The unidentifiable beauty of experience
It’s been almost a month. Four weeks of trying to live as “biological” as possible. The appreciation for the sawdust making life has grown tremendously over this time. It made me realize that being conscious of the consequences that your way of living effects the environment is a necessity, but the way of dealing with it is a personal journey of figuring out what measures are the right ones in daily living situations. Making a big mess of the landscape as a result of denying yourself and your farm animals of any modern techniques and products that might have a “bad” influence on nature, (including WIFI and cleaning products) is just not my “cup of tea”.
I’m not blessed with a structured mind, as a matter of fact, I have a tendency to let chaos take over. That said, there is a limit and it’s reached when I start to feel uncomfortable and experience a force inside to clean things up, get it straight. Being in this little chaotic paradise with free running (shitting) chickens, hiding their eggs like it’s Easter every day, eatable plants spread over 3 hectares of trees, ponds, waste piles, “herbs”, hundreds of randomly spread around water hoses, fighting dogs, cats, guinea pigs, birds, fish, mosquitos and flies, lots of flies, made me realize this isn’t the way I would like to contribute to make this world a cleaner and better place. I’m used to skip on cleaning products that are bad for the environment, they’re also bad for our septic tank and so practical reasons go hand in hand with protecting nature. I see the value in almost any material, new or used, so to produce just one small garbage bag every two weeks as a couple with one dog, doesn’t seem that bad.
I don’t see the point in having 30 apple and pear trees, to just use the one percent of harvestable fruits and let the rest just rot underneath the trees, attracting all those little creatures that made my arms look like a shaved Dalmatian skin. There are all kinds of (“bad”) things to say about modern farming, but at least there are rules on handling manure and waste products. It’s pretty unpleased not being able to sit outside, especially with the current weather, without protective clothing. And yes, it is a choice you can make, unfortunately, your neighbours can’t. It’s not about farming in a biological way – which by the way is a wrong word for old-fashioned normal farming in contrast to non-biological or chemical farming – it’s about the way you do it. There are enough examples of well structured, productive and profitable organic/biological farms which blend in with nature instead of occupying the landscape with randomly placed structures, fences and poly-tunnels. Maybe farming is a profession that requires certain knowledge and skills? Maybe that’s why in a country like The Netherlands (where I was born) there are agriculture schools and even a university?
The son or daughter of a farmer, whose father was a farmer too, and lived among the family traditions long enough, has learned what farming is all about. Even those kids will have an education at an agriculture school, learning not only all about the physical and theoretical side of becoming a farmer (biological/organic or not), but also how to run a farm so the land that is extracted from nature doesn’t go to waste. The fight against the big industrial farming lobby and bought-off politicians is one that they have to battle on a daily bases. They have to live up to all kinds of rules, of which a lot are diminishing the chance of success as a “smaller” farmer. Than someday this, hardly cured of a fashionable burn-out syndrome, an ex-notary clerk and his new, midlife crisis, substitute for the mother of his children, reinvents himself and buys a piece of rural land, puts down a badly constructed caravan called a “Tiny House”, some constructions out of old pallets and plastic sheets, buys himself a bush cutter and proudly presents his organic farm.
He scrolls thru the Internet forums and Facebook groups for answers to questions he didn’t think of before taking on the adventure, asking the same advise others asked so many times before. Still under the impression that there are no rules and laws, building regulations – although he knew he’d better have something on wheels for a home to keep out of trouble – and all is free in off-grid paradise, he starts complaining about the bureaucratic forces against him. It almost looks like this southern country is as normal as all the other European countries and although some will take a few banknotes to smudge their reading glasses, has rules and laws every citizen is presumed to obey. The returning of childhood dreams, that seem to be one of the symptoms when getting fed-up with daily stress, of building a romantic treehouse is scattered at the first scary moment during a bushfire. Idealism is a hard to bear burden in a world full of reality checks and common sense procedures. Soon agriculture strikes of lightning enlighten the facts of farming. It’s a stressful profession, working long days, being depended on the weather and, because of the lack of knowledge, with often disappointing results. His new flame is wondering when this dream of living in paradise will come true, all she sees from underneath a tarp tightened to the temporary living quarters, is bad looking pieces of amateur architecture and half-eaten crops scattered around a plot of land. Her generation is used to have it all at any time. The neighbour brings them a 5-litre water bottle filled with wine, his grapes seem to do fine as are the rest of his crops…
I couldn’t be a farmer, it’s a profession that requires so many skills, physical ability, mental strength, predictive insights and the acceptance of the laws of nature as well as those of lawmakers. I’m better of keep doing at what I do, making something useful from materials others throw on the skip, reducing the waste that is only there because it is just that in the eyes of folks that can only survive being surrounded by the new and unrepaired. I’ll just keep enjoying living in our little cottage, we rebuild from a ruin up, on the lonesome hill and leave the adventures ways of living in Tiny Houses (which has nothing to do with the size of a house) yurts, tipi’s, treehouses and caravans to the ones that can appreciate that way of a solution as an alternative. With so many derelict houses, half-empty villages and ruined farms, to me that seems the only way to regain life in the countryside as opposed to take away another piece of rural land and confiscate it from nature. As I have no idea how to grow food successfully, I’ll stick with buying at the local market and from my neighbours. Fact is, they know how!
