Your TKG Sunday : The Big Couch Theory
How many homes have you seen where they have a couch WAY TOO BIG for the space.
Isn't it funny how we all think we have more space than we actually do? It’s something the furniture world knows all too well. That’s why a big, overstuffed three-seater couch sells faster than a two-seater. We look at our living rooms and imagine that extra big couch will fit perfectly. Space is hard to measure from memory. I’ve definitely made that mistake a few times. And then end up sidling past the too big couch for the next fifteen years! That wall to wall extra large California king sized bed. Turns out, humans are just bad at gauging how much space we really have and really need - and maybe that’s okay to an extent. We dream big, aim for more, but where do we draw the line between wanting more and overindulging? Gluttony? Overconsumption? There’s probably a kinder word, but you get the idea.
We do this with all kinds of things - like filling our plates with more food than we can eat. There’s a theory that you should only eat the amount of food that fits in your fist at each meal. Simple, personal, and (most importantly) realistic. What if we applied that same principle to other areas of our lives?
I work with a number of people who have launched into creating vegetable gardens to feed their families and end up with 72 capsicums when no-one eats them. Or twelve tomato plants when they hate tomato sauce and all they really want is a couple of tomatoes to make a BLT on Sundays. Grow what you eat. Maybe we should think small with quality. My biggest crops are garlic (of course), tomatoes, basil, parsley, onions and potatoes. Can you guess at my Irish/Italian origins?
And Then What. What will happen to this purchase when I’m done with it? Will it compost, be up-cycled or last forever or will it end up in a bin.
(Hint: The bin is the wrong answer).
Let’s start with living within our means. Don’t spend more than you make. Credit cards are a classic example of this. Credit cards are the enemy of the family budget. Budgets are pillars of the sustainable movement. The credit card came into the world in 1958 courtesy of Bank of America, (Dining Club was earlier but BOA took it to next level) and they’ve been helping us overspend ever since. These days, the average household has about $7,951 in credit card debt. The interest on that? Roughly $1,900 per year. Many of us just cannot afford that kind of wasted money. And all of this adds up to one thing: more consumption. More stuff. More waste. More debt. More anxiety and anxiety is not sustainable either.
We need balance. I need balance! I do not mean to preach - that is something I hate. Being preached to. I am writing what I need to do and sharing it with you in case it rings any bells for you. For instance I bought a little lapel mic for the Walk-About videos and it is Bloody Rubbish! A waste of money. I am so annoyed with myself for not doing better research. Any suggestions?
I’m trying hard to break the habit of unnecessary purchases, though I’ll admit I’ve hit “buy now” before thinking about it more times than I should. My mantra these days is to ask a few basic questions before I buy anything:
Is it really, really beautiful or really, really essential.
How far did it travel to get to me?
Where will it live? (Do I actually have space for it?)
And Then What. What will happen to this purchase when I’m done with it? Will it compost, be up-cycled or last forever or will it end up in a bin. (The bin is the wrong answer).
And let’s not forget the packaging. The packaging of every item you buy has a final destination, too, and it’s often not where we think. Most plastic isn’t even recycled - less than 5%, in fact. The rest is burned for fuel or dumped somewhere else, making our recycling bin more of a "feel-good" bin than a solution.
Ever tried living without touching plastic for a whole day? Maybe just an hour? I hate plastic. But we all live with it.
Living within your space is just as important as living within your means. Whether it’s your home or your garden or your farm, if you fill it to bursting, you are not living sustainably. That behaviour cannot be sustained. For all the reasons, not least you are creating waste. And cutting down on waste is the first principle of simple, minimal, sustainable living.
The truth is overconsumption, in all its forms, does us no favours and is impossible for a household (whether a household of one or a household of twelve) and the planet to manage, whether it’s your couch or your credit card or your wardrobe or your garden - by cutting down on consumption our lives and our spaces might feel a whole lot lighter.
But where to begin? Where would you begin.
PS Now that I’m older, I also ask myself if I’m leaving behind things my children will have to sort through when I’m gone. Oh the horror! Best to stick to my two suitcases of stuff. Though books are exempt from that restriction. Of course!
The Farmy Walk-About
Your favourite. But once again the sound is not up to snuff at all!
Fun to walk about though.
Here is last week in case you want to pop back.
Yesterday I collected a truck full of unsaleable pumpkins from down the road. Everybody on the farm eats pumpkin! Including me.
HERE is the Facebook page for Mason (from down the road). If you are in Ford County in Illinois pop in and buy some pumpkins. (You will be able to get the good ones). This young man is going to be doing this every summer while he is in college and I am so proud to know him.
So what do the animals eat? And how are they all doing this week?
