COMMUNITY GARDENS

What is not to love about them! Community gardens are recognised worldwide as a great way to grow food, improve your health, meet people, and cultivate vibrant communities. They: * allow people to grow their own vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers * contribute to building an ecologically viable and socially just food system * are a convivial way of getting fresh air and exercise with no gym fees! * foster community engagement and a culture of generosity, reciprocity, trust and self-help * are great places to learn about gardening and share local and traditional knowledge * preserve and improve the precious green spaces in urban environments * develop innovative ways of living sustainably in the city * create art projects, community events, celebrations, workshops, and much more * provide opportunities for cultural exchange and learning * and some community gardens produce enough food share the surplus and/or develop community enterprises.

“It’s about taking back the ability to produce food for ourselves. At the supermarket, you not only don’t connect to the food system, but the money goes out of the region. People are looking for a sense of community, and they find it in their local community garden” (Claire Cummings)

“Urban community gardeners are bringing life and liveability, seed by seed, back to their neighbourhoods. The gardens nourish the body and also the soul” (Patricia Hynes)

One of our Board Members (thanks David) sent me this LINK Everything you could possibly want to know about starting a community garden, running it and more, it misses nothing! If this is something you have been thinking about, this resource is exactly what you need!

Enjoy! Hope your week ahead is a good one Take care of you and yours:)

A DAY OFF

Another relaxing day. We went down to Mum & Dads for lunch for an Aunts 60th, very relaxing and enjoyable. As promised a few photos as we travelled. The weir at the left is just a little below where they begin the Avon Descent every year. Another shot of the same place from a different angle. The water looks so serene. Hard to believe you get black & white swans on here, and believe it or not seagulls, which given we are at least 2 hours from any ocean I find rather strange! This old plane was from one of the wars, don't ask me, I have no idea lol! They have one stuck in the main street, strange place to have placed it I thought, but it is a tiny town and perhaps that was the only place lol. This is an old Anglican Church. My children were both christened there many years ago. Some views of the golden canola. There are crops of it absolutely everywhere. I was trying to catch the sunshine on some, these photos do not do that rich gold any justice. And some more of the canola. If you ever find you have some time, do some research into the Genetically Modified canola, truly a scary tale! We got home about 4pm and finished the last seal on the pond liner. Tweny four hours and we can put it in the great hole that has been waiting for months and get this pond finished...wooohooo!

Hope your week-end is a good one, have a super week ahead Take care of you and yours....and the planet:)

GARDEN BITS & BOBS

Today is a quiet day in the garden. I'm actually feeling quite tired so thought I would just potter. The sun is shining and there is a gentle breeze, a nice day for a potter! The chook pen has been put on hold until next week-end as I need my son to do a wee bit more welding to allow the last of the tin to go up. Instead we worked around the yard on this and that. Hubby is in the process of gluing the liner together for the fish pond, a job I can't wait to have finished! Nothing worse that having a great hole in the ground looking at you as you walk out the back door every morning LOL! The Pommegranate has taken off with lots of little shoots. In fact everything is signalling spring arouond the garden. The only exception being my chocolate pudding fruit tree, I think the frost may have got that one. I will give it a month or so, and if need be it can be replaced. Check out the Yacon cage we made this arvo! This should be plenty big enough to hold all that will grow from these two plants. I never got the chance to taste the Yacons from the old house, they matured after we had left, so I am looking forward to trying these when they are ready! The mushrooms have begun to sprout out from their dark earth. This lot is the portabellos, one type I have never tasted. The other standard variety are not far from coming to the surface either given the look of them. I will cook most of these for the boys, use a few for salads and dry the rest. We still have a massive jar remaining from my last lot of mushroom dehydrating. Tomorrow we are travelling down to my parents for my favourite Aunts 60th lunch, love getting to see all the family together and of course will give me the opportunity to take some photos of our gorgeous countryside for you:) Hope your week-end is a great one!

Take care of you and yours...and the planet:)

SHARING OUR SKILLS

Work has been flat out, not least the fact that it is audit/tax time but because we have been madly preparing for a seminar we called "Money Magic". This full day seminar was facilitated by our very competent and committed Financial Counsellor, whom I shall call "Honda" here. In todays global economic crisis, making ends meet for many is a daily challenge. The seminar was about finding ways to meet those challenges in the most painless way, and about preventing them from cropping up continuously. The program included guest speakers from Centrelink, a Caterer on smart shopping and a cooking demo on frugal cooking, (we ate one of the recipes cooked for lunch- a mouth watering zucchini slice, the Financial Counsellor on everything imaginable based on or around budgeting, debt negotiation etc and yours truly got to do her favourite thing.....talk about voluntary simplicity and homesteading. My topics included healthy home made beauty products, growing our own foods, preserving them, making our own healthy cleaning products and other homesteading bits and pieces. The hunger for knowledge from this large group of ladies was so satisfying, their feedback indicated they wanted more about everything, including homesteading information. There is a definate swell in the community in relation to doing more for ones self, building both personal and community resilience. Sharing information is the best feeling! It was wonderful to see so many women from such varying backgrounds all thinking along the same lines, wanting to make changes, from environmental to self sufficiency! I have to hand it to our Honda, her innovative approach and varied topics worked wonders with feedback requesting more of the same with more in depth info...if we make a difference to just one family, that's generations of change....a wonderful feeling!

