Kirsten at Milkwood wrote a post this morning about the cost of producing good, clean food. I started to reply in the comments, and got carried away. This is something that I have been thinking on for many years. In fact, this article is an edited version of one I wrote for Permaculture International Journal over a decade ago.
The actual solstice is not until the early hours of Wednesday morning, but since this is the closest weekend, we celebrated last night, and I had to share my gift with you. I have been grumbling so relentlessly lately about the turkeys and bower birds raiding my garden, that it inspired Henry, a most magnificent scarecrow.
The longest day, the shortest night, the night of midsummer dreaming. In these longest days it is easy to get wrapped up, carried away, with projects and plans. It is easy to get to runaway speed especially in Australia where the Christmas holidays fall on the midsummer solstice (and not the traditional midwinter one). It is good to take a moment to remember to relax and enjoy life. It is…
In 1998 I spent most of a year living and working in Havana, Cuba. I’m not sure how valuable it was to the Cubans. One of the very first tenets of permaculture is protracted and thoughtful observation, and here I was flying into a completely foreign climate and culture and trying to teach it.