Lorinna, the spontaneous community

I feel like I lost an entire week to emotional release.

What I realized at the end of it? Letting go is acceptance of myself.
Accepting all parts of myself, not just the "good" parts I like right
now. It means everything.

**

I've gotten a request to describe my physical surroundings. I suppose
it's warranted, given that I've been here, what? Three weeks? And
haven't posted any photos (still haven't figured out what the problem
is).

So, Lorinna. I first saw the house the last weekend in November when
we stayed for a night on our way back from the AGM. As we turned into
the driveway after hours in the car, the last of which were winding
down a one-track gravel road, it's hard to describe the relief I felt
at seeing the orange and red corrugated tin-roofed house down below
us. Even from the outside it was plain to see the care taken in
construction – all the thought into the aesthetic nature of a house
seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Now I know that many houses in
Lorinna are like this one – each one unique, whether it's strawbale or
wooden or rammed-earth. Many families have built or are building their
own houses, so I take special pleasure in getting a look at as many
houses as possible. Some have steps out of cuts from a single tree
trunk, some have elfen nooks and crannies, some are gargantuan
mansions with wrap-around porches and skylights.

This house I'm living in has wood floors and walls, stained-glass
windows in odd places (like the kitchen and high up in the office)
that add a touch of the human to it – who else but a human would
decide to put a window where no one can see out of it? There is an
abundance of cubbyholes, some finished, some boarded up, dirty and
dark inside, some used for storage – they're all different. The room
I'm staying in is two rooms – a small front room with a window
overlooking the drive, facing North (which is like South in the
Northern Hemisphere) where I meditate in the mornigns, and a large
room under the eaves, with a sloping roof where I sleep. There's also
a walk-in closet that's about the size of my room in Yosemite, and a
dirty unused storage room off to the right. In between is a tiny,
narrow, steep set of stairs leading up to a boarded-up turret-room.
This is a striking feature of the house from the exterior, since it's
the highest point of the roof, but that seems to be the best part
about it. Basically, it's dark and dirty. At first I was thrilled to
get the room with little rooms off it, and now it just doesn't matter
since I don't use them anyway.

I spend most of my time hanging out in the kitchen (big room, wood
stove for cooking, gas burners, sink, wooden countertops, large dining
room table and computer) and the sunroom, an added room that opens off
the kitchen. Slate tiled floor, wooden paneling and lots of windows
facing the drive, the garden and the forest. It can get quite warm in
the afternoon, and it's where I do qigong in the mornings before
anyone else is awake. Quite possibly the best room in the house!

Everything is green here – you have a feeling of lush abundance,
especially in the garden, which is growing quite the crop of weeds and
a few vegies. Looking out from the house is the garden and beyond, the
drive rising up a small grassy hill (mowed courtesy of the wallabies)
out to Ladybird Lane. There's a pond behind the garden as well, and
another one farther up the hill, neither of which you can really see
from the house. You just know they're there. Off to the right is more
lawn that's slowly being converted to forest, consisting of wattle and
gum trees of some sort. I had no idea, but there are hundreds of
kinds. Wow! The forest floor is covered in bidgee-widgees,
blackberries, tough sprigs of grass, gum bark...and leaves. It's not a
place you'd really want to stand in one place for very long, either,
since there are streams of ants, some bigger and more painful than
others, making their busy way over hill (rotting log) and dale
(buttercup patch). We've some non-native (I'm assuming) trees in our
yard, which the possums find so delicious they've stripped them of all
their leaves. Soon they'll be dead non-native trees. There's a wood
shed and a path down to the stream where the hydro dam is. There are
tree-ferns down there, sometimes 3 metres tall, and apparently every
foot takes ten years to grow. I've been thinking they would thrive in
Oregon!

Off to the left of the house is more grass, rolling down to a
temporary flat spot where I practice taiji barefoot sometimes, and
continues to a fenced paddock. Going up the hill on the left side of
the road is an overgrown orchard of possibly fruit trees – it's hard
to tell in all that grass, and they're still quite small. This is
where Emma keeps her ducks – in a little duck house, and it's the
highlight of Elly's day to let them out in the morning and put them
away at night.

Elly? You say? Yes, Della and Elly are here to stay for a few days.
Taking in the wonders of valley life!

Behind the house is more forest (or 'bush', they would say here. It's
all-encompassing, meaning anything not civilized) and that's about it.
We're on nine acres here, much of it taken over by blackberries.

Today we're headed to the Co-op for some socializing with the
villagers, where we'll see some other kids and pick up a box of
wonderful produce and mayhaps peruse the crowded co-op shelves for
some delight to hold us until we make another foray to the big city.
The Co-op is a shack, about 10 by 12 feet, chock full of organic and
bulk-type stuff. It's very cool the community puts it together, and
they staff it every saturday. Just down the road is the Community
Hall, a white building with a patio out front they're working on
tiling a chess board into. The hall is one main room, with a kitchen
off to the side. They have Wednesday yoga-qigong here, and Saturday
night movie/potluck night. They have a projector and a big screen!

Saturdays are community days here – Emma says she's given them up to
socializing. The rest of the time it's pretty quiet here, so social
saturdays fit my schedule!

The rest of Lorinna is lush forest and paddocks with the occasional
pond and flock of geese or herd of goats making their way through the
blackberries. Some people run cattle, and it seems like everyone has
chooks. We're quite close to Lake Cethana, which covers the bottom of
the valley, and many people live up the road, on the hill or higher up
where it levels out again. On a clear day you can see the top of
Cradle Mountain - a national park here.

We may, or may not go. It's just so... nice here.

Australian Adventure needs your input

Hello to all!

I'm writing today to ask for input. So far I've been flying by the
seat of my pants and a handy Lonely Planet Tasmania guidebook. I've
decided to take in a bit of the rest of the massivity of Australia,
and I need to know where to go. I'm looking for your insights, input,
personal experiences or dreams to help me define the rest of my trip.

Above all, I'm interested in experiences - not tourist sights or
climbing the tallest mountain. Ideally, I'd like to meet people who
live in communities and spend two to three weeks with them. Possible
in Northern New South Wales or Queenland (since they're tropical!).
I've looked on ic.org, and I'll probably look again, but I thought
there's gotta be someone out there with some clues for me!

Just click on the letter at the bottom of this post to drop me a line!
(It's so cool I have a following to ask this of!)

Ta!

Smile, Sunshinelover, smile!

Smile!

Sunshine!

And besides that, some realizations: this may seem obvious to some of
you, but it was a little epiphany for me. I am my body. My
consciousness is in my body, and in that respect, I am my teeth, my
fingernails, my tongue. As in my mind is in my teeth, my teeth are my
mind.

This makes sense in terms of body/mind, I just never put it together
before. I've been reading a book called Prometheus Rising by robert
Anton Wilson, which is a book about why we act the way we do. In it,
the was a parable of a Buddhist monk, working towards enlightenment.
His master told him to meditate on an ox, so day after day, he thought
about an ox, meditated on an ox, visualized the ox. One day the master
came to his cell and said, "come out here, I want to talk to you."

The monk said, "I can't get out – my horns won't fit through the door."

With this, the monk was enlightened. In becoming an ox, and then
realizing he wasn't, he was able to step out of the robotic roles we
all play in society, to see things as they really are.

This got me to thinking about myself, my relationship with my body,
and my health, something I've very consciously been working on
improving for the last year and a half. In dealing with some long-term
conditions that just keep reappearing, I've been wondering what it is
that I'm not doing for myself. I realize that a lot of health is just
time and allowing my body and mind to reattain equilibrium, but with
these recurring conditions, it must be a deeper cause than what I'm
eating or doing. It's what I'm thinking about myself.

This is where Louise Hay's affirmations come in. She has a booklet of
affirmations related to health problems – if you have bad eyesight or
a weak leg or whatever it might be, there is an affirmation in there
addressing the thought behind the problem. I'm wondering what my
affirmation is, what part of myself I don't accept or what part I
think I need to protect. Meditation is especially useful in coming up
with answers to these questions – and I'm in such a space that I can
meditate as much as I want.

Can I just say how GREAT it is being in Lorinna? I am thoroughly
enjoying my gentle experience of weather, community, animals, exercise
and self-realization. I do exactly what I want, I enjoy talking to
Emma and sharing ideas and dreams, we have plenty of time to
ourselves, and the community's always out there if I want a higher
level of interaction.

I know that each step of my journey is unpredictable, wonderful, full
of lessons and more direction. At this point I'm wondering where I'm
off to next – I'm thinking the rest of Australia, to check out some
established communities to see what helps them stay cohesive and
happy. It's so easy to look at communities and pick them apart,
stating everything that's wrong and what needs improvement. I can do
that with anything. But looking at communities from the point of view
of what's right, what's working well, what are the lessons they've
learned and are learning and the binding agent bringing people
together – that's what's interesting to me.

I contemplated coming home early and just visiting communities in the US.

HA!

I'm here in exotic, english-speaking Australia. There must be a reason
for it! If nothing else, I'm off to explore some of the delights, and
meet neat people along the way. I knew from the beginning how much
I'll change as a result of this; travel has that effect on people. Now
it's a matter of allowing myself to be as open and loving as possible,
to invite in wonderful experiences and set my intention to get exactly
what I need from this trip.

When I was in Devonport, I bought two horribly over-priced magazines.
One was an Australian knitting magazine called Yarn, the other was a
spirit guide mag called Spheres. This issue is on abundance
(appropriate for Christmas-time, don't you think?) and manifesting
what you want in your life.

One article was a woman who communicated with Dragonfae, and for the
new year they recommend doing a cleanse prior to the last dark moon
of the year – that means before the sliver of the new moon appears.
This means clearing your space – de-cluttering! Getting rid of
anything that no longer has a personal connection to you, or with
anything that holds meaning you no longer want in your life.

After you clear (you can rearrange furniture if you want to give it a
'fresh' feel), you smudge! Smudge yourself first (ask someone to do
you) then smudge your space, energetically sweep it with a broom
(which you've also smudged) and then bring in something new that
represents the energy of the new year you're creating.

How great! A ceremony!

Of course, I would wait until the Chinese New Year, since that's the
calendar I follow, but clearing sounds like a great idea for anybody,
anytime. If you think you need it, you probably do! I do it each time
I move camp – cleaning and clearing my stuff, deciding what I no
longer need, what I can give away, then smudging my new space and
setting my intention for my new situation.

