Sunday reading and acorn coffee

 
So. Acorn coffee.

I think you could say it's an acquired taste. And I don't intend to acquire it. I know it's free, but I'll stick to water.

It's not bitter. It's just not particularly pleasant.

Next time I forage for acorns, I'll go for acorn flour, which from other blogs seems to impart a nice nuttiness to pancakes and other bakes.

A simple guide to thrifty vegetable gardening
How to make herbal steams for colds and congestion
The Latte Factor: 8 ways we often overspend
Life in a tiny apartment - cloth napkins
How to store fresh fruits and vegetables
I made shoes!

On letting go of the last box

It's astonishing how much an off-hand comment from the unlikeliest of places can have an unexpected impact.

At work, we were discussing my new colleague's unpacking process over lunch, and several people commented on still having sealed boxes from moves years or even decades earlier. I felt mostly smug - but there was a guilty twinge. I have one last box in the basement. (The previous box - containing every pair of jeans I have ever worn, or so it seems - was finally dealt with earlier this year.)

The box contains all my old notes and files from university. I have left it because I couldn't decide what to do with it. I know I would like to keep my old essays - I have a small box of precious things I keep for sentimental reasons, like old diaries, photo albums, the first thing I ever knitted, letters from friends. The essays could go in there. And the scrap paper or rough notes - chuck.

But the research? The hours of my life spent standing in front of a photocopier in the library coping chapters and academic articles. The realisation that I could not access these again without paying for them. The guilty knowledge that some never got read. The secret hope of one day dusting them off, to research and write a historic novel. This expands beyond the notes in the basement - I have another two or more shelves of books, articles and so on from my final year dissertation in the spare room.

And then my new colleague commented that research moved so fast that it is quickly out of date. 

Duh. Why didn't I think of that?

If ever I do get around to writing a historic novel, the evidence for and understanding of that time period will have moved on since my first year of university. And I know I would enjoy doing that research. Not having a box of dusty old articles in the basement would not really be much of a barrier.

So finally - thanks to an off-hand comment at work - I am ready to let go of the last box.

(That just leaves the unknown number of boxes in my mother's attic. But let's forget that for now!)

Woot woot! Five years (and a few days)

 So, err, sorry guys. I set this as a scheduled post so I wouldn't forget to write and then... I forgot. And it got posted. As a bit of a non-post.

So now I'm a couple of weeks late, but what the hell. The 8 October marked the five-year anniversary of my first post on this blog, which you can read here.

Looking back at that post, I'm struck by two things. Firstly, my choice of Meadow Orchard as a blog name foreshadows my discovery of permaculture in the last year rather neatly. A meadow orchard is a form of landscape encouraging meadow wildlife among fruit trees, so very positive for biodiversity.

The second thing that strikes me is that the lifestyle I was then interested in building - log fire, fruit trees outside the back door, home comforts and handmade crafts - is still very much what I am endeavouring to build today. 

And I've definitely made progress, which I reflect on every night as  we sit down to homecooked healthy food on a handmade tablecloth on a second hand table and talk about our next beer, and when I draw my homemade curtains in homemade pajamas and slippers made out of old jeans and cardboard.

I thought for my five-year bloggiversary, I'd share five posts and an assortment of photos representing five themes of this blog:

Mindfulness

Washing up: A philosophical meander

Decluttering

 Decluttering is an exponential function

Living better with less

Project 333

New skils

My very first skeins

Savouring simple pleasures

Two steps back, three forward

 

Beer update and Sunday reading

I know we're all about the freshly made, but this post comes to you pre-prepared. While you are reading this, I will be brewing about 20 litres of ale.

After the beer had fermented for two weeks, we racked it off the dead yeast and sediment into a clean bucket and left it for a week to clarify. Then we bottled it.

26 bottles standing on the wall, 26 bottles standing on the wall, and if one brown bottle should accidentally get opened and drunk...

The last batch is now sitting in the depths of our basement and will age there for some time. The ale should be ready to drink rather sooner, but we're also more than doubling the volume that we will brew. It's essentially the same amount of work whether you make 5 litres or 25 litres.

