Hello and Goodbye!

Hello me lovelies1

Yep, I'm still in Tasmania! (How many blogs have I started off with
this admission?) I keep finding more community and extending my stay
to get to know people better, to have more experiences with them, find
more connections or deepen the ones I have.

I'm staying at Celia's house with Jacob (a PDC participant) and Henry,
Celia's oldest son, while Celia and Marissa (Jacob's travel buddy) are
rowing on a trip called Tawe Nunnaguh, an historic voyage in oar and
sail-powered whale boats from Recherche bay to Hobart. Whew! All of
the people above are some of the ones I'm really enjoying hanging out
with. Marissa and Jacob are fellow Americans, from the midwest,
hitching and working their way around Australia. I feel like a posh
traveler with my massive duffel and nights in hostels after I hear
their stories of camping in parks and working for crazy people in
Dover. I feel much more comfortable in trusting in the universe after
hearing their stories, though. They (and a couple course instructors)
helped me sort out my stuff and pile it into get-rid-of, store in
Melbourne and take-with piles. I also found the perfect bacpack at an
op shop in Huonville for $30 and now it's a matter of deciding how
little to take with me. I think it could all fit, I just don't need
most if it. Like this computer :)

The last three weeks have been bliss, full chaos. Up to 26 adults and
children circulating through the house and outdoor kitchen, people
crowding around the bench at morning tea, tying down bamboo blinds and
shutting doors against the wind and rain, waiting for real summer to
hit and then laying around like fainting ladies when it does (like
yesterday!). I've postponed my ticket twice, I've been having so much
fun having a home base and being able to do whatever I want. This is
how I'd like to live all the time, and I keep meeting people here who
do that – Celia's a full-time mom, and many people work just two or
three days a week here. I even met a guy (ex-pat American, in fact)
who hasn't worked in the last two years – he's a freegan in a very
opportunistic sense of the word, and he trades or barters his
mechanical skills for the rest of what he needs. It takes a special
kind of person to manage that, admittedly, and I imagine that he uses
cash for some things. I'm learning all different ways of living here,
meeting so many cool, generous people, and finding that the more I
allow things to happen without worrying about how or why, it flows
better than I could ever plan it.

So I really think I am heading to Queensland this time – I haven't
booked my ticket yet, but I keep feeling the call of Queensland, and
it's not going away until I go and see for myself. I've heard from
everyone here that Tasmania is the coolest part of Australia, from a
woman that's traveled the world for five years, to all the Peter's (at
least five) living here who aren't from here, to fellow travelers who,
like me, don't want to leave. I keep reminding myself I can always
return, like when my mom, sister and I were in Italy and we returned
to Venice because it was so cool. It's only me setting limits to what
I want to do anyhow.

Since I'm storing my computer for the rest of my trip, I doubt I'll be
blogging much, if at all. I'm not talking about the same things
anyway, and it's much more about my interactions with people and how I
feel than what I'm seeing or doing. I could tell you a chicken just
got attacked by a hawk and I helped put tea tree oil on its wing, and
that sounds exciting, it's something that's happened, but I'm just not
interested in writing about it. I'm realizing how important people are
to my social sphere, and I'm giving up my less social activities to
spend more time with people. Goodbye, knitting. Goodbye, knowledgeous
books. Goodbye, homemade drop spindle. Goodbye, computer. Goodbye,
Australia guidebook.

Hello, neighbor!

The great wind!

'Im interested to see what will come out after such a long silence and
so many things happening. The thing is, one thing is just as
interesting as another, so nothing feels unusual and like something I
want to write about. What's most interesting to me is what's happening
to me and my personality, the way I view the world, my development, if
you will.

What's new on the Anchen development front? I feel I've entered a new
era of calm, which was well-tested yesterday (the Day of the Great
Wind) when it seemed like we had disaster after disaster happen. The
morning dawned blustery and cloudy, and it grew, built upon itself,
worked itself into a frenzy, until we tied down the shade cloth in
front of the kitchen and overturned anything that might pick up the
wind and blow away – sheets of tin, wheelbarrows, the dishes in the
dishdrain, buckets, clothing, everything. It was so windy I could feel
my liver acting up, all irritated and frustrated for no reason, so I
ended up disappearing up into my loft where I could listen to the
chaos without being a part of it. Random bangs and crashes punctuated
bouts of really strong wind where the gums trees sounded like the
rapids in a river.

