Easy peeling fresh hard boiled chicken eggs

Has anyone else fund that trying to peel a freshly laid chicken egg which you have hard boiled results in the shell sticking to the egg white and ripping the egg white off as you try to peel it. I saw this hint somewhere and have just tried it - and as you can see, it works

The hint?

Steam the egg instead of boiling it.

I placed a sieve which was suspended just touching boiling water in a pot. Place the egg in the sieve, and then put the (pot) lid in the sieve on top of the egg. Steam for 10 - 12 minutes. Plonk the now cooked egg in cold water for 3 minutes and then peel. The shell comes off beautifully.

The added benefit - you could do this whilst you're using the pot for something else - for example potatoes for a potato salad - thereby saving on electricity / gas consumption because you don't have to switch on the stove for a second time.

Definite indications...

...that all is not well.

This years rainfall has been dismal.

Bearing in mind that we live in a winter rainfall area, this year we have only received 274mm this winter, and 511mm for the year.  With an historical average of 33mm rain in December means that our total rainfall for the year will be approximately 544mm - which is the lowest annual rainfall since I started keeping a rainfall record in November 2013 - and 100 - 150mm less rain for the year compared to previous years!

That is hectic!!

Rainfall record

This November has seen only 12mm of rain fall in our area.  A pathetic 3mm + 6mm + 3mm which does nothing except clean off the leaves.  That is by far and away the worst monthly rainfall figure I have recorded.

North of us in the Gauteng area they have experienced hectic, unusual flooding in the last month.

Are there still climate change deny-ers out there?

OK - take a look here:  http://www.treehugger.com/climate-change/key-glacier-antarctica-cracking-inside-out.html

We humans are strange creatures.  We tend to react only when something affects us - personally.  The only problem is that what is happening world wide is not only negatively affecting some of us, but is also affecting this planet on which we all reside.  A planet on which we all depend for our existence.  A planet which we have a duty to protect, and to treat thoughtfuly, responsibly and kindly.

Please - don't wait until you, personally, feel the effects of climate change in order to make b-i-g changes in your lives.  Make them now - for the sake of this planet and all who reside thereon.  Do it for the people who aren't causing the problem, but who will feel the worst of the effects of climate change.  People in rural Africa, South America or Australia, or those people who have no option but to live on low lying islands.

Droughts, flooding, extreme temperatures - both high and low - and above average snowfalls.  The indications are that these unusual weather conditions all face us in the future.

And we have caused this to happen.

Have you acknowledged your responsibility, and are you ready to accept your part in the cause of these extreme weather conditions as a result of climate change?

Preppers try and plan for their potential future requirements for a SHTF situation.  Self-sufficient smallholders are trying to reduce their dependence on multi national corporations for their foodstuff as far as they possibly can.

But - with todays attitude of...

1  "replacing" perfectly good items because they are a tad out of date / fashion

2  or turning up heating / air conditioning instead of adding / reducing clothing

3  or insulating homes against the outside temperatures

4  or running to the shops (which, in most cases, means wasting fuel / adding more poisonous exhaust fumes into the atmosphere) because you've run out of a single item

5  wasting precious water

...to name just a few, is not helping.  I'm sure you'll agree.

Consider limiting your shopping to once a week - or, preferably, once a month.  Our parents did that.  Why can't we?  Alternatively, are the shops close enough to walk to?  Do you really need to use your car?  Where possible walk - it's better for your health, and better for this planet.

Preserve food - line your pantry with preserved home grown food, or buy fruits and vegetables when they are on special in the shops and do your own future preserved "catering".  If I can learn to do it at my age - anybody can :D  There is a wealth of information - on the net, and in a myriad of books devoted to the subject.

