permaculture

[Jay Woods <woodsjay@cox.net>]

The emails on this have been long and interesting but especially the gold and 
silver emails amazing. It is as if all that we are trying to accomplish as 
permaculturists had vanished. 

Personally, all that I have accomplished in the last 15 years, is only a 
patch 
on what can be done with six acres: 
        
        There are big trees to remove that are not even fit for lumber. 
                (The tree of heaven stinks and the wood rots just looking at 
it.) 
        There is varietal upgrading. 
                (Some of the peach trees have better flavor, don't get peach 
tree borer, and 
breed true. Replace the trees that the borer has killed.) 
        There is help and plants that can be given to neighbors. 
                (A new neighbor is moving in across the street. They are 
taking over a home 
that needs major reworking and they are fascinated with the plantings on my 
place for their own yard and the post and beam construction with the 
harvested timber.)
        There is more that can be learned on using all that is growing on the 
acreage 
to take less time and toward improved results.
                (If I put up platforms in the trees will they be colonized by 
falcons and 
reduce the starling population? Can I switch some of the grapevines over to 
Dried On The Vine raisin production to jump ahead on drying some for winter 
and increase the yield and - while I am at it - actually learn to prune 
grapes into an arbor rather than trellis format? How do I lay out new 
plantings to allow better for tree house construction later? What would be 
the best plantings over the underground house.) 

I'll be dead before the possibilities are even close to exhausted.

On Saturday 13 January 2007 14:00, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
> Outsourcing and the loss of jobs and the accompanying impact on local
> communities, corporate greed & monopolizing/buying out the 
> competition/lowering product quality & raising prices. Regarding that
> here's a comment about massive outsourcing of nearly the entire
> manufacturing process to China from a friend in Australia: "You got to
> thank the management for another icon being sold out. There is apparently
> no money in standards, principles or quality. Why should these companies be
> given any loyalty? If proof was necessary, we are all living in a shrinking
> world where the dollar rules and loyalty counts for nothing."
>
> Those who can should prepare for future by building a local economy through
> the development of neighborhood/local/regional production & services
> marketing network and barter system. Barn raising on a large scale. Build
> secure neighborhoods and network with others in a region. Work with and in
> addition the existing system.
>
> Chicken Little was too busy watching the sky to get any real work done.