permaculture

["Steve Diver" <steved@ncatark.uark.edu>]

The PC tribe is so damn adamant about animals, yes?  

Where are all the urban animals supposed to exist?  

Maybe PC is over blown as a solution to world problems, 
if the 75% of the population living in urban places are 
excluded from practicing PC because landlords don't allow 
chooks and cows to live in apartments.  Of course, in a cool town 
like Fayetteville or Berkeley or Asheville, we have progressive 
landlords and they understand we need these animals to practice
sustainable living.  Thus, weird sounds sometimes echo through the 
hip neighborhoods starting in the early morning.  By day--off to our
income destinations to pay for the feed--we tie the single cow to the 
shower faucet and place hay in the bathtub.  We have created a special 
micro-barrel composting method, mixing in-situ wheatgrass sprouts with 
kitchen scraps and cow poop.  The compost makes a fine potting mix for 
container-grown veggies and houseplants.  The latest appropriate 
technology craze is really an old indigenous solution, strap a poop sack
underneath the cow so it collects in one easy-to-retrieve bag ....instead of 
the labor-intensive pooper scooper.  Sort of like sheet mulching instead of 
hoeing.  There is an ethical debate here in Fayetteville though.  Some PC'ers 
have adopted high intensity discharge lights to raise indoor veggies, while 
others askew the electrical inputs.  Invariablly the naysayers are the lucky 
ones with south-facing windows though.  It's always easier when you're 
sitting on a goldmine of sunlight in a town with beautiful trees but 
concommittment shade, to be ethical on the electricity issue. 

Oh, were we still visualizing the ideallic PC homestead on 0.5 to 5.0 
acres?   

Steve Diver
Fayetteville, Arkansas 

 

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steved@ncatark.uark.edu