One last thing: my affirmation is changing. From, "I love and accept
myself," it's become, "I love and enjoy myself." How great is that?!

Chicken stories!

From where I sit now, you could say I have a window on the world.
Enclosed in glass, our sunroom is the perfect observatory for wildlife
comings and goings. In the evenings sometimes the kookaburras will
perch on a tree stump at the edge of the lawn, picking out worms from
where we're pulling up bidgee-widgees (vines that grow sticky balls at
the end, like giant burrs), and I'll hear the classic jungle-sound
like a monkey's laughter that is their call.

Chicken is being rather demanding this morning. Perhaps I'll go into a
bit about her (or him). Apparently there's all sorts of ways to tell
if a chicken will turn out to be a rooster or a hen, like shining a
torch on their feathers to see if they're shiny, looking at the shape
of the tail feathers, looking to see if it's getting a frock coat
along its breast – all sorts of ways that are all fallible. We simply
don't know. Deva could be anything, she could be deciding right now
what she wants to be. When I started writing this morning she flew up
into my lap and began picking the fuzz off my old grey sweater.
Occasionally she'd scratch and keep picking, readjusting her footing
on my arms. This gave me a great opportunity to watch chicken behavior
– something I hold close to my heart, being a Rooster myself. Indeed,
the way she picked the front of my sweater clean of invisible pills
reminded me of myself, picking at zits in the mirror. Fortunately,
there's no mirror here, so I don't pick!

Deva's seems to be always looking to get into whatever it is you're
into. When I make breakfast, she's up on the counter, hopping onto the
pot to see if she can have a bite. Mostly, she makes a big racket and
might knock something over. I laugh to see her ruffle her feathers!
She keeps picking at my green tea leaves, too, leaving them strewn
about the counter. Just when you think it's over, chicken soup for
dinner, she settles down and roosts – on the counter, on Emma's bike
handle, in the corner, and you don't even know she's there until she's
hungry again and the cheeping starts up.

This certainly puts new perspective on factory farms where they cram
60,000 chickens into a warehouse, clip their beaks and never let them
scratch in the dirt or establish a pecking order. In fact, living so
close to animals (we've got two cats, one chicken, three ducks and one
rabbit) makes me much more aware of how life goes in an animal world.
I keep forgetting I'm a part of that – I'm an animal, you're an
animal, we're all animals here. Animals aren't kind – I don't know if
that's what I mean – they do things for themselves. Last night in the
garden, Monster, one of Emma's cats, was stalking Poppy, the other
cat. He was on one side of the fence, Poppy obliviously on the other.
As Poppy came towards the fence, Monster jumped up and surprised him.
He had no malicious intent, as they were on either side of the fence,
so you can only conclude it was for entertainment value. Animals have
a sense of humor.

The other morning I went with Emma to milk cows. She's learning at the
farm down the road, where they run about 20 head of cattle, provide
the community with organic beef and milk, and eat their rabbits and
guinea pigs. Talking to the woman about running an organic farm was
helpful in allowing me to see a meat-eater's point of view. When an
old dairy cow broke a hip and had to be shot (this is avoiding the
discussion of suffering as something to be avoided) she said wasting
"M" was unthinkable, that she'd much rather eat it than bury it. This
woman is very involved with her livestock, moving fences for them
every day so they have new pasture to graze, giving all the dairy cows
names (but not the beef cows, they get numbers) and spending enough
time to get to know their personalities. It's the same with her
bunnies. Many have names, they even train a 'bench bunny' to sit in
the kitchen while they prepare dinner, even if that dinner is...bunny.

While we were milking, this woman talked about the differences in
fresh milk and store milk – how everything affects the taste of the
milk, from what's in the grass, to what's called a 'stripe' where
chemicals are applied along the cow's spine to keep away parasites and
other uglies. This poisons the cow, too, and thus its milk. She talked
about the commercial dairy industry and the practice of tail-docking,
where they cut off the tail (without anesthesia) so that it doesn't
flick the farmer in the face when he's milking. The thing is, they
feed these cattle food they can't digest, so they end up having
diarrhea they can't control, and getting it all over their tails. If
you look at the cycle, so much of the problems are created by people,
and if you let an animal live naturally, they can take care of
themselves. However, in the case of cows, they've been bred with
people for millenia; you don't have wild cows.

She explained that each cow's milk tastes different, according to what
they've been eating and their breed. Certain cows have higher cream
content (like Jersey cows), some cows (like Holstein's) produce a lot
of milk with little cream, which is why we use them in the dairy
industry. As we were milking a Jersey and a Holstein that day, she
invited me to try some milk straight from the cow. Until now I've
neglected to mention the coffee set-up we'd brought out to the barn,
to make "cow-paccinos" - filling a mug half-full with coffee, then
filling it the rest of the way with milk squirted straight from the
udder, so that it foams at the top. Quite ingenious, I thought. If I
drank coffee, I might have had some of that.

But I did try some fresh milk. Never had it before – had to give it a go!

It was warm, sweet like custard almost, with a thinner consistency
than I expected, and a texture that left a film in my mouth. It really
tasted like warmed milk, the kind you drink before bed, with an added
depth of flavor – like the difference between eating filtered and
unfiltered honey.

I tried the second cow, too, since they're different tasting, and
found...it tasted the same. It didn't give me an upset stomach or
anything, and it was quite rich, more like a dessert. I also found I
don't terribly enjoy drinking milk. Part of it could be my veganism
and the way I don't agree with keeping animals for your own 'use,' and
part of it was knowing I don't need milk in my diet to be healthy. It
was almost as if I was prepared not to like it because it doesn't
agree with my philosophies about life, and, it's not healthy. There's
something to be said for moderation, and I know a little milk, just
like a little chocolate, will not kill me. At this point, I prefer not
to like what I'm choosing not to eat. That seems extremely
narrow-minded.

I've been thinking about eggs, too. Every day Emma lets the ducks out
of their hut, and then rummages in their bedding for the eggs they lay
in the morning. One or two eggs a day adds up to a lot; these ladies
lay with or without a male duck around, as will a chicken. It's what
they do. The reason Emma leaves the ducks in their hut till late
morning is because otherwise, they might lay their eggs out in the
grass somewhere, where they'd leave them.

In all of these arguments for eating animal products or animals,
there's always they perspective of giving back to the land; burying
the cow in the earth as fertilizer, leaving eggs out in the grass for
other animals to find or to break and melt into the earth. As it is,
anyone who flushes their poo is depriving the land of nutrients that
you've taken from the land. Consider reading the Humanure Handbook!

So, eating eggs. Taste good, not bad in moderation, have the potential
to be a little ducky. I seriously thought about eating eggs, and I
find that even thinking about eating one, I begin to feel shut off
from knowing I'm an animal, relating to animal life. This is ironic,
considering that ducks and chickens eat little animals like snails,
insects and even mice, if they can catch them. The cat caught a baby
bunny last night (which we rescued and released – ever the interfering
humans!), a hawk probably carried away a cat Emma used to have, every
time I step I'm compacting the earth and possibly killing something.
Where does this leave me? In the same place. I don't feel the need to
eat eggs, and the thought of eating animals repels me. Obviously it's
not repellant to other animals!

Here I am, stuck once again at the question of ideals and my truth.
What's right for me? That is the only question I can answer.

Rainy smiles

Ah! The rain is back and I'm satisfied.

You may think this sounds strange, since all I've been doing is
bellyaching about being wet and cold.

Well, my situation has changed. I am now living in the lap of
(comparative) luxury, with running hot and cold water, electricity,
and soft, warm bed and it's warmed up outside, too! I am living with
Emma.

I met Emma a couple of weeks ago when we took our trip down south. On
the way back up, we stayed with Emma in Lorinna at a house she's
renting/caretaking. We were following cryptic directions and towing an
excavator down a single-track winding gravel road to a town you can't
find on a map of Tassie. I put myself forward and imagined the house
we'd find amongst all this backwoods labyrinth – I saw wood paneling
inside, an area of bright light and airiness, and I thought, 'that
would be soooo nice.'

Fortunately, I was right. When we turned into the drive we were
greeted by the sight of a corrugated tin roof with windows peeping out
the top, and as we drove down the hill towards our castle in the
woods, it became better and better. A fenced garden, established
trees, the sound of a stream or river...and I found out that I'd get
to stay in my own room, and lounge on a luxurious mattress under a
doonah and extra wool blankets if I needed them. Compared to the hard
futon mattress I'd been sleeping on, under the mountain of heavy
woolen blankets back at Abeo, this was heaven.

I slept really well.

I slept in, past everyone else getting up.

It was glorious.

What was the point of my story?

Rain? Yes, it's warmed up here, so that when I arise out of bed I can
still feel my nose and the last frost we had was four days ago. When I
arrived, the afternoon was a patchwork of rain and sun, and the next
two days full-on sunshine with blue skies and little wind – just the
kind of days you're supposed to have in summer! That first sunshiney
day we both spent too much time outside, pulling bidgie-widgies and
moving wet logs. It felt great to be outside, but I'm learning I
haven't learned moderation. I need to listen to my body when it says,
'slow down!' or, 'I need a break!' The next day, sunshiney as well, we
were both a little knackered and didn't do much.

I'm having a wonderful time talking to Emma about Abeo – the community
and my experience of the reality – about communities in general, and
learning about her extraordinary life. She lived in Switzerland for 4
years and was a mountain climber. No doubt she's intimately familiar
with the Alps! One of the reasons she's here is because she's got
mononucleosis – tired all the time – and being away from people is a
way for her to rest. Course, the way she goes, she might need a break
from herself!

We do nap regularly here, and in general take it easy, with lots of
tea breaks and talking breaks and reading breaks and quiet time. Both
of us are introverts – she's a boar and an INTP, like Della.

Speaking of the Meyer's Briggs personality type, I've been thinking a
lot about my own, which I thought was INTJ. It may have been at one
time, or I may have engineered it as such, but after living so closely
with Tyler, who's the epitome of the Thinker, I don't think I am. (As
an example of Tyler's constantly flying mind, if he starts a project
and leaves it, when he comes back to it he has no qualms about
deconstructing and re-constructing what's he built if he's created a
better plan. Everything is getting constantly re-worked and redesigned
to find the most efficient and best way to do something. Talk about
perfection!) In fact, I'm so glad I'm not! The question I ask most
frequently is, 'how do you feel?' This is a question I didn't feel
comfortable asking Tyler. After a while I wasn't interested in asking
him anything, since he always gave a long-winded, scientific answer
that was logical and without personal feeling in it. Information is
interesting, but I'm interested in the humanity as well. Tyler does a
good job of pretending he's robot. He fools himself, anyway.

