We had a plan...

We got a set of bantams fairly soon after moving house. We've always wanted chickens, and luckily our new housemate did too!
Bantams are great- relatively friendly, cute as a button and easy to keep. Out of 5 bantams, only one of them currently lays eggs though... Its the wrong season, of course, but what we really want are some hens to lay us some beautiful free range eggs.
Bantams are apparently really good mothers and get broody really quickly. Same with a hen we were given too. But as luck had it, none of them have had the inclination so far.

So what did we do? Well, we got some fertile eggs anyway. Luck would have it that Kel's brother's hen was broody, so we gave them to him and his wee hen sat on them for 21 days.
The time arrived, and so did one chick, but no more. And then that chick died.
Sad times indeed.

Instead of wondering what to do next, we took the plunge and bought 6 three day old chicks off Trademe. (off a great breeder based in Helensville) Hopefully they will be all hens and will be our good layers, but we wont know for a while yet!

Having chickens has been a good learning curve- even more so with the babies. Its so lovely having them in our back garden, eating all our wandering jew, talking away to themselves.

We'll update their progress soon

Garden update

So it's week 3 of using coffee grounds to repel snails and so far, so good!
Part of me does wonder whether its also due to the fact that I have companion planted marigolds along side the veggies, along with a flower which we planted ages ago and can't remember what it is!

So these first couple of pictures were taken the day I first posted about trying a natural snail repellent here

L-R: Strawberries, forgotten-name flowers, brussel sprouts, spinach and a couple of herbs in there somewhere

L-R: herb pot (coriander & parsley), snow peas, thyme and marigolds

These photos I took a few minutes ago. Don't you just love the light on a spring morning?

One a little moth-eaten, but pretty good

So far so good here too. 

Sadly, the basil's a bit eaten, but otherwise ok. 

So, as long as one of us is having a morning coffee, I'm going to continue with the coffee grinds and see how we get on.

Now I need to work out how to prevent white moths... oh and the birds from eating the strawberries! Any suggestions/tips/comments will be greatly appreciated!

DIY Cleaning Products: Tips

One of the problems we have found with making out own cleaning products is that they tend to solidify over time (especially if the area they are stored in gets cold overnight). We are talking here about recipes that use soap of some kind (for us that means, dish washing liquid, hand wash, and laundry detergent). Commercial products contain ingredients to stop that happening but not when you make it yourself. Here are some tips to solve this problem:

• Make sure you use the right amount of liquid and soap when you make up the recipe 
• Always give the bottle a shake before using.
• If it gets really thick then pour the bottle into a mixing bowl, add a little boiling water at a time while mixing with an electric mixer on low or a whisk. When it looks like the right consistency pour it back into the bottle.
• Ecostore soap makes products of a better consistency than Sunlight Soap. 

Let us know if you have any other issues.

While I'm talking about this, I found yet another source of soap; Trade Aid. You can buy their soaps from Trade Aid stores or online and they only cost $3. As everything Trade Aid sells is fair trade so these are sustainably  produced (even the palm oil!) and the workers get a fair wage. More info here. I have not yet tried these soaps in a recipe but I don't see any reason they would be much different to the Ecostore soaps as they have similar ingredients.

Anybody found another good source of soap?

DIY Cleaning Products & Ecostore

Like the new blog design? I got distracted when I was meant to be writing this post!

If you are looking for an more environmentally friendly alternative to sunlight soap that doesn't cost $10 a bar then try  Ecostore bar soaps. I picked up one for about $1.80 from New World. They are a bit smaller than the average bar soap so to get the same amount as 1/2 a bar of sunlight soap (as required in this recipe) you will need almost a whole bar (60g out of a total of 80g to be exact, use scales is my advice).