Don't adjust your thermostat - add / reduce clothing and insulate your homes better.  Even something as simple as adding bubble wrap to your windows, or even hanging a thick blanket over them - these actions will reduce the internal heat loss / prevent the external heat  / cold from affecting your homes negatively.  Snuggle up on the couch of an evening with a blanket round your shoulders / knees.  Why turn the thermostat higher / switch on a heater.  Because you are able to?  Because you can afford it?  But what about the hidden side effects those easy actions are having on others - and on this planet.

Have you installed rain water tanks to collect water in order to reduce your demand on the system - which is - worldwide - showing the strain it is under?

Please - before you take each easy solution route - consider all those who don't have what you have to make their lives easier and comfortable, and who are going to feel the severe negative effects of climate change so much more than you are.

You / me - we're all responsible for what is happening.

Not the people who don't have electricity - and in some cases don't even have running water.  Who don't have a car, who can't even afford to go shopping, but have to grow the food to feed their entire familes.  Who have to try and provide in increasingly more difficult situations.  Through no fault of their own.

We are all members of the same human race.  Why did it become a situation of "I come first" and not mankind and this planet comes first?  Please - just because we cant see what effect our modern lifestyles are having on the underpriviledged and on the landscape outside of our little "worlds", it doesn't mean than we can just bumble through life without a care.

It's time for each and every one of us to own up, to acknowledge our part in the deterioration that is happening and to take enormous personal steps to mitigate our time on Earth and the footprint we leave behind.

We can't throw away this planet and buy a new one...

Eco-friendly air conditioning

I asked on Tuesday if anyone knew what this object in the picture was.

Well, it's my non-power guzzling, eco-friendly air-conditioner.

Also known as a hand held fan.  Operated by humans, not electricity lol  It's all in the wrist movement...

Well done to all those that got it right :)

We haven't got the power to run an air-conditioner, and wouldn't even if we did (we have never had one either).

But, neither we do we need one.

We feel that air-cons don't give you fresh air, they give you recirculated machine air.  

Plus, not living in a town polluted with exhaust fumes / belching who knows what from industry chimney stacks / machines, why on earth would we run an air-con?
  

Between keeping the doors and windows closed when the temperatures are above 35oC outside (the double glazing definitely works), dressing in the coolest clothing we have (not quite as 'undressed' as you and jam, kymber, but at times we have come pretty close), or using our 40 watt electric table fan, I now have a portable fan - for use anywhere and at any time.

Not mad about the pattern, but hey, it doesn't effect the performance, so what the heck.

(P.S.  Don't tell him I told you, but RMan also has his own eco-friendly air-conditioning fan... tee hee)

Still baking...

The banana bread recipe that came with my Ma Baker bread machine was a disaster.

Although in the true sense of the word banana bread isn't "bread", but is actually a banana cake, which is baked in a loaf pan.  Which is probably where it gets it's name from...

The banana bread recipe from
my Ma Baker information / recipe
booklet

But, was the disastrous recipe the machine's fault or mine?  I dunno.

Dense and heavy - more like bread than cake

Nowhere in the recipe does it say anything about removing the mixing paddle.  But, although it needs initial mixing to combine the ingredients, it wouldn't need the paddle later in the recipe because the recipe doesn't contain any yeast.  So, hesitating, I left it in.

The result.

It was heavy, dense and stodgy - although it did taste like banana bread I wasn't happy.

So I went searching for a bread machine banana bread recipe, and found one here or at the end of this posting.

My second attempt - light, aerated, and definitely
banana bread - or should that be cake? lol

The changes I made to the recipe was to prep everything before placing the already mixed wet and dry ingredients into the baking pan - and I omitted the paddle.  And I used the "Bake" cycle, not the "Quick" one - which included mixing at the oddest times during the baking process.

Ah - that's more like it.

You can visibly see the difference between the
two recipes and resulting loaves.  The booklet
recipe loaf is on the right, and the new recipe is
on the left.

This was definitely banana bread as I know it.

