I read an article recently on preparing our kids for extinction.

While some of the article I did not agree with I did agree with the idea that the feeling of we are too small to do any good rang home as true to me.

The movies, our culture everything looks for a silver bullet a great leader a great philanthropist. Some one bigger wiser better than me.

Sorry no hero to come along and save you that is in your own hands. The acts you do each day multiplied by the billions will either save you and your children’s future or damn it.

As I have children it is something I contemplate often.

So stop waiting and just do.

For me polishing my work shoes and my daughters school shoes is one of these simple acts.

If every western person bought quality shoes and polished or paid for them to be polished and their shoes lasted 50% long this would have a positive impact on the world.

I am no fool know people buy them for fashion for status for a bunch of reasons other than to walk in so let’s just say 5% do it multiplied out that is a lot of resources saved.

For now I polish my daughters shoes, in time she will learn this. She needs to even with the best I can do at teaching her she is used to if it breaks I just get a new one. That is the mantra of the world she lives in.

In time like all children of her generation she will need adaptive resilience. Darwin was well aware of the fact it was not the biggest, smartest, most aggressive of a species that survived it was the ones who could adapt the most effectively.

Teaching her this and my own actions are the biggest gift I can give her and her generation.

I wrote an article on this a while ago on January but never got around to posting it.

Yesterday while at a get together of parents and children from our daughters old kindergarten a discussion was had and it filled out a few arguments and gave me perhaps a better perspective of people trying to be green but outside of the group I often mix with.

Basically most of the others are technology driven green groups. The discussion was on the sustainability methods of capturing the excess power from the current crop of renewable energy. Be that PV solar like I have in batteries storage, hot salt methodology as described in Australia to the use of compressed air storage for wind.

As methods of recycling batteries has become easier I believe that a stop gap in the short to medium term will be off grid batteries powered by solar. The truth is that this will be fought tooth and nail by the big providers who’s connection costs at present make up between 1/3 and ½ of the costs while the amount of power they sell plummets.

The discussion did centre as it will always around the economics of the way we use power.

For me and I will publish the article tomorrow on this. I use the power during the day my newer cost effective system with a return to grid of 6.5 cents vs 37 cents to buy means I need to use my power during the day.

To one of the other people who had an older system that cost 4 times mine for the same output but was on a feed in of 70 cents and a buy of 37 cents it was doing everything at night which really means using some of the dirtiest power in the world in the form of brown coal.

A third person who was renting looked at reducing their power to a minimum through stoping zombie usage by turning of at the power point. And switching to a more green provider PowerShop and offsetting it through the use of the of an offset program from the not for profit group they work for.

The owner of the home had another option having just installed roller blinds to keep the heat out reducing the need for energy.

Discussions where had about the value of reducing gas in place of solar hot water or a heat pump on a PV system. When to replace what to replace with etc.

There are a lot of things we can all do to reduce the fossil fuel load on the world there is no silver bullet and it will be a lot of different things that eventually lead to a reduction of the load of power.

And this is the key, the argument that the current renewables cannot sustain our current needs is while not entirely true close enough to allow for the fossil and nuclear industry to use it.

But a low fossil fuel economy now that would be of use to the world and even the current crop of renewables will start to bear that load.

I am usually pretty optimistic about the future of the world. I think we will get out at the other end but every so often something comes up that makes me wonder if this is really a delusional view.

The most recent example of this is a product called the honeyflow

This is a well marketed apparently convenient product to make the collection of honey easier. It backers and many of those who have made this go viral claim it will entice more people to keep bees and increase the population of bees.

It has been well received and even friends of mine have gone wow that looks so good and cool and some have even purchased them.

Unfortunately those of us who have and are keeping bees starting to see some holes in the slick video and a lack of information from the developers. But once something gets momentum it is pretty much self-fulfilling and given these guys with a slick video and an untested product where unable to raise 1.9 million dollars of their $70,000 dollar goal is testament to that.

So why does this concern me? Well I am used to the masses, massing. It is a thing our society does well. What has me concerned is that people who I would have thought would have looked at the long term appear not to be.

If even the permaculture community and those who are interested in regenerating the earth can be seduced by a simple slick marketing campaign then what hope is there?

A lot of more eloquent people have come up with the same arguments as me and put them forward more efficiently go do some research if you want.

For me this post is about two things. The list of things I believe will occur in the next few years because of this product and how it has been marketed.

