Winter blues

Many of us will be starting to get the winter blues, and for some of us who suffer from SAD it gets worse as the winter months draw in. Interestingly enough for me I have 2 sets of friends, a set who work doing what they love, get outside continuously, and eat a natural diet, and another set who work in stressful jobs, have continually busy lives, drink and eat the standard diet. The difference between the two at times is vast, and I really notice how my friends who do more things outdoors, eat naturally tend to have less of the winter blues if at all.

Our lifestyles keep us away from our natural selves in so many ways, and we have been slowly losing our intuition about how we are meant to be living. Stress is a big factor in our unnatural lifestyles that many us of are living, and this has a huge knock on effect with hormones, and creates chemical imbalances in the body, which then has the knock on effect onto how we feel. It’s interesting in that I was speaking to a external supplier of wellbeing training for the company I work for, and she was stating how it is expected that depression will be the number one factor in days off work for sickness by 2012. Now I have other opinions about what will be happening to everyone by 2012, but the fact is that depression is increasing, and I have been looking at statistics which show that 1 in 5 of us have it during our lifetime.

This increase in depression can in my opinion be only down to the types of lifestyles we are now living, the stress factors, the endlessness of our working lives, the pressure we are put under to perform at high levels with little respite, the busyness that we now have to always be, the constant bombardment of information, in short bursts. This is on top of the lack of relaxation, the lack of general exercise, and the poor nutrition, no wonder really!

In my journey whilst researching depression for a larger article at some stage for my Naturally Healthy Coaching website, I found a number of interesting websites, where I really struggled to find any information on alternative treatments. They would have tabs which say, ‘other treatment’ but then go on to list other forms of medications that were listed. I had to do more searching, and finally on a number of them found they were being either funded or where put together by the pharmaceutical companies. No wonder there were only medications and ‘talking therapies’ as ‘they’ call them placed onto the treatment areas. On one website the way St Johns Wort was highlighted was only that it had contraindications with, strangely enough their medications! Medications should be the last thing people turn to, as depression is often caused in such a way that can be resolved.

When things get too much, I turn to homeopathic remedies of which there are many which help people who have a level of depression, Bach’s flower remedies are something I always have, almost as a first aid kit, in my flat. Most of all I look at the things which are happening in my life, which are potentially triggering it, and start to coach, use NLP and EFT, all of which help to move my thinking into a positive frame of mind, helping me and my clients to see beyond the emotions. Herbs such as St John Wort really do help many people, and don’t forget that if you are getting SAD at this time of year, to invest in a light box, there is much evidence that they work, but don’t use them if you are taking St Johns Wort at the same time.

A tail too far…..

The crayfish quest continued last night with a haul of just under 300 nipping, flapping, and running American Signal Crayfish.

It was a bit of an experiment for me and my mate A, who is hooked on catching these tasty little morsels. The experiment was simple but very effective, I’d been looking into alternative baits for catching these little monsters as I’m trying to keep costs down. Some swear by road killed rabbit or cat, others reckon quality fresh salt water fish, such as mackerel or sardines, and others recommend over ripe bananas, yes folks bananas!

I’ve tried mackerel before, and road kill and have always caught Crays, I’d never tried banana though, so that was to be tried alongside fresh rainbow trout (it was cheap in Tescos, we went when they were just closing the fish counter). The stage was set and out we went armed with a few different baits and eleven nets.

We set the traps out – like this, first was fresh trout, using the head of half the fish, next was the banana and then trout tail. We then repeated again, the last two traps were trout head and tail.

A fair few teas, coffee’s, muffins, and stories later, it was time to bring in the nets, we usually carry three buckets, normal size buckets with lids, we have never had the need to bring more as we’d always had plenty of room left, until last night!

We soon found that trout heads were the winning bait in our bit of the world, tails were ok, but the head half of the fish brought them running from everywhere. Banana was rubbish, in the 4 nets set with banana we took a mere 24 crayfish, don’t believe all that you read!

A and myself were beside ourselves with tears of laughter, as each of the remaining nets were brought in, it was a crayfish mass suicide campaign! A, was chuckling to himself as we ran out of space in all three buckets and still had 3 nets in the water, we had to use plastic bags to carry the rest home in, otherwise we’d have had to stuff them in our pockets or let them go.  All the way home we recalled the amazement to one another when net after net was pulled in full to the brim with hungry crayfish dying for us to take them home.

