"Chookie" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote:

Truth be told, there are probably too many people in Sydney who
don't 'think about things' because they are trying to keep their
heads
above (metaphorical) water of some kind. I work in TAFE and I
see these
people.

You mean you have such things as TAFEs within easy access?

THere is actually a TAFE in my suburb, but I don't work there. I
have a
45-min drive through Sydney traffic to get to mine... is that 'easy
access'?
:-)

Well perhaps you should have tried to get a job in the TAFE closer to
home :-))

Of course all of Sydney is not posh but at least it has such
things as
hospitals and schools and police stations and all sorts of other
services. On a platter.

Most large (and even small) country towns will have those things.
You must be
pretty remote if you don't have a TAFE within reach.

Within reach of course but not as close as within anything equating to
your suburb. And the nearest one shut down its rural studies and that
is now a good hour and a half away at 100 kms/hr.

The city people are very busy and talk lots (and
that is even the ones I know and love) but they really don't
observe
too well. Too many fleeting glimpses or thoughts and not enough
cogitation before saying or half thinking about soemthing before
heading off to the next social engagement or need for busyness.

shrug
You can find that anywhere. One of my online friends from rural
SA -- a
district with maybe 1000 people in it -- mentioned a relative who
seems to be
all style and no substance.

That comment instantly brought to mind a woman who moved here from
Mosman. :-)) We all reckon that she'll be off like a shot to the city
again when her husband drops dead. She has brought style to her house
though.

With two small boys, I'm perhaps a bit lacking in the social
engagements dept.
It's funny getting the Herald 'subscriber benefits' e-mail. Gosh,
I'm missing
out on dinner with Lord Wedgwood this time. Or should I say *he* is
missing
out on dinner with *me*?!

Defintitely the latter. Much more interesting than the normal toadies
I'd expect.

The question is: what did they DO about it? For example,
farmers
were still *clearing* the WA wheat area in the 1920s. The
plantings/
earthworks I saw were, I would estimate, ten years old. Bit of
a gap there.

Yes, I agree. But to solve dryland salinity and all sorts of
other
land related problems is not one where a quick solution or rushing
in
and doing anything and/or everything will always work. It was
many
years before it was found that the way to treat erosion was to
treat
the head of the erosion and not the body of the erosion.

Not only that -- you have to find the limits of your solution, eg
you might
find a solution that is fine in terms of your own climate/soil etc,
but it
might not be appropriate elsewhere. And the information has to be
passed
around and retested, too.

Yeah. Pity one size doesn't fit all every time. It'd make life
easier.

Chookie wrote:

THere is actually a TAFE in my suburb, but I don't work there. I have a
45-min drive through Sydney traffic to get to mine... is that 'easy access'?
:-)

Is there a TAFE teacher who doesn't have that?
I think someone in management decided it is essential if you want to
keep your jobs (from what I've seen in the last few years).


Most large (and even small) country towns will have those things. You must be
pretty remote if you don't have a TAFE within reach. Bourke and Coomealla
have TAFEs! And TAFE is in reach of everyone via OTEN.

Have you ever examined an OTEN course? If you can not drive/travel to a
TAFE, there are exceedingly few courses that you can finish. I will be
only able to do 3/8 of my current course through OTEN.

"Chookie" wrote in message
"0tterbot" wrote:

i don't know what people might mean by that. ime city peeps are
just as
friendly as country peeps & i'm unsure where the idea comes from
that cities
are "unfriendly" (if it's about "friendliness" & that sort of
thing). most
country peeps seem much less inclined toward one-upmanship &
jones-keeping-upping & mad consumerism & all that stuff.

Probably that...

I read a comment today from someone who returned from living in the
city to live in the country. That person said: "City people stand too
close, if I can smell you, you're too close". Perhaps you don't stand
in people's space.