But mostly it is a way as most of my posts are for me to consolidate my own thoughts and fears on the future of my children and how their planet will be affected by the lazy self-indulgent, convenience seeking generation we see here and now!

If or when I get this consolidated in my head there will no doubt be another post on it.

Effects as I See them from honey flow!

• Increase in poorly managed hives in places such as cities and towns.
• Increase in Disease
• Increase in the regulation of keeping bees which will include significant regulatory hurdles and bureaucracy which will drive out people from the backyard bee keeping
• Initial increased number of bees followed by a significant drop off of bees as feral bees and hives compete with each other to the point of starvation (this is already occurring in places like London)
• Increase in the number of people being stung by bees and as above increase in the regulation around the keeping of bees.
• A consumer culture of honey without the understanding of the value of the honey what it takes to get this precious product. Read the current culture on chicken production !
• A lot of people who will put money into this and be let down when the product does not perform as per the video which will lead to a lot of people potentially being anti bee keeping (this is human nature as people do not like to see others succeed where they have failed)

On the upside there will be a lot of videos of people running screaming into the house with their pile of pancakes drizzled with honey and being swarmed by several hundred bees. This is sarcasm!

THIS IS NOT GOING TO END WELL!

I am going to post this now as my son has just got up and given me a big hug. I suppose that answers why in the end I will keep trying in my small way!

Interesting little article from a good site to have a look at.

http://tcpermaculture.com/site/2014/12/18/bruce-lee-would-be-a-permaculturist/

Christmas Australian style a little hotter and dryer and a lot less snowmen .

Have a safe and local Christmas 🙂

WOW October 19^th was the last time I posted on word press.

No point in apologizing life has been insane to say the least 🙂 It is interesting so many of the blogs I follow are not posting much. It seems to be the way at the moment.

So what has happened since the last blog post

Buy Nothing new October

Worked a treat and we ended up half way into November before we bought anything other than a few blades for some tools. We are currently clearing out stuff so we are not buying much anyway.

We have asked the family to avoid non practical presents for Christmas such as clothes for the kids and nothing for us please.

We have small, house a medium sized yard, a ton of projects unfinished we do not require any more stuff. We need to finish projects and get rid of stuff. The amount of stuff is certainly not enhancing our lives. (Post on small is better and gift economy latter)

Solar on the roof.

Yep 2.5KW of Solar. Balanced out by the split system we have put in admittedly but definitely a game changer for us. The fire reduced our fossil gas use by 80% over winter and we are hoping to reduce our power by the same with the solar systems.

We have also signed up for Powershop who support the RET

(post on this latter as well)

Low Carb Diet

Both A. and I are on a low carb diet, which is really a low processed food diet as once you take out the carbs it gets hard to buy any processed food.

Plan is to get weight down then look at where the weight is going on and manage it through a balanced by lower calorific diet.

Biggest change no processed foods! Second biggest change the lack of rubbish and recycling.

(Blog on this and why reducing everyone’s diet to 2000 calories might be the answer to come)

Wicking and garden beds everywhere

Hot house going gang buster, had a huge sale of rhubarb (first sales for the house) garden beds in, wicking beds working and being developed all over the garden.

(several posts on this to come)

Bumper crop of cherries and Fruit this Year.

Thought wow so many cherries this year. Must be doing the right things. Then discovered best cherry season for years… still taking credit.

Back part of the food forest is going gang busters as well plums and berries. No apricots or greengage this year.

Apples and pears going well. Pomegranate is going well. Peaches going well. Strawberry Guava first flower.

Good crop of citrus (still our weakest area) and figs are doing well

Lots of flowers and lots of predators and prey. parasitic wasps, dragon fly, lady birds and skinks everywhere.

Grafting worked about 40% which I am happy with but can improve on (first year)

(Yep, more posts)

New Swarm on site

Got a new swarm after we were forced to move our old one. It came in a big old pot and can stay there a while till it settles in. We have put it in a spot no one can see it from outside our property and are keeping quiet re it.

Amazing what this little swarm has done as we really noticed the drop off in pollinators when the other hives where moved. Even walking back from the station at night I see so few bees. I think we underestimated how much work our hive was doing.

We plan to move another hive back soon but they are doing well up at my parents place so for the moment all is good . We did have to buy honey for the first time in a long while so we need to do a raid 🙂

(posts on bees to come)

I am sure there is a lot more happened but that will do for the moment. More post to come I hope …

🙂