I’m not blessed with a structured mind, as a matter of fact, I have a tendency to let chaos take over. That said, there is a limit and it’s reached when I start to feel uncomfortable and experience a force inside to clean things up, get it straight. Being in this little chaotic paradise with free running (shitting) chickens, hiding their eggs like it’s Easter every day, eatable plants spread over 3 hectares of trees, ponds, waste piles, “herbs”, hundreds of randomly spread around water hoses, fighting dogs, cats, guinea pigs, birds, fish, mosquitos and flies, lots of flies, made me realize this isn’t the way I would like to contribute to make this world a cleaner and better place. I’m used to skip on cleaning products that are bad for the environment, they’re also bad for our septic tank and so practical reasons go hand in hand with protecting nature. I see the value in almost any material, new or used, so to produce just one small garbage bag every two weeks as a couple with one dog, doesn’t seem that bad.
I don’t see the point in having 30 apple and pear trees, to just use the one percent of harvestable fruits and let the rest just rot underneath the trees, attracting all those little creatures that made my arms look like a shaved Dalmatian skin. There are all kinds of (“bad”) things to say about modern farming, but at least there are rules on handling manure and waste products. It’s pretty unpleased not being able to sit outside, especially with the current weather, without protective clothing. And yes, it is a choice you can make, unfortunately, your neighbours can’t. It’s not about farming in a biological way – which by the way is a wrong word for old-fashioned normal farming in contrast to non-biological or chemical farming – it’s about the way you do it. There are enough examples of well structured, productive and profitable organic/biological farms which blend in with nature instead of occupying the landscape with randomly placed structures, fences and poly-tunnels. Maybe farming is a profession that requires certain knowledge and skills? Maybe that’s why in a country like The Netherlands (where I was born) there are agriculture schools and even a university?
The son or daughter of a farmer, whose father was a farmer too, and lived among the family traditions long enough, has learned what farming is all about. Even those kids will have an education at an agriculture school, learning not only all about the physical and theoretical side of becoming a farmer (biological/organic or not), but also how to run a farm so the land that is extracted from nature doesn’t go to waste. The fight against the big industrial farming lobby and bought-off politicians is one that they have to battle on a daily bases. They have to live up to all kinds of rules, of which a lot are diminishing the chance of success as a “smaller” farmer. Than someday this, hardly cured of a fashionable burn-out syndrome, an ex-notary clerk and his new, midlife crisis, substitute for the mother of his children, reinvents himself and buys a piece of rural land, puts down a badly constructed caravan called a “Tiny House”, some constructions out of old pallets and plastic sheets, buys himself a bush cutter and proudly presents his organic farm.
He scrolls thru the Internet forums and Facebook groups for answers to questions he didn’t think of before taking on the adventure, asking the same advise others asked so many times before. Still under the impression that there are no rules and laws, building regulations – although he knew he’d better have something on wheels for a home to keep out of trouble – and all is free in off-grid paradise, he starts complaining about the bureaucratic forces against him. It almost looks like this southern country is as normal as all the other European countries and although some will take a few banknotes to smudge their reading glasses, has rules and laws every citizen is presumed to obey. The returning of childhood dreams, that seem to be one of the symptoms when getting fed-up with daily stress, of building a romantic treehouse is scattered at the first scary moment during a bushfire. Idealism is a hard to bear burden in a world full of reality checks and common sense procedures. Soon agriculture strikes of lightning enlighten the facts of farming. It’s a stressful profession, working long days, being depended on the weather and, because of the lack of knowledge, with often disappointing results. His new flame is wondering when this dream of living in paradise will come true, all she sees from underneath a tarp tightened to the temporary living quarters, is bad looking pieces of amateur architecture and half-eaten crops scattered around a plot of land. Her generation is used to have it all at any time. The neighbour brings them a 5-litre water bottle filled with wine, his grapes seem to do fine as are the rest of his crops…
I couldn’t be a farmer, it’s a profession that requires so many skills, physical ability, mental strength, predictive insights and the acceptance of the laws of nature as well as those of lawmakers. I’m better of keep doing at what I do, making something useful from materials others throw on the skip, reducing the waste that is only there because it is just that in the eyes of folks that can only survive being surrounded by the new and unrepaired. I’ll just keep enjoying living in our little cottage, we rebuild from a ruin up, on the lonesome hill and leave the adventures ways of living in Tiny Houses (which has nothing to do with the size of a house) yurts, tipi’s, treehouses and caravans to the ones that can appreciate that way of a solution as an alternative. With so many derelict houses, half-empty villages and ruined farms, to me that seems the only way to regain life in the countryside as opposed to take away another piece of rural land and confiscate it from nature. As I have no idea how to grow food successfully, I’ll stick with buying at the local market and from my neighbours. Fact is, they know how!
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