Take care of you and yours:)

NUTS GALORE!

Don't you just love it when you find alternatives to the nasties the commercial world pushes on us? This is my latest experiment lol. As most of you know I use soapwort, however with the move I have run out of enough of the shrub to process. I thought I would give the soapnuts a go.....So far so good, there doesn't appear to be any difference in the washing, the clothes are as clean as ever and there is no smell left afterwards on the clothes. (The nuts themselves do have a rather strange odour) Soap nuts or Soapberry, also sometimes referred to as Washing Nuts or Ritha / Reetha (in Hindi), contain ‘Saponins’, which have the ability to clean and wash. When in contact with water, it creates a mild suds, which is similar to soap. For hundreds of years, people in India and Nepal have been doing their laundry and cleaning with Soapnuts The nut is the dried fruit of the Ritha tree and the saponin released is a 100% substitute to normal detergents. Soap nuts can be used for cleaning basically anything, from washing clothes, as a liquid soap, cleaning and shining ornaments, household cleaner etc. Being they are allergy-free hence they are good for your skin especially good for babies, eczema and sensitive skin. I love the fact that once you have finished with the nuts and they need replacing, you simply throw them on your compost heap! How much easier could it get! How much more natural can it get! Most of your common commercial brand laundry detergents contain phosphates, ammonia, naphthalene, phenol, optical brighteners, artificial fragrances, EDTA etc. These chemicals can cause rashes, itches, allergies, sinus problems and have long term toxic effects on the environment. Phenols: Toxic, suspect carcinogenic. Rapidly absorbed. Effects include swelling, pimples, and hives. Internal consumption can cause circulatory collapse, cold sweats, coma, and death. Optical brighteners: Skin allergy, toxic to fish and can cause bacterial mutations. Phosphates: Environmental hazard causing excessive growth in aquatic plants which leads to the suffocation of fish & underwater life. EDTA: Skin irritant leading to allergies, asthma, and skin rashes. Does not bio degrade readily. Environment hazard. Artificial fragrances: Toxic effects on fish and mammals, Often cause allergies, skin and eye irritation. Do not easily bio-degrade in the environment. Ammonia: Can cause burns, cataracts & corneal damage. Long term repeated exposure can cause bronchitis and pneumonia. Also has a toxic effect on plants, animals and fish. Sodium Sulfate: Corrosive. Severe eye, skin, and respiratory irritant. Can cause asthma attacks. Not so with the nuts, natural, allergy free, healthy for the planet. Furthermore, the cost of the nuts works out to a miniscule amount per wash, far, FAR, cheaper than anything else you can buy and the water from the wash can go straight onto any of your garden! I am hoping that sooner or later a seed will find its way through the nuts I buy and I can try to grow this shrub, they won't allow you to import the plant into WA... but if it just happens to "sprout" from my collection.....*wink*

See Soap-Nuts HERE

Hope your week ahead is a good one Take care of you and yours:)

HOME MADE PET NIBBLES

I thought just for a change of pace I would post a couple of old standby recipes I had for animal treats

Cat Crunchies Find food-quality bonemeal, a good source of protein, at natural-food supermarkets, butchers or pet stores. • 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour • 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk • 1/4 cup wheat germ • 1/4 cup bonemeal • 1/2 cup teaspoon brewer's yeast • pinch of catnip (optional) • 1/2 beaten egg • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil or cod liver oil • 1/2 cup chicken stock • 5 ounces boneless mackerel or canned tuna, packed in oil; or chopped cooked chicken Mix dry ingredients and catnip, if using, in a large bowl and add egg, oil, and chicken stock. Mash fish or meat with a fork and add to mixture in bowl. Blend well. Shape into dime-size balls. Place onto a lightly greased baking sheet and press to flatten. Bake at 350 degrees F for about 8 minutes, until golden, turning once. Let treats cool before serving. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week, or wrap in foil in packets of 10 and store in the freezer. Makes about 60 treats. MICROWAVE Doggie Treats 2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour 2 Eggs, lightly beaten 2/3 Cup Beef or Chicken stock 3 TBSP Oatmeal 1 tsp. garlic powder Place flour in a bowl. Add egg and broth, mixing well. Blend in oatmeal and garlic powder. Shape dough into a ball and roll out on a lightly floured surface to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes. Re-roll scraps and repeat. Arrange on a microwavable plate, wax paper or parchment paper. Microwave on HIGH for 8 to 10 minutes or until firm. Let cool until hardened. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Canine Cookies • 3 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour • 3 cups rolled oats • 1/2 cup powdered milk • 1/2 cup bacon grease • 2 teaspoons cod-liver oil • 2 eggs • 1 1/2 cups instant beef or chicken bouillon, or chicken stock Combine all the ingredients into a sticky dough. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 325 degrees F for 50 minutes. Cool on rack and store in plastic bag. Makes about 30 cookies.