660 watts - that means the Ma Baker, on
bake cycle, uses only 448 watts
(by deduction)

With the fridge (132 watts) the decoder, wi-fi and laptop (+/- 35 + 10 + 35 watts respectively) and the bread machine all working simultaneously, the Owl electricity monitor was displaying 660 watts.  Which means that the bread machine was only using 448 watts.  Now, can one possibly bake a cake with less power? ;)

My final question:  those that have, and use, bread a machine - do you use it for anything other than baking bread / cakes?  If so, would you care to share?

This banana bread recipe was found at:  http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/875/banana-loaf-in-the-bread-machine.aspx

Ingredients  Serves: 10 

·        2 1/4 cups (280g) plain flour

·        1 teaspoon baking powder

·        1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

·        2/3 cup (150g) caster sugar

·        2 tablespoons (40ml) vegetable oil

·        2 eggs

·        2 bananas, peeled and halved lengthwise

Directions
Preparation:10min  ›  Cook:50min  ›  Ready in:1hour 

1.      Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine.

2.      Select the 'Dough' setting, and press 'Start'. Mix the bread for 3 to 5 minutes until the bananas are mashed and all ingredients are thoroughly combined. If necessary, use a rubber spatula to push the dough from the sides of the bread pan. When 3 to 5 minutes have passed on the clock display, press Stop. Do not continue mixing.  I sifted at the dry ingredients together, beat the eggs gently, mashed the banana and, mixing those two together, added the oil.  The wet mixture was then carefully added to the dry ingredients and the mixture was placed in the Ma Baker - sans the paddle.

Then I continued as the recipe states:

3.      Smooth out the top of the loaf with the rubber spatula.

4.      Select the 'Bake' setting, and press 'Start'. The 'Bake' cycle time may vary with machines, but should be about 50 minutes. To test the bread for doneness, insert a wooden skewer into the centre top. Remove the stick. If the bread is done, the stick will come out clean. If there is dough on the stick, reset the machine on Bake and continue to bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes. Test again to assure the bread is completely baked.

5.      Remove the pan from the machine, but allow the bread to remain in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove the bread to cool completely on a wire rack. 

Powered up...

Warning - this is a l-o-n-g posting, and picture heavy...

A few days ago I mentioned that we had some very exciting happenings at the farm.

Well, here is the news...

We have learnt a lot about our solar power installation through trial and error. When we initially installed our solar panels we were not informed about a number of things which were vitally important.  In this instance, we were not informed that low temperatures affect the performance of solar panels.

When the ambient temperature is below 10oC the cold affects the voltage of the panels - causing the voltage to spike.  We had all our 12volt panels (incorrectly) connected in series - all the way through to our charge controller. Connecting them in series meant that maximum volts were produced by the panels - which is what RMan was (mistakenly) aiming for.  (connecting the bank in parallel would mean the Outback charge controller would utilize the Amps produced, not voltage.)

We have an Outback 80 charge controller, which, translated that means it can handle an input of 80Amps and 145 volts power from the solar panels - maximum.

Our indoor Outback remote display gives us the
first /indication that all is not well with our
power production.
Silent - at 9.40a.m. in the morning -
is not good news.  It means the voltage
from the panels is spiking

What we discovered last year (winter) is that at sunrise, when the temperature is the lowest, the cold caused the panels to spike over 145 volts - the maximum the Outback charge controller could handle - which caused the charge controller to shut down.  For hours.  Which resulted in lost input charge to the batteries.

Checking in the power room, the Outback
charge controller tells the tale : 148VDC
High VoC = shutdown - to prevent damage
to the charge controller

Given the number of people world-wide who are off-grid and who rely on solar power to charge their storage batteries, I did not believe that the problem was unsolvable, so after contacting a number of people locally - who didn't help much - I went international.  An extremely helpful gentleman at Outback technical support in Australia, responded to my high voltage e-mail query. And, over the course of 16-odd e-mails [I told you you he was extremely helpful :) ], he advised us to reconfigure the panels.

