Dave's blog

It’s been a while now we’ve both been living for free so things we had in the first month are beginning to run out. The festival last weekend did supply us with a lot of essentials we would have normally had to buy namely toothpaste, sun-cream (not that we need to much of that!), shampoo and conditioner all left by people leaving early.
We are running low on laundry liquid and so are trying to stretch our clothes out a little longer that I normally would. I’ve been much more rigid than normal with what are outdoor scruff clothes and which are for best. It’s amazing how quickly new clothes can become ruined and become ‘allotment ware’. Even despite doing this the laundry basket is filling up and we’ll have to use the last of the liquid soon.

I’m not sure if it will work with laundry liquid but up to now I’ve been employing a two week rule. Back in March we needed a new toaster as ours gave up the ghost and fixing it was beyond my skills. I thought to myself that I wouldn’t buy a new but instead would wait until one turned up. Within two weeks I found a discarded working toaster where my friend was working as a security guard at an abandoned print works.
Time and time again I tried this method since, we wanted a juicer so waited two weeks and one turned up in the street. The same with work boots, a griddle pan, a electric whisk, a bread machine, a pair of wellies and both of us got new clothes in a clothes swap last week. I honestly think that if you live in a city or large town and you want anything then try waiting two weeks and one will turn up, I’ve even got a bed that way in the past.

After a while of not buying anything the value of the items you own start to change. One such item which would normally be worthless to me was a packet of fresh ground Colombian coffee. In the past this would have just sat there until a coffee drinker came round and I’d offer them a cup. Ellie would perhaps have a cup every now and again and I might decide two or three times a year to join her in one, so after around six months it would have probably all gone.
I know that coffee is valuable, it’s a commodity that I can’t grow in this country and as such something worth using as an item for barter.
So with that in mind I asked around all the coffee drinkers I knew, I found a few but most were so hectic I couldn’t actually pin them down (conversationally) to go through with the barter. I tried but the subject kept changing so quickly that I didn’t get a chance to even mention I had some coffee.
A common reply was
‘Yes, yes, I drink coffee, I should really cut down, they say caffeine is bad for you, I don’t have that much, maybe five or six a day, is that too many, you can never tell these days what is good and what is bad for you, perhaps I should cut down, I’ve managed to quit smoking, well I’m down to about 5 or 6 a day, that is almost quitting….’ (I think you get the picture)

As I couldn’t find any who would take me up on the offer of a trade, I decided to log onto ‘justfortheloveofit.org’ and see if I could find someone to barter with. For those who have never heard of it ‘Just for the love of it’ was set up by a forward thinker, one of life’s doers and good friend of mine Mark Boyle. It promotes the idea of a ‘freeconomy’ and rather than babble on in my own words instead I have copied and pasted the website’s philosofree below –

The Freeconomy Community’s aim is to help reconnect people in their local communities through the simple act of sharing. Not only is sharing our resources better for the environment, it saves you money and builds friendships with those people who live closest to you. It is what we call a WIN-WIN-WIN situation.

Everything is shared for FREE on Freeconomy, and no money changes hands between members.
We do not use advertising, we receive no donations or income from the website and it is completely free to join, forever. Why? Just for the love of it!

I should also pay homage to the fact that Mark has been living without money for far longer than myself and being far more hardcore than I could ever be.

I am still paying rent and bills, living in a ordinary terraced house so still using a flush toilet, electric lights etc, etc. I have been trying to use the rocket stove and storm kettle whenever possible to minimize on energy usage but I must admit that I have been using the gas cooker, the microwave and an ordinary kettle. Mark on the other hand digs a hole for his toilet, cooks on a wood burning stove and will cycle everywhere and is in short not spending ANYTHING for a year without compromise.