"Chookie" wrote in message
"0tterbot" wrote:

- i've read 3 permaculture books so far & i'm just not
GETTING IT. what's the goss on that? :-)
snip
perhaps it's just mollison et al's appalling writing style. it was
like the
books had no beginning or end, it was all just bla.

i just sort of feel robbed - as though i was supposed to have
"aha!" moments
reading about this marvellous movement but it was all babble,
politics (and
slopes and windbreaks ;-) and the intense and repetitive way mr
mollison
wants us all to CONTROL our land rather freaks me out. most of my
property
is regenerating bushland. big bill is evidently of the opinion i
should sell
most of it, as it is too big for me to CONTROL.

Sounds like you missed out on the Permaculture Design Manual and
(IIRC)
Permaculture One. The Earth User's Guide to Permaculture (by
Rosemary Morrow)
is quite accessible and better written than the others.

I don't like the books of Rosemary Morrow that I've seen. I've got
one and never go near it.

Permaculture is agriculture for engineers. It looks at ways of
saving energy
rather than money. For example, my chooks are at present living
under my
lemon tree. They have removed the grass that was competing with the
tree
roots, spread mulch, and added fertiliser to the area. There are
other ways
to achieve the same results, but this is an energy-efficient one.

The idea is to consider inputs and outputs and see how you can make
things
work for you with a minimum amount of effort. Soil characteristics
are
definitely an input. I think they are covered in PDM.

In my example, my chooks need as inputs: a run to scratch in, green
stuff to
eat, and shade. They produce scratched-up ground, eggs, and poo.
The lemon
tree needs: the grass removed from its roots, nitrogenous
fertiliser, and
water. It provides: lemons and shade. (This list is not
exhaustive, of
course.) Therefore I arrange matters so that the chooks and lemon
tree
provide some of each other's needs *without my further
intervention*. THAT is
"control".

The rest is broad conclusions and sample technique.

Not a bad summation.

0tterbot wrote:

what i'm trying to say is that definitions of "unviable" might be a bit
limited - in settling on the definition, i'd hope that not only
"traditional" farming is considered. anything can be farmed, it's just a
question of where, when, and how!

Well, theoretically, all land is viable, but practically it is often
easier and a far side cheaper to just movwe elsewhere {:-).


My formal first farming lesson was about another sort of viability. At
one stage in NSW, rockmelons were a luxury and fetched high prices. So
someone worked out that he could very easily grow, well a plane load at
Broken Hill and fly them to the Sydney Markets and sell them at massive
profits. Great Idea, What eventually transpired was that when the plane
load hit the markets, there was a major glut and he lost very badly.

"Terryc" wrote in message
0tterbot wrote:

personally, i don't think there's such a thing as "unviable" land
in & of
itself -

The general adjective is farming and basically land meets this
criteria
when it can not be farmed in a sustainable way, i.e. you are
generally
degrading the land over time.

Or using inputs that degrades other land.

The old expression of "keep 10 sheep to the acre, until you can keep
10 sheep to the acre" sums that philosophy up very well.

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message

again, just because most of them
don't rely
on rainfall to make a living does not make the awareness any less
acute.
(snip)

Well they know is a very, very limited sense.

well, "know" is a word with various meanings. (and then there's the
biblical
sense! but let's not go there.) it really only sounds like you are
cross
with them because they experience the effects of drought too but
don't
suffer.

How do they experience the effects of drought? You continue to claim
that city dwellers "experience the effects of drought" and have an
"acute" awareness of the drought. How?

And that sense is that
they are now talking of the need to get MORE water for Sydney.
And
taking it from further and further way, like the Shoalhaven River.
The bloody Shoalhaven for God's sake!

are you mistaking the iemma govt's machinations for what literally
everyone
in sydney wants?

So can you produce any cites that indicate that Sydny siders don't
want to take water from the Shoalhaven?

And frankly I'm equally amazed at your inability to take on board
refe
rences given to enable you to do some research and that may
challenge
your generalisations (you can even access then online so don't
even
have to inconvenience yourself by going outside) .

let's not be snarky.

Now you add "snarky" to "combative". Pot, kettle, black comes to mind
for some strange reason.

why am i not allowed to speak generally, but you're allowed not only
to
generalise wildly but also think your generalisations count for
more?

