What will tomorrow bring...

That is what I ponder today as it is the last day of June.

The last day of the current financial year as well as the last day without the dreaded Carbon Tax...

Noone can tell us what the implications are... Or what it will cost us...

Hubby and I are trying to overestimate everything at the moment. Electricity is supposed to go up at least 16% but who knows in the end? Milk, bread and flour etc was not supposed to go up but corner shops had been advices weeks ago of the steep increases...

Today is the sunset of the old. Tomorrow is unknown. To an extent it is no use worrying about the unknown but one must budget and keep the bills down as much as possible. Something we try to do very hard, and will only get harder I believe...

All in all I am not against this new tax at all as long as it actually helps the environment, which I don't believe it will. Companies will buy their credits and get billed by the government for their polluting ways, who will pass the cost onto you and me, the customers...

And after three years of price freezing who knows where the amount will go to...

I want today to be a Groundhog Day lol

Cheers Damaris

Lasted nearly Two Years...

One of my best friends was moving to Melbourne... So just before he moved, Adam days 'Heres a tub of washing powder for you'... One more month and it would have lasted two whole years. How lucky are we :) Can't believe it has been so long since he's been gone... We see him when we can which the whole family loves off course... He still refers to Josh as his little brother which is so nice :)

Cheers Damaris

Finally...

For many years I have been after a really good set of knives... Nothing too flash but knives that would last the distance and that were easy to sharpen. :) Well I have been saving and finally got a knife block and set of knives that I am extremely happy with... Just love it and fits perfectly into my kitchen :)

Very happy :)

Cheers Damaris

For the nesting boxes...

Lovely shredded paper for my hens. :)

One of our lovely neighbours, Bruce, came over the other day with a couple of huge bags of shredded paper... Boy did I love using them in the chook house. I usually use wood shavings but with the shredded paper they tend to throw less of it out of the box. Does compact allot quicker though. Was great to get it from Bruce and apparently he will continue to bring it from time to time when he has some.

Cheers Damaris

Chooks loving the soaked doggy bikkies...

Poultry loving the dog biscuits...

A vet once shared some good advice with my lovely Sister-in-law... To get chooks to start laying again give them soaked dog biscuits... So as I am trying to get rid of some cheap dog food from my food drum I thought I would do just that... Have done it for the last three days and am hoping that it does the trick...

I have mostly three or more year old chooks and they are not laying allot. I have about 20 of them but am only getting about four or five eggs a day. Fine for just us but love to use extras and barter with them. Not that I am doing any of that at the moment. Last week I even had to buy a dozen. (Shudder...)

I have decided this morning too that I will cull quite a few of them... Probably all of them but Bruce and maybe a handful of hens that are the younger ones. They are getting to be too much of a chore for the boys and am tired of hearing the complaints when babies need to be tended to before and after school. So as soon as they are old enough they will be sold too...

Just hope that they start laying again before the culling begins. Will fill my freezer as well as a friend's and that is that it ultimately is about... Relying less on the supermarket and saving money at the same time... Can't wait to eat them though am not telling the boys that...

Cheers Damaris

Chicken Sausages anyone???

Ready to go...

First lot of sausages... after a little bust...

Russell twisting the sausages together...

Finished product ready for the fridge and freezer...

Today was the day to tick off another thing of my To Do List... Making our own sausages in casings... Have made sausages before but not with the sausage maker and with casings...

We got ours from the only butcher in town that sold it. What the??? Not happy about that and ended up having to pay $7.50 for about 5kg's worth. Not happy with that price either so will look elsewhere.

We got 3.5kg of chicken breasts from Aldi on the way home as that way it only costs $8.99 per kilo as you are buying bulk. Love that price and no one ever matches or betters it so I get them there. Love Aldi anyway :)

Bimbi got a workout mincing all of the breasts and we also made brown rice flour in it, chops the leek and garlic. All was mixed together and then we put it through the sausage maker...

As you can see from the pictures it was a great success... One lot of sausages kept breaking as they didn't have enough air pockets in the sausages. They will be eaten tonight. Yum!!!