I’m just wondering if the fishmonger will sell the top half of trout in future….

R.

Flower remedies

I’ve been recently studying Bachs Flower Remedies, and I am seeing through using them with my clients how valuable they are to helping them emotionally. I have a friend at the moment who gets panic attacks, and instead of their usual medication that they take, I managed to convince them that Rescue Remedy might be a better idea to take. They take it just when the attack happens and they are finding it works, and works just as well as what they had been taking.

Bachs flower remedies are a new addition to our knowledge of herbs, wild foods and nutrition and we are starting to use them in a number of conditions, and finding them to be very effective. Bachs flower remedies are different to using herbs, as they use the essential energy rather than the actual physical plant itself. The more I experience resonance the more I believe in the energies of life. These remedies heal people on a subtle level, treating the psychological cause of the negative energy.

We use Rescue Remedy for times of stress, and panic attacks, there are a number of complaints you can use them on, and it really does no harm to try them. The remedies are split into a number of areas; Fear, Uncertainty, Insufficient Interest in present circumstances, Oversentivity, Despondency, Overcare for the welfare of others.

The fantastic thing about these healing remedies are that unlike medications, they don’t do any damage, they don’t suppress, and they aid healing at the pschological level which many GP practitioners wouldn’t even know where to start.

What to do with those left over crayfish…..

D and I were watching Billy Connolly on You Tube last night. Trawling through his more classic stuff when we came across the sketch about what to do with the left over venison! I won’t go in to details as I’ll ruin the joke. But you’ll see what I’m getting at. Very funny if you know the culture.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=g7ou4nagOck

The above joke relates very well to some of my wild crafting of late. I introduced a friend of mine to  crayfish fishing last week, and its been the topic of conversation ever since. Our friend now has the bug so much they’ve got me ordering their own set of nets and line.

The conversation is ‘crayfish with this and crayfish with that’. I now have crayfish literally filling the freezer at the moment, clays and tails everywhere.

Anyway after the latest fishing fest, I was getting bored with plain old boiled crayfish and sort out something different, the following is a link to a few crayfish recipes. So when you’ve run out of ideas what to do with the nipping menace, here’s a few to get rid of those left over crayfish. Enjoy. R

http://www.utahdiving.com/recipes.htm

Pigeon for the pot

Not for me I have to add, as I am a confirmed vegan. But FD1 has a real keen nose, and found a pigeon which had been injured for some reason by the edge of the field. R was in his element as he will be adding it to the casserole later for him and FD1 to enjoy. He has no qualms about adding food like that which is still good to eat, we pass this same spot daily so we know it hasn’t been left there long, and pigeon is one of his favourite foods, and it fast becoming FD1’s too at the moment.

There have been so many birds being killed just lately by the sides of the fields, they are gorging themselves on the grains, and worms that are on the top soil due to it being turned over ready for the next crops. This is making them easy prey for those who like to shoot, foxes and cats. Mainly the foxes and cats I think, but we keep passing stacks of blood strewn feathers, and it is because they can’t easily take off once they have been feeding in this way! The fields are full of them at the moment, it’s like the Hitchcock movie The Birds!

Killed by convenience

Have you ever put a price on convenience, or wondered why you pay the prices you do for the ‘conveniences’ in your life?

How many times have you ever said “I’d pay for the convenience of….” or “I’m happy to pay for the convenience”?

Is it the easy living, comfortable, hassle free life style that makes you follow the ideal of convenience, which in the end and in reality we all pay such a high price for?

Let me show you a few examples of how we’re not only being kept poor for the price of convenience, but a whole host of other side affects which in some cases we just take for granted, all in the name of the ever sought after convenience.

Take the mobile phone, or as the Americans call it, the cell phone. Almost everyone has one these days, in fact it seems strange if you don’t own one. Why is it that something that was a luxury item only 10-15 years ago has become so mainstream, and almost a necessity in many peoples eyes, almost to the point that it’s frowned upon not to own one. Have you ever wondered about the long turn implications of these devices, the cost mounts up not only in £’s but in health terms as well.

