Most Of It We Don't See

What connects us and makes us resilient in the face of collapse, are the things you cannot ordinarily measure or see. Charlotte Du Cann

A year ago I felled a dead elm and sawed much of the first two trunks into logs by hand. These logs burned okay, but everyone said splitting the wood was better. Yesterday I split wood for the first time.

So here I am in heroic mode, spltting the wood. I did a pretty good job, was surprised it came so easily and felt very satisfied at the end.

But no one is a hero in isolation, not even a humble woodsplitting one. In fact, I think the whole hero thing reflects the hyper-individualism of our culture.

And there is always what you don’t see in the picture. And not just the photographer. In this picture you also don’t see Nick who lent me the maul you don’t see (very well) either. Nick helped me cut down the last of the dead elm trunks last year and sawed it into logs. Charlotte sawed another dead elm by hand on her own whilst I was out a couple of weeks ago, so even I didn’t see that.

Also remaining unseen are the people and the materials that made the maul, and all the actions and connections that led to our being here and to Nick coming over on Wednesday on his way to drop his daughter off at her boyfriend’s nearby.

All those transition meetings in Bungay and Norwich and skill shares and learning about global markets and industrialisation and wanting to be less dependent on them and get to know people and places closer to home. Wanting to chop firewood with my own hands, to work with the grain, the material.

And all the conversations over the years I was listening to without even knowing I was listening to them, about how to let the woodsplitting axe fall by its own weight and how to stand properly and not twist your back.

In fact a thousand words wouldn’t be enough for all the connections making up what lies behind and beneath this simple photo.

Or indeed this one. I don’t celebrate Christmas. This year, however, we found a broken bough of pine in the local wood and brought it home for the living room. On Christmas night something got into me and I cut into strips the gold paper Dano had given me at Sustainable Bungay’s Solstice/Christmas party and tied chillis to the bottom of them reusing ties from plants that had died down. The chillis were a gift from Malcolm and Eileen where we get our weekly veg box, a mix of the formidable Ring of Fire and the fragrant serrano.

We’re taking down the bough and chilli decorations tomorrow and so I wanted to share it here.

Though this piece is mostly about some of the things we don’t see.

Photographer unseen, Splitting wood for the first time 4 Jan 2013, by Charlotte Du Cann; Chilli, gold paper, use garden tie decoration on salvaged pine bough from nearby wood (MW)

This post originally appeared on the blog Mark in Flowers on 5th January 2013

Winemaking - 'For Medicinal Purposes'

For Sustainable Bungay's 10th Plants for Life event last Sunday, Winemaking - For Medicinal Purposes, Nick Watts invited a dozen of us to his house for a practical demonstration of how to make fruit wine, in this case (sic) from raspberries.

Nick’s front room was filled with people (including Sophie and Nick from Transition Norwich's Low Carbon Cookbook group),  funnels, demi-john’s with deep red liquid and when you opened the door of any one of the cupboards you would discover a large container filled with a fermenting fluid. One demi-john contains enough for 6 bottles of wine at 750cl per bottle. Nick calculated he had about 80 bottles of wine fermenting at the moment.

First we took a look at some of the medicinal qualities of  raspberries. I’d been aware of the raspberry leaf  as a uterine tonic during pregnancy and childbirth and have used it along with yarrow to make a salve for piles. But for me raspberry fruits were always a delicious sign of high to late summer, picked fresh or bought from a roadside stall, and eaten long before they made it home to be turned into anything else culinary, let alone medicinal.

Raspberries, in fact, are incredibly rich in anti-oxidants and vitamin C. Eating them can help boost a poor appetite and they are useful in arthritis. See Hedgerow Medicine, by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal,  for an excellent chapter on the many virtues and uses of  the raspberry, both leaf and fruit, with some great herbal recipes.

Penelope Ody in her book 100 great natural remedies has a simple recipe for raspberry vinegar: Soak 500g fresh raspberries in wine vinegar for 2 weeks, strain thick red liquid into a bottle and use in cough syrups, as a throat gargle or add to salad dressings.

Nick took us through the winemaking process in three stages, starting off a new wine and then using ones “I’d prepared a bit earlier.” He was keen to point out he was not an expert, having started about three years ago, but had really got into it and was happy to share what he knows with people.

This was the essence of not only this session but also a main impulse behind the whole Plants for Life project, and indeed Sustainable Bungay as a group and the wider Transition 'movement': If Nick could make so much and such decent wine (not to mention his delicious dandelion and burdock beer) from home and allotment-grown and foraged fruit by just doing it and immersing himself in it, then anyone with sufficient interest and initiative could. Watching Nick describe the process and go through it physically with a friendly group of people was absorbing and instructive, as well as good fun. It was a true skill-share.

What follows below is not necessarily the whole story, but what I learnt from Sunday's session:

STEP ONE
In a big bucket with 3lb raspberries (you can choose your own fruit, almost any will do), Nick poured on 5pts of water and added a teaspoonful of pectin enzyme to prevent ‘pectin haze’. He then mashed the raspberries with a wooden spoon and covered the liquid with a tea towel (very important esp. in summer to keep insects out).

This is left for two days.

STEP TWO 2 DAYS LATER
Add to the bucket between 1kg and 11/4 kg of sugar (preferably fair trade/organic, white) dissolved in 2 pts water off the boil. Add 1 tsp dried yeast with a little sugar all dissolved in some of the fruit liquid in the bucket.