Hope you enjoy your weekend ahead! Take care of you and yours:)

THE COPORATION

Talking to a friend in chat the other day reminded me that I hadn't posted on what I consider to be one of the most important videos of the century.

The Corporation is a Canadian documentary film that is critical of the modern-day corporation, considering it as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person. This is explored through specific examples. The Corporation has been displayed worldwide, on television, and via DVD.

Take water in the state of Cochabamba. Their public water infrastructure needed a massive overhaul, the World Bank kindly tells them no money unless they privatise it; ……enter BECHTEL, from San Francisco. They brought the right to every drop of water in that area, including rain water, they owned every drop. Now they wanted ¼ of everyone’s income, which when you only earn a meagre $2 per day is beyond indecent, its inhumane.

After riots in the streets, near sieges, 2 dead and 75 injured the people took their god given right to water back.

Corporations sit behind much of Government policy, they sway the legislation in their favour, not sometimes…but many times.

A coup is no longer necessary for the corporation to dominate governments. Capitalism's protagonists and players are the new high priests of our day.

The public is starting to fight back and demand accountability from its corporations and an end to abuse, small battles are being won around the world, the people movement is gathering.

Rather than buy the DVD, the producers have it freeware in 23 sections HERE

Don’t hide in ignorance, if you haven’t seen it PLEASE watch this series of the film and at least KNOW what goes on in your world. Knowledge is power.

Take care of you and yours:)

SEEDS SEEDS AND MORE SEEDS

Today being a day off I sat early this morning & ordered some of the herb seeds I have been wanting to get in. We are somewhat limited here by what we can get - and since I abhor with all my soul driving around the city, ordering in from GreenPatch Organic Seed ensures reasonable cost and reliable, prompt suppliers...with no city travel! Adding to my seed supply when they arrive will be: Chives Dandelion Lemon Balm Plantain Purslane Calendula Poppy-Peony Double Portulaca Sunflower-Evening Sun Sunflower-Mammoth

Note there are a couple of seeds that most consider weeds?

The PLANTAIN: Plantain is edible and medicinal, the young leaves are edible raw in salad or cooked as a pot herb, they are very rich in vitamin B1 and riboflavin. The herb has a long history of use as an alternative medicine dating back to ancient times. Being used as a panacea (medicinal for everything) in some cultures, one American Indian name for the plant translates to "life medicine." And recent research indicates that this name may not be far from true! The chemical analysis of Plantgo Major reveals the remarkable glycoside Aucubin. Acubin has been reported in the Journal Of Toxicology as a powerful anti-toxin. There are many more highly effective constituents in this plant including Ascorbic-acid, Apigenin, Baicalein, Benzoic-acid, Chlorogenic-acid, Citric-acid, Ferulic-acid, Oleanolic-acid, Salicylic-acid, and Ursolic-acid. The leaves and the seed are medicinal used as an antibacterial, antidote, astringent, antiinflammatory, antiseptic, antitussive, cardiac, demulcent, diuretic, expectorant, haemostatic, laxative, ophthalmic, poultice, refrigerant, and vermifuge. Medical evidence exists to confirm uses as an alternative medicine for asthma, emphysema, bladder problems, bronchitis, fever, hypertension, rheumatism and blood sugar control. A decoction of the roots is used in the treatment of a wide range of complaints including diarrhoea, dysentery, gastritis, peptic ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, haemorrhage, haemorrhoids, cystitis, bronchitis, catarrh, sinusitis, coughs, asthma and hay fever. It also causes a natural aversion to tobacco and is currently being used in stop smoking preparations. Extracts of the plant have antibacterial activity, it is a safe and effective treatment for bleeding, it quickly stops blood flow and encourages the repair of damaged tissue. The heated leaves are used as a wet dressing for wounds, skin inflammations, malignant ulcers, cuts, stings and swellings and said to promote healing without scars. Poultice of hot leaves is bound onto cuts and wounds to draw out thorns, splinters and inflammation. The root is said to be used as an anti-venom for rattlesnakes bites. Plantain seeds contain up to 30% mucilage which swells in the gut, acting as a bulk laxative and soothing irritated membranes. The seeds are used in the treatment of parasitic worms. A distilled water made from the plant makes an excellent eye lotion. And the PURSLANE: It's loaded with ascorbic acid (vitamin C), beta-carotene (previtamin-A), glutathione (a common antioxidant compound that can even detoxify some pesticides!) and tocopherol (vitamin E)--not to mention its richness in the omega-3 fatty acids that have been linked with lower cholesterol levels. Few crops are better endowed with a richer variety of health-protecting compounds. Purslane tastes a bit like spinach; in fact, beet tops, chard, lamb'squarter, pigweed, purslane and spina salads. Purslane is considered helpful medicinally in treating and/or preventing a wide range of conditions, including scurvy, cataracts, heart disease, asthma, cardia arrhythmia, depression, gingivitis, multiple sclerosis, and psoriasis, as well as boosting the immune system. Rich in vitamins A, C, and E, as well as the minerals calcium and magnesium, and also omega-e oils, purslane offers both superb nutrition and valuable medicinal help to mankind. Please note: The herbal information is just that, information! Before trying to use anything as a herbal remedy get PROFESSIONAL advice please.

