Urban farming adds life to your life
Chooks in Sarah’s garden When we grow plants or nurture bees and wildlife something grows in ourselves. I thought of this when I received this lovely email from Sarah Townsend, who came with her partner and did an Urban Farm Working Tour here: “Hi Michael, Just a quick note. I attended your Urban Farming tour in February. It was so inspiring and has really had a great influence on our home life. We got 3 chooks the next day after meeting your chooks. I had... Read More
Chooks die in heat when there’s no breeze
A friend, Judy, passed on this important detail about the impact of heat on chooks: “I just picked up my meat from Feather and Bone, a Marrickville butchery who buy their meat from local farmers, provenance immaculate and I asked about chickens. Sadly they have none as 320 died last Tuesday on the property of their Bellingen supplier, despite shade trees and water. Their deaths were caused by lack of breeze…… apparently chooks have difficulty regulating... Read More
Free mulch, free spring and other positives
Free mulch – Australia-wide While in Fremantle recently – a very beautiful place to walk around – I met Tim Lawrence, whose business, MulchNet, provides free mulch across Australia. No catch here, just someone using imagination and wit. It works like this: most landscaping and other mulch-making businesses have to pay to take the mulch to the tip if they can’t find a way to make it useful. MulchNet allows anyone in any Australian state to register... Read More
The Sustainable Communities Plan is on the web
Sydney City Council asked me to make a plan to make the whole suburb of Chippendale sustainable. It’s not just a plan for this suburb; it can be used to make any suburb sustainable – it’s free and you’re welcome to put it to work where you are. Now the Plan can be read on mobiles, kindles and is very easy to search, use and tweet. Get it here: theplan.sustainablehouse.com… Enjoy. You can see some of the folks who support the Plan. Please sign the... Read More
Gardeners, shed-admirers and garage sellers
The Shed See you gardening from 9 am at the Shed or after on the streets this Friday. Newly painted garden shed The folks at the Pine Street Creative Arts Centre have painted our garden shed. Wow, terrific and thanks to them all, and to Robert who made it happen. Not sure whether to enter it in the Archibald (as a portrait of a straight-laced gardener’s outfit), never touch it again as it’s too lovely to, say prayers of grace when entering and leaving its stripey... Read More
Living with two zen masters
L to R - Bob, Bert I live with two zen masters, both of them chooks. They dwell constantly in the here and now. Watching them doing anything is a gift; they teach me to be myself, to come into the now of the moment. If I were to say they teach me spiritual lessons and you laughed, I would, too, but it’s true. They peck joyfully. You want to see a simple peck for what it is, just that, then my Bob and Bertadina are your girls. They peck, totally in the moment. And walk... Read More