It’s the yeast that turns the sugar into alcohol and the more sugar the sweeter the wine. Nick uses less (1kg) as he likes a drier wine.

This liquid is then stirred 2-3 times a day over the next four days, and the process is called ‘fermenting on the must’.

STEP THREE 4 DAYS LATER
This is the messy bit, where you strain all the liquid through a muslin sieve, before funnelling it into the demi-johns and putting an airlock on it. This is then left to ferment for between 3 and 18 months until there are no longer any bubbles to be seen in the airlock. During the fermenting process a stable temperature is important. Nick doesn’t worry too much about whether it’s warm or cool, just that there is as little fluctuation as possible.

STEP FOUR 3-18 MONTHS later
Decant into bottles and leave for 1-2 years depending on the fruit. Raspberries need less time than elderberries, for example.

After the demonstration, Nick invited everyone to taste some of the wines he's made. My favourite was the dry and fragrant Elderflower and Rosehip. I took half a bottle home and tried a glass with a dash of elderflower cordial - for medicinal purposes only, of course. And it was the perfect antidote to the recent gloomy days of continual rain and lessening light.

Photos: Raspberry wine fermenting in demi-johns; Nick instructing; Mashing the raspberries; Straining the liquid; Cheers on a rainy day (Mark Watson)

Water, water everywhere and not any drop to drink!

One of the "big picture topics" we discuss at the Low Carbon Cookbook is water, principally its high use in industrial agriculture. But sometimes we also discuss our domestic use of water (well, one of our group is a plumber!), in our own houses and gardens. As everyone focuses on rain as the weather oscillates from drought to downpour, Sophie Chollet invites all low-carbon kitchen and bathroom water-watchers to meet and discuss ways to reduce (over) consumption.

When I say to my French friends I live in England, they often joke about the weather, along the lines of “you should be used to rainy weather, by now!”. So when I tell them that actually we are facing a drought for the second year running, they are surprised. How is it possible to have a drought in England, where rain is part of the definition of the country?

The weather is certainly the cause: it rained very little in the last two winters. So this has led me to question the impact of our water consumption on ground-water level.

The availability of water supply was one of the big improvements of the 20^th century’s houses. The widespread use of washing-machines and other modern equipment changed women's lives. They no longer had to spend hours cleaning dishes or washing clothes. Nowadays, access to water is a given. We would not consider living in a house without running water: we expect tap water to run everyday, all the year along, night and day (in France, when you build a new house, it is compulsory to connect it to the mains water and electricity supply, even if you would like to live off-grid).

Now we use water as if it was as common as the air. We have forgotten that tap water does not come from a never-ending spring. But our consumerism may have gone too far. We extract groundwater faster than it fills again and the levels are decreasing. Moreover, although we know how to remove most of the pollutants, some molecules, like residues of chemical medicines, remain in the water and affect aquatic life.

Apart from environmental issues, over-consuming water comes at a price. Producing drinkable water costs us energy and money (a third of our water bill is spent in water treatment). Water has to be pumped from a river, filtered, treated with chloride, ultra-filtered and deionised. Then minerals are added to make it drinkable.

Once in our tap, some of it is consumed directly, for drinking or cooking. Some is used for cleaning and is made into "grey water" with oil, soap or chemicals. Another amount is simply wasted: the water we do not use when we leave the tap running, unconsciously or from laziness. This water will be mixed with dirty water, increasing the volume sent to the water-treatment plant, and thus increasing the cost of treatment.

We also use drinking water to flush the toilet! After all the efforts put into cleaning the water, we use it to flush our toilet, sending the "black water" back to another water-treatment station!

Deciding to pool our ideas

The main obstacles, when one has decided to save water, are technical issues. In our modern houses, there is nothing to keep water in in order to reuse it. One of my friends would first wash himself with tap water, keeping the water in the bath to wash his clothes. After that, the water was dirty enough to be used to flush the toilet. Few people would bother with this, as it involves too much handling and storing, using buckets, carrying and transferring.

It is technically possible to collect rain water and use it for the house (for example for flushing or for the washing-machine). But how to do, when you are not a plumber?

It is also relatively easy to install a composting toilet in a house or a flat. Still, it involves some effort in emptying it, and a space for composting. Our houses and our life-styles are not made to facilitate those things. But it is not impossible, and putting our efforts in common is a good way to start!

In Brest (France), where I used to live, some people created the “Réseau Urbain des Toilettes sèches”, or urban network of composting toilets. They had a composting toilet at home (often in flats) and collected the compost weekly before sending it to a farm, where it was mixed with other compostable material. This does not only save water, but completes the natural cycle by bringing nutrients back to the soil. Indeed, urine is a great fertilizer, as it is very rich in nitrogen and phosphates!

Plumbing issues are not insurmountable. And for those who live in rented accommodation, why not build an “add-it” system that could, for instance, collect shower-water and transfer it to the toilet flush, or to a basin for treatment by plants? If you think we should moderate our consumption and are looking for advice about how to save water, then this blog is for you!

I would like to invite you to meet and share thoughts about water, speak about habits, saving tips, our desire or the difficulties we face. We can learn from each other about water saving, cleaning and cooking habits, hygienic issues that arise (or are feared!) when using less water.

For instance: boiling potatoes in a smaller volume of water would save both water, energy spent to boil it, time of cooking, and it will also reduce the loss of minerals from the potatoes into the water.

Some of us do use rain water in their house. Could we share our technical knowledge?

Some may wash dishes more efficiently than others. Why not compare the methods?

