The Forest Garden

Lessons come when you arent really looking for them. Yesterday, by chance, I watched an interview with David Holmgren in which he makes a comment about goals. He says, in talking about reading landscape, that  "if we are in a rush, if we want to acheive some goal...then this doesnt sort of really help. We've got to be prepared to be just open and we accumulate understanding that turns out to be useful. In some context...over time...But if we are goal oriented and if we are in a rush then, you know... then its better to go off and get the recipe out of a book or do what your told, or, you know, people go, how can I learn by just staring at...you know, what is it? Where is the answer? Just tell me!" I experienced this  wisdom in a very practical way. We have two large vegetable bins that we planned to turn into wicking beds. We sourced them from a property about 40 minutes away, paying $40 each, and driving out there with a trailer to pick them up. We went to a bi

Today, we paid a visit to Tuki Trout Farm where Just add Water Daughter (Evie) had the great and indefinable joy of catching her first ever fish. It only took about 5 minutes, once we figured out what we were doing.  It was made so easy for us that its almost certain that Evie now believes that every time you drop a line in the water, within a few minutes, you will pull out a trout. And the sheer excitement on her face when she actually landed that 400 gram rainbow trout in her net was an absolute delight to behold. We followed this with five more. Three kilos worth of fish. We brought four of them home to eat and left the other two at the farm where they will be smoked or used on the menu. When we brought those fish home and prepared them for cooking, I was very surprised to see Evie enthusiasm and curiosity about  the fish as I salted them on the kitchen sink. Being a girl, she is usually grossed out by such things.  Its rarer still, for her to be interested in any way in par

Apples and Hawthorn Berries The Autumn sun has been warming the forest garden this week. A reprieve from the impending cold and wet months to come.  The clocks were turned back one hour and the earlier dusk settling over rooftops and neighbourhoods in town has been a small shock to the system. But like all seasonal changes, our minds and bodies adapt and adjust. Usually very quickly so that within a few days you forget that longer days ever existed. I've just finished trudging through six days of labor in the Industrial Health Care Complex. One of modern societies largest and most profitable industries. While it does put food on the table, it also has an awful draining effect on some part or parts of me that are in sore need of regeneration and nourishment. And as usual, a whole bunch of apparently unconnected things coalesce into a congealed jelly of thoughts and musings. I  THE BRAIN Im reading a book called,"The Fat Of The Land" by John Seymour,