What have we done this week to live sustainably!
1. Some of our neighbours came round to have another look at using our orchard to site their beehive. They kindly brought us a box of 6 eggs from their rare breed Derbyshire Red Cap hens! Huge thank you all round. Then, later in the week, when we went to pick up some pig feed our pig mentors also gave us eggs from their Light Sussex Hens. We eat a lot of eggs so this was all very welcome! Since moving here we have been given lots of eggs from local smallholders and I’m looking forward to having our own flock so we can reciprocate.
2. Sock Mending – the sock mending saga continues I am now down from 13 outstanding pairs to 7 pairs. I’d have done more but I got waylaid by successful patching some jeans for the first time. I won’t talk about that too much as I have a whole exciting How To! blog post planned.
3. A free bottle of wine! – some lovely friends of ours are moving to London and they don’t have time to drink all their homemade wine before they leave and they don’t want to take it with them… So we are the lucky new owners of a bottle of elderberry wine from last Autumn.
4. A few months ago our neighbours (with a chain saw) trimmed our ornamental Cherry Tree to within an inch of its life. I asked them to leave the cuttings with us and earlier this week I spent one hour (of many), stripping the long straight branches into bean poles, cutting some of the bigger bits into kindling and shredding the thinnest branches into mulch for our fruit bushes. This is part of my work to reduce what we bring on to and take off the property and trying to close the cycle of waste, my new saying… Nothing Green is Waste!
5. Filling the cake tin – I made a big pile of cinnamon sugar and thumb print biscuits for the cake tin. We haven’t bought any cakes or sweets from the mini-tescos all week.
As well as all the other things we have already blogged about with the compost, the charity shop finds and using up leftovers.
Mostly above we have been given things rather than done things to live sustainably. Part of sustainable living is great community. This week we have really benefited from our community which means that in the next few weeks it is on us to find ways to support our neighbours, be generous and give back to others. The wonderful cycle of living side by side with people.
Westwick Dreaming 
We too have had a neighbourly kind of day.
The young boy next door was looking over the fence so forlornly that I asked his mum if he could come and play with my rowdy lot.
He had a great time for a couple of hours and is keen to come again.
In return his Mum brought over some brownies she had baked this morning and we discovered a shared love of cooking and green living!
Its lovely having neighbours you can create community with.
Hi Sue
That sounds lovely – so often it seems we barely know the people we live right next door to when we could be really enriching each others lives.
Exactly!
Being in a rural town which consists of a post office, local school ( with 60 kids ) and a hardware store the opportunities to see our neighbours are limited without making some effort. The upside is we all know each other by sight at least, strangers are easily spotted and during emergencies like the bushfires last year we really draw together for the sake of our community. There is always a helping hand if you need it and someone living the same joys and trials that you are to share with.
Its about taking the care and time to make that initial gesture.
I definitely agree that smaller communities are closer. I’ve already got more involved in my local community up here than when I lived in London and I really like having a local community!