Do get in touch in you are interested! Sophie Chollet (s.chollet@uea.ac.uk or 01603 467595)

Images: rainwater butt for loo in Solitude by Chris Hull; wee collecting tubs at Edible Landscapes London from Waste Not, intro post to the Water week on the Social Reporting project by Jo Homan; grey water filtering system at Sunrise Festival, 2011.

I Love Reskilling

This post was originally published on the Transition Netwok Social Reporting Blog. You can read the original here.

I love reskilling. Throughout my time in Transition it has always been the thing that I have gravitated towards. Part of the joy of it is that it can be part of pretty much any other aspect of Transition - food, energy, building etc they all have their relevant skills. Having said this we did have a specific Reskilling group in Transition Norwich, you can read about some of our exploits on the This Low Carbon Life blog here and here. One of the things that we did was to try and come up with a comprehensive (might as well be ambitious!) list of all of the possible skills that a Transition future might require, it was a very interesting exercise and you can check out what we came up with on the Transition Norwich website, under the resources section.

So why do I love reskilling so much?

Resilience
Firstly because it makes our communities more resilient. Bringing the skills needed for our society back into our local area means that we are not relying on far flung people to keep things going for us. For example in Transition UWS our Greener Homes Project relies on Energy Saving Scotland to process the questionairres we fill out for people and to send them a report with suggestions. However, they are very unreliable. They still haven't got a report out to some of the very first people we visited over 3 months ago. This is obviously rather a big issue in our project. Thankfully we anticipated it early on and came up with our own complimentary behavioural questionnaire and advice that we use at the time of the visit to give as much advice and support to people as we can at the time, so they are not just waiting for a generic report. Bringing these skills into our community and then passing them on to those we visit makes us much more resilient. It also leads nicely to my next point...

Empowerment
Having the skills to do things yourself puts you back in control. Once we have explained to people how their heating works and what their energy bills mean they are then back in control of their own energy usage, rather than at the mercy of energy companies. And this holds true for so much in our society. I have started to get into herbal medicine in the last few years and part of what draws me to it is that I can control exactly what I put in my medicine. The eucalyptus balm I made this week only had 5 ingredients - none of them a synthetic chemical.

Once you have these skills you are so much more powerful, nobody can tell you what to do because you can do it yourself. This also works on a community scale, if it has the skills within it then it can decide its own future.

Socials
Sharing skills is also an awesome way to make friends. Either through teaching each other or just sharing your learning experiences. I went to an All About Herbs workshop run by Urban Roots earlier in the year and I have stayed in touch with a few of the other people who were there and we have met a few times to go foraging and herbal remedy making, sharing more skills and keeping each other enthusiastic.

The Southside Stitch Up that I have written about before is a great example of a skill sharing social, where people can chat and socialise while upcycling all kinds of things.

It's cheaper
If you can do it yourself then you don't need to pay someone else to do it. This is also a great way of reducing your dependence on money, especially if the whole community gets in on it then you can exchange your skills and what you produce.

Its Fun!
Making things, learning skills and sharing them is a fantastic antidote to our societies ills. Simmering herb infused oils and beeswax, watching your parsnip wine bubbling away, weaving a rag rug... it makes me happy!

Skill share
When I wrote this blog at the weekend I didnt realise that we were actually supposed to be sharing a skill in the blog. So just as a wee add on I'll direct you to my instructions for making a wallet out of a juice carton, found here.

Photos: My boiler controls, our haul from a days foraging and some of my preserves and wine.

Norwich is Pants!

No I am not joining in Harry Hill and any other comedian's cheap jibes at our marvelous city but trying to come up with a witty title to my blog. For a number of years I have been interested in the manufacture of clothing in Britain. So how happy was I to see both a programme about making pants and also a workshop to make them in Magdalen Street both in the same month?

Mary Portas has a new programme called Bottom Line in which she attempts to re-energize the British manufacturing industry by creating her own line of British Knickers. I have not seen all the episodes but I followed a link to the House of Fraser where they appeared to be sold out of said garments, although Liberty London still have some. So things must be going well. I am assuming this is because of peoples desire to buy British rather than their advertising slogan which implies you might buy your pants for the milkman (I wonder if milkandmore who we get our milk delivered from had the same idea, I always thought that 'more' meant a couple of strawberry yoghurts but now I am starting to wonder)

Back to the workshop. My excitement mounted as I entered Makeplace and saw the women gathered at the tables. We were then shown to our sewing machines that had been loaded ready with the correct colour cotton. We opened up our pants kits with ready cut material and soon we were making our own pants. The teacher explained how she had become disillusioned with the manufacture of clothing in China, mainly with the working conditions and now she runs courses to upcyle t-shirts into pants. 'What is upcycling?' one young sewer asks? In my head my hand has shot up to answer: Oh God, I know this, pick me! Pick me!'

I remain calm while the instructor describes how it differs from re-cyling and how it sounds better to say upcyling pants than recycling pants.

After a couple of hours we each have a pair of pants and pose for a group photograph.

You may notice that I got the best deal in that we all paid the same price and I got the most material!

I think I will ask her to do a workshop at the Magdalen Street Celebration......

Transition Circle West and the Great Reskilling

At our next Transition Circle West meeting, we will be discussing skills-sharing, so I thought it would be a good idea to use this guest blog post to explore ideas about reskilling. From storytelling, to textile crafts, to growing and cooking seasonal local food, and creative recycling, reskilling has been a central part of the Transition project, and a common theme on this blog. But why is this so important? What is wrong with our existing skills? And what could reskilling mean for Transition Circle West and Transition Norwich?

