News From the Hill

Archive for the ‘Sustainability’ Category

This is where I was today….

Snowy Road

This is where I would have liked to have been…

Irish Protest Nov 2010

This is why I would like to have been in Dublin today…

Irish Economic Crisis Explained (short wee you-tube piece, well worth watching!)

Before I started to blog myself I was reading a few blogs and I still am reading most of them on a regular basis.

One of these blogs is “Small Notebook, for a simpler home.” I have always enjoyed the warm way in which Rachel Meeks shares her life experiences, stories and struggles as she raises her two lovely children and manages to balance writing a successful blog while not missing out on her home life.

Like many of us Rachel has struggled with the juggling act of finding time to keep up with her busy family life, not let the house-work overwhelm her and also find time to blog. Now she has written a wonderful new e- book entitled Simple Blogging: less computer time, better blogging.

Simple Blogging: Less Computer Time, Better Blogging by Rachel Meeks

Whether you are new to blogging or have been writing a blog for sometime now I think you will find something in this book that speaks to you. The tone of writing is not overly techy, neither is it too simplistic so Rachel has found a great balance here, making it a comfortable read whether you have years of blogging experience or are brand new to the subject.

It’s broken down into 17 well focused chapters so that you can read it through from start to finish or simply pick a chapter to focus on something in particular. There are questions at the end of each chapter which you can use to help focus your thoughts about your own blogging.

There is a wonderful bonus chapter which has thoughtful insights from 7 well known bloggers: Nesting Place, Simple Mom, Life… Your Way, The Happiness Project, Owlhaven, Made by Rae and Inspired to Action.

Rachel has done her best to keep the price low and this book is only $8 which is great in these days of tight budgets. It is available to download immediately so there is no waiting around or running to the bookshop…

Click here to find out more or to buy it now…

If you do decide to buy the book I would really appreciate it if you used the affiliate link above, it’s the first time that I have tried out an affiliate link and I would be so excited if you buy this great book through my blog

Over the last few weeks we have made great progress with our house building project. We finished putting up all the rafters by ourselves which was very satisfying. After that came the job of applying the ventilation membrane, a modern version of roofing felt. We were luck enough to have help for this job as himself doesn’t do heights so the roof is a difficult job for the two of us to tackle by ourselves.

We weren’t very lucky with the weather, it was quite windy and wet which is not great when you are trying to work on a roof. Luckily we were able to do some of this work from the scaffolding and didn’t have to do it all from the rooftop.

Then our luck improved, the weather brightened and some more help arrived, we finished the ventilation paper and got three quarters of the tin secured in place before the light went and we headed inside for a big feed of roast chicken with roast veggies.

Old Fashioned Sheet Tin Roof

It was surprising how much bigger the house felt when we got the rafters up and covered with roofing membrane. We had expected that the house would feel smaller however it was quite the opposite and we wondered if we were building a house which will be too big for us.

For the last 7 years we have been living in a small space, about 30ft by 12ft, which can be challenging for two big people with lots of technology, books, craft materials etc. I think what has saved our sanity is that we have a separate sleeping cabin which remains uncluttered so that no matter how cluttered or untidy our main living space becomes we still have a tidy, airy and bright space for sleeping.

I am sure that when the house is ready for us to move in we will fill the space. We expect to move in long before the house is fully finished and will finish it around us. People have often advised us against moving early however we are anxious to move out of the mobile-home as soon as we can. We are excited about the prospect of designing our new space around us whilst remaining realistic about the possible frustrations of living in an unfinished house.

Anyway, that is all ahead of us….

Right now we are concentrating on putting up cross-bracing on the wall frames and making final decisions about window placement. We are using salvaged windows  which have been stored for some time and now need some attention so today I put up a few trestles and screwed some plywood to the top to create a working table which is in the new bedroom.

Working on Windows

It is great to have a large dry space to work in now so the inside of the house is now becoming the workshop. I need to check all the old windows and ensure that the wood is sound enough to use. The storage area was a little damp in places so I will need to clean off all the old varnish and check the wood thoroughly.

The weather looks to be wet for the next few days so at least I will be dry. It’s nice to be working inside the house, it feels so different now that the roof is all covered and most of the tin sheeting is up.

