Shed of Interrelation (part three)

Meg and I insulated and plastered the ceiling of the Shed of Interrelation (SoI) today. You're looking at the small bathroom where a bath and composting toilet will go. The shed is for artists/writers-cum-woofers to take short residencies and rest, make art and work a little in the garden. The shed is a place to encourage transitional thinking in the arts, to encourage permapoesis where art and organic food generation are embedded activities.

In the meantime our winter seeds are rocking. Heirloom elephant leek, garlic, silverbeet fordhook, pak choy, sweet pea, broad beans, broccoli, carrots, black kale, spinach, spring onions, beetroot, baby cos lettuce and cabbage mini. Meg and I were discussing today how many families could potentially be living on this quarter acre in 10-20 years. I think it could feed about 15-18 people in the Summer months and maybe 10-12 in Winter. 

I'm looking down on young banksias and heavily mulched areas with lomandras, poa tussocks, broad beans, almonds, olives, peaches and my chain-sawed eucalyptus balls. The dry stone HaHa wall back-filled with rubble allows for water to pass through it without disturbing the integrity of the wall. You can also see a little of the social warming fence. We persuaded our neighbours not to have a fence that lined the whole boundary, but just enough to have a little more privacy. They also agreed that I could build it as a slatted fence, again for social warming properties. Of course the water tank finishes the picture and finishes an often quoted mantra on this blog spoken by Cuban permaculturalist Roberto Perez at our town hall last year–

Grow your own food, catch your own water, say hello to your neighbour.

Here's a pic of the main house showing flying fox route and solar panels. I'm also showing off my deck building skills here. Split level decks are party decks. You often hear of them collapsing and killing a dozen stomping teenagers, that's why this one is low to the ground. 

I love Zeph's cubby as much as he does. Apart from the obvious – cute, small, red, up-in-the-air – it frost protects our toms. Meg collected another basket full last week. Almost unbelievably the fruit was still ripening despite the plants having died weeks ago. They're not great, but fine for cooking up. You can also see the beginning of the flying fox route and the tail end of the social warming fence. The bed in front of it will be the kick-arse rhubarb patch. Rhubarb is year-round gold for food gardeners. I remember my Dad's awesome patch when I was Zeph's age.

And, finally a place very dear to my heart – the compost area. Underneath the new window of the Shed of Interrelation is a herb bed that's doing OK, but I have decided to dig them out and extend the compost bays to three. We'll also have the humanure from the dry worm composting toilet. Therefore we can have four brews at four different stages. I'm so excited about this. The building of the Shed of Interrelation has already led to so many possibilities, even before the first resident.

On-off

I haven't paid much attention to the Obama-land-of-hope-fest that's been playing out in the abstract world of global media, until this morning. I sat in my local drinking coffee, reading the papers and after only a short while I was taken by an overwhelming compulsion to cry. For the first time in innumerable years I was actually moved by two-party politics.

All the cynicism in me remained. Obama will either be shot or fully bought within 12-24 months. And most likely we'll be just as disappointed as we are with Kevin07. So I think the emotional dunking was more for the outgoing rather than the incoming. Reading and seeing the great relief of everyday Americans while at the same time flashing through the past eight years of my own life (under Bush) was extraordinary. Fuck! he's gone. The fucker's gone.

Later in the morning a guy called Neil came to inspect our solar panels and connect us up. We watched with immense joy our electricity meter stop, then go in reverse. After he left, and in celebration of the moment, we also turned off our mains water and turned on our previously stored tank supply. Bliss.

Then an hour later we had a blackout and our solar system, which is connected to the main grid supply, went out. Because we have a small electric pump to push our water supply, we were also without water.

This naturally returned me to my hopeless-homeostasis that I've come to function so well under before two lovely peeps, Geraldine and Kyla from Monash University came to talk to me about a WorkmanJones component for a group exhibition based on detours and the absurd for later in 09.

Rain, finally

Social Warming

Until today we have managed to live on our 1/4 acre without one single fence, with the exception of temporary guards around our vegetables to keep the chooks from helping themselves.



However our neighbour to the North has insisted we build one because he doesn't like looking at our water tank and 'unsightly' produce area. We agreed as long as we could design and build it and not have to pay for it, so this is the beginnings of our social warming fence.



The Cuban says, "grow your own food, catch your water, say hello to your neighbour" – a reachable suburban anarchy.

Public necessity

Everything we buy is likely to be unsustainable 

and/or abusive in terms of its production and 

transportation. Water bottled in plastic is both. 

Read more here and here.

Water, seeds and friends to stay