Community Love

In the past couple of weeks I (Tessa) feel like the Truman Tribe has nestled a little deeper into the local Bryndwr community. As always, natural disasters certainly don’t hurt the bonding process!

Last week’s 6.0 acted as another spur for us to receive, and reach out with some awesome neighborly love. Our neighbors next door on our left lacked a cell phone which was urgently needed to contact their family up north (it got dropped down the loo and needed to dry). With a short scout around flats we know in the neighborhood, we located a phone and charger that could be loaned. It was good to be able to finally return a favor- we have been the recipients of their luscious tomatoes crops for some time now. Can’t wait for our brasicas to come up, then hopefully we can show off some equally luscious broccoli to them! Phoebe and Shanti used the post-earthquake community vibe to introduce themselves to some folks our age who also live on Truman road. They secured the friendship with some vegan chocolate muffins which they took round later that night.

The next door family who I am house sitting for while they make an emergency trip back home gave our flat a call from Afghanistan just to make sure we were all OK after last Monday’s shake up. Our relationship with this family has been our most awesome community experience to date. Before they left, they would always pop over with fresh chilies, beans and peaches from their garden for us (and a big stash of hand picked walnuts on one occasion!). We were always welcomed over to their house for cardamon spiced tea and amazing meals, always eaten sitting squat legged on their huge floor rug. Their three kids popped over almost everyday to hang out. I have to admit, we exploited their labor somewhat… they helped us garden, clean and cook. In our defense, they love it. One time Wellner had to tell them that if they didn’t stop fighting about who could dry the dishes, NO ONE would be able to help! When the family urgently needed to make a trip home, we were able to arrange the flights to Kabul and negotiate with the travel agents for them. Hopefully they wont be gone too long!

Shirley and Gabby

Beautiful Wellner

We have now hosted three community craft club evenings in our lounge, and we are loving it. So far (apart from various people from flats in the neighborhood), our only regular craft group attender from the community is an AMAZING lady from down the road, who speeds along the footpath on her mobility scooter and knits and chats with us non-stop. We have also been welcomed at her house several times (and Shanti and Phoebe dropped in after the quake to make sure things were OK). We hope she will be our collective adopted grandmother. At the last craft club, she offered to darn my winter hat for me, which she returned a few days later. I can’t even tell where the hole was! Total win!
 

Right. That’s enough for one blog- our awesome updates on Phoebe’s community Zumba classes will have to wait for another entry.

Thoughtful Food

As a flat, we have been having some interesting and controversial discussions around what we eat. Being mostly students, the economic factor is quite important. To accommodate this we buy bulk goods from Bin Inn. Gabby has beautifully organized our pantry.

 Although many of us would like to buy organic as well, this is not financially feasible for us at this time. We would love to Not have nasty chemicals on our fresh foods. In the paper recently, there have been a few articles around Bees! and how our farming practices have been killing off all the wild bees with insecticides and pesticides.
Some bee facts:Bees! are brilliant
and related article:Bees need on farm help

Another factor for all of us is the ethics and environmental impact of the food we eat. As all of us are either vegetarian or vegan, we take our food quite seriously, baking in particular ;). Although, Wellner, cheeky monkey, has been posing some questions around nutrition and a vegan diet, which has got many of us up in arms around the kitchen table. She is currently reading a book called - The Vegetarian Myth.  I have read very few positive reviews on this book - but it's great to discuss some of the ideas.

Here is a few pages from the book :lierre keith - why this book?
And some reviews and responses from vegans and vegetarians :  a vegan dietitian's perspective 
annnnnd :skeptical

We all agreed that if had the resources to own a lifestyle block, we would be more likely to eat animal products - as we would know and be able to manage the environmental impact of the animals - and also be sure that they were 'happy chickens' or 'happy cows'. For the moment however, being vegetarian is a easy way to know that our impact on the environment is minimal.  We do admit, in some ways this does not go far enough (as Lierre Keith does point out in her book) alongside being vegetarian it is important to know Where and What unseen impacts landed them in our super markets the fresh foods are coming from - Bananas - from where? Costa Rica? What are the environmental and social impacts of this industry?  Also, buying vegetables out of season - what are the impacts? Big questions!

More on this topic to come :)

Sprouts of Joy!

We have been experimenting with the seeds that were given to us at the eco-my-flat workshop. Our first few were semi-successful - they did sprout, the parsley seeds in particular are looking very happy. The time frames were much longer than anticipated and we think this is because we have not kept them in an even temperature. They have been sitting on our kitchen window, which gets a lot of sun, but at night, they have little insulation.

happy parsley!