Getting back to this INTJ business. I think I'm an INFJ – feeling
instead of thinking. (Let me just say here that we referred to the
Meyer's Briggs personality categories all the time, about ourselves,
people interested in Abeo, and joking about what people might be.
Della moderates an INTP forum, where she learns about her own
tendencies, and we talked a bit about her independence and ability to
start things as part of that. We've also talked a lot about chinese
astrology and her chart, Tyler's chart, but that's another
conversation!) The INFJ is the counselor – a person who relates to
people, is in touch with what other people are feeling, who likes
personal time but also likes to be involved at a superficial level
with the community. Della was able to tell me a bit about this, and I
looked up the description when I got a chance. High expectations,
sensitive to criticism, highly creative...now this sounds like someone
I know!

This gives me a different reference point for myself and my actions. I
also think it won't make a difference at all.

**

Yesterday was overcast, all day long. Towards evening, I began hoping
it would rain, just for something different, but it stayed a bit heavy
and cool until I went to bed. It stays light so long here; I'm ready
for bed long before it's dark and even before the daylight has dimmed.
I wonder if it's because I'm missing a winter or because it feels like
winter here – well, spring now. I wonder how I'll feel when I get back
– like I need a winter or will I be ready for another spring and
summer? I'm almost ready to do the winter qigong set – lots of
gatherings, not much circulation – just so I don't miss out on all
that qi!

Back to the rain. When it's sunny, I feel I should be outside, working
or playing, just taking advantage of the weather, even if I'd rather
be curled up reading a book or watching a movie or just spinning some
wool. I feel obligated to 'enjoy' the fine weather, that this is a
rare chance to be outside and I 'should' make the most of it. I
realize here my use of the word should, and I know that shoulding on
myself is a self-defeating practice. No more shoulds! Do what I want,
when I want! Enjoy where I'm at!

It's so often I talk to people who are living their lives according to
the 'shoulds,' like going to college, getting a 9-5 job, getting
married, taking a scholarship and living in a town and going to a
school they don't like, being nice to someone who treats you like
dirt.

I just want to be me, doing my me thing. I'm aware of other people's
expectations of me, or what I perceive to be their expectations of me,
and it's a struggle to realize when I allow that to determine my
behavior, and when I'm aware that I'm OK, and simply being me.

Deva stories

Have you ever heard of devas?

I hadn't, until last weekend, when we visited Emma on our way back to
Lileah from the AGM. She has a baby chicken, whom she's named Deva,
after the place it came from, Deva Dell.

Deva Dell started with a man (and his family?), who was told by devas
to build a house and a beautiful garden right here in Lorinna. Well,
he did, and named it Deva Dell. On this farm there was a chicken who
went broody and then all the other chickens decided to lay their eggs
in her nest. This poor broody hen ended up setting on about 20 eggs,
and before any of them hatched, she gave up. After four days someone
found the nest, figured they were all bad and was about to chuck the
whole lot off the cliff when he heard a cheeping. He checked all the
eggs and only one was about to hatch – poor, motherless, Deva!

Fortunately, Emma happened along, and took in Deva under her
proverbial wing. The chick imprinted on her, and according to Emma,
now thinks it's a human. Emma did wonder if she would have to act like
a chicken to show this chicken how to be a chicken, but instincts have
kicked in, and Deva scratches and preens and takes dust baths. (It's
especially fortunate about that last one!) He/she is our resident
entertainment and grub pick-up. As I was pulling bidgee-widgees this
afternoon, Deva was right there at the forefront, checking out the new
turf.

But this is not the end of my deva stories.

While I was in Devonport, I picked up a magazine called Spheres – a
psychic mag with articles about feng shui and setting your intention
for the new year. I was reading an article about the beginning of the
Findhorn intentional community in Scotland. The author was talking
about starting a garden, using organic methods and by talking to the
garden spirits, called devas. He said his partner communicated with
them, asking permission and help in beginning this garden. They said
they would help.

Eighteen months later, the garden was so successful, strawberry plants
were producing a pound of fruit each per day. A well-known local
conventional gardner asked to interview the author and take soil
samples to determine the mineral and organic make-up of the soil. He
predicted all sorts of deficiencies, but when the sample came back, it
was complete – no deficiencies! The author attributed it to composting
etc, figuring no one would believe him about the devas.

Down at the Deva Dell, they don't have possum troubles. It's because
they talked to the possums, says Emma. I guess it's either that, or
electric fencing. Emma said she's tried talking to the possums here,
who are ravaging the fruit trees, and pretty much anything that's not
native, and therefore, a delicacy.

Talking to possums seems much nicer than electric fencing. Or the
other alternatives – trapping, which doesn't work because possums are
territorial (this is the opposite of what Tyler told me, but Emma is
firm in her conviction) so they'll just come back, or shooting them.

Tea Tree Incense

On our drive down to the south last weekend, by some grace of the
goddess of mercy, I had the privilege of occupying the front seat of
our rental Ute alongside Della, our resident plant specialist. She's
like an encyclopedia of plant names – much faster than looking things
up in a field guide. I asked and she defined.

"What's that white flowering tree?"
"Tea tree."
"What's that orange flower alongside the road?"
"The orange flower and stem is Watsonia, the orange and yellow flowers
are evening primrose."
"What's this field of fluffy-looking white flowers?"
"Pyrethrum. It's a plant-based insecticide they grow here."
"What's that tree with the long needles sticking straight up from the branches?"
"I think it's Norfolk Pine – it was one of the major imports Captain
Cook brought over from Norfolk Island. I think it's related to the
Monkey Puzzle tree."

Monkey puzzle trees are a permaculture plant – their seeds are
delicious, like pine nuts, I think.
You'd have to ask Della to get the real dirt.

**

With all the rain lately, I made up a new song. It goes like this:

Rainy rainy rainy rain
Windy windy windy wind
Cold & wet & cold again
When will this weather end?

It expresses some of my...not frustration, but fatigue at the
situation. It's supposed to be warm – summer! I'm still sporting two
pairs of socks!

**

Going back to the plant identification. Tea tree struck a chord with
me – it's an essential oil, so perhaps I could pick some, dry it and
burn it as incense!

When we returned with the new (to us) excavator, we had a bit of
trouble unhooking the trailer from the Ute, and the guy in the ad lied
about a few things about the digger – it's older and more used than
what he said. I put together the idea of smudging – renewing and
blessing a space – to apply to the digger, and that's what I did the
other morning.

Solomon and I walked up the hill into the gully on the neighboring
plantation (and bushwacked plenty before coming to our senses and
simply walking through the grass on the other side of the fence) and
found a bushy, spiky tree with white flowers. I crushed a leaf to see
if it smelled – yep, although I wasn't sure what of. In any case, I
picked some, pricked myself a bit, and just as it began to sprinkle we
headed home.

Later, I bundled it together and tied it with grass, then used the gas
stove to light my tea tree wand. I smudged the shed – our living side
and the tool side, then headed to the excavator so it could come into
its new life in the best way possible. Blessing with health and
longevity, I smoked in, around and under the big yellow thing. After
my conversation with Della about land-dialogue and Tyler's view of it,
I felt a little hesitant to announce what I'd done.

Solomon did that for me.

I just smiled, explained smudging, and looked smug.

Well, not really. I shrugged my shoulders and kept doing what I was
doing. It felt good to bless Abeo, to hold the intention of health and
longevity and bestow it upon the earth and our workings here.

**

The latest: I decided to move on, since I got to meet some cool people
in Franklin and Lorinna (whom you will be hearing about shortly!), so
I'm leaving Monday for Burnie and Devonport.

I'm finding that having the expectation of leaving frees me from a
certain mindset of propriety, of having the need to do things the
right way, or how I'm 'supposed to' do something, to allowing myself
to do things the way I want to. I have a limited amount of time left,
and I don't care anymore what anyone here thinks of me. I won't have
to deal with repercussions for long, if at all, so

I just realized what an interesting mindset I've been carrying with me
all this time. Trying to do things right to be accepted. That's why I
hang back until I have an example to follow, because I think the way I
do things isn't the right way, or the way of this family.

How do I maintain this psychological freedom from caring when I enter
into a new situation? Do I just plan to leave and keep extending my
stay? I'm glad I've become aware of this. Now to allow it to 'set.'

Woolie stories!

Staring into a cup of Dao Ren green tea from the extravagant order I
made from Mountain Rose, I savored the floral aroma wafting by my
nose, allowing the scent to fill me all the way to my toes.

Thank Gaia for luxuries!

It's what I've been dreaming of lately – not even extravagant ones,
like Hilton roomservice, but simple ones, like a flush toilet, a hot
shower, laundry when I need to do it. Chips whenever I want, and lots
of fresh veggies. Since we shop once a week, that's when our new
veggies come in, and whatever we get lasts the whole week. That means
veggie rationing! I remember that I used to save things, but I also
remember they went bad. Now I'm of the mindset to use what's there as
I want to, to make whatever I make with the best of what I've got and
worry about having enough when I need to. It rarely, if ever, happens
that there's not enough. Just tell my primal brain that!

The big news from the weekend is that I got my hands on some wool,
straight from a permaculture farm (which I'll be staying on later),
that's just lovely. It's smelly with lanolin and full of dirt, straw
and unmentionables, which all washes out, and it changes color from
light gray to dark brown. I've also got a wooden dowel and disk, with
which I'm planning to make a drop spindle, and today I bought two
sturdy (hopefully) hairbrushes to card it with.

So exciting!

Ever since I got here, I've been considering the question of wool. To
use animal fibers or plant? Is it humane for the animals and am I
willing to support this industry known for mulesing? When I went to
the Salamanca Market in Hobart, the best thing I found were the wool
tables, full of natural, often hand-spun and knitted beanies and
jumpers for bargain prices, and sometimes bags full of raw wool. I
almost bought some, but she wouldn't sell just a little. What would I
do with it anyway? At that point in my journey, my bag was packed full
and I had no way of knowing what I would be doing. Nevertheless, I
sniffed out two other wool shops and found some more delicious wool,
and some alpaca as well. Somehow, I held back from purchasing any.

