Free-Range Living

'Sweating Small Stuff----- '

  The cottage garden flowers have excelled themselves this year and are still going strong now in early September - all organically grown without use of chemicals, and with just occasional watering as and when needed. The soil here is a gorgous dark, easy-worked friable and fertile loam - it's been a cottage garden for probably over a couple of hundred years, but the one thing it doesn't do that well is hold in moisture.
,
  After a pleasant and sunny July here on the eco organic micro-holding (small smallholding) in the uk heartlands, the first half of August was a bit manky, cold and wet, and non too pleasant. Fortunately it bucked up for the latter half of August, with quite a bit of warm sunny weather - a contrast to the tempests, downpours and floods some poor souls in various parts of the world were/are experiencing. The countryside hereabouts has held up well with not too many signs of summer fading away, although at the end of August and now in early September the evenings are drawing in - dark by 8.30, and have been quite cool, requiring some heat on indoors. This has coincided with that 'preparation' for winter' seasonal feeling, sorting out supplies of gas, checking and testing the diesel reserve generator, and checking and sorting adequate means of emergency lighting, for short electric interruptions, the generator coping quite adequately with longer spells, plus running fridge, freezers and the TV. One guy featured in a recent paper, and, erm, a fan of electric motion, plus having wood as a main heating fuel, catered for all his yearly power needs, including running two vehicles, for the grand sum of £650 -just half of the average UK house power cost - a 'freerange' practicioner par excellence -----
 
Supplies of burning wood are too a major consideration here for the coming winter, with the wood burner stove and the front-room fire likely to come on stream towards the end of September. To this end quite a bit of sawing of 'small' wood, to help the heavier logs to burn up, has taken place resulting in a satisfyingly full small wood bunker.  The bought half of the supply of heavier logs arrived on the driveway last May and have been busily drying away in the 'logs-istics' centre - they were though already pretty dry on arrival. Although quite a bit of free wood has been collected over this summer by various methods, from the local farm's spoil pile and redundant floorboards from a local house renovation, for instance, the decision's been made to store most of this wood for use next year, when it won't be so 'green', and also allowing a woodpile that's been about for a few years, and in danger of 'wood rot', to be used. One of the current micro-holding activities  is to haul this wood by handtruck from its pile at the end of the veg growing area to the front of the garage. Here it can stay in the dry till the end of September when 'big D' will hopefully arrive with his amazing 'cuts like butter' big chainsaw, to saw it up. With one cutting and the other 'feeding' the sawhorse, a heck of a lot of wood can be sawn up in a couple of hours - and then the 'big' wood larger bunker in the 'logs-istics' centre will also be 'satifyingly full'--------

 Small spring harvest ----
 
  The last planting job in the veg growing area has just taken place - planting out the spring cabbage plants, a bit early, probably, but they were beginning to be hit in their pot by pests. These will grow on a bit this autumn, then overwinter, to come on again early spring to provide 'spring greens' around March/April time, when not much else, apart from leeks, is available, then those that aren't cut will heart up to then be spring cabbage come May time, when there's still not too much else to pick - a pretty useful crop. Otherwise it's been harvest time here on the organic micro-holding - all the potatoes are now dug and bagged, after having had a day or two in the late August sun to harden the skins off, for them then to keep better. It seems to have been the case generally hereabouts that potato crops have been good this year - certainly here it's been a better potato year than for some years, and those stored should be able to supply potatoes till Xmas.

The blight pest didn't really occur this year or if it did it was quite late, resulting in bigger potatoes all round. The potato harvest has coincided with the onion harvest, the onions grown from home grown plants having done particularly well this year, without any pest (alium fly) attack. The onions stay out in the sun longer than the potatoes and then spend two/three weeks in a glasshouse, by which time they're ready to store for winter, here on old bread trays to allow air circulation and on top of the fridge /freezer in the store room which just gives that bit of heat to keep the damp off, and normally they'll then last through the year. Everyone's beans in this area seemed to get off to a shaky start but are now (early Sept.) cropping well; beetroot,  salad stuff and tomatoes are all cropping fine, and generally it's been an 'ok/good' growing year. This year's big failure - there always seems to be one or two - has been parsnips, a miserable 3/4 plants after three repeated sowings. Ah well, c'est la vie de micro-holding n'est-ce pas? - win some, lose some--------

