I think we were all somewhat disappointed in the 2010 election campaign in Australia. These days campaigns seem to be fought on irrational fears rather than candidates and parties standing up for things that matter, and sticking to it over time. As excited as I am to live in a time when we have our first female Prime Minister in this country, we are lacking real leadership across the political arena. What is required are leaders who will take on issues that require long term commitments and who are willing to hold to these commitment whilst in power, even if it means they won’t be re-elected. In the absence of this, our children’s future will be sold out to politcal ambition. Whilst this short termsim isn’t new, it has never been more damaging as the issues of sustainability become so critical. We can no longer take for granted that there will always be enough food, enough water, enough land, enough energy, enough fuel, enough clean air, enough time. We need real leadership now more than ever before, in families, in businesses, in neighbourhoods, in cities, in governments and on the global stage. We need to question the concept of continual growth in a world of limited resources – where is the growth coming from exactly? If there are gains in one part of our world, are there not losses in others?
These are the issues facing 21st century leaders and thus far, we don’t seem to be up to the challenge. Each one of us needs to do better.
Learning about swales
Mulberries over the arbour
Bountiful gardens in small spaces
Tomorrow is National Permaculture Day. I first heard about permaculture over a year ago when I read a beautiful book by Jenny Allen called Paradise in Your Garden. Its full of stunning photos of her garden and the edible oasis she has created. That book inspired the slow and continuing conversion of our small surburban garden to a place that delivers food for our table. Its given me such pleasure to find out what tomatoes are supposed to taste like, to learn how capsicums grow and to watch the mardarins ripen on the tree outside our kitchen window. But this journey was a solo one until until, thanks to www.livelocal.org.au, I discovered there are permaculture clubs right across Sydney. So I joined one. Two weekends ago I did an Introduction to Permaculture course and learnt about how to capture and utilise the water that falls onto our property, to create guilds of plants that will support each other growth and negate the need for chemical fertilisers and I also found out why my worm farm wasn’t much chop. I’ve loved learning about ways that I can make a sustainable difference literally in my own backyard.
But what I wasn’t expecting was to find a thriving local community. I joined Permaculture Sydney North and the local branch is here on the northnern beaches. In preparation for National Permaculture Day, several of the members have been readying their gardens to be open houses, allowing the public to come in and see what’s possible in a normal back yard. On of the members of our local club who offered her home as an open house had to have surgery and couldn’t do the preparation she had wanted to do. So last Saturday, seven permaculture club members went over and spent four hours getting everything ready; planting up new beds, trimming back trees and basically working hard. A few nights later, just as everything was starting to look great, rats raided the garden by chewing a hole in the fence and destroyed everything. Within 24 hours, the club members had rallied to share their seedlings and come around at the crack of dawn on National Permaculture Day (so the rats wouldn’t have a second bite of the cherry) and redo all the planting.
When I lived in Africa, I learnt the value of community and how it is only friendships and these social networks that keep you strong. You can have insurance policies, risk management frameworks, or even wire fences but when bad things happen, its your friends and neighbours that help make a heavy burden light. Building and investing in community is the best insurance policy there is.
We got ourselves some chickens towards the end of last year as part of our effort to live more sustainably. We were thinking of fresh eggs and compost. What we weren’t expecting was characters. My friends think I’ve gone a little nutty as I now like to talk about the chickens and what they get up to. Well, quite frankly, I do, and mostly because they are such a surprise packet. So let me bend your ear a little about chickens, ours in particular. We got ourselves three chickens, which was all the stock that our local nursery, New Leaf, had left. I had read chickens are very socialable animals and three is the minimum recommended number to keep. Trick was, I read this just before going to get them, so where Shaun was expecting to come home to two new chickens, he found three. No real surprises there though, as Shaun knows me well enough to know that when I do something, I like to go in boots and all. So I think eyes might have rolled, but he quickly moved on.
Chaba and I then tasked ourselves with the all important job of naming said chickens. So we sat and watched them mill around for about an hour as we discussed our options. We came to the conclusion that a themed naming approach would be appropriate, so we considered cities we’d travelled to, cities we wanted to travel to but ultimately landed on one of our favourite things – ice cream flavours. You can tell Shaun wasn’t within earshot of this decision making process, as he is no great ice cream fan. So once that was decided, we watched them for a little longer to see what characteristics revealed themselves (we mustn’t have had much to do that afternoon). Chaba’s favourite flavour is chocolate, so he jumped the gun and said one had to be called Chochie and promptly chose the one he could easily identify, as it was a lighter colour, and claimed it as his own. So then we focused on differentiating the other two seemingly identical birds. As we watched them, we noticed that one was very laid back and cool in her approach to life, not rushing in get all the seed but assessing the situation first. So we named her after my favourite ice cream flavour – mango. That left the other chicken, who we decided then had to be Shaun’s (poor Shaun, he really shouldn’t have left the yard as these big decisions were unfolding). She was bossy and bull at a gate and working very hard to establish herself as the queen of the roost. Shaun would probably argue that it sounds a lot like me, in fact, and Mango’s character more like his own. Anyway, Chaba felt that Rocky (aka Rocky Road but probably more akin to the famous boxer) was the perefect name for this chicken and so we were done.