Cucumber-purslane-yogurt salad

Grilled Zucchini Salad with Purslane and Tomato

Greek Style Purslane Pesto Recipe

Anatolian Purslane, Lamb and Lentil Stew

Purslane Potato Salad

Enjoy!

Can't wait to get all this planted out!

Hope your week is travelling well Take care of you and yours:)

BERRIES, BERRIES AND MORE BERRIES...

Two wonderful suprises arrived today in the mail. The first from a great blogging friend Nevyn who sent me a DVD of the movie "Home". HOME is a feature film shot from above in more than 50 countries as from the air it’s easy to see the Earth’s wounds. Home addresses our impact on the planet by setting out our current situation—but keeps the faith that a solution to climate change exists. Many thanks Nevyn, can't wait to watch this! Once watched I will do a "Pay it Forward" here so others get the chance to see it too. From the same mailman today came my berries! 2 thornless Loganberries 2 Boysenberries 2 Silvanberries 2 Williamette Raspberries 2 Youngberries All planted as soon as I got home with help from the son (I'm not game to put the back to the shovel this week) and watered in, hopefully they will take off with the warmer weather coming in. This weekend I am hoping to pick up more herbs to put into the herb garden and get the cages made for the Yacons to be settled into. The plastic liner and special glue required for the fish pond has been ordered, within a couple of weeks we should have finished the Taj Mahal chook pen and be ready to go on that, things are slowly coming together, all we have left after that is the shade house, green house and wicking beds...despite my impatience we are getting there lol.

Hope your week is a good one Take care of you and yours:)

SLOWLY BUT SURELY...

Yesterday I spent cursing all the rain we have been given (I know, shame on me) but you all know by now how impatient I am when it comes to completing this chook pen! LOL. I so wanted to get moving on the chook pen and this rain wasn't going to let us anywhere near it.....but more on that later:) Check out my yacon, I have a couple of these pots that are now ready to plant out. Also known as the 'Earth Apple' this is one of the ancient crops of the Inca's. This relative of the sunflower is popular to the people of Columbia, Ecuador and Argentina. The plant produces large tubers similar in appearance to sweet potatoes, but they have a much sweeter taste and crunchy flesh. The tubers can be eaten raw as a refreshing treat on their own, finely sliced and mixed into salads,boiled or baked, fried as chips or prepared as a pickle. They are sweet, juicy and almost calorie free. The main stem can also be used like celery. The texture and flavour have been described as a cross between a fresh apple and watermelon. The plants are vigorous, herbaceous, perennial and extremely hardy tolerating hot summers, drought and poor soils. The foliage of the plant dies back in the winter after flowering at which time the tubers are harvested carefully to avoid damage to the tubers. They tend to continue sweetening if left in a cool dry and dark place for a week or two before consumption. The offsets are then replanted for the next season. The herb garden is slowly collecting new friends and new growth. The pennyroyal isreally beginning to take off. Contemporary herbalists advise against taking pennyroyal oil because of its toxicity, but they recommended using the herb externally as an insect repellent and treatment for cuts and burns. They also recommend taking the herb (not the oil) internally for colds, cough, upset stomach, flatulence, anxiety, and menstruation promotion. For repelling insects, rub fresh, crushed plant material around the body, or mix pennyroyal tincture into a skin cream and rub that on. For an herbal pet flea collar, try a pennyroyal garland or a bag of the herb hung from a regular collar. The oregano is looking very healthy. I have a feeling this would be invasive if left to its own devices for too long. I love learning about all these plants and their uses, far better to try the natural methods before swallowing pharma solutions, where one can of course. OK, question? What is THAT growing beside my nasturiums? It has the look of a salad plant, but before I go nibbling on it I think one of you had best confirm its edible if you would please LOL! We love the nasturtium leaves and flowers for salads, cheese & nasturtium leaf sandwiches are yummy too! Wooooohoooooooo, check this out! Since I am not in the old home where mushrooms grew rampant, I thought I would try growing a few boxes of our own just for this season. We are trying the portabello and the standard salad mushroom, once I get my sheep manure from a farmer friend we will once again have a garden full of them..well, next year :) All you do with this lot is wet the peat, sprinkle it over the top and leave closed for about 10 days, open the box once the spore is on the top of the peat and away it will grow, all very amusing lol I cannot stand the taste of mushrooms raw, however give me a casserole or sauce and I love it blended with other flavours, very healthy too! The Coriander is going haywire, it certainly loves this position in the herb garden. I have a lot to learn about herbs, seasons etc. I want fresh picked as long as I can, for the remainder of the time I will be able to utilise the picked and dried from my garden. Celery Leaf. I really do love this plant. It is so very versatile. We use it in soups and casseroles as well as our salads, it has a lovely refreshing taste to it and grows like a weed! Now the warmer weather is approaching I am hoping to get a lot more herbs into this garden. The idea being to be as self sufficient in herbs as possible too. And here we are at the infamous soon to be Taj Mahal chook house LOL. The compost box we inherited is now gone, with the contents spread around the garden, the pavers and slabs have been moved and stacked ready to utilise in the pen once complete. Hubby is out there now putting up more of the tin. We have the last piece on one side, the back, removal of old tin on the front and full replacement to complete yet, then a paint job and some nesting boxes built in to allow the collection of eggs without going into the pen too often (handy in winter mud)! That's their roosting/laying/shelter area, we have yet to complete the netting over the remainder of the pens, the gates for two areas (there are 3 yards in this one large area) and then I can find another project...namely the fish pond lol.

