My year of walking (a la Katy Bowman)

Humans were made to walk miles every day. It's the hunter-gatherer thing we did for so long, of course.

In my last post I explained how I've been intrigued by the blog (and now one of the books) of Katy Bowman, who's right into this stuff. So now I'm walking a lot, and was able to do lots of it over the holiday weekend we've just had. It was gorgeous stuff, for the body, mind and family & friends feeling.

The thrill of a dead bird. Well, part of it.

Baby mussels on a rock.

Raglan beach is a wonderful place. Especially if you have
a warm jacket.

Here's what I'm doing a bit differently while I walk as a result of 'What Katy says', and the sheer common sense her approach oozes:

- I'm barefoot or close to it (i.e. my Keen footwear, not rigid, foot-can't-flex, shoes.) (The Keen shoes I have and love are similar to these. Very durable and get me lots of compliments.)
- feet straight ahead. Like many people my feet tend to point out when I work - too many years of dance training I think. Of course, close inspection reveals that our feet are designed for the weight to transfer from the centre of the heel to the longest, strongest toes, not from the outside of the heel to the side of the big toe. It's hard to remember to point my flippers straight ahead, but actually feels fine.
- weight going firmly through heels, where there's solid tough bone to take the impact. For ever, perhaps, my weight's been forward over my toes, where there is a cluster of delicate bones and joints prone to deforming. Hence my foot shape, below. Ugly and hard to find wide shoes for. It's also amazing how much more the buttocks work when the weight is back on the heels. Easy butt shaper, I think?

I have to shift my pelvis/bottom back to put the weight through my heels. Hence the spine position changes. Hence... the whole stance changes. Wow. That's why Katy's first book is about FEET.

(Try standing in a way that's normal and comfortable for you. Can you lift your toes easily? If your weight is far enough back, you should be able to.)

My left foot points out a bit further than the right when I'm not thinking about it (i.e. not in this photo), and the left foot is correspondingly more spread. I wasn't born with these feet, I walked and ran (ran a lot) them into this shape! But no bunions - phew, no bunions. Small mercies. At least now I have the information to make sure that never happens, either.

I doubt it will be just a year of walking. Probably a life. It's great.

Moving like a caveman

I'm being almost consumed by something. Something I find really, really (times 20 like my children sometimes say) interesting that I think is going to change the way I do things for the rest of my life.

I wasn't going to blog about it until it was less of a jumble of "WOW!s" in my mind, but it is spilling out and I can't help it.

It's a blog by a woman called Katy Bowman who talks about things like this:
- proper body aligment
- chairs and throne toilets are a disaster for our bodies
- we should all be able to squat with our feet flat on the ground and all our weight in our heels
- we are meant to be barefoot. Shoes are also disasters.
- standing and squatting workstations
- and so much more...

The lower workstation. The standing one is yet to come.

Katy also has two books that I'll be reading. She has a BSc in maths and physics and an MSc in biomechanics. She loves science.

Usually before I part with money for food, supplements, surgery or anything else 'health enhancing' I want the evidence. That's me putting lots of hits on the pubmed website. But I don't need to for this. It is so obviously true.

It really hit me in 1996 when I entered a toilet in a camping ground in the south of France. The throne was missing and in its place was a porcelain ring in the floor. My first squat toilet. I lowered my bum and tipped forwards. I could not squat comfortably because my heels came off the ground. Now I am 40, and they still do.

It struck me then that the vast majority of the people who have ever lived on this planet have had no throne toilets, so had/have to squat several times a day, no matter how old they are. And I, who prided myself on being in fairly good nick physically, could not do it. What did this mean for my hips, back, legs etc?

Although I am still in reasonable shape, the truth is I don't consider myself in good physical nick because I get frequent migraines. Which is why I've been talking to an osteopath, chiropractor and Hellerwork person (the latter who is a friend). And why my forward head posture keeps being mentioned by these people (I was sure I didn't have it - what a blow!) - and the fact that the arteries supplying the brain go through the same place the skull meets the neck. I know these arteries do bad things when it comes to migraines, like dilate, contract and cause pain, because I feel the effects.