Now, they do contain palm oil and I have given Ecostore a lot of flak in the past about their use of so called 'sustainable' palm oil. But recently Ecostore have been using a programme called GreenPalm. This is how their website describes the programme:

"Ecostore supports the production of sustainable palm oil through the GreenPalm programme. This means that for every tonne of palm oil/palm kernel oil we use in the production of ecostore products we have paid a voluntary premium to a palm oil producer which is operating within the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm oil’s (RSPO) strict guidelines for social and environmental responsibility." - http://www.ecostore.co.nz/about/palmoil.html

The way I understand it is that for every tonne of palm oil Ecostore buys, they send a premium directly to RSPO sustainable growers regardless as to whether Ecostore actually bought any palm oil from those growers. This is necessary because at the moment it is impossible to know which grower grew a particular shipment of palm oil or whether any of it is sustainable. This is because palm oil from different growers is mixed up when it is processed. The GreenPalm programme means that sustainable growers are rewarded despite the lack of traceability in the industry.

This is a major improvement from Ecostore's previous policy ('we're a member of RSPO so it's all ok') but it still relies on the RSPO definitions and policies on what 'sustainable' palm oil is (which are not ideal) and on their auditing system (which, from what I've read is practically non-existent). More on the RSPO here.

So as far as I see it, GreenPalm certified palm oil is a big improvement and I think it is good enough to be supported as a step in the right direction, but it should not stop there!

A shout out to those without motors

Neither of us are cyclists. Sure, we have a bike which we use casually and really need to use more often, but we aren't really cyclists. 
I have some serious respect for those who forgo their motored vehicle and head out on two man-powered wheels every day- especially in a city like Auckland where the motorists, well, aren't very accommodating to say the least. 


So here's to those who choose to power their own mode of transport, here's to those who take one car off the road and here's to those who brave the unforgiving traffic and help to make Auckland and other cities more cycle (and pedestrian) friendly. 


Here's a wee promise too:
We, as drivers, promise to leave lots of room for you when we pass.
We promise to take a breath if we get annoyed and remember that getting annoyed for being 30 seconds later is just plain silly
We promise to look out for you and be as courteous as we would expect you to be if we swapped places

As a footnote, big ups to organisations like Cycle Action Auckland who state that their aim is "to make Auckland a great place to cycle" and they do this by promoting shared road safety and advocating for an improved cycling environment. 

The problem with bath toys...

When bub was around 12 weeks old, we attended a Plunket PEPE course which is designed to help out new mums by providing advice, support and education. The course itself was fantastic, and we would recommend these kinds of courses to just about everyone.

A negative was one comment that a guest speaker said which has been ringing around in my head ever since. She was talking about the importance of getting babies used to water (great stuff) and talked about bath toys. Apparently the ones that have 'squirting capabilities' get really mouldy within a month- even if you sterilise them. Her suggestion was to buy new ones from the $2 shop every month and dump the rest.
It horrified me that she was effectively promoting adding a bunch of these brightly coloured, mostly non-recyclable items to landfill every month. She didn't seem to understand my issue with it either, sadly enough.

So what do you do with a bunch of bath toys you can't use in the bath? It would be great if you could give us some suggestions!

Also, how do you deal with people who just simply dont understand (or want to)?

Thanks!

DIY Dishwasher Powder

We don't have a dishwasher, but Wendyl Nissen has tested this recipe and we trust her. Commercial dishwasher powder is unbelievably toxic so if you have little ones around then you should really give this a try. The recipe can be found on Wendyl Nissen's newletter (I hasn't made it on to her website yet) or get it right here:

Amazing Dishwasher Powder
I've finally been able to test the recipe I have given out before which was sent to me by a reader. It's quite fantastic. I've adjusted it slightly but you'll love it and can be safe in the knowledge that it is cheaper and less toxic than the commercial ones. This does have a little borax in it which is toxic in high doses, but shouldn't be swallowed so do keep this in your old dishwasher powder bottle with a child preventing screw cap on it.

½ cup of borax 

½ cup soda ash (this is powdered washing soda, not the crystals. Try Trade Me or www.lotusoils.co.nz)

¼ cup of citric acid

½ cup salt (not iodised))

10 drops of lemon essential oil 

Place all in a plastic container and shake.

Use 1 Tbsp per load. Use white vinegar in the rinse compartment.

Let us know how it works.