The big events that happened yesterday? Celia's french doors were
ripped off their hinges and one ended up sailing off the deck to the
grass below, almost taking the course instructor with it. That
happened while I was in my loft. Later, after the glass was mostly
cleaned up and the gaping hole covered with shade cloth, after a
student called her husband and he was working at patching the hole,
another student found Rick (our course instructor) injured in his
tent. He'd been hit by a falling tree branch, and possibly fractured
ribs, his pelvis and his spine.

It feels yucky to rehash these events this morning, now when it's calm
and beautiful outside, now that things are peaceful again.

The truth is, I don't really feel much like writing anymore. I'm not
surprised by things, and everything is wonderful. I had a realization
that all negative thoughts I have are ego, all doubts and fears, that
anything that's not positive is not me. One of the really great
aspects of the PDC is that the people here are all on the same
wavelength of wanting sustainability and looking for alternatives to
how they're living right now. That means we've got a strong
concentration of like-minded people, and I'm finding that it's easy to
relate and express myself around them. For the whole course, I've been
saying I'm not at a point where I can learn permaculture, it's too
much information for my already over-loaded brain, but I'm having a
ball cooking for the students and hanging out with students and
instructors in between and after class. We tried spinning poi one
night, and other circus tricks, and last night we all went to pizza at
the local wood-fired pizza joint. I'm experiencing the feeling of just
being ok with who I am and how I am, and enjoying the people around me
as they are.

Chaotic wonderfulness

Hello me lovelies!

First off, apologies for the long silence.

Secondly, I am thriving in the midst of chaos here in Franklin, on
Celia's permaculture haven where we're starting a permaculture design
course today with thirteen people plus six kids, five volunteers, one
wwoofer and assorted poultry and dogs. It's fantastic! I get to cook
loads of delicious food and appreciate the morning sunrise over the
Huon river.

Let me describe where I'm at to start. This farm is on 15 acres of old
orchard on a green hillside overlooking the Huon River. The
East-facing house was built last year of Celerytop pine, a hardwood
specific to Tasmania (I think, anyway. I've certainly never heard of
it!). It houses four kids and one mum, plus the assorted wwoofers,
teachers, relatives and guests. Wooden floors and tall ceilings make
this feel like home to me, as well as the ensuing chaos of kids,
animals and people trying to 'get things done.' I sleep in the newly
built loft in the shed, a haven in the midst of this insanity, up a
rickety old ladder Celia got from the tip shop for $7. I do have it
all to myself, so when I get up at 5 in the morning, I'm not
disturbing anyone. I am having the most fun rising before anyone else
in the quiet dawn and watching the orange blaze over the opposite
hillside turn to the golden orb that eventually wakes everyone else. I
make tea and stand for an hour in my loft, then make more tea and do a
relaxed set of qigong partly in the kitchen, looking out over the
river (best view in the world for doing dishes), and then move outside
to the fire circle just to the side of the house as it warms up. By
the time I'm done, the kids have started feeding chooks and someone
might even be making breakfast. And then the day starts, with people
starting projects like the expansion of the poo pile (there will be 25
people or so here for two weeks, it's going to be quite a pile! And
quite a lot of compost for Celia's fruit trees!) or whipper-snippering
around the fuji orchard. We're moving the kitchen outside today, so
we'll be transporting pots and pans and finding places for them to go.
Another volunteer, Kim, who's wwoofed all around it seems – New
Zealand, Australia, Scotland – will be heading up the kitchen crew,
and I get to moonlight as whatever needs to get done. Wonderful!

There's already such a conglomeration of neat, intelligent, informed,
excited and passionate people here for the course, I'm excited to meet
the rest of the teachers and students to see what they'll be like.
Honestly, this is the crowd I dreamed about when I thought of Tasmania
and community. Here I am, here they are, and it's great. Celia is
easily involved in every happening in the little community, especially
the Living Boat Trust. It's a large warehouse-type shack at the edge
of the river, full of wooden boats in the process of creation, hanging
off their frames until they're float-worthy. Truly a beautiful place
to be, peaceful with people working with handtools.

It's getting crazy here as more kids wake and start playing a piano
and guns and eating brekky and and and...oh yeah, the course starts
today, so we'll be doing a last push to finish what we can. La de da.