So here it is - surprise and wonderment that I have lived many of these 40 years interested in 'natural' ways of living, and have never thought about natural movement. Goodbye to much of my chair sitting, shoes, pillow, walking style (my feet need to go straight ahead, not outwards) and toilet sitting (yes I will keep you updated). Goodbye to sitting and reading or chatting while my children swing around on the playground and in trees - from now on, I'll be joining them. It is exciting stuff. I love the frequent stretching and moving I'm doing (I WILL squat - I know I can, I know I can) and hopefully the migraines will ease also. With the prospect of having years of them ahead of me if things don't change, I really can't afford not to do this. Plus I love it, and my back has stopped hurting already!

The blog I have to stop visiting so often: http://www.katysays.com/

Slimy milk and other dirt cheap health supplements

As I wrote in my last post, I've been reading Lyn Webster's Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce book. When you're living on a budget as limited as hers, there's not an ounce of room to buy health supplements. It occurred to me that I make some so cheaply that they wouldn't even dint the budget. Here they are:

1. Probiotics. I eat fermented milk - in other words, yoghurt - every day. For about a year now I've been doing it in an unusual way.

Some people buy ready-made yoghurt. I rarely have - it's expensive and the packaging is never recyclable - but used to always use an easiyo yoghurt maker, and I'd make unsweetened yoghurt with whatever brand of yoghurt sachet was on special at the supermarket. I did this for a very long time - in fact, I have the same yoghurt maker I bought when I was 19 and first went flatting!

But now I have a cheaper and more environmentally friendly option. No more foil packets or electricity to dry the milk at the factory, or boil water for my yoghurt maker. And it costs exactly the same as milk, whereas the sachets, which are mixed with water, cost significantly more.

I make Caspian Sea yoghurt. I bought it from here. It is so wildly simple: you mix a bit of yoghurt with milk (about 1 part yoghurt to 10 parts milk) in a clean jar and sit it at room temperature for about 12-18 hours. Then you have a new batch of yoghurt! It apparently has more healthy microflora in it than other yoghurt, although I have no evidence for that.

The only trick is not to eat it all up without saving some to make the next batch. Also, I find it doesn't last as well as other yoghurt. The sachet yoghurt lasts about two weeks, but five days is long enough for the Caspian Sea stuff. You can make as much or as little as you like though, so it's wise to make only as much as you need.

It does have a slightly different taste - sharper, more fermented. You get used to it though.

(If anyone who knows me personally wants to try this, let me know and I'll drop you round a jam jar of yoghurt. It's a 'share the love' kind of thing, and the more people  it's shared with the better, because then you have someone to ask for more if you accidentally eat all of yours!)

2. Essential fatty acids. Some people buy ground LSA (linseed, sunflower and almonds) for the good essential fatty acids they contain. I buy whole linseed from the Bin Inn, where it's dirt cheap. I grind it with a $10 coffee grinder I bought on Trade Me, and keep it in glass jars in the fridge so its delicate oils don't oxidise. I grind two or three weeks' worth at one time, and we have it on our breakfast weetbix or porridge. It also goes well in smoothies.

Often I also grind up sunflower and pumpkin seeds and add them to the mix. I used to grind almonds, but broke several coffee grinders in the process. Now I just gobble a handful of them when I'm hungry. If you're going all pig-tits, just linseed would be the best option.

3. Raw greens/juices. I don't have a juicer and I don't buy spirulina. But silverbeet grows wild in the garden, and every two or three days I make myself a green smoothie by adding a couple of raw, well-washed silverbeet leaves to a jug with yoghurt, a banana and some vanilla paste. I whiz it up with my stick blender and it is totally delicious, not silverbeet-y at all. I have not had a cold all winter, despite some other family members oozing germs, and I do think the silverbeet might have had something to do with it.

Sometimes I add these things too when I'm feeling decadent: frozen berries, two teaspoons of cocoa and a teaspoon of raw virgin coconut oil. Then I get a coconut/berry/chocolate flavour and it is very, very good. I know, chocolate and silverbeet - who would have thought! Trust me, the silverbeet regresses.