Hope you have a super week ahead Take care of you and yours....and the planet:)

STABILISING - BEFORE THE POINT OF NO RETURN

Imagine us sitting on a set of scales... between the tipping points of environment and our political systems. The challenge today and tomorrow is that the results of accumulating problems — population, poverty, climate, resources — is going to cripple more and more countries, leading to widespread failure of governance within those particular countries. Not so long ago, the US and a few other countries increased the share of their grain harvests that went to fuel ethanol in an effort to reduce oil insecurity. The result of those actions actually was that world grain prices skyrocketed to all-time highs by mid-2008, creating unprecedented food insecurity in many parts of the world. In the last few years, concern has been growing over just how we will maintain the balance on those scales. For example, scientists have voiced clear concern about when the shrinking population of an endangered species will fall to the point from which it cannot return. Marine biologists are concerned about the point at which overfishing will trigger the end of some or all fishing industries. We know that the scales became unbalanced in earlier civilizations — points at which they could no longer manage the forces threatening them. For instance, at some point, the salt build-up in the Sumerian people’s irrigation channels overwhelmed their ability to deal with it. The Mayans found that the constant use of their forests meant the associated loss of topsoil and soil degradation had become too severe to manage. The points that lead to decline and collapse when societies are overwhelmed by a single threat or by simultaneous multiple threats are not always easily seen coming. As a generic rule, the more advanced countries can deal with arising threats more easily than countries that are still developing, having said that, there is still no guarantee threats will be recognised early enough or managed early enough, look at the Romans! While populations in nearly all industrial countries except the United States has slowed or stopped, growth goes on in nearly all the countries of Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Many of the 80 million people being added to the world population each year are born in the countries least able to support them— countries where natural support systems are already at an all time low and declining further in the face of excessive population pressure. In these countries, the risk of collapse grows stronger by the minute. There are some challenges that appear to overwhelm even the governance skills of the more advanced countries, however. When countries first detected falling underground water tables, it was logical to expect that governments in those countries would quickly raise water use efficiency in order to stabilize aquifers. Unfortunately, not one country — industrial or developing — has done so. Two failing states where over pumping water and security-threatening water shortages loom large are Pakistan and Yemen. Although the need to cut carbon emissions has been evident for some time, not one country has succeeded in becoming carbon-neutral. To date this has proved too difficult politically for even the most technologically advanced societies. Although targets set are ludicrously low, nobody is reaching even those small targets. Could rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere prove to be as unmanageable for our civilization as rising salt levels in the soil were for the Sumerians in 4000 B.C.? What about the decline in oil production? Although world oil production has exceeded new oil discoveries by a wide margin for more than 20 years, only Sweden and Iceland actually have anything that remotely resembles a plan to effectively cope with a shrinking supply of oil. We are at least 20 years behind where we need to be to transfer across to alternative energies such as solar, wind, tidal etc. Stop and think about everything around you, it was either made with oil, stored using oil or transported utilising oil.... This list of challenges to mankind is by no means complete, but it does give us a sense of how their number is growing as we fail to solve existing problems even as new ones are being added to the list. The challenge is to assess the effects of mounting stresses on the global system. These stresses are perhaps most evident in their effect on food security, which if you read any history, was the weak point of many earlier civilizations that collapsed. Several converging trends are making it difficult for the world’s farmers to keep up with the growth in food demand. Prominent among these are falling water tables, the growing habit of eating up farming land with urban sprawl, and more extreme climate events, including crop-withering heat waves, droughts and floods. As the stresses from these unresolved problems accumulate, weaker governments are beginning to break down. The risk is that these problems are gathering momentum and mass, and their consequences will overwhelm more and more governments, leading to widespread state failure, country failure. The countries that top the list of failing states are not particularly surprising. They include Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Afghanistan, Haiti and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And the list grows longer each year, raising a disturbing question: How many failing states will it take before civilization itself fails? No one knows the answer, but it is a question we must ask and we must ask quickly and find solutions soon. We are in a race to find a healthy balance on those scales. Can we phase out coal-fired/oil supplied power plants before the melting of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible? Can we gather the political will to halt deforestation in the Amazon and around the world before its growing vulnerability takes it to the point of no return? Can we help countries stabilize population before they become failing states? We have the technologies to restore the Earth’s natural support systems, to eradicate poverty, to stabilize population, and to restructure the world energy economy and stabilize climate. The challenge now is to build the political will to do so. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. The above was mostly absorbed and qutoted from Lester Brown's "Plan B: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble", read it, you can find it for free download HERE. Each of us has a leading role to play...if we choose not to play......well, I'm sure you know the result of that game....

