In my sketchbook/naturejournal/commonplace book, years and years ago, I noted down that traditional culture is labor-intensive,
industrial-era labor is resource-intensive, while permaculture is intellectually intensive. With permaculture, you have to plan and plan and think and think and research and research to make sure you've considered how every last variable interacts with your goal, and set dozens independent entities in motion so they will take care of things "naturally" or on their own from then on out. That quote came to mind this week while I was scrambling to figure out where to plant what we're finding.
We're mostly scrounging for edible native perennials, taking advantage
of the end-of-season sales, looking for plants to transplant from
abandoned lots and roadsides, trading what resources we do have for what plants are in the places that take such things. That type of scrounging, spending little or nothing, is just my style, my habit. I never think about it. And so it never occurred to me that it might become problematic to approach plant collecting this way.
Today we came home with two baby fig trees that happened to be
available, and I had no idea where to plant them, and it was raining, and they really wanted to be put in the ground right away. That was not my first reminder that this is seriously intense intellectual work, that I have to plan, and be much more careful than I can be when I am creating, saying, batiks, because I found some white fabric while trash picking and a friend offered me leftover paint in exchange for a tutorial. That sort of spontaneity, no problem. Permacultural planting is turning out to be way trickier.
Italian honey figs get to be about 15 feet tall. They're self-fertilizing,
unlike most figs, so we don't have to worry about whether we got males
or females. That's great since I have no idea how to tell or where to
get the same species in the opposite gender.
We've got a huge rabbit hutch building project underway and it's
stretching out to take much longer than we imagined, as we find free
supplies on Craigslist and change up our plans to match. One bunny's
here and another pregnant one is on her way -- because we snagged what was available at a good price when we saw it within a sane driving distance -- so right now granddaddy bunny is pooping in the house, getting super attached to us, and generally not being the low-maintenance permaculturally-integrated creature he was meant to be. (He also unexpectedly runs to us and kisses us when we come in the room, so, we have no regrets.)
The advantage of the take-what's-free-when-it's-free approach is that
we don't lose anything except time and that time's much worth it in
exchange for what we learn by making mistakes. You can't buy knowledge like that; wisdom costs experience. But man do I feel silly with so much…. learning… threatening to fall on my head.
A much, much older friend told me when I was 18 years old and planning
an intentionally unassisted home birth, "I'm sure it will be fine… God
takes care of fools and children." I keep hearing her quip playing in
my head as I come home with random plants and try to fit them together
into a symbiotic food forest. Certainly I still qualify as a fool. A deity I quite respect and fear is taking care of our little one-acre food chain and I'm not sure She's as forgiving.
industrial-era labor is resource-intensive, while permaculture is intellectually intensive. With permaculture, you have to plan and plan and think and think and research and research to make sure you've considered how every last variable interacts with your goal, and set dozens independent entities in motion so they will take care of things "naturally" or on their own from then on out. That quote came to mind this week while I was scrambling to figure out where to plant what we're finding.
We're mostly scrounging for edible native perennials, taking advantage
of the end-of-season sales, looking for plants to transplant from
abandoned lots and roadsides, trading what resources we do have for what plants are in the places that take such things. That type of scrounging, spending little or nothing, is just my style, my habit. I never think about it. And so it never occurred to me that it might become problematic to approach plant collecting this way.
Today we came home with two baby fig trees that happened to be
available, and I had no idea where to plant them, and it was raining, and they really wanted to be put in the ground right away. That was not my first reminder that this is seriously intense intellectual work, that I have to plan, and be much more careful than I can be when I am creating, saying, batiks, because I found some white fabric while trash picking and a friend offered me leftover paint in exchange for a tutorial. That sort of spontaneity, no problem. Permacultural planting is turning out to be way trickier.
Italian honey figs get to be about 15 feet tall. They're self-fertilizing,
unlike most figs, so we don't have to worry about whether we got males
or females. That's great since I have no idea how to tell or where to
get the same species in the opposite gender.
We've got a huge rabbit hutch building project underway and it's
stretching out to take much longer than we imagined, as we find free
supplies on Craigslist and change up our plans to match. One bunny's
here and another pregnant one is on her way -- because we snagged what was available at a good price when we saw it within a sane driving distance -- so right now granddaddy bunny is pooping in the house, getting super attached to us, and generally not being the low-maintenance permaculturally-integrated creature he was meant to be. (He also unexpectedly runs to us and kisses us when we come in the room, so, we have no regrets.)
The advantage of the take-what's-free-when-it's-free approach is that
we don't lose anything except time and that time's much worth it in
exchange for what we learn by making mistakes. You can't buy knowledge like that; wisdom costs experience. But man do I feel silly with so much…. learning… threatening to fall on my head.
A much, much older friend told me when I was 18 years old and planning
an intentionally unassisted home birth, "I'm sure it will be fine… God
takes care of fools and children." I keep hearing her quip playing in
my head as I come home with random plants and try to fit them together
into a symbiotic food forest. Certainly I still qualify as a fool. A deity I quite respect and fear is taking care of our little one-acre food chain and I'm not sure She's as forgiving.