Gifts and guests

I've mentioned this before - I really struggle with trying to be sustainable when it comes to stuff for other people: giving gifts, having people around etc. When I buy stuff excessively packaged in plastic, or *ahem* fly to the other side of the world, it's often because I want to do something that's nice for someone else.

I was interested to read a really clear explanation of this conflict in Niki Harre's Psychology for a Better World (see the chapter on identity; also pp. 137-138). There are a lot of big ideas in this book. One is that you want to act in a way that is consistent with your identity, but in your life you have multiple identities that are sometimes in conflict. In this case, you are a greenie - so you want to be environmentally responsible - but you are also a mother/daughter/sister/friend and a member of a society that traditionally gives gifts - so you want to give a nice gift.

She also explains that you empathise much more easily with one person, especially one similar to you, than you do with any more than one. (Millions of people will suffer because of climate change vs your Nan will really like this present? Nan wins, hands down.)

So it's not just me! It is actually really hard to reconcile wanting to act in a sustainable way with wanting to do something nice for someone else, when those two things are in conflict.

So, Christmas is kind of hard. I think maybe the solution is to resolve the conflict by being creative and coming up with a solution that is both sustainable AND nice for someone else.

There are some excellent present ideas that are both nice to get and local/eco-friendly.

Who wouldn't want a gift voucher for a cleaner to come in and clean your house?!

Blackberry season

It's high blackberry season and there's the most fantastic crop on the Western Hills.

Picking here is a dream. My memories of blackberry picking as a child in suburban Wellington are of all the bushes being well picked over and getting scratched up the arms stretching precariously over the edge of a steep bank to reach the last few. The same was true in Aro Valley where foraging was fashionable among the students. Up here there are masses of bushes dripping with beautifully ripe plump berries. You can saunter along the edge of the road idly picking only the juiciest and popping them in your mouth.

There are so many ripe berries within easy reach that you have to conclude that no-one up here really picks them at all. You're not in Aro Valley now, Compost Girl.

But what could be more frugal and eco-friendly than foraging?  So I was out today with the baby strapped on in the front pack, picking the blackberries down our street.

When I was a kid my Mum used to keep the best berries for blackberry and apple pie or to eat with muesli for breakfast. Any small or somewhat manky ones would go in a jar to make blackberry cordial. I'm doing the same, although I'm not up to pie - I've just made a simple blackberry sauce to go over vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Here's Mum's recipe:

Blackberry cordial

2 cups blackberries
2 cups white wine vinegar
450g sugar
250g honey

Pour vinegar over blackberries and stand one week. Strain and put liquid in a saucepan with the sugar and honey. Bring to the boil then remove from heat and cool. Bottle. Can be used much like Ribena.

Like my Mum I'll be adding blackberries to the jar over several days of pickings.

Organic vegetables, bees, butterflies and hoverflies

I've switched to buying organic vegetables.

I'd been thinking about it for a while, because of all that good stuff about organics (more carbon held in the soil, less fertiliser runoff into waterways, more biodiversity) but it took me a while to decide to make the change - because organic does cost more.

While I was dithering, I read a blog post that reminded me about the worldwide problem with declining pollinators.

And I thought to myself: "I think I can't afford an extra $10 or 15 a week for vegetables, but I think I can afford to live in a world without bees?"

I guess we don't yet know for sure the reason that bees are declining, but it reminded me that my expectations about the price of food might be based on a slightly screwed-up system.

Plastic-free basil

Look at this marvellous piece of marvellousness!

Last year I had to buy basil in a plastic pot (grumble grumble) but this year I found basil seedlings for sale in a recycled takeaway coffee cup.

Good on you Grow from Here.

Hard-wearing shoes

Shoe lovers, I have two words for you: Minnie Cooper.

My discovery of the week - I bought a pair and I'm besotted with them!

They are:
- made in New Zealand
- all leather, apart from the heel and the sole plate they recommend you get put on
- repairable-looking - you could replace the heel and the sole plate when they get worn

They're not cheap, but I'm optimistic they will last long enough to make up.

And did I mention pretty? :)


Other notes I've gleaned about good and bad shoe brands:

Wore out quickly:
Hush Puppies
Miss Sophie
All Stars

Seemed to last well:
DV8
Sole shoes

Hill St farmers' market

It was my first visit to the Hill St Farmers' Market yesterday.

First thought: So that's where the organic vegie stall has gone to from the Victoria St market.

Second thought: Hmm, it is a bit of a chichi, high-end market, aimed at the eco-affluent rather than a dirt-under-the-fingernails farmers market (stalls with chocolates, cupcakes, olive oil etc. rather than earthy vegies and half sides of sheep).

Third (excited) thought: Fish?!

And there it was: Splashzone, a van selling fish caught locally off the Wairarapa coast. They say they're a family business and catch under the quota management system.

I asked and they said they catch the fish either with lines (for hapuku and one other species) or with nets. What kind of nets? I asked. They looked at me like I was a little crazy and said they had nets with different-sized holes for different species.