I've posted generalisations and you've posted generalisations. I
haven't said you can't post them but I have to admit that the stream
of consciousness posts don't work for me. I'd like you to stick to
some facts or at least post in some structured way so I don't have to
hunt so hard to figure out where you're headed in all that verbage.

Really? I particulalry enjoyed the one about:
"city peeps are generally better-educated and have a much broader
view
of the
world, their world is just bigger than ours is"

Such a generalisation really surprised me.

clearly. you're having a great deal of trouble getting over it, i
see.

No, just irritated at your general tone. And the fact that you don't
even recognise when your own words are used right back at you.

city
people are, proportionately, better educated (this partly includes
people
who left rural areas _in order to receive_ more education not
available in
their area). not least because educational facilities tend to be
concentrated in cities, where many small country towns don't even
have a
high school, never mind a tafe or a uni or any private adult ed. for
example, amongst others:
http://ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter6.html
While retention rates for secondary school students, particularly
girls, are
increasing, these numbers differ when examined geographically. That
is,
students in remote and regional areas are more likely than those in
cities
to face problems of access and limited choice as they aim to
complete their
education. Residents of regional and remote Australia have
consistently had
lower rates of attendance in the non-compulsory years 11 and 12 of
school
and at non-school education institutions than city residents.
5
Evidence from Haberkorn et. al. indicated that in 1996, average
school
attendance rates of 16 year olds in non-capital city Australia were
below
those for capital city Australia (76 per cent and 83 per cent
respectively).
Attendance rates had remained stable over time, increasing only 0.6
per cent
across Australia between 1991 and 1996. However, in non-capital city
areas,
there was a decline of 0.6 per cent in this period.6

According to Collins et al., in 1996 rural girls were only five per
cent
less likely to complete school than urban girls, but the chances of
rural
boys completing school were 11 per cent less than for urban boys.
Girls and
boys in remote areas were both noticeably more unlikely to complete
school
than their urban counterparts: 19 per cent and 16 per cent
respectively'.7

Haberkorn et. al. found a negative relationship between the
proportion of 16
year olds in school and the degree of remoteness. However, some care
needs
to be taken in interpreting this as people aged 16 who grew up in
remote
areas may have left home to continue their education.8

Ah some fact at last! Not consistently logical throughout but better
than the usual stream of consciousness stuff.

I know I get to the Opera
House more often than my city rels do now that the ballet dancer
has
ended her career (and they only went to see her anyway, not a
range of
things) and I am always amazed at how busy my city friend and rels
are
but how little they actually use the benefits of the city. The
routine of daily living for them is much more restrictive on their
lifestyle than it is for the country people I know. They go to
more
restaurants and movies but not to do anything useful in a cultural
or
educative sense - just much more social. Lots of talk but no
meat.

And when it comes to education, my (country born and bred and
working)
Mechanic has 2 degrees and he's not the only country person I know
who
has such surprising qualifications behind his rough exterior. I
also
get a particular kick out of the very traditonal sheep farmer I
know
who looks like a total hay seed and lives in the deep deep country
but
who has a PhD (thesis was on sheep).


what has this to do with anything?

Nothing, but then that is the whole point. Your posts contain exactly
the same irrelevances.

how often your rellies go to the opera,
or how many hicks you know with phds, is really not relevent to
anything i
said. if you cannot see the obviousness of a statement entailing 1:
a
literal truth (that city peeps are more likely to be better
educated -
they're also healthier & slimmer - do you want to argue about that
too?) and
2: that the outside world is a great deal closer to, and interacted
with, a
person who lives in a very big, international city which contains
every
imaginable type of person from literally everywhere on earth, living
cheek
by jowl in every imaginable economic and family situation, then i
really
can't help you. if i want to fly to beirut or london or marrakesch
tomorrow,
i think i have to go to SYDNEY first, don't you? that's the
literality of
it. the figurative element is what is gained by meeting & working
with &
living amongst more people, with different experiences, and having
further
access to more of those people and experiences should one wish. i
moved to
the city from the country at 17 & believe you me, it was a real
eye-opener.
i make my claims from experience & in good faith, but even so, it's
hardly
worth arguing about.