I have been wondering when the rain was going to ease, it’s been raining for days now and the clouds are hanging low so the days are dark. Last night I was catching up on reading some blogs and over in Colorado, my blogging friend Suzan at Scruboak, has been anxiously looking skyward wondering when they are going to see rain.

I guess it is common for people in different places to have too much or not enough of a good thing…….

I am just playing around to see if I can feed my blog posts into Digg. There is no good reason for doing this, it’s raining and I am sitting here playing so I just thought that I would give it a go…

I don’t use Digg however I thought I might learn to and if I can set twitter and digg to talk to each other then I could have a party……… I do like parties, I can bring cakes and buns and digg can bring the fizzy drinks and twitter can bring the conversation………. there now, we are all set… party at my place… http://digg.com/scribhneoir

Today we are fog bound, we can only see about 100 metres. It’s a dense, wet fog, the kind that stills sounds and feels really cold. We even lit a fire this morning and that very rarely needs to happen, especially in October.

This week  we had a beautiful, hot, sunny day. Right from sun-rise we had a lovely hot and summery day. We were outside working on our house, putting up rafters with tee-shirts on and a water bottle up on the scaffolding with us to stay hydrated. I even had on a hat to prevent my face from sun-burn.

However we couldn’t see the valley below us because of a low lying cloud of fog that was really thick. The previous day had been foggy in the lowlands however the fog  lifted by mid-morning and we could see really far into the distance.

I went down to the nearest big town for some groceries and cat food sometime before lunch on the really hot sunny day and I put on a shirt over my tee thinking that I would be warm enough. As I drove down the hill I started to chill and regretted not having grabbed a jacket, the temperature really dropped quickly.

Town was really cold and everyone that I met and talked to in the shops (because we talk to each other in small towns, even if we don’t really know each other) was in a downcast mood.  It was as though the fog was clouding everyone’s joy.  I did the shopping as quickly as possible to get back up the hill to the sunshine.

As I put the messages (that’s what we call the groceries here) away in the van I was thinking, once again, how lucky we are to live up on the hills. The radio was on and I was listening to Today FM, a channel that has friendly morning chat and music, nothing too political.

The dj had been interviewing someone and took a break for the “good news” which was a little strange. As I listened to the news I realised why he had called it the “good news”, the newsreader spoke about a little girl who lived in Cork who had the stabilisers removed from her bike and was doing really well. There was mention of a couple who had just moved into their first house together and a beloved school teacher who had been ill and was back in the classroom. All of the stories were good news stories!

The person being interviewed was really impressed and asked if all Irish radio stations did the same thing, unfortunately they don’t – yet. The “normal” news was on ten minutes later and wasn’t nearly as much fun.

When I got home, back up the hill into the hot sunshine, I told my husband about the “goodnews” broadcast and we wondered when was it decided, and by whom, that news broadcasts should be predominantly bad/sad news. Who decided that? Why was the decision made? Who benefits from broadcasting bad/sad news to the nation, every hour on the hour?

I know that it is important to know what is going on around us however I think that it is important to know both the good and the bad news. We don’t have the balance right at all.

Most of my friends don’t buy or read daily newspapers or watch the tv news, most also try to avoid the radio news however that is lots of work as they broadcast it every hour. Thank you to Today FM and the Ray D’Arcy show for the good news! I must listen more often and find out if the good-news is a daily event.

I thought that it was quite fitting that I had driven above the fog to the sunny heights of our hill to have this chat about listening to the mass media version of news and what we are supposed to be concerned about.

Sometimes I wonder about people who listen to the media version of events every day, who read all the papers, broadsheet or tabloid, who watch the tv news – are they living in a fog?

A fog induced by a daily diet of overwhelmingly bad news, fear inducing, power-sapping news that makes them think that they cannot possible change the world, their world, our world?

If you think that there is nothing that you can do to influence change do you give up trying?

I sure hope not ‘cos a lot of people do watch the daily power-sap commonly known as The News. I know that I had to stop watching it every day as it was certainly overwhelming for me. I can only speak for myself of course.

How do you feel about The News?

Please add a comment and let me know……..