Well on average how much do you pay for the convenience of having that very important communication device in your pocket? If I give you my own example, which from talking to friends is by no means high by todays standards, my phone bill on average was approx £50 a month and has been as high as £80 in the past, but for sake of argument I’ll average it out and call it £50 a month. But £50 for what? I don’t make that many calls, I actually hardly seem to use the thing now, I’m all settled and I know roughly what my immediate friends and family are up to on an almost day to day basis. Therefore, I don’t need to have endless chats about my days events, that’s now something I leave for others to do, anyway they all seem to be talking about what? Nothing really! I mean there is nothing in my life and most other peoples lives that can’t wait to be talked about when they get home. So why do many people now insist on sitting in the most public places shouting down the mobile about all sort of trivia for every one to hear?

Where has our sense of privacy gone? You know what I’m on about! I’d prefer to sit in the comfort of my home at night, where I can sit down in a quiet room away from all those strangers ears, who quite frankly don’t want to hear about…… how the dogs doing, something one of my friends sisters ex-husbands has done or what’s for dinner tonight. How did we survive without being able to talk to each other at any time? Before the mobile phone came along to save us all, how did mankind live for thousands of years and not communicate like this?

Now £50 a month equates to a staggering £600 a year, what could you do with £600? A holiday, new TV, computer or other electronic gadget, spend it on the kids, the wife, or a hobby. Now that it’s been pointed out to you, you’re possibly thinking, I don’t care as I need it and its very convenient, but £600 is a lot of money each year for chatting about very little of importance! Don’t you think? Something to consider is how important is that conversation? Is it worth risking your health over? I ask because every time you use that convenient portable radiation machine you’re potentially causing yourself irreversible brain damage!

I know, you don’t see a warning label on the side of your phone saying, warning using this device may cause brain tumors. Of course not, and why not? Because you’re paying that company £600 a year, why would they want to tell you about those tiresome side effects, you wouldn’t use it would you? I mean its not like a large company would lie to you, would they? Take the tobacco industry, enough said…so why would the mobile phone companies tell you that each friendly call to your friends and family is most likely to make your life spent with them shorter due to contracting brain tumors!

Waiting to get home to talk can have a multitude of benefits, both financially and health wise. No one to date has ever gotten a brain tumor from using a land line or public phone, funny that. NO I’m not going to go in to the exact details but there is plenty of research on websites and information that will show what you’re really doing to your body every time you pay for certain conveniences.

I’m still of the generation that was brought up remembering that a home phone was a luxury. Well it was where I came from, and in the time I was brought up any way, I can even remember one of the neighbours coming around to use the phone because they didn’t have one. I was one of the first people to have a pager whilst at college, and that was ony in the 1990’s, then I finally had my first mobile around about March 1999 or 2000, it was my birthday, and a very good friend of mine decided it was time for me to be contactable, because it was convenient. So for the past 10ish years I’ve been the proud owner of a mobile phone, the first couple being ‘pay as you go’, but I never seemed to have enough credit and paying like that really wasn’t convenient enough! So what did I do? I up graded to the monthly contract phone.

I cant remember exactly how much this was at first, but I’m guessing something around about the £20 + mark. Now I’m going to work out an average of say £30 a month since 2000 as I don’t have the exact amount to hand to work out what I’ve spent on mobile phone calls in those 10 years. Anyway let’s say £30 a month for 10 years. That works out at 120 months which equates to…..£3600 of my hard earned money to pay for talking about nothing, ah ha ! But it’s been ever so conveniant to talk about nothing I have to add. The figure £3600 is probably not even close to the overall actual expenditure of owning a mobile phone, it’s probably closer to £40-£50 a month which would work out at £4800 and £6000 over 10 years. I’ll let you do the math for your own money, time to month ratio! I still think the estimation is low and may well be higher!

So really do we need this convenience when it costs so much money, had I stuck to pay phones I’d probably be richer, and maybe healthier as I’d have not bombarded myself with radiation over that time.

