Archive for environment

Dispatches from Timber Creek

September 27, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, environment, health, spirituality, voluntary simplicity

Palm Springs, Duncan Rd

Palm Springs, Duncan Rd

Returned to Kununurra via the Duncan Road that runs along the other side of the Bungles.  Caught up again with friends who live there (Yay friends!  It’s so good to see familiar faces.)

Lunch at Timber Creek, and we finally met up with the ‘camel man’ we had been hearing about on and off since Karijini.  He is travelling around Australia with two camels, towing a buggy made from an old car.   A true incarnation of the simple life.   It was a privilege to meet him. 

Aged 62, originally from Germany, he has been touring Australia for seven years.  He started on a bike, and then moved to camels for lifestyle reasons.   He travels around 20km a day.  10km first thing in the morning, and then rests in the shade.  Sets off again at 3pm for another 10km.  His only expense is food, and decent walking shoes.  He advised that he is on the pension, but generally saves about half of it.  He said when he does spend more than half the pension, it’s on things that harm his health – eg smokes, junk food – so it’s best not to.  He definitely has a clear philosophy on the value of the simple life for both him and the environment, and has set out to achieve this.

Part of me felt I couldn’t cope with that lifestyle… but the other, larger part, felt envy.  Trying to unpick what it was he was doing that appealed to me, I came to the conclusion that he had done a pretty good job of creating a monastic life.  The self-discipline, the daily rhythm, the lack of belongings, but mainly all that uninterrupted *time* for contemplation.  (The joy of being alone!)  Plus a real connection with nature, through being outdoors and care of the camels.

I never occurred to me when I was younger, but now I can really see the appeal of becoming a nun.  I think it would be easier for me than being a parent.  I would have issues with the hierarchy….. but this would just be another avenue through which I would interrogate my control issues.

T feeds Snowy an apple

T feeds Snowy an apple

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Dispatches from Rocky Pool

July 1, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, being present, environment, voluntary simplicity

Rocky Pool WARNING:  gritty details ahead. 
P felt that information about my period was “too much information.”  But I’ve decided that these issues are in fact the essence of the trip.  Is this the difference between travelling and a holiday?  When you have a holiday, you have paid – generally in advance – so that these issues have already been resolved.  Someone else miraculously produces a flushing toilet in a third world country.  When you’re “travelling” this can be the main focus:  Where are we sleeping tonight?  How will we wash?  Will there be a toilet?  So anyway, these issues came to a head at Rocky Pool for me, when a man spotted me doing number 2s in a ditch.  NOT a happy camper.   I then overcame a bout of diarhoea by will-power alone.  That night I was battling the end of my head cold, diarhoea, an incipient cold sore and thrush.  My suburban body was not coping with the rapid deterioration in my living conditions.  I sat outside on an upturned bucket, looking at the stars, and surprisingly, it was all worth it.  I teared up the sky was so beautiful.  What must it have been like to have lived when myth and legend alone explained such a nightly wonder?  Awe-some.
 
As it happened, in my hour of need we met a great older couple, who spend most of the year prospecting and living the simple life.  Their ablution system is worth reporting.  They have a shower tent (an item I previously discounted as unnecessary…. before I realised that free camp sites are actually populated) and in the tent they have a toilet seat and a bucket with a lid.  They wee into the bucket, which is emptied as required, and they poo into plastic bags – which are tied off and disposed of at the next bin – like a doggy bag!  Ingenious!  I must confess some slight concerns about the public health aspect, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  As a shower, they have a Napisan container with holes drilled in the bottom.  You heat up your water, half fill it and hold it over your head.  You then shampoo and soap, and then another half container rinses you off.  Ron even made me one!  (He carries a drill with him, which I thought was amazing until P told me that we also have a drill with us….. oh.)  And I can report from the frontline that this is a very effective shower.  We have added “shower tent” to our list of “things to buy next time we get to a town with shops.”
Rocky Pool
 

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Cricket Tragic

March 8, 2009 · Filed under The Big Lap, environment, society, voluntary simplicity

In order to understand this post, you need to know that P & I do *not* follow cricket at all.   In fact, we don’t follow any professional/spectator sports.   My mum is a big football fan, and when I was young we used to follow Swan Districts and go to their home games at Bassendean.   It was actually fun, and I get the yearning for tribe that can be met, at least in part, when you commit to a team and follow them through their ups and downs.  But it’s a huge time commitment to do this – you have to actually attend matches, and watch others on TV etc etc – and frankly, we’ve got other things to do. 

So, where is this leading?  Well, the 4WD is being “kitted up” for the big trip.   One of the items potentially needed was wheel covers for the spare tyres on the back.  (Yes, we have two spare tyres.  That’s because we are such road warriors we might have *two* blow outs before we can make it to a repair shop.)  I was somewhat sceptical of the need for wheel covers….  I mean aren’t tyres designed to drive for very long distances on hot bitumen and rough tracks?  Aren’t those two on the back just having an easy life, coming along for the ride?  Well, apparantly there is a school of thought (put out by vinyl product manufacturers) that those poor tyres on the back might start to perish a little in the sun. 