Somehow, I knew I'd find some for free!

The ethical dilemma still weighs on my mind, although with this
farming bit, the ethics of veganism are becoming more and more cloudy
the more blackberries I chop, the more I talk to Della about the
sentience of the earth and plants, the more I learn about permaculture
and how everything works together, is interconnected and how one thing
(or many) must be destroyed to create another, the less sense it
makes. Where does it stop? At what point do I decide that this being
lives, this other being I kill?

For me, it's when they look at me.

Apparently mushrooms are closer to animal than plant organisms.

It's all a question now, and I guess it's up to what I want, what I
care about, and what's available.

I'm heading back to Lorinna to stay with Emma for a while. There is an
alternative community there, one that's more happenstance than
planned, with everyone off the grid (and thus on alternative energy)
but with internet and phone access.

I'll be honest, I'm desperate for some quiet time.

NO KIDS!

Specifically, no questions and contrary answers and running commentary.

I find that I like him much more in the morning, when I've had an
entire eight or ten hours of silence. I have to still my tongue much
more the later it gets. My mom's been giving me pointers – really,
reiterating what I'm learning already.

I've been thinking a lot about Tasmania, about community.

I don't think Tasmania is the place for the community. Currently, it's
just too cold! I'm also wondering about the immigration policy, and
our proximity to the South Pole – Tyler was just conjecturing that it
might be colder here in the next ten years because of the ice caps
melting, blowing cold air this way.

Australia just declared it officially Summer (as of Dec. 1st) and it's
predicted to be 5 degrees Celsius tonight. Double sock night. Rub
hands and toes vigorously before retiring night. Jump up and down
night. Stay in bed as long as possible until it's warm enough to get
up kind of night.

Good night.

A long weekend

Just back from the weekend.

We had an interesting change of events right before we left; two key people couldn’t make it, which meant we drove down to the South of Tasmania and stayed with Celia on her permie farm in Franklin, South of Hobart.

We were also picking up the long-awaited excavator, which meant we needed a Ute capable of towing a big trailer and holding five people.

This meant we rented a Ute in Smithton, crammed ourselves in and began the drive at 8:30 Saturday morning. Della was our driver, since Tyler’s illegal and I haven’t driven on the opposite side of the road before.

Let’s just say it was a long drive down and we were all happy to arrive.

What do I want to talk about now? I’m not giving a rundown of events – too much happened. I got thoroughly fed up with kids, I got to meet Emma, another member of Abeo, we visited Tasmazia (it was amaze-ing!) and I think I’ve got a plan for my next month or two here. As I knew it would, it’s all working out perfectly!

Farmgirl Solar Oven Buddhist Silence

I am just learning what it means to be 'on the farm.'

You yourself might wonder just what this means.

The men came tonight to cut the silage. Just as the sun was sinking behind the Blackwood trees with their sprays of foliage atop spindly sky-reaching branches, the sweet smell of freshly=cut grass wafted through the evening air, and I knew, I understood what all the stories of growing up on the farm are about. I remembered a story about a boy who would catch mice that ran out from behind the cutter and sold them to the farmhand, who tanned their skins.

Not vegan!

Was that Roald Dahl in Boy? Farley Mowatt? Patrick F. McManus? That could be it! Oh, the Grasshopper catcher was the best story! Anyone who hasn't read (or listened to it) should.

Now I've been initiated into farm life. Planted potatoes, gathered some silage this evening to dry for a hay cooker, and, we made a pot stand for the parabolic solar cooker. The sun was too weak this afternoon to do much besides heat water to very warm in the teapot, but it's a start! I found myself to be the orchestrator, and Tyler the executor of this, with S-man standing by, offering commentary and suggestions in between narrating our every move.

I find myself talking to fill the silence before S-man can cut in with his own 'didja know?' or “can I have ...?'

Mmm, silence.

Today I read in my newest Terry Tempest Williams book, Finding Peace in a Broken World, about the start of Buddhism – people turning inwards to find peace and solitude in a very busy, noisy world.

This is a skill I'm developing. I still especially cherish my mornings when no one is quite awake yet and it's QUIET. No talking! Then I can turn inwards and acknowledge and attempt to sidestep my inner dialogue. Oh, it's strong in me, that continual conversation, and new things keep coming up as well.

Just as our plans have been topsy-turvied for the weekend, I know it's all for the best, whatever happens.

Yep, our plans have changed. Instead of a leisurely 4-hour drive to Deloraine, we're headed on a marathon drive to Franklin, just south of Huonville, which is South of Hobart. Should be interesting...I'm bringing my ipod for in the car, and we'll see how it goes. It looks to be a lot of driving this weekend, with Della as the DD, since Tyler's license is expired and I have no experience driving on the opposite side of the road with a dual-cab Ute especially! I plan to fully enjoy the landscape and the hypnotic nature of car rides on small children.

**

On our weekly excursion into Smithton, I got to talk to Della a bit (always a treatl she's in such high demand!) and our conversation turned to stewardship of the land. She was saying how she develops a relationship with the land, open a dialogue, and asks permission before doing anything to see if it's right. She was saying how hard it is to talk to Tyler (Mr. Logical) about this because of what she perceives as derision and disbelief in his attitude as he silently, condescendingly listens.

I agreed it's hard when someone you care about doesn't care about the same things.

What was remarkable to me about this conversation is how familiar the situation is to me; allowing what I perceive to be another person's opinion affect my behavior, and discussing the connection with the land.

Connection with land? According to Della, everything is alive, and the land, the plants are sentient.

I agree with that, now.

I wouldn't have a year ago.

I would've acted more like Tyler, snorting in disbelief (he's more polite than that, staying silent) and considering it to be silly.

Now I think; why not be silly? Why not allow this aspect of the world into MY world? If I deny the aliveness of the Earth, of the plants and soil, if I deny what has been before me and its impact on the world, if I deny a realm I cannot see, where does that leave me? With a lot less world to explore and experience.

I want a world open to experience, full of the unknown and unknowable, that might one day reveal itself to me and I'll be speaking to faeries or land spirits or asking directions from the ghosts on the street corner. I wonder how many ghosts I've talked to? Astrologically speaking, I've a penchant for communicating with the spirit world. I haven't been aware of it in words, but my experience of the world could be very different from anyone else's, and that's what I consider normal.

It's all in what you're used to.

I remember what we were talking about – the cycle of life and death, and the active role farmers play in this as they till soil, disrupting the soil layers, and plant one thing, kill weeks and bugs, inhibit growth of anything else so that one encouraged plant can flourish.

As a farmer, I am a killer.

As a farmer, I am a plant midwife, helping to come into existence my choice of life.

As a farmer, I manipulate land, I leave an undeniable impact wherever I am.

All animals do. I am no different.

Humans evolved in conjunction with plants and animals.
We are evolving with plants and animals right now.

I am a piece of the evolutionary puzzle, I play a part in this puzzle in what I choose to propagate and how I choose to grow things.

Enter Permaculture and Forest Gardening.

Old family, new family

Well happy family day my stateside luckies! I am distinctly feeling a psychological lack of...turkey day communitarianism. By this I mean the getting-together of the nether regions of the family to cook and do garden projects and watch the day turn to even before the meal begins. On this everyday-like day here, Tyler may be gracing us with his famed Potato Things (deep-fried goodness), in honor of the ordinariness of it all.

Ahh, holidays. Some people love them, some people “absolutely detest Christmas.” (That's Della's opinion.) It's great for me this year because there's no possibility of me sending christmas gifts back home, and I probably won't be receiving any, and I may be giving some around here, if I feel like it, but since this community is based on non-consumerism, the less we create, the better, and so what I'm saying here, is I'm off the hook!

Smiles.

And tears, since I'm missing family feelings right now.

I've been talking to Della about Tyler, and Tyler about Della, and to both of them about Solomon. Elly's too little to be much more than cute, but boy do I have things to say about the S-man.

Namely: leave me alone!

And I don't know how to say this nicely so that he listens.

It seems he thinks I'm his entertainment, so I sneak off when he's eating lunch to have alone time, and creep back, on the lookout for his red gumboots, and have imaginary conversations with him as to why he has to eat what's in his bowl before he can have anything else, or why I don't want to 'look at this!' or any other thing he wants my attention for.

Today was a rough one for me. I found myself wanting to be cruel. Not even so he would leave me alone, but just for my satisfaction.

I left, instead, as quietly and quickly as I could. It doesn't actually feel good to be mean, and the mental aftermath is hell as well.

It's funny, because I compare the S-man as he is and my conception of myself as a child. I was independent, (a me-do-it child), and once I knew how, wanted to do things for myself. If I couldn't do something, loathe was I to ask for it to be done for me, I just wanted to figure out HOW to do it.

This is not the case with the S-man. If, after one or two tries, nothing happens, he brings you his problem, shows you, and asks you to do it for him. Or tells you, and asks. Or he'll just ask if he sees something he wants. Like chopsticks, when we were eating lunch, even though it became apparent very quickly he doesn't know how to use them, and was more concerned with stabbing noodles, flinging noodles, wrapping noodles than playing with them.

Yarrr!

I just didn't have the patience today.

Thank goodness Della showed up and offered me a ride into Smithton, our bustling metropolis.

Speaking of which, last night was our first clear night that was warm enough to be out in to see the stars.

Amazing!

The sky around Abeo is a pool of blackness, with Venus shining through in the West, and Orion's Belt in the NorthEast. You can see the lights of Smithton in the North. Tyler said he has plans to build an observatory here, and eventually Smithton will be submerged when the polar ice caps melt. I guess some of the ice sheets have broken apart and the sea is predicted to rise 230 feet (70m) when they melt.

Or something like that.

**

We're headed to Deloraine on Saturday, for the Annual General Meeting. I might get to cook for it, we'll look at some gardens and have lunch at a bakery and stay in someone's bunkbeds. We may get to see Emma, another member of Abeo who lives in Lorinna, a city we can't find on any maps of Tasmania, and perhaps visit Tasmazia and the village of Lower Crackpot, which Tyler says is amaze-ing. (ha!)

