SSSSolar Punks

[Alkia]

man, I haven't been in this thread for a while! there hasn't been any progress on the postcard/calendar front yet, I've been too busy with other projects and also mental health things, though I have yet more ideas on how to use them (perhaps as a fundraiser to fund solar panels for my school? don't know if that's even feasible, I'd have to somehow talk to someone at school to see if that's anywhere in the range of possibility, but it's an interesting idea!)

anyways, just wanted to drop by to share this very cool video that my mom showed me:

[Róisín]

That is amazing, and exactly the kind of thing that I am trying to do with my meagre third of an acre, and people like the Brookmans are trying to do with their much larger areas. Yes, yes, yes! We have to work with the ecology rather than against it if we are to continue to have water, air and food enough for all.

[Alkia]

That is amazing, and exactly the kind of thing that I am trying to do with my meagre third of an acre, and people like the Brookmans are trying to do with their much larger areas. Yes, yes, yes! We have to work with the ecology rather than against it if we are to continue to have water, air and food enough for all.

that's so cool!!!!! it's great to hear from direct real-life people that they're doing this kind of stuff too, not only watching documentaries or youtube videos and thinking "that's happening somewhere". it's cool how you also don't need much land for it to work-- I mean, this guy has many many acres, but that it can be scaled down like to a third of an acre!!

It does make me think too, though, about colonialism and farming/owning stolen land, and how indigenous peoples have been using techniques that keep the land healthy for hundreds if not thousands of years before. I have no idea how much overlap there is between techniques like in this video and Indigenous practices, I haven't researched that at all yet, but it makes me want to learn more. I mean, even if you don't own or farm the land yourself, just live on it, I sometimes wonder what it looked like 500 years before.

[Róisín]

All good points, Alkia. And in much of Australia that was certainly the case. The Perramangk in my area used firestick farming and related techniques to manage the land as a treed savannah landscape that made the most of both plant and animal foods, and I try to integrate both European and native food plants into my garden. I also teach the methods, as well as showing people how to forage responsibly and to prepare what they find. Food security is a bigger deal than most people think. Our town also puts a lot of effort into cleaning up the river. We live in the driest state on the driest inhabited continent, and water is important.

If you want to see a glorious example of the method in action, look up The Food Forest at Hillier, South Australia, run by Graham and AnneMarie Brookman. They live not far from here and are really interesting people.