Take care of you and yours...and the planet:)

VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY

Back to one of my favourite topics:) It seems that whenever I am sick or have some time off my thoughts naturally return to our quest for a simplified life. Richard Gregg, who was a student of Gandhi, coined the term voluntary simplicity. In 1936 he wrote: "Voluntary Simplicity involves both inner and outer condition. It means singleness of purpose, sincerity and honesty within, as well as avoidance of interior clutter, of many possessions irrelevant to the chief purpose of life. It means an ordering and guiding of our energy and our desires, a partial restraint in some directions in order to secure greater abundance of life in other directions. It involves a deliberate organization of life for a purpose. Of course, as different people have different purposes in life, what is relevant to the purpose of one person might not be relevant to the purpose of another.... The degree of simplification is a matter for each individual to settle for himself." Now from what I can discern, the term "Voluntary Simplicity" was popularized by Duane Elgin, author of the book Voluntary Simplicity first published in 1981. It refers to adopting a simpler life-style by reducing our consumption in order to help conserve the earth's dwindling resources. Many feel that the simple life is less stressful and more fulfilling -- it's a way to reduce the number of hours spent working for pay and increase the time spent with children, friends, family or contribuing to the community. It's a way of slowing down and smelling the roses a little more frequently. Voluntary Simplicity for hubby and I means liberating ourselves from the non-essential activities that permeate modern life in order to live a little closer to and in harmony with our values. Like many here reading this post today, I still don't have the luxury of giving up work, I dream of that day, until then we pay the mortgage and try to do as much as we can to simplify in a myriad of other ways. Value Choices we have made in our journey: 1. Limiting material possessions to what is needed and/or cherished. 2. Meaningful work, we hope to change this to meaningful volunteering in the future 3. Quality relationships with friends and family. 4. Joyful and pleasurable simple leisure time. 5. A conscious and comfortable relationship with money. 6. Connection to community, but not necessarily in formal organizations. 7. Sustainable consumption practices, (this is a long journey to complete everything on our list)! 8. Healthy living practices, including exercise, adequate sleep, and nutritious food. (I won't mention the smoking here....stilllllll something I am trying to kick) 9. Practices that foster personal growth, an inner life and spirituality. 10. Connection to nature-delighting in spending time in nature regularly. 11. Living in harmony with our values and integrity. Voluntary simplicity calls into question society's tendency to equate money and material possessions with the good life. We reject the notion that our lifes goal should be to amass as much material wealth and prestigious accomplishments as we possibly can. Our goal in our lifestyle is to work less, want less and spend less, do more for family and friends, do more for the community and do more for the environment. I think back to some of the most joyous occasions in my life, they rarely involved money. What about you? What simple things have brought you joy? The main point I would make here is that there is no ONE outcome of simplicity - it will depend on your circumstances and objectives. However, I emphasise that the cornerstone of simplicity - whichever pathway is taken - is reduced levels of material consumption Simplicity is not a destination. It is a life long journey that is not always easy, but ultimately deeply satisfying. How is your journey going?

