Hi, this is Geoff,
We’ve just completed the one month practical Internship at the Greening the Desert – the Sequel project in the Dead Sea Valley, Jordan. The site has totally transformed again, and we actually experienced the first rain of the season, 10 mm. The food forest has been chop-and-drop mulched for the start of the cooler period of the year. New and improved infrastructure elements have been installed, for example a revamped rabbit-connected-to-chicken composting tractor, and shade pergolas for the outside eating area next to the students’ kitchen and over the wicking bed roof garden. And the local women are very pleased with their new women-only kitchen on the second storey above the students’ kitchen. Here are some photographs from the site.
I’ll be back in Australia by the second week in November, in time for some of the upcoming events at Zaytuna Farm.
So, here’s the next Friday Five…
Children know! This is the kind of education all children need and love. School teachers and permaculture enthusiasts Carol Nuttall and Janet Millington who wrote Outdoor Classrooms say, “Every action in the garden has its roots in some school subject whether it be science or maths or art.” See children at Eumundi State School, NSW, Australia, in action! At the Permaculture Research Institute’s Zaytuna Farm we’ve found that children growing food develop beautiful personalities. And their parents usually say it’s the easiest experience of parenting they’ve ever had. At the bottom of this link Brigid and Adam describe some of their experience.
Culling intellect: In the documentary, The Great Culling – The Truth About Our Water Supply , organic chemist Dr Charlie Goetschel Ph.D., says that the so-called fluoride added to water supplies is, “coming from the phosphate fertilizer industry; it’s a by-product that is a very toxic waste”. Professor emeritus of chemistry, Paul Connett, Ph.D., states, “We have…[24] I.Q. studies…which now show an association between fairly modest exposure to fluoride and lowered I.Q.” “…you lose all your genius out of your society, you damage the intellect”, says Dr David Kennedy, D.D.S. (dentist). Just some of the countries where ‘fluoride’ bans have already been enacted are Austria, China, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Japan.
The courage to be courageous: This is the kind of courage and ethics we need from our leaders. President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, has highlighted his government’s total independence from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Band (WB). While at the recent Mercosur Summit in Mendoza, Argentina tweeted [translated], “These organizations dictated the economic fate of Bolivia and the world. Today we can say that we have total independence of them.” Marcela Olivera, an activist during the successful Bolivian Cochabamba campaign against Bechtel privatization of water, reads from the banner which finally got people’s attention, “The water is ours damn it!”
We have the solutions: Ex-commodities trader, founder and CEO of Grow Intelligence, Sara Menker, after years of gathering data asks the question, “How do we produce [the needed] 214-trillion-calories to feed 8.3 billion people by 2027?” , only ten years from now. There is no question that permaculture has the answers for avoiding this looming crisis. Here are just some of the thousands and thousands of people worldwide who have created abundance with permaculture (rather than ‘agri’culture). Los Angeles’ Larry Santoyo jokes (seriously), “We’re creating the conditions for vegetables to happen.” And, for Ten Tips for a Problem-Free, Super Productive Home Garden, see Part 3 of this article by Graeme Sait, who was surprised to find that many climate activists did not know what ‘humus’ was – it’s not hummus!
Some of this week’s new posts! See our sister site, the non-profit Permaculture Research Institute:
These articles are just some of thousands, with several new ones going up weekly.
That’s it for this week’s Friday Five.
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Until next week,
Warm regards,
Geoff