I've begun researching other communities around AUS, and I'm wondering what it is that I want to see/experience/visit. Looking around the ic.org website, I checked out some AUS communities like Ballintaggart on the Atherton Tablelands, a community that looks to be sustainable and is in the tropical, jungle part of AUS. Another one is idealifestyle.org, which seems to be a bunch of ideas in run-on sentences about a community based on energy self-sufficiency and sustainability.

I found one 2-person community living on a yacht, somehow managing to survive on a raw-food diet, sailing around looking for 4 more people and the ideal place to live. Oh, yeah, they had a kid listed, not pictured.

I am so much more wary of children in communities!

One community was called the Australian non-children community.

Based on people who've made the decision not to have kids.

I briefly considered them, until I realized that this was what their community is based on. Does that mean they sit around at night and make comments like; “I'm so grateful I decided not to have kids. How many kids did you decide not to have, Gary? It's so nice to have peace and quiet here, no screaming children.”

And while I'm realizing (quite forcefully today) how strongly kids impact my environment, it doesn't mean I'm adverse to having them around.

Every once in a while.

Under supervision.

Yarr! Still some angst after today.

Must...breathe..laugh...smile...relax.

What a great way to break those materialistic habits! If ever you need anything destroyed, just give it to a 5-year old.

My Silly Turkey Family

"OK, I'm ready to come home now! I'm done with my experiment, I know what I want, can it be over now?"

Yep, this is what I'm thinking right about now. A little homesick, ready to participate in our consumer culture of comfort and everyday luxury. Part of me is thinking logically; 'this is fine, Anchen. You're warm enough, fed, learning tons of things and have free reign to experiment with knowledgable folks. What more could you want?' And the other part of me says, "a bath. Warm fingers and toes and clean clothes more than every two weeks and peace and quiet whenever I want and chocolate and chips (whenever I want) and and and..."

You can see what I have to deal with.

On the upside, the adverts here have skipped straight to christmas, since there's no Thanksgiving to get in the way. This will be my second vegan Thanksgiving, and I'm quite pleased not to be participating the turkey genocide once again. The only thing I'll be missing is my family, friends...my community!

Personally, I think every day should be Thanksgiving, with lots of feasting. That's how I think of my meals, anyway :)

More potatoes and projects!

It's the end of a relatively long day and I feel the most comfortable, the most satisfied that I have in a long time. Lately I've been questioning why I'm here, what I'm doing and what I'm learning, and especially if Abeo is a community I want to be a part of.

Thing is, I like everything Abeo stands for, it's the weather that's the killer! Days of rain and wind, with little breaks where you can rush out and try to plant something before it starts up again, or you might get the whole afternoon to put things in the ground. Mayhaps it's just the temperamental spring weather.

The last two days have been beautiful: sunny, warm, little to no wind today, and I got to do ART projects! If it makes me this happy, I should create this every day!

Today I decided to put together the parabolic solar oven. That meant tearing strips of newsprint, making a paste/slurry, and gobbing it onto a papasan chair frame Tyler's been saving just for the purpose. I let it dry, touched it up, and applied tinfoil to the top of it. Tomorrow we'll be making an arm in which the pot sits, that we can turn with the sun. So very exciting!

I am covered in paste, and blood. The blood was an unpleasant discovery after I'd been pasting for an hour and bent down to investigate the sticky damp feeling on my ankle. Surprise! Gooey blood, creeping down my leg...from a leech. I knew exactly the one; I'd found it on the path earlier, leaking blood and inching oh-so slowly along and Tyler had relocated it down by the dam. Hadn't thought much of it, except to wonder what animal it had just disgorged from.

Me.

I even looked at the blood it was leaking and wondered if it was mine.

It was.

So I took a shower in our nifty outdoor shower stall and watched the blood clots disappear down the drain, only to realize I had more blood coming out than I knew what to do with. I tried using some paste to stem the flow: after a few minutes in the sun, it did the trick!

I'm quite looking forward to sleep this evening. It's not so cold tonight as it has been – no frozen nose anyway. Tyler made us a fried food dinner – his Patented Potato Things (this time with carrot!), pappadums and falafels. I never knew a fried dinner was what I wanted, but it tastes so good!

We finished planting the potato patch yesterday, except for a couple of rows the tractor kept sliding around, which we got to this morning. It probably wasn't the smartest way of planting; out in the heat of the day. We started before lunch and just kept going without much of a break until as much was done as could be done, and then we collapsed under a tree. I'd been considering having a mutiny and trekking back to the shed for food. I didn't because I didn't want to be a wuss. I was afraid of how Della and Tyler would react – disappointment, disgust? A few times I almost said something, and once I think I did, but Della didn't hear me over the tractor, and I didn't repeat myself. I kept pushing myself until it was over, and then after lunch, I took a two-hour nap until almost dinner time. I felt completely wiped out and fuzzy-headed, drained of my energy.

I don't want to be farming if that's what it takes.I honestly think they both forget about eating, so I would've been reminding them anyway, and I think it would've been healthier for everyone. One more step to self-acceptance!

This weekend we're headed to Deloraine for the Annual General Meeting for the Permaculture Association. We'll be talking and eating and watching some films, visiting a couple of gardens and then taking a couple of days to play in the countryside around there, perhaps visit Emma, another member of Abeo, who lives in Lorinna. I've heard a bit about her; it would be nice to meet her! There's also an Aboriginal Culture Center up by Devonport called Tiagononn or something like that. It has petroglyphs and pictographs. I would love to see those!

Rainy Song

I’ve made up a song in response to all this rain. It goes like this:

Rainy rainy rainy rain
Wormy wormy wormy worm
Greeny greeny greeny green
Elly Elly Elly bean.

Maybe one day I'll sing it to you!

The last two days have been rain, testing the weatherproofness of the shed. In the middle of it all, we've had possum break-ins in the garden, so Tyler borrowed Bev's possum trap and after three days of no luck and lettuce losses, I set my intention to catch a possum, and we did. A black/brown one that seemed docile enough, until we lifted the cage (with long stakes through the bars, keeping our hands away from him) and he rammed against the walls until we set him down again, in the back of the Ute, for “relocation.” I was wondering about this affect on a possum's family, but Tyler says possums are loners who roam, never staying in one place too long. We let him out near a massive Gum tree, and got to watch some high-flying antics as the little guy scampered up, clutching the bark spread-eagled with his claws dug in, and then jumping from branch to branch to tree trunk while 20 meters in the air. I admit, I was a little worried about his high-rise jumping, but he didn't seem to be. It was neat to see what a possum's capable of; I've never really gotten to see them, since they're nocturnal and all.

Today's dawned fine and clear, with a breeze and a nip in the air. I would swear it's autumn, except everyone else around here thinks it's spring – you should see the newspapers! They think it's summer, and tout beach getaways and ads for swimwear. Ha. ha. ha.

I decided to look at some other communities in AUS, while I'm here. Tyler recommended a couple: Moora Moora outside of Melbourne, and Crystal Waters, also on the mainland. They've both been established for some years (CW for 30, I think) and use sustainable living practices and permaculture as a way of life. I'm not sure what I'm looking for at this point – I already know these aren't communities I want to join, and it seems that whatever I can dream up in terms of alternative living, I can look up on the web, so maybe it's people I want to meet and talk to about intentional living. I do feel isolated here, since the closest phone is an hour's walk, and internet access happens so sporadically and for such a short amount of time in comparison to what I'd like to look up and who I want to write to. I have a feeling that going around will help me see just how great this community is here.

I'm getting a feeling for this community here: I like the people, but the weather's killing me! Seriously, I'm pretty sure I almost didn't survive the night a couple of days ago. If I'd left one finger out of the covers I'd be one short now. I figured out how to layer three pairs of pants. That's how cold it was.

Everyone says this is unusual weather. I'm just cold.

Now, for the breaking story: We're planting potatoes! Tyler drives the tractor with the plow, and Della or I walk along behind, dropping potatoes every step in the open furrow. Then tractor comes back around, now driving with a wheel in the furrow, tamping the potatoes down, and plowing earth over it while creating a new furrow. We started last night and Della and I could hardly keep up with the tractor – that's one of us alternating each row, then running back to refill our potato satchels. I had a great time doing the drop one, tamp it down, step one potato dance. I felt like a native Aborigine, I almost started singing.

It's strange to participate in such mainstream farming practices as plowing and planting potatoes when what Abeo is about is permaculture and sustainability. Della wants a crop to sell this fall. She sees this as income, when all they've been doing is outcome lately, I understand her desire. She grew up in the part of the country, remembers planting potatoes as a kid, so this is probably familiar ground for her to be walking on and participating in.

**

Something I learned about Tyler: not his given name. Apparently, when he was working in Seattle, he did a lot of home improvements and came to work looking like it. When they asked what he'd been doing, he said “tiling my floor – you can call me Tiler Dan.” Then they shortened it to Tiler Jordan (Jordan is his last name) and it's been Tyler ever since.

I never would have guessed. Seems that people change their names for all kinds of reasons. Della has, too. It's one way of getting comfortable in your own skin, perhaps. I have – Anchen Sunshine Lover. Feels just right...

Oregon Experiment

Della introduced me to a concept of building called Pattern Language,
developed by a man named Christopher Alexander. She wants to use his
method of building around a general concept and working with people
and the landscape to create what the community really wants and will
best use for Abeo's buildings.

The wiki address is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Experiment

and the bit abour CA is here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Alexander

Della described it as having a building plan, and walking around with
a window frame to find where the best place for the window will be -
to frame the landscape or let the light in or whatever your objective
is.

Sounds pretty cool!

LEECH! And Abeo plans

This morning I decided to widen the path to the dam, which means whacking blackberries with Tyler's imported heavy-duty scythe. It's hot, sweaty work! I'm glad it's cool today, I don't know what I'd do if it was hot. It's pretty satisfying work – you can see results immediately. The path is three times as wide now! I got so into it, I gave myself a blister. And I thought; ‘this is where I belong, putting my energy and intention into a lifetime living space. How wonderful. (That’s just a side note. Read on.) As I walked back to the shed for lunch, I scratched my side and wondered at the funny feeling I had there. I lifted my shirt and found a LEECH! Freaked out, once again, and this time it was attached – so when I flung it off into the far reached of the pasture I was walking through, a spot of blood appeared that didn't dry up for five minutes – it's just as Tyler said. Leeches don't give you anything, they don't hurt; they just fall off and you bleed. Later, a red ring appeared around the blood spot – I’ve got a LEECH hickey! I’m just going to close my eyes and pretend I don’t know it’s there.

