Wednesday 30 March 2011

Footprint 15: Getting into the swing of things

One of the very best things about growing one's own veggies is that one knows exactly when they were picked and exactly how old they are.  I have enough radishes now to pick more than I can eat, without living on a subsistence diet of only radishes.  Radishes are interesting.  They outgrow the ground.  At some point the round red root bit pushes its way out of the soil, and only the thin little white tail remains embedded in the ground.  This means that it needs to be picked, otherwise the radish itself will spoil.  So what I have learnt to do is pick them, and then put them into a jar of water, instead of putting them into the fridge.  They stand on the counter for a day or two, and the leaves remain fresh:
Radishes in a jar
 As can be seen, I am losing the war against the caterpillars.  Some of these leaves are going to have to be composted.  On the caterpillar issue, I understand that as long as there is the tiniest bit of green available to the radish it will carry on growing.  So I have decided to leave the caterpillars to munch away on the green part of the radish.  They seem to leave the radish itself alone.  As I watch the butterflies chasing each other around the garden, I figure it is worth it to have munched leaves.  One just has to pick the caterpillars off before washing them and preparing them for the kitchen.

Here are the remains of the alfalfa and beet sprouts:
Alfalfa and Beet Sprouts
Despite the fact that beet sprouts take ten days to look like this, they are pretty enough to persevere.  And if one has other sprouts going at the same time, it is just one more bottle to worry about.  These sprouts have contributed to two meals so far.  I figure that that is a fairly good return on the investment of two tablespoons of sprouts.

Here are this week's sprouts:
Fenugreek, sunflower, lentil and aduki beans

Fenugreek is going to become a standard for me.  They are very tasty, as are alfalfa sprouts.  I didn't have enough room to repeat alfalfa, as I want to experiment with others as well, and have decided that four concurrent bottles is more than enough.  I purchased the hulled sunflower seed and aduki beans from our local health store.  The lentils are black lentils from Imbo, purchased at a local grocery store - the same lentils that I cooked up for a lovely supper this evening.

And here is a new method of sprouting:
Rocket, sunflower and pumpkin

The two methods are different.  The bottle method focuses almost entirely on the root of the sprout.  This method is what is known as micro leaves, where the plant grows until the first leaves have developed.  What it basically entails is a large recycled plastic container filled with water.  Into this goes a smaller recycled plastic container with drainage holes pierced into the bottom.  One then places a growing medium, which could be compost, vermiculite, perlite, river sand, or any combination of those.  I chose vermiculite only, as this means not having to wash soil off the sprouts once they are ready to eat.  Also, the vermiculite can be re-used with very little effort.  These take longer, as one waits for the leaves to develop.  I will take a piccie when they are further along in their development, and record the time that they take.  There is one other major difference between bottled sprouts and these sprouts.  The bottled sprout process takes place predominantly in the dark.  These sprouts need light.  At the moment they are on my window sill.  I plan to take them out into the sun when I think about it.

One last little note.  If one looks up Tansy as a deterrent for flies on the internet, the jury seems to be out on whether it works or not.  I now know it works.  I had a major fruit fly infestation hovering permanently around my worm farm and on two occasions had to pick maggots out of it.  I purchased a Tansy plant, and put it, still in its black growing bag, onto a plant saucer on top of the bin.  By that evening, the bin was pretty much fly free.  Although this plant is classified in the United States as a noxious weed, it was once so revered in the UK that it was considered a 'must' in every herb garden, for human consumption.  I am not sure that it is going to become a gourmet delicacy for me.  It is going to be a 'must' in my garden for its impact on flies.

Although a lot is happening in the garden,  news on that needs to wait for a future post. 

Monday 28 March 2011

Footprint 14: More on Sprouts

Sprouting is very rewarding:
                                              On the left are alfalfa sprouts.  On the right are beet sprouts.

There are quick turn-around sprouts, like fenugreek [picture in an earlier post], and alfalfa, both of which take about three days to sprout.  Then there are the slower sprouts, like beet, which takes about ten days.  From the picture above, hopefully you will agree that the ten days are worth it.

So next time you invite someone round for supper, depending on the advance notice that you have, start a bottle of sprouts.  They are an enhancement to any salad, and indeed, any meal.

Sunday 27 March 2011

Footprint 13: A quantum leap

Last night, for the first time, I honoured Earth Hour.  It was a lonely hour.  All my toys, my mental distractions, being my books, my board games and my dabblings in writing were not available to me.  All my toys operate in the false light of electricity in the night.  I wandered around the small new beginnings in my back garden, with my faithful friend, Skattebol, and savoured my new life which is just starting.  It was an hour of reflection... a time to gather my thoughts on the new direction that my life is taking.