-K

DIY Cleaning Products ep.2

Anyone try the DIY spray cleaner and glass cleaner? If you haven't, you should it's really good. Anyway here's the next one to try. It's a bit more complex and you will need to do some specialist shopping but it is worth it. If you want to try some to see if it works as good as the store bought stuff; you can buy it ready made here, 


(This is another one from Wendyl Nissen by the way)

DIY cleaning products

Have you ever added up how much commercial cleaning products cost? We first noticed when our shopping bill almost doubled every time when needed to buy several products at once! Also there is the environmental and health concerns with all the chemicals in them. There is now lots of 'green' options but they cost even more and a lot of the time just seem to be marketing and stink of green washing. 


There is a alternative that is both cheaper, better for the environment, and your health - making them yourself! All credit for inspiration and these recipes goes to Wendyl Nissen (http://www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz/). First up I'll start with some that you can make with stuff that is already in your cupboard.


Spray Cleaner (replaces spray&wipe, etc)
1 L Water
1-2 Tsp Baking soda  
2 drops of soap/detergent (for ecological niceness use Dr Bronner's Castile liquid soap but anything will work)
10 drops of essential oil of your choice (optional, but it does help it kill bacteria)


Glass Cleaner
650 mL water (or 2 parts)
350 mL white vinegar (or 1 part)
2 drops detergent

The exact amounts are not important for either of these recipes, just get the ratios ruffly right.

We have been using both of these recipes for months now and they work great! They are sooo cheap to make, and most of the ingredients are eaten regularly so they are safe and healthy.

Enjoy the savings!

Fair Trade: Palm Oil?

Those of you that have been following my crusade against all thing palm over the last few months might be surprised that I have found a product containing palm oil that I'm happy to buy. Here it is:
Made by an american company, They are 100% organic and 100% fair trade. Yes they contain palm oil, see more info here. Now you might notice that the fair trade logo is not the usual one that we are used to seeing. They are certified by a fairtrade organisation called 'fair for life' check them out here. 


Why use palm oil in soap? Well one NZ soap company says "Soap without palm oil is like a cake without sugar." and it certainly seems impossible to find a natural soap without palm oil. The reason we are interested in soap of all things is we have recently become interested in making our cleaning products, inspired by Wendyl Nissen. Check out her site here and buy the cool soaps here. Look out for some posts about make your own cleaning products soon!

The Best Fish Guide

In this country, being an island nation, we tend to take our fish for granted. We have lots of coastline and a seemingly abundance of fish in our water. This would be fine if we were the only consumers of fish from our waters, but we are not. Unfortunately for many years our waters have been heavily overfished and some of the methods used are heavily damaging our marine environment.
According to Statistics New Zealand, in 2009 we exported $1302million worth of fish, crusteceans and molluscs.

In our household, one of us doesn't eat fish- period. Though occasionally a rare exception is made for fish caught by a friend.

For anyone concerned about whether the fish you eat is a sustainable choice, we recommend you check out NZ Forest and Bird's 'Best Fish Guide'. There's a wallet guide you can print off so that its always handy for the next time you buy fish.

Please do take some time to check out the information on the Forest and Bird website so that we can all try to make more informed choices when we buy our seafood.

Copyright Lyall Reynolds Photography 2011

Roundtable On Sustainable Palm Oil launch new Logo

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has launched a new logo, Read about it here. No idea if we will see it on products in NZ, but it raises some important issues. If you saw the logo on a product in NZ would it encourage people to buy it? Would that decision be based on sound information or simply because it sounds environmentally friendly? This blog article raises many issues, some of which I will look at here.

Lets get one thing straight, RSPO certified palm oil products are more environmentally friendly than non-certified palm oil products. The question is, are they good enough? I am a big fan of the idea that we don't need to buy ethically perfect products right now (many simply don't exist yet). What we need to do is buy the most ethical product that is available and create demand for positive change. But if palm oil free products are more ethical than RSPO certified products then staying palm oil free still the preferred option.


Whats the problem?

