Tiny Homes

Yahweh tried to remind his creation that, as he does not need much space to live, why should they. 
Perhaps downsizing is the way to go.  I like the idea of building a tiny home, and have just built one.

I guess the idea is that God is reminding us always that we want too much. 
A big home is costly to heat and costly to look after. We have just been visiting all the castles of Europe and noting the stupidity of spending your life paying to fix the roof of your inheritance. 

100 tonnes of wood are needed to keep this place in Cororooke warm and even though Yahweh said to burn to cook and sacrifice there is no burden to keep air warm in the hope some cool cat will come along and appreciate it. We have just visited hundreds of castles in Europe that are no longer homes, even if they ever were such. We must be more practical if we want our houses to be homes. 

God, of course, has the right idea, If you want a house to be a home you have to first make sure you are close to people and they you. You often don't get that if you put up too many walls. 

An acacia box would be too small for us, but for someone as big as God, the symbolism of having him in the same room all the time is deeply profound and humbling. And like some cool cat , he's not making a lot of noise and demanding obedience. He gave us cats to remind us of the great value of the still small voice in our lives and how to get good outcomes by listening and waiting.

The world is your oyster when you don't tie yourself down but we poor earthbound crawling things are no longer in the Garden. We have to work to find food, so finding a good balance between sitting down and bending down is a hard one. Sabbath provides us with the practical opportunity to do both. 

If you are a farmer there is no way you can downsize easily. My friends in the ag advisory agricultural industry will say don't spend your life fixing old machinery (something we 6 kids on the farm used to do because we had no breadwinner and that was all we had ) but that means higher cash flows and a commitment to running with the high speed industry.

  

Life though in its fulness is not about profits but rewards.  And not quick profits but patiently fought for rewards ; gifts that keep on giving, . There are so many economic externalities in there because,  as my family found out,  if the crop only comes once in every 5 years, there is a lot of time in there to play with rusty metal.

No boy should be denied the chance to have his own Scrap Heap Challenge. 

Which brings me to the tiny house we built for a friend on his own farm . A house which now provides the bottom line in any home ; somewhere to sit, sleep and move around . Our friend cannot move around much , so we have provided roof rails to enables some movement around the bed in which he spends most of his time. 

But the lesson is clear , a small house can make a lot of sense. 
The full story is published elsewhere, so just a few pictures to give you an idea of how it can work. 
The original house was 4 rooms made with the never straight offcuts from timber logs in a mill nearby.
This means for all its life of 100 years , the neighboring animals come visiting in search of sharing the wonders that the busy new colonists have brought to the area. There is no condemnation for such productive and busy migrants-- only a quiet joy that they are the ones who are prepared to work hard to get the good stuff. For how much longer though, we ought to ask !


It's true that some of the original inhabitants have become little more than parasites under the leadership of the new colonists ( look up the word - it doesn't have the malintent that many now give it ) . The parasites action of course risks the whole ecosystem if it keeps going - so that that maladjustment must be cut off - to keep going there must be "fences","gates " discipline and cooperative contributions in the new home. 

By putting new aluminum glass and plastic we have been able to close the doors - to welcome only those visitors who we want in our space and who pay their way. Currently the only other residents  besides the big long natural ones are a cat and a chook and they all have to stay mostly outside --- fighting their own natural battles for food . I fear we should do more for the chook, Its cold and the foxes are about. 

Here are a few pictures until I can back to tell you more of the history of this 40 square metres of home.

    

Composting is the way to go

 By combining our high nitrogenous rich wastes with cellulose ( and other carbon chains) in particular ,we can greatly reduce the amount of liquid waste we generate. Lots of paper wood pulp and a little food and other waste . 
Generally
We have bins for recycling, but we need better practical ways of separating and mixing (especially when we can do it on site) wastes on site.
Transport of wastes is very costly and yet little has been done to adopt sound onsite recycling in tourist areas, where the risk of pollution is high. 

Specifically 
The most powerful examples are in the wettest part of Victoria where avoidance of waste water pollution is very difficult, but where dry composting can work. two birds can be dealt with by one change ; reduced water volume and reduced risk. 


