Next up for Simple Living Toowoomba is an open forum on decluttering. Lightning the hen here (pictured), needs help with her hording of pot plants!
This forum isn't just for people who need help with decluttering, but also for those who have some skill in decluttering and can shine some light on the subject for the rest of us!
Decluttering children isn't too bad...I just 'clean' their room when they're sleeping over somewhere else and chuck out the rubbish. But how do you declutter husbands who manage to fill three sheds and the bedroom with their possessions and still not feel satisfied with their storage space??! Not so easy to sneak their stuff into the bin.

Also in May, is a possible sausage making class at Birdsong Market Garden in Cranley...yet to organise this! We ran one in March '16, but this would be on a weekday for those who can't do weekends or missed the last one.
If you want more details on this, make sure you're on the Simple Living Toowoomba email subscription. That is where the info will be published.

One area that's getting more popular to DIY and go alternative routes in, is healthcare. For years we've rarely visited doctors (though I will point out that I am not against Doctors and have had wonderful help from a wise local doctor when I was dealing with an autoimmune disease), and we try to heal what we can naturally and from home.

So maybe it was only a matter of time before we started looking into natural oral care.
Over the years I've taken most my children to the dentist to have cavities filled and even tooth extractions. It was always baffling, because I don't feed my children what most would consider junk! They eat so much fruit, whole grains, very little processed/packaged food. They always have to brush twice a day...and yet cavities kept coming.

Last year my 6 year old had toothache, and we booked her in to the dentist and found she actually had a mouth ridden with cavities and needed two teeth extracted also! And she ended up with a crown inserted too! How could this happen on the diet these children have?

I'd read blog reviews about 'Cure Tooth Decay' by Ramiel Nagel. All the natural homesteading blogs that I follow raved about this book, and it appeared time for me to read it and see if there was something I could do to turn around my children's oral health. Wow! It's a game changer!

Ramiel is using a lot of research from dentist Weston A. Price in his book, to give us a glimpse of what oral hygiene is like around the world in traditional cultures eating traditional foods that have been prepared properly...and contrasting that with people eating modern diets. The difference is astounding. Did you ever wonder how the ancients cleaned their teeth? Well actually, it looks like they didn't need to. From Australian Aborigines on their traditional diet to natives of the Swiss Alps (also on their traditional unprocessed diet), Weston A. Price kept coming across native cultures of people who had perfect teeth. Low sugar, properly prepared grains and good levels of fat soluble vitamins A and D were some of the factors contributing to their superior oral health.

There's far too much information for me to run over here, read the book for yourself if you're interested. But as an example, some of the tooth remineralising foods are: bone broth, fermented cod liver oil, raw grass-fed dairy products, soft boiled or raw pastured eggs (especially duck eggs), fish (not farmed), lightly cooked grass-fed beef or lamb, wild caught fish eggs, lard from grass fed animals, fermented foods, cooked vegetables with butter or cream (the fat helps you absorb more of the nutrients in the veg), seaweeds.

And the nasty foods for your teeth include: packaged and processed food, infant formula (interestingly enough, I could never produce enough breast milk, so my babies were all formula supplemented which very likely contributed to their cavities later on), whole grains, breakfast cereals, oatmeal, granola (these grains are not prepared properly and contain antinutrients), refined sweeteners, vaccines and pharmaceuticals.

Welcome to Simple Living Toowoomba! And sorry if you've been checking out this website and found no recent or helpful content lately! It's been so busy on the farm. I'm going to take this opportunity to explain Simply Living Toowoomba to people who may not be familiar with us.

Simple Living is about passing on and learning DIY skills that foster a more down to earth and sustainable lifestyle. And it's so much fun knowing how different products are made, even if you won't or aren't able to always make them yourself.

We meet from 10am-midday, one saturday each month at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, near the McDonalds on James St.

Classes are usually $5 which includes a cuppa and usually something simple and allergy friendly to eat.

Margy and Michele run/organise the group. And I'm Racheal, and contribute here and there to classes and the website. If you're interested in knowing what classes are coming up, the best thing you can do is join the mailing list via this website. Classes are usually updated on the website, but the best way to keep updated is definitely the mailing list. Being on the mailing list also means you'll find out about other offers or classes that are not published here. For example, there were bulk mangoes on offer last summer I think, and the offer was put out there to everyone on the mailing list. I also run classes from home once a month on a weekday (good if you can't do Saturdays) and only people on the mailing list are invited, since the classes are in my home.

 You may have already seen the list on the website with class ideas. We've run classes on cheese making, pasta making, sourdough, sausage making, homemade cleaning products, homemade health and beauty products, felting, rag rug making, simple homemade Christmas gift ideas, beekeeping, Tunisian crochet, keeping chickens, organic gardening, jam making, soap making, making cider and mead... and more.

Classes are run by anyone who has some knowledge to pass on about a certain skill/craft. So if you're in possession of a DIY skill that could be a blessing to others to learn, let us know! We're always looking for new class ideas and people to teach them!

To add to the fun and sharing, before almost every class, we have a Homemade/Homegrown swap table. Pictured above are little bags Margy taught us to make a while back. I taught my girls to make them and they love it! And I love being able to quickly make up packaging for soap and other gifts.

Something like this might be found on the swap table. Other swap table ideas are:
homegrown produce
Backyard chook eggs
handmade soap
homegrown/propagated plants
home baked goods
Craft items
Starter cultures (sourdough starter, kefir, kombucha etc)
And much more...
But the idea is that anyone who wants to participate brings up to 5 items to swap. All the items are laid out on the table and when everyone is ready we start the trade. If I brought along 1 item, then I can take 1 item someone else brought from the table. If I brought 5 items, then I can take 5 items etc.

Swap items are usually under $5 each in value. Just mentioning this so you know that items like homemade quilts would be overkill and you probably wouldn't find anything of a similar value to swap it with!

Sometimes people also bring give away items, like surplus citrus. Or DIY related magazines, craft items etc that they no longer need and might be useful to someone else.

So feel free to come along and check out a class! Or if you have a skill you could teach others, let us know