Favourite part of our house

On these sunny-rainy-sunny days we've been having, which are extremely windy, I think this is my favourite part of our house:

Rain, shine or both, my washing gets dry! And I'm not running to get it in when the clouds gather. I love our carport!

It's a frugal and green thing to have, too, because I only ever use the clothes dryer to get rid of the last bit of dampness, and that's only needed in the middle of winter.

While I thought about this today, eyeing the flapping laundry in a superior, aren't-I-clever sort of way, I thought about other frugal and green things we have around the house.

We have a compost system, keeping a separate bin in the kitchen for scraps that don't go to the chickens or cat (the latter being awfully fussy). It's emptied into plastic compost bins outside (we have six, all bought second hand), which keeps things tidy to look at and toasty on the inside (heat speeds up the composting process).

The black plastic bags visible in the photo above contain raked-up autumn leaves, which we put in the bins as 'brown' layers between the green layers (weeds, kitchen and table scraps and lawn clippings). The chicken straw makes up other brown layers. We didn't used to add brown stuff, and the compost was smelly and anaerobic.

We grow fruit and vegetables - not enough to sustain us exclusively, but it helps a lot, and boy do they taste good. And we have the chickens, of course, and they eat food certain scraps that are otherwise hard to deal with, like fat and meat. Getting rid of food scraps on site stops the methane gas that gets released when food and garden waste breaks down in a landfill situation, which is anaerobic.

And then there's our feet. We live close to school, friends and shops, so we walk, scoot or bike as much as possible. (It's not advisable to click on the photo of my feet. They are another example of what I wrote about yesterday - practical, but not beautiful! They don't hurt and they carry me faithfully, journey after journey. Don't ask me what that lump is because I have no idea. All I know is that it appeared a few years ago and small children are fascinated by it, much like an amputation, an eye patch or false teeth on a plate, I suppose.)

So, how many of you clicked on the feet?!