[len garden]

On Tue, 25 Sep 2007 22:32:23 +0100, JakeD
wrote:

jake

snipped

Point taken, Len. I totally agree that complete self-sufficiency must
be close to impossible and undoubtedly not much fun! I was thinking
more along the lines of needing to be much more self-sufficint that I
am at present. At the very least, not reliant on supermarkets and
such. Ted Trainer wrote, somewhe

to me it is more reality to say "self-reliant" or "self-supplementry"
plus they are achievable in various levels, just keeping it in
realisitic terms.

" We must develop as much self-sufficiency as we reasonably can at the
national level, meaning less trade, at the household level, and
especially at the neighbourhood, suburban, town and local regional
level. We need to convert our presently barren suburbs into thriving
regional economies which produce most of what they need from local
resources."

the community needs to come back to working as a community, and mange
our use of resources in the home so that the target of sustainability
can be achieved to some degree, over here the current gov'
indoctrinated trend s to encourage people to buy the smallest sized
tank to gain the maximum rebate and that is what is happenng and now
the administrator can see that crunching numbers does not work in
reality those small tnaks now sunbsidised by tax payer funds are doing
almost nought to help conserve water.

it is somewhat pleasing now but 18 months after the scheme began to
see more and more larger more usable cpacity tanks being delivered,
still not enough around us we have businesses who have acres and acres
of tanks stored all are those little low capacity tanks.

and here in the modern yuppy ville called suburbia the young home
onwers just have a modicom of a display type garden and though their
yards are smallish they keep most of it under lawn with no effort to
grow any sort of food.

most don't use their grey water very few do for keeping that lawn lush
looking, and most don't have water tanks, they do sneek their vehicles
into their back yards so they can wash them down out of sight
something they aren't supposed to do. old/modern indoctrinated habits
are dying very hard

snipped

snipped

Nicely-done website, with plenty of substance, thanks; I will be
revisiting that one!

With peace and brightest of blessings,

thanks jake

Likewise..

JD
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

[Chookie]

In article ,
len garden wrote:

no pics of current house as there is nothing inspirational in this
regular macmansion inefficient design to talk to others about, plenty
of pics of these type homes online on home builder web sites.

BUT with heaps of them around, it would be nice to see what could be done to
make them better. Choko vines or bananas up the western side, for example.
And also to see what you could do in terms of growing food in a small and not
necessarily ideal plot. There are plenty of inner-city people who are nowhere
near self-sufficient, but still have a lemon tree, lots of herbs, tomatoes etc
grown organically.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

[len garden]

g'day chookie,

what is needed is a complete rethink on home design, and currently
design is pushed by the indoctrinated yuppie design that is currently
still evolving and getting more and more un-sustainable each year.
first they had compoulsory dishwashers, then insinkerators, then
micro-waves as well and now the latest trend is full air-con' on top
of all the above.

we need simpler homes that work efficiently in their own right and
these homes are also very affordable for new & older players in the
home buying market, at the stage we built that it was cheaper than
those throw them up prefabs on stumps littel more than cabins 6mm X
10M with crampy littel rooms and no efficiencies.

we need to build on correctly aspected land and leave the other land
for the habitat.

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:33:19 +1000, Chookie
wrote:
snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

[Chookie]

In article ,
len garden wrote:

we need simpler homes that work efficiently in their own right and
these homes are also very affordable for new & older players in the
home buying market, at the stage we built that it was cheaper than
those throw them up prefabs on stumps littel more than cabins 6mm X
10M with crampy littel rooms and no efficiencies.

Al very true, but remediating McMansions is also going to be an important part
of our future, unless they fall down as fast as some older builders are
suggesting they will (is yours out of plumb yet?). Don't let city life dull
your eco-warrior edge -- see what you *can* do!

Go on, I dare ya!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

http://chookiesbackyard.blogspot.com/

[len garden]

g'day chookie,

it is on a slab so it will look good for a long time yet
(unfortunately), all families deserve the right to own their own home
ok there isn't much we can do about the speculative grab and rise of
land values but we can do lots to build affordable housing for
families.

just saw this morning on the real estate watch dog BLOG that either in
Sydney or Melbourne r.e agents now sell lists of homes for sale to
prospective buyers, something in the order of $5000 for the list.

snipped
With peace and brightest of blessings,

len & bev

--
"Be Content With What You Have And
May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In
A World That You May Not Understand."

http://www.lensgarden.com.au/

[FarmI]

"Chookie" wrote in message

Al very true, but remediating McMansions is also going to be an important
part
of our future, unless they fall down as fast as some older builders are
suggesting they will (is yours out of plumb yet?).

When we bought our first home in the late 60s, the lenght of time that spec
builders were estimating for the 'life' of the houses they built was 80
years. Recently I read somewhere that this time had now dropped to 30
years. Seems like a lot of money to pay for something that is going to last
for less time than some of the old cars we own.

[doramider7]

Originally Posted by JakeD

On Sat, 22 Sep 2007 23:16:09 -0400, Gerald
wrote:

More on this list server it seems:


Maybe because it's simpler...my GF subscribes to the listserver, but
she can't figure out newsgroups.

Gerald,
Thanks for the lead. I've never used mailing lists much in the past,
having always prefered the way newsgroups work. However, I must
subscribe to the one above and give it a try. ..not that I have much
to offer; I am really a beginner, seeking to widen my knowledge.

Regards,

JD

That's unfortunate. I think that can happen in just about any ng,
depending on who gets involved. I've abandoned a few in the past.