Free-Range Living

  'Rich ----'

  Over the last month, a fair amount of rain has fallen here in the UK midlands on the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding), resulting in a landscape rich in herbage in what's been a peak growing period - everything - hedges, trees, shrubs -seem to be 'bigger and better' this year. It was the same a few days ago on a break over in West Wales - the verdant countryside with the ever present green hills as backdrop looking 'tip-top'. Driving to a Wesh town inland, the roadside banks, of which there are many in Wales, generally supporting hedges, looked the part, festooned with ferns, bluebells, cow parsley and  red campion flowers. Motoring along the sweeping road was a pleasure due to the absence of traffic - in the twelve mile trip, only a horse and rider, a tractor and four cars were encountered, adding to the feeling, driving through the stunning vistas of hills and wooded valleys, of being in a forgotten land of a spiritual nature - a 'God's Own Country' experience.

Diverse riches ---- ?

Living in such stunning countryside and such space must presumably have an effect, and the rural Welsh do seem to be a sort of 'together' band of people - independently-minded, reserved to some extent but also sociable, community and family focused - seemingly 'sound and sorted', and still very much with their own values and identity . They tend to come over as 'self-contained', 'insulated', knowing their own minds and values, not too subject to the vagaries of 'cultural fashions' ( 'indigenous freerangers' - ?), living their own fulfilling lives without being over-thralled by 'big', fame, celebrity and 'corporate life', and having the strength of mind and character to do that. It may well be that they've gone less down the common UK road of 'personal riches', retaining rather the balance of 'individual' with social and family values - ?

At the Royal Welsh Show, for instance, they compete fiercely in, for instance, showing their livestock, particularly the beautiful spirited Welsh cob horses, which can seem to epitomise the Welsh spirit, but then socialise and have a good time with their fellow competitors in the evenings - they often spend the whole show week in their caravans there as their holiday, preferred rather than any sojurn abroad, for instance. Maybe these rural Welsh have got something right in retaining their own internal values as opposed to seeking 'verification' from external cultural measures, such as 'position' or  'wealth' - ? And if that is the case, good for them for exercising the strength of mind and spirit to so do so, and for seeking riches of a more naturally diverse nature.

Of course, one of the modern cultural themes - i.e. 'big is best/ might is right' might count against such considerations  above - how can a small 'indigineous' rural-type population 'know better' than the great mass of urban, for instance, and how can the 'small' know/be better than the 'big'- ? History, though, surely relates that 'big'is not always the 'best', and that 'big' in terms of mass movements and trends can actually be dangerous, and particularly to the power-less micro- unit that is the individual, and then again, maybe even more particularly to the ('freerange') individual who wants to follow Charles Handy's 'honourable individualism' self-responsiblity route - ? ( Charles Handy a well-known UK business guru).
 
 'Un - rich living ----'
  
The micro holding economy here is relatively 'static', with little opportunity (or desire) to manipulate income upwards, so 'survive and thrive' attention is drawn more to the challenge of finding ways to meet needs economically 'within the budget'. The use of wood as the main fuel has helped in this respect, besides its sound 'renewable energy' credentials, as has the solar energy production installation, particularly now as reported in May's piece, there is the capability of having 'free' solar heated hot water. Last summer , spare or 'waste' stuff hanging round, mainly wood, was put to economic use building the 'penny-less' porch, and this year more spare materials will hopefully be employed to save cost in building an extension to the 'Rough Office' chalet in the small paddock.

Another energy option being mulled over currently is to invest in a stand-alone air heat recovery unit, at the not-too-great-a-cost of £1.5k, which then has the potential of providing 'free' heat, which would be useful for the winter daytime, with the woodburner then taking over from mid/late afternoon on. The unit recovers heat from the air outside as long as temperatures remain higher than -5 degrees, and in so doing does need to use a certain amount of grid electricity : 2kw to then give 5kw heat output, and on the minimum operation mode which would seem to suit, 400w to give an output of 2kw. As the solar unit often produces in excess of 400w in winter, it would mainly run the heat recovery unit, resulting in 2kw 'free' heat available. Sounds as though it could be a good investment, giving a return well in excess of the current UK rock bottom interest rate returns, which are hitting income here quite hard.