Russell also did a fantastic job doing all of the twisting. He was rather professional at it too... Was very proud of his efforts and bragged to my Mum straight away. hehe

Can't wait for tonight now to enjoy them. Others are being frozen for later usage... Like this weekend when we go camping. woohoo...

Cheers Damaris

Change afoot...

All short and easy to manage...

For a while now I have been trying to save money on getting haircuts all the time so I would just do my own fringe and get Russell to cut the bottom of my hair. I couldn't see the point in spending all that money on myself just for hair... I was able to cut my boys' hair so why not do my own as well... It was getting rather long and also rather heavy for me. I was starting to feel down about it around last Christmas and my youngest sister Lis convinced me that all I needed was some layers in my hair. Plus allot of it chopped off. So I went to three hairdressers in town just after Christmas. All were closed or too expensive... My resolve to get the haircut was running out and I was starting to chicken out...

Anyway I talked to another hairdresser that could fit me in and she was also the daughter of one of the ladies that lives out here in the village. Small world. :)

I got allot cut off but not nearly as much as I needed to...

Every five weeks Christina comes out to the Hall here in the village and cuts hair for anyone wanting it done. I decided I would be brave and get more cut off. Well here is the end result. I have hardly had it up in a ponytail since. That is something that is taking the locals a while to get used to as I always had it up. :)

Cheers Damaris

Solar Electricity has Arrived...

My beautiful new panels...

Wednesday just gone was a very important day in our lives, well mine anyway... I always get really excited about these things... hehe

After all the researching, putting in for the quote and paperwork, waiting for the Government to approve my $8000, doing the 'over the phone' survey about placement of panels and getting the installers out here... It started back in April 2009 and as of 20 January 2010 I am the proud owner of a 1.1KwH Solar Electricity system. It is on my roof and working big time.

The installers got here just on 1:30pm and were finished with the whole job by 3:30pm. The roof was pleasure to work on apparently. Nice and easy. This also means that I am only out of pocket $300 in total and the panels are already making the Electricity Meter run backwards... Even though the panels ended up on the Western side of the house, due to Solar Hot Water panels taking up too much room on the Northern side, the panels are still doing their thing even at 8:15am which I find fantastic. Keep working babies - you have a long job ahead of you. hehe

Ergon now has to come out and install a new meter apparently so that they can tell exactly what my unit is producing and putting back into the grid. From now on I intend to do washing during the day when the solar is working as I might as well reduce my usage, seeing the meter running the opposite to normal and still getting clean clothes... Will try it out with cooking and baking as well. Love running out there and watching the meter. I know lame... But oh sooooo much fun... Doing my bit, that is how I look at it. And loving it. :)

Cheers Damaris

We are Champions, in my humble opinion anyway...

My beautiful electricty meter...

On Wednesday I watched as the meter man came and took our reading and have been waiting very, very patiently for my electricity bill. I have been itching to find out what we have used. I know as I do daily readings what kWh amount we have been using but I wanted to know what the amount was as I didn't know how much electricity had gone up by. All I knew was that it was up as of 1 July 2009.

Well, yesterday I eagerly checked my mail and there it was. That wonderful, precious envelope that would tell me how we had done for the last three months...

Our last quarter we used 1156kWh and it cost us $233.10. Just after our last bill was when I got an electrician out from Warwick and Marty was able to change my solar hot water to actually be solar hot water. What had happened was that during the building process the electrician at the time just wired the pump and solar booster in as one. Not separately. This means that as we are on tank water we needed the pump on all the time. But that also meant that the solar booster was on all the time. Lovely great hot water but the solar was not being used at all. Such a pity. I argued with the builders for ages and they would not come to the party and get it done for me, even though I had asked for them separately before signing the contract. Unfortunately for me I didn't check to see that it was in the contract. It was not. So I got it done myself in the end and was the best $210 I ever spent. Our water most days is actually hotter than with the booster, and no it doesn't need turning on anymore. Just the way I like it...

OK, so to my brag... We have had our No Technology Monday's and Low Electricity Wednesday's for the whole time as well and our usage was down to..... wait for it.... 896kWh and the total of the bill is $210.75.