Pig-tits sticklers would use just bananas (probably old and marked down in price accordingly), yoghurt and silverbeet, and perhaps cocoa.

Do you have any other ideas for real food supplements on the cheap? Possibly home made sprouts count.

Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce

I've recently been reading Lyn Webster's book Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce. Here is an indication of how popular it's been in this country: when I reserved it from the library a good four months ago I was 25th in the queue!

Basically it's about how she lives very frugally by spending only small amounts on food, cleaning and personal care products.

I loved the book, and really recommend it. The illustrations are gorgeously retro. It really encourages people not only to have a frugal (but not stingy, I think) mindset, but to feel good about it. She also talks about the sustainability of living that way, and how advertising has sucked us into believing an awful lot of rubbish in order to separate us from our money. An example is the notion that expensive shampoo gives you nicer hair - me, I'm baking soda all the way! I remain delighted with my hair after ditching shampoo (although have gone back to conditioner). I also believe that expensive anti-wrinkle creams are all lies, and you may as well chuck money down the toilet.

In those sentences alone, how much plastic packaging have I avoided?

The book's name came from something her mother used to say when then the children asked what was for tea: the super-cheap, scrape the bottom of the barrel meal. In our house, the answer to that would be omelette, for we are overflowing with eggs and silverbeet!

(You might also be interested in my next post on dirt cheap health supplements.)

Small disclaimer: I shuddered when I saw a photo on the author's website of her recent grocery shop purchase that included 'budget' caged eggs. This is what happens when you put frugality above ethics - you save $3 a week and thereby support an enormous factory farming system that keeps animals in horrific conditions. Admirably, Lyn does have her own chickens - obviously they weren't laying when the photo was taken.

Fairytale castle

Spotted on the beach these school holidays:

 I can claim credit for the subjects of only two of these photos.

The sandcastle amazed us. It looked like it should have been part of a professional sand sculpture competition, but it sat alone, a work of imaginative magic on a peaceful afternoon, with the tide advancing towards it. The sculptor or sculptors were nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they were crouched behind the dunes, watching for the reactions of beach strollers like us.

When we walked back along the beach, the castle had vanished, washed away by the sea.

October garden

The weather's been so great here that I think everyone with a scrap of gardening urge is heading outside and getting their hands dirty. A friend of mine recently aroused gardening envy in me with her bed of flowering tulips and poppies, plus tomato plants! I always resist, though, putting tomatoes in before Labour weekend. (Mind you she did it last year too, and there was a frost in late October, but she got tomatoes before me regardless).

We've had fairly dirty hands. The bed of oats has been tugged out, had potatoes planted under it, and had the oats laid as mulch over top. We've never done it this way before.

I've been given some comfrey, and it seriously does have roots like a tree! A lovely gardening man gave me a few roots and I planted them under an ailing lime tree, and they are coming away. He gave me a few leaves, too, which the chickens rejected as being anything like desirable. I was saddened by this because they are meant to love it, and it is very nutritious. After a recent wandering-free period, however, I noticed they'd eaten some of the newly emerging leaves. Plus a heck of a lot of silverbeet, of course.

Comfrey emerging from tree-like roots.

Ravaged silverbeet

There's been a bit of weeding going on, and the laying out of pea straw around the strawberries. Once a friend said of pea straw that it makes a garden look like a bought one! It does, when it's fresh. Chickens love turning over mulch for the bugs underneath, of course, so they messed up my arrangement during their hour or so of roaming. Heads up, tails down, as they so love to be.

But where are all my peas? They've been in for weeks and are doing very little. Disappointing. They are, of course, competing with wild parsnips all over the place.

The zucchini had to go into the garden. I've tried a fancy 'Florence ribbed' type this year, and the seeds popped up fast and grew like billy-o, rapidly outgrowing their punnets. Mostly everything else has sprouted nicely, too. I always wish capsicums would get going faster. I've ended up with almost all big tomato plants (Brandywines) and maybe one cherry tomato (Gardener's delight) due to incorrectly second-guessing myself with what I'd already sown. I sowed two batches of biggies, instead of one of each. It is so important to not only label well, but to believe your labels!

