back to basics - week 33 (and introduction)

some of you reading this have met me already - i occasionally comment, and more occasioanlly come with belinda to various events.

what am i doing posting here? good question. aside from belinda & andrew (and the expanding menagerie of animals), i spend more time at the mudbrick palace than anybody else. so much so, i have a semi-official bedroom, which i share with other visitors and stuff-what-we-haven't-found-a-place-for. so i've been invited to add my own contributions.

i am using this blogging space in a few ways. keeping in closer contact with its owners, for starters. mainly, it's a way for me to keep track of what i'm doing, and contribute to the overall goals of the blog. i'm also trialling blogging, seeing if i natually sustain momentum communicating in this way.

various facts about me:

• i live in inner north melbourne on a rental property, sharing with a couple of other people
• i do various kinds of growing/preserving
• i'd like to have the space in my life to knit/sew/other kinds of crafts but it would push out too many other things i'm interested in keeping up with at the moment
• my eventual aim is a large, rambling house in inner north melbourne, large enough to accommodate several adults, that produces most of the food necessary for the household
  
• i avoid capital letters in writing as much as possible

my challenge update for the week:

sowing seed or planting -
sowing
it's a bit late in the season for many seeds, so i'm cheating. i've taken jackie french's advice and planted everything quite close together, interspersed with green compost (lupin, peas) that someone gave me.

• one punnet brown onion seedlings
• one punnet beetroot seedlings
• lots of garlic

harvesting

• broccoli
• silverbeet
  

planning for the future -

• manifesting some underbed storage containers
• rearranging furniture in my head
• thinking about a shelf making project
  
• making shopping lists for legumes
  
• intending to plant something every day this week

working for the future -

• rearranged bedroom. moved the tallboy to stand on so i could reach to fix the blinds, and just kept going. that's two rooms optimised in two weeks, i'm chuffed
  
• fixed bedroom blinds
• decluttered a whole heap of crap, including several pairs of shoes (that's even a bigger deal than it sounds. i am of the firm opinion that there are two kinds of women - women who are into shoes and johnny depp, and women who are dead. notable exceptions include those into robert redford/richard gere/insert name of older male actor here)
• picked up a whiteboard off a freecycler
• bought & assembled clothes rack. along with incoming shelf project, i'll be able to move all the stuff out of the ugly cupboard in the study, and my living space will be beautiful and peaceful
  

building community -

• helped organise and run a networking night for a work-related association
• attended sister's gig with a friend, discovered a great new local band
• caught up with someone moving interstate
• shared free tickets to the burlesque with a friend going through a tough time financially
  
• wrote a hand written letter to someone overseas
  
• wrote an article for uni magazine about a student-led social entrepreneurship initiative
  

learn a new skill -

• that delicate balance between professional mingling and socialising
  

Bare Bones of Winter

On a Bright winter day, I go on a wander



To encounter the tangles,


The gnarled, prickled branches that signify trees a sleep'in

Hope you had a wonderful day

It's a Growing Winter

This last Autumn has required a lot of adjustment around home. I have concertedly focused on getting more involved in community activities. Needless to say my world has become busier than I am used to.

This of course is, in many ways a mixed blessing. Being surrounded by new people and different ideas is always great for inspiration. Spending more time out of home means there is a whole lot less time to get time get things done. Balancing the two is something that just simply isn't really happening. In regard to priorities making and supporting community connections just needs to come first. Long term it is not more important than being able to provide as many of our needs as possible .. but it is just as important and I previously hadn't given it much attention at all.

What that means is that right now my garden feels behind, disorganised and just generally like it is not really my space. I honestly walk out there when I have the time and get genuine surprises. Not the "Oh, wow the silverbeat is coming along well" type of surprises ... more of the "Gracious me, did I really plant that much leaf mustard and where are the cabbages" type. Luckily there really are some wash and wear winter plants which as long as you manage to get them in the ground.

Broad Beans really are a wonder. Eaten as young pods you don't even need to double peel them.

Leaf mustard although a bit challenging to find uses for is absolutely prolific. I certainly have more than I know how to use right now.. If anyone has ideas for wonderful ways to cook it I would really appreciate input.

One of the mildly smart things that I did this year was to decide that if I was going to have weeds they were going to be productive plants. To achieve that I collected together all the seeds I saved last year and just basically strew them over the beds. Well I have to say at this point it seems to have been quite a good idea.. my amount of non productive weeds are minimal.

