This week I'm spending time Nourishing my soul with some knitting in the form of a seamless yoke jumper for my littlest girl, Millie..
I'm longing to complete one of these jumpers for each of my girls this Winter but with the days clicking away sooner than I anticipated maybe these Winter jumpers will be turning into Spring cover-ups instead....
The pattern is the ever popular jumper 'recipe' by the very talented Elizabeth Zimmerman. I love the book that this pattern is from, 'Knitting Without Tears', it has so many knitting purls of wisdom and I find myself referring to it often. This jumper is knit from the bottom up in one piece and there are NO SEAMS.
We are preparing for the huge spike in Energy prices here on the farm and trying hard to be more mindful of our usage... As of the 1st of July Energy prices across the board in Australia went up quite significantly - will this affect you????
We are usually pretty savvy power saving kind of people anyway but an increase is an increase and we sure aren't looking forward to this one! So we are changing a few things in our home and around the farm, hoping that we're not too affected by the increase.
Are you doing anything to help reduce your Energy Consumption and lower your every increasing Power Bill?
This week I've also been preparing a new family budget.
When it comes to feeding my family I try hard to produce as much of what we eat as I can, be it in the form of fresh eggs, vegetables, meat, cheese, baked goods, preserves etc...
Sometimes I don't always succeed, but I'm mindful of this and source as local a product as I can as a substitute.
Our weekly budget for feeding our family of 4 is $80. This is spent on re-stocking the pantry and fridge with staples such as flour, salt, sugar, vinegar, cream, milk (some milk I get from the farm but not all, yet), butter, hard cheese (I'm yet to master this) and any seasonal produce that I just can't grow....
Any money that is not spent from the $80 (which is usually between $20-$30) goes into an envelope and is placed in our safe to be saved up for when we need big ticket items - chook feed, bulk bread flour from the Mill, garden mulch, new seeds etc...
I try and bake twice a week to feed my families sweet teeth. This week I've made caramel slice (DH's favourite), custard tart, orange slice cake (pictured below), and jam biscuits are to come...
I am mindful of what I am feeding my family everyday... There are times when processed, pre-packed items make their way onto the shelves of our pantry, but not often... I am still a long way from where I one day hope to be in the whole scheme of 'self-sufficientcy' but each and every small step which we make as a family towards this goal is a step in the right direction and I'm confident of that.
What have you been Preparing for this Week???