The White Chickens,
Chickens can be expensive to raise for the table. They also use a lot of water - a chicken needs a litre a day and we have 27 broilers. (We give them rain water from a rainwater collection barrel so I don’t worry about too much about their water until we run into a dry spell like right now).
These chickens eat a lot of pumpkin, grass (here they are sheltering from the hot wind yesterday), stale supermarket bread soaked in milk and a ground up and soaked mix of sunflowers seeds, oats and corn and alfalfa.
The Charlottes,
This week the Charlottes are growing on pumpkins, walnuts, supermarket bread, eggs, hay and corn from our fields.
Also the home-ground mix of sunflower seeds, oats, corn and alfalfa. Soaked for 24 hours to get a little fermentation going. I add apple cider vinegar too.
Jude and FreeBee
Corn from the fields. Pumpkin. Grass and hay and the occasional stale donut from the supermarket. These two are old and mature - they are rescues so I don’t want them to put on weight. For a long life they need to stay light and healthy.
Though - did you know - hogs never stop growing, unlike many animals, their growth plates don’t fully close, allowing them to keep gaining weight and size throughout their whole lives.
Laying chickens
Pumpkins. NO bread.
Restaurant scraps. Hay. Forage. Home ground mix of corn, oats, sunflower seeds and wheat.
The Cows,
The cows are living on grass from my fields. Hay from my hay fields and pumpkins from the boy down the road (now that mine have run out) .
Go HERE to watch a short and delightful video of munching cows.
The PopPops,
The PopPops (American Guinea Hogs) are old enough to live full time in the field now. Due to their escape hijinks they have a smaller more secure field.
They are impossible to photograph!
Just as soon as the white chickens leave the farm I will repurpose the chickens fence panels to make the PopPop field even bigger.
They eat kitchen scraps and pumpkins. Hay. Restaurant scraps. Walnuts. Very little grain, maybe a tiny as a treat when we go for a walk. This breed grows on vegetables. No need for grain at all.
The Ducks
Occasionally the ducks will beg for a little grain but generally they eat what they forage. Ducks eat a lot of grass and greens and bugs and aquatic greens. And don’t seem to want to eat the fish in the pond which is a blessing!
The Turkeys
Turkeys eat many, many insects. They are here to keep ticks down and I seldom see any ticks now. They are stealing grain from the meat chickens and we throw them a little wheat in the morning.
And pumpkin seeds. In the winter they will have grain. And no I am not eating them!
Seasonal feed on the farm:
Feeding the farm animals from the farm is easy to manage in the summer and autumn. Especially the autumn which is why I aim to fatten the proteins for fall slaughter. This is a farm not a zoo. We grow food to eat and we grow the food they eat too.
We will store corn, oats, wheat, hay and pumpkins, walnuts and apples for winter feeding but by spring we may need to start buying in more feed. The cows and pigs do best; they eat hay (we have plenty) and bread and scraps from the restaurants. The chickens are the ones that will need supplemental feed to maintain laying. (Once the pullets begin to lay).
Living within the restrictions of a small farm feeding the farm and ensuring we apply sustainable principles of low waste and targeted production that does not exhaust the land, does demand some level of frugality with feed. So we make sure all the food animals (meat chickens and hogs for the freezers) are off the farm by the winter when the gardens are finished.
The PopPops, the pet pigs, the cows, the roaming birds and the layers over winter on the farm. And that is quite enough to manage without a heated barn.
And now you are all up to date! Leave a comment. Ask a question. I am here to chat!
I hope you have a super day.
Sunday is my favorite day!
Celi
PS Great Reads this week:
Daniel at the Farmish Mindset. All about applying farming principles to ordinary life. I loved this.
And from Charlotte. Back home after a long time away (boy do I know how that feels).
And: this interview with Barbara Kingsolver - one of my favourite authors!
HERE is my FaceBook Page. To be fair I keep forgetting I have a facebook page but am trying to do better. We are all trying to do better.
c
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!!
There’s so much to unpack here Cecilia. Since becoming more aware of the state of our precious planet, I’ve completely shifted my mindset toward “stuff”. I buy very little these days and I don’t feel deprived at all. I’ve also been decluttering, realizing I don’t need half of the stuff I own and wondering why the heck I bought this stuff in the first place. My husband and I were just talking about our spending in the first few months of retirement and I commented that we’re spending less and living well. Fascinating!
Thank you, thank you, for featuring me!
And I have fallen victim to the big couch theory myself, as in purchasing a huge purple velvet one that was soooo comfy and also ridiculously big for my living room. Also, I agree with Deb, who says there is so much good stuff in this post--it is crammed full!