Take care of you and yours:)

THIS IS THE PLAN

Things are going well in the attempt to get my food forest and supply going. I do have to admit I am impatient with the process. I am so used to walking out the door and picking whatever it was I wanted for dinner that not being able to is killing me LOL. There was nothing better than the taste of freshly picked, home grown, chemical free food just waiting there for us. And now a little explanation on the map... The block is around half an acre, with the house towards the front, leaving only a small area of garden. The back is garden, workshops and chook pen. The chook pen when finished will be the Taj Mahal of pens. The exterior 6 foot high chain link fence is shade clothed for the summer months and privacy. We will be laying cement pavers just inside the fence lines to deter foxes, something we haven't had yet, but that experience tells me will come. The top of the pen is in the process of being netted with bird mesh. This is being done for two reasons, firstly, I dont want wild birds mixing with my clean ones, precautions against any bird flu are in mind. Secondly it prevents the crows from stealing the eggs and the doves coming in and eating all the grain. Inside the chook pen we have 3 areas, one is a massive roosing/laying/nesting area, we are in the process of putting the tin on the back and front walls, then its just a paint job to blend it with the workshops paint job. One large area is the run, complete with fruit trees, this ensures any fruit that drops and any fruit fly within are cleaned up, the chooks get fed additional food and theres no breeding of the fly...and lots of summer shade, needed with our heat! The second is the roosing area, they will have ample room to nest, lay eggs and roost in comfort away from the elements. Hubby is going to build in the nesting box so that eggs can be accessed without having to enter the pen. The exterior south & west walls will have grape vines planted on them in summer to shade this area. The 3rd pen is for growing my crops, amaranth etc that will be chook proof! One wall of one of the yards is the rear of the workshops, this will be the area we house all the interconnected rain water tanks. The workshops are huge 2 story jobs, so against the wall on the east we will be putting a wire frame, this will be where the dragonfruits grow, they are doing so well there it won't be long and they will need the wire for support. To the right will be the shadehouse. We will be putting in more than a few wicking beds in here. I remember as a child you could grow anything in the peak of the summer and it would grow fine. Nowdays the heat will fry it, hence the shadehouse. We will use 50% shadecloth and see how it goes, we can always double it on the top if that's not sufficient. Along the east side of the shadehouse is a 6 feet tall chainlink fence, this will house the grapevines and some berries, providing shade one side and delicious grapes for summer salads. Surrounding the roundabout in the driveway is going to be a multitude shrubs and trees we will eat from, fruits, nuts & berries. Inside the roundabout will be the same. To the east of the yard near the fences will be a 23,ooo litre rain water tank that will collect the rain from the house and patio roof. Inside what I call the patio/dogs garden is the herb garden which gets plenty of sun during the day, I am slowly filling it with herbs for cooking and healing and spices I use in the kitchen...so far so good, although I stuggle to find some being we are in a small community. The fish pond opposite will be used to attract wildlife and to grow water chestnuts and other aquatic foods, many of which I still have to learn about and source. So there's our plan, still much to do in the way of planting, but in a year or two I will be growing a wonderful cornucopia of foods.....it can never happen quick enough of course :)

Take care of you and yours:)

POSSUM CROSSED WITH A MOUSE?

Remember my mentioning the frantic phone call from the daughter a couple of weeks ago, claiming to have found something that looked like "a possum crossed with a mouse? Well despite my daughters wildly descriptive manner, she did find something very cute....a western pygmy possum. This photos was taken to give an idea of scale, they are such wee things, so very heartbreaking to think that their homes are being destroyed at such a rapid rate. What are we thinking of as a species? Is there no end to the destruction we can wreak upon our, and their homes? This wee animal lost its home and was injured all because the mining company wanted in on the land this and hundreds of other creatures call home. The kids saved this one, lord knows how many others were injured or died they didn't find. I get so bloody furious at the thought of such greed fuelling the rapid demise of our biodiversity, our home...Sometimes, some of the people on this planet make me sick! The Western Pygmy Possum lives in a wide range of habitats from tall open forests to low shrubby heaths. It builds a small leaf lined nest in hollow logs, in dense clumps of vegetation, or within an abandoned birds nest. Its diet includes pollen, nectar, fruits and a variety of invertebrates. Like its better known possum relatives, the Western Pygmy Possum is an extremely agile climber. Every year, it breeds two or three litters of up to six young. Like many small marsupials, it becomes inactive during cool weather or periods of food shortage. This wee one will be released on the weekend (now her tail has healed) onto a farm that has a lot of natural bushland still remaining (yes, a rare thing these days) and around the same area others are found. The kids will put up a hollow log into a tree and hope it survives and meets others.

I hope your week is going well! Take care of you and yours......and our planet:)