Diagram of the new configuration of our 8 X
off-grid solar panels connected in series and
the two banks connected in parallel.

He suggested that we have two equal banks of panels linked in series, and then link the two banks in parallel with two breakers separating the two different guage cables between the panels and the charge controller.

Wiring into breakers
prior to being routed
through conduit

Breaker details

To do that we needed an equal number of panels.  We only had 7 (6 X 140watt and 1 X 135 watt).  Wayne, our SiL across the field, had two 140watt panels that he wasn't using, so we purchased them off him - thereby removing of the 135 watt panel from the exisiting array.  These 8 panels give us 1120 watts of potential solar power going to the Outback 80.

6 guys in the front and two guys behind -
installing our first 5 X solar panels in August 2012.

Plus, RSon had the very good suggestion of re-installing the solar panels in such a way that we would have available roof space if ever we wanted to install more panels in the future (our old existing installation "hogged" all the available space of over half the roof area).

But, that meant getting all the panels down off the 45° pitched roof.

You recall how the builders assisted us in installing the original five panels on the garage roof.  7 guys helped RMan that day.  Five in the front with RMan...

 ...and two holding support ropes at the back.

This time we only had RMan, RSon, Wayne and one of the locals we roped in to help.

I was fraught with fear.  Those panels are frigging heavy.  And the pitch of the roof is hectic - and not condusive to ease of clambering all over it.

The scaffolding was errected, and the removal proceeded at 11.00 a.m. on Saturday morning.  I was torn between not wanting to watch / document the event, but being aware that the more I photographed, the more info we would have if we ever needed to check something in the future.

RMan and RSon discussing the best way to handle
this enormous task - and RSon giving us an
idea for the addition of further panels in future

RSon, ever the adverturous one, elected himself to climb to the roof apex in order to connect the supporting ropes to the exising array.  And to loosen the existing bolts securing the solar panels to the roof...

RSon, Wayne and the helper trying to get the
panels off the roof

A couple of times I remember pointing the camera, closing my eyes and clicking the button.   I couldn't watch...

Since the first time we installed the panels, we have erected a carport roof - and that carport roof was in the way when it came time to secure the supporting ropes.

The carport roof was in the way, so we had to
secure the supporting ropes to a quaddie

 It was very hot and difficult work - with awkward access all round.

Removing the old cables so that we could get the
panels down

But, my fears aside, naturally they got the panels down in one piece, and without injuring anyone.  There is a God in heaven.

Checking and rwiring the panels and re-fixing them
to the horizontal aluminium square tube supports

We had purchased more cable with which to rewire the panels - and that was just as well. We discovered that one of the old cables had become pinched during the original installtion - and that was not good news!

As we are going to be installing the panels in a different configuration, the supporting beams inside the garage roof had to be moved as well.

The horizontal beams fixed to the trusseses
support the solar panels

(Ah - a small bit of news I forgot to give you - RMan managed to break his new-ish glasses a few weeks ago, and, although new ones are already on order, all close up work has to be done with his prescription sunglasses.

Inside a garage roof??!?!)

Wayne to the rescue again LOL

Oh, brother!!!!  The roof mounted bolts were
installed in the incorrect position

Once everything was rewired and refixed to the aluminium supporting structure, the first bank of 4 panels was once again hoisted up the scaffolding and onto the roof.

RSon at 5.59p.m. - perching like a monkey
 on the rooftiles in the fading light.
I definitely gained a few grey hairs watching him...
Does he know how long 9 months carrying a
child is, and what is involved in getting that child
to adulthood?????

All of this takes time.

They started at 10.30-ish in the morning and, at 5.59p.m. the first bank was more or less installed.  They had installed the securing bolts from inside the roof outwards.  Then trying to find the holes on the aluminium structure below the panels wasn't easy in the fading light - and it took ages.

So, Sunday morning the work continued...