Another interesting thing about the convenience of mobile phones and other monthly subscription items of convenience is that we’re financially tied in to them. Once we sign for the convenience of owning that item monthly, in advance of our potential usage, we’re duty bound by law to continue until the contract has run its term, its a contract to pay no matter what you actually use, and if you don’t they can in some cases lay claim to your home. The thing is I reckon you end up using it more due to paying monthly, and being sucked in to pay for more than you would in reality use and if you paid as you used you would probably use it far less, as you use it to use up your free minutes each month!

You always hear the odd horror story reported in the press that someone’s had a bill for ridiculous amount of pounds from a mobile phone company because their son used it as a modem on a lap top or some similar such story. Had they gone pay as you go it would never have happened, and because of this, dear old mum and dad had to find £40,000 in one case, for a mobile phone company who’s only selling you your time at the end of the day.

As you start to add up your own time saving convenience’s true costs, are you any better off? Of course you’re not. I’ll show you further what I mean, and there are plenty of examples.

I’m writing this on a laptop that cost me about £500, a convenient item for todays man or woman on the go, yes? Well, I also have a PDA that only cost £150, which will do just about all that the laptop will do, including internet connections, almost all of the work I do on the laptop is written documents, which can be done on the PDA. Instantly thats a saving of £350 as I use the PDA far more than the laptop, but its convenient to have both, and I really wanted to look good and important sitting on the train with both items laid out in front of me, hey we’re all only human!

Now the very same laptop has built in wifi, as you probably know wifi needs to be close to a signal to be able to work. As I’m a writer of things natural this invariably means being out in a field or wood some where, emails and such like can’t be done in the middle of a field with wifi! So what did I do? I bought a mobile internet connection card, which providing there’s a mobile net work signal will allow me to send and receive emails in the middle of said field. Do I really need this additional internet connection when I already have superfast broadband at home? The answer is simply NO, I don’t! I could quite easily write it on my £150 PDA and wait until I’m home or in a wifi hotspot and email the document! But of course I’m paying for the convenience, and the price of this convenience is £30 a month, another £400 a year.

Now lets take my £600 for the mobile phone for a years contract, and the £400 a year for the mobile internet and we have £1000 a year saved instantly, because really do we need them? How many of you reading this have £1000 spare and saved for a rainy day? I can imagine most of you may well have a bit of debt on the old plastic or even an overdraft. Well, you to could save a fair bit of money if you carry on reading.

Interestingly enough both the wifi and the mobile laptop internet connection are emitting radiation, both on comparable levels to a mobile phone in use. In fact the mobile internet connection is exactly that, a mobile phone, so whether I’m sitting on a hill top, or on a train, my poor little body is being bombarded with radiation that quite frankly it doesn’t need. But it’s not bad for you or they would have banned it I hear you cry, and if it was so bad then the government wouldn’t allow it.

Do you think the government knows about the safety implications, yes, of course they do! Same as they knew from the begining that smoking was bad but never banned it, even now with all the warning signs on tobacco products the governments around the world won’t ban it as it generates millions and millions of revenue for them.Mobile phones are the same, huge money generators.

Ever looked at another reason they love you having mobile phones, especially on contract? Well you are very easy to keep track of, they no longer need identity cards we all have a phone which can pin point our exact whereabouts. In fact there are companies who specialise in doing just that, and they are so good that they can find out where you are to within a couple of meters of your exact location, all at the touch of a button or two. Hows that for Big Brother via the back door? So not only do you have a mobile which costs you money, radiates your body, you also have radio frequency devices RFD’s carried by you all the time which track you. Scary stuff hey!

What about other items of convenience, the dishwasher, how ever did we all survive before dishwashers were invented? We probably washed up by hand or just left it for the washing up fairy to do! In my house we wash by hand every day there’s only 2 of us and (Frost Dog 1) FD1 for short, even when we have guests, it’s no real hardship washing up a couple of extra pans, cups and plates. Come on people do we really need these conveniences? Add the cost of buying the average dishwasher, to the running cost over its working life, and I bet you it will have cost you a fair few extra £’s a year you didn’t need to spend.

These things are making you a slave to work, they give you time, but also you have to work extra to have them, diminishing their effect, so they ultimately take your time away. Almost all household items are for convenience, now I’m not saying throw them all out and live like a cave man, far from it. I’m just pointing out the fact that we don’t really need half of these things, and that they have been purely designed and made to make you believe that your life is going to be better with them. They tell you they will save you time, but don’t tell you the price is that you have to work longer hours and have no time with your loved ones for it!