My current project

Reskilling can be motivated in part by nostalgia, a desire to retain traditional skills which might be useful in our everyday lives or in future; but also as a statement of shared identity and a connection to our heritage and the places we live. Reskilling is a deeply meaningful activity, but it can also have more immediate benefits. It is extremely satisfying to master a new skill, particularly in a society where we increasingly work with computers or in customer service roles, and people are beginning to talk of the fulfilment of working with their hands.

Working with your hands can help you to engage differently with your task, and enjoy watching your progress and feeling a sense of achievement when it's finished – a feeling many of us experience rarely in our working lives. Learning new skills is also a great way to meet new, like-minded people or to reconnect with people you already know. Reskilling is part of the transition project of building community, and it helps us to improve our own personal resilience: for example growing our own vegetables, making and mending clothes, and learning to maintain our bikes. Therefore reskilling is about living better, helping us to slowly change our lifestyles, not only to adapt to environmental challenges, but also to make them more fulfilling and resilient.

So what might reskilling look like? It can be organised formally through alternative currency networks (like Local Exchange Trading Systems), where participants within the network are able to trade units of their time to either teach or carry-out certain skilled tasks, making the most of their particular skills sets. Such networks can be international in scope, encouraging both virtual and physical interaction and sharing. Perhaps more often, skills-sharing occurs in more informal or ad hoc ways – in fact, we might not even realised we are doing it!

Websites like Gumtree are used to exchange skills such as language and music teaching, and it’s possible to learn to knit, crochet or even cook from scratch with the aid of youtube alone. But reskilling is perhaps most productive when it occurs through our existing social networks, through groups of friends, or common interest groups like transition circles. Close bonds of trust and friendship can stimulate learning and sharing, and it’s always a confidence boost when you know you can call up a close friend or relative for advice about your veg patch, or to fix your latest knitting mistake.

Even bikes as pretty as this can be temperamental!

People are constantly reskilling themselves, without a particular project in mind, just out of necessity and as their lifestyles evolve. I took up cycling properly when I moved to Norwich, and I’m still slowly learning how to look after and fix my bike. Our families are also hugely important in influencing our skills sets. I have my parents to thank for my love of cooking, my musical skills, and my ability to knit and sew; but they might also be responsible for my fear of all technical tasks and dread of gardening! It is also possible to encourage reskilling by design. Transition projects like farmshare offer members opportunities to learn about food growing in a relaxed friendly environment. And our forthcoming Transition Circle West meeting will hopefully stimulate some new skills-sharing networks or encourage people to seek information and help elsewhere.

Reskilling has always been at the heart of the Transition initiative, equipping communities with the skills they need to live well and build their resilience against threats like climate change. We can encourage these activities within Transition Norwich, through both formal and informal initiatives. For example, engaging people through circle meetings and connecting with other TN groups. Reskilling is a wonderfully fulfilling, frequently exciting, and vitally important task for transition. Helen Pallett

Transition Circle West next meets on 25 January. For more information about the group and our forthcoming meetings contact mshelenpallett@gmail.com

Daily Bread

Yesterday I taught A how to make soda bread.

Shopping and cooking well are such important life-skills, ones that I was taught a long time ago, so since I was little, I've never had a fear of cooking anything, even things I've never cooked before. They don't always turn out right first time, but it's never a problem. A was delighted, both with her efforts and with the result!

Simple Soda Bread Recipe

500g plain white flour

1 level teaspoon salt

1 1/2 (one and a half) level teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda

Sift together in a bowl, then add

100ml milk

300ml yogurt

Mix together until you get a soft dough. Shape into a rough ball.

Put on a greased baking tray, lightly dusted with flour, and bake at 180C for about 40 mins

You'll know it's cooked if the base makes a hollow sound when tapped!

Enjoy!

Sharing the Load - A Permaculture Workday

Last Saturday, December 3rd, I joined a group of East Anglian perma-culturists and transitioners for a work day at Eloise and Kris's place on the Suffolk -Norfolk border.

"The idea of work days is simple and great!" said Eloise, who has been studying permaculture for the past year. "Invite your friends round to help with some big jobs or projects you want to get done in exchange for lots of nice food, company and good fun! And help on their plot another day!"

Shared work days are part of permaculture's ethos and practice, including in Transition Norwich's own permaculture group.

It was sunny, mild and dry and over twenty people had come to help out with building a new compost area, preparing raised beds, rotavating, mulching, chopping bundles of kindling in the coppiced wood area for an earth oven and making chicken tractors.

Chicken tractors are small tunnels bound together with long sticks and covered in wire netting under which you grow plants for chicken feed. The chickens can't get in whilst the plants are growing but when they're ready you make a door so they can enter. The long sticks were made straight from from the coppiced wood out of ash, oak and horse chestnut.

I went to the kitchen and made a pumpkin and carrot soup with Brenna. Her first baby was due the following week and I was really struck by how relaxed both she and her partner Callum were about it all.

There was fresh bread, delicious bean stew and coleslaw for lunch along with all sorts of cakes and biscuits. Everything was homemade and a lot of the veg homegrown. At lunchtime everyone crowded in the kitchen and the stew was devoured, but it was so filling there was no room for the pumpkin soup - no problem, it would be just right for dinner.

