An Evolving Exploration into the Head, Heart and Hands of Energy Descent
Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
When I lived in Ireland, I once met an elderly gentleman who told me that he grew up in an old cob house in Limerick which had a huge inglenook fireplace, designed, a la Newgrange, so that on one day in the year, the sunlight came down the chimney and lit up the whole hearth, alerting you to the fact that that was the day to plant your potatoes. I have always taken that as an awe-inspiring example of how, often, ‘simple’ dwellings were often nothing of the sort, but on reflection, its not a very reliable approach, it might be cloudy, you might have the fire lit, or even just be out for the morning. Anyway, I don’t need a precisely oriented chimney to let me know Spring has arrived, it’s all of a sudden underway whether I want it to be or not (and I very much do…).
It’s a while ago now, but the great event that was the launch of “Local Food: how to make it happen in your community” has now been immortalised in a rather good film record of the evening. It was hosted by yours truly, but featured talks by Claire Milne (Transition Network), Julie Brown (Growing Communities), Zoe Leventhal (Transition Town Brixton’s Food Group) and permaculture artists Holly Gregson and Richard Houguez, as well as, of course, Tamzin herself. The film was made by Samuel Stonehill to whom many thanks.
Here’s a short little film, made as part of a forthcoming longer film called ‘The Journey’, capturing the early days of the Transition BS3 community allotment. Discovered on a rummage about on Vimeo and rather sweet.
A while ago, at Schumacher College, Climate Friendly Food was launched, an innovative approach to getting farmers measuring the carbon implications of their farming, definintely worth supporting and checking out. There were some great speakers, including a particularly in-form Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust. Here is his talk, and below it, mine. Regular readers will know that Martin is a great hero of mine, and his forthcoming book ‘Creating a Forest Garden’ is eagerly awaited at Hopkins Towers.
A firm brush and the fibres soon start to separate
Here is a top tip I wrote which appears in the latest edition of Permaculture Magazine, out now.
“One of the key frustrations about the end of the summer months is stringy runner beans. You nurture them, weed them, give them a frame to climb up, yet by the end of the season, many of them are tough, fibrous, and inedible. Last summer, I sat with a large trug of large, stringy runners, thinking of a use for them other than the compost heap. The solution came to me after reading John Paul Flintoff’s ‘Through the Eye of a Needle‘. I have discovered a way of extracting those fibres that prove so hard to digest, in a way that they are actually useful. Here’s how.
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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