Interesting then, that this morning, I should randomly pick up one of my treasures, Gaia's Garden,  and randomly look up Gaia's Garden on Google, and stumble upon one of the most illuminating texts that I have read in a long time: Finding a Sense of Surplus.

In this moment, on this day, I understand the meaning of the proverb.... 'The darkest hour is before dawn'.

That a seeming 'disaster', in the name of retrenchment should bring me to such a dawning realisation is one of the gifts that life has given me.  As I write this blog, a mail has just this moment come through, the lead-line of which reads 'God can't hand you anything new until you let go of what you're holding'.

May I treasure this gift for the rest of my life.  In the moments of doubt that surely lie ahead, I will return to this blog and I will return to the text above to reassure myself that although I stand alone, I am not alone on this planet.

I have renamed this blog in honour of this moment, so that every time I write on this blog, I will think of this day.
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This is an addendum to this post.  I received a third confirmation that the path ahead is the path for me.  How kind He is that He should take time to guide me on my way.

Saturday 26 March 2011

Footprint 12: A lovely healthy supper

I am eating early, as I plan to honour Earth Hour this evening.  I will do that by switching off my lights, and yes, my pc too, and going outside into the garden that I have come to love, and celebrating that hour with my garden and my dog.  There won't even be a book!

Having spent the day with my nose very firmly planted in my treasure trove of books, I didn't really plan anything for supper, so I scrounged for leftovers.  This is what I came up with:

Some gem squash, fenugreek sprouts and dhania and a dob of butter, flavoured with mace, milled black pepper and ground salt.  Nutmeg would have been a little overpowering.  Very tasty it was too!  And made in literally minutes.  It just needed to be heated through.  I will bear this in mind as a mixture for a future fritter.  Some nice goat cheese would have made a lovely addition.

Footprint 11: First Step into Knowledge Store

My Treasure Chest arrived!  These are my first acquisitions into my new life.  I already have loads of gardening books of the common and garden variety, so to speak.  These are my first more modern 'specialist' type books.  Several of them are from the Northern Hemisphere.  That is not going to be an issue.  It is perfectly possible to convert January into July and so on.  In no particular order, let me introduce you:







I figure that that is me done for the weekend, and some days, weeks, months, years to come!  Not sure I will be blogging for a day or two, unless I simply can't resist imparting some hidden gem within these lofty tomes.

Friday 25 March 2011

Footprint Ten: More First Steps

Yesterday evening was a series of more new steps.

I prepared a planter and planted my first spring onions.  I prepared a planter and planted some more carrots.
I planted my first garlic cloves.  Some of these are tucked in with the garlic chives, which are currently flowering:
I now have two broad beans.  Here is one of them, next to the pea:

Having learnt that Nasturtiums are very handy plants for warding off unwanted predators, I tucked some nasturtium seeds into existing decorative tubs, and prepared another planter just for nasturtiums.  Tansy has made it onto the wanted list, as this will help too. 

Although the liquid soap spray did not get rid of the caterpillars on the radish, no more eggs have been laid.  I am hoping that this is a deterrent, and will experiment further with it as time goes by.  I picked the leaves with the caterpillars off and put them in a part of the erf which has not yet been cultivated.  Hopefully they will become beautiful butterflies to pollinate plants into the future.

I have learnt that baking soda does a very good job of removing brown staining on pots.

And here, just for sommer, are some geraniums on my windowsill:

Thursday 24 March 2011

Footprint Nine: Apple Chutney

I finally got around to the Apple Chutney [see recipe on Recipes page]. 
Here is the chutney in progress, with all ingredients added:


And here is the finished product:


This is definitely a repeatable experience.  The process behaved exactly as the recipe said it would. It took between 1.5 and 2 hours to get to the right consistency.  The only issue now is to wait out the recommended three months before sampling.

Footprint Eight: Another milestone on the road to self-sufficiency

This evening, I made up a lovely meal using some of the products of my labours:
  Some fresh runner beans [bought, not grown];
  Some left over cooked mince;
  Some tomato jam [used like chutney];
  Some rice spice [the nice dried onion spice that one gets in supermarkets];
  Some ground salt, ground black pepper and some paprika.