A further key strand here of surviving on a tightening budget, is that of producing self-consumed food via veg growing and small-scale egg production. The veg is grown biologically, the same as organic, with a 'permaculture' system running, which basically means that the system is self-contained in providing on-going longer-term soil nutrition. Here that's not 100% true in that the main fertiliser unit, the compost heap, does receive offerings 'from without' - used teabags, for instance, but it does probably operate at around 90+% 'true'. As above, compost is the main fertiliser, a couple of decent layers being applied (along with wood ash from the woodburner) to half the growing ground around February time (end of winter). This is of course, free fertiliser - the waste of the system is turned into a free positive asset, which seems to make quite a bit of sense.

Another key aspect to such a biological/organic permaculture growing system is the need to practice rotational growing to maintain soil health and fertility, and just as commercial organic farmers have to do. If, say, one crop, say, potatoes, were grown each year on the same ground, the ground would become depleted and there could well be a build up of pests and diseases in the soil. So here, the veg growing area is split into four to facilitate a four-course (four year) rotation, something like potatoes, brassicas (eg kale, cabbages), onions, peas/beans, with small crops such as salads put in here and there.

Longer-term riches ---- ?

'Husbandry' involves longer-term care of the basic resource i.e. the soil, which here happens via the rotation, via the fact that one cycle of the rotation is 'replenishing' in its own right (peas/beans - they are legumes which handily take nitrogen from the atmosphere and 'fix' it in the soil), via of course the bi-yearly applications of compost and woodash, and via a small amount of 'green manuring' (growing a crop such as, say, clover, to be then dug into the soil). Such a system has now 'worked' ok for three decades or so, with the added bonus of a reduction in soil 'ill health' (far less club root, onion white rot, brassica root fly et. - maybe the bi-yearly applications of woodash have something to do with this - ? As woodash is a mild alkali it's also kept the soil 'sweet'- otherwise it might get too acid and become 'sour', (needing lime application)).

The policy is not to go for 'big' produce, which does seem at times to suffer from limited taste delivery, but to grow varieties specifically for taste (eg. 'Action' beetroot - smaller, very dark fleshed, and picked fresh, sublime taste). Shop-bought veg has presumably got to be at least two days old, and the taste differential between that and fresh picked produce can presumably be considerable - one basket of broad beans picked last year, for instance, was 'forgotten' and the beans not shelled till the following day, by which time they'd lost roughly 50% of their taste.

Seasonal riches ----

The contribution of such an allotment size (approx. 20m * 50m ) veg growing patch can be considerable. Most years here the potatoes would last, say, half the year, the onions the whole year, there'd be always veg to pick whatever time of year, veg to make soups with through the winter, veg to have stir fry meals through the summer.  The  leanest time of the year would be April to June -the purple sprouting, curly kale and leeks would have finished, with the next crop, early peas and broad beans, not coming in till June, but with good ol' spring greens to save the day- picked as spring greens March to May, then hearting up as spring cabbages thereon. ( in UK, sown as seed July time, planted out Sept. time, overwintered).

On a vegetarian or limited meat diet, such an organic veg patch can then make a real contribution to lowering living costs - and food costs are predicted to rise fairly sharply over the next few years. The seasonality of the various crops gives good variety and 'fresh delight' through the year, as it were. A recently reported survey indicated that the majority of people in the UK aren't with the seasonality thing - maybe not too surprising considering the availabilty of most things most of the time in supermarkets, and yet at the loss of 'seasonal delight', maybe - ?

