"0tterbot" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote in message

What have you found mystifying?

innumerable things they have done!
it's nonsensical.

It isn't, but we aren"t going to convince you of that.

it IS! (the previous residents ["permie me, la la la"] , that is, not
necessarily permaculture as a whole). for e.g. they wrote in their farm
report how they located the chooks in the orchard (excellent, no problem
there) but didn't explain why they put the run in a far-off corner equally
distant from two taps but close to neither. (nor why they planted
raspberries & an apple tree IN there with the chickens where the chooks
destroy them, etc). or why they planted all the trees so close (i know
some people are into close planting & that's fine cos i am too, but a
hazlenut & a fig literally a metre apart? i think not!!) i could go on &
on. everything from paths to fences to trees and everything in between has
been put in places i cannot fathom. there's a row of jonquils 100m long in
a straight line. we have had to cut down so many trees in the yard (due to
being located either dangerously, ridiculously, or unable to grow) that
it's disturbing to us. they installed leaky hose in the orchard at great
expense but for nothing, as relatively little (it appears) survived the
2.5-odd years between them & us when the place was a weekender (& hence
mostly neglected) even though the drought here was not so bad & there's no
real reason things should have died like that had they been well-placed
originally. i would note that the raspberries in teh chook run survived
(until i got more chooks, that is) yet their blueberries etc put in at
(again) great expense & with a great deal of "planning" (cough) didn't.
many fruit trees just didn't. for all the work they did (which was
apparently considerable - soil testing & surveys over the entire property,
etc etc) they haven't left anything anyone would want - it didn't last.
only the misplaced infrastructure has!!

now this is fine, but it behooves a person who's achieved nothing of much
use not to brag about how permie they are when all they've done is made a
mess.

Yep. But talk is cheap. Perhaps you have heard of the expression "all hat,
no farm"?

I make bobbin lace and managed to find some lace making books in a second
hand shop. I showed my teacher and she wondered who had sold them (this
being a very small world of lace makers). We scratched the white out off
where the name was hidden and found out who the previous owner had been. My
teacher harrumphed mightily and told me how this woman's (non lacing making)
friends all said what a wonderful lacemaker she was but when questioned it
turned out that no-one had ever seen anything she'd produced or could recall
ever actually seeing her at her pillows making lace. But she certainly had
spent a fortune on imported pillows and wonderful books.

Some people are just full of shit.

but i reserve most of my rage for the tool who built the house. if i ever
find HIM he's getting a punch in the nose ;-)

and as a final word on the ninnies who've been living chez-moi in the
past, i offer the following: our entire property is on a slope, which is
particularly steep on the west side of the house. nobody in the 20-30
years of the house's existence has ever, ever thought to put in a trench
to stop water flooding the house every time it rains. as a consequence,
the house flooded literally every time it rained (we found out later). dh
spent all of a couple of hours digging two shallow trenches around the
western side & we've not had a drop come into the house, but we still have
termite damage from the termites that came to eat the rotting wood because
nobody in the past that lived here had enough functioning brain cells to
just dig a ****ing trench!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well they do sound like a lot of idiots. Anyone who has ever been camping
knows that about siting a tent!

/end rant, rests case

:-)) But you didn't even make a case! Presumably they SAID that they were
permaculturals but that doens't meant ehy were. I could say that I am a
brain surgeon but it doesn't make me one.

The proof is always in the pudding.

I'll bet if Chookie
and I came to your place to do am inspection, we'd find lots of permie
ideas which you said were your own idea and not gained from any permie
doco, they just made sense to you and that's why you did them.

i'd say in a year or two when i've relocated everything you'll be quite
impressed (i hope ;-) but i daresay atm you'd be scratching your head as
hard as i do on a regular basis.

Probably.

To me, permaculture design has always just been common sense. I once lent
my big permie design manual to a friend who has been a farmer for about 60
years and when I got it back, I asked him what he thought. His response was
"Not much, it's all just common sense". And I'd have to agree with him on
most of that. He is in such a habit of observing what is going on around
his farm, that to him it IS all common sense but a lot of people (and
especially non country people) aren't like that, they have to told and shown
and know what they are seeing and then ask why. It's a lot harder if you
don't grow up on the land.

i have read a new book - "back from the brink" by peter andrews. i was
very impressed! have you read it?

No but I'd like to. It's on my list of "to buys" but I can't buy anything
more till I get rid of some of the stuff I already have stuffed in this over
stuffed house.

What were you impressed by?