The new soft fruit bed has 'done the business', providing strawberries virtually continuously for over three months, along with a useful raspberry crop - food fit for --- well, micro-holders ----. As an experiment, not too much weeding was done in mid summer, on the basis that the plants would then be big enough to cope with a few weeds, and that then when the weeds were eventually pulled, there would be more green material for the compost heap and so-called 'weeds' would actually then be useful plants. By and large this approach seems to have worked, with the added bonus that the weeds are then big enough to be easily grasped and pulled out by hand, which makes for quite a quick operation.  May not probably, though, suit too much those of a well ordered, 'tidy' disposition ---- ?

 'Small stuff ----- big stuff'

The micro-holding life is of course mighty small stuff in the face of modern 'biggist' life, with governments seemingly taking increasingly 'micro control' over peoples' lives, and commercial forces semingly becoming ever more 'giantist' as Fritz Schumacher (of 'Small is Beautiful' renown) noted as early as the 1970's, with the possible result that the micro small powerless individual could be in danger of 'withering on the vine' - ? There's been a reported 'norming' trend  which could be of some concern, especially if the norms of cultures driven essentially by 'big and powerful' then impinge on, say, Charles Handy's (a UK business guru) notion of the 'true and honourable individual' - ? If there's such strong media focus, for instance, on commerciality and commercial gain, does this mean that other potentially important areas (such as 'individuals' needs and development') get scant space and therefore , short shrift - ? There's some concern, for instance that modern heavily materialistically-leaning cultures can work against people finding self-fulfillment, and even 'spiritual contentment', presumably  not aided by modern western-style cultures materialistically rather than spiritually aligned  (some would no doubt go further, suggesting that modern man has a 'monetary thrall' disease and has taken up 'Mammon' worship - ?)

The actor John Cleese, for instance, said awhile back on TV  'money has spoilt everything'. Money was 'invented' to facilitate exchange of goods and services (i.e. rather than being an object of desire in its own right). And as an exchange mechanism it was pretty useful, as previously trying to trade three pigs with getting the roof thatched could be 'awkward' (' but i've nowhere to put three pigs?'). Some would no doubt still maintain that money works better as a 'means' than an 'end', and to use a micro-holding apt saying - 'money's like muck - in piles it stinks, but spread around it does some good' (then helping the 'roses to be smelt along the way' ------?)

  'Some people think they're worth a lot of money just because they have it'           (Fannie Hurst, novelist)

With trade exchanges - interestingly also 'social transactions' - the notion of 'fair exchange' then also arose. In fact it had to, even though these days it seems to be more of a case of aiming to 'screw' the other side - ?  In the UK, historically much of the trade was of agricultural nature, and if an individual was perceived to be 'slewing' things too much in their own favour and advantage, it was soon recognised, with the result that that individual was then ostracised as far as trading was concerned (and probably socially as well?), resulting in his/her short-term gain quickly turning into 'longer-term pain'. Some might suggest too that 'on the make' behaviour , which does at times seem to be the modus operandi of much modern commercial 'winner' orientated practice, is not necessarily ' fully natural', foregoing for instance the mutual pleasure of a successful trade (and leading to on-going exchanges) and the social benefits thereof, together with the personal gain to be had from practising 'generosity of spirit' ----- ?

'Micro small ----- '

One way for those able of trying to limit the 'thralling' power of money can be to decide not to 'chase the dollar', but rather to operate within a fixed income, as many undoubtedly do,  which can then bring creativity into play in finding ways to stretch resources to meet needs -  a satisfying process too.

 Interesting as such musings are, time to get back to the 'micro small' arena and get a bit more wood sorted to meet the winter season with some confidence --- and satisfaction. Micro-small such a lifestyle maybe, but not insignificant to the micro-holder - far from it in fact - rather, meaningful and satisfying - and maybe if there were more, a calmer and more stable world would ----- Ah well, can but dream, whilst 'hoeing the leeks', as it were ----