EXCHANGE INTERFACE

Permaculture group, management committee. Every year we give a donation of a couple of hundred dollars to at least one organisation that's doing work in the permaculture space.

This year, someone suggested donating to a group that's asking for sponsorship for a "permaculture for refugees" course. It's happening in Spain, and the site specifically mentioned that the refugees they'd be targeting would be Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian.

Up pops the treasurer, questioning whether this group is legitimate or just 'being political'. She's promptly followed by one of the longtime committee members who agreed with her.

I took a look at the site, and within a couple of clicks found a picture of a known permaculture practitioner who does permaculture courses in the refugee space and who is affiliated with this organisation. We used her book for over a decade as part of our 'introduction to permaculture' course. She's even been a speaker at least once at our meeting!

Somewhat snarkily, I asked the reply-all email if the woman pictured doing courses for this organisation wasn't the practicioner who we support. I noted that if so we do not have the authority to question whether this group is 'legitimate', even if we disagree with who they are trying to reach.

But this 'being political' shit? I'm sorry, but the practise of permaculture is 100% political. We do things that politicians and corporations don't want people doing in large volumes because it would mean the contraction (not even the collapse, merely the contraction) of the capitalist financial system and corporate web-of-supply-demand that we're all stuck in. We're growing our own food, preserving it and storing it. We're encouraging repair and reuse, regenerative practices that don't only take but also find ways of giving back that take waste from other sectors of the world. Permaculture isn't just "gardening quietly in your own small corner", it's changing the way you look at the world so it's no longer a hellscape.

Anyway, nobody has responded to me, although one other woman noted the same thing as me (but was more tactful about it) and everyone's replied to her email.

Anyway, right now, crazy growing things, and I am tired. Bedtime now.

Tell me what drew you to keeping chooks? from senmut

I really blame Australian permaculturist Linda Woodrow and her book The Permaculture Kitchen Garden which I borrowed from a friend, read over and over and over, then handed back and bought my own copy to pore over. She described how chooks are multi-functional in the garden - not just laying eggs, but also scratching up the soil, making mulch, depositing manure, eating weeds and seeds and bugs, and providing entertainment - and I was sold!

These days, in most cases, chickens are easier to till the soil than breaking my back trying to do the job. They deal with the snails and slugs and bugs, with the fruit-fly-infested fruit, and any grasshoppers or earwigs or grubs they turn up in the garden. They don't really lay all that much, and they tend to dustbathe in the most inconvenient places. But they are heaps of fun, and such quirky personalities, and I love mine.

The two in the icon are our first flock - the Original Recipe: Honey Soy (Isa Brown) and Hainan (Leghorn). They died a few years back, but were very much Personalities.

Since then we have had:
- Sussy (a beautiful Milleflora Sussex) and Tja-Tse (Hyline): killed by a fox
- "the Banquet" - Shantung (might have been a Hyline, might have been an Isa Brown) and Cold Dish (a leghorn): died of old age
- "the babies" - Siyao (Barnavelder) and Goongbao (Wyandotte)
- "the little girls" - Carambah and Chouquette (both Quambys)

We're down to three chooks right now after Chouquette was put down earlier this year, and looking at getting a couple more, but first some work needs to be done on the chook yard. Which will hopefully happen today while I have some 'hired help' for the yard.

Might get to see not one, not two, not three, but four Matildas playing in the WSL at a stadium match!

Kyra Cooney-Cross has just been signed with Arsenal (to join Matildas Steph Catley and Caitlin Foord), and with Sam Kerr playing for Chelsea, it would be incredibly neat to see them all.

*gets out her Matildas beanie and dusts it off*

(It's also the only beanie I own. I'm absolutely gonna FREEZE in the northern hemisphere winter.)

Additionally, with all the rising interest in the Matildas' upcoming run for Olympic qualification, there's murmurs that at least some if not all the qualification rounds might be moved back the east coast and held at a major stadium.

I'm glad on my behalf - it might mean I could get tickets to see them - but it sucks for the people on th western side of the continent who were hoping to see it small and close at a local field.