I wonder if there's a plant here I could use to help stop bleeding? I've been thinking a book of the native medicinal plants of Tasmania or Australia would be great – I'm always asking Tyler or Della, “what's this? Can you eat it? What does it do?” We don't have any local bookstores, and Smithton is too mainstream anyway, so maybe the internet is the best bet there. I can't think it would be anything but fun to wander around seeing what does what. Although my experience with the homeopathic/western herbalist in Hobart was a bit lacking.

When I came in to the pharmacy, I wanted something to help my headache I'd had all night. I'd already tried all the remedies I know, and I needed something. The herbalist I talked to (Jason, I think his name is) concocted a noxious, brown substance that tasted bitter and hot with a nasty, lingering aftertaste. I took it seven times over the course of the day, without change to my head. The next day my head pain was gone, but I don't credit the brown stuff. Hmm, what is western herbalism based off of? Western medicine? Not the best system, from my experience. Maybe learning the local herbs (pronounced with the H) is more of an indulgence than something useful.

Tyler told me the Australian government is going to start censoring the internet here – they're putting two filters on AUS internet: one for porn, which you can choose to have on or not, and the other for ?, which is not an option, it's Australia-wide. What do they need to censor? And, is there a way around this – some way to get internet from somewhere else, like satellite, or to connect to an unfiltered system? We're on the same level as China at this point. Welcome to Communism. Fascism. I don't know if they've done it yet or not; the local access center has signs posted on all the computers saying they're filtered already from “unsuitable content.” Tyler wasn't able to open a You-Tube video about Vote n Vaccination in the US before the election. Why the AUS gov. wouldn't want you to see that, who knows. Maybe they're doing it next. Since voting is the law here.

It's pretty important to me to have access to uncensored information. And it's disturbing that they're not telling us, or giving us a choice. I don't know how to respond to this, except it seems more and more like a police state. You can get a $50 fine for NOT locking your car here. Seriously. I read it in the paper. Don't they have anything better to do???

My first day here, we stopped at the entrance to the block because two motorbikes were blocking the road. Della said, “those bikes drive around through the plantations, mainly on weekends, and they'd better not be on my property!”

'My goodness,' I thought, 'what's the big deal?'

Now I know. It's been nice the last couple of days, sunny and a little breezy, allowing the ground to dry out from all the rain we had. Last night was the first time I've heard motorbikes, and I'm coming to understand Della's frustration with them. It was noisy and disruptive, surrounding our bit of peace and quiet with a distant buzz-saw. Despite that, the sunset was like watching a golden surfer heading out to sea; the clouds wisped like the tide going out. I wanted to stand outside longer, but it was getting cold, and I've learned that if I let myself get cold at night, it takes forever to warm up in bed!

One thing I've been spending more time on is setting my intention for Abeo: for things to go smoothly, with planting and building cool things like brick ovens and solar cookers, AND, for people to visit our community and become a part of it. Building community takes people, and that's what we need here – people! Everything seems to be waiting for this. An explosion of creativity seems imminent!

On the rainy days, I've been going through old issues of a magazine called GrassRoots. I imagine it's like Mother Earth News in the US, but since I've never really looked at that mag, I don't know. GR has articles on sustainable living, permaculture gardens, a recipe section, building with rammed earth, straw-bale housing, choosing poultry and livestock, a huge section for readers to write in asking for information about making soap or starting a worm bin or they're taking a trip around Australia and would like to visit other permaculture farms. They print the address of the person asking, and voila, it's like freecycle before the internet. The mags I've been reading are from the mid-90's. I'm impressed, since so many people were working to be self-sustainable even then, and the information is still viable. I just wonder if they've got a website! Maybe: www.grassroots.com.au or something like that. I don't know, I haven't found one more recent than 2002, and that was their first completely digital issue.

The other mag I've been reading is called Earth Garden, and it's a lot like GrassRoots, it's just fancier. More color, more ads. Same information, more case studies of straw-bale construction. It seems that straw-bale construction is the way to go for a warm house! You end up paying the same amount for a completely natural kind of insulation that works 100 times better. The main thing is keeping it dry; other than that, once you've plastered, that's it. Done. Sounds good to me.

Straw bale me up!

It looks like we might be using straw bales to insulate Abeo house, once Tyler digs it out. However, there was a nasty frost this spring that wiped out a lot of straw-type crops; I don't know if we can afford strawbales this year. That means we might be looking at other options to use as insulation, like bracken or shredded newspaper. Tyler's current house design looks like a simply squeeze horn – the horn opens north toward the sun, narrowing down and back into the earth, forming a tunnel leading to a circular opening that would turn into a tree-dwelling, growing with the circle of pine trees planted around it. A picture might do a better job of describing it. Ah, well.

Some of my projects...

Hello my friends!

I have been on this journey for three weeks, give or take a day, depending on how you count the days.

I am learning so much! And not what I thought I'd learn.

Ever heard of a towel cooker? Well, me neither. It's based on the concept of a Hay Cooker. That is a box of hay with a hole in the middle into which you place a pot of boiled rice and cover it, leaving it to cook. Since we don't have hay, or dry grass, I concocted a different method – surrounding a pot with towels just after I've brought rice to a boil in it. After about two or three hours, I've got delicious, hot rice! How exciting! And the best part is, it isn't taking any energy or the space on the burner, so I can make something else to go with it.

You might be wondering, those of you who know my food obsession, if I've managed to take over the kitchen yet. Well, the answer is yes, I most definitely have. I plan meals morning, noon and night, and I get full reign in the kitchen to create and improvise and see what works. To date, I think the curry was the best, and all that was was a liberal dose of blessing and love! Really. It seems all it takes is that intention and the space I give myself to be creative and wonderful things flow out.

Another unexpected lesson is that of childcare: I'm learning to put myself in Solomon's place to try to understand him, why he lies and is obstinate all the time, and how to be his friend and help guide him to more honesty and happiness. As it is, I'm learning to have a good time with him, and not to be so serious. Let me give you an example.

When I first arrived, the first thing I did when I got up in the morning is my qigong set. As it was so cooold in the mornings, I stayed inside the shed (although that’s just shelter from the wind, it’s not heated or anything luxurious like that J), and that meant Solomon heard me and popped out of bed as well. The thing about him is he's a verbal processor, so everything that goes in comes out the mouth. He's not afraid to repeat himself, to ask for anything, over and over again, or to simply talk, keeping a running narrative going of whatever's going on. Being very introverted and intellectually-oriented, I think a lot about things before I talk about them. Having someone around who is talking all the time, asking me for attention and treats and approval and telling me he wants to go back to Bev's house was exhausting to start.

He won't shut up!

So I began to ignore him.

This doesn’t feel good.

It doesn't feel good to be ignored, but I found myself treating him like Della and Tyler treat him: only paying attention when he does something wrong, or is about to do something wrong.

That's not how I want to be treated. That's not what I want to foster in my friends around me, or in my relationships.

So, how do I relate to this verbose child in a way that doesn't stifle or ignore him, but doesn't mean I'm always replying to his running narrative? I find I'm learning when he's talking to me, and when he's just talking, I'm learning to take time to myself and to walk (or run) away when I want to. Talking to him just seems to encourage him, so I’m finding other ways of communicating as well.

I think this will develop in time as I learn more of how to relate to a precocious, extroverted-to-the-extreme five-year-old. If anyone has more ideas, let me know! This is all new to me, and I'm like a possum that's been surprised out of its burrow in the middle of the day – bright lights! Confusion! Noise! Ahh! Roll over and play dead!

Well, even if I rolled over and played dead Solomon would have something to say about it. And he might poke me, and then run and tell Tyler.

I'm learning to have fun with him as well, and in the morning as I do qigong with a little boy running circles around me as I Belt Meridian Grind, I giggle to myself and think of last week when it irritated me to have him asking or saying “anyways, didja know? Didja know? Anyways, I'm gonna have some meusli now.” I can see how parents learn to tune out certain things and pick up on other certain things.

**

We've been planting things off and on, when the weather permits, and when we create a new space to plant seeds. A possum's been visiting our garden the last few nights, despite the electric wire and the extra electric wire Tyler added after the first visit. We have a possum trap and everything; just no possum. The possums and wallabies are our main plant threats – they can eradicate a year's work in one chomp, like when a wallaby sampled some of the bamboo seedlings out behind the shed. It takes at least a year for two inches of growth, and they probably won't come back. This means we have to put everything we seed into the fenced area, or it has to be something nothing wants to eat. However, we have rhubarb planted out by a water trough outside of the fenced area. It's surrounded by netting but some leaves poke through and these have been thoroughly munched, even though they're toxic! There's no telling what the wildlife will eat around here, despite the abundance of gum shoots (young Eucalyptus trees) on the plantations and grass and thistles and blackberries and bracken. On second thought, I bet we've got the tastiest shoots around!

I've been learning other things about the wildlife as well – it likes to crawl on you. There are ticks and LEECHES here, and while the ticks can leave a nasty bite that “feels like being hit by a hammer for three days” the leeches simply suck your blood and leave you bleeding when they're done – no diseases or infections or swelling. There's just something about them that's GROSS and fascinating. Tyler found one crawling up his pant leg. Watching it inch its way up, expanding and contracting an incredible amount to cover up to two inches, you can really see its elasticity. We put that one in a jar. I guess they can live a long time without food, but I feel bad about starving it, so I might release it along a wallaby path some night.

The other morning when I was doing qigong down by the pond on the dam, enjoying morning light and less wind than up by the shed, I felt something wet along my waist. What could that be? I'm not sweating, and it hasn't been raining. I pulled up my shirt and my waistband looked a little crooked – it was a LEECH and it was on me! My toes still curl at the memory. Needless to say, I brushed it off as quickly as I could and then watched, fascinated as it inched its way into the grass, disappearing within seconds. That sense of revulsion has stayed with me, even though it didn't attach itself to me, even though it's not going to give me anything, it just needs a little sustenance so it can grow. Is this what they mean by survival of the fittest?

