The not so Blank Slate revisited

Do you remember the Blank Slate? I live there, and I can hardly remember it myself… Yesterday, I decided to take an update photo. For reasons beyond my control, I couldn’t quite take this second shot from the exact same spot… But what a difference six years make, not to mention lots of hard work… and you just wait until the 30 odd trees we planted last year take off this summer! There are more houses here than ever now, ours included, but you can’t see them for the greenery