One enjoyable 'seasonal delight' event the other day in a local small town was the yearly carnival and particularly the carnival procession throught the town. Much cheering and clapping from the considerable number of summer-season onlookers in the sun, and particularly for some of the runners who were struggling a bit at the back of the pack. Compassion may be a bit on the thin side here and there these days, but maybe not amongst good ol' so-called 'ordinary' folk - warms the cockles. TV showed more revellers attending one of the summer music festivals - all having a good time, in good spirits and all seemed to be ' in harmony' - a good 'freerange', 'freespirit' fix -- ?

'Rich restrict' ---- ?

   External (i.e. to the individual) values and prompts seem to feature strongly in modern western-type cultures (as opposed to,say, internal value systems) with wealth and assciated power modern key 'values' - ? Following the train of thought from May's piece, this could then be the 'natural' outcome of so-called 'free' markets becoming less free due to the development of large powerful players within them, a trend maybe not directly suited to those of the 'freerange' bent - ? It's reported, for instance, that wealth has re-concentrated at the top, with over 90% owned by less than 10% of the populace. Compare this with, for instance, the South Sea island community where the young fit males exercise their prowess by going to sea and coming back with good hauls of fish, to be then shared amongst all, young and old. The other end of the scale, for sure, but do those guys get good satisfaction using their strength and skills in playing their role as 'social providers' - ?

Although an associated 'western culture type' trend is that things 'social' seem now to be tending to be seen as 'infra dig', presumably perceived as potentially interfering with self-seeking wealth accumulation and individual freedom, society is in fact a fact of life, a reality, so will a society with the few 'creaming it off' ultimately be a sound option i.e. over the longer-term - ? History tends to suggest maybe not - and perhaps as the saying goes, 'money is like manure, in heaps it stinks,  but it's useful when it's spread around' - ? The UK broadsheets, for instance, have recently been reporting the anger within the UK's National Health Service, in which the pay of front-line troops such as nurses has been held virtually static due to UK austerity measures, which then don't seem to have applied to managers, getting their significant pay rises and chunky bonuses. Surely in such a care-based area,( as in many areas - ?) the first priority to assure/produce 'care' is to treat staff in the first place with 'fair care' - ? Basic motivation 'rules' would seem to have gone out of the window - ?

 Such 'longer-term' type thoughts, though, may not find too much favour in today's seemingly 'homogenised' fast-paced and, as some have suggested, short-termed culture, in which money making and accumulation can seem to take centre stage, and in which it  appears that everyone has to be/is geared to the assumptive objective of making money, and lots of it. Fancy, for instance, calling out  'but I don't want to be a million/billionaire'  in these times. 'They're not all locked up yet', as one renowned golf commentator is wont to say, might be something like the 'modern' response - ?

'Wealth of ---- ?'

 Maybe it's a good job, though, that not everyone's the same, that there are different takes and outlooks, that 'bio-diversity' lives in humans as in nature in general - ? Perhaps one of the bio-diverse 'reactions' against strong emphasis on wealth gathering is to go the other way, to extoll, for instance, economic, frugal even, living, which can give its own brand of 'achievement satisfaction' - ? There's actually quite a movement promoting simple, 'economic' living, with here in the UK quite a few smallholding geared magazines, and books such as 'The Simple Living Guide'. There used to be (maybe still is - ?) a  US magazine devoted to frugal/economic living aptly entitled 'The Tightwad Gazette', which at the time seemed to have quite a circulation. Back along, even wealth was maybe not quite as revered - there was one study, for instance, of US millionaires which found that they drove vehicles on average over five years old. Not quite a 'make-do and mend' situation, but presumably indicating that there was  'life beyond wealth' ,  dimensions beyond the single - ?

Ah well, enough words for now, more micro-holding action needed - there's logs to put in store, cauliflowers to hoe, tomatoes to plant out, a second wave of onion sets to plant (the dreaded leek moth might have been avoided -but the onion fly  has struck and the onions are being hit bad), a hedge to cut and a fence to mend -  all 'grist to the 'freerange' mill' ------ ?