Getting the securing bolt lined up with the hole
in the roof tile

The securing bolts for the second bank were installed from the outside in i.e. first through the aluminium square tube and then into holes drilled through the roof tiles.  Far easier.  Even given the raging gale that inconveniently sprang up to hamper the operation.

The new two banks of 4 X panels - using less roof
space than the previous installation - and producing
200 watts even in the cloudy weather evident on
the photograph.  This installation allows for a
further 8 panels to be installed in the future.

So, finally we have two banks of 4 X 140watt panels (which are connected in parallel this time) mounted on the roof again.

And - thanks to RSon's foresight, we have space to install a further 8 - 12 panels should we so choose in the future :)

Clever boy :)

The battery / inverter connections remain the same

So - there you have it.

The next day it was immediately apparent that there is a definite, and visible, improvement - 10 minutes after sunrise we are already getting a charge going to the charge controller and 30 minutes later over 300 watts is being produced.  With nada voltage spiking / shutdown occuring.  At the end of the day, we are obtaining 5KwH+ of charge to the batteries - in winter!!!! :) That we only achieved last summer.

And - there is no more over voltage spiking :D  So every scrap of power produced by those panels from the moment the sun hits them in the early morning to the last ray in the evening is now going to the charge controller and into the batteries.  Yipeeeeeeee!

Well done guys.  And, thanks - seriously - a very sincere and grateful thank you for all the work, willingness, thought and effort that you all expended to sort out our power problems.


By the way, tomorrow we will have been here for exactly 2 years :)  How fast the time has passed and how worth the move it was.  No regrets - neither RMan nor myself :)


P.S.  You have only 2 days left if you'd like to add your name to the piquanté pepper seed giveaway.  Entries close at 6.00p.m. on Monday, 30th June 2014 :)

Stocked up for winter...

... I mean, next winter...

We have just had, what I think is the last of our l'ete indien, and the lovely crisp mornings we waken to each day hold promise of the much welcome change in temperatures ahead.

Our Nordica Rosa - a.k.a. Rosie :)

Apart from the double glazing assisting in retaining heat inside the house, our sole source of warmth is from the Rosie - we don't use electric bar heaters, elelctric air-conditioning set on high heat, nor LP gas heaters.  Only the Nordica Rosie stove. The fact that it provides cooking facilities as well, is the added bonus. Well, truthfully, it was pointless just buying a wood burning stove for heating alone - if both requirements can be provided by the same unit, then surely that is the most cost effective solution.

There are plenty of alien Black Wattles in our area, which are slowly being "removed" by the WFW gang.  Last September we purchased two loads of chopped alien Black Wattle wood which the locals provide to anyone who needs wood for the upcoming winter, or their summer braai's.  Everyone knows, because of the dangers of resin accumulatingin your chimney's, that you can't use newly harvested damp wood in your stoves / fireplaces.  So, we try and source our wood early enough that we are confident that it has had sufficient time to dry before we need it.

Black Wattle logs - stacked last year in
September for use this winter

The hefty piles sort of sink into the ground as they dry.  They are also ideal place for mice and snakes to take refuge, so we site ours well away from the house / vegetable patches.  And very carefully select our wood when it's needed each day.

This winter we will have a mixture of Black Wattle and Bluegum with which to fire up the Rosie.  Bluegum is one of the hardwoods recommended by Nordica and it will be interesting to see the difference between the wattle and the bluegum - will it burn hotter and for longer?  Being much harder than wattle, it should.

The pile is growing and growing - time to
start a row in front.

It's always a mission collecting the firewood - getting to the invariably inaccessible spot where the trees have been chopped down, loading the wood onto the trailer, driving slowly back to our smallholding, and then...

1000 pieces of wattle on the right this time,
and the last of the 1000 pieces of bluegum
being off-loaded on the left

... off-loading it once we get there.  It takes about an hour to load it, and 3/4 of an hour to offload.

