Science

I read an article in Warm Earth tonight, written by Joel Salatin. Others with an interest in sustainable agriculture will know the name. He runs Polyface Farm in the US, a sustainable, humane polyculture that is one of the growing number of places that is showing people that chemical agriculture is not actually all that great.
Anyway, it's about sound science, and our worship of science and scientifically gained results, and our acceptance of those result over good old common sense. I love this part-

What are the new darlings of sound science? Irradiation, genetic
engineering, more concentration, less domestic production, and a Wal-Mart on
every corner stocked to the hilt with amalgamated, extruded, reconstituted,
chlorinated, adulterated, manipulated, constipated psuedo-food.

Describes the stuff at the supermarket perfectly.

And don't even get me started on media misrepresentation of sound scientific research, gah.

I speak for the trees!

Our block has about 300 avocado trees on it. This was rather peripheral to our decision to purchase, but we did decide to look into it to see if it would be worth putting the effort in to get the rather neglected trees back up and producing. After many phone calls and much research, it isn't. Avocado's time as a high return crop is over, there's no way to do them organically and ours are infested with phytopthera and anthracnose. Luckily I haven't seen any signs of fruit spotting bug or fruit fly as we're going to have enough problems with disease spores in the soil and dams as it is.

So, D took his axe and we all played at the Lorax today-he was obviously the Once-ler and the kids were all being the Lorax, yelling 'I speak for the trees!' and pretending to knit Thneeds. We're hacking down the section of them that's closest to the house, as that's where we'd like to put the beginnings of the food forest and the permanent chook run. The quicker we get them out the quicker we can start to rehabilitate the poor soil and plant some pioneer legumes and a green manure. The kids all picked the ones they could find (they're hidden in there above) to feed to the chooks-none of us eat the things.

Now, normally i'm a tree fan, but chopping these down is immensely satisfying. They've been nothing but stress as we've chased down the DPI and other places for info trying to make the best decision. Plus, a lot of them are like this rather pathetic specimen-as the roots rot the branches die back to match the root area. D has been able to push over or uproot a couple of them.

I've never been so glad that something failed!

And done.

Moving is done. It was hell. I don't think I have it in me to move ever again. We're planning on counting up all the different places we've lived in our eight years together-should be scary.

But I don't think I will ever want to move again. It is paradise here. Apart from a few hissy fits (still continuing) about life being just so damn hard with no fridge/oven/hot water on tap/automatic washing machine it is perfect. All the problems are fixable, and if this is as hard as it gets we're laughing. I love driving down our road, it's like we enter another world far, far away from the modern one-and far, far better.

The chook collection is already burgeoning-we had six Australorp pullets ordered, but before they got here bought some New Hampshires, a rooster called Rodney and his four girls, plus had a frizzled Australorp thrown in. Then the pullets arrived so now they are 12. I can see this becoming an addiction. The mulch pit is taking shape, D is going to grow muscles on his muscles (i'm needed to um, supervise. Oh, who am I kidding, i'm weak!) We need to do something better than the current greywater system of running it onto the grass, ugh. (We have moved it away from the house though).

No pics, rural phone lines mean dialup only and that meanders along at about 22kb/s on a good day-bring on satellite!

But i'm loving the peace. I'm loving waking up in the morning to see trees, looking out the window from the couch and spotting a wallaby and just having time. This is it, after so long spent running around like madfolk we're here. I've even noticed my brain slow down it's frantic pace-maybe now i'll be able to hold a decent conversation without skipping around on topics, I swear people must think i'm on speed sometimes. It's good to finally feel calm again, it ended up being an impossible state of mind in suburbia.

So worth the stress and worry-at 25 I have my big dreams all done and the rest of my life to enjoy them all. Such an awesome feeling.

A poem

it's 3.23 in the morning
and i'm awake
because my great great grandchildren
won't let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do while the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?
-Drew Dellinger, 'Hieroglyphic Stairway'.

Rather relevant to me atm as i'm starting to get into the activist side of things a bit more.

The cakefest is over

I'm beginning to think that i've set myself up for an exhausting few months every years-all five kids birthdays fall between December 30th and April 5th. Add another week either side and you also have the husband's birthday, Christmas and Easter-but at least I now get a break until December!

Shorty had a pirate ship cake for his third birthday. It was pretty quick and easy to assemble, but I gave up on getting black icing-I wondered beforehand how successful tinting white icing black would be, and I don't think you could without twelve bottles of the stuff. As it was the icing started sweating black liquid whenever it was out of the fridge for a couple of minutes.

My task before the next round begins is to find a better replacement for butter cream-one that is easier to use and doesn't taste like animal fat! Since I stopped eating meat butter tastes revolting.

We also didn't do the handmade presents this year-we've had too much on our plates lately and some things had to give. But I will definitely be reinstating it from now on, giving shop presents is very unfulfilling and the two of the girls actually asked where the presents were that we'd made. No more babies so we can get back to normal life!

Now I get to REALLY go feral

The block we got knocked back on a month or so ago now has a completely unconditional contract on it and will settle in two weeks. After a saga stretching months it's a little hard to believe, I keep thinking something else will go wrong. It all turned into this really cool, old fashioned process in the end-the current owners came back, we went up to the block for a night and had a BBQ with the neighbours, we ditched the idiotic CWB and applied face-to-face with a local bank and got it with no issues-it was such a nice process compared to the usual faceless production line churning out of forms. So in two weeks we'll be out in the backblocks on solar power and tank water, with perfect peace and tranquility and masses of wildlife.



One little tiny corner in all it's awesomeness :D

Plus, not much creation has been wielded here lately-however, the new little button to your right will explain that. Lots of things have been done and are still being done to get that happening!

Why am I not surprised?

That the government is spending obscene amounts of money on broadband? Hardly a pressing task IMO. But it keeps the punters happy, and that's what matters when you have a limited term.

Even worse is that it's come at the same time as the Wilkins Ice Shelf news. Which is really scary as it has climatologists saying we're hooning down the global warming path at a much faster speed than first predicted.

But i'm sure that when we're all four metres underwater we'll appreciate being able to access YouTube that bit faster.