I was also on a deadline for This Low Carbon Life, so whilst I did cook, rotavate, help with a raised bed and take down some old runner bean stalks, my attention was rather divided. Several times I tucked myself away in Eloise's office until I'd knocked a very different post into shape from the one you see in the top picture.

Meanwhile Charlotte was seriously reskilling in the field: learning from Brenna how to make a solstice wreath (now on our front door) out of the boughs of yew, ivy, cypress, bay and holly as they sat around the fire in the yurt; from Callum, who is a carpenter, how to make a raised bed from four pieces of wood without nails (with luck we'll make our first raised bed here next year); from David - a maker and blacksmith who spent many years working in Africa on low-tech solutions - how to sharpen secateurs and shears, and to use her Opinel knife to whittle sticks into pegs; from David and Lee how to make a compost bin out of wooden pallets.

"What I really liked was being shown directly by the makers how to do these things," she said "You're finding out how to it physically, with your hands, with your eyes, listening and watching. You can ask them questions, they can guide you. This is very different from reading about how to do things in a book or on the internet."

I did learn how to use the rotavator Kris picked up for £50. And that after you rotavate you put the compost on, then the topsoil. "You can borrow it next year for your raised bed," said Kris "It can cost you £50 a time just to rent one."

I'm off to do a bit of teaching myself today with Bungay Community Bees: how to make a Yarrow herbal salve. We'll be using this year's beeswax from the group's hives (and sampling our first honey!) Gotta get going....

Pics: Hammering the psts for the pallet compost bin; Preparing raised beds; Pumpkins for soup; Lunchtime stew; Kindling; Solstice wreath

how to get where you want to go - part 2

This is an update on my efforts to travel in a low carbon manner.

As some of you may know I nearly got rid of my car earlier this year. But now I am glad I didn't. Why? Because sometimes I am so tired I can't be bothered to cycle, walk, catch the bus, cadge a lift or sit on a train.

The other day I got talking and missed my stop and ended up in Grantham because I forgot to get off at Peterborough and then spent an hour making bunting in the waiting room until I caught the next train back. Also my boss has just told me I am being given a different job that will involve me driving around North Norfolk and visiting people which would be impossible to do by public transport.

I am determined still to use environmentally friendly methods as much as possible. So I have taken my bike to the menders and for £40 I got a new gear something-or-other and a new tyre. I was a bit worried when I went to pick it up because he said there was some extra stuff that he had had to do. I braced myself for the bill which turned out to only be another £9.

The other day I borrowed a friend's electric bike. It was amazing. Kind of how I imagine it would feel if you rode a bike and were really fit. I am going to borrow it a bit more and then maybe buy one.

I also saw an electric scooter on Norwich market. It looked like a childs scooter but had a lead and a plug which was for recharging. It looked like a cheap way to get about but it is probably only legally allowed to be used in your dads driveway between school and bath-time.

Tomorrow - the advantages of going out with someone in NR3

Strim Reaper - Zero Carbon Scything

If you thought that cutting grass was a pretty boring activity, I am here to tell you otherwise. I'm a scyther, scythe teacher and all-round scythe nerd. Cutting grass is my raison d'etre.

Scything, as I am sure you will all know, is a way of cutting grass using a blade attached to a long stick. Think the Grim Reaper but with fescue rather than souls and you're there. Scything is undergoing a revival in Britain at the moment, largely thanks to the importation of lightweight Austrian scythes by Simon Fairlie. Usually I would choose to buy British, but no one in Britain is making scythes at the moment, and the old Anglo-American tools that can be seen in sheds and second-hand shops around the country are cumbersome, heavy and difficult to set up.

In the past, the scythe was used for many things, from harvesting wheat to mowing the churchyard. These days it's a great option for people with small to medium amounts of grass and weeds to manage. It's perfect for orchards and, with a bit of practice you can even mow your lawn with a scythe. One of its main benefits is its silence. There are no engines to disturb the peace of a Sunday morning. The only sound is a gentle swoosh of the blade going through the grass. It's also zero carbon. A scythe is person-powered. The only fuel needed is a midday sandwich.

On a deeper level, for people (like me) who don't have a lot of experience of using tools, the satisfaction of really getting to know a tool, and mapping it in your mind is a profound one. Scything is relatively easy to learn but it does take skill and that is what brings the satisfaction. The first time you cut a clean swathe of grass, get your blade really really sharp is one of great joy. It sounds corny, but it's true. It's a real 'taking of the stabilisers moment'.

So, hang up your strimmer and take to the scythe. You won't regret it..."

Beth Tilston


Postcard from The Scythe Shop; Beth Tilston at work. video (no audio) by Pete Vido of "short scenes demonstrating the versatility of a good scythe in diverse conditions--from "lawn" and field cutting to an "obstacle course" requiring precision mowing technique"; Beth Tilston at work.

Beth Tilston is available to teach scything courses (up to six people) either before the end of October or from May onwards next year. The course requires an area which has access to a reasonable amount of grass which isn't regularly mown short, plus somewhere with nettles, docks, thistles etc to provide variety. Contact bethtilston@googlemail.com or phone 07818474712

Making good use of the things that we find....

This is the last day of my blog where I am outlining the five ways to well being and how they relate to transitioning. If you want a scientific approach to the five ways and transitioning then read 'the great transition'..The last 2 of the five ways are as follows:

Keep learning
Learning increases confidence and if you follow your heart it can be fun too.

