Can Storage Door Revisited

One of my favourite projects I've made has been my Tin Can Storage Door. 

I made this a couple of winters ago and we use it most days. 

It makes the small space I've got set aside for food storage so much more useful, it clearly displays all the tinned food, rotates stock and takes up very little room. 

I know I posted about this when I made it but I thought I'd do a little video of it in action.

Sorry I'm so full of cold in it! I sound quite bunged up! 

My little girl is super cute at the end though - what a little star!

Has anyone else made anything similar?

Let me know what you think and share the idea with friends so they can increase their food storage as well!

Thoughts On Using Ebooks

It's fair to say that we are a family of book lovers in this house.

When we moved house five years ago our helpers moaned because we had 23 boxes of books, but the problem has only got worse - I buy a lot of books! 

Just a small pile...

I realised this yesterday when I decided to clean out the books under my side of the bed. I often take a book up with me to read and quite often have multiple books on the go at once, and I'm terrible for leaving them by the side of my bed. 

I got them all out and dusted them off and it turned out to be quite a stack! 

Trouble is all  the book shelves are full and there's quite a few of them around the house as well!.

Earlier in the year my wife bought me a kindle for my birthday, I'd put off getting one for so long, my brother, another bookworm, even refers to them as the "Antibook".

I asked my wife because I was reading a series of print-on-demand books from America and it was going to work out more expensive to buy four books than the kindle. I've been really pleased with it. I find it easy to read and use, there's a great selection of books out there and it doesn't take up much space! 

It'll never replace paper books in this house but it is a great way to own certain books without then feeling guilty about getting of them afterwards (fiction). Another great part of them is the ability to download a small sample of a book, I've done this lots of times and it's saved me a bit of money when a book wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be (a good example of this was a market gardening book where it was being run in a commune - with endless free labour! Not quite what I'm up against here!).

So who else has succumbed to the dreaded ebook and is liking it?

Harvesting Yakon

Heavy frost last night so that means I get to harvest my Yakon and try them for the first time!

Watc the video and let me know what yopu think.

Do you grow this type of tuber? What do you do with them?

Forest Schools At Home

First off I'd like to say thank you to everyone that left a comment about my washing machine troubles. I'll do a post about how it was resolved tomorrow, but I'm always so impressed with the response I get here, I love this little blogging community we've built up!

Now on with today's post.

My eldest daughter , who is currently in reception at the village school, does a initiative call forest schools on a Monday afternoon at school. She absolutely loves it. 

I think this is a great idea where the kids get to go out and play in nature, they're encouraged to explore and climb trees and the sessions can be as simple as collecting leaves and as they get more older they even have camp fires. The only downside is that they're required to wear gloves at all times (I'll rant about that another day) and they only do it for the first couple of years at school before "real" learning takes over the timetable. 

Both my girls love being outside and this is something I love to encourage (as it's where I like to be as well). With the darker autumn and winter nights it becomes harder as once we're back from the school run it's already drawing in.

So last night I decided to take the girls out for an hour before tea. My sister-in-law, Helen, had been over all day looking after the children whilst I did some roofing so she came out with us and as my wife just got home from school she looked after the baby inside (he's full of cold).

I asked them if they wanted to make a fire so they picked a spot in the future pig pen. they cleared off a small area and then used their torches to find firewood and kindling.

I then lit the fire (after a couple of attempts) and we all sat round and talked about what we could cook on it.

I bought out one of my bushcraft cooking pots and some popcorn so we we popped some of that once the fire got hot enough and I gave the girls a couple of glow sticks to play with. I think this is a great way to make sure they''re not afraid of the dark! 

From unpopped...

...to burnt in seconds!

 The pop corn burnt, but it didn't matter. The girls loved sitting and talking about things and it was great to be out there with only the fire as a distraction. 

My younger daughter was getting cold and restless so Helen said she'd take her back in. My eldest then asked me:
"Is it alright if I can stay out with you and watch the fire go down daddy?" I think my heart melted a little bit when she said that!

So we sat on the dirt and watched the flames die down and talked about everything and nothing.

When we got back to the house she wanted to get the fire wood with me for the log burner and kept telling me what a fun night it was.

A great thing to do with the kids and something I want to start doing regularly. I think that sitting round a fire like this is in our DNA and it's a great way to spend quality time with ones that we love.

Who else just loves to sit by a fire outside? 

New Washing Machine Needed - Advice Please!

I've had the washing machine on it's back so many times over the last month that the wife thinks we're having an affair! 

But believe me when I say that these aren't amorous advances and a quick fondle over the kitchen worktop. 

It's just the bloody thing keeps breaking down.

It's mainly to do with it draining, the machine spins the washing but nothing is dry. I've had it apart, removed blockages, and put the ball float back in place (which doesn't stay there long) - but I think after 9 years of service I'm going to admit defeat and invest in a new one, not the ideal time for us to be doing this but then when is?

This machine has a number of problems anyway for our large family, it doesn't spin fast enough so clothes are damper than they would be out of another machine and it doesn't have a huge capacity drum meaning I end up doing at least wash a day if not many more over a week 

I like the look of the large drum, high capacity machines that are energy efficient (although I don't the prices!). I'm hoping that less washes and a higher spin would make life slightly easier.

Does anyone have any recommendations when it comes to washing machines for a young family? Or should I just persevere with my washing machine affair?