Carbon Credit Collector

Hi everyone,

We’ve been a bit slack with keeping up to date with our blogging, as the end of term draws near… TOO near in fact – the workload always seems to bank up to the last week and I end up turning to old nocturnal habits in order to get through it all!

But here’s what’s been happening at 26 Carbine Place since our last update:

-We finally have a third flatmate! Renee moved into our eco-friendly house on Saturday and luckily she’s sweet with being a part of the competition and helping us maintain our eco-friendiness once the competition is over. She was slightly puzzled when she saw our clothesline, which at the time did not have any clothes hanging on it, but several plastic bags pegged up to dry! Philippa and I were using gladwrap to take packed lunches to uni at the start of the term, but realised the error of our ways and have now BANNED the gladwrap! Instead, we use breadbags and seal-up bags from the supermarket that have been used to buy baking ingredients or whatever in bulk, and wash/dry them with the dishes.

-Renee is currently taking a break from uni to work full time, and doesn’t have a bike so she buses to work each day. She’s going to look for a bike though, after being convinced that they’re the best way to get around!

-I collected two buckets full of peaches from off the top of the shed and around the garden and spent a night stewing them all and then put them in empty yoghurt containers in the freezer, ready to pull out during winter and make peach crumble or some other nice warm dessert. They were so juicy that I ended up having to strain lots of it off after boiling them, and ended up filling up half a lemonade bottle. So I’ve been drinking fresh peach juice for breakfast each morning and man it’s good! No added colour, sugar or preservatives either (actually I tell a lie, there was a couple of spoonfulls of sugar, but for a bucket of peaches that’s nothing!) so its ultra healthy! There’s still more dropping off the tree too, so more juice and stewed peaches to come!

-Unfortunately we didn’t get organised enough to go to the earth hour dinner, but I did end up cycling to the city square with four other friends for the free concert. We decided it was such a nice night that we’d much rather bike than bus, and was a fun way of spending an hour so that we didn’t use any power. On the way back we ended up going foraging for pumpkins – one of the guys had spotted a whole lot growing in a mound of soil in a building site down homestead lane so we jumped the fence and filled up a backpack. Now to find some creative pumpkin recipes…I think for a start I’ll try my Mum’s pumpkin pie- yes, pumpkins can be made into a dessert! Who would’ve thought, but it actually tastes pretty amazing and can be served hot or cold.

-We finally got round to changing all the lightbulbs in the house to ecobulbs

-The seeds I planted in the glass house have had a bit of a slow start, probably due to me not being very consistent with remembering to water them…but despite that, some persevering shoots of rocket have sprung through, the beginning of our vegetable and herb garden which we hope will start to flourish very soon!

-Thanks to the guys that mentioned the Free Shop on Blenheim road in one of their blogs awhile ago! I biked there to check it out myself last week and its pretty amazing I picked up a mirror for my design project and am planning to go back and get some paint to do up my chest from the supershed. It’ll be a good project for the holidays and they have a huge selection of paint, most of the tins are half full or over and would’ve just been dumped otherwise. I also found a great opshop in town called Tasman Traders, where everything is $4!! It was a bit unfortunate that I came across it at the time I did, seeing as I was meant to be shopping for materials for my project. Instead I came away with a bag of winter clothes, which I then had to try and fit onto the carrier of my bike to get home!

-We’ve started up a weekly dinner night with our friends at 57 Yaldhurst, who are also part of the competition. Every Friday we take turns hosting dinner, so as well as a chance to hang out and socialise, it means only one of the flats is using power to cook etc and also means we can buy in bulk for the meal and not have anything go to waste. (Not that there’s any chance of that with two boys who seem to have bottomless stomachs…) So far there’s been a trend for roasts- Philippa and I did roast chicken and then we went to their’s for roast pork.

And I think that’s about all from us for now… have a great week

Rosalee