There are loads of ways to learn. You can do a course. Next week is adult learners week and there are free taster sessions all over the county. My flatmates mother is going to teach me to crochet. Mark and Charlotte from the heart and soul transition group taught me to forage (apparently opening your parents fridge and taking what you want does not count).My mother taught me to knit many years ago and is now teaching me to be 'in the moment'. The transition movement has taught me that its ok to be addicted to oil and that you can live a different, slower and more fulfilling life. Along the way you will need new skills but they are fun to learn.

Wombling is a new organization that ‘makes good use of the things that you find’. They will collect old stuff from your house and they are also planning some courses in how to mend stuff. An important skill in preventing landfill. My brother has always been able to mend stuff. Here he is at Easter mending a video machine.

Taking on a new challenge or just having a go and not worrying about failing can teach you loads. I did a stand up routine at a party before Christmas. It was an amazing thrill and I left on a complete high.

The other day I made a new discovery by asking a simple question-

‘Does anyone else have to flush those new water saving toilets at least twice?’

I was rewarded with the knowledge that in this case there is nothing weird about me or my waste products.

Give
Do something nice for a friend or a stranger.
Thank someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Join a community group.
Look, out as well as in. Seeing yourself, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connections with the people around you.

People get a bit freaked out when you just give them stuff. But its fun trying. You may have heard of the free hugs campaign. It travelled all over the world and then to Norwich. In this YouTube video you will see some of the transition Norwich folk giving away free hugs at Christmas. Of course physical contact its not everyones cup of tea and you can give in other ways. You can give someone your time by helping them with something. Next Friday I will be talking about the Magdalen street celebration which is a massive giving exercise. People give their time and expertize to make a massive fun day out.

So just to recap on the five ways to well being with an example. lets get active by walking to the pub to connect with our mates, we may learn a new song, and then I will take notice while you give the barman the money for my drink.

Biodiesel - A First Reaction

Last October I wrote about my meeting with a waste vegetable oil man in Beccles, and talked about the beginnings of our Biodiesel group in Sustainable Bungay. This is an update based on a December visit to a man who makes biodiesel at home and our own first attempts at a reaction last Saturday.

But first, why am I part of a Transition Biodiesel group, when I don't even have a car at the moment? Well, for several reasons, not least the social benefits of being part of a community group that's making something useful together. But equally, at a time when oil prices are soaring through the roof and with political instability in so many oil producing countries, plus the realities of Peak Oil, it just makes sense to engage in a project that focuses my mind and gets me thinking in a really practical way about these things.

And you can use biodiesel for other purposes - oil lamps for instance. (Though there are obvious drawbacks with used chip fat - unless you're into things like scratch and sniff!).

(i)
On a very cold December day Josiah, Kris and I took a trip down to Aldeburgh to see Colin, a retired chemical engineer who has been making biodiesel at home now for three or four years. Colin welcomed us with a mug of tea and showed us around his set up, explaining the process - from collecting waste vegetable oils from food outlets through cleaning the dirty vegetable oil, reacting the clean oil with lye, separating the crude biodiesel and glycerol and washing the crude biodiesel with water to produce the final vehicle-worthy product you can see in the photos.

Throughout the visit Colin answered our questions on everything from handling lye (the caustic which is vital for the trans-esterification reaction which converts the vegetable oil to biodiesel and glycerol) to the disposal or recycling of the waste glycerol. He advised anyone making biodiesel for the first time not to rush into producing enormous amounts.
“The thing is to start small, doing the reactions with some glass or plastic bottles,” he said. “Then as you get used to handling the liquids, you can increase the amount.” This came as a great relief as I had been eyeing that caustic lye with some trepidation.

The legal limit for home biodiesel production is 2,500 litres per year, tax-free. This is what Sustainable Bungay’s Biosdiesel group will aim at initially. For the project to get underway properly we would have to wait for wamer weather. Colin meanwhile invited us to come round the next time he does a ‘reaction’.

(ii)
Last Saturday, 19^th February a dozen of us turned up at Kris and Eloise's to have a look at the set up in their garage and to make our first three litres of biodiesel. We crowded into the living room where Kris introduced the project and we discussed everything from logistics to legalities before descending on the kitchen for Eloise’s delicious soup and homebaked bread, David’s tasty flapjacks (his first ever!), Elinor's ginger cake (no comment required!) and Brenna's polenta, lemon and orange cake, also a first. I ate three slices of that!

Then we cleared all the food and utensils out of the way to do the reaction. Great care was needed (and taken) pouring the lye/methanol first into a glass measuring jug and then into plastic bottles with vegetable oil. As it was our first time (and the weather had not yet warmed up), we used clean vegetable oil, which does not go hard as lard in the winter.

Kris wore protective goggles and everyone handling the mixtures wore gloves. David and Josiah took photos. We kept the windows open to avoid suffocation by noxious fumes. My nervousness about caustic liquids was allayed both by the presence of Mike, a chemical engineer, and the fact that Kris was so calm.

We had to keep the temperature of the mixture at below 50 degrees for the reaction to take place safely (methanol is volatile and can produce an easily ignited vapour at higher temperatures), so the bottles were placed in a pan on the stove for about an hour. Meanwhile we went to look at the reaction vessel.

I had to leave shortly afterwards but here below is the result of our first biodiesel-making session.