Auckland Zoo says "only around 4% of the world's palm oil is certifiably sustainable and this 4% cannot be traced back to the plantation that produced it... At present, being a member of the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) - an industry led group, not an independent body - is still not a 100% guarantee that palm oil is from a sustainable source"

So even if a product carries the RSPO logo this is no guarantee that all of the palm palm oil used is sustainable. The RSPO at the end of the day is a voluntary, industry led organisation and has limits as to how much change it can make at the local level.


So if you have no palm oil free options then RSPO certified products could be worth buying. Or you could decide that on balance certified palm oil is better than the alternatives as Ecostore do, but I simply do not see how it could be justifed. Ecostore says "The other alternative to palm oil is a petrochemical, but this unsustainable." True, petrochemicals are unsustainable, one day they will run out; but is this a problem? I would rather we ran out of petrochemicals than orangutans. 


I could be wrong here, I'm no expert, what do you think?

Love food hate waste?

On Sunday, I saw four trolley loads worth of bread products being dumped in a skip by a local supermarket. I asked people (on Facebook) why this bread could not perhaps be donated or given away and was told that although some is often donated locally, there are issues of food safety and issues of legality*.

Is it just me or is this a little nuts?

Seeing this certainly got me thinking- not just about the wider wastage of food by large companies, but closer to home- the food we waste in our households.

We all do it. We cook too much, forget to put it away (or perhaps we don't have anywhere to put it) and then we throw it out. Or we buy products on special (coz its cheap!) which we don't use;they go off and then we throw them out. In fact, I know there are food items in our fridge right now which will be going in the bin for tomorrow's rubbish collection. Stuff which we should have frozen but didn't; things which we should have made an effort to use.

So how do we combat this problem?

I have found two great websites which deal with this issue.

Sustainability.govt.nz has a great section on reducing your amount of food waste under 'Shopping'.

Love food hate waste is a website run by a non-profit organisation in the UK. They promote recycling, home composting and most of all, wasting less food.

Both sites have a great section on tips and some of these I have collated below:

• Plan your meals-- we keep meaning to try this.
• Use your leftovers
• Store your food properly
• Check 'Use by' and 'Best Before' dates (and both sites explain the difference between these)

After seeing all of this wastage, We are going to try to dramatically reduce the food waste in our household. Part of this, unfortunately, probably means reducing the amount of baking I do, which for me is quite a big thing. We will try the meal planning idea which has never worked for us, but perhaps we are missing something.

Does anyone have any great ideas on how they have or will reduce the amount of food waste in their household?

Any ideas are greatly appreciated!

*ie if someone got sick from eating old food, the supermarket would be liable. There's probably a lot more to this as well, but this is the information I was told.

Downsizing

In a few months or so, we will have to move house. As much as we would have loved to stay in our current place for a while longer, its just not a possibility. Which is fine, albeit a wee bit stressful.

There is one great advantage to having to move is that it gives us the opportunity to downsize our stuff.

We have too much stuff. There- its been said. We have far too much stuff for 3 people (and one of them is only little). A lot of it, in fact, the majority of it has been given to us at some point.

Its amazing what you can accumulate in a seemingly short space of time. Its also amazing how it, at times, seems to own you. Stacks of things that 'might be useful one day', books read only once, CDs gathering dust, piles of craft supplies which you really need some inspiration to use... stuff which you can't bear to throw out just because you might need it someday.

Herein lies our point: Give the stuff away. For free

There's something so nice about not making a profit on your wares. The rise of Trademe (and other sites) has meant that every man and his dog seems to want to make money off their stuff. It makes us wonder whether the time and effort you end up putting into selling some stuff on Trademe is actually worth it. 

It would be interesting to know whether the use of Trademe (and other similar sites) has affected such organisations like the Salvation Army, Hospice and other organisations which resell donated items.

Freecycle.org is a great website for getting rid of things (and acquiring things you need) for free. Freecycle say they are:

"a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It's all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills."

Essentially its a listing site for free stuff. Wanted and offers. Want something- place a wanted ad; want to get rid of something- place an offered ad. Such a simple concept.

