By having no electricity grid connection solar power only, we are not electricity sufficient. We do need to run a petrol engine generator at times, to do anything that our 700 watt inverter can't handle. Try to use the generator as little as possible. Sweep rather than vacuum, have wooden floors rather than carpet, don't iron clothes and don't go to places where ironed clothes are expected to be worn. Such things suit our natures.
We recycle our organic waste matter in that we put it in the ground to be modified and enriched by by the process of earthworms feeding, and the earthworms help in feeding the poultry and waterfowl and these in turn manure the garden and so on and on.
We catch our own water in tanks off the roof of our modest, fully insulated walls and roof, warm in winter and cool in summer cottage. With the only water supply being that which falls from the sky onto our land, and that's not much. At the bottom of our property is a dam, which catches some but not all the run-off we can't harvest.
We use propane gas as a cooking fuel and to run our refrigerator, burn wood sourced from our own property for heating. It does the job thrice, once when we walk up the hills to get it, once when we chop or saw it and once when we burn it, then it becomes slightly alkaline source of potash, and so it goes.
It can be seen that all this is not ideal. It's an attempt to make a difference but it's not anywhere near what possibly a third world country person is doing to preserve the environment.
Working with the natural world, leave ego and arrogance behind:
The thing that people think is great or even heroic, is fighting and beating something that's bigger and stronger than themselves, bending this to their will. A horse, or the natural world, and yet neither need to be fought if we lose the ego and take up the soft, clever option of working with it. The horse can be trained and finally help us, work with us, all but the most brutish people realise the that training is better than breaking a horse.
Working with weather is sustainable, but what do people do. They develop new technology and by loving this new toy they try to justify it's existence by showing what it can do in the fight against nature, the natural order of things. We are fighting nature to show we can beat it and losing, destroying it in the process.
Instead of trying to to fight against drought, learn to predict it, learn to live with it, develop plants and plans that when a drought is coming that the plants which are best suited to it are planted in the field. In arrogance, ego we lay huge acres of land aside to catch water using huge resources to create the storage to maintain a fragile insipid plant in not even a drought, just a dry year.
We still spend millions on sprays that poison people to kill locusts which are eating the fragile plants. We should be allowing them to do just that, not call it a plague but a blessing and eat the locust. You don't have to be a lateral thinker to realise that. You just have to look around you to discover that meal worms are a great source of protein and deliver more of that per kilo to feed them than any cow.
I'm tired and might not be thinking straight. What we're doing is not sustainable, but we can have sustainable systems working if we are both flexible and cleverly working with the natural world.
In Australia, there is a conflict with all wildlife that moves, all animals that do not produce meat, wool or any product in demand by human beings. All creatures that are outside the farming system that has been developed here are blamed by farmers for their plight of not being the wealthiest people on the planet and poison and shoot them all.
There are some farmers who are exceptions to this barbarism, but not many. All point back to generally, their English ancestors who like in the Lord of the Rings tore down forests to create something more ugly, but better suited to the introduced animals that they wanted to husband
This place we live is special now. We have pulled together the things we love and at first pulled together the things we thought we loved and then jettisoned the ones we couldn't use, or weren't possible to have round us here, leaving those we love and would endure. That's what makes the place special, it was never about landscape or weather, it was all about having close at hand the interests that we like to pursue and could fit into the natures configuration for this area.
I often muse on why people go on holiday, if they go to all the trouble and expense of buying land and building, generally a large home, and then leave it each year and dread coming back off their holiday, what value does it have to them other than a status symbol in a society that has lost the understanding of value.
The old chestnuts come out, of having a stable family life for the kids, yet it entails both parents working more hours than is wise, never seeing their kids or the house [dream home] as they strive to get enough money to pay the mortgage, the child minder, pay for the holiday that they love. Which takes them away from their dream home into another place where they argue with their kids. They should have bought the long term holiday rather than the house and land.
Their is a certain madness in humanity. People generally have no idea how to seek out the things they really want, and not just show off to everyone but from which to create a meaningful sustainable lifestyle.
I am reminded of the farmer who rang the the agribusiness extension officer and said that he wanted to know of ways to be able to make more money from his land. The extension officer asked if that was really the idea. He was assured it was the thing this farmer wanted. A visit to the farm by the extension officer was arranged.
The day arrived and the extension officer sat the farmer down and asked again if making more money from his property was what the farmer wanted and was again assured this to be the case. So they discussed the farm and the extension officer said that he would now have to look around the property to be able to make suggestions.