I can't believe it... I am sooo proud of my boys and I. Russell is really proud of us as well. He was not here for any of the Monday's or Wednesday's except a couple of them so he knew we had put in a huge effort to reduce our usage. The boys are also allot more aware just what goes into saving now and it is a habit.

Our electricity went up 15.67% as at 1 July 2009, which I think is terrible. I just can't wait for my solar electricity to come now. I am checking on the process of my application with the Government Department during this week and will post as to where we are up to. Can't happen soon enough but I also realise that I will probably have to wait for another six months or so.

I am thinking now of other ways to try and save kWh's now. Not only are we saving money and then some as well as building a better knit family unit but we are also doing our little bit at this end in helping the environment and that is what it is mainly all about. Any of your hints would be greatly appreciated...

Cheers Damaris

Biscuits, everywhere...

Yummy, yummy for my tummy...

A couple of months ago I joined Simple Savings. Great place for information on making it simpler living wise. Also a great place for fabulous recipes. One that I got off there was for:

120 Biscuits for $4.00

I did a double batch and made allot of mine a bit too large so didn't quite get that number but very close. Will next time also use sprinkles on top and Timothy wants me to use some chocolate chips in them as well. If you don't use all of the dough you can always form into a roll and cover and freeze. That easy. Was a fun Sunday afternoon activity with many disappearing over the course of the afternoon and since off course.

Will make sure the boys make them next time. Such an easy recipe that I can just sit back and watch...

Cheers Damaris

Audit Update...

Time for reflection...

I thought I would take this opportunity to just let everyone know how our family went in last week's audit...

It started on the Saturday with the Family Plan being created just for us. This has given us great focus for the next 12 months at least. We have done everything that we set out in our plan to do during this week. This included:

We collected chicken and cow manure for the compost.

I reduced the amount of milk that I take from Lorray so that we don't have any go off anymore.

The boys started to regularly collect kindling from a kind neighbour and we are giving her milk in return.

I have asked another neighbour about fixing our tractor and that hopefully will be done within a month.

I have asked another person from our village about helping plant our seedling trees when we get them in spring.

Other things that we continued this week were:

Monitoring our electricity usage and putting the information into a spreadsheet.

Wednesday we only used 0.3kWh for our Low Electricity Day.

We spent no money this week at all as per Rhonda's blog. We are rather proud of that one and ended up saving over $140 for the week on groceries alone.

Made a monthly menu plan.

Yesterday I had a day to myself. It was lovely and I went to the Beaudesert Dexter Breed Show. Yes it started two hours later than originally scheduled but I had a ball. It was lovely to see our breeders and show them pictures of our three. I nearly sold my single milking machine. Shame, could have done with the room in the shed... I will actually get a little more serious about it soon as I would rather see someone else using it than it just sitting there.

Really this week has been very productive. I am still working on things as we go but today is a stay-at-home day, which I love and am really looking forward to. I will milk, cook, bake and do some cleaning probably. Washing will also be done. More firewood needs splitting as well for the coming week. I like Russell to do a whole heap so that the boys and I don't have to worry about it as much during the week when he is not here.

One thing that I am really excited about and can't believe that I have not done it years earlier is my monthly Menu Plan. Wow, how easy is that. All I did was sit down last Sunday night, think of all the dinners that my family likes and then fit them into our days accordingly. I have picked up some lovely quick but nutritious ones in the last two weeks as well so have incorporated them in as well. I must say, I am loving my Menu Plan. Why did I wait so long? I will never know but realise now that the time spent one evening collating it all and putting it all down on paper is sooooo worth the effort. I don't stress anymore about what is for dinner. I already know I have the ingredients and just make sure meat is out in time to defrost. Time management wise it is brilliant. Until I did this plan, I didn't realise just how much I stressed about dinners. I implore anyone and everyone to try this. If you want a copy of mine just let me know and I will email it to you. You can then customise it to your own needs.

My biggest hurdle this week, being holidays has been to limit the boys on the computer or with the DVD's. I usually allow two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon but this has not worked at all this week and shows with my electricity usage. I must admit I have not stuck to it either. Bad, bad, bad. This will improve I am sure as we go back to school and I can implement it starting this school term. Wish me luck...

So this is what happened for us during the last week. Has been very busy but very productive.

Cheers Damaris