Monday 22 April 2013

It's Spring ......

 
It's Spring ... it must be, the sun is shining, although how long for I wouldn't like to guarantee, I have seeds sown in the greenhouse that are coming up after only 4 days, you've just got to love Radishes they give you such hope with their quick growing as well as such peppery goodness,  and best of all yesterday it was actually WARM. 
 
Wow, how I've missed the warmth.
 
 

 
So quickly this morning I've got to sort through lots of emails, (thank you to all those of you who sent comments and emails wishing me happy birthday, absolutely lovely to receive), then I have to nip to the sorting office to 'buy' a card that was posted to me with not enough postage, why do they have to do that to you, I would willingly give the postman the money at the door, instead I have to hand over my money at the sorting office AND pay to park my car while I do so....totally NOT FAIR!! 
 
 Deep breath - rant over!
 
Then I have to go and hand over more money to get our little doggies out of the kennels where they were for the weekend while we shot off looking at another property.  It's all looking hopeful for the auction on Friday of this week, fingers crossed :-)
 
 
 
Then and only then, if the sun is still with us will I be able to get stuck in with weeding the beds at the front of the house and make a start on sprucing this place up ready for (dare I say it) Summer.  The front beds are used as our overflow beds for 'cut and come again' lettuces, herbs and other little bits and pieces that are handy to have right outside the door.  This is a picture of one of the beds in August last year, the other is on the other side of the front door and extends aound the side of the house, we planted them with veggies quite late last year as we hadn't expected the deer to eat as many of our veggies over in the Veggie Patch as they did, (we didn't even know there were so many deer here until then). 
 
 Usually in Summer the deer are well fed enough not to venture this close to the house for food so our lettuces etc will stand a reasonable chance of survival, and soon we will have the deer defences in place around the Veggie Patch, so hopefully (fingers crossed and fences erected) we will even do better over there this year.
 
 
 
Which would be really good as we need to grow as much as we possibly can because this sign is our new mantra. 
 
We are hopefully from now on eating only real food at least 95% of the time (off the top of my head I can't think what the other 5% of foods would be, but I'm being generous here and giving us some leeway).  I shouldn't really have to call it real food if you think about it, it should just be FOOD, and everything else should be called 'fake food'.
 
Since simplifying our diets there are so many aisles of the supermarkets I don't even go down, saves a lot of time and hopefully very soon I will save even more time in there as I will be back to shopping from the Veggie Patch for our meals and there will be absolutely nothing in packets.
 
My eyes are currently very open when I am in supermarkets, have you ever took a step back and just looked, looked at the mass of processed, mass produced foods in all their packaging, with all the offers enticing us to buy.  Even so many of the 'real foods' have been tampered with in so many ways.  Just take potatoes, you can buy them as actual potatoes very cheaply or you can pay through the nose to have them washed for you, peeled for you, sliced for you, mashed for you, the list goes on.  Yes, it is brilliant if you have no time in an emergency or there is a genuine reason for needing your food prepared I totally understand that, but when you see folk that are simply buying the prepared foods because that's all they know it's a shame, they are handing over twice, sometimes three times the money they need to for the same foodstuff.  Ooops sorry ranting again!!
 
I better get going and get these errands run, so I can get back to my first love, growing our own food.
 
I hope the sun is shining where you are.
 
Sue xx
 

18 comments:

  1. Sort of "thinking about being sunny here" at the moment...hmmm!
    Agree totally about "fake food" - it's actually quite scary!
    Have a lovely day!

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  2. I know what you mean about supermarkets cooking it all for you - shocking really. Whilst most of 'us' on these blogs can prepare it all ourselves (or buy when in an emergency), it is a shame others can't or won't cook. Doesn't help that true domestic 'cooking' science seems to be a thing of the past in schools.

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  3. I cannot believe how many people buy different levels of processed food. When we were travelling in Europe last year I found it so much better to buy basic ingredients and then make our meals - initially I thought it might be a little boring, but have not found it so. When we were living in a house I used to save time by cooking for four each time and freezing half for another 'ready meal' later, but unfortunately there is not enough space in the motorhome to do this. (still use the ice box as much as possible though) Still keeping fingers crossed for Friday. XX

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    1. p.s. - I have a horrible feeling that the 5% (not real) food is chocolate!! Such a shame.

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    2. Nope, as long as it's good quality dark chocolate, it most certainly is 'real food', ask Zoe Harcombe if you don't believe me. There are good things our bodies need in the quality chocolate. (Thank goodness!!)

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    3. Excellent news, I love dark chocolate (really dark too) and hubby only really likes milk and white - result!!

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  4. I go down very few aisles in the supermarket these days- most contain stuff that none of us would eat. I think that's why I haven't bought from AF for over 12 months. I find that a lot of the stuff is processed ( cook in sauces etc) or sugary/ full of fat ( chocolate, sweets and biscuits), so the few things I would buy aren't worth the delivery charge. I'd much rather make my own food and know what's in it!

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  5. I so agree with your rant (and also your doubt that spring is really here - I am freezing!)

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  6. Im in total agreement with the above comments, these days we couldnt afford convenience foods (even if we wanted them), raw ingredients go so much further and home cooked tastes so much better. I pleanted my radish seedling out yesterday and (even tho I scattered crushed eggshells around them) darent lok to see how many the slugs have eaten. :o(

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  7. Spring is here - husband is in shorts !

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    1. In shorts and Finn racing!! It's hilarious when I read that on your Blog today I had a fleeting vision of him and the cat on the starting blocks :-)

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  8. Totally agree about the foods, we have cut so many different foodstuffs out now that I very rarely even do a big shop, it is mostly topping up on fresh unprocessed meat,poultry,fish and veggies. My stores are much reduced and lots of what was in there has been cooked for other people. I tend to eat along the guidelines of thevWeston Price foundation now and question much more where my food comes from. You have to love the Internet for being able to educate yourself about thesei issues and not just be spoon fed the stuff that big industries and agricultural concerns want us to believe.

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  9. After having a particularly awful lunch today I have decided I would prefer to by some nicer ingredients & make lunch at home. I do tend to cook from scratch any way. On the card front, that is what my son at uni tends to do. When it is a family members birthday, people remark in advance about booking in a visit to the sorting office to pick up the card.

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  10. I read somewhere - try not to eat anything that has a list of ingredients. Absolutely beautiful autumn day here in N. New South Wales after much rain. Fresh food is great but mother nature sure makes it hard to grow sometimes. Hope you warm up soon. Joy

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  11. Once again I'm a little late in catching up with my reading...

    I join your rant re: underpaid postage. I don't know about you, but Royal Mail don't make it easy for you to collect, with their bizarre opening times and their depots in the most inconvenient places. Luckily, we haven't needed to collect any type of letter or parcel in a long while!

    I like your new mantra. I know we're not even close to that ratio at present, but, one day (although, that's the adults I'm talking about... the nippers are a different story... isn't it interesting that whilst the hubby and I are happy to fill our tums with processed food, we make sure to limit that for our children...hmmm, food for thought for me).

    I'm pleased to see you had a successful weekend of viewings too - good luck at the auction! Looking forward to hearing how you get on!

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  12. Oh dear, when reading your sign I read "pants" instead of "plants" and that gave me the giggles when I realised my mistake :-)

    I once had to pay for a letter with not enough postage on it, I complained to the company who'd posted it and they sent me a few stamps to make up for it.

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  13. Good luck with the house auction!
    Judy xx

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  14. Good luck in the auction for the house!

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