Time saving conveniences are funny things really, because we buy in to the fact that by owning the produce it is going to make us look great, give us a level of status and ultimately make life easier for us and save us time when the reality is that it just doesn’t. Here’s an example for you: you’re paying to talk to your friends on the train via the mobile phone, so home time is freer. You work on the train on your laptop with mobile connection sending out emails out of the office, so that work time is freer, and you don’t have to work when you get home, and utilising all of that commuting time effectively! God forbid you might want to spend it just expanding your mind on a book or something you might enjoy doing for you ! You might pick up a take away or a ready meal from a store on the way home in the evening, they look so nice, they are so convenient, and probably cost 3 times what the ingredients would have cost had you had the time to go shopping and cook properly. So all this convenience has saved a few extra minutes of your time, but it’s cost you financially to have that time, you have effectively given up time to work longer for them, and your health has taken an impact in stress of paying off your debt, stress in working long hours, tiredness, and then the overload of poor diet.

Now once home all that time you have saved how do you end up spending it? Many are saving all that time to spend it in front of the TV watching mindless soaps and the such like, and once they have finished dinner they put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and save more time not having to do the washing by turning on the machine to do that very thing, save us time. Whilst the dishwasher is on what are they now doing? Watching TV, playing computer games, and the such like, all of this is dumbing you down.

These programmes are programming you, they tell you to buy this, buy that, watch this movie, and more programmes, during which they product name drop all the time, they show heros in films with the latest technological devices and must haves, aspirational lifestyles which they tell us we can live. They subliminally tell you that to look good you need certain products, most of which are either of little every day importance, but when you’ve bought one they show you how to make them every day importance, because they have given that level of status, helped the ego, and supposedly saved you time.

Take away foods, ready meals and the ready prepared just like home made dishes we buy in are really a very false economy. Very convenient again, but take away food and food from restaurants tend to have higher fat, salt, and suger contents than the same dish made by your fair hands.

These hidden extras come at a price, because if you add up the cost of those regular take aways for say a family of four, you could probably have a weeks shopping for half the family for the same price, but lack of time and the convenience of not having to cook makes us stick our hand in our pockets. Often we already have done the shopping for that week and still buy takeaways, because we are too tired to cook, from all the work we are doing to pay for these conveniences! But we are paying continually for these choices, ready meals are just as bad for your health as the take away, there tends to be added salt, fat and suger that really doesn’t need to be there, as well as added artificial additives, like flavourings, colours and preservatives. The detriment to your health is quite evident with a population thats growing obese each year by an alarming rate, with increasing health probblems. Why is this happening? Mostly due to our need for an easy life and convenience, we don’t cook any more, nor do we spend any time exercising we’re to busy wiling away our lives in order to get home to watch TV, play a game, drink abottle of wine or two, or the such like.

Now what is the cost of watching TV? A cable or Sky monthly subscription can cost upwards of £50 a month depending on the package, the TV licence is another £11. Now that’s over £600 a year. Then take all of those hours of my time spent in front of a TV watching programmes that wash right over you, how many do you really remember watching? That could be another £600 a year saved. Personally I’d be spending that £600 on books to further my knowledge to enable me to live my life more fully.

Other things to consider are the fact that we’re using huge amounts of energy, which equates to even more money spent that probably could be avoided. How many people actually turn an electrical item off at the wall any more? Few I’d have thought. We all just leave them on stand by, which incidently can use as much power as the item itself being on. Not only are we encouraged by the manufacturers to have all these electrical items in the house because its nice and convenient, now all these items will probably will have power to them all the time. When you turn on any electical appliance it emits electrical radiation. Now that electical radiation is cancerous, there is a huge amount of documentation and research into the fact that overhead power lines cause radiation and lukemia. I personally know of people who have worked on mains electical supplies in various forms and these people have died from cancer of some sort, infact a good friend is a cable fitter for a well known French electical company. He has lost a number of colleagues, and knows of many people who work in this field who have died, all early in life. This radiation is in reality no different from mobile phones and the constant bombardment of this radiation on any living creature is not a natural thing to have done to it. The reality is that you wouldn’t die of cancer in nature if you lived a natural life because cancer is a man made disease caused by the chemicals and radiaton.