We plan to use it to its full advantage once we find a new place and have to move. Admittedly, we've had more success using the 'offers' category than the 'wanted'- for the most part, if you have something going for free, someone is bound to want to take it off your hands. Anything more substantial (or in better condition) will be donated to the Sallies if they need it. [http://www.salvationarmy.org.nz/giving-back/family-stores/]

Go on, try it: give your acquired crap (or treasure) away.

Cloth Nappy Week, New Zealand

It would seem that this week is the week for Weeks. 


Today marks the start of Cloth Nappy Week, run by a website by the same name and sponsored by, well, practically everyone. www.clothnappyweek.co.nz says:

Cloth Nappy Week 2011 is dedicated to educating and celebrating the benefits of stylish, eco-friendly cloth nappies in New Zealand. Whether you're new to cloth nappies or have a collection that's taking over the nursery, we welcome you! 

There are lots of events on, experts available for advice on the use of cloth nappies and heaps of specials.
As we've said before, we are passionate about cloth nappies and love to walk down the baby aisle in the supermarket and buy NOTHING.

If ever there was a time to give cloth nappies a go (even just a trial) then now is the time!

Gecko thieves jailed - NZ Herald News

Gecko thieves jailed - NZ Herald News

"Two German men who admitted travelling to New Zealand to steal rare native geckos have been jailed."

It's great to see those that seek to plunder our native species for personal gain caught and punished, but four and a half months jail is pathetic, especially given the price these geckos would fetch on the black market. It is sad when foreign collectors place more value on our native species than our law does.

Hopefully the review that is underway will rectify this discrepancy.

Dynamo: Palm Oil Free

We got a reply from Colgate-Palmolive today, and, we quote "Dynamo does not contain any palm oil in its ingredients". So while there is probably cleaning products out there that a better for the environment, palm oil is not one of Dynamo's crimes.

As we went though this process we realised that even so called 'green' companies use palm oil. Ecostore, for example, freely admit as much on their website (http://www.ecostore.co.nz/about/palmoil.html). It seems odd that a 'green' specialist company uses palm oil when a mainstream manufacturer does not, but it is because ecostore are not only 'green' but 'natural'. Dynamo is almost certainly petrochemical based, and ecostore is plant based. The debate about petrochemicals is for a different day, but beware because 'natural' and 'green' are not aways compatible.


We would be remiss not to mention that ecostore are members of the roundtable on sustainable palm oil (www.rspo.org) but ecostore admit that this does not mean that all the palm oil they use is sustainable.

Some things baby... cloth bums... by E

I have to be honest here- it took me a long while to care about my environment and things in it. K had stopped eating fish a long time before I even asked why and I was pretty much a non-thinking consumer. 
While I haven't done a full 180 degree turn on many things, becoming pregnant with bub made me a lot more aware of how I live.


We made the decision to use cloth nappies on our baby from day one. A few people baulked at this idea, imagining the big white towels that our parents generation used. Luckily for us, the modern cloth nappies (MCNs) are quite simply, the bees knees. Its so satisfying walking right past the baby department and not having to buy disposables!


Here's a few reasons why I am a complete cloth bum convert:


1) The sheer expense of disposables is one aspect- www.Snazzipants.co.nz, which is a New Zealand cloth nappy store has estimated

"based on the figure of 8 nappies a day for the first 6 months (you'll probably use more than this for a newborn, but I’m estimating conservatively!), and 7 a day thereafter, using el cheapo disposables worked out to $3670 for 2/12 years or $4510 for three years."

Buying a fulltime set of MCNs is between $300-$500 is a huge saving comparatively. 


2) It's honestly not any extra hassle to put on an extra load of washing per day. Babies, particularly at bub's age, are sticky, grubby creatures so there's always washing to be done anyway! Most of the MCN's available don't need any soaking, so you can just put them straight in the wash.
Disposables recommend (in the fine print) that you flush any solids down the toilet [makes sense huh?] so with MCN's you aren't actually handling any more poo then you would with disposables. 