I guess I was thinking: gillnet? purse seine net? They didn't really give me quite enough information to know, but from the photos on the website it's clearly a small boat with small nets, so I'm thinking this isn't bottom trawling or one of those operations with nets so big you can fit a fleet of aeroplanes through the mouth. So I reckon it's probably not too bad as commercial fishing goes.

And they gave me a scoop of chipped ice in the bag to take my smoked lemonfish home in. Nice.

Tank bread

I've discovered the Tank loaf at Aro Bake.

Yes! Finally a boughten bread that meets my criteria:

1. Wholemeal
2. Reasonably priced (@ $3.80 a loaf, it works out only slightly more expensive than Vogels)
3. Not sold in plastic (it comes in a nice paper bag)

I've wanted to cut down on non-recyclable bread bags for ages. I do bake some of my own bread (using an awesome sourdough starter from a friend) but, realistically: baking all my own bread? Yeah, right!

So, chuffed with the Tank loaf.

Solutions are everywhere, once you start looking.

Shoe solutions

Tidying out the closet I found not one but two pairs of shoes that I'd loved but had worn out to the point that they had holes in the bottom. Holes that let the rain in.

I hated the idea of just throwing them out though. What to do, what to do?

*Cue interval on google.*

What do you know? Turns out Nike takes back sports shoes to recycle into artificial sports surfaces. Awesomely enough, they even collect shoes in New Zealand. That's pretty cool.

I didn't have sports shoes though. Hmm.

*Cue interval staring into space with pensive expression on face.*

My solutions:

1. Earthquake shoes! I took one pair to work to keep in a drawer in case I need sensible shoes in an emergency.

2. Repair! (This is yet another one of those "green" ideas that's really rediscovering something that your grandparents did but feeling like it's new again.) For some reason I had the idea that my shoes were the non-resoleable kind, but I took them into the shoe repair shop on Ghuznee St and there was no problem at all.

Twenty-five bucks and it's like I've got a whole new pair of shoes.

Loving the lovely shoe repairman right now.

The best garden shop ever

Completely shameless plug for Grow from Here, now my favourite garden shop ever.

Not only did they get in the exact thing that I wanted (Awapuni newspaper-wrapped leek seedlings), but, when they saw me testing out the weight of bags of compost, they lent me a trolley to get a 20L bag home with.

Wish I had a big garden and therefore a reason to rush out and buy heaps of things from them.

Hmm, maybe I could turn the living room into an indoor jungle ...

Edible hedge

The new feijoa hedge around the council flats on Aro St is flowering.

Edible hedge—what a brilliant idea.

No Impact Project

The No Impact Project takes the environmental "gateway" action concept to a whole other level.

I'm kind of tempted to try this. But maybe not this week, when I evilly have to fly to Rotorua and Auckland for work.

Ooh, new garden shop! *wriggles toes happily*

Very excited about Grow from Here, the garden shop on Abel Smith St that just opened TODAY!

Although I've been doing extremely well on being plastic-free in the garden this year, I thought I'd show them some support (and divert my dollars to help create the world I want—ie one where there's a garden shop five minutes walk away :) by buying a basil plant in a (plastic) pot and a (plastic) bag of potting mix.

Did make me laugh when I got to the checkout after thinking about all this and they carefully asked me if I needed a plastic carry bag instead of automatically giving me one, saying "We try not to use too many plastic bags."

Makes me realise that I've moved on from just thinking about plastic bags to noticing disposable plastic everywhere.

Some people are dismissive and say that focusing on not using plastic bags is a waste of time because it lets people feel they are being "green" when in fact plastic bag use (or not) has only a very small impact. But I think that maybe taking a reuseable bag shopping is a gateway action, like drug scaremongers say marijuana is a "gateway" to harder drugs. Making one (easy, obvious) change makes you realise that change is possible, and gets you thinking about stuff.

Good on you Grow from Here. Bless your little heart for taking that first step.

Apricot, nectarine and peach season

Ah ha, brilliant find on the interweb:

I have always felt unsure when apricots, nectarines and peaches come into season. I think of them as summer fruit, but they seem to appear in the markets at a time that I still think of as spring, making me suspicious ...

Have just found a brilliant summer fruit calendar, listing when each one comes into season. And—hooray—apricot and peach season is just around the corner. To celebrate, I'm adding them to the "in season" list, even if it is maybe just a teeny bit early.

Homage to Aro St minimart

The Aro St minimart rocks. Not only can you get Vogels, organic Purebread and organic milk there, it is one of the only places in Wellington that I have been able to find organic, free-range eggs. (Supermarkets usually only have organic barn or cage-free eggs.)

You can even get Architecture NZ in the magazine section.

Aro Valley is the best!

Asparagus season, mmm ...

I've triumphantly added "asparagus" to the list of vegetables in season.

I harvested the very first spear of the year from the garden on Wednesday. It was the best-tasting asparagus I have ever had :)

Watties

I felt depressed in the canned goods aisle looking for actual canned New Zealand produce.
So I rang Watties to ask what "Made from local and imported ingredients" meant on the back of their cans of pears (they have the worst customer service line, by the way—you have to give a million personal details before you can even ask a question).
Hooray—they said that yes, they use local fruit, and (claimed) they would state specifically if they used imported fruit.