 For our next sprout experiment, that Gabby has just planted,  we plan on keeping them much warmer and watering them a little less, as we experienced some mold in some of the bean seeds we sprouted.

We shall let you know how they go.. Yum yum joyful, nutritious sprouts :)

Darn!

I am a darn queen. I recently taught myself to darn, it is surprizing easy. Fabulous skill. I have darned a woolen hat and sweater, where the alternative was to throw them away.

Here is the video I watched to gather this skill :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nY1jTVyBE0

the darned sweater

Hair ye hear ye

Gabby here telling you about my hair adventures. I used to wash my hair (involving shampoo and conditioner) every second or third day. Then last year I started leaving it longer before washing it and I gradually worked up to once a week. At one of the Eco-My-Flat workshops Sharon McIver commented on how she only washes her hair with cider vinegar. So I decided to try this too. I actually ended up just leaving my hair for 16 days. No shampoo, no conditioner and no water either. It did get quite oily but I brushed this through to the tips twice daily. My hair started behaving differently. The top bit stopped being fluffy and thus became neat and tidy-looking. The tips became really curly all the time, whereas they used to only curl immediately after they had been washed. Anyway, I decided to wash my hair 2 days ago because there was a buildup of stuff on my scalp. I couldn’t be bothered to use cider vinegar so when in the shower I just rubbed my scalp vigorously under the hot water. I also did a blast of higher pressure water (we have such high pressure – it’s awesome, but perhaps not that eco? Depends on habits). That worked really well and the result is really nice feeling hair J, although I may need to use some conditioner because the ends are a tad dry. I’ll tackle that issue later. 

Phoebe has also been not using shampoo or conditioner for the past fortnight. Instead she has been rubbing her scalp under the shower. She has really short hair so the oils get distributed more evenly. It’s awesome that we could stop buying shampoo (& potentially conditioner). It’s one less impact on society J

Lovely eco-neighbours

The Quiet Place of Emma, Jolyon and Andrea is a little stroll down the road from us. We have agreed on an eco-barter exchange with them; they use our laundry machine - and in exchange we can visit for cups of tea, have had some crochet tutorials from Emma, and generally drop around for a cup of sugar or anything we might need :)

Thanks gorgeous eco-neighbours! :)

Community

As a flat, we have been making efforts to get to know our neighbours and people in the surrounding neighbourhood..

We have a great relationship with both our neighbours, particularly on the one side. (Tessa is an angel and currently house-sitting for them) We've been discussing having a 'Truman dinner' and meeting more amazing people. Although we may wait until the spring to host this.

Phoebe and I (Cassie)  came up with some 'out reach ideas', we dropped some fliers around our area letting people know.  Phoebe is a Zumba Goddess (qualified instructor) and has been teaching free classes at the church on the corner every friday.. and I, along with Gabby and Tessa have been hosting a craft club every two weeks on a Tuesday evening. Both activities have been sucessful in that people we didn't know from the community have come along and also - they've both been Fun!

The Gorgeous Garden Development

Tessa and Phoebe

Tessa and her cloche

We have been putting some love in to our front vege beds. The spinach and small lettuces were looking mighty sad and being nibbled by (according to our neighbour who saw the culprits first hand) a family of birds. So we set about creating some protection for our poor plants, not only from the birds but also the cool winter temperatures. We built two cloches, rudimentary in design, (and occasionally the wind blows them away but they are mostly present) however, the plants seem MUCH happier for their little houses.

Bean poles

 We also set about weeding the back vege garden and sticking in poles for our wee beans to climb up. And we put some leaf mulch around the bed to provide a bit more insulation for our growing plants. They're looking good despite some very frosty mornings recently. Go little plants go! Whoooooo! (as Phoebe might say)

The Beginning

Joyful Tessa

Shanti and Phoebe - ?

Welcome! to our blog, our little insights, our awesome patented form of crazy hippiness, our struggles and delights, our eco-dramas, our idealism (when Shanti becomes the Benevolent Dictator of the World everything will be perfect) and our deep cynicism (oh, the state of the world.. tut tut)   and our gorgeous family of flatmates (I heart you all) We are the Truman Tribe - Gabby, Phoebe, Tessa, Wellner, Cassie and Shanti!

The Truman Tribe