The Great Unravelling Like the beautiful world I grew up in, my baggy old moth-eaten jumper has seen better days and I’m not prepared to wear it any more. It’s too precious to destroy, so today, for #AYearInADay, I decided to pull it apart and recreate it. My initial thought Read more…
Growing and making ‘real’ tea! I’ve been exploring ways to wean myself off tea-bags and my favourite herb tea has become a freshly-picked combination of lemon verbena, lemon grass, lemon balm and mint. A few years ago I planted a few Camellia sinensis trees and, though it’s not Read more…
Creating a mush-room I was soooo inspired when I first saw the ‘mush-room’ in Joost Bakker’s Greenhouse at Federation Square in Melbourne. You can view it on Gardening Australia. “Every house should have a bedroom, a bathroom and a mush-room!” Bakker describes it as being part of an ecosystem Read more…
Today I made 21 reusable makeup remover pads Yesterday I was not a sew-er, today I am, and all I can say is I don’t just LOVE Local, I ADORE Local! This morning I pulled an old overlocker out of our attic, but didn’t have a clue how to use Read more…
Dressmakers block your ears and eyes! Tonight I was feeling really disappointed that the elastic in a pair of my favourite old flannelette pyjama pants had totally given up the ghost. I was contemplating cutting them up to use in other ways, but every option definitely felt like downcycling a Read more…
Recycling Flourescent Lights to keep toxic mercury out of our air, soil and water Well these last few weeks have truly been a case of ‘it never rains but it pours’! While we’ve been very fortunate through the recent rain crisis, we did have a loud sizzle one night that Read more…
\ B-cycle: Australia’s first national battery recycling scheme Last night there was a blackout when a tree fell on a transformer in the Upper Mountains! It is sooo frustrating when everything’s dark to reach for your torch, only to find the batteries flat! Fortunately, we now have portable solar lights, Read more…
Recycling glasses If there’s one thing I haven’t needed for quite some time it’s sunglasses. So today I took another opportunity to declutter and make sure resources are being used to their highest capacity, by sorting through all my sunglasses and reading glasses and only keeping what I really need. Read more…
Recycling pens and markers It wasn’t until Sue started talking to me at Landcare on Saturday that I began to think about all the old markers and pens lying around the house. When my kids left home, their old pens and textas didn’t. After starting A Year in a Day Read more…
The world’s deadliest animal Do you know what the deadliest animal on earth is? … it’s the mosquito! Over the last ten years the increase in mosquito-borne diseases has increased significantly in Australia and is expected to continue. We are home to over 300 varieties of mosquito but there are Read more…
Public Health Alert for Japanese encephalitis and other mosquito-borne viruses Yesterday I read that the mosquito-borne virus Japanese encephalitis has been declared an issue of national significance, with eight cases and one death recorded in the last month. Cases are being detected in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. These are the Read more…