Yesterday afternoon I decided to pull the thistles in our 'front yard,' the space just outside the shed door that Elly sometimes steps in barefoot. I'm finding myself creating projects to keep myself busy and feel productive, since Tyler and Della are self-contained projecters, and for me to help them means they have to tell me what's going on in a way I can understand. Often they don't know what their objective is anyway, or how they're getting there, so directing someone is impossible. I've taken it upon myself to do what I want here, and pulling thistles is about as satisfying as it gets! I happened to look behind me and watched a giant black snake slither across the bare ground and under the rotting Volvo behind the shed. Mind you, I was yelling, “black snake! Big black snake out here! There's a big snake out here!” as I watched it disappear. All the native Tasmanian snakes are deadly poisonous. Normally I might squat down and see how close I can get, or try to take a picture of it. This time I stood back and yelled.
And, I saw it again an hour later when I went to retrieve a bucket to catch worm juices from our new in-ground compost pile. Again I yelled. I'm still getting used to these deadly poisonous, shy beings. I suspect next time will be easier for me.

One thing I'm learning about is the soil here. On Saturday, when Scott was plowing, Bev and Grandma commented on how many bracken we have around the place and said it's a sign of good soil fertility. In general, Tasmania's soils are low in Phosphorous, a necessary element for plant growing. Tyler's latest plan for adding it back in is to use homebrand cola as a fertilizer – it's a combination of phosphoric acid and sugar, so it's like putting the soil on steroids! I'm thinking of how horrible this stuff is for humans, how could it be good for plants? But I'm the one learning about gardening here. Maybe fertilizer is the best use for it!

We've been planting a lot of Tagasastie seeds, and various other things like corn, buckwheat, amaranth and alfalfa, sunflowers, basil, squash and cucumbers. Tagasastie (a.k.a. Tree Lucerne) is a do-everything tree that has edible leaves and nuts (forage for animals and maybe for humans) that we plan to use as a hedge separating paddocks (fields). Everything we plant has a use and maybe several. Our latest plan has been digging a swale around the top of the hill in the garden. We used a triangle level to mark out the contour of the land that's level, then Tyler mowed the grass around there, and we dug a trench on the uphill side and dumped the earth on the downhill side, mounding it up. We'll plant pumpkins at the base of the mound, so they can suck up water from the trench. It's a work in progress, so it'll take some time for all this to happen. One thing I really love about planting this is watching them explode out of the ground. The larger the seed to start with, the faster it grows, so watching the pumpkins shooting toward the sun has been especially exciting! You can practically see them waving their leaves around and stretching out, bending their waists and looking around. Very charismatic, pumpkins.

I've been vaguely considering doing a comparison with plants – blessing one tray of tagasastie seedlings and comparing its growth to the other trays. Would I bless it every day, or just do one blessing and see what happens? I remember hearing about plants listening to music, and responding to being talked to, and I know the food I eat tastes better when I bless it (like the curry dinner!). Guess I'm off to bless some tagasastie!

Tyler and Della are using the Subaru to jump-start the tractor, so they can drive it into town to pick up the disker to break up the plowed earth down in the bottom where Scott plowed and where we'll eventually plant potatoes. I'm in charge of watering – with a hose! Ahh, this is the life for me!

Rainy tractors 'n more

What's been happening?

Well, yesterday morning Della arrived earlier than I've ever seen her and announced (in her very quiet way) that Aunty Bev, Grandma and someone, somehow related to Della named Scott were coming up to the block and bringing a tractor.

What does this mean?

It means the potato patch will finally get plowed!

In about an hour, Scott, tractor-driver extraordinaire, zipped up and down around the few rows Tyler had managed to get done before various things went wrong with the tractor, and plowed the whole field, pausing only to strip off extra layers and taking no note of the peanut gallery standing by. It was plain to see his years of experience in the way he handled the old Massey-Ferguson 35 (a newer model than ours, an M-F 28) and I was very touched by his kindness in driving up to our block to work in the rain before he tended to his own garden on what is most people's weekend. And he acted like it was nothing!

This is the day after I'd sat down and set my intention for things to go smoothly for Abeo. More and more I hear about this community, and what I see is different than what I envisioned. What I'm seeing is the beginning, the very seed of Abeo Intentional Community. I see quite plainly the manifestation; that seems very clear. It's just getting there.

This morning I asked Tyler what Abeo needed more; people or money. He said, “Della's very concerned with money right now, but what Abeo needs is people. It's only people who can build this property up and help create the Abeo vision.”

(He didn't say it quite like that. But that’s the gist.)

What I'm hearing is that it's time for people to take that step and participate in the change, whatever it is for you. If Abeo's the right place, then now is the right time. If your dream is something else, what's stopping you?

**

Solomon spent the night at Grandma's, getting a bath and a week's fill of sweet treats, which meant Tyler and I had the shed to ourselves for the evening. I asked him about using his intention to create an easy path for Abeo, but the only answer I got was that he and Della are overwhelmed with what there is to do, and with bringing up two kids, and it's been left by the wayside.

Tyler's been creating Intentional Communities for years; his first he called “Delta Infinity,” which means the same thing as Abeo – eternal change. He's never created a ‘successful’ community; I don't know if he's ever created what you would call a community. He has great ideas, but the manifestation is something else. I'm not saying he hasn't tried. The whole reason he began Delta Infinity was because after he carefully studied the first edition of the Intentional Communities Directory, he hadn't found any that interested him. So, he created it and no one came. He decided to visit other intentional communities to see how they worked and more importantly to him, how they didn't. The community he chose is EastWind, one of the Egalitarian communities that Kat Kincade (of Twin Oaks and Acorn) helped create, based on a book called Walden Two. He said he chose East Wind because they looked too good to be true, and he wasn't interested in finding a perfect intentional community, he wanted one with problems, so he could study them, learn what he didn't want and perhaps how to fix it. Even now, Tyler describes his on-again, off-again three years at EW as easy and dysfunctional, a 'sick' community. There is no commitment for people who want to live there; they can just show up. This was another reason Tyler decided to go to East Wind.

Along the way, he visited Sandhill Farm and Dancing Rabbit, both intentional communities nearby, and found them to be unhealthy and closed-off, uncommunicative and not open to new ideas. They also required more of a time and money commitment to join. It seems the website shows one thing and the reality is quite another.

Looking back in my case, the website is pretty accurate and it was my mind that created the rest. I'm not sure what I expected, but I think this is probably the best experience I could have. Starting a community from scratch, learning what it takes on every level to put something together, from where we get our water (rainwater collected from the roof of the shed) to how we'll get electricity (wind turbine up on the hill; power collected by battery bank, inverter used to turn it into AC power we can plug in. Just waiting for the excavator so we can dig something in – I don't know or remember what - and start it up), what it'll take to put a phone line in (more digging for the line and putting up a structure to house it – Telstra orders), to dealing with possums jumping the electric fence at night and munching on Elly's rose bush. There's heaps more things I'm learning; I had the choice today to watch a documentary or a movie and since I'm so overloaded with information to process, I watched the first season's episode of LEXX.

Ha!

I dig it. I'm still smiling at the twists and turns of The Shadow and the motley crew of misfits who escaped. Tee hee!

I'll leave you with that. I hear I'm missing a beautiful sunset!

WoW!

Hello All!

It's so great to hear from all of youse guyse in the states. I'm psyched that so many want to follow me on my journey, and I want to thank you for your interest!

Much love, ASL

Sunshine!

That's what we've had these last two days...until this morning, when I awoke to the sound of wind, wind, wind. It looks to be a blustery one!

But, we've got great farm news going on here. Our first bona fide sunshiney day here was a boon of productivity. We finished potting the viable bamboo seedlings, mixed up a special chicken poop/lime and dirt mixture and planted zucchinis, button squash, basil and, uh...cucumbers! I made sure at least half the flat (of about 65 dirt-filled tubes) was basil. Pronounce it baah-zil, like an Australian. Now say it again. Makes you smile, eh?

Then we watered, and I scattered amaranth seed all over the back bare area where the Volvo is, and where the blackberries used to be. Amaranth is nitrogen-fixing with a deep root structure – super-great for this soil! Plus, we can eat the seeds! After I seeded, I raked dirt around and hopefully over the tiny things, and then we scythed a ton of bracken and piled that on top of the amaranth as mulch. We could probably spend twice as much time covering it with more mulch, but well, you get tired. I gotta say, swinging that scythe – just like a golf club! - was very satisfying. It reminded me of whacking fiddleheads in Oregon in the springtime, and I remembered that Tiger Woods is a taiji practitioner, so I focused on swinging from my legs out through my arms. It got to be a nice rhythm. As I was swinging, I wondered if Tyler had a certain way he did it, and if I was doing it 'right.' Then I realized that however I was scything was the right way until I figured out a better way or until someone showed me a better way. Here I was, waiting for approval from someone – anyone – when all I have to do is approve of myself!

I love and approve of myself.

There. I've been approved of! That was simple!

We pulled weeds around the broadbeans (really big beans I've forgotten the American term for) and I got to play in the kitchen quite a bit. We installed a new shelf in the kitchen and I swept up and cleared off and wiped and tidied and arranged a bit – all quite satisfying. And then everyone headed down the hill to Aunty Bev's house (where they've been staying all winter and where half their stuff is) and I stayed, excited to have a bit of time by myself. Since the day had been quite warm, the solar shower was warm...and I took the shower of initiation! It certainly felt good, even when the wind nipped around and scattered goose bumps across my skin. And it worked! How nice.

It was so quiet on the block without Solomon's incessant questions and declarations, I almost felt at a loss. I gave myself time to meditate, but found I was just having conversations with Solomon in my head – they went something like this: “Can I have a treat?” “Not now, finish your lunch.” “But I have finished my lunch!” “Then why is there food in your bowl?” “There isn't! I want a treat!” “I can see food in your bowl right now.” “I want a treat!” And so on. So I took a walk around through the garden, surveyed all the plants we'd cared for during the day, looked at Della's pumpkin seedlings erupting green shoots through the soil, walked over to our potato patch and then up to the rise above the shed, watching the almost-full moon rise over the Eucalyptus plantation next door.

What a beautiful day!

That was by far the latest I've stayed up here as well – all the way til 9:30, and the light was just fading outside.

That's one thing I'm getting used to is how light it's getting and staying! At 5 pm the sun is still high in the sky, and I'm used to it getting dark around six or seven. I think the long days will be ideal – already we're planning to work early and late and siesta in the middle. It'll keep us out of the main heat and radiation of the day as well.