SUBDUED SUNDAY

What a weekend! It began wonderfully. I got home from work on Friday and began cleaning up where the old wood shed was, raking, picking up etc. Moved a few lumps of wood that weren't good for anything onto the bonfire, then it was time to get dinner organised. Son had 3 of his buddies staying over....can you imagine feeding 4 sixteen year old young men? They have hollow legs I'm tellin you LOL. Sat in the recliner after organising dinner and kids etc, rested for a while....then went to get up to do dishes...OMG, pain...MEGA pain. My back was in spasm! I'm sure I don't need to tell you it wasnt a comfortable night, despite anti inflammatories and hot water bottles. Saturday the boys were wonderful. They helped hubby clear up all the junk we have been moving in the front of the chook roosting area, ready for more tin etc to go up, moved slabs & pavers etc. Son did some more welding of the angle iron for the sheets of tin to be attached to. My 10 bales of pea straw arrived along with the 5 gardenias for the fr0nt of the house under the bedroom windows....they will have to wait to be planted later this week. Today the folks invited us for lunch. Mum made a gorgeous roast, something we don't have that often because I never seem to have the time for the cooking of them or the fussing, needless to say it was delicious and we loved the time we spent with them and one of my sisters, along with an aunt & uncle. Thankfully I have a desk job, and the back is beginning to feel somewhat better, otherwise work in the morning wouldn't be an option. We never appreciate our backs until there is a problem! The drive to the folks today was lovely, everything is looking so green & lush, sorry I forgot the camera....next time I promise:)

Hope your week ahead is a great one Take care of you and yours:)

IN THE KITCHEN TODAY

Today was a day off, gorgeous day too, spent time after lunch cleaning up more of the rubbish found buried in the chook pen. Some like unbroken pots can be recycled, my mother loves any pot she can get her hands on for her verandah plantings! Other things like old rusted tin, rusting pipes etc had to go into the skip bin, not good for anything given the rotten condition it was in. The girls at work gave me another bag of lemons. This lot I turned into lemon cordial. I LOVE this recipe. Keep in a cool dark place and it will keep for ages. I only refridgerate once opened. The recipe makes about 4 litres, so if you want to stock up, you will be juicing more than a few lemons :)

The recipe is as simple as it is delicious: 3 cups of water 8 cups of lemon juice (I leave the pulp in too) 6 cups of sugar (I only use 3 because we like it tart) Bring the water & sugar to the boil Add the lemon juice Bring back up to boil and then let sit to cool for about 15 minutes Bottle into your chosen glass containers and store in a cool dark place.

This cordial will keep for at least a year this way. It may last longer, however we go through ours quick enough that the last batch only lasted 10 months lol. Remember me telling you about the "Robin Redbreast" birds we had found in our garden? Well here is a shot of one, correct name "Scarlet Robin", the redbreast name is a local nic-name I think. Pretty little things aren't they? Well, back to work tomorrow, which is annoying me.....only because I hate leaving things unfinished, and we have at least another full day to put into the last parts of the chooks nesting/roosting area. The chook pen however won't pay the mortgage lol.

Take care of you and yours:)

WHAT DO YOU DO?

I sat looking at my blog last night, essentially my thoughts surrounded blogs & themes. I wasn’t sure my blog had a central theme, as many appear to. I write of environmental issues, self sufficiency, simplicity, depleting resources, alternative energies, spiritual issues and a host of other things that may enter my head from time to time.

As I read back through old posts I discovered my theme….a love for all things natural, simple, it was simply wrapped in a hundred different colours.

For a few years now we have been enveloped by a world of threats.

Threats of declining top soil and food production, threats of a poisoned environment, overpopulation threats, threats of declining resources, wars, the collapse of the world’s biodiversity, crooked governments and the threats they pose to liberty and justice, one could go on listing for hours. What do all of these threats do for us? How do they make you feel?

For me it is the stark realisation that our world in future years will not be the glorious wonder it could be….at least not in my time, or our children’s. For many, admitting we have some very, VERY large challenges ahead is too much, burying ones head in the sand and denying there must be consequence is easier. For others the middle road is easier, yes, we have problems but they can all be fixed. For still others, the “Doomers” there is no resolution and we will starve, have zombies chasing us and be interned in government work camps.

Not for me to decide where you will end up, let’s face it, the only control we have is over ourselves and how we perceive, how we react, how we prepare. I believe life will get harder, in a myriad of ways, we will do without a huge amount of “comforts” we take for granted right now; however I am choosing to see that as a positive.

Certainly we are going to have to work physically harder than many of us are used to, there will be such drastic changes in every facet of our lives, (just think about anything within 10 feet of you…oil was involved in its production or storage somewhere), however I believe these things will bring a simple honesty to our lives.

I don't believe it will be as dire as some suggest, nor do I believe it will be as simple as others suggest. I do see communities once again becoming REAL communities; where we learn to share more, care more, where villages once again raise children, where what we need wont come from another state or country but from within our local regions.

Having said all that I am not going to pretend it is going to be easy. It’s about how we choose to react. I am choosing to see it as a learning curve. Making do, learning the old ways, some new ways, simplifying. Reality tells me that all this is great for many, reality also tells me it won’t be a great reality for those who die off from starvation, and weather based disasters, resource wars etc etc.

I guess my long winded message is about facing things head on and choosing a positive, no matter how hard it is. It is very easy to get bogged down into the “what are we going to do” thought pattern.

My answer, and this is just my way remember, is to take a worrying post and consider how I would get through it. My answer is, planning, learning new skills, adjusting, and finding the silver lining, no matter how thin it may be. What do you do?

Take care of you and yours:)