My experiment into free living is really to see if it can be done at the drop of a hat, with no forward preparation and fitted around a normal (ish) existence. The other reasons for doing it keep changing, I think that’s what happens with a project like this. At first my reasons were simply to make the most of the abundance of free food that is on offer in this country. However soon after I couldn’t help but see what waste is produced and how much of it is still usable. The energy needed to ship tropical fruit half way round the world only to throw it in the bin is simply shocking. It could at the very least be composted! Supermarkets are essentially lazy, greedy entities that would rather throw away perfectly good food to keep profits rolling in rather than have any kind of social conscience. The farmers are forced into selling their produce for less than they can comfortably survive on only for us to buy it in cheap and let it rot in our fridges! Something is clearly wrong. As energy becomes more scarce will we want to pay for food to be shipped to landfill sites by paying an extra premium on our food? Will we want to pay for New Zealand apples during British apple season or due to market forces will we want to pay for imported milk from the continent whilst those across the water import British milk?
The way our modern food system is set up is simply crazy and after this experiment is over and I am buying things again I for one will not be buying from any of the large supermarkets but instead will glean what I can from their bins!

So, what became of the coffee? Well I did find someone to barter with and managed to get some stuffed pasta, some oats and some sugar. One of the hardest things (apart from bread) to get without money is grains, so in the end the coffee was exchanged for something of much greater value to me.

Last Years Successful Tap

It’s easy to miss the short window of time open for Birch tapping. The sap rises in the spring and if you miss it, that’s it for another year! The first tell tail sign is the new growth high in the canopy of the tree itself. When I was informed in late February the trees had started to bud early I knew I had to get on the case and get tapping. This year I was delighted to find not one but a whole row of Birches not far from my house. I thought my luck was in and this ear I would get a lot more than usual and could experiment with the stuff!
My girlfriend had been keen to get some sap and brew some birch sap wine so along with my brother Andy we went out with drill and bottles in hand to harvest some of the delicate fresh tree juice to play around with.
I use a hand drill rather than an electric one, it seems a much purer exercise and a bit kinder to the tree. The trick is to cut only a little passed the bark rather than deep within the tree. If you find yourself cutting deep into the tree without the sap oozing out then you’re either too early, too late. If this is the case and you should plug up the hole and try again later or the following year.

The three of us took it in turns to tap the trees and using string and parcel tape we attached bottles to the trees so the sap would drip into to collect in them. There are methods where you suspend a can on a nail dug into the tree or even make a container out of the tree bark itself. I have a box full of plastic bottles I keep meaning to take to the recycling bank, so it seemed pointless to spend all afternoon fashioning a vessel from tree bark.

Whilst tapping the final tree we noticed someone had been there before as they’d left a cork bunged into the trunk of the tree. If they were tapping it for sap there really is no need for the hole to be this big. The cork looked like one that would fit a demijohn and the hole only needs to be the diameter of a drinking straw!!!! Having said that cork is one of the best ways to seal up the tree as it expands to fit the size of the hole and can be removed for next years tap.
Without cork to hand I use a twig and sometimes tap it in with a hammer to make sure it is a proper seal.

It is important to reseal the hole as the sap would simply leach from it and never reach the canopy to feed the tree for the year to come, thus the tree would literally ‘bleed’ to death.

We left it over night and came back the following afternoon. I looked down the line of trees and all our containers looked empty. Sap seemed to ooze down the tree but not into our containers. I looked more closely and it looked like they’d all been tampered with. Spotting a large hole nearby it seems a fox; badger or even rabbit could have seen the containers and out of curiosity knocked them all.

Well this is what I thought until I closely examined container 5. Instead of the characteristic clear watery colour birch sap the milk bottle was full of a yellowy brown liquid*See Note.  Now this is where the small mammal theory breaks down! For a fox to disturb all five containers, and then jump on it’s hind legs and piss into a recently emptied one would be a feat even for an anthropomorphic animal with the dexterity of a Wind in the Willows or Pooh bear character! Even Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox wouldn’t be skilled enough to aim into a milk carton half way up a tree.

One assumption from this situation is that foragers might at times be very territorial, pissing in my bottles could be a sign for me not to go near their patch. Either that or some kids thought it might be funny to knock a load of bottles around then piss into one. Either way, I’m finding slightly less urban birches to tap!

Note - As a forager or indeed in any aspect of life you are constantly revising what you’ve learned.  I have since found out if the sap comes yellow or yellow/brown then there is a bacteria present in the sap and you should not drink it.  Also the downy birch looks very similar to the silver birch but the sap has a bitter taste and therefore it is not advisable to tap a downy birch.