One year out

One year out since the challenge finished and six months since our last blog.  A lot has happened. So many bloggers blog 3 times a day, I am the opposite, I have been meaning to one for the last couple of months!    So old school.  Since we last spoke… we have different professions, live in a different city and sadly, lovely Jess (the dog) died.  She had a good innings though, she was the stately old age of 13 1/2 and lived each of her days to the max.  We will miss you Jess.

For quite sometime Matthew and I have been planning to move to Auckland, particularly the Shore, because pretty much my whole extended family lives here and I (finally) started to feel as if I was missing out way down south.  Its hard though, because I went and married a Cantabrian so we are fated to always be missing someone.  We arrived in Auckland mid January and so far, hate to say it, have been loving the warm nights and warm non-fear-factor swimming experiences.  But for all those people who feel vindicated when people say bad things about Auckland I can report that Auckland has a few more mosquitoes. It’s going to be really interesting trying to be rubbish free in a completely different place because so much about living rubbish free is finding local solutions, and for a start I know Auckland has hardly any Bin Inns, something so many others have found frustrating.  Now its our turn to try and work it out. High on our list of things to find are a butcher, a farmers market and an organic whole foods shop – organic shops usually have good bin sections and good packaging.

On the work front we are also facing challenges.   Our original challenge was just for our home situation which allowed us to be bearable workmates and employees, but now we are planning to start a food retail business.  This will give us control of creating systems in order to be as rubbish free, local and organic as possible.  I’ll keep you posted as things develop over the next few months.

Over the last few months I am pleased to say that a lot of ‘personal’ fog has cleared around the elusive alter-egos ‘Sustainable Matty and Waveney’.   This is largely to do with a book I recently read called  ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’ by Babara Kingsolver.  Babara and her family also gave themselves a year long challenge, to try and eat locally.  It was the perfect book for us to read because increasingly it is the food issue we find ourselves gravitating toward.  The book solved many dilemmas for me, including this one:  Is it better to drive around town visiting the butcher, baker, the man out west who makes organic  fresh pasta etc… or it is better to just go to the supermarket and conserve the fuel?  Surely all that driving makes greenies a bit of a laughing stock?  The answer?  No.  Not by a country mile.  Why? Because of all the food miles the average supermarket item has clocked up.  Drive all over town to your hearts content and know that your ahead of the boat bringing Californian oranges.  Of course I can’t help but temper these comments, being the sort of middle of the road greenie that I am.  I don’t mean to black list Pak n Save… in fact I just did a full rubbish free shop there on Friday*.  Of course growing your own and biking is even better,  but its a crazy world we live in.

Its fair to say that we have a ‘long term’ food sustainability goal.  Last winter we took an exciting step in the right direction.  We ordered 20 fruit trees / berry bushes and planted them all out in our front and back lawn.  I have been so inspired by Lynda Hallinan, editor of New Zealand Gardener magazine, who “has been attempting to live self-sufficiently in the inner-city, growing all her own fresh fruit and veges in her quarter-acre backyard.” She is amazing, I imagine most Kiwi’s reading this will have heard of her but for all those others check out her blog at www.nzgardener.blogspot.com The surprising thing is that we still have a lot of lawn left.  Our section is 620sqm (Lynda’s is 730sqm).  See below for recent picture of our ample lawn, the notable things are Jess (bless her soul), some existing native planting and a lot of lawn: use magnifying glass to spy a few new fruit trees out the back.  We have rented our house out while we are away and the idea is that when we get back, whenever that is, the mature trees/ bushes will be dripping with yummy edibles.  The thing that amazed me is that our tenants are already thanking us!  They enjoyed currents and gooseberries and I think will have a crop of grapes too.

Its great to be in Auckland,  great to be having adventures of discovery again.  Also surprisingly its always been Auckland, not Christchurch, where we had our biggest following, so although its been hard to leave things we knew and loved we feel welcomed and warmed (forgive the pun) already.  On that note, Matthew and I have a humble closing request, if any of you Aucklanders have a house that you would appreciate a sitter for because you are going away for a month or so and would like your garden cared for and pets fed etc we would loved to be considered.  We are choosing to live inbetween my parents and Matthew’s brother and intend to housesit to provide a ’sustainable’ balance between familiarity and what shall we say?  “freshness.”  We hope that this will be our living arrangement throughout at least 2010.  If you would like to contact us please email us at rubbishfreeyear@gmail.com.

* Rubbish Free Supermarket Shop:  On this particular day we hit the fresh fruit and vegetable section hard, buying plums, peaches, corn and other seasonal NZ goodies and used our own reusable fruit and vegetable bags. (check out  www.onyabags.co.nz we use ‘weigh’ bags, the website has stockists in your area).  We followed up with the bulk foods section (reuse the bags, crossout and rewrite numbers or reuse own bags and keep note of the numbers), we then bought  jam and vanilla essence in glass containers, porridge oats, ice cream and chocolate in paper and milk and a couple of other bits in recyclable plastic.  What about bread you say or cheese or frozen food…?  Yes good questions… all answered on previous occasions. If interested explore the rest of our site /blogs. (using search tool may help).