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Bungala Ridge Permaculture Gardens REDUCE ... REUSE ... RECYCLE ... REPAIR ... RETURN ... REVEGETATE ... REPLENISH |
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On this site you'll find information about permaculture, as well as who we are and what we're doing and learning on our permaculture journey. I use this website as a springboard for my thoughts and to record our actions. It's a lot like a journal and a bit like a blog...
May 2008 - started writing my online diary again - sorry about missing out all those interesting months! March 2008: Our current emphasis is on building up our writing and publishing business, Always Learning Books (home education), to provide an adequate income. This website and our gardening/permaculture activities have come to a complete stop, or to more truthful, gone into 'bare maintenance mode'. The long hot summer, together with our inattention, has taken it's toll on the gardens. At times I feel like we are no longer permaculturalists - one, because we aren't really gardening, and two, because it isn't uppermost in our minds. Permaculture runs like a deep structure through our decision making processes. It's our aim to travel more and it's hard to be dedicated permaculturalists on one property without a continual presence. Please read and refer to this site for its historical content and still relevant information. One day I'll have the energy and enthusiasm, as well as the time, necessary to continue to build this website and create the property of our dreams.
In 1988 we purchased 4.5 acres on a south facing hill overlooking the Bungala River, a small perennial creek flowing into Yankalilla Bay. Robin originally did a short Permaculture Course in Adelaide a few years before, but then completed his Permaculture Design Certificate once we'd finished building our house. Our aim was to develop this small rural holding according to permaculture principles and to work towards achieving a sustainable and simple lifestyle. The results have been mixed: while it's true to say the underlying structure is based on permaculture principles I still feel that we are a million miles away from living a sustainable permaculture lifestyle. And that makes me ponder - what is a permaculture lifestyle? Is there a typical permaculture lifestyle? What are the essentials? If you live in Western Australia and would like to meet Beverley and Robin, we'll be in Perth on February 23rd participating in a seminar on Home Education. This year, 2008, I have decided to keep an on-line diary in conjunction with the Year Planner pages of this web site. Writing a regular diary goes against my nature so I will need apply a fair bit of discipline to keep it going... Which will be good, as I need to build and stick to a routine to help overcome a few niggling health issues. The diary will help me set and work towards goals as well as help evaluate what we're doing every day and if it is helping us head in the direction we want to travel. This year's motto is - "not only build the resort, live in it at the same time!" During 2007 I created the Australian Home School Curriculum web site. This project continues to swallow most of my computer time, and sadly I've neglected this site. However, we haven't neglected our property and have in fact, felt revitalised by our new found determination to make it our number one priority over the coming years. It's our ambition to finally realise our dreams and centre our lifestyle around this wonderful place in this beautiful part of Australia. I hope to start blogging more regularly in the coming weeks, using the blog as a way to remind myself of important tasks to be done, reflecting on what we've been doing, and posting notes on those things I ought to remember. Previously... I hope you like the new look, and it's my intention to keep this site dynamic by adding to the Blog (old diary pages) on a more regular basis. I hope to use this website as a working journal - where I can upload the information I find out about the various elements of our permaculture design. Much has changed since writing the original content, so please revisit all the pages from time to time, as I hope to update most of them. What's new in the garden? Plenty! We are currently in the process of converting half of our chook yard into a fully enclosed vegetable garden, which after six months of lying fallow is now thriving. The boulder retaining wall is finished and mostly planted out. We finished putting the first line of irrigation drippers on the plants yesterday. My parents bought me a Nashi Pear tree for my birthday and we planted it and four other fruit trees just below the soakage from the septic tank - plenty of water for those trees this summer! Pop has been digging out all the olive tree stumps that simply refuse to die. I'd like to see them come back to life now! He's even burning out the roots, just in case the tree sends up suckers. Some of these stumps have been cut and burned and in a bout of incredible frustration one year Robin even resorted to tree killer poison, all to no avail. Watch this space for links for photos and more details of this back breaking but ultimately rewarding task! Our latest plan is to swithc to a paperless office over the coming year. There are so many plans for next year... Still smarting from watching Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and prompted by a mail out from Trees For Life, I put together my latest blog: Target Carbon Neutral - A Personal Lifestyle and Household Goal. I hope you enjoy reading it and it inspires you to create your own personal emission target, if you haven't already done so. Anything that helps us move toward our goal of sustainable living... My previous blog, March 2007, asks "What is a Permaculture Lifestyle?" - I rarely feel like a permaculturalist. What do I need to do to get back on track with our sustainable living goals, or am I simply having another blue day? Here's a couple of quotes I found today that seems to suit my mood and reminds me of the direction I need to take over the coming months. It's one that relates to the early stages of home education too, if you switch the focus from gardening to designing a homeschool curriculum.
Happy Permaculturing!
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