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Took the Spring Veggie Garden course today. Was about 35C - and this is spring. Wednesday is predicted to be considerably worse. It's gonna be a helluva summer.

I'd planned for a beginner's class, and found myself facing a bunch of people who had gardens at various stages and at varying levels. So it was pretty much a case of answering questions and more questions. Loading them up with seedlings I'd planted a couple of weeks ago and sending them off. Hopefully it all works out for them!

Everyone else said it was successful, but I felt like a scatty idiot nattering on about everything and nothing. I wish I'd had better structure, but - again - faced with a bunch of people all at different stages of their garden and it all kinda went out the window.

Anyway, the community garden plot is going okay. I've planted out quite a bit of it, I think I might go by tomorrow afternoon or evening, maybe, and just toss down a bunch of mustard and lettuce and rocket seeds to give things a chance to grow.

The space is pretty huge, and I have mad plans for filling it full of vegies and flowers of all types and kinds. I don't actually have to go back, but I really quite like the community aspect of it. And an hour or two on a Saturday might invigorate me regarding my own garden. Plus, I like people and chatting with old people who vegie-garden is always interesting. I think they tend more open-minded, if only because they understand that it's not just about them. The gardening circle of life, death, rotting, and rebirth/growing again brings a less entrenched mindset.

So, yeah, Saturday mornings, probably until I go away.

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Tomorrow is the family lunch - both stepbros, SSILs, and the nephlets. Be interesting to see how the nephlets deal with each other - S (SB2's kid) is a year older than L (SB1's kid) - and pretty social. Will there be jealousy? Drama? Or will they be interested and intrigued and curious with each other?

I met L in person for the first time on Friday and he was adorable. Just on 11 months, so in that 'exploring things' phase, including 'everything goes in the mouth', 'do those boobs have food for me?', and 'things that make noise are AWESOME'.

SB2 is preaching at the parental church in the morning, so I'll go along to see that, and then double back to pick up some Chinese BBQ duck.

Now, how to keep conversations about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament sane...

( we're not doing this to win; we're doing it because it's the right thing to do )

Unfortunately, it's not a sunny day - grey, occasional showers, hopefully the worst of it is done. Weather around here can absolutely change on a dime.

( I guess it's whining? Might also be setting the scene. )

*sigh*

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I messaged the group president yesterday to ask if she was going to be helping out at the festival and got one word back: "No."

Oof.

This is a depressing post. You are warned.

It's been a week.

I've been trying to go to bed earlier, and in truth I climb into bed, read for about 15 minutes and then just about fall asleep. It might be the cold, it might just be general exhaustion.

Tonight, I turned on the gas heater; I've been trying not to, but it was just too damn cold in the lounge and I simply couldn't face it. I wish I'd set up my bedroom with a teeny tiny desk, because then I could carry my computer in there and sit and write, while warming up my room which would carry through to bedtime. As it is, each room needs to be individually warmed in order to spend any time in it. And it's still cold.

The lounge room was 11C before I turned the gas heater on - got it to 18C, then switched to the electric bar heater. But the house bleeds heat - or absorbs it in the summer. Hence the need for better insulation. The part I'm worrying myself sick about is the actual work and products required for it. Also: the fact that we knew this needed to be done years ago and I dithered about it until everything costs more.

I know, we can't change the past, we can only go on. The best time to insulate the house was seven years ago, the next best time is this year. And so on.

( politics and depressing things )

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( letter to Mr Anthony Albanese, PM: not quite as depressing )

A friend asked if I'd be interested in giving a talk about permaculture to her daughter's class, who are doing a Food Sustainability unit at school.

( permaculture day )

--

( thinking through solutions and inconvenience )

This is a long ramble about my insufficiencies as a permaculture gardener. Mostly because I’m in SERIOUS PANIC MODE right now.

( permabee )

So: the plan for this week is to get a rough site plan drawn up, contemplate it for a bit, and then maybe discuss it with the people coming on the weekend to the permabee.