Saturday 8 July 2017

Carbon Footprints, Zero Miles

I was interested to see what our carbon footprint was,
There was a problem, 
Every calculator I look at didn't cover our lifestyle,
They ask how do you heat your home, Electric, Gas, Oil, LPG there is no option for wood burners
 They ask were do you shop for food 
Again no option for raising your own
And on they went  after trying 6 different ones I gave up,
Is our lifestyle so unusual, I don't think so, I know many people locally as well as world wide who live like we do.
And many more who are striving to break away and live the lifestyle. 
Most of our meals have zero miles, here are a few from this week.
Last nights dinner home reared lamb chops, new potatoes from the poly tunnel garnished with mint from the garden, courgettes fried in butter made from our goats milk and garlic from the garden.
 Tonight it was sausages from our own home reared pork, onions from the garden, new potatoes again and peas from the garden

 Dinner the other evening, egg fried rice, the rice wasnt home produced who knows perhaps one day, but everything else was
served with pork tenderloin and pak choi, all home produced


  
I did get round to making up some chili flakes from chilis we grew last year and dried
we do tend to use a fair amount of chili flakes, I am not growing any this year as we had a great harvest last year, dried them, froze them, pickled them, made chili sauce and gave a lot away.
Todays lunch was 
 freshly baked baguettes with our own ham
followed by freshly made flap jacks.
We have also been having milkshakes a couple of times a day as we are still in milk glut zone. We make them using whatever fruit we have on hand, or sweet sauces.
Strawberries and raspberries are coming thick and fast.
In the poly tunnel today I spotted this 
My peanut plants are flowering I was so excited.
I must do a poly tunnel update.
The cut flower beds that are new this year have been producing well
 lots of lovely scented sweet peas
Lily's and Dahlias make nice big bouquets for the house.
I had a brain wave the other day, not something that happens often but happen it did.
I am experimenting with growing winter food for the goats in the paddock that the pigs cleared, I sowed 3 rows of sugar beet and they are growing along with the brassicas, I have been thinking a lot about this sugar beet, how was I going to feed it to the goats, they wont bite into it whole so it would mean chopping it up small, we buy in shredded sugar beet for them and the alpacas, I looked at equipment to do the shredding it would be a fair investment if we can succesfully grow sugar beet, but what to do in the mean time.
💡
we have a small garden shredder that has just been serviced we did plan on selling it as we dont use it anymore now we have the big shredder, I wondered if it could shred up vegetables, to give it a good try out I had some swede sitting there 
the garden shredder idea made short work of the swede, now I just have to wait for the sugar beet to be ready then I can shred it all up, perfect for feeding to the animals.
Speaking of animals we have some new additions arriving next Friday 😁

 

 
 



 

10 comments:

  1. Hard work rewarded with your own food to eat...you can't beat that Dawn-x-

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  2. Lovely post Dawn...in fact a lovely few posts as I'm playing catchup...yes I love the feeling of a totally home grown meal...not possible for us this year but maybe again sometime...and if we got ourselves sorted we do have quite a large plot here it's just not cultivated enough...and a few fir trees will have to be sacrificed...nothing grows under a fir so a narrowish garden can be lost to usefulness. x

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  3. Perfect solution to shedding the sugar beet. Is sugar beet the same as beet root - the red one?

    Yeah, the more footprint miles we all decrease the better off this planet will be. And, as you and I know, it is absolutely no hardship at all.

    Our only negative though is that neither RMan, nor myself, could bring ourselves to slaughter an animal, so that food source is out for us. We'll just have to stick to only eggs ;)

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  4. Fab post Dawn. I am really starting to appreciate the harvesting of our own things, too, but to have a whole plate of your own produce etc is just wonderful. Loved the idea of using the garden shredder!Your lilies are amazing!Wonderful images of a wonderful life.

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  5. Hi Dawn :) I can't wait until we see the new additions! I often think of my "footprint" as well. At this point in my life, I still need to rely on purchases unfortunately for a lot of things, but we're slowly and gradually working away from that. Your meals look delicious!

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  6. Lovely photos of your week of luscious home grown food.

    Look forward to seeing you paddling in a paddy field growing rice! Wales is probably wet enough!

    New animals? I wonder what they will be. will await.

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  7. I get excited over my small selection of home grown produce, you must be over the moon. Well done. Looking forward to finding out what you're getting.

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  8. You really do so well with your food miles, and produce delicious food too!

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  9. Everything looks delicious! I so hope your peanuts do well. I tried them one year but with no success.

    I've had the same experience with carbon footprint calculators. They assume more typical modern lifestyles than ours too. I'm confident in our lifestyle progress, however, so I don't worry about it.

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  10. I too am playing catch up and loving your work. What a fabulous yet logical solution for chopping up the sugar beet! We aren't growing our own fodder until next year as our pigs go a week tomorrow, but I'll be pleased when we do.

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