Dry composing using the old sawdust heaps in the Wettest place in Victoria ( Beech Forest) was proposed for the tourist precinct once proposed (and expected for the Otway's Fly and Triplet falls area. If you want to know why this never happened you best contact this author as it's a complex matter. I remain silent because of of over 4 decades work in Eco sensitive development I have noticed there is nothing more disruptive of sound outcomes than interference by high office or media interference.  
From my own experience, It would astound you how much money is wasted by public authorities in the once good name of environment, because the new "authorities" know nothing about the complexities of managing it. 

It would astound you how much money is wasted by public authorities' when the appropriate technology can be adopted at low cost of installation and maintenance provided all the local ecological issues on any site are addressed. 

Composting facilities and bins would reduce the need for paper and food waste to be carted off, just as glass and cans only bins would help make recycling become more than talk, 
While there will always be exceptions i am sure the public in tourist areas would accept better bin choice than occurs at the moment ( in say Colac Otway Shire )   

Crunch time - will design with nature survive?

 Most of you know I post mainly on Government meddling in OUR environment because I want them to stop WASTING huge amounts of our taxes on it and give the job back to locals and properly trained scientists.

 The government MUST stop creating useless empires like GORCAPA and  mega monsters and give regional young people decent jobs planning to really improve this wonderful place.
 Our young people should be designing with nature, not trying to fix things that are broken; pouring concrete and rocks onto soil and water landscapes.

No one enjoys trying to fix up things after degradation has occurred, when by studying and working with soil water and plant processes, nature will do the work better.

The best way to keep Apollo Bay beaches was as always, to work with nature. Who among these highly paid screens and chair people in charge is really listening? 

A few of the 20 and more consultants and agencies realized that the sand moving sideways was an issue, but none have clearly recognized the big picture; the two processes that matter, That sand is mostly on its way downhill and only wind, waves, a beach and a dune can make it rise up ( a bit)

Finally someone  ( I asked the ABC who produced this news item today to investigate what was happening at Apollo Bay ) has read the suggestion I made that the sand that now rests comfortably under the sea after being removed by wave action in the tidal zone ( and off the rockwall  at sea ) can  be realistically loaded and placed back in the near shore zone to remake beaches WITHOUT one bucket load of government and consultancy brilliance. Huge amounts of energy not only saved ,but harnessed; a few metres of easy lifting; It's called soil and water planning; design with nature. 

The big toy trucks and diggers on the beach show how engineers and ignorance of real earth Eco processes ( the seagrass will come back if you plan for it to ) now rule in the " fix one problem create another" governance corruption that is, at the moment , our children's lot. Give one of them YOUR vote at the next election. 

Premier Hamer would turn in his grave at how little full science competence there is in agencies now taking the once good name of conservation he gave to the first Ministry for Conservation .

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/dredging-and-barging-sand-along-adelaide-s-disappearing-coastline-to-be-trialled

ART must drive effectiveness in the real world

ART must drive effectiveness in the real world, or its disaster 

In other words, we as humans can only deal effectively with the very complexity of interactions in ecosystems by allowing those interactions to draw us into the view. 
YET wannabes everywhere burn up opportunities to deal with the whole by playing with the parts,
I grieve that this means our children are being denied the satisfaction of seeing design with nature work first time and forever. 


Take this picture of the art of harvesting food .On the surface it looks like all you need is a spear and  some camouflage.  Tell me what is missing before i do. 

If our leaders continue to fail to do this completely, we will join the majority of wannabes in wasting huge amounts of public resources on things that don't work.  True degradation.

GET SERIUOS - a lot of what governments are doing to try and solve environmental problems is piecemeal and pathetic.

See one list here of Australians in a completely mad mood in May 2024.
The leaders are moving from playing one game to another with a frequency that demonstrate only one thing - these parties have no idea how all the parts fit together.  

Constipation over WASTE DISPOSAL

 

 Towards Appropriate technology not NIMBY imperatives 

Humans are habitual creatures. The bureaus and parliaments of this world arrive Monday morning to make more rules to try and control the people .
Its  mad and it means poor people feel helpless to help themselves. The planning system only works now if you have money ! 
These rules caused us to send our wastes far away on ships to China. We are mad 
A lot more can be done to recycle and use waste locally and BY  encouraging rural people to do more 

eg Temporary homes for the poor .

