Sunday Podcast becomes the VOICE-OVER

My mind was a hummingbird this weekend. I could no sooner settle to one topic than fly to the moon. So, I didn't. At no point do I think that we have to settle down our minds. Let’s fly instead.

I have a couple of polls for you later in this newsletter. So - stick around. I am looking forward to your input.

Now, what has been going on in my hummingbird brain?

VoiceOver vs PodCast

As The Kitchens Garden SubStack decants into its true flavor, I realise that the Sustainable Sunday Podcast is really an essay with a VOICEOVER. This is much simpler don’t you think? PodCast is just such a heavy moniker. VoiceOver wins. It is short today as I work my way through this change.

But I am excited!

Crying in December is OK

If you feel close to tears then by all means cry. I totally get that. We are approaching the Christmas Holidays - my least favourite forced cheer week in the year. It brings me to tears too.

Maintain your Health.

Health. I have been thinking a lot about health lately with the health of the people around me crumbling. Personal Health is one of your most important investments. A healthy population will enable a healthy planet.

But what is health? We all know what SICK is - but what is health.

Is it doctors visits every year? Being able to walk a couple of miles at once. Downing a whole lot of vitamins. Being thin? Having good health insurance? Good teeth. Pain free feet? Or is it the tiny parts of your life - the minutiae. The sitting down to eat slowly at the table. The touch. The whisper. The food. The dawn. The song. The laughter. The trees. Sitting alone just to think. Being ABLE to sit alone and just think.

Two glasses of wine with dinner - that’s healthy right?

Because the goal posts of health are ever shifting.

For instance when I was nursing many, many moons ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the parameters of blood pressure were different. We accepted a higher reading as normal. Now, in 2023, the accepted norm is a full 10 points lower. So high blood pressure alarm-bells ring much sooner in this day and age. And then they medicate. Interesting right? Is that healthy? Taking medicine to be healthy though you felt perfectly fine before they told you that you were not healthy? Is that healthy?

I am not saying that some people don’t need the medication. But I have always thought that going to the doctor for a check up is like taking a perfectly good car to the mechanic. They are going to find something wrong. We are all a little off kilter. We all have a little cancer. We will all get a little wobbly every now and then. But drinking tons of water, eating good healthy pesticide free food and walking every day WILL be great for your body.

What does health means to you?

Does it mean?

• Respect for your body?

• Kindness to others? (Does kindness affect your physical health? I think yes - when we are kind to others we flood our cells with good stuff). (Stuff is a scientific term, you know).

• Do you feel that you govern the health of your body or does your body have governance over you?

• Organisation. I actually think this is one of the most overlooked tips for health. Get your shit organised.

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The other thing running through my head is a totally different subject. A list of all the things I would have if I were to build my perfect home. This is a really fun game. Try it. We will do a deep dive on this in the coming weeks.

My Dream Home - Go on - let yourself dream!

Of course my dream home would be even more environmentally sustainable than this old farmhouse. Environmentally sustainable homes do not need to be clever or modern or expensive. They just need to be INTENTIONAL.

There are so many ways we can adapt our present dwellings to be more environmentally sustainable. But what if we got to build our own? The Dream.

You can join in on this list because this dream is my present to myself. I would like to hear your dreams too.

It would be OFF GRID; an independent structure, but with no massive banks of batteries or weird shit. Not a modern house off grid but an old, old way of living.

Maybe a merry go round to bring water up from the well.

Solar to charge the phone, because I still need to write my blog!

A horse and a cow! Yes, I can milk a cow.

The dwelling itself will be built off site to mitigate the impact of heavy machinery and builders trucks. Modular buildings are the future. I will create my dream space in increments. I would first build the central room, which would be a huge kitchen, then add a cool larder with marble bench tops and stone floors, a big pantry, a scullery. The kitchen would have an enormous kitchen table and doors that open on three sides with a truly deep screened verandah running around those three sides. The fourth side is the orangery (a fancy name for a glasshouse) where I will grow all my winter vegetables.

My bed would be out on the verandah.

I would have a huge old fire range for cooking with a water reservoir built in so the water is heated as the fire cooks the dinner. Then the heated water would be piped around the central block for indoor heating too.

Then later the first little modular bedroom block will be brought in. (These can all be built off site, remember). Modular buildings are the way of the future. I can be preparing the site while you are building my structure.

Building like lego. That is how I will do it.

Marching out from the verandah would be a covered walkway to an outside bathroom.The bathroom would have a wall that opens right out so I can blow the dust out with my leaf blower and then hose the whole room down - mirrors, walls, windows and all. There would be outside showers and outside baths (plural). All surrounded in fragrant privacy plantings. Rain water would be collected from the buildings and would be gravity fed (we might need a hill or a tower) and heated using solar panels so if the weather is dreary there will be no hot showers.

A glorious outside kitchen for the summer when the inside kitchen will be too hot.

All these fantastic old fashioned ideas but with a modern twist. Buildings and bridges built into the trees for the kids.

Later modular bedrooms for visiting gardeners would be popped all around the property - with board walks to the bathroom block. (Income).

Kitchen’s gardens everywhere. I have always imagined that this fantasy dwelling would be in a clearing in a large patch of forest with a track through to the beach. Obviously in New Zealand - my home.

If you were to build an off grid modular building what room would be first for you? Study? Bedroom? Bathroom? Kitchen? What would you bring in first. How much space would you want?

This is our dream remember - we can have anything we want.

What would your ideal environmentally friendly home look like.

OK - all these ideas and MORE will be talked about in subsequent posts. Because yup! I am here to stay.

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How do you want to receive your Sunday Post.

Poll Number One.

Three Sustainable Gift Time Tricks and more to come next week!

1. Holiday cards.

Send the card by all means - I personally think we need to do everything we can to keep the Postal system alive and well but I place a letter within the card and don’t write on the card at all. That way the card itself can be reused. And in fact the card becomes a gift!

2. Wrapping paper.

When I was a kid Mum spent most of Christmas morning carefully peeling the sellotape back off the wrapping paper and carefully folding the paper back into a bag for next year. I personally wrap christmas presents in the funnies from the newspaper or magazine pages. Some years I actually draw designs on brown paper. I once gave a present to a boyfriend and he liked the present but framed the wrapping paper and hung it on his wall.

Shop for your wrapping paper wisely, a lot of the modern wrapping papers are actually derived from plastic. Don’t go there.

3. Christmas trees.

Buy a real live tree and plant it afterwards or RENT a real tree.

More on this next week.

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I’ve been doing this now for a number of months, writing and publishing on Substack and it’s time to really focus down onto what works, for you, on Substack. Do you like the Farmy SoundScape? Does it need to be re-named too?

Poll Number Two

OK, that was easy wasn’t it. I am off out to do some fencing now, then shift the cows. I’ll be back to talk to you so don’t forget to pop into the lounge of comments here, or at thekitchengarden.com where we are five days a week and today on the blog at thekitchengarden.com we are talking about writing as though it’s your real job? Pop over anytime.

Love, Celi