Meanwhile we are eating silverbeet (we have spare!), cauliflower, parsley, coriander and lettuce. Soon we will have artichokes, a truly gourmet vegetable. I simmer them in lemon juice-spiked water and eat them with mayonnaise.

I've finished my tree planting for the winter, and we have two new orange trees, a tangelo tree and a ballerina apple. Anything else - namely the macadamia tree of a certain cultivar we're trying to get hold of - must now wait until autumn.

So we have a little break now until late October, when our big tub of ripe compost will be planted with the tomatoes and other seedlings, and basil seeds will be sown. Our runner beans will resprout from last year (hopefully).

This post is part of a garden share collective. Click on the icon below and you'll be able to see what others have written - that should really get those gardening juices flowing!

The old orange T shirt

Anyone who knows our family knows about my husband's old orange T shirts. He has four of them, which were freebies through his job about ten years ago. Now they are grease-stained and raggy around the edges, but remain his signature wardrobe item. There was a time when we couldn't pick him out in a crowd if he wasn't wearing one.

Anna dressing up in Daddy's uniform.

His mother hates them. She took them and washed them once, and was dismayed that the grease stains still remain (i.e. it wasn't a fault of my washing skills, which I was quite surprised by). Then she gave him some money to buy new ones. Now when he visits her, sadly she is still often greeted by the sight of her orange son. Yes, he does it on purpose, but he does get changed before Christmas dinner.

With this in mind I grinned when I read this week's 'lifestyle' newspaper supplement. I'm not sure whose lifestyle it represents - for example this week's issue featured a question about "Why eyebrow waxing makes my forehead shiny". Please. Every week there is a page or two on new and different types of make up available. Just how often do people buy makeup?

Where are the articles on chickens, that's what I want to know. What breeds are best for eggs? Hot tips on breaking a hen out of broodiness. A celebrity's favourite breeds. Some gorgeous pics of light sussex hens in a permaculture garden.

However, I ploughed my way through a story on a Parisian haute couture designer, Jorgen Simonsen, and he said something that grabbed me:

The ethics behind fast fashion disturbs (I know, it should be disturb) me terribly. You cannot possibly sell a $10 T-shirt. You can't grow the cotton, you can't pick it, you can't treat it, spin it, weave it, cut it, sew it, send it, merchandise it, sell it, possibly ever for $10 without leaving 10 million people in the ditch behind you.

And that, people, is why the only $10 T shirt you'll see on me will come from an op shop. Ian agrees too, and it's a prime reason that his old T shirts will clothe him for many days yet. Sorry, Mum.

Too much muck

I've been reading how unhealthy it is for chickens to live among their own poo for too long. This has been quietly troubling me for a while, particularly since I now have my greatest ever number of birds: five.

Apart from their coop, which is only about two square metres in size, they have a run that is about ten square metres. They forage on the ground all day, and must be constantly encountering their own poo. Chicken poo does break down quickly, but probably not quickly enough. Apparently insects, snails and worms - their favourite treats - contain parasites that infest chicken innards, and their reproductive cycle is given a helping hand by chickens feeding among poo that is infested with parasite eggs.

I don't know if we've ever had a parasite problem. The bird I killed earlier this year certainly had an illness I couldn't put down to a blocked crop or any external parasite such as mites.

So I've taken a couple of steps to help. I temporarily extended their run to give them fresh ground, which they loved, but they kept escaping. Our lettuce is ravaged. I need to clip their wings then try again. It will help with the lawnmowing, too (they love grass).

Also today I got into their run with a spade and turned over their soil. The soil they live on quickly becomes compacted, and they can't get into it. As I turned it I spotted many worms, and the chickens just couldn't wait to get into it! Such a treat for them.

It's possibly, however, useless for parasite control, because it's still the same soil, and the worms might be filled with parasites.

Five chickens certainly provide more eggs than we need - three would do nicely in that respect. But I know from bitter experience that the bounty won't last. The short days of winter will stop them laying, one will get sick, or perhaps the old brown shaver will reach the end of her egg career. Chickens number four and five are backups, but backups poo too.