The Government IS ALL Talk   on reducing red tape .

Feds should put pressure on states and shire and EPA to simplify HUMAN WASTE DISPOSAL - write up some general specs for both septic and sullage --and make it easier using temporary storage and cartage and other measures using local wetlands and public soil reserves.
Currently local shires can make the process very complex and costly.
These are homes and basic facilities people NEED. Clearly only big blocks would work but there are plenty of them . 
The risk of onsite pollution can be dealt with over a wide area of Australia by professional soil type, annual  rainfall   ( low risk low rainfall), climate and design specs like area of land , proximity to water courses .
STATE s should be MADE to contribute to this instead of making the USER pay up EVERY TIME . Get the Shire to do the work they were paid to do-- not palm it off like they do now . Sound inhouse advice is VERY COST EFFECTIVE -- they just haven't got any at the moment . 

And make them stick to the one month APPROVAL process time WRITTEN in their legislation. 
Shire staff don't decide anything these days, even when they have got 20 reports to help them. (I am exaggerating - slightly ) 

 

Waste ( incl  and esp wastewater)  is the biggest bit of constipation in the planning system !! and it need not be if  more thought was given to setting conditions on use and disposal on bigger blocks in drier areas especially  .
Why cart everything away  --to a central mound ? When with the opposition come up with measures to recycle ONSITE ?   Barnaby Joyce Peter Dutton  Lyle Shelton Senator Matthew Canavan  

When will the FEDs CONVENE  to  review REDTAPE and CONSTIPATION in local government esp ?  Before it becomes THEIR problem again!!!

 

Understanding food production and how to make it work for everyone

 

Clearly, I am not going to answer all your questions here and now, but this post was inspired by yet another inadequate attempt to solve the problem of supply and demand in Agriculture . 
Fortunately for all those who have read this far , the centuries old study of economics and now ecology has brought forth some fruits to help us , at least partially resolve this in practice.
I will hopefully follow up with logical frameworks for action,  links and responses . 
Again, let me say, I am not going to say why Marxism is still providing a very immature response to this world wide problem but neither ( just yet ) am I going to say why Capitalist economies are far too comfortable with their own careless exploitation of the earth and its people . No political imperatives are adequate and their faulty elements need careful probing to be exposed. 

The thing is, economics can provide us with workable answers if we are willing to all get on the same train together with nature. Clearly the above-named divisions remain a handicap. 

As YOU  are NOW here , stay with me. 
Fairness is not a nature thing,  but it is in my mind the human thing and it is more than a mere aim but an inspiration worth fighting for.
Please ask questions. 

This was my original post to an inadequate statement about solving a problem at the supply and demand intersection this week in Australia.   

IF we taught our children properly about economics we would very CLEARLY run a fairer system than we do -- and that's saying something because Marxists ( and farmers and polys etc ) and many inadequately studied agents for change have been meddling in " how to fix things " for centuries now. While being patient and making better choices can help, deeper eco wisdom is the more reliable and rewarding place to put our heads.

All of us here on line know such wisdom is still not common wisdom ----yet!

Understanding the complexities of ecology as it applies to food production will not stop people exploiting each other, BUT if the best ways to improve the system was known and more widely adopted, the profit margin exploiters ( the easily rich) would not be able to exploit producers and purchasers the way they currently do ---economics and its twin sister ecology , would be better managed. And its not rocket science.

Our children need to know these things and be inspired to work at the wonderfully productive resilient rewarding and interesting coalface of nature . http://designwithnature.blogspot.com

Monopolizing forces and how to resist them

A very cursory and incomplete look at Australia, A prefix is used where man has restricted biodiversity by his actions . B is where nature restricts biodiversity by its actions.  

 A1. Broadacre ploughing  
Some wild country is needed to encourage biodiversity in any land system because we don't really know what we are killing when we spray big patches with roundup, simazine or cultivate the broadacre for one plant.

