Eyes wide open!

Yay for local mother Jo Campbell! She couldn't get along to the big Eyes Wide Open emissions target protest in town (because she was on Playcentre duty) ... so she organised a small protest for parents and children just outside her Playcentre instead.

I was away, but the rest of my family went along, and apparently it was great.

You can see the video here. (If you want to spot my loved ones, just look for the pink bomber jacket!)

Independence Days Challenge

Right, I'm going to start doing this. (Nikki has been doing it already for quite a while.)

It's a challenge set by Sharon Astyk to spur people on to make greater positive progress towards preparedness for economic difficulties and peak oil issues.

So, my goal is each day to do at least one thing that fits into one of these categories:

* Plant Something
* Harvest Something
* Preserve Something
* Store Something
* Manage Reserves
* Cook Something New
* Prep Something
* Reduce Waste
* Learn a New Skill
* Work on Community Food Security
* Regenerate What Is Lost

An explanation of each of the categories is here. (I like 'Prep Something' - it's a good catch all for anything that doesn't fit into any other category!)

Who else is doing this challenge? Would love to hear from other NZers doing it.

Transition Towners in World Sweet World

Also in the latest issue of World Sweet World is an article I wrote about the Transition Towns (TT) movement in New Zealand. It contains micro-interviews with a small selection of TT members from around the country.

Most of them have their own personal websites and blogs:

James Samuel - NZ's national TT co-ordinator - lives on Waiheke Island. His blog is Yesterday's Future.

Deirdre Kent is an amazing woman and a long-time sustainability activist with particular expertise in alternative currencies. Her blog, which focuses on her book Healthy Money Healthy Planet, is Local Currencies.

Hirini Reedy is a compelling voice and has his website here.

Kazel Cass is a young mum who co-ordinates the Opotiki TT group. She makes use of the blog facility on the national TT website here.

Rimu Atkinson co-ordinates my local TT group (Wellington South). When I'm out I often see him whizzing past on his electric scooter. His TT blog is here. He also has another blog which I don't think you will understand a word of unless you are a computer geek. :)

Nikki is a member of TT in Kapiti, and I'm always linking to her blog for many and varied reasons. :) But here she is again - at A Satisfying Journey Towards Simplicity.

Solar cooking backyard get-together

So New Zealand now has a right-wing government, and Roger Douglas is back. I should be feeling angry and miserable, but actually I feel great.

Today, we had some lovely people from Wellington South Transition Towns round for a solar cooking get-together - and it was the perfect antidote to Terrible-Election-Results Blues. Who cares what the government does, when Transition Towns communities are starting to get together and try sorting things out for themselves?

It was just an informal event. We set up our solar cookers - one bought - two home-made, and invited TT people to drop round any time during the day. We had curry, peppermint tea, and pavlova on the go. (Thanks to Heather for the pavlova inspiration.)

Just a few people came in the morning, and then more in the afternoon.

It got extra fun when Jean-Fabien and Rose brought some tin-foil coated cardboard and started cutting out more panel cookers ... and more ... and MORE!



Lots of different ideas for constructing and using solar cookers were flying round - as well as thoughts for another solar cooking event.

Meanwhile, our curry and pavlova were steaming away. My daughter was absolutely desperate for the pavlova to be ready. Luckily Wayne and Ping had brought some chocolate biscuits for the interim. Whew.

A lot of people had to go before we got the food out, but hopefully they enjoyed the afternoon anyway.

The curry turned out great.


The pavlova was good too - um - in it's own way. But I'm going to contact Heather for some tips.


All in all, it was a fantastic day, and we even got two nice little bunches of flowers out of it.

Anne brought this from her garden - a fully edible bouquet. Very cool.


And Rose picked these on the way.

And there's our cat, the publicity hound, again. It even managed to get into Rachelle and Rimu's photos at the Transition Towns website.