I almost forgot outside the house, and that steel tin we call a vehicle. That is probably one of the biggest financial out lays in a household now, and it seems that almost every one has one these days. Every car you see setting out for work in the morning invariably has only 1 person in it, so if there’s 2 people in a house hold, chances are they’ll have a car each. So 2 sets of car insurance, Mot’s, services, road tax and petrol. Now the average couple, only live and work with in a 20 mile radius of where they work, and yet again we’re paying for the convenience of getting to work by ourselves. Why not cycle to work and leave the car at home, or why not get up 30 minutes earlier and share a car, who knows you might even talk to one another along the way about other ways of saving money!

My personal situation is exactly that, there’s 2 of us and only one car, I get up and cycle to the train station then cycle at the other end to work. Yep I have to get up earlier, sure I have to pay the train fares but it’s still cheaper than running 2 cars with the associated costs. When we need to go shopping or get something from the store, we plan our time better so we actually work it in to our days off, and go together and enjoy the whole experience. There is very little reason a part from convenience to why any family needs one car per person these days. Even with public transport in the UK being less than great it’s really not that bad. I personally enjoy the cycle ride, the first stage of my journey to the train station is along fairly leafy suburban roads, with few cars around, when I get off at London Waterloo it’s a different ball game. If I make it home alive without exchanging words with a black cab or losing a water bottle to a white van man then I’m happy and guess what folkes, I’m a 30 year old who’s healthy, no belly at all to speak of, if that’s the price of cycling in to work, hey I’m a sucker. Financially although I have the train fare to pay, I don’t have the associated extra car running costs, and have great health.

So as the conclusion to this article approaches, you’ll start to see what I’m getting at. We are as guilty as the next person for wanting a convenient life, talking all the time on mobiles, sending emails and surfing the internet, eating on the run, or from take aways, home shopping and home delivery, to driving everywhere when we could take the long way round and enjoy slowing down a minute.

When you add up the cost of our many labour and time saving conveniences, are you like me asking whether they are so convenient? For me the answer is no, and the bottom line is the reason you’re complaining about not having enough money is because you’ve been sucked in to the consumerism that we’re all surrounded by today. Have what you want now, pay later, have it all now, and make your life more convenient, it only costs you X pounds per month to have them all. But now add up all those little life’s conveniences and it turns quickly into hundreds of pounds, which in turn, turn into thousands of pounds, and with every extra convenience you want you are paying TAX and VAT. So not only are you paying tax on your earnings you also end up paying for the privilege of having your life become more convenient! Why pay towards something most people fundamentally disagree with twice? I mean if the government said that every one now must pay 60% income tax you’de be up in arms, but that’s what you’re doing by having all of these conveniences. From those quick snacks on the run -packets of crisps, take away foods, microwaves, dishwashers, running a car, cable tv, mobile phones and the such like, there’s VAT on them all. We are purchasing things we don’t actually need and then paying more tax as well, and quite frankly another couple of hundred if not couple of thousand pounds in my bank account is far better that that money going to the Chancellor.

Why did I call it killed by convenience, it’s simple, you’re working yourself to death wondering where the money is going, when all the time, it was the convenience of all of these things that you are killing yourself for, adds up doesn’t it?

Now I personally have had a major review of my personal financial situation, and have decided to ditch the mobile phone, saving that £50 a month I mentioned. The mobile internet connection that goes into the lap top is also going at another £30 a month I’ve saved myself £80 a month. That works out at exactly £960 a year which I’ll be saving into a high interest account, we dont have Sky, nor do we have 2 cars, or a dish washer, nor do we do take aways, and don’t watch TV. The reason for this is that I’m far to busy researching, photographing and running a couple of small businesses, as well as reading about all the things that interest me, as well as grow as much of our own organic food as possible not to mention writing articles like this for you to read. Funny how convenient not having all these things has suddenly become, isnt it! R