Just before serving, I included a handful of fenugreek sprouts, which were in the pot long enough to heat
through, but which were still crunchy.  It was a lovely supper, with the added benefit of knowing that I had contributed to at least two of the ingredients - the tomato jam and the sprouts.  This is another milestone on the road to self-sufficiency.

Footprint Seven: The enemy is out there!

I guess the honeymoon period is over.  Sigh.  The past few days have been interesting.  I wonder what communication system there is amongst insects?  Clearly the word has gone out that this particular little garden has some scrumptious yummies growing in it.

The worm bin:
I am meticulous about not putting anything animal in the worm bin, except for egg shells.  No meat, no dairy, cooked or uncooked.  In theory this ensures no maggots.  Not true!  I discovered maggots in the bottom working tray.  They must have fallen through from the upper working tray, which is where all the feeding is happening at the moment.  For the past couple of days, every so often I have gone outside and fished out maggots.  There must have been over 50!  I think that they are all gone now.  I fished the last one out this morning.  I think it was dead.  I have added more fruit, but will now be very careful to cover the fruit with damp newspaper.  Hopefully that will prevent fruit flies from breeding in there.

The carrots:
This morning I found two rather large garden snails in one of the pots with carrots in it.  These two snails had mown down most of the carrots in the pot.  When I looked carefully at these snails, which up until yesterday had seemed fairly harmless, their shells looked like army helmets.  Interesting how one's perspective changes dependent on the scenario.  I fished them out and put them in amongst the scurvy weed.  They are welcome to consume all of the scurvy weed.  Judging from the number of snail shells that I find when I clear a pot of scurvy weed, it is popular with snails, if not beneficial.  I wonder if someone would rent me a duck or two to eat all the snails in my garden?

The radishes:
Something has laid thousands of tiny black eggs on the leaves.  When I say tiny, they are barely discernible with the naked eye [well certainly my naked eye - I can barely see without my glasses :)].  When these tiny black eggs hatch, the smallest little yellow caterpillars emerge.  However small these little caterpillars are, they are voracious eaters.  Almost overnight, the leaves on the radishes disappeared.  I sprayed them with a spray made up of washing liquid and water.  This does not seem to have been effective.  I have removed all the leaves with evidence of caterpillars or eggs, and will check later today to see whether the radishes are now caterpillar free.  I do have some nasturtiums growing, so perhaps I will try nasturtium tea, and see if that will help.

The mustard: 
One whole mustard plant has simply disappeared.  There are skinny little stalks protruding from the ground.  I looked really, really hard but can't see anything that could have devoured the leaves.  I notice rather large holes in the leaves of several of the other mustard plants as well.  The good news is that they must be tasty.  Hope I get to try them before they are all snacked away.

Monday 21 March 2011

Footprint Six: Time Out

Today in South Africa is Human Rights Day:  a lovely public holiday.  A perfect day to consolidate, which is what I did.  It started with a cup of coffee, picking a few radishes, breakfasting on toast and home made marmalade, and finding new discoveries in the garden.  

This was followed by a walk on Dogs Beach with my dog, Skattebol.  She is a delight to walk with.  All she really cares about is her ball.  She shows little interest in other dogs.  There is nothing quite as enjoyable as throwing a ball for her, watching her run for it, and then turn with love and triumph glowing from her eyes as she runs back to show me how clever she is.

A small piece of kelp made it into the boot of my car as we left.  This will go into a bucket where it will decompose and become food for my plants.

The rest of the day was spent doing odd chores around the house, and consolidating where we are in the garden.  

My first pea seed, planted a week ago has emerged.  There is baby spinach in the background and on the left:

All three ginger roots are now protruding above the ground:



Here is the swiss chard and radishes planted a week ago:



Here are some of the carrots.  The carrots are the barely discernible green hairs:


And here is one of the pots of mustard greens:


What is a constant source of delight to me is that if anyone had said to me three months ago that the emergence of a plant from a seed, a sliver as fine as a hair, yet so much more fragile, would give me so much pleasure, I would have laughed, somewhat deprecatingly.  

Yet here I am, picking stray bugs and spiders out of my worm bin, gazing in awe at a plant, literally as fine as a hair, which has emerged from a seed smaller than the head of a pin, and being astonished that in a few months time it will be a carrot; experiencing delight when all three ginger roots planted are now growing, and making home made preserves and bread.


The shifting sands of time and experience make me wonder sometimes, this time with awe and astonishment, that life would bring me to this beautiful place of peace and surrender to Mother Nature.

