This new short film on the Australian Conservation Foundation's Sustainable Seafood Project is informative, entertaining, inspiring and well-worth watching. I love the transparency and sound science behind the project. I also love that the results are simple to interpret. It's as simple as clicking on a map to find local sustainable seafood. At this stage the seafood assessed is mainly in Victoria, given that's where the project has been funded. So far, all that is identified for New South Wales is Squid from the Hawkesbury River. The guide tells me that squid from this location are sustainable because: 'They grow... Read more →

“..the endlessly repeated message that nature is dead or dying just encourages people to step back from the natural world, the way someone distances themselves from a friend with a terminal disease.” Richard Conniff Why would the children of today want to get to know nature? We show them pictures of environmental destruction and remind them regularly of all the species threatened with extinction. We send them a message that nature is polluted and on her way out. They have been told their whole life that the environment is being destroyed, so why would they think otherwise? Why would they... Read more →

I'm playing along with Rhonda's Friday photo feature. On my mind...is sharing food, yet again. I bought these delicious juicy oranges last weekend from the NNUTS stall at the Newcastle Farmers Markets. They were grown in someones backyard and they were able to sell them at the NNUTS stall, earning money for their surplus fruit. NNUTS is a Transition Newcastle initiative and stands for Nourishing Newcastle Urban Tucker Stall, and it's a place for people to sell their backyard produce. I love the idea of NNUTS. I love that by buying from the stall I am supporting local small-scale urban... Read more →

I was well-and-truly taking advantage of the sunshine on Sunday. Here’s a view of our veranda around midday. Clothes drying, water boiling in my solar kettle, and plenty of solar cooking in my solar oven. At the same time our PV solar panels and solar hot water system were generating our power and heating our water. That’s a whole lot of good from a little sunshine! Four reasons why I love solar cooking. I’m discovering loads of reasons to love solar cooking. Here’s just a few that are fresh in my mind from Sunday. 1. I can bake on hot... Read more →

I wrote a post a few months back titled ‘Here's one of the reasons why I don't like plastic toys’. In response to that post, Frances wisely commented: 'There's plastic and there's plastic, though, isn't there? We buy most of our toys second hand (often like new and they come with NO packaging), and we sell or donate what we've outgrown.’ While I agree the world needs less cheap crap in general, not every plastic toy is cheap, or crap. Not handcrafted, ok, but there are well designed, open-ended toys out there in every material. I refuse to feel bad... Read more →