Thursday, July 2, 2009

Leap of Faith

So, can I survive not working outside the home for cash?
I don't need much but....
It's all a bit scary and I've always had my own finances, even when in long term relationships.
I have so much that I want to learn and do and I feel so out of place in the outside workplace now.
I have a secret plan, and there's a time limit to it but patience has never been a virtue. And then I worry about how lazy I can be, but is that because I don't want to do what I currently Have to do?
Anyway, I've been reading lots of blogs of people that seem to have it together and are happily plugging away so I'm going to give it a go.
In the garden, or should I say rainwater tanks (I have one cut in half for no sore back gardening) I have swedes, broccoli, brussels, winter chives (I think). In the back breaking garden I have silver beet, red chard, more swedes and lettuce. I did have cabbage and peas until the pet rabbits from next door escaped and ate the lot. We have also inherited 21 assorted apple trees, 6 plum trees, 2 pear trees, 1 lemon tree, 1 crab apple and 2 peach trees (recited in a sing song voice) . Not forgetting the grape vine of course. I have already planted a nectarine, (my favourite) and currently have another peach, satsuma plum and apricot in bags waiting for the rain to ease. I nearly forgot the baby bay tree which is slowly losing its leaves (to my cooking pot) also waiting to go in the ground. In big pots we have the lemon tree, a lime, a cumquat and an olive from a previous life and assorted herbs.
The house that we live in had been empty for four years and prior to that a dear old lady had lived here so it was pretty run down when we bought it six months ago. M has done a magnificent job of renovating and we now have solar hot water and insulation. The heating is proving a bit of a problem. We have a heat pump that warms the kitchen and hallway but the lounge only has an open fire at this stage and that is so inefficient we rarely use it. If we are in the lounge to watch tv, maybe twice a week, we just use an electric bar heater and the good old granny blankets.
The house is a bit of a "tardis". People are usually quite amazed upon entering the first time. Probably because it looks like crap from the outside, it's covered in that false, toxic brick stuff (a job for next summer is to liberate the weatherboards underneath), but it has a lot of the original features from 1900 which we have tried to integrate into our way of living.
Halfway down the block, which is pretty big, is the old chook house, sort of, well it's got a bit of a lean to it, no door and the wire's pretty much gone but.... it could be saved. My woodwork lessons shold help me with that! And then we can get chooks.
Speaking of which, (woodwork not chooks) I have been learning all about hand tools for woodwork. I've used the big, noisy and efficient power tools for the big cutting and planing stuff but the last couple of weeks I have used a hand saw, sandpaper (of course) and something called a "granny's tooth" for smoothing out channels. It was the best tool I have used so far.
On my agenda for the very near future is cheese making and soap making. I already make my own bread and luckily we're not much into sweets. The kitchen and I have never really had a compatible relationship but I am improving. I no longer have to take a week off work if I have friends coming for dinner, I've knocked it back to two days!
No I'm exagerating, I just plan well in advance.
So here's to anybody out there

J