Slow Living 2012 - March

Linking up with Christine for month 3 in this reflective challange looking back at all that has been achieved in the past month.
Now  how the heck did we get to April 3 already and I am only just posting this.  Apparently I have been busy enough to not have this ready to go on April 1 so lets see what I got up to in March.

Nourish - Well this is an easy one as there has been a lot of action (of the cooking variety) in the kitchen this month.  I have been working on my sourdough skills, baking banana cakes to try and use up the growing collection of bananas in the freezer.  There have been muffins and chocolate beetroot cake, veggie dips for snacking and plenty of other things in between.

Prepare - I have had my Fowler's preserving Unit out again and made a whole lot of stewed apples.  I also made up some more chicken stock which is now frozen in 500ml blocks in the freezer.  And although they have not been prepared yet I picked a few kilos of our strawberry guavas in anticipation of making some guava jelly and have these waiting in the freezer.

Reduce - Mmmmmm difficult, surely there is something...well I did move (get hubby to move) the old concrete laundry tub that was out in the paddock (it may have been used as a water trough for animals at one time) up to the house so I can grow my mint in it instead of sending it to the dump.

Green - We have continued to use our own home made laundry liquid and the other day Hubby admitted to me that he was pretty sceptical about it's effectiveness before he started using it, especially when it came to his work clothes which come home soaked in sweat then covered with layers of dirt, grease, petrol, sawdust and tree sap (he is an arborist).  Now he is a complete convert.   We are also getting rid of all chemical cleaners in the house and using baking soda and vinegar.

Grow - There has been quite a lot going on in the garden with seeds planted and cuttings propagated.   I could also call this category "Dying" as there has been a bit of that going on too with all the wet weather we have had.  But that is all part of gardening now isn't it.

Does growing a chicken count?

Create - Well there has been my usual paper craft and I had a giveaway in March and gave away some cards to African Aussie.

Enhance - March saw the realisation of a community event I had been planning.  The event was very successful and just the other day I received a letter from our Mayor (who I invited to open the event, which he did) and the council CEO congratulating me and my team on a very successful day.  It was really nice to be recognised as a lot of hard work went into making it happen.

Discover - I have been reading a lot of great books in the last month including books on organic gardening, self reliance and upskilling for the future.  There have also been some great blogs that I have stumbled across and interesting we sites visited.  A couple I want to post about later so that I give them there due so I won't list them all here.

Enjoy - I have had some very special moments with friends and family this month and have also been blessed to welcome my new niece Lucy into the family.  This month also saw a change in season and where I live this provides us with fantastic weather moving forward and is my favourite time of the year Autumn.

I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to as well.