permaculture

[<permed@nor.com.au>]

> Hundreds of 
>> thousousands of dollars were pumped into the property,
>
>Robyn, is this number for real, or are you "pulling a Bill" ? :-)
>
>I remember visiting your property and being quite inspired by it, by the
>ponds in particular...Do you think, learning rom your mistakes, that you
>could manage the fish ponds successfully now ? could you make Bill's boasts
>a reality ?

No, I wasn't spinning a tall yarn here with the figure. If one took into 
account the massive amount of human effort and time invested in the 
property it'd be much more. 

Re the fish ponds, if I wanted to be a serious fish farmer and manage 
those ponds successfully I'd take 2 years out and do a course on 
freshwater aquaculture, get to know all the chemistry and biology 
required to understand and manage the system and spend another year or so 
checking out the industry.... 
I lived with a qualified aquaculturalist for 17 years who wondered why 
the folk on this farm never consulted him as he'd offered to give his 
expertise for free. By the way he was given the Designers Manual chapter 
on aquaculture to proof read, found a lot of inaccuracies, none of which 
were amended.

Some of the mistakes with the property in question that can be taken on 
board include:
- don't buy land just because it's next door and for sale unless you 
really have a clear purpose for it.
_ don't buy more land when you can't adequately manage the land you've 
already got
- make sure you check with local council regarding planning guidelines 
and conditions when you think you've come up with an idea and don't tell 
them they're idiots if you don't agree with their conditions (there's 
usually a good reason for these things)
- don't ignore council regulations and let people build and do things 
that need permits and invite the public in and expect to get away with it 
- respect your neighbours and develop a rapport with your local 
neighbourhood, if you get them off-side and want to get away with things 
they might blow the whistle on you to council
- design your property and do your homework including at least a basic 
business and management plan
- if you're inviting other people to set up enterprises and projects on 
your land have a clear understanding with them about things or there'll 
be major misunderstandings and folk (including oneself) can get 'burnt'
- just because you pump hundreds of thousands of dollars into a property 
it doesn't mean the property value will increase by the same amount 
- when you put in dams and swales be clear about why you're creating 
them, their function, purpose and how they'll relate to surrounding 
plant/animal systems and land use - and it helps to check the soil to see 
if it'll hold water
- don't go introducing noxious floating water plants onto large dams - 
makes it hard to go swimming and costs a fortune to remove them when the 
weed inspector finds out
- when you plant hundreds of valuable fruit trees into grassland on a 
remote part of a large property without pioneers, groundcovers and follow 
up management don't expect them to grow into a jungle in 3 years - 
they'll just get lost in the grass and weeds.

That's enough for now...
Robyn