Then, yesterday dawned beautifully clear and even a bit warm as well – how wonderful! This is the day we were going to attach the plow to the tractor and really start planting potatoes! Well, it worked out that we didn't have car keys to drive down and meet Della at the farm, so the three of us (Tyler, Solomon and I) walked down the back way on dirt farm roads to get to the farm. What a beautiful and toasty day! Sun shining, birds singing, Solomon lagging behind, people singing and hooting and hollering (that was us) and making our merry way downhill. I checked how long it took when we got back to the farm – an hour and a half! I enjoyed it so much it didn't feel that long, but the other night Tyler had driven the tractor down and walked back up all in about an hour. Whew! Long legs! I could've dawdled much more than we did on the way down, too. There was a pond, and we passed a paddock of sheep where they've left bits of wool, and along the Eucalyptus plantations there are strips of bark hanging off the trees to gather – a fiber-workers dream! I've been wondering if the Aborigines used the bark for anything – baskets, sandals...who knows? The white settlers killed them all off anyway.

While Tyler tried to muscle the plow onto a bent hydraulic arm – he eventually used a crow bar and a hammer, which worked – I read the local paper, saw that it was slated to rain again today, and looked at the four comics they include. Della brought out a book called “Growing Vegetables South of Australia” by a former Oregonian named Steve Solomon. Della and Tyler have visited this guy, who's from Portland and a former Scientologist (who still believes the stuff, just is out of the cult) and from reading the introduction to his book, it looks like he's pretty scientific with his methods – very meticulous. He says the climates of Oregon and Tasmania are very similar, and recommends a website called soilandhealth.org, which is an online library he's created that has tons of information about composting , mulching, health and longevity, and other stuff. It sounds cool and as soon as I have internet access I'm going to check it out. His theory for longevity goes like this: Health=Nutrition/Calories. He recommends eating high-nutrition, low calorie foods. From their visit, Della said he's very much a fan of eating until you're 80% full, and is still concerned with calories. Apparently he lives on kale. In the book he says, “you would have to chew until your jaw got sore and you still might lose weight. But you would certainly become a well-nourished, long-lived scarecrow.”

Kale, anyone?

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this personable book.

Today's a big day as well, despite the blustering wind. Tyler's spent the morning adjusting the plow and getting ready to break some ground, and everyone's out there now, watching the momentus event. I'm in here, enjoying my own thoughts again, remembering a couple more things that I find funny.

Chicken are 'chooks'

Wallabies and poteroos come out at dusk, and if I happen to be walking along the road or go out toward the bracken-covered part of the field, I'll hear the hoppers pounding away into the night. In the morning things have been browsed down, including any seedlings that were left out of the electric fence, and little droppings are scattered around. As we came home right at dusk one night, we saw at least 6 jumping things bouncing out of the way of the Ute.

All pickups (including el camino-type cars, which are quite popular here) are 'Ute's' and semi's are trucks

Coming up the driveway there were even more of them – probably 25 in all. They are the main challenge to farming here, along with possums, and both of them are just about the cutest things. Down at the farm Aunty Bev caught a mama and a baby possum in a trap – I saw them curled up in the corner, mama protecting her baby and looking at me with unblinking filbert-shaped black eyes. I think I saw what was left of one alongside the road. The first thing that struck me was the hand – five fingers, just like a little kid's.

They have mixed drinks in cans here, like Jack Daniel's and Coke. They're called Alcopops. About 5% alcohol, like having a beer.

I'm not kidding. I can't believe the US doesn't have these yet!

Last note: Haven't been able to get pictures to upload very easily. Maybe when I have more time to figure it out. As it is, a trip to town is a big deal, and things need to get done!

Rainy Day wanderings - Day 4 of Drizzle

OK, we're on our fourth day of rain here, and the weather seems to be staying the same. Clouds and rain and wind and sometimes some sun – maybe each day is a little less rainy, but it started out being really rainy, so now it's still just...rainy. Ah, the familiarity is overwhelming to me! Gray skies, that cold, damp feeling that pervades my fingertips – it's all quite wonderful, really.

With all this time on my hands, I've gotten to spend a lot of it talking to Tyler and hanging out with Solomon. Yesterday we went on a long walk around the block, down to Abeo Gully where we're talking about digging the first Abeo House, into the hillside, and putting Della's greenhouse. I wanted to go down there to gauge how the blustering felt down there – see if it's more sheltered. It is, a little, and depending on how the wind is blowing, it's a lot more sheltered. Then we walked through the belt of native forest, over a small stream and followed wallaby trails back up to the dam at the top of the block. Along the way we picked up sticks and demolished (helped decompose, really) some rotten logs, then we walked along the dam and threw sticks into the water. On the way back we saw Tyler and Della out digging in the field – what could they be doing out there? So we swung around and brought out more shovels to help with potato planting.

And that's what we did for a lot of the day yesterday – digging a trench, dropping in potatoes at regular intervals, chopping the sod and mounding the trench. I got to hack at the inches of grass roots to break them up, and I found a lot of squirmy white grubs in little holes just under the grass roots. Luckily, I was wearing gloves, because if I hadn't, I don't think I would've picked them up and thrown them out. I'm not sure what I would've done. I might've had Solomon pick them up – he's ok swirling algae around in tanks and picking up beetles and slugs – the grubs don't bother him. Tyler found some and popped them – and I heard it! That was gross. I've still got sound in my head, and I claimed I wouldn't eat the potatoes from that part of the patch.

Seems to be, the thing about farming is that you're taking land from the natural way of things and manipulating it for your own benefit. All the creatures and plants that exist without your interference may or may not be beneficial to your plans, and could result in, for example, hacking thistles or collecting grubs out of the soil – however, these I believe, are introduced species that don't live here naturally anyway. We don't know what the grubs turn into (but I guess they make great chickenfeed) and the thistles seem to be universal. A lot of the greenery around here is familiar to me, right down to the daisies and dandelions growing in the grass. And grass! It's everywhere! You have to clear it out of the way if you want to plant anything, and the roots have made such a thick thatch it takes considerable work.

Back to potato planting – it was a family event. Tyler and Della were digging trenches, Solomon chucked in potatoes at appropriate intervals, and Elly just chucked potatoes. Oh, and I chopped up the sod and put it back in the trenches. It was such hard work I was happy to pause and pick out grubs with my gloved hands, and over the course of the afternoon, I developed a system so I wasn't wheezing all the time – using my legs more than my arms at the end.

Talk about a day's work! I can certainly feel it in my back and arms today. Part of me is grateful for more rain because it means a rest day for me – and we're going into 'town' today (which means Edith Creek, consisting of a primary school, a corner store, a Telstra phone booth and the online access center) to do laundry and internet. The thing is, we've got a pallet of potatoes to plant, and all we managed yesterday was half a bag! There are nine and a half (at least!) more bags to do. I dunno, man, but this family is going to have potatoes up the wazoo-ooo-ooo this year!

One of the familiar plants around here is bracken fern. It grows through a system of runners, and Permaculture One by Bill Mollison (The Authority on Permaculture down in these parts) says you can eat the young shoots like asparagus. So he says. There are also ants here, a particular kind called Jack Jumpers – black medium-sized ants with reddish-orange pincers and legs that look particularly scary. Apparently they are – they bite ferociously. Fortunately, crushed-up bracken rubbed on the bite relieves the pain. Just a bit of bush knowledge I thought I'd pass on to you :)

Something I'm really appreciating about Tyler and Della is the way they're always considering the environmental impact of their actions and decisions, looking to recycle where they can or just use what's there instead of buying new. This has benefits on two fronts: using less, and costing less (for the most part). In this vein, I've been doing a lot less dishwashing. We just use the same pot for dinner every night, which usually consists of something being brought to a boil, and I think of the leftovers inside as bonus flavoring. We all have our own bowls we reuse every day as well – I never thought I'd find the family that condoned bowl-licking, but this is common, accepted practice here. It took me a couple of days to get into the habit (yes, it seemed a bit weird at first, breaking such a taboo as a guest) but I've certainly gotten better at it! It also makes me wonder what else do I do out of habit that's unnecessary? Ive stopped wearing underwear (personal preference there) and bras, I use a handkerchief instead of kleenex or toilet tissue, I long ago adopted a stainless-steel travel mug and metal water bottle. I must say I'm grateful to use toilet tissue in the toilet instead of pages from the Sear's catalogue, although if we find a nice, soft, organic alternative I'm not opposed to that! If you think of anything else, let me know...

I've been making two lists of plans for Abeo: one to happen this summer, and one for sometime in the future. The first thing on the summer list is plant potatoes. Other things are: things to do with the excavator: dig ponds, a new dam, housing for wind power, and underground house. Repot bamboo seedlings, build solar oven, build wood-fired brick oven for baking and carbon sequestration, build greenhouse for Della, build shadehouse, make a hay cooker, bring electricity and internet to shed, and I'm sure there's tons I'm missing, probably in the planting area. Ah, well.

Long term plans include building a community house for teaching and housing students and visitors; build the road into a loop to make it more pedestrian-friendly and to follow the land contours; develop natural amphitheater site and plant bamboo at top as a windbreak; plant evergreens like giant Sequoia's, fir trees, monkeypuzzle trees; plant oil crop like olive trees, pecans and walnuts, pumkins and flax; inoculate stumps with shiitake mushroom spores and fence area down by the manferns to start the mushroom farm; explore hydro-power possibilities; build an astronomy observatory; start an alpaca farm so we can make our own clothes. And again, these are only some of the possibilities. Talk to Tyler and he'll fill your ear up!

A couple of last things before I go: Tasmania-wide, the soil is low in Phosphorous, selenium and iodine, and maybe copper. We don't know about these soils since they haven't been tested, and who knows what people before us have put into them. A lot of the farmers around here use super-phosphate fertilizer, which is unsustainably mined from somewhere and leaves heavy metals like cadmium behind. We're looking into seaweed pellet fertilizer, which might have phosphorous in it – I don't know. Della's the one who's researching that.

Another thing is how comfortable I feel around the Abeo family – I feel accepted for whatever I'm doing and I'm constantly thanked for whatever I'm doing, whether it's cooking dinner or planting potatoes or making hot water. It's easy to talk to Tyler and Della and it's easy for me to take that for granted – it's what I expect in a community, and it's so easy to slip into without realizing. This is definitely something I want to mindfully appreciate and take into account! It's the people that make the community, it doesn't seem to matter where you are or what the conditions. As long as the community is there, almost anything is livable.