How to Find Joy

I found a quote the other day I really like:

"We don't know what details of a truly sustainable future are going to be like, but we need options, we need people experimenting in all kinds of ways and permaculturists are one of the critical gangs that are doing that." Dr David Suzuki

I like it because this is what we’re doing. Experimenting. Building our resilience, our self-sufficiency, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels while the madness machine hurtles on regardless. As Leunig says, “Father, do not forgive them for they know precisely what they do.” We fortunate people with such relative wealth and education – who don’t know civil war or famine, whose children will grow up in good health, free to speak their minds, move around – we all have enough information about the state of the planet, it’s just about whether we choose to act. Our friends in Freo are.


Interestingly, for someone trying to reduce my dependence on fossil fuels I realise that in the last week I have used them in the car, the tractor, the pump, the lawnmower, the brushcutter, and the chainsaw. And the gas for the hot water. I am trying though. Very trying.

We mowed the lawn yesterday for the first time of the season and it is very beautiful, the last of the frost burnt grass is gone and nothing remains but lush green. The sun warms winter hearts and earth and the place to be is in the garden, making new beds, moving topsoil, stopping to smell the flowers.


Noah was attacked by an enormous pile of logs at cricket yesterday so this afternoon Rob and I returned to wreak our familial revenge. Airy-fairy theories on child raising are all very good but my son had been attacked. We took a chainsaw. I don’t think it will be trying anything again anytime soon and the trailer of firewood we ended up with was purely incidental.

With spring here the days of lighting the wood heater at night are coming to an end but we’re still stockpiling firewood so it will be good and dry for next year, burning easier, hotter and cleaner. We do have lots of trees on our block but we do try and resist chopping them down, disturbing ecosystems and habitats. The timber we got today was just going to be burnt anyway so we are utilising a waste resource, which always feels good.

How to find joy: Go to the asparagus bed in your gumboots. Pick about half a dozen spears. Gobble them up raw. Does it get any better than this?

“I’m grateful that I read a book in preschool.”
(Confused? Look)

Close the loop

Yesterday I wrote that we have seven beds in our veggie garden for crop rotation. It is true we have seven beds but only six of them are in the rotation. The seventh is for our perennials, plants that will last longer than one season. Like everything in the Dairy it is small, but there is enough room for some rhubarb and about ten asparagus crowns, which should last over twenty years. We planted two year old crowns last year so now, three years old, they are ready to start harvesting. Asparagus stands out in my mind as what you eat when the winter vegetables have finished and before the spring vegetables are ready to harvest. An indulgent, necessary feast. The first spears are poking through the mulch, sniffing the air to see if the frosts have finished. We’re wondering too. Asparagus is a heavy feeder so if the frosts are over we will rake back the mulch and feed them heavily with blood and bone before covering them again. I will use the blood and bone because we still have some but I’m keen to try and use solely what we have on site. Close the loop. I think chook poo would work quite well, perhaps aged a little first so it’s not so hot.

I made Impossible Pie this morning using duck eggs and topped with three asparagus spears from the garden, my contribution to pot luck lunch with our friend’s who were going to show a few of us how to make pasta. Em made little citrus tartlets, sweet and delicious, and like my pie a good way to use up a few eggs.


Making your own pasta is one of those things that is hard to justify if you consider cost alone, as it is so cheap. But we spent such a delightful day, hanging out with friends, sharing a meal, kids playing together, listening to music, learning something new. Taking one more thing off the list that we have to make the long drive into town for. And we’re keeping alive the knowledge and skills of how to feed ourselves, using flour and our own organic eggs. The shops don’t stock what we made today.


“I’m grateful that we went to Chay and Pete’s and I eat a bit of that pasta.”
(Confused? Look)