The cost - that has gone up since we got here.  It was ZAR200.00 / 1000 pieces in 2012, and is now ZAR300.00 / 1000 pieces  ($30-ish / €20-ish).  

But - that is still MUCH cheaper than we would pay in town.  There they sell a small bag of wood (roughly 12 - 15 pieces) for ZAR50.00 +  So - it is definitely the cheapest form of heating available.  We use about 20 - 25 pieces if we're having the Rosie burning from morning till night - so that would mean we could burn the Rosie all day, every day for roughly 80 days.  But, it's never that cold here that consistently, and we have good warm jersey's and jackets that we can put on if the need should arise.  Daytime burning of the Rosie is left for those rain-drenched, snow-capped mountain winter days and nights when we feel a need for the gemütlichkeit of a visible log burning fire to warm and lighten the dreary outside view.  2000 pieces should be more than enough to see to our needs for this winter.

Who needs to go to gym - even on a lovely crisp morning loading and off-loading that wood is exercise enough to get the blood flowing, and a small trickle of sweat to slide down between the shoulder blades :)

Thank goodness we don't have to chop down the trees as well :)

Personal solar power zenith

Friday, 15th March 2014 it was a cool day - full sunshine, but the air was cool. Those are ideal conditions for solar panels.

When solar panels overheat their efficiency drops.  Which is completely opposite to what one expects.  Certainly what I thought.  I figured the sunnier / hotter the day, the more the solar panels would generate charge to our batteries.

But, when there is a cool breeze blowing, the panels are able to perform at optimum, and the 28th March was just such a day :)

This is the Outback remote control unit which
is located inside our house, and which
keeps us updated as to the wattage which is
being generated by our solar panels and gives
 us a total kWH produced at any given moment

And we had a record kWH harvest.  5.7 kWH / 430 AH to be precise!

The Owl electricity monitor showing our current
(with or without the pun LOL) kWH draw of 290 watts,
our daily draw from the batteries (2.97kWH) and
the temperature inside at that time 20.5°. 

At 18.42p.m. that day we had only used 2.97 kWH so that means we had a surplus of 2.73kWH!!!

We were happy, happy puppies that day :)

By the way, you can tell from our energy consumption on the photo of the Owl electricity monitor that we were drawing 290 watts - that equates to our fridge (180 watts), TV and satellite box (103 watts), and 1 X 7watt light.

Now, not to confuse you, the Outback remote is showing a total charge of 12.3volts.  That is because we were drawing 290 watts at that precise moment.  The batteries were at a full charge of 12.5 volts.  But that shows you how any power consumption affects the battery charge.

Once the fridge timer clocked in and switched off the fridge for an hour, the draw fell to 187 watts the CC value rose accordingly.

We always remember to turn off lights when we leave a room... ;)

Simple tomato supper

At the end of a long, hot, productive day in the garden, a simple but tasty and nutritious meal is called for.

As long as it has meat of some kind RMan is happy.  So he had bacon rashers added to his plate.

Yummy heirloom tomatoes - so much more
substantial than the commercial varieties
which are so widely available

Then, with my bountiful garden produce I made the following dinner.

All it took was the following :

1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 garlic clove, chopped
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried coriander seeds
2 - 3 "large" whole tomatoes (skin, seeds and all - finely chopped)
1 teaspoon caster sugar
4 eggs (I scored half a dozen completely free range eggs from a generous neighbour :)  )
handful of fresh basil leaves
1 red chilli (deseeded and finely chopped) Optional
grated cheese Optional

100% free range eggs poached in a homemade
tomato sauce

Heat the oil in a frying pan that has a lid, then soften the chopped onions, garlic, crushed coriander seeds, and chilli (if using) for 5 minutes until soft. Stir in the tomatoes and sugar, then bubble for 8-10 mins until thick (at this stage the the mixture can be cooled, and then frozen for a couple fo months).