The first wheel covers priced (at the 4WD shop) were $65.  Then P found one of the bargains of the century at an auto shop.  You could buy plain black ones for $30 each.  OR, for just $6 each, you could have Ricky Ponting ones!  So now we proudly sport Ricky on the back.  And when the second tyre goes back on (it’s in the shed at the moment as a token nod to fuel efficiency)…. we’ll have double Ricky!  Who would have thought that being a tight wad could have such comic benefits?

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Renouncing Vegetarianism

March 8, 2009 · Filed under environment, ethics, health

P & I have decided that this label is no longer useful.  It’s just getting embarrassing tying ourselves up in knots trying to explain our food choices to others.  Essentially we are vegetarian at home, but in order to facilitate our participation in community, we are more flexible with what we eat when we are out.  So therefore, it is easier to just ditch the label…. which doesn’t strictly apply anyway.

In a recent conversation I was reminded of this Buddhist idea – to receive a gift of food in the spirit in which it was given.  In order to do this, I think that we do away with people’s discomfort if we don’t announce any label or preferences.  Like all -isms, sometimes the dogma just isn’t useful.

It’s actually a relief to get rid of this label.  Particularly when I’m anticipating meeting and eating with a lot of new people on our trip,  it’s nice to be a fresh slate.

After making this decision, we went to an “up-market” burger place for dinner.  Normally I would order the veggie burger, but it seemed appropriate to break out, and order a meat one.  It was gross of course.  Mince (no matter how “up market”) is mince, with that particular texture….  not found in any plant based food.   Regardless, I was able to enjoy the company and ambience of the restaurant, and know that next time I can choose the veggie burger.

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The Home Economy

March 6, 2009 · Filed under cooking, environment, gardening, politics, society, voluntary simplicity

I read something recently about turning the home from a unit of consumption into a unit of production.  A challenge.  More so, because I realise that a lot of things that we “produce” hinge on previous consumption.  Is this a test of good consumption, that it lends itself to production? 

Things that our home currently produces (with caveats)

* organic fruit and vegetables (some, and we need to get into more seed saving from our crops)

* education  – home schooling

* maternity services – home birth

* breastmilk

* preventative health care (includes previously purchased exercise equipment)

* preventative dental care (buying toothbrushes/paste/floss)

*  meals (based on purchased ingredients)

* home maintenence (can require specific purchases, plus use of previously acquired tools)

* car/motorbike maintenence (as above)

* music (previously acquired instruments)

*art (some donated /some purchased items such as paint)

* wrapping paper and cards (getting away with this using kids’ art)

* greywater used for non-food producing plants

* this blog

Things our home *could* produce if we set our minds to it:

* clothing (would need to upgrade/learn skills and use recycled products)

* more food from gardening

* transport (walk more/use bikes)

*fuel (considering future manufacture of biofuel, but does require inputs)

*fresh water (would require tanks)

*furniture (using current tools and loads of timber lying around)

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head – I’m sure there’s more.  Not that we are necessarily aiming for self-sufficiency.  As empowering as that might be,  my view is that this is not actually a good or viable model for humanity.   It’s unrealistic to think that 6 billion plus people can all live self-sufficiently.  We need to be investing in sustainable infrastructure, and sharing our resources.   Plus, humans are ultimately a social species.  We *are* interdependent on each other, and hiding from that truth doesn’t solve any problems.   Come Armageddon, what’s the point living in self-sufficient utopia if you’re patrolling the borders with guns?

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Why I don’t drive a Toyota Prius

January 15, 2009 · Filed under environment, politics

Well, that would be because I don’t want to spend $40K on a car. 

Irritatingly though, one’s “green” credentials are somewhat suspect if one doesn’t drive one of these.  I can’t comment much on Toyota’s engineering department, but their marketing department must be run by geniuses.  Handing out HTVs at an election for the obvious party, I was virtually accused of hypocrisy by the young Liberal opposite, when I started to pack up my stuff into my generic four cylinder. 

Recently a reporter was required to cover a “green” event (must have been a slow news day) and one of the four paragraphs was devoted to his surprise at the fact that their was only one(!) Prius parked out front.

I read that Toyota’s own (US based) research into Prius buyers revealed that around 30% of buyers bought a Prius as a *third* family car.   Do these owners get dressed in their tie dye and drive their Prius to visit hippie friends and farmer markets?  Toyota seem to be moving some units, but if this is their target market, I think we can safely say they’re not saving the world.

In keeping with its major purpose, our current car reflects our image quite well I think.   Quite neat when purchased, we have managed to let it deteriorate to its current  shabby state, with features including chipped paint, birdshit, cracker crumbs, broken tape player and radio permanently tuned to the ABC.  I do boast the obligatory “Vote Green” sticker, though I have resisted the urge to dilute the message with other worthy causes, such as “Ban Live Sheep Exports” and “Homebirth Naturally”. 

Just when my whole look was coming together, I am about to purchase a big  f**king 4WD with roo bar etcetera, for the purpose of towing my mobile home on a longish recreational drive.   I’m trying to think what stickers will work best.

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