Sunday 20 March 2011

Footprint Five: Herbs: A leap into the senses

One of the first things that I did was to acquire some herbs, mostly for the kitchen, some for the garden and one just for me.  The one just for me is a rose geranium.  Every time I go out into the garden, I brush my hand over this plant and it gives off the most heavenly smell.

                                                     Rose geranium surrounded by Lollo Rossa lettuce

Other kitchen herbs acquired include mint, oregano, thyme and basil.
                                                                                 Mint

                                                    Basil on my window sill with Bond, the cat

The basil, despite the fact that it looks so lush, has provided pickings almost daily. 

                                                              Thyme with Lollo Rosa lettuce

The herbs have given me endless joy.  I note that the lettuce is starting to drown out the thyme, but not for long.  Without a doubt, the lettuce is ready to be made up into a scrumptious salad.

A little project which has proved very successful is ginger.  I acquired some root from the local supermarket and planted it in some nice rich soil in a milk crate lined with plastic.  I have placed this under some thick trees and shrubs so that it gets filtered sunlight.  I am now the proud owner of two ginger plants.  Again, grace needs to be extended to Mother Nature.  These plants will die back in the winter, and then proceed, hopefully with vigorous growth in Spring and Summer, after which I will have fresh ginger available for the kitchen.

Another herb which is waiting patiently to be planted is comfrey.  This one is for the garden, and of course, for me.  I have not taken a piccie of it as it is not yet in its final home.  It is waiting for the compost heap to be established.  I will plant it nearby so that it gets lots of nutrient and is handy for when I need a compost activator.

There are so many herbs on the acquisition list, amongst them Lemon Grass, Melissa, Borage and Tarragon.  It is not a good time now, as we are heading into winter.  I will wait until the summer and either acquire them then, or grow from seed.  More on this later when it happens.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Footprint Four: Composting: A little step with huge return

This composting thing has me fascinated.  I bought a worm farm in July last year.  Besides recycling absolutely everything, this was the first 'go green' step that I took, and the first serious commitment to a better garden.  It was also the first thing that taught me that Mother Nature does things in her own sweet time, but as she does them, she does them properly.

In terms of the worm farm, the worms are slowly but surely working their way up to the second working tray.  I am hoping to be in a position to release the full working tray within the next month.  On the whole, they are fit, fat and happy.  I find that as long as I do what is good for them, they are effortless, bug free and odour free.

With the increased focus on a productive veggie patch, the need for compost has grown somewhat.  So these are the steps that I have taken:

As part of clearing space, I have had to take a very serious look at a resident in my garden called Commelina Cyanea, or scurvy weed.  Left to its own devices and with a little bit of water, this plant takes over one's garden.  If one has no interest in one's garden, then it is a nice plant to have, as it covers ground quickly, looks very green and has small, attractive blue flowers with prominent yellow stamens.  As named, it grows like a weed.  The problem with it is trying to get rid of it.  It is not recommended to put this in one's compost heap, as it will simply take up residence there and continue to spread.  It is also not recommended to send this off to the local dump, as this makes it someone else's problem.  What I have done is put it in a bucket in the garage.  Over time [a year, I understand - Mother Nature doing her thing again], it will die off never to emerge again.  What is left over can then be used as compost.  Fortunately, over time, it compacts, so one can keep adding more as it pops up in the garden.

Then there is plectranthus;  a similar issue to Commelina, but less of a weed.  My plectranthus grows quite prolifically indoors, having become a ground cover to my indoor plants.  Two weeks ago I gave it a haircut wherever it happened to be, and started another bucket with the same purpose as for Commelina.

The next step is to build a frame into which to put garden and kitchen waste which is too much, or wrong, for the worm farm.  There is a process to this.  First one starts to collect that which is needed for the compost - larger items of kitchen waste, and acid kitchen waste like citrus and allium skins and greens - newspaper - grass cuttings - leaves - branches cut into smaller pieces.  As I do not generate that much waste, I acquired for myself a bag of hay which is waiting in the garage to be composted.  The idea is to put all the waste down in layers in order to speed the composting process.

This too, had it's moment of mirth.  For the first time in seventeen years, as a consequence of the hay, I acquired a rat.  At first it was quite scary.  The rat took up residence in the garage along with the bag of hay.  The garage is quite a busy place in my home.  It provides shelter for my dog when I am not at home and provides storage for what would normally go into a garden shed.  The only thing it does not do is house the car. 