Meanwhile, some reading for you:

What happens when you leave a city slicker family in the forest?

Seven things every first-time gardener should know

Nine lies that keep our schedule overwhelmed

A little uncluttering goes a long way

Eleven ways to live a happier life

Will mayors one day rule the world?

Cheap cuts - how to buy beef

Hops are the herbs of beer - the growth of local harvest groups

A tv-free day?

Some of you may have seen the coverage in the UK over new recommendations that people limit themselves to two hours of tv per day, and try to have a 'tv-free' day, to promote active lifestyles and combat obesity.

I've been thinking for a while about how to reduce the amount of tv we watch. It's partly that after a long day at work we are both too tired for anything more stimulating. But if I'm really honest, it's mostly that I have yet to find a way to make a tv-free evening sound attractive to my boyfriend. 

The good news is we are probably just about at the two hours a day limit, many days watching less, and we rarely watch live tv, it's usually pre-recorded shows we know we enjoy, or films. This is definitely some progress. But I'm struggling to come up with easy, relaxing alternatives to sitting staring at a screen.

To be honest, that's kind of scary. Like an addiction. What did people do before they had tvs? This is crazy. I know how people did laundry a hundred years ago, but not how they whiled away the evening hours.

So I did what everyone of my generation would go - I googled it. How to give up tv. And I mostly found blogs and forums of people who replaced tv with watching DVDs or playing games on mobiles/tablets. Doesn't that defeat the point? Surely the idea is to not be sitting in front of a screen?

I have found some interesting posts on this which intriguingly refers to several side effects of going tv-free - including greater sensitivity to the sights, sounds and smells of everyday life.

How to Give Up Television

8 Changes I Experienced After Giving Up TV

Why We Chose to Eliminate TV
50 Things to Do Other Than Watch TV

After a bit of thinking, I decided to try to avoid watching tv this last week. I've been pretty successful, really an hour or less most days and one tv-free day. So far, three things have helped:

1. Reach for the book (or the sewing/knitting) rather than the remote. I usually feel too tired to read, but after a few pages I'm fine and I think it's actually more restful - more restorative - than watching tv.

2. Don't sit down opposite the tv. Move your sofa, or sit down somewhere else. Ideally so that you are now looking at someone else rather than the screen. This seems to make conversation arise without effort, and makes turning on the tv something antisocial rather than just the default option.

3. Make plans, ideally with people. Go out to see a show, check out a new bar, arrange to meet someone for dinner. Extend those plans - go early to wander around the neighbourhood if the weather is nice, or suggest a detour on the way back.

Do you have any tips? Is it something you've had a go at?

Autumnal baking

I've been baking quite a bit in the last few weeks - partly inspired by the Great British Bake Off, partly in practice for the Brussels bake off in which I am participating, and partly to celebrate the tastes of autumn. There have been quite a few firsts...

First attempt at parkin - I had a hankering for something dark, rich and gingery. I think I added too much baking powder but it still tasted AWESOME! Recipe here.

First chocolate and beetroot cake. This looked fabulously pink while making it but came out beautifully. I wasn't sure how beetroot-y it would taste - the answer is not at all. The beetroot counteracts the 'sickliness' tendancy of chocolate cake, and made it beautifully moist. I took this into work - one colleague had three slices, and no one could taste the beetroot.

First chocolate ganache - I always thought this was a highly complex process but it's mind-numbingly simple and I will most definitely be repeating this. Yum!

I've also been baking some staples - chocolate cupcakes.

Bathing in autumn sunshine

Happy autumn equinox people! It's miserable weather today so I thought I'd share some autumnal pictures from last weekend instead.

We went for a walk in the nature reserve at the edge of the city last weekend with some friends. It was a beautiful day full of autumn sunshine, with just a taste of winter in the air.

 

I spotted some hops growing over a doorway.

Our friends spotted some Siberian chipmonks stocking up for winter.

We tasted some small and very bitter wild apples.

We spotted some unidentified berries, which we didn't taste!

Unfortunately, there was a distinct lack of blackberries, which were our main target - they were all small, shrivelled and dried out. I did however pick some acorns to have a go at making acorn coffee...