Pics: Pouring the Oil (notice no gloves here!); Colin's Biodiesel; Pouring the Lye/Methanol mix (serious glove time!); Still in the Garage; First Bottle of Biodiesel - Photos by Josiah Meldrum, David Poston and Mark Watson

Secondhand Chic

Before I started university I used to have the impression that Charity shops were full of smelly old ladies clothes and wouldn't have dreamed of buying anything from them. But over the past four years I have gone through quite a decided shift in outlook and I am now proud to say that the vast majority of my wardrobe is from charity shops or clothes swaps.

To begin with I started using charity shops as they were better for the planet and its people and although the clothes I bought were alright I always felt a bit self conscious and it felt like a compromise I was making for the planet's sake. However, in the last few years - I'm not sure whether I've changed or what's in charity shops has changed, but I now have an embarrassingly overloaded wardrobe full of beautiful charity shop and clothes swap finds. I now feel confident in what I am wearing and I love surprising people when they ask where I got the admired clothing from. Coupled with my recent enthusiasm for clothing making and altering and I am well down the road of secondhand chic.

And its great. So much more exciting than rack after rack of slightly different clothes, marred with the child labour and injustice, that everyone else will be wearing. You can be unique and wear what you like rather than what is in fashion. You also get the choice of all kinds of different styles you wouldn't normally come across and it lets your creativity run wild.

Not that I'm advocating rampaging secondhand consumerism here. Our societies obsession with stuff is damaging whether it is new or secondhand. But I believe that there must be enough clothes in the world at the moment to last us at least 30 years without making new ones*, so we might as well share them around a bit, alter them to actually fit us rather than the one body shape that highstreet clothing fits and celebrate the variety, the individuality of secondhand chic.

And when the clothes are all worn through and they need a new lease of life. Well then we can make them into draught excluders!

Photos: Me in secondhand chic (Mark Watson) and Slitherus the draught excluder who was a table cloth in his previous life.

*completely based on opinion, no facts here!

how many eco-lightbulbs does it take to change a person?

I don't know what this title means and I have a temperature so anything could happen.
Aspirations are much better than resolutions. Although medical aspirations should not be performed except by a trained health practitioner or failing that someone who has seen it done at least once.
The photograph is proof if proof were needed that resolutions do not work. It is a picture of my purse when I was about 12. I have always lost things and continue to do so. So there is no point setting a goal that says 'this year I will not lose anything'. All that will happen is that you will feel sad about losing said item and then sad about failing in your resolution.
What is much more fun is to write a list of things you would like to do in the year. At the end of the year when you come to write a new one you can look at your old list (it will be a nice surprise because you will have forgotten to look at it for a year) and see which things you have done.

At the moment I am thinking mainly about January:

Make a rabbit or squirrel stew you can get these from buylocal (I can't find anyone willing to teach me to shoot a rabbit, I cant think why, maybe people have heard about the incident with the PE teacher and the javelin when I was 13)
Have a session of gift,clothes,book swapping
Learn to make stuff as part of the reskilling group such as making material from plastic bags
Do a stand up session about being green

Another nice thing to do is to look back at what you have achieved in the year, this would be my list;
helped to create the Magdalen street festival
made a bag out of felting a jumper
did my first stand up gig at a party
wrote a reading about green Christmas and read it out at the Octagon Chapel
had another year of not buying any new clothes ( apart from fairtraide underwear).

And if you think ethical is not sexy then think again.



Any answers to the question in the title are greatly received.

Christmas shopping part three - things you can make

I have decided to do a hamper for my parents when I go and see them. In it I will put some plum jam I bought at a fair, a Christmas cake I made (not the one in the picture, mine was more burnt looking well er actually burnt, but I am thinking icing), some Chocolate brownies (jamie olivers recipe is amazing) some fairtrade wine and some cheese (binham blue maybe).

With one of my friends I showed her a book of felted gifts from which she chose a small bag which I made by boiling down one of my mums cardigans (before you ask, yes she HAD thrown it out and no she wasnt wearing it)

Another friend I knitted a caftiere cosy which I tried out on his caftiere when he wasnt looking and then realized it was too small and had to knit some extensions. It looks cute in a look-my-coffee-pot-is-wearing-a-balaclava kind of way.

Of course you have to have started this process back in November when you would have been pouring alcohol into your cake every week, practising your brownies and stealing I mean repurposing your mums sweaters. So bookmark this page for next year and get to the shops there are only 168 hours of shopping left!
or go to this website...http://www.buynothingchristmas.org

Christmas shopping part one - green forgiveness

Having been bought up a Christian I am well versed in feeling guilty and this time of year is the perfect opportunity for honing those skills. To help with the trauma of buying someone what they want instead of an ecologically sound gift I have developed a kind of green atonement or carbon offsetting for the individual.

Of course if you are Kirsty Allsopp you will have unlimited time and a constant supply of soap makers, seamstresses and flea markets and all your grandchildren will be delighted to receive a secondhand jam jar full with jelly beans instead of a galaxy tab but for mortal souls we have to make compromises.

So the next three days I am offering my thoughts on how to negotiate the season relatively guilt free (keep watch for my survive January blog)

My first carbon offsetting is to buy as many ecologically sounds gifts as possible for those that will accept them. Norwich has a number of places you can now buy handmade goods. St Lawrences textile centre has a great selection of vintage clothes and handmade crafts ( where you can also find Anne McCrudden's highly sought after teacosies)St Gregories Centre for the arts http://www.stgregorysart.co.uk also has great secondhand, homemade, vintage goods and the most amazing cake. Elm Hill has several good shops and one new craft shop that has opened has handmade socks amongst other things.