After some research on the web, it became apparent that rats to not like cat pee.  So I decanted some of the damp granules from my cat sandboxes into a used plastic veggie tray and put it behind the bag of hay.  The rat has left.  I don't use poisons in my garden as I have a dog and cats.  I am very aware of the birds and the myriads of beneficial insects which would be negatively impacted by the use of poison.  I am even more aware of it now that I am growing food in the soil.

Once I have cleared a section at the side of my house, I am going to plant broad beans to grow through the winter.  The purpose of the beans is less to do with harvesting the beans, than plowing back the foliage for use as green manure.  Broad beans will grow in winter.  The ground will then become useful next summer, and can be incorporated into an expanded veggie garden.

Composting is a broad and interesting subject, with many different ways of approaching the improvement of one's soil.  This is the most important step in veggie gardening, as any gardener will know.

Footprint Three: Sprouting: One Small Step for Man

Over the decades, I have periodically dabbled with sprouts.  You must understand that whilst dabbling, there was no urgent need to increase one table spoon of sprouts into a salad to feed an army.  So the dabbling came and went in fits and starts.

Necessity, being the mother of invention, has changed the need.  Although not urgent, finding ways to make five fishes and five loaves feed me for the rest of time has taken on a certain appeal.

So sprouting is now back in fashion.  A few days ago, I dug out four empty Nescafe coffee bottles [those were the days, my friend, when Nescafe Gold made it effortlessly into the grocery trolley in armies].  I cut four squares of cheese cloth and made drainage lids for the jars, and then dug out some health seeds, some of which were designed expressly for sprouting, and some, as I discovered along the way, were not.


The four that first came to hand were, in alphabetical order:  Beet, Fenugreek, Linseed and Wheat.  So a healthy couple of tablespoons of each went each into their own jar and got soaked for a while which is how one starts sprouts.

Imagine my surprise when I went to drain them so that they could stand overnight, and I found that the linseeds were floating in a vast quantity of gooey, oily slime!  When I say vast quantity, all of the water in the jar had somehow been converted into something that belonged in a Sci Fi movie.  I could not drain the goo through the cheese cloth lid.  I persevered, and finally settled all four bottles back into their drainage basket, and then researched this Sci Fi phenomenon on the internet.

The results were not encouraging.  Half of the sprout proponents advocated linseed sprouts as very healthy.  The other half said, 'No, don't sprout!  Linseeds produce Cyanide'!  I have decided to persevere anyway.  If these poor little seeds, that are only the size of a pin head, manage to sprout in all of that goo, then they deserve to be savoured and enjoyed.

Two days have passed now.  All the other bottles are starting to germinate, and the handful of seeds at the bottom are starting to consume empty bottle space.  The linseeds remain stubbornly silent on the sprouting issue, although they remain prolific in the production of slime. 
                                                                              Fenugreek sprouts

I'll update this with the results of my linseed sprouting experiment, given that I am alive to tell the tale.

Footprint Two: Preserving: Not such Baby Steps

Ok, so I bought this bag of oranges, and 6.5kgs of apples, and oh, did I mention the 2kgs of tomatoes [not the jam ones that I pureed last weekend, the 2kgs that I bought this morning whilst buying bottles for my preserve spree].

Right, so I bought 12 honey jars and 2 humongous console bottles with twist off caps and nifty lid inserts – you know, the real McCoy.  In my minds eye I have this picture of those large preserve bottles that one sees in delis with a delightful array of cucumbers, onions, garlic, chilli, peppers, and interesting black [pepper corns], yellow [mustard seeds], green [cardamom] and brown [coriander seeds] round things floating elegantly in the jar.

Now I am ready.  I have spent two hours so far doing some marmalade.  I only have about another 4 hours to go tomorrow.  I have managed to consume six oranges and three lemons.  I have an overflowing pot [very large pot], so will probably fill about 10 of the honey jars with my marmalade and still have about 40 oranges left. 
                                                                  Marmalade - a work in progress

I did think about using the console bottles, but it occurred to me that I would have to pick them up once they are full.  This might be beyond me.

On Sunday, I’ll start on the tomatoes and make tomato jam, which fortunately includes shredded apple.  This should account for about two apples, and maybe another 10 jars?
The finished product so far - on the left are six and then some tomato jam preserves.  On the right are nine marmalade preserves.

On Monday, if I can still stand, that is, I’ll start on the apple chutney, although I think I might have to go back and buy another 500 honey jars.  There are only 80 apples in the box, so 500 jars should be enough.

And whilst I am buying the jars, I can get those watermelons.  Two nice big ones for the price of one.  I can make waatlemon konfyt out of the skins.....

