Permaculture Transformation

We held a permaculture sheet mulching work party at our house this past weekend.  This sentence most likely needs decoding.  Permaculture is an approach to living that is focused on sustainability and connection. The word itself is a contraction of "permanent culture" and "permanent agriculture".  There are guiding design principles and attitudinal principles.  For example in the sheet mulching project we did, three main principles of permaculture design were key:  use small scale, intensive systems; optimize edge;  use biological and renewable resources A permaculture attitude reflected in our garden design is get a yield.  Sheet mulching is  composting in place and building soil in a similar manner to the way nature does it.  The benefits are many including weed suppression,  water conservation and maintenance
soil health and organisms.


The designer and skill facilitator was Dave Homa.  He led us in the design,  multiple steps and layers of laying out the key hole gardens and the furrows.  We used leaves, coffee grounds, seaweed,  newspapers, wood chips,  stone dust, cardboard, chicken and rabbit manure, woody plants, straw and compost.  The garden transformed from essentially a "weed bed" to an organized and optimized space for planting and pollinators.

More information about permaculture can be found at Portland Maine Permaculture.

BEFORE

Creating a starting point

Laying the outline of a key hole with material from the garden

List of  inputs

The Design

Adding the compost

Laying down the base for the paths

Straw on the beds and wood chips in the paths  complete the design

Fitness is intrinsic

I've noticed Maisie, at three and half, moves her body -ALOT.  But more importantly, she intuitively executes moves endemic to Crossfit and MovNat.  She jumps up and down, across over and off of things, she planks and bridges, she does dips, presses, squats, and pull ups and she can run...for a long distance and time. She also is into yoga. And she is ripped!  She has a six pack, calves and thighs and glutes that adults strive for and the cutest little biceps and deltoids.  She incorporates all this activity into her day in a natural and flowing way.  She eats based on her hunger-sometimes a bottomless pit, other days very light.
Last night, she was at a party where there was a small trampoline.  She was eager to show me her "new" move-essentially a pull up and knees to bar into a roll. After that she spent time in another room-spinning her body around and around and around...

I am trying to emulate her activity and verve.

Lunge!

Welcome to the gunshow!

Up on the Catwalk...Common Ground Fair Style

Cold Splinters did a piece for GQ about the most stylish environmentalists of all time.  Here is my contribution to the blogosphere;  The Cultivation of Organic Style-What Farmers Wear. 

bold facial hair

no shirt can be stylish

these boots were made for walking-the baby

floral motif

sometimes it's in the details-check out the belt

jewelry for men

If you like honey, I suggest you try to get your hands on some of Overland Honey's Ruby Red raw honey. It's a seasonal honey made from the pollen of Japanese Knotweed (bamboo).  It is the best!
I got mine at the Honey Exchange in Portland.

If Soule Mama has it...

Faux Mama wants it!

So, I got it!

Age and Being a Relative

I have recently been on a short diatribe about an incident at Storyland in NH. Essentially, I was mistaken for a "senior citizen" followed by disbelief that I was only 48.   The thing is, this is not an isolated incident.  On more than one occasion, I have been mistaken for my child's grandparent, my partner's parent and given a significant senior discount at Friendly's.

A friend of mine sent me a link to a CNN article that reflected the writer's process around being referred to as her child's grandparent.  The writer, a black woman, also wrote of being asked if she was the nanny.  I was asked once if I was auntie.  This query, coming after apparently being sized up as a gay woman who apparently could not possibly be an actual parent.

Being a grandmother in and of itself is not the issue.  It is the assumptive license taken by strangers.  Granted, not everyone has a child when they are 45. But not everyone has one when they are 16 either. The first time I was asked if I had any grandchildren, I was 35.  I was in shock.  But my cousin, by the time she was 35 was a grandmother 3 times over.  Of course, she had her first child at 16 and he had his at 19 (twins, more than one mother).

I think there is a disconnect between my perceived age and my self perceived age. I am not proud of my discomfort with the changes incurred with maturing.  After all, I am the same person who  wrote a paper in college stating "I am looking forward to the day when I will have a leathered, wizened visage". I appreciate my father-in-law, who used to introduce Maisie as his "little sister".  Of course, in his family his uncle is 17 years younger than his next sibling.

The best approach one gentleman took was asking if Maisie and I were related. When I said yes, he said he could see the family resemblance.  Suave.

Here are three things the wee one has said this summer that has made my heart sing with pride (and hope):

I wish it were snowing right now; what is Wal-Mart?; and to Mimi who was sitting with her, Come and see the carrots we froze for the winter.