in transit

a knitter's natter wanted to have some hummus for dinner tonight.
She soaked some chick peas and cooked them on the solid fuel range.
When they were ready, she chopped up some garlic, while I went looking for a lemon.
We added a bit of tahini and it was ready to whizz up.



We used to use an electric powered blender for making hummus, but now we have a non-electric alternative,
a pedal powered blender.
I had had the idea for a while and in fact I bought this exercise bike for ten dollars at the Salvo's in Katoomba a while back. We didn't have the skills to make it ourselves so we asked around for help, but couldn't find any.

Then we bumped into a fellow North Otago Pedal Energy member, Graeme Simpson from Weston.
He helped us first with the pedal powered flour mill.








(at the Hampden Energy Efficiency Expo, photo taken by Bent Jansen)

He was happy to help us again, and the last piece in this jigsaw was a blender.
I looked for one for a while, and finally I found one for two dollars at the local Hampden market last month.
Graeme was quickly on the job.



Now all the Collingwood fan needs to do is to hop on and pedal.



After a few minutes of easy pedalling, the job is done.



Nicely blended hummus without any electricity.



Who knows, we may soon see footy players on the interchange whizzing up their own banana smoothies on their bikes. Shane Wakelin, our trusty old defender with an enviro conscience, who commutes to the game on public transport, might just do that this Saturday (come to think of it, did he miss two games recently because they were played interstate and he could not get there on train in time?). Carn the Pies!

Anyway, what is certain is that you will have a chance to see (and pedal) the blender at the 'Back to the future' expo in Oamaru on Oct 19.