Want to see my new bike bag?

Our friends at Topeak make some really good bike bags - they are expensive, but they work really well. I've given you a link to the bag I own - it can hold your day's goodies and clothes for a ride-to-work day, or some groceries for a chores day, or plenty of picnic for a day off.

To use a Topeak bag, you need a special carrier on your bike. But once you have the special carrier, you can slide ANY matching bag onto it.

So, what happened was, I managed to tear my older Topeak bag (it was a bit less cool than the one in the link). I repaired for a bit with duct tape, but it was pretty torn. I replaced it with the cool one I have now. I finally decided the torn one had to be retired. But first, I took it apart (as you do). And discovered that the whole mechanism that clips onto the special carrier was just fine!

So, I bought a pretty canvas bag at a local op shop, and here is my new bike bag!

A creative letter box in Melbourne

I saw this on a bike ride recently. It's a computer casing. Specifically, an Apple Powermac G4 Quicksilver, from 2002. Now doing a good job of keeping the mail safe.

How I've been making yoghurt in the dehydrator

Some people were asking, so here's my method... I've been making yoghurt, and using the dehydrator to incubate it.

I start with some milk, about a litre. Warm it up to 80 degrees Celsius, then let it cool down to 37 degrees. Stir in some yoghurt from the last batch. That's plain, unflavoured yoghurt. My very first starter was some Jalna Greek Style, which was delicious, and I haven't bought any since.

Now, the dehydrator comes in. Instead of pouring this milk/yoghurt mix into a thermos or other container, I portion it into very clean Tupperware containers (snack cups, which are 1/2 cup sized). Here they are, all neatly filled.

Do you notice one of them is half the size again? There's a reason for that.

I put the seals on, then stand them in the dehydrator, which is set at about 37 degrees.

This is a Harvest Maid dehydrator. These cups would normally NOT fit in the trays, but I've added a spacer ring. It works perfectly.

The lid of the dehydrator goes on after this, of course. I test the temperature from time to time, because, although the machine has a temperature dial, it's not that accurate.

Most of the cups have colourful lids, but I make sure one has a clear lid.

Now we go away for a few hours. Don't fuss with the yoghurt, it doesn't need you.

Some time later in the day, if you pick up the cup with the clear lid, you'll be able to see that it has set. No need to open it. If it's clearly still liquid, let it incubate some more.

That's basically it, you've made yoghurt. And look, it's already in portions.

See how nicely set it is. This is how yoghurt is supposed to look.

If you want it to be fruity and sweet, stir in some jam (or fruit, obviously, but jam is less runny). Or just eat it unsweetened, with lovely fresh fruit!

So what was the half sized cup for? That's the starter for next time! You won't eat it by mistake if it looks different.

What to do with a real lot of bananas

Thanks to Bushy Park, the fruit and vegie shop I love to visit, I had a real lot of bananas to use quickly. And I hate waste.

I had a banana smoothie while I thought about it. Cake is so obvious, everyone likes cake. But for some reason, I decided to go a different way.

Here's a banana meringue pie! Practically sugar free. Except if you count the meringue, which actually has quite a lot.

It has been quite nice - not a new favourite or anything, but it was nice to have a go at meringue.

And here's all the rest, turning into delicious banana chips, for office snacking over the rest of the week!

How to read your Smart Meter - a tutorial

If you live in Victoria, and have an electricity smart meter, you will be able to look at the data they produce. It's a fantastic way of working out how to manage your electricity use.

Now, when they installed my smart meter, I noticed that they DIDN'T tell me about how to get information from it. I worked it out, though, so I'm doing that for you now.

Here's the steps:

• make sure you actually have a smart meter. You'll know, some dudes will have come and installed it, and probably turned the power off briefly in the process. Plus, there will be a shiny new box in your meter box, with a sinister blinking red light.

• find out who your energy supplier is (it's not necessarily the people who send you a bill). Go to this web site to enter your address and get a clear answer. That's the Department of Primary Industries. I know, we deal with them, like, all the time.

• go to the web site of that company. For me, it's United Energy. Look for a nice bit on their web site that says something about smart meters - they might mention the word "Portal" too. This is the United Energy lady. She looks so friendly.

Here's some of the energy company web sites I know about:
United Energy (I use this one, it works fine)
SP AusNet (web site wouldn't load in Chrome, had to try Firefox)
Jemena (They have United Energy lady too, so you know that will work)
Origin Energy (they say they are "closed" at the time of writing)

• sign up with an email address and a password. There will be terms and conditions.  Now they know you are a user of the web site
• now the tricky bit, and since I've done it already, I can't really do it again to show you. They will ask you for your exact address (of course) and also an "NMI" - that's "National Metering Identifier", a unique number for your smart meter. You'll find that on your electricity bill. And forgive me for being vague, but I think there was another number too, which came from the bill as well.

That should be it. Now you can log on any time and see how much power you are chomping through. I found the presentation of the data to be really accessible. 

And I made discoveries too. 

Here's the United Energy portal running on my iPad (incidentally, works great on iPads!). That dark orange bar chart is the day of interest - it's comparing it to the previous day. The day we are  looking at is Thursday last week - Valentine's Day. The bars are hourly usage.

So, we see really low use in the early hours of the morning. A little bump when we get up and turn lights on. A big sustained bump in the middle of the day when the pool filter is on. A spike at dinner time when the oven is on. But wait, what's that OTHER spike in the middle of the day! It was a school/work day, nobody should be home!

Detective mum went to work to see WHO had sneaked home and used extra electricity. I checked the school's portal to see the attendance records of each child. I quickly found out, that was the day the teachers were on strike. So now I know the kids had pies for lunch! I also discover that the oven is the hungriest device in the house, so now were are very conscious of oven-sharing.

As well as hourly data, you should be able to see weekly, monthly and seasonal summaries. You will be sure to discover something you can change to get that bill down a bit.

I hope this has helped. Thankyou, United Energy lady.

How to use a Cropadile ... To fix shoes!

This shoe needs mending!

I asked Jonathan how his new school shoes were going. He showed me a problem. These leather shoes had holes punched for threading the laces, but no metal eyelets to protect them. The holes were tearing!

Jonathan mends his shoe

So I got out the Cropadile (that's a scrapbooking gadget that punches holes and sets eyelets) and showed him how to use it. We had to use the biggest eyelets I had to get a good result, but I think it was completely successful.

A mended shoe - that's two different sizes of eyelet we ended up with.