Stopping to heal

Everyone in work is coughing, or spluttering, bunged up, feeling lousy, and to some extent shouldn’t be there. Tonight my mate A was walking on a broken foot which he was in pain with. Why do we no longer give ourselves time to heal when we are sick? Being in work when we are sick is almost like a badge of honour, in fact now it’s not encouraged at all to take time off for sickness, there must be something to take to hide the symptons so that we can all carry on, people are actively seen as skiving if they are off sick now. That has become our way of thinking, in fact some business’ are actively discouraging their employees from going off sick by not paying them for their first 3 days, taking the line that the staff will come in unless they are really unwell. So in effect even if you are ill, financially if you can’t afford to take the hit, you will carry on trying to work through your illness. I work with someone who boasts about the fact that she has never taken a day off sick, how are the toxins leaving her body? Well to be honest they aren’t, as she is heavily overweight and one of the illest looking people I have ever come across!

When did being sick become something which is not meant to be something to be tolerated? How is the body meant to clear out it’s toxins if we don’t allow it to be sick, when we keep suppressing sypmtons which are meant to be eliminated not kept in.  By stopping yourselves from healing, from giving time to the sickness, and by not allowing the body to do what it is meant to do, you are creating long term disease for yourselves. If we can’t let the toxins out, then they take up root more permanently in the body, and little by little take away your vitality.

When you are ill, it is important to give yourself time to heal, stop, rest, and allow the processes of your body to happen, and not work through them creating even more stress for the body.

Allotment!

Finally our weekend was made, we got a ring to say we were at the top of the list for an allotment over the other side of town and did we want to go and look! We couldn’t believe it, to think a few years ago I would of got excited over going out with my mates, now, well it’s about getting an allotment. But this means a lot to us, as it means we control even more of our own food, and don’t have to wonder whether organic really does mean organic! We can even grow old types of foods which are less hybridised, which are far better for us, and with more choice. Collecting our own seeds over time, means that we are not dictated to by the commercial seed companies, who are starting to control our food supplies more and more in this way, with few of us realising it.

We feel that we are taking back control, and although this is a small step its in the right direction and is quite exciting for us. Bit by bit our lives are changing, with us building our businesses to release us permanently from our jobs, and becoming more self sufficient our lives are changing in a way I could never of imagined. We both feel so much healthier for the choices that we are making and taking to change things, and although we are both people who want to make changes quickly and on a large scale, something which has really hit home with us both is that its the small stuff that grows over time that makes the difference.

Crayfish fishing.

Yep R’s back for another episode in his country life.

As the seasons have passed us by this year, its almost the end of the crayfish season. Whilst the water is warm they’ll be out feeding, but as the temperature drops they become less and less active, to the point that they hibernate when the water temperature gets below 10c.

In many parts of the UK, the American Signal Crayfish have invaded our waters and are decimating the indigenous species that live here. The British Grey Crayfish is almost extinct because the Signal Crayfish carry a viral infection that attacks our own smaller Crayfish, this in turn dwindles the population and increases the invading Signals food supply along the way.

I’ve been out catching a few of these little pests for the table, easily done with little skill involved. You’d better check with your local environmental agency help line for the legality behind fishing for them, as its illegal in some places to fish for them to eat. I take no responsibility for any one getting caught poaching Crayfish…….you have been told.

Any way all you need to get some of these little fellows, are a bit of meat, fresh mackerel or chicken works well, a bucket and a bit of string! Yep, just tie the bait to the string, I’d add a weight to the line to make sure it sinks. Cast your line and bait and wait a few minutes, if the line feels heavier than before heave it in as quickly as possible. Signal Crayfish will clamp down on the bait and not let go, this should allow you enough time to get it to the shore to collect your bounty. If you’re going to go this method, dusk is the best time as they are a bit more responsive in my experience.

If you’re like me and want things a bit easier, then get yourself a crayfish or shrimp net trap. These are available for only a few £’s each. They are a simple double ended trap with a funnel at each end, most of the cheaper ones are collapsible string types, which do the job quite nicely.  All I do to make them a bit more usable is ditch the original bit of tethering string, and replace it with approx 4 meters of green paracord. I don’t use the little bait pocket provided either as I prefer to use a cable tie, and fix the bait to the inside of the trap to centralise it better. I have precut shafts of wood I use to tether the nets to, they’re just large tent pegs really.

