The cost of waste

It came to me yesterday as I was cutting up Onions  for our evening meal of Bolognais that in the dim and distant past, the servants of a big house would have been punished for throwing away anything that was of use to the family that employed them.
The punishment was more likely than not, a reduction in the servants pay.
Things such as

• Ash
• soot
• dust
• bones
• peelings(I had just added ours to the compost tub in the kitchen)
• old paper
• card
• broken pots
• food left overs
• Fat
• Blood
• rags
• string
• Shells

would all have been reused or recycled .
We are having to relearn the habits that were obvious to our forebears.

There were other things that got used that maybe were not the responsibility of servants
For example Urine was used to
bleach hair
treat Dandruff
bleach fabrics
as a mordant in dying
a compost starter

People have become far too fussy,too squeamish to see what is in front of their own eyes and nose.
We have an abundance of materials on which to live and many of them are thrown out like the proverbial baby with the bath water .

Some people are talking about how we will all cope when the Oil stops either being produced at all or at least  offered in the west.
I think we will have to go back to the ways of our Ancestors and start to rediscover the resources we once had.
We are much luckier than they, as we know about Solar and Wind and water turbines and how to store Energy in Batteries.
I cant help thinking that  life would be cleaner and Healthier if Oil were to become a scarcity.

There are plenty of people who are already trying their best to reduce their own impact on the earth and finding that in the process their lives are enriched and become less stressful.
One of my favourites is the No impact man

Pennies from Heaven

I found a pound lying in the road on Friday.
That rarely happens.
Sometimes a Penny or a 2 pence piece.
I bought a Poppy with it from the Sea Cadets on the way home as it was Armistice day .

Then when I was at the supermarket today,the cashier insisted I had given her £30 but I didn't remember having that much in my purse.
Anyway she wouldn't accept it was £20 so I came home with £9 change in my pocket .
I still cant work out how it could have been £30 unless 2 notes were fused together when they were dispensed from the ATM on Friday.

Funnily enough,the book I was reading a while ago 'Busting Loose from the money game' states that once you aren't thinking about money all the time and chill a bit, it seems to jump up everywhere without explanation.
Well I don't know but I really don't mind if it is true :)

Windy Autumn here at last!

It has been blowing a Gale all day.

Good thing we concreted the Greenhouse in.
I carried the battery box down to there and set up the solar panel on top of it.
The panel is not wa
It is massively heavy and took two of us to lug it over the threshold.
Later I will get the laptop plugged in down there to work in the free heat afforded by the Greenhouse and the free electricity afforded by the sun.

The pull ups have been going alright still.
Another 9 and various other lesser amounts today until I reached 40 in all.
We may run tonight if it doesn't rain.

I am reading Busting Loose from the Money Game by Robert Scheinfeld



Which is an interesting read, if a little parallel   based in its thinking.
Basically it is about not accepting the way life is presenting itself to you,especially regarding luck and money.
I find books like this fascinating because we have all been shoveled our Lot in life and told that ,'that is how it is,live with it' and here is a man saying ...actually it is all about how you react to what you are dealt that determines the path your life takes. It isn't anything to do with getting rich quick or anything, it is more about not being obsessed with money full stop.
If you like the Authors Robert  Anthony  or Fred Alan Wolfe  you will probably like this.