Patchiness, I would suggest, is a good aim for Country whether it involves  private use of farmland or reserve. There are many reasons for this but one of the main reasons is the dominance of fire and the way fire clearing restricts resultant growth - monopolizing by colonizing and determining the resultant regeneration phases. 

Most of the lower half of this photo was originally covered in shrub and forest , The top half , like most of Australia was Savannah type grassland supporting occasional trees. Soils and soil drainage play an important part in the type of original vegetation. 
  



OK its complex 
Say we leave the whole country to nature, Which land systems have been the most vulnerable to monopolizing by man's activity?  Is it Savannah  or Forest cause we don't interfere here in Australia much with Tropical. 
Our foothill forests are like those in other parts of the world- controlled by trees who discourage competition but are decimated by fire,/ lets get real though much of the world is not naturally covered by forests but by grass and heathlands. The focus of the following is on annual plants and our heavy working with them in grasslands , hinterlands and shrublands in those areas. 

So is our clearing of land by nature all bad ?    cf A clearing by man B clearing by fire 
Fire and Light control in a forest greatly limit the potential for biodiversity.   Provided we don't clear great swathes of bush , the increased area of open soil around such forest and cleared patches clearly adds to the potential for both annual and perennial plants to seed or survive ( when not over grazed) and birds and insects to flourish. Aboriginal settlements observed this pattern of land use. 

Even low intensity grazing seems to encourage orchids and monocot grasses like themeda  Too complex a subject for now .

MAJOR IMPACTS  ( just a listing of some ) 
B Acidification of soils . 
B The podzolization  of soils 
B The concreting of soils 
A The increased recycling ability of a fertilized  soil   Ca, P < K and trace elements 


This article is unfinished   but if you would like to ask a question please do 


POSITIVE IMPACTS of man's interference in nature . As most of you know my theme is not to deny that much of mans impact on nature has been damaging. In the face of nature's sensitive processes man has been an ignorant and arrogant brute.
Our problem first. We have no consensus amongst us  In mid 2023 there is no consensus amongst conservationists about the priorities for the future because the issue are complex and political with some people overstating the degradation risks and others overstating the resilience realities- we still know so little . 
My job is ,as always, to call for more research positions for young people to study these things properly. Tell me where it is happening ! 

 The key issue for nature at least is ---In what land systems is irreversible degradation of seed and life sources likely to be still happening.
Reducing man's ignorance and arrogance is on the critical joint ticket.  The unhelpful response of labelling much with a misanthropy brush is not IMO helpful  - important stories for another time. 

A  New types of homes 

1. Corrugated iron 
Our blue tongues have always said thankyou, but increasingly there are others. Corrugated iron can play a crucial and complex role in pioneering and protecting growth after fire. 
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/humble-iron-sheets-a-lifesaver-for-endangered-dunnarts

2. Neighborhood gardens 

Many of our large native animals have been grateful for the patchwork of forest and grass which allows for grassland for food and forest for shelter . Birds and insects the same . 

3. More diverse forests and more diverse grasslands  by Patchwork clearing  . The digestion of grass in the savannah is a prominent force for encouraging growth and stability . As Australia is actually  Savannah , the extending of the grassland and its boundaries with forest has many benefits for biodiversity.   
4 More diverse forests and more diverse grasslands  by leaving Individual trees and plantations . A treeless plain is truly a monopolized landscape.  Clearly we should question if we create more of them . 

Fences the good the bad and the ugly 

MORE COMPLEX QUESTIONS   
Can we , or should we ever return to the past where recycling of scarce nutrients , shorter lifecycles , impeded drainage and fire limited the life to a tighter reign and a much tougher set of species and physical constraints. Let; increase the areas of reserves by studying the need in various land systems. 

Do we really want to restrict all life in Victoria to the limits of leaching ,poor soil drainage  and the ascendancy of ants ( above photo of the healthy tree being eaten and used by ants for home ) 

We still have large areas of untouched reserves in Victoria  See the maps of Victoria before and after  settlement  .
For some reason the map below  doesn't show the large area of native vegetation on the NW border - even now .