A Kid's World

yesterday was a great day ... i had another one of those affirmative epiphanies.

yesterday we had a few mums and their kids over for a play date.  my children, being the highly social type .... thot this was gonna be a grand day.  i have to admit a slight bit of trepidation on my part.  we have done all this work in our backyard .... what will having 10 kids under the age of 10 do to our yard?  will they trip and fall into the beds .... or worse yet .... step on and destroy all the new plants that i've just put in?  i was truly feeling very protective about our garden and all that we had accomplished so far.

slap yourself maggs ..... silly girl!  several of the mums simply said ... wow!  this is such an interesting garden now!  so many nooks and crannies for the kids to play in and be interested by.  and that is exactly what happened.  the kids had a blast .... running between the beds with their light sabers or swords .... swinging from the trees like little monkeys.  oh yes, and the animal husbandry inclined just couldn't leave the chooks alone ... and had to hold every single one of them and get the others to do the same (i am wondering a bit what that will do to our egg production the next few days!).  and at the end of it all .... nary a plant was plowed or busted up!  i should've given the children more credit than that.  seeing them play in the yard and enjoy that space truly  warmed my heart.

and it really got me to thinking about our move to a sustainable lifestyle.  isn't this why we are doing this?  to provide a better future for our kids, their kids and so on?  to affect the lives of these little ones who's futures we can mold and shape to care for this amazing creation that God has blessed us with?

i have been really pleasantly amazed at how much our kids love being out in the backyard now.  the other day, they came home from a full morning of playing and skating in the park with school mates .... only to wolf down their lunch and go straight back outside .... and the three of them spent all that time just drawing .... they could've done that inside ... but because they are falling in love with their world, they wanted to be out and "in" it.

i am being grounded.  reminded of why we are doing what we are doing.

it's about quality of life .... about caring for this world, our family and our community. learning to respect the way God put the systems in place that work in such an amazing way.  about caring for our family and showing them love and respect.  and thinking about our global community that doesn't have what we have and what can we do to help and meet those needs.

it's about a sustainable, yummy lifestyle.  the kids are helping me to plant veg.  yeah!  they love seeing that.  and seeing that translate as they harvest the food, help cook it and enjoy eating it.  new flavours that THEY helped grow.  that THEY had an active part in bringing about.  and being really honest .... they love spinach from our garden .... but i just don't think they'd get as excited about the slimmy frozen stuff from the grocer!  i can't keep the cherry tomato's or pea's!  they eat them all before i have a chance to bring them in for dinner ... and they are proud because they helped to grow them too!  ENGAGEMENT.

it is truly a kid's world.  it is their future.  i have a responsibility to be a wise steward of what God has given us.  for them.  because the future is theirs.

Kid Friendly Sustainability Web Sites

• Eco Kids
• KidsPlanet
• KidsRegen
• The Big Blue Bus
• A Student's Guide to Global Climate Change
• Massive list of links to kid's eco-friendly web sites

my daughter's rendition of me in the backyard ..... <g>  way cool!

why we do what we do!

wow! it's really happening!

well ... i am chuffed, ecstatic and over the moon .... it's happening.  our wasted gorgeous expanse of backyard is really starting to transform .... it's not a wish, a hope or any of that .... it is really happening.

so .... back in my Contour .... it's a catching thing! post .... i referred to our great plans for the shape of things to come in our backyard .... here is a refresher on what it was gonna look like.

the whole idea here was that we had defined the flow of water across the block ... identifying this meant that we could capture and re-use that water, naturally.

so the next thing was to get all our supplies together.

1. cardboard.  and heaps of it.  sourced from grocery stores and the like, but a lot of the stuff at the grocers has a waxy finish on it and would take longer to break down .... but we found that the stack under the back entry of the local liquor store was the IDEAL source <g>.  cost .... nada!
2.  mulch.  well aren't we lucky that we've just had a council mulch day?  we have a nice big big pile in the front yard thank you!  cost ..... zilch!

3.  straw.  well, we had to buy this .... could've sourced it a tad cheaper down in the flat lands .... but would've eaten up more than that in the cost of petrol to go and get it .... so we just bought it local.  two bales for $22.  not bad!
4.  chook poo.  well.  hubby was on a mission and he went around some of the area farms and was able to get me 10 bags for $2 each.  woohoo!  potent stuff too .... needs to air out and be thinly used.

so.  time to get going!  first thing is to lay out the carboard in the pattern we want.  logs that have been cut from trees in our yard will make the borders of the beds.  this all goes well.  bed is about a meter wide, which will make for easy access on either side.

first thing to go down is straw.  honestly .... should've used mulch.  but i wanted to use these beds fairly quickly.  and i knew that using straw vs mulch would provide for quicker decomposition.  so a nice thick layer of straw goes on the beds.  this is followed by the chicken poo.

note that we have let the carboard hang out the edges of the bed excessivly.  the area's between the beds will eventuallly be filled with a pine bark mulch .... yet to come.  in the picture to the left note the tripod behind the bed.  this is a very deep area that i will be planting beans in shortly to get the nitrogen fixing stuff happening.  this area gets excellent sun during the day, so i really needed to exploit it.  the tree in the tire is a tangello.

you can see from the next photo that i actually have a rich soil down on one end of the bed.  this is because this is where the asparagus will get planted (two are being transplanted, two are new crowns i have purchased).  it needs a good deep rooting (10 cm) and would be completely overwhelmed by the chicken poo .... so i am using a rich soil from another part of our yard for this.  this will need another 4-5 wheelbarrows of soil before it is ready to take the crowns.

and finally .... another layer of straw.  this will bed the whole thing in very nicely.  the picture to the right shows it half covered so you can see where it is all going.  because of the potency of the chook poo it will need to sit for several weeks before i can consider planting.

I am thrilled to report that we have been having torrential downpours the past few days which have done a few things that are very special.

• the rain will be helping to magnificently kick start the decomposition process and means that i should be able to start planting in the next week or so.
• the contour thing has worked!  i have watched the meandering trail of water as it trickles down .... straight to our back bed!  whoohoo.

after this beds in, we will need to add a layer of good compost / soil and cover with straw.  it is in this straw that we will make little holes, fill with lovely soil and plant out my seedlings.

we have had a great addition to our backyard  .... hubbies home made bbq barrel.  it worked a treat for us when we used it this past weekend!  note the models to the right.

and the other is that the front bed continues to get more and more planted out.  the past few days i added some lovely baby spinach.  yumm!!!!  note that i have used the method that makes a whole in the straw, fills with a bit of manure and soil and then beds the plants in.

 i am so looking forward to what we will be eating from our garden kitchen come springtime!

next job .... off the the liquor store ... need more cardboard!  <g>