Making things from nothing

I like making things - new treasures or just plain useful items - from stuff that's lying around, unused and unloved.

A couple of weeks ago I spied a neighbour pruning his tree, and asked if I could have some of the sticks. This is about a tenth of what he had to offer. I'm not sure what type of tree it is, being leafless at present.

With these sticks I wove a trellis, up which I will grow fragrant and beautiful sweet peas. I built it out the front of our house, in front of the kitchen window. Until a couple of months ago the area sported two camellia trees, which we (he!) removed. In their place I planted two citrus trees, an orange and a tangelo. This family needs lots of fruit! Until they grow bigger, however, I think we'll suffer from lack of shade in the summer, with the hot sun beating down on our concrete patio. A trellis laden with sweet peas will be a lovely shady replacement for the camellias.

I started by driving thicker, straight sticks into the ground about a hand width apart, then I just wove thinner, straight sticks in and out between them. It was a little bit harder than it sounds, but to me it is much more attractive than a bought one. I want to make more for the garden, plus one to try out as chicken run fencing. I might be a bit slow though: apparently it's much easier when they're freshly cut and therefore supple.

On Friday night Jack saw something in a book I got from a garage sale, the Rainy Day Book. He came across instructions for some little bean bag people and just HAD to make some. By Saturday lunchtime we'd made three. They're made of scraps I had lying around, and filled with green lentils that had been in the pantry far too long. Children sewing of course means Mama helping, in spite of having very different plans. But how often does a ten year old boy long to sew? I had to be part of it.

And finally to my chickens (of course). I turned a milk bottle into a grit feeder for them. This grit is purchased crushed shell, which they need to provide calcium for their eggs. The alternative is to keep their own egg shells, dry, crush and bake them, and feed them back to them. I must get on to doing that.

My oldest brown shaver is laying increasingly thin-shelled eggs that break easily. Yesterday I think one of them ate most of the egg - a dangerous thing, eat-eating, because once they get a taste for it apparently they keep doing it. All I found was a bit of sticky stuff in the nestbox coating the other eggs. Today her egg was a bit cracked, probably by another bird's feet. However, the grit level has dropped sharply in 24 hours, so they've been eating it, and hopefully it will boost her shells. I have been giving them grit for a long time, but only haphazardly, which means chucking them a handful when I remember. Not good enough, I think.

I think I might make another one and cut away less of the top part next time, so that the grit is more sheltered from dangers such as falling poo (the perch they sleep on is nearby). 

For you, a flower photo I took at the Hamilton Gardens. Spring is good.

Eggs in my kitchen

Three days worth of eggs in a basket. This is the reality of five hens in springtime.

I'm quite excited, though, to learn that eggs can be frozen! I'll try it out and let you know how it works. This could help take care of the glut, and tide us through winter when eggs become scarce.

Also, here is a result of a little op-shopping yesterday. The Salvation Army never lets me down. I've been looking for this coffee table for years. I especially like its curvaceous legs and the sturdy tray underneath for magazines and books. Welcome to our house, table! For $15, you can definitely stay.

Seventies and loving it

Why are the 1970s so hip at the moment? I dread the 80s resurgence (and already see it in clothing on teenagers), but the 70s I can dig (well, most of it). Perhaps it's because I was born in 1972.

Anna and I went to a cafe the other day, and I loved the scavenged seventies finds in there. From the table settings, lights, brass tables, plants, macrame plant hanger and brown beer bottles for the complimentary water, they have definitely entered the world of hip. Best of all, they've done so without buying modern Made-in-China copies. This looked like a genuine eco-fit out.

It was Jack's Cafe in Hillcrest, Hamilton. Divine cakes, great service. Thanks Jack.

(I spotted the friendly waitress who gave Anna an extra helping of cream busking at our local Farmer's Market on Sunday, singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. That song always takes me somewhere special, and her voice was amazing.)

Next to where we had parked we discovered another bit of charm. This letterbox echoed the restored vintage vehicles parked outside the house.

They were giving away free fruit. Then - as if it could get any better - Anna spotted a stunning tui feeding from their flowering kowhai tree. Lovely!