Bait up and cast your net out a few metres, hence the added paracord, the weight of the net is normally enough to fix them on the river bed of most rivers I fish in.  If you’re finding your traps are drifting down current, chances are there’s no cray fish anyway as they tend to be in slow moving rivers and streams.

I like to chuck in 6 or so traps, space them out about 50-100 meters apart, once all are set I’ll have a cup of tea and a read for an hour. Bearing in mind this is a nocturnal activity,  I’d try not to draw to much attention to your activity on the river bank……..

After an hour or two I walk back along the trap line, I’ve cut all my wooden tethering shafts at an angle so the white of the wood is facing the river bank and are set at an angle to which I’ll approach. This means that on a reasonable moon lit night you can see the white of the stick against the dark back ground, works for me so far and I haven’t lost a net yet! I find an hour or two is enough to bring in the first haul. Empty each net and recast them one at a time, once you’ve emptied them, cast the nets, and its time for another brew and only 1 hours wait till I collect and finish for the night.

On a good run in 3-4 hours I can take up to 100 crayfish, on a bad night I’ve had as few as 10, but its all fun and the gear I use has paid for itself time after time.

How you use them is up to you, if I take a big haul I’ll kill them at the river bank, and take the tail and claws off, chucking the unedible head section back in for the fish to have. If I only take a few, then I’ll take the lot back home, and cook them up as a meal for one D is a raw food vegan so she never wants to share. Crayfish can be used exactly the same as prawns, and once they’ve been cleaned up and de-shelled they will store in the freezer just the same.

If you’re going to cook them whole, bring a big pan of water with salt in it to a rolling boil and just place them in one at a time. Beware of the claws, bring back to the boil for three minutes, then drain and rinse in cold water. Serve immediately with what ever dipping sauce you want, just tear off the claws and tail, deshell and eat, but beware of the vein in its tail, this can have some ‘muck’ in it, so just pull it out and devour.

I personally kill them before boiling by using a sharp knife across the body/head joint, this severs the main nerve endings and the ‘vein’ in the tail. Now they will thrash about and carry on trying to walk, and that’s normal, they are notoriously hard to kill by any normal means other than by plunging into boiling water or letting them cool in a freezer for 30 minutes before cooking.

If you look at the tail there are 5 fins, take the middle one and pull it left or right until it breaks away, then do this again in the other direction. Just gently pull away from the body and the whole ‘vein’ will come out providing you cut the joint between the head and the body!

There isn’t that much more to say really, crayfish fishing really is this simple, it’s fun and cheap, and to my mind another source of wild food, also in my own opinion you’re doing the environmental agency a favour, these little pests are destroying our waterways.

R.

Ginger beer for the boys 2.

The ginger beer was such a success I’m going to make more!

Although the 4 litres of ginger beer was drinkable in 48 hours, I felt there was a little too much lemon and not enough kick from the ginger, so this time I’ll be using the following recipe;

2 litre bottle of spring water,  heck it’s 35p from Tesco’s at the moment, 200 grams of sugar, the juice from only 1 lemon this time, 100 grams of fresh ginger, not forgetting the 1/2 teaspoon of yeast.

I’m hoping this lot will be more gingery this time. I may well omit the ginger, and add 3 lemons to another batch and simply make lemonade, lemonade that is with the nice little kick of 3% vol of Vitamin A, also known as alcohol , well to me, but not to D who despairs.

If you attempted to make the first lot you’ll probably have found out that the bottle’s stretch as the amount of pressure inside builds up. If you take the top off to quickly it’s like a small volcano going off on the worktop, I’m afraid I haven’t found a way around this other than to sit the bottle in a bowl and cover the top with a cloth as you open it, the cloth stops it hitting the ceiling and the bowl is there to save wasting this great little tipple. Although the first time I did end up covered in pieces of grated ginger!

I was so impressed with this tipple I thought about buying  a pressurised beer keg, just so I can make up 30 litres of the stuff for the cooler months, it can sit outside in the shed. I wonder if D will ever know why I keep nipping out to check on the garden in the middle of winter ……but D its only lemon or ginger beer!!!

Home brewing has never been so tempting.

R