Monday 23 March 2009

The sun shines on the Izdom of Iz...

Stone mulched cassis...

Small cobbles of stone protect a reservoir of permanent moisture , when air squeezes between the unmortared gaps between the stones water condenses on the cool underside.The concave cup of the little chalice is the place to put a small handful of good compost. A straw mulch will cover the rest of the bed in which the years crop of garlic is just beginning to show. The gulley will be covered with small pea sized pebblesmixed with a little sand to make the weeding easy and to give the worms some shade. Within a year or two a good fruiting hedge will emerge.
Blackcurrant jam is my personal favourite

Thursday 19 March 2009

The Stones...

Not a day to spray...

Tuesday 17 March 2009

Iz news from Campel. 35330

A fine breezy March morning saw me awake before dawn and keen to do some work. Our little field is developing nicely, radical progress in many diverse directions. The ground is ready prepared for planting. Broad beans, garlic, shallots and onions all showing, the little blackcurrant bushes propagated from cuttings last year are bursting into leaf. The hazel hedge and the beech hedge have survived well through their first winter, the beech buds are swelling but last years leaves are still hanging on. Anne-Sophie sowed some early potatoes this week and has been busy tending to seedlings ,potting on celery and celeriac ,leeks, tomatoes of course, and stacks of lettuce, the peas aren't showing yet we are trying to be patient.
On going iz my stone sorting. We have pulled out most of the bigger ones and have them piled around the garden in temporary service, dry stone structures are easy to dismantle, I have the materials graded and ready for use in my construction projects, we will be collecting larger boulders for foundation stones. I will be making holes to permanently bench them into the schist sub strate with the assistance of small fires and a large breakers bar, I will insure that the foundation of the roundhouse will serve generations to come should any feel the need to add to my work, it is important that the structure aids the channelling of sub terranian water, none pollutive, life supporting in all respects. The head work is done for the most part I am confident that I will turn out a passably crafty example of neolithic engineering, there will be many scores of tonnes of rock to juggle with before completion. Throughout construction the garden soil is protected and used for potager. This isn't a conventional building site: the upgrading of the soil and the accessible amenity of the serving infrastructure as well as the gradual emergence of the roundhouse workshop , concurrently, is an integrated benign holistic development. What means that ? That means that.
This means this.
The last part of sorting out the good stones from the the rubble and the unwashed as dug ballast is the most arduous. every grade of stone can be utilised. The dust and grit for blinding off hardcore. from 5inches down the soakaways, at present I am using 2inch down and blinding ballast to in fill what will become an out door oven. I will condition the base by using it to burn fagot,little sticks and dry diseased cabbage roots, the ash will go to my fruit bushes and trees, they will need potash if they are to bear good quality fruit.
Other stones are stacked in groups according to size and shape, fletterns,wedges shims, cobbles and batons, some of the larger pieces get called names too profane to print, I occasionally feel bits of me mortal coil snapping in the effort to get the materials into place before the relatively easy work of construction begins in earnest. I will be using lime mortar as it is a flexible joint less prone to cracking. The many colours of stone will be a delight to the eye offset by the cream mortar, they range from black like coal to look at, through many shades of grey and blue , pink through to dark blood red,rust and a multitude of purples,many chunks of green stone also. It is going to look pretty. The material polishes well and cuts and carves fairly readily, a few sacks of selected pieces should see me right for a bit of stone whittling in my more ancient of days. I am hoping to find some white ulitic limestone for the pathways, the same stuff the gargoyles in Oxford are made of, blinded off with white granite sand from the Breton coast ,the paths will act as good soakaways feeding underground reservoir. Sounds grandiose but the principle of maximising the utility of all given resources is essential for my permanent culture to flourish; folk have given up on wells allowing them to become neglected and polluted since municipal water supply has been installed, I can do without the bills and I resent my water stinking of chemicals. used to be round here every house or village had a working well. Agribusiness has poisoned much of the water with ecolie and nitrates , I have a notion to lock the toxic effluent out of my home environment, engineering effective barriers isn't complex science and given that I was brought up in mining communities, enough inspiration I have and the knowledge to dig the six metre hole to the permanent water below the garden. The round house will be built first then the rainwater collection. the well head is destined to be located beneath the kitchen floor. with the fire blazing and the kettle permanently on the long winter evenings look like being most productive. the stone excavated from the diggings will go towards building a wall around the little field,high enough to keep the influence of the agribusiness cowboys out of our modest domain.
In the mean time ... my work was stopped by the sound of a tractor and spray attatchment high speeding it up and down a near by field? the field had only a week previously been slurried, a most unpleasant and unecessary odour, the stink is still hovering around now in spite of the effluent being ploughed in shortly after application. I don't rightly know what the man was spraying on top of the manure, but
the wind conditions were better suited to kite flying , more than 30% of his product being aerosol wasn't even reaching the ground from his trickle bar. I wasn't well pleased as our garden is downwind. I took a photo for the record of the man at work as well as one of my scarf suspended from a stick to give an indication of wind speed. I am taking it personally, the man was criminally neglectful. Rather than belabour him with my deplorable French I thought it better to walk off my anger taking the camera to record other causes for public concern, the fields around Campel are being virtually gang raped, hardly even token notice of the duty to protect water courses land erosion is endemic. Anne-Sophie and I are collecting data and creating a dossier of facts and photos. If the local Marie doesn't support the cause for protecting the local environment we are aware enough of how the system works to over ride the local authority. Too many are scamming European subvention , stealing from the government for it not to have gone unnoticed. Collusion in a gigantic fraud in effect by neglect or by design is not for me to prejudge. Most of the damage is being done in the tractor powered stampede for E U grants. It looks like the rot set in with spy in the sky satelite monitoring The auditors miss a lot by the lack of caring consciencious observers on the ground. We don't need computer surveys to notice the indefensible degradation that is occuring in the hinterland of our home. Regardless of the compromised political practice of the Marie we cannot follow suit ,close our eyes and say nothing. If the culprits can't fix the damage they have done with their tractors perhaps they should get out of their cabs and do the repairs in the time honoured traditional pedestrian way . the extent of their caring for the patrimony, the heritage of future life support might then by conduct be seen.If good sustainable practice is to be encouraged and rewarded by grants then it is just that criminally neglectful habits of convenience are penalised. It is time those priveleged by office ostensibly in service to the common good took stock of the damage that appears to have been deliberately overlooked. Lip service and posturing will not revive the the countryside. Real change of attitude is long overdue. We cannot allow the short term unsustainable profiteering to take precedent over the the greater long term needs of the common population.
We will agitate for substantial progress in our region, and by our practice maintain a high ethical standard. We may articulate for those unable or too timid to speak up against the immoral abuse of the land;compromise is something business people may do for a greater profit margin. We don't do that. More of this and more of that later.Iznibz Wazir.