This is my dream: To live as my forefathers once did - in harmony with the land that sustains us. A project to investigate and innovate the creation of a low impact home with methods of living in a form of permaculture designed to sustain my family and improve biodiversity. To leave the land richer than before and in doing so enable others to do so.
The hardest choice of my life
Posted 16/05/10 by Matt B in the Urban category
One of the hardest choices I have ever had to make is to look at moving to London for work.This could mean not seeing a natural plant for months at a time. I'm not much looking forward to it but there must be some way to be green and earth right in the middle of a city...
Any ideas?
The Bottled Water Scam
Posted 01/03/10 by Matt B in the Urban category
This article from the The Fun Times Guide to Living Green caught my eye today and I thought I'd share it.Next time you grab that ice-cold bottle of water from the fridge, be sure to enjoy it. It is probably, in fact, not any more healthy than you're tap water and is packaged in a crude oil derivative. Yummy.
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A useful day out with kids.
Posted 20/02/10 by Matt B in the Urban category
I spent the day at a seed swap at a community allotment area today. Mostly this meant that I was planting a lot of things and using a book to tell me how to do it. Mostly this meant digging a lot.Fortunately I was able to recall from reading the Vegetable Expert that I had seen the grub I dug up before. I was then able to identify it as a pest which chews up your roots and new shoots. This was entirely consistent with the fact that the area I had been digging had been grassy for quite a while.
The practical upshot of it all was that I had to dig over a second area somewhere else to give the birds more time to eat all of the aforementioned bug (whose name, typically, I can not recall).
Meanwhile my children had fun helping to mix sand for a clay oven and to plant seeds in trays. They should sleep soundly.
Kent County to become factory centre?
Posted 10/01/10 by Matt B in the Urban category
Council in Kent offering all farmland for factory building in 2010 and onwards.Kent, the garden of England, could well loose it's title if one of it's Conservative run district councils gets it's own way.
The innocently named "Policy 25" would offer a way for planners to bypass all country and farm land protection rules by promising lots of jobs as a result of the build. The reason for this push is because the conservative leadership would very much like to build houses on the already desgnated industreal areas such as EuroKent. The companies most likely to benefit from this arrangment include those run by the council's own leadership!
(Local bloggers have more as do the BBC)
This all coming from a council that is never far from the news (for example misleading the public in a FOI request) with complaints about the behavour of their planning officers and irregularities in the way they have carried out certain actions. Not least of which are the significant threats to all the drinking water in the area. Is Thanet in Kent going to become a concreate jungle so that a few businessmen can line their pocket?
It works even if it is cheesy
Posted 06/12/09 by Matt B in the Urban category
Today's video is totally cheesy so I apologise now for inflicting it on you. However they are demonstrating what I think is an amazing product.It does two things very well.
1. Cleans anything
2. Is ecologically sound
(Vegans look away for a second - maybe skip tot he next paragraph). Sol-u-mel got old felt tip pen out of my cream leather sofa. Admittedly I used it neat rather than diluted but it does the job so what can I say.
Hello to the vegans joining us from the above paragraph. Please don't hate me.
Before we cut to the video I should point out that Sol-U-Mel is a product of Melaleuca Inc. You can only buy their products directly from them if you have an exclusive membership account and you can only get one of them from an existing customer. Lucky for you I am a customer so drop me a line if you are interested otherwise it's time for a little cheese with your greens.
Right! Enough of me talking here is the video.
People, like grass need get thirsty
Posted 01/07/09 by Matt B in the Urban category
People are a lot like grass - when rich in water grass prospers but leave it dry and it struggles to survive.
Similarly the area of Thanet is struggling because there is a lack of "water" to keep the shops and businesses open.
As a green fingered soul I know that there are two options when the soil you have is not easily sustaining the plants there.
The first option is to seek outside input such as a hose pipe and some chemical soil enrichment agent. This requires an unsustainable effort but is a short term fix.
The second option is to consolidate. Overly demanding plants should be cut back and plants that are not coping can be trimming to make it easier for them to continue. This material can then be used to create food for the plants in the form of compost. In extreme conditions one might even have to divert water from one area and let it die in order to sustain another area.
What would never work is to divert some water from each area in order to establish a new area. Sadly for Thanet this is what is being attempted and the economy is as dry as the grass.
Off-Grid Man Jailed For Confronting Utility Company
Posted 20/05/09 by Matt B in the Urban category
In the Pittsburgh area, a man went to jail rather than let the local power company run an electric line through his property. He's also in some hot water for refusing to connect to the local sewer system. Although he’s repeatedly lost in criminal court, William Williams, 76, of Cecil, vows to continue removing the guy wire and its anchor in his yard each time the power company replaces them. For Mr. Williams, it’s all a matter of civil disobedience. He said he refuses to surrender his property rights to the utilities.
How far would you be willing to go to protect your right to home and privacy, your right to live "off grid" if so you choose?
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