The gloves I am sporting in the photograph are from a shop in Scotland. They are made by a 90 year old local woman who used charity wool knitted to a pattern named after the Duke of Buccleuch who encouraged the hand knitting industry over 150 years ago.The pattern is called Sanquhar named after a town in Dumfries-shire.

Another offsetting is to come home from shoppping and do some mending and drink some nettle tea, you will feel very groud (green and proud).

More tomorrow on green gifts....

Sisters Are Doing It For Ourselves

“We didn’t make a good job before,” laughs Apache Ray. “We’re going to leave it to the women this time.”

Apache Ray, brought up in a Mexican neighbourhood in Los Angeles, has returned to his native homeland in the Dragoon Hills and has opened up a trading post as a communications centre. We’re here looking at a patch of land behind the store he wants to turn into an indigenous herb garden and he has asked for Greta’s help. Greta, 25, has just written a paper about Apache medicine plants that grow all around these hills and arroyos. It’s a beautiful Spring day in the desert at the turn of the century. Gold California poppies ribbon the highway, blue lupines shine on the hillside and rings of evening primroses cover the red earth, like white handkerchiefs.

I had a feeling then as we all sat under the ramada of what is was like when people could come together without rancour and start again. When wild flowers could recover the earth like a rainbow. When the fiercest tribe in America could lay down their arms. And say that perhaps there was another way of doing things.

* * * *

“You have to be the thread,” said Eloise and we laughed. “Feel the thread and do it anyway,” I added, mostly to myself. We’re doing Button Holes today. Last week it was Zips and the week before Darts. It’s a sewing class on a Sunday afternoon at Bungay Library. We’re reskilling ourselves. Or rather I’m reskilling myself as surely the world’s worst needlewoman. Descended from generations of brilliant seamstresses and having worked in fashion with some of the world’s most beautifully-wrought clothes for over a decade, and yet I can hardly thread a needle. Originally I felt complete and utter resistance to coming here. Like everyone else I like shining at what I am good at. Not failing. In another context I would not have returned given the hopelessness that engulfed me when faced with this recycled, ferociously fast Singer sewing machine that seemed to have a will of its own.

But I did come back. And mostly because Eloise is running the class. She shows us her grandmother’s examples of perfect stitching, and we find ourselves effortlessly getting on with the clothes we have brought to make or mend. If we get stuck, we ask. It’s not really a class at all. You absorb everything as you go along. Mia and I make tea, Mark reads Keziah (Eloise’s 3 year old daughter) a story. And suddenly we all start singing Dancing Queen (Abba! Oh, please). There’s a good vibe in here, industry, self-organisation, creativity, inclusion. In that kind of harmony you can find connections and solutions that a competitive and controlling set-up would not allow.

“How is it going with that speech, Ellie?” I ask. Elinor rolls her eyes skywards. Elinor is in charge of Bungay Community Bees and she’s been asked to speak at the Capital Bee Summit on Thursday in London. Everyone wants to know what the Business Model is for the UK’s first Community Supported Apiculture. Our local Transition sub-group has inspired the start-up of community-owned beehives all over the city and it’s difficult to put what happened this summer in the neighbourhood orchards into a rational "left-brain" format. How can you describe something that catches people’s imagination? How can you describe why an enterprise works because joining it makes you feel you belong to life and to people and to the earth? Because it’s in synch with the eco-systems and with the time we are living and you just “get it”? Because it’s a group organised by female workers. Just like a hive.

So you see when I say sisters are doing it for ourselves, I mean another way of doing things is an intrinsically female way of doing things. This has nothing to do with the patriarchy or the matriarchy, or feminism, or Women are Better Than Men, it’s a beehive approach. A structural shift to right-brain perception, free from duality and me-versus-you. One person is the queen bee and because she is in that position, tirelessly productive, in tune with the whole hive, we all can get on with what we do. Which is bringing back sweetness and storing it up for future generations.

Writing about honey in a book on medicine flowers, I once wrote how the artist Joseph Beuys set up an installation in the 1970s called Honey Pump in the Workplace. Fat and honey were pumped around the gallery, creating a space in which new human communications could happen:

“During the war as a Luftwaffe pilot, Beuys had crashed into the snow-bound steppes of the Crimea and been rescued by Tartar nomads. He had been wrapped in fat and felt to keep him alive. It was an encounter that informed all his subsequent work. Many of his installations juxtaposed the vibrant dynamics of nature with a modern industrial life that produced cold-blooded human beings with materialistically-hardened thoughts, incapable of empathy or mystery. The warmth and movement of natural substances (in this case fat and honey) that related to the warmth and movement of our blood, activated the higher centres of our consciousness: thought became imagination, feeling became inspiration, and will, intuition. In short, the alchemical presence of honey provided the warmth and vibrancy in which real, heart-felt communication could take place.”

Transition gives you a starting point. It gives you a defined space in time, untarnished by history. Here we are: we have to relearn and restore and start again. We would not be here together singing in the library if this were a craft class, organised by the old community system. We’re here because it’s a new way, and we’re here because it feels good to be together. And in that warmth and camaraderie another world can happen. And that’s why in the year 2000 in Cochise, Arizona Apache Ray asked Greta to plant his medicine flower garden.

We can dance. We can jive.
Having the time of our lives.

Cathy; Charlotte, Eloise and Kate in Margaret's garden, Sustainable Bungay Core Group meeting, August 2010; Eloise teaching the art of zips, Bungay Library; Elinor teaching beecraft, Barsham; evening primrose in Cochise county, Arizona.