“The sun never sets on your work, and every hour of the day we are on the line with our bodies. Take heart, you are never alone, and you are building. Every week, there are more permaculture courses than I have given in my life time; you have made me irrelevant and for that I am grateful.
If you keep teaching, as you have been, your numbers will grow exponentially, and you will be a force in all areas of life. A force for common sense, goodwill, humane value, positive solutions, earth care. It is the only thing in life worth doing; all else is worthless. As you go to sleep every night, think of your friends, who may just be waking up; as I often think of you. When at times, you are impeded, frustrated, or seem to be getting nowhere, remember at the same time many of us are advancing elsewhere. In total, we always advance, always learn.
Many of us are academics, many of us are tribal. As a group, we stand as translators between modern and traditional knowledge, and combine both. Value all cultures and languages, they encode the memories and values of all people. Our strength lies in our unique attributes, joined by our shared values. We are of equal value between ourselves, deserve equal respect.
Words by Bill Mollison, from his autobiography ‘Travels in Dreams’
Just recently I started reading Bill Mollisons autobiography. It has been so inspiring, and given me even more enthusiasm, even more compost atop our forest of dreams in fruit trees. Ever day Justin and I wake facing the rising sun, up we get to go replant the Garden of Eden.
We have been super busy the last while, its left me little chance to up date our forward farming blog, so I felt with so much going on it would be great to catch up with everyone.
About three weeks ago we starting planting a food forest in Hogsback, Eastern Cape. Still breaking out the back door of winter, we have had to contend with some heavy frosts, strong winds and a few freezing nights. The farm is a back packers called Terra-khaya, and the owner Shane was inspired to go ahead with the food forest after meeting us in July and watching a Jeff Lawton DVD on growing a food forest.
So with over 150 fruit and indigenous trees and other plants to go in a space of 35 meters squared, on a steep cleared slope on the side of a heavily invaded black wattle forest, we have our work cut out for us. And what wonderful work it is, and what an incredible place to be planting our first (of many) food forests. Loki went to Queenstown to collect most of the fruit trees, apple, pear, apricot, quince, mulberry, figs, peach, almond, young berries, goose berries, plum, pomegranate, chestnuts, along with a magical melange of flowers, groundcovers like mint, geraniums, cow peas and creepers, shrubs and herbs!
We have been super blessed to have the help of two of Shane’s staff, Patrick and Jacob, they have been amazing in landscaping and shaping the slope. Giving us some more muscle to move and create this amazing space. We are so high up here surrounded by the formidable Amatole mountains, that some days we become completely engulfed in clouds, and it seems as if we are in a space less cottony white world.
Before coming here we had the privilege to meet a really inspiring lady named Kerry and her beautiful blue eyed baby boy named blade. Kerry has spent the last while teaching permaculture at a local school in Cinsta, near East London. She has created a garden in the school grounds where the children can come and learn about permaculture. This could be the most valuable thing they learning in school. From the ground all the way to the market environment. This ideal system encompasses such a diversity of life skills, from sustainable agriculture to commerce and trading, Its surprising that not all schools have a small model garden to learn from.
We are so happy to be able to do this project, to learn and to teach and share what we know. Hope everyone is well and continuing to explore what we have been shown.
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Love and light
Gervaise, Justin and Baloo
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