3) The landfill issue... There are dozens of websites out there which tell you about the world's landfill waste problems, so I wont bother spelling it all out here. 
At our 20 week scan, some kind person had left a balled-up used disposable in the carpark. Nice! What got me is just how big that balled-up plastic nappy was. I started wondering how many a baby would go through in their lifetime and it horrified me- along with making me feel a little sick at someone disposing of what is effectively raw sewage in the carpark...
We can and will re-use the MCN's on our next bub too (whenever that happens)  


4) Toilet Training-  I have heard anecdotal evidence that a bub in cloth nappies is likely to be easier to toilet train as they can tell when they are wet- unlike with many brands of disposables which wick away the moisture. As to whether this is really true, it'll be a wee while before we are able to put this theory to the test! 


5) A colourful cloth nappied bum is cuter! 

A and his cloth covered bum

If you have a bub and haven't tried the way of the cloth, I'd just love to encourage you to do so. :)


-E 

Ingredients lists

We'd be fools to not start with the list on the back of the products... which we nearly didn't do!

As mentioned in the previous post, the Auckland Zoo website has a great 'shopping guide' to help you find non palm oil products. At the very end of the list they have a section designed to help you look at ingredients lists on products to find what is palm oil by a different name:

"Palm oil kernel, anything containing the words “Palmitate” or “Palmate”, Elaeis gunieensis (taxonomic name for palm oil), Hydrated Palm Gylcerides, Hexadecanoic or Palmitic Acid."

 They also list ingredients which might be palm oil:

"Vegetable oil, Anything containing the words “stearate, stearyl”, Anything containing the words “cetyl, cetearyl”, Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (SLS), Sodium Laureth Sulphate, Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate (SDS or NaDS), Sodium or Calcium Stearoyl Lactylate, Steareth -2 and Steareth -20, Emulsifier 422, 430-36, 465-67, 470-8, 481-483, 493-5, 570"

To be honest, its a little scary reading the back of these products. They seem more like a chemistry textbook than something you'd put in your hair (Pantene), wash your clothes with (Dynamo) or even scarier, wipe your babies bum with (Huggies). We realise that these are mostly just fancy names for some pretty standard ingredients, but still!

Pantene: Ammonium laureth sulfate can be derived from coconut oil or palm oil, so we will be writing to the manufacturer to clarify which one.

Huggies wipes: It looks like Huggies wipes are palm oil free, Potassium Laureth Phosphate could be a problem but to be sure we will email the company.

Dynamo: New Zealand's labelling laws mean that if a product isn't used on the body or consumed, a company does not legally need to list the ingredients on the bottle. We did find this online though, thanks to the website listed on the bottle itself! Here is the link for your reference: http://www.colgate.com.au/app/Colgate/AU/HC/Product-Ingredients/Dynamo.cvsp nothing seems to contain palm oil, but we will write to the manufacturer to be sure. Good on Colgate-Palmolive PTY LTD. for providing more information than legally required to.

We will email these three companies and let you all know how we get on. If there are any products which anyone wants us to look into, please let us know and we'll do our very best!

Cheers

Welcome and Palm Oil

Hi and welcome to our blog. Join us in finding better ways to live.


Recently we have become concerned about the use of palm oil in food and other products. Palm oil is responsible for massive deforestation in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia, forests which are home to some of the worlds most endangered species such as Sumatran Tigers, Asian rhinos, Asian elephants and Orangutans. The problem is that palm oil is found in 10% of all grocery products and does not have to be labeled (In NZ at least). More in formation about palm oil can be found at Auckland Zoo's website: http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/conservation/buy-palm-oil-free/palm-oil-facts.aspx 
The first step to eliminating palm oil from our household is buying products from Auckland Zoo's palm oil free shopping guide: http://www.aucklandzoo.co.nz/media/701178/palm_oil_free_shopping_list.pdf
So here is a list of 'suspect' products that we buy. Join us in investigating these products for palm oil:
Dynamo laundry detergent 
Huggies unscented baby wipes
Pantene shampoo and conditioner


Buy Palm Oil Free NZ Facebook  page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Buy-Palm-Oil-Free/105046979577360