

And finally here's something a little bit educational. The game is very cute.
Savewater.com.au