Footprint One: Gardening: Baby Steps

One way of reducing cost is to grow one's own food.  Well!  That is such a short sentence.  Yet the topic is boundless.  I have no doubt that one could spend 18 hours a day reading about this for ten years, still learn on day 365 of the eleventh year and onwards through the rest of one's life.  The topic is so vast.

As you read this, bear in mind that until now I have been one of the people that plants hide from when I visit a nursery - a bit like the little girl in the dental surgery in Finding Nemo.  Plants know when people don't have a clue what they are doing.

My first personal challenge is that I have a small suburban plot of ground, most of which is consumed by house.  There is so little open space left.  Also, I live in a seaside resort, in what, once upon a time, was a river bed, back in the days when earth was still deciding what would be land and what would be lake.  The consequence of this is that the soil is very poor.  It is sandy and acidic.  To boot, the resort where I live, vies with Port Elizabeth for the windiest place in South Africa.  So gardening is fraught with challenges.

Enter Square Foot Gardening!  What a wonderful innovation.  There is almost no excuse for not achieving some level of self sufficiency.  But baby steps first.  I started following some of the square foot garden techniques whilst using containers that were already on the property.  I followed Mel's soil mix recipe for filling the containers with viable, friable soil, I placed the containers for maximum access to sun, and my watering can became my best friend. 

The next baby step was to choose which veggies to plant.  This was a tough one.  I come from an instant gratification world.  One has a thought, and hey presto!  The thought materialises in programmatic form; or one wants something and one buys it from the closest mall.  Not any more.  There is absolutely nothing about planting which vaguely relates to instant gratification.

I started with quick turnaround plants.  The quickest I could find were radishes and mustard.  I planted up a window box of radishes, and eight herb pots of mustard.  Within four days the first little radish plants had pushed their way through the soil.  Four weeks later I was eating my first radish.  It was in this first mouthful of home-grown veggie that I began to understand what I was doing.  It tasted wonderful!  I ate the radish with the greens on toast.  Nothing beats young and fresh.  Trust me on this one.  What is the most fun, is that one picks a radish, and pops in a seed, and the four week cycle starts all over again.  At any one point in time, one only needs enough radishes growing to last for four weeks.  I can't say that the mustard has lived up to its reputation of being a quick turnaround plant.  I have yet to savour the first leaves from this mini-crop.  

                                                                    Radishes in a window box   

I have subsequently planted swiss chard [3], baby spinach [10], peas [2], beans [2] and carrots [15].  For the time being I am learning, so the quantities are really, really small.  As I gain experience, I will plant more, but only what I envisage needing in the time that the seeds take from germination to harvest.  I have also filled up the containers that house these plants with - you guessed it - more radishes.  In this way, the radishes will germinate and harvest at least once, maybe twice, before the bigger plants need more room.  In time to come, I will have some left over to give away, and some to preserve for a rainy day.

The newer plantings are slower growing.  They take 6 to 10 days to germinate, and 3 to 4 months to harvest.  For this reason I am really pleased that I started with radishes.  I can enjoy the fruits of my labours whilst enjoying the anticipation of more to come.  And I am only six weeks into planting for the first time!  Quite astonishing.

We are heading into autumn now, so the choices on what to plant are far more limited than they will be in September.  There remain plenty of choices. 

And this is just the beginning.  What follows next is building the square foot boxes and preparing a compost heap.  More on these as I do them.

It all started with getting 'in'voluntarily separated from my place of employment

About six weeks ago, we got called in to a presentation on proposed restructuring.  This was a prelude to getting retrenched, or involuntarily separated or voluntarily separated or canned or whatever term is the flavour of the day.

This is not good news for someone like me.  I am only a few years off retirement, working in the IT industry, where it is preferable to be 25, to have really nice legs and be generous with providing opportunities to view them.

So what is the next step if there is no looming income?  Cutting costs, of course.  And this has led me to self-sufficiency.

As all of us who strive for this state of Nirvana know, the road to self-sufficiency is a long, back-breaking one, filled with brilliant ideas which don't always pan out in reality.

During the last six weeks, I have had more fun taking my first baby steps in self-sufficiency than I have had in the balance of my more than half-century life.  Not being entirely obtuse, I have put money aside for a rainy day.  The issue is whether enough is indeed enough.  I don't yet know where more of enough is going to come from, but I sure am going to have a great time whilst the source manifests itself.

And this blog is going to share my adventures in self-sufficiency with you.