We were initially timid chicken owners, having built a small run and letting them out of the coop to roam the length and breadth of their six square metre domain. Then one afternoon, soft touch that I am, I thought they should have a little evening stroll around the entire front garden. That first twilight meander passed without incident, so we gave them two hours of freedom the following afternoon and so on. On the fourth day, the mild mannered, seemingly content Mango made a run for it. Unbeknowns to us, she had been biding her time and digging a small tunnel under the fence. When we weren’t looking, she slipped through and made her way to visit the chicken that lives two doors down. It was then we realised that the movie Chicken Run, was in fact a documentary.
The chickens now are permanent free rangers (we eventually solved the fence issue after Mango made three more successful escape bids, once showing up at our front door) and so when we arrive at the gate with a bucket of grain or garden scraps, they come bolting over, full of hope. But it is the way they move that reminds me of Chicken Run every time. They spread their wings and labour side to side as if they way 200 pounds, taking great and purposeful steps towards the incoming treats. Its quite a sight and almost worth putting a video capability on this blog site just to show you. What also amazes me is how eternally optimistic they are. We can bring them a big bowl of the best kitchen scaps this side of Masterchef and they will abandon the feast and race after you one you’ve place it down, just in case some even more scrumptusous taste awaits. Even if I’m jsut moving around the garden, putting their poo under the lemon tree or watering the spinach, they cluster around my feet at every step, racing forward to meet each footfall in the hope of something better. Where do they get this sense of possibility from?? Day after day its the same. They get their food first and then we move on to other duties; cleaning the water, picking up some fallen braches, collecting the eggs. Yet they never fail to follow, searching our hands for hidden treats. They’ve lept up and had a go at why wedding ring a few times, but have come away disappointed.
A few weeks ago, Rocky somehow fell off the perch as queen of the roost. Our theory is that Mango has become the outstanding performer in the yard, sometimes laying two eggs a day and somehow lords this over Rocky and Chochie. Not only was Rocky no longer the first to muscle in on the kitchen scraps when they hit the grass, she was even expelled from the coop. We found her one night tucked away next to one of the raised veggie beds, hidden in the grass. We checked on her for a few nights and it seemed to be her new evening abode, so we put a little roof on the spot to keep the dew off and she seemed happy enough. During the day, she kept to herself a bit, which is unusual for a chicken, socialites that they are. Then four days ago, she cut from the crew all together, slipped through the side gate somehow and wandered up into the back graden where our two cocker spaniels, Cleo and Toby, live. I will spare you the details, but I’m very sad to report we only now have to flavours of ice cream roaming the front yard. I was probably disproportionally distressed by her death, but I’m missing her still.
Each year, Chaba spends the summers back in South Africa. Six weeks without him leaves a hole for us, but we believe its important for him to stay connected to family, culture and language . What we weren’t expecting is that it would create a perspective that would allow him to see the richness in his life. He recently commented on how lucky he is, with so much family that loves him (on two continents), wonderful friends, a great home and community. Imagine our surprise.
Many people have asked me whether Chaba’s history has meant he is divided between two countries, two cultures, never feeling fully part of either. I feel he has somehow learned to move easily between both parts of his life and his identity, and by not holding things too tightly, has created something that is more than either one. His gratitude and persective have become some kind of yeast.
So for me, as someone with one foot in the future, always striving for what comes next, my son has become my teacher.
Posted February 5th, 2010. Add a comment
The first week back at work after the Christmas holidays are always a challenge. For me, this year’s challenge was about not diving in head first and trying to take everything on in the first five minutes. My tendency, as readers of the book will know, is to pack it in. With the “life’s short” belief floating in the back of my mind, I always try to get as much done as humanly possible but the downside is extreme fatigue come Christmas each year. In the last few years, I’ve felt very overwhelmed about going back to work in January, unsure if I would be able to keep up the same pace. Thankfully this year, we had a very relaxing holiday without that nagging doubt. In the past twelve months, I’ve moved into a role I really love, which is the perfect alignment of my values and behaviours. A friend of mine quotes an unknown wise soul who says that “stress is the mismatch between your values and your actions”, so when you’re feeling stressed, its not as simply as going through a difficult time, or working too hard; there is a mismatch somewhere. So whilst 2009 was a very busy year, there was a real alignment between my personal values and what I got to do each day which resulted in much less stress, despite the long hours.
So as I head back to work this year, there was none of the usual dread, which was such a refreshing change. So the environment has changed, allowing better alignment, and now the other thing to change is me. So my resolution this year is to leave some things to tomorrow, or even next week, and have a bit more balance in the day to day. Now that I’m working back in the not-for-profit sector, the temptation is to keep saying yes to things, as each thing makes a positive difference. So I need to remember that I can say yes, but that doesn’t have to mean yes I’ll do it today (that and a thousand other things), but yes, it can be done in the future. And I will have to throw a few no’s in there whilst I’m at it.
So putting my resolution in writing will hopefully keep me honest. The first week back has been a resounding success. Long may it last! But the best thing about my first week back was collecting Chaba from the airport after six weeks in South Africa visiting Teboho and the rest of the family. It’s so nice to have him home.
Posted January 16th, 2010. Add a comment
