Gidday,
I've been at the Southern Cross Permaculture Institute for over a month now. I am thoroughly enjoying this lifestyle (I'm also cooking a lot which I haven't done for a while on a regular basis) and slowly but surely learning about the initial things I set out to (gardening, chicken keeping, building a poly-tunnel and chicken coop), as well as getting more of a feel of connections in a system (e.g each element performing multiple functions and trying to correlate that element positively with other elements. An example of this maybe a food forest garden acting as windbreak, a food source and an economic source (if you were selling surplus yield). An example of positive correlation may be chickens running around the food forest floor, perhaps one of the best ways to imitate the natural habitat of their ancestors. There, they would be weeding, fertilizing with manure and eating fruitfly larvae in fallen fruits, thus breaking the growth cycle of the fruitfly. I could go into the other functions of the chicken and try using my brain to connect it to another element, but I don't need to cos you get the idea right?).
Seeing and understanding what's going on in a well-thought out system, small or large is very satisfying (largely cos it minimizes human effort, but also because it's an efficient closed loop. This means that like a natural ecosystem, every niche, through the multi-functional symbiosis of diverse elements, is filled and sustainability is the final result... maybe I'll elaborate on this slightly 'woowoo' statement if/when I know fully what I mean by it, hopefully through my own experience).
A kids movie springs to mind (I can't remember which one, I haven't been a kid for quite a while now, though some may disagree with that) where a morning alarm cuckoo clock in a bedroom goes off, which hits a swinging pole on a pivot, which then hits a ball on a shelf, which rolls... ,does a lot of other stuff I can't remember and eventually cracks an egg into a hot pan and serves it with toast and coffee for the inventor who has just woken (Maybe this memory was a mish mash of old movies where lots of this kind of stuff happened. I found these silly, totally unrealistic designs so satisfying as a kid)
Carl seems to be in the final stages of getting his property (this whole thing has been very harrowing and stressful for him; "yay, we're gonna get it, shit what about this, yay we're gonna get it, shit what about this. He says he feels he's aged ten years). He's often asked me if I think he's mad for wanting such a large piece of land (it's got some downsides on a practical level, as well as some upsides). All I can sincerely say is that because his heart is so set on it, I kinda trust in that (but what the fuck do I know? it could be a terrible decision).
Om Tat Sat
I've been at the Southern Cross Permaculture Institute for over a month now. I am thoroughly enjoying this lifestyle (I'm also cooking a lot which I haven't done for a while on a regular basis) and slowly but surely learning about the initial things I set out to (gardening, chicken keeping, building a poly-tunnel and chicken coop), as well as getting more of a feel of connections in a system (e.g each element performing multiple functions and trying to correlate that element positively with other elements. An example of this maybe a food forest garden acting as windbreak, a food source and an economic source (if you were selling surplus yield). An example of positive correlation may be chickens running around the food forest floor, perhaps one of the best ways to imitate the natural habitat of their ancestors. There, they would be weeding, fertilizing with manure and eating fruitfly larvae in fallen fruits, thus breaking the growth cycle of the fruitfly. I could go into the other functions of the chicken and try using my brain to connect it to another element, but I don't need to cos you get the idea right?).
Seeing and understanding what's going on in a well-thought out system, small or large is very satisfying (largely cos it minimizes human effort, but also because it's an efficient closed loop. This means that like a natural ecosystem, every niche, through the multi-functional symbiosis of diverse elements, is filled and sustainability is the final result... maybe I'll elaborate on this slightly 'woowoo' statement if/when I know fully what I mean by it, hopefully through my own experience).
A kids movie springs to mind (I can't remember which one, I haven't been a kid for quite a while now, though some may disagree with that) where a morning alarm cuckoo clock in a bedroom goes off, which hits a swinging pole on a pivot, which then hits a ball on a shelf, which rolls... ,does a lot of other stuff I can't remember and eventually cracks an egg into a hot pan and serves it with toast and coffee for the inventor who has just woken (Maybe this memory was a mish mash of old movies where lots of this kind of stuff happened. I found these silly, totally unrealistic designs so satisfying as a kid)
Carl seems to be in the final stages of getting his property (this whole thing has been very harrowing and stressful for him; "yay, we're gonna get it, shit what about this, yay we're gonna get it, shit what about this. He says he feels he's aged ten years). He's often asked me if I think he's mad for wanting such a large piece of land (it's got some downsides on a practical level, as well as some upsides). All I can sincerely say is that because his heart is so set on it, I kinda trust in that (but what the fuck do I know? it could be a terrible decision).
Om Tat Sat