The first paddock they came to had grass aplenty and as high as the bellies of the few sheep that were grazing in it. The extension officer said to the farmer I can increase the production of this paddock alone by about 5 fold just from the look of it here. That simply by increasing the stocking rate to what it is at least five times as the the sheep are over fat and there is too much grass not being utilised. The farmer looked at his adviser in horror, “Oh no, I couldn't do that he said. I want my next door neighbour to look over our dividing fence and say, “look at all the fat sheep and the long grass that man has. He is a great farmer”.
It's the same as the wool grower who wants to have the wool bales only filled to the minimum weight, so he can tell his cronies at the pub how many bales of wool he cut off his acreage. To fill them as heavily as allowed would halve the amount of bales, would halve his cartage costs and halve his wool store/auction costs, but that didn't matter to him.
Do we really want to become sustainable or do we just want to be seen to be living sustainably and have everyone admire us for our commitment? It's easy for us, because we have made the decision commitment for just about all our lives. We would have had a lower footprint had I stayed travelling maybe, but it would need some figuring out to see if that's actually true.
In Australia, there is a conflict with all wildlife that moves, all animals that do not produce meat, wool or any product in demand by human beings. All creatures that are outside the farming system that has been developed here are blamed by farmers for their plight of not being the wealthiest people on the planet and poison and shoot them all.
There are some farmers who are exceptions to this barbarism, but not many. All point back to generally, their English ancestors who like in the Lord of the Rings tore down forests to create something more ugly, but better suited to the introduced animals that they wanted to husband
The Best Place:
In my youth, from the age of 14 years I travelled and there were many places that I loved living, even if it was only for a short time, but by the time I reached my early 30's suddenly realised that every place I ever lived was good. That none were better than any other, and we ended up the mountains that some people couldn't stand, because of the winding narrow roads leading in and out. Mountains instead of a desert as it is mostly known, with drifting dunes and otherwise flat land and gibba plains.This place we live is special now. We have pulled together the things we love and at first pulled together the things we thought we loved and then jettisoned the ones we couldn't use, or weren't possible to have round us here, leaving those we love and would endure. That's what makes the place special, it was never about landscape or weather, it was all about having close at hand the interests that we like to pursue and could fit into the natures configuration for this area.
I often muse on why people go on holiday, if they go to all the trouble and expense of buying land and building, generally a large home, and then leave it each year and dread coming back off their holiday, what value does it have to them other than a status symbol in a society that has lost the understanding of value.
The old chestnuts come out, of having a stable family life for the kids, yet it entails both parents working more hours than is wise, never seeing their kids or the house [dream home] as they strive to get enough money to pay the mortgage, the child minder, pay for the holiday that they love. Which takes them away from their dream home into another place where they argue with their kids. They should have bought the long term holiday rather than the house and land.
Their is a certain madness in humanity. People generally have no idea how to seek out the things they really want, and not just show off to everyone but from which to create a meaningful sustainable lifestyle.
I am reminded of the farmer who rang the the agribusiness extension officer and said that he wanted to know of ways to be able to make more money from his land. The extension officer asked if that was really the idea. He was assured it was the thing this farmer wanted. A visit to the farm by the extension officer was arranged.
The day arrived and the extension officer sat the farmer down and asked again if making more money from his property was what the farmer wanted and was again assured this to be the case. So they discussed the farm and the extension officer said that he would now have to look around the property to be able to make suggestions.
The first paddock they came to had grass aplenty and as high as the bellies of the few sheep that were grazing in it. The extension officer said to the farmer I can increase the production of this paddock alone by about 5 fold just from the look of it here. That simply by increasing the stocking rate to what it is at least five times as the the sheep are over fat and there is too much grass not being utilised. The farmer looked at his adviser in horror, “Oh no, I couldn't do that he said. I want my next door neighbour to look over our dividing fence and say, “look at all the fat sheep and the long grass that man has. He is a great farmer”.
It's the same as the wool grower who wants to have the wool bales only filled to the minimum weight, so he can tell his cronies at the pub how many bales of wool he cut off his acreage. To fill them as heavily as allowed would halve the amount of bales, would halve his cartage costs and halve his wool store/auction costs, but that didn't matter to him.
Do we really want to become sustainable or do we just want to be seen to be living sustainably and have everyone admire us for our commitment? It's easy for us, because we have made the decision commitment for just about all our lives. We would have had a lower footprint had I stayed travelling maybe, but it would need some figuring out to see if that's actually true.
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