Slow Living April 2014

Does anyone else feel like the year is flying by? Here we are with May starting and its time to look back at what we did in April. I love linking up with Christine at Slow Living Essentials so that I can assure myself that there were some things achieved in amongst all the normal day to day goings on.

Our morning and evenings are decidedly chilly...it is harder to get up at 5.30 and I find myself hitting the snooze button again and again before climbing out into the crisp air. But it does mean that the season for soups, snugglies, fires and shorter days.

~NOURISH~

Meals have been simple and quick and still very Paleo. We may enjoy a homemade loaf of bread over the weekends, but we immediately feel a little digestively challenged. I cut up and roasted one of our pumpkins last week and made a roast pumpkin and sage soup. It was so delicious.

~PREPARE~

I eventually got to making soap again. I love that I have enough soap curing for 3 months.

~REDUCE~

Taken in the evening, but this is a warm sunny space

Superman takes the medal for this one. Our Buster Boy, the adopted feral cat, needed a day time enclosure so that our other animals could claim back their home. I realised that Buster was holding us all "hostage" and he is one cat, yet there are 9 others who were being affected by his behaviour.

Superman made him a lovely space right outside my kitchen window where he can have a bit of sun, a bit of shade, lots of climbing, sleeping and scratching space for his day time hours. Except for the mesh, everything was made from the leftover wood we had lying around and scratching posts from local logs collected in the forest.

We still allow Buster out twice a day when the others are locked up out of harms way and he sleeps inside, but this enclosure allows us a bit a breathing space.



~GREEN~

Nothing here!

~GROW~

We planted up a whole lot of seeds for winter in newspaper pots. Coriander, which we use by the ton, spring onions, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

The seedlings we planted at the beginning of April are doing well.

I always feel that winter veggies don't really have the majesty of tall sun ripening corn, or blushing tomatoes on a vine, but they are certainly humbly nutritious and I enjoy seeing them grow.

~CREATE~

Nothing here! Besides food!

~DISCOVER~

Having been on this journey with the feral cats and helping to make their life and their caregivers lives better has been one of discovery. Also needing to care for a cat with FIV, and a grumpy one at that - when it comes to other cats and dogs - has found me looking at Jackson Galaxy's "My Cat From Hell" on Youtube.

~ENHANCE~

This month through the fundraising efforts we reached R27 000 for the feral cat community and sent out the vet and their mobile clinic to do a trap, sterilise and release. They only managed to get 51 cats in the end, but will return in June/July and again in October.

~ENJOY~

It has been a VERY stressful 10 weeks and my body has shown signs that it is simply not coping. I have been making determined efforts to set aside time to breathe, relax and do something different besides work, clean, cook and sleep.

Going to see Sound of Music with my younger two, walking mid week on the beach with the dogs, my regular forest walks and my 3x a week swim all fall into this space.

Today we enjoyed a picnic at beautiful Kirstenbosch, a few weeks ago a sunset picnic at Noordhoek, dinner and a movie with Superman...did I mention that ONE CHANCE is worthy of everyones time!

That's April in a nutshell - looking forward to May.