Back To Basics - Week 33

Sowing seed or Planting -
Sowing

• Scattered carrot seed
  

Seed Saving

• cleaned and stored rattlesnake bean seed
  
• cleaned and stored artichoke seeds
• cleaned and stored sunflower seeds
  

Observing

• The shortest day has passed for the year, now winter is really here
• Our first EVA egg arrived ... the day after solstice
  

Planning for The Future -

• Seriously considering the two main site contenders for my PDC design
• Mentally mulling what needs to be done before spring
• RSVPd for the "Planning a 12 Month Harvest" workshop
  

Working for the Future -

• Helped create a brochure to lobby for support on a community garden at Birdsland Park
  

Building Community -

• Attended Herb Society Fire Recovery Propogation Day
  
• Attended working meeting for the new Community Garden Group
  
• Attended Garden Club Meeting
• Helped create a Windmill Lantern for Mt Districts Permaculture to show in the Belgrave Solstice Lantern Pde
• Provided meals for PDC Days
• Attended Mt Districts Permaculture Meeting
• Reached out to local networks when we had a chicken lost to foxes when finding a replacement
  

Learn a new Skill -

• whip and tongue grafting technique
  

Participant Posts
Just a short note to say a hearty Thank you to those of you who are still posting in this challenge. On weeks when I am feeling a bit overwhelmed I love to sit down and read over your posts again looking for ideas and inspiration. I really appreciate having your contributions remind me that there is always more to do and learn.


Cockatoo Dreaming
Wed May 20th
Monday June 15th

Remote TreeChanger
Saturday June 6th
Sunday June 14th

Blessed by the Keeper of the Light

As a gardener I am connected to the seasons in a way I never was before. My days are ruled by sun or rain, wind and frosts.

At day break my first thought is to check the details of the day. Clouds and fog lead me inside, cooking and reading the norm. Occasionally though at this time of year you get a morning that is still, clear and bright, screaming for activity and pushing you to get outside.

Today was one of those days when you don't even have to try and feel blessed. Making my day even brighter I found this wonderful gift.

Thank you World, for reminding me that no matter how cold, hard or trying a particular day is there is always tomorrow, which is sometimes overflowing with light.

Eschaton

Andrew again as Belinda is still busy doing permaculture and garden things like trying to set up a community garden and hasn't so much time to write about it.

I have been noticing recently that I just wasn't feeling that hippy any more. I was in a stage where the future of everything in my life was pretty uncertain and the fact that the earth appears pretty clearly to have already hit some environment tipping points resulted in my being a in a bit of an "I give up" stage.

It is hard to think not using the car or heater is going to help much while feeling certain that there will be major climactic change within my lifetime.

"The problem isn't the problem. It's your attitude to the problem that's the problem."

- Unknown

My current attitude after recognising that and a generally more positive mental outlook is that I live in a time where I can get cheap manufactered stuff and use energy profligately. I will enjoy life, but be aware of the effect I have. I bought a new little electric fan heater. Boo! but I love my fan heater! It makes me feel happy and loved and comfy almost no matter what else is going on. I bought an efficient ceramic one. I try not to over use it and I use it in small rooms and do my best to make it easy to heat. eg close doors, windows, blinds to make best use of the sun or reduce heat loss.

I am going on a flight for my holiday. Its the 1st one I've been on in years. I will avoid flying but hey its insanely fast and convenient and stupidly cheap. I expect once you added in the output costs like pollution effects they should be many times more than they are. My current thought is might be my last flight until there are solar airships.

I think we've hit tipping points and problems are coming. Very doomer of me but hey. We need to start seriously thinking about survival on earth as a hostile environment. Exactly the problems we will have in space colonisation.

Right now humanity is a virus and dosn't deserve to get into space. But the way forward I see it is we have to learn to live in harmony with our ecosystem and be aware we have an effect on it.

We need to learn to make self sufficient cities. Not reliant on high energy transport. The requirements here are a strange mix of permaculture and space station technologies.

The way I see it we have to quickly shift Green ala Transition Towns and hope we hold the ecosystem together well enough to let our technologies advance to a stage where strong AI, space colonisation, ecosystem manipulation (shudder), nanotechnology give us technological solutions to the soon to be very big problem of keeping humans alive on the ecosystem they need and have messed with so badly.

And then hope our sentient nanocloud overlords see some worth in us.

Mid Winter

Belinda is busy at her PDC so Andrew here. It has been good weekend for me. I gave the house a reasonable clean from end to end. Made great strides into organising my messy hobby room so you can now see the table surface and most things are in appropriate boxes or shelves.

Did edges on the gardens and bits of random weeding.

Last week Belinda and I refertilised the orchards. I pulled back the surrounding cooch grass with

the pick axe to about 1 m radius leaving bare earth. We scattered dynamic lifter, covered that in cardboard and covered cardboard in shreadded paper. Then we let it get rained on. I really should put more compost on top of the cardboard.

The spoil line and new bed next to the orchard to make use of the run off are going well. The spoil mound is getting thicker, turning into dirt and should be doing their job of holding nutrients around the orchard trees. Notably wetter there.

Our present process for weeding is that creeper grass goes into a

bucket that is allowed to fill with rain water and just sit for weeks.

Once the grass looks dead and drowned the hopefully nutrient rich tea is poured into one of the water barrels to be poured on the garden when it needs it. The drowned dead weeds are then thrown in the black compost bucket with dog poo and other things to be dumped at the spoil line below the trees. Part of the process of replacing grass with productive plants.

The sunflowers in the zone 3 bed went ok. That bed will be used again, it is fairly weed free and a favorite scratching place of the chookens and is being expanded for next summer with plastic to keep down the grass.

So got a lot done and had a fun weekend.