And I make my claims based on my experience and in good faith too.

i'm NOT saying "the city is better" or "country people are all dumb"
or
anything LIKE that. i'm making some observations which you've
decided to get
completely off-side about, for absolutely NO reason i can fathom.
what's the
problem??!

I'm off side but you aren't. I have a problem but you don't. I see a
problem with that even if you don't.

Farm1 wrote:
"Terryc" wrote in message

Chookie wrote:


I don't see why Sydney people wouldn't be able to put up with

that,

Umm, where are you gong to shit?


Shades of the Florida Superdome all over again. With any luck they'll
have a lidded bucket.

They sell those in camping shops now. I'll just seelte for another 20L
drum and a plastic toilet seat over a hole you know where.

I'm touch and go as to whether I night soil is that great a benefit to
the garden. Lol, our ruburb might start to smell like it did when the
effluent ponds at the pig farm 25kms away played up.

Farm1 wrote:


How do they experience the effects of drought? You continue to claim
that city dwellers "experience the effects of drought" and have an
"acute" awareness of the drought. How?

Until we have to collect our water from the water truck, there is no way
city siders have any idea.

In article
,
Terryc wrote:

Most large (and even small) country towns will have those things. You must
be
pretty remote if you don't have a TAFE within reach. Bourke and Coomealla
have TAFEs! And TAFE is in reach of everyone via OTEN.

Have you ever examined an OTEN course? If you can not drive/travel to a
TAFE, there are exceedingly few courses that you can finish. I will be
only able to do 3/8 of my current course through OTEN.

Hmm, that's no good. Did you whinge?

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

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

"Chookie" wrote in message
...

Sounds like you missed out on the Permaculture Design Manual and (IIRC)
Permaculture One. The Earth User's Guide to Permaculture (by Rosemary
Morrow)
is quite accessible and better written than the others.

since that is one i did read (only the third title is now a mystery to me)
clearly i'm not missing much if i never worry about the others ;-)

Permaculture is agriculture for engineers.

AHH. i think in one sentence, you have got to the bottom of the problem!

It looks at ways of saving energy
rather than money. For example, my chooks are at present living under my
lemon tree. They have removed the grass that was competing with the tree
roots, spread mulch, and added fertiliser to the area. There are other
ways
to achieve the same results, but this is an energy-efficient one.

The idea is to consider inputs and outputs and see how you can make things
work for you with a minimum amount of effort.

it's interesting to me that you got this from the books. perhaps you read
better books by people who came later. perhaps you read better than i do.
"minimum amount of effort" did not appear to be anyone's aim in anything i
read. something like "fiddle with absolutely everything according to our
model and leave nothing that was there prior, standing, plant loads of beech
trees, and i certainly hope your block is sloped, young lady!!" is all i got
from them. :-)

Soil characteristics are
definitely an input. I think they are covered in PDM.

In my example, my chooks need as inputs: a run to scratch in, green stuff
to
eat, and shade. They produce scratched-up ground, eggs, and poo. The
lemon
tree needs: the grass removed from its roots, nitrogenous fertiliser, and
water. It provides: lemons and shade. (This list is not exhaustive, of
course.) Therefore I arrange matters so that the chooks and lemon tree
provide some of each other's needs *without my further intervention*.
THAT is
"control".

no it's not, it's perfectly sensible :-)

what would you make of a statement declaring one should not have a property
bigger than a couple of acres, because you would not be able to CONTROL it?
(i freely admit the ordinary person _can't_ really "control" more than a few
hectares - i just can't see what the problem is with that.)

The rest is broad conclusions and sample technique.

what, stuff he thought up that nobody's ever tried?

it's probably just not, in & of itself, my thing, & that's probably why i've
got such an attitude about it. i suspect that the perfectly sensible
elements have become mainstream(ish) and my own attitude, of working with
what is already here, rather than tearing it all down & re-inventing the
wheel, just won't go with 70s style permiculture.