Using the back of a large spoon, make 4 "holes" in the sauce, then crack an egg into each one. Put a lid on the pan and cook over a low heat for 4 - 5 minutes, until the eggs are done to your liking. If your adding grated cheese, sprinkle it over the top now, scatter with the sweet basil leaves and serve with a fresh baked crusty breadloaf or rolls.

Yum :)

Minimal cooking and cost and maximum goodness :)

Cape Town Eco Film Festival

Hmmm, wish I was in Cape Town at the moment - I received an e-mail from Sustainable's PR company, and I wouldn't mind attending this :)

It’s Time for the Cape Town Eco Film Festival – Win a Sustainable.co.za Green Hamper Worth Over R1000

Sustainable.co.za have announced their sponsorship of the Cape Town Eco Film Festival this month. In anticipation of the festival, Sustainable.co.za is running a competition for the month of March to get people talking about the issues at hand.

The Cape Town Eco Film Festival will be the first of its kind in the city. The festival will take place at the Labia Theatre on Orange Street in Cape Town, and will run for five days from the 27^th to the 31^st March. It will bring together the best local and international documentary films focusing on environmental issues. Altogether, the festival will feature 25 eco-films and 10 local premieres. They will also host guest speakers and Q&A sessions to discuss important issues around environmentalism, from

climate change and pollution to plummeting biodiversity and diminishing natural resources.

For each ticket purchased at R45, R5 will be donated to Greenpop, who will use the money to help finance their re-forestation efforts in South Africa and Zambia. You can reserve tickets for the Cape Town Eco-Festival by calling the Labia box office on 021 424 5927 or you can buy tickets at Webtickets.co.za

Zeke Murphy,  of Sustainable.co.za, comments: “I believe that a film festival such as the Cape Town Eco film festival is critical in the continued effort to protect our planet for our children. Sustainable.co.za is committed to raising awareness regarding issues with our environment, climate change and protecting our wild life, and we feel that our involvement in the film festival is a wonderful means to raising these issues within the South African community.”

Green Competition

To promote the event and get start the eco conversation, Sustainable.co.za is hosting a Facebook competition this month. The competition will run from 10th March right up until the start of the festival. The competition quiz will ask questions regarding environmental issues. Participants will be in with a chance of winning a green home hamper worth over R1000, which includes a-water saving showerhead, solar jar, energy monitor and eco cooker from Sustainable.co.za. More information about the prizes can be found on the Sustainable.co.za blog. To enter, all you have to do is visit Sustainable.co.za’s Facebook competition page and test your knowledge by completing the quiz, after all, the first step towards action is awareness.

Sustainable.co.za helps people live a more environmentally sustainable life by providing the necessary information and eco-friendly products all in one location.  They supply a wide range of eco-friendly goods to create sustainable lifestyles, provide practical guidance on measures to live more sustainably, give information on organisations linked to sustainable living and alerts people to the local and global environmental situation. For more information visit: http://www.sustainable.co.za/

For all of you who are, hope you can make it there.  The very thought provoking movies include the following:  (click on the link below each pic for a preview of the movie) 

http://capetownecofilmfestival.com/films/amazon-gold/

http://capetownecofilmfestival.com/films/blackfish/

http://capetownecofilmfestival.com/films/damocracy/

http://capetownecofilmfestival.com/films/gasland-part-ii/

http://capetownecofilmfestival.com/films/more-than-honey/

By the way, there is a very nice prize on offer too :)

It consists of a hamper with:

1  a Niagara Conservation - Earth Showerhead;
2  an Efergy Energy Monitoring socket;
3  a Sun Jar 7 - in colour;
4  a Hotbox eco-cooker - all valued at over R1000.00

Unfortunately, the competition is only open to South African's, but why not take the quiz anyway, and find out how much you know ;)

Disclaimer: I receive no benefit whatsoever for this posting.  I merely aim to spread the very worthy word.