HTH,

it does, but notwithstanding that, my land is sloped all over. big bill
would wet himself with joy!! my windbreaks would bring tears to his eyes!!!
ok i'll stop now, sorry....
:-)
kylie

"Terryc" wrote in message
...
0tterbot wrote:


It isn't obvious to people who don't have a clue and haven't talked or
looked at stuff before.


i'm assuming that people would get a basic grasp of the process

Nope, wrong assumption. Seriously, you have got to meet some of these
people to believe how little they know/knew. It was good for a laugh,
except when some poor animal was suffering.

i did a short course on organic gardening one time - it was based on an
"absolute beginner" level of student, with the (obvious) result that
everyone in the class was amazingly bored for the duration of the entire
course, although our handouts (NOT designed for raw beginners) were very
interesting. logically it seems to me, that one couldn't (or most likely
wouldn't, anyway) be interested in _organic_ gardening if one didn't have
the first idea how to garden by any method in the first place. kwim?

Obviously you are the wrong market.

i think so, but it bothers me when i find something incomprehensible.

Naah, one of the benefits of being able to speed read is to decide if the
book is really worth the $$$ asked. Do not ever trust anyones
recommendation.

i might not trust it exactly, but i'm always interested in it! and then
there's the library, bless.
kylie

"Terryc" wrote in message
...

I'm touch and go as to whether I night soil is that great a benefit to the
garden.

what if it was done during the day... ;-)

anyway, of course it is. it's just more like chook poo - it wants composting
first!
kylie, whose father in law apparently believes that dog poo literally NEVER
breaks down. ummm.....

"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message
...

with them because they experience the effects of drought too but
don't
suffer.

How do they experience the effects of drought? You continue to claim
that city dwellers "experience the effects of drought" and have an
"acute" awareness of the drought. How?

obviously, it doesn't rain enough.

So can you produce any cites that indicate that Sydny siders don't
want to take water from the Shoalhaven?

no, and i'm not looking, either. i'm making the (extremely obvious) point
that the carr/iemma govt is on the nose with everyone by this stage, and
therefore generally speak for nobody in particular - therefore any grand
plan they have for sydney (numerous), should not be assumed to be backed by
the constituents, a majority of the constituents, a minority of the
constituents, nor even necessarily any of the constituents. they're like the
federal liberal (sic) party - they're still there, and yet, seemingly, not a
living soul actually voted for them. how can it be? that's politics for you,
though - and always remember, just because a pollie thought something up
doesn't mean people "want" it or _don't "want" it. it only means a pollie
said it, nothing more.

Now you add "snarky" to "combative". Pot, kettle, black comes to mind
for some strange reason.

did you leave something on the stove?

I've posted generalisations and you've posted generalisations. I
haven't said you can't post them but I have to admit that the stream
of consciousness posts don't work for me. I'd like you to stick to
some facts or at least post in some structured way so I don't have to
hunt so hard to figure out where you're headed in all that verbage.

my babble's "verbiage", actually. g

Ah some fact at last!

and i look forward to some from you, too!! it'll be like a byo barbeque,
only we didn't wait until we got drunk before there was a fistfight in the
car port.

Not consistently logical throughout but better
than the usual stream of consciousness stuff.

well gee - tell that to the authors.

I'm off side but you aren't. I have a problem but you don't. I see a
problem with that even if you don't.

the problem with written communication that really peaks on usenet is that
it's too easy for people to misunderstand oneself or what one said (or one's
"tone"), and then there's the part where people will persistently read
things that aren't even there.

for example, until the other day i thought you were a cheerful young woman.
now i think that's most likely _completely_ wrong, but i can't very well
decide you're a persnickety old grumblebum, because that's most likely just
as wrong. live & let live.
kylie
p.s. you still haven't criticised my lack of capital letters, but it's been
fun anyway. are we finished yet?

0tterbot wrote:

what would you make of a statement declaring one should not have a property
bigger than a couple of acres, because you would not be able to CONTROL it?

True statement, BUT, I really want the extra land to give me noise
reduction so I do not have to hear the neighbours dog, kids cars, lawn
mower, etc, etc, etc

with the exta land you can run cattle of something to improve your tax
lurk. i.e farmer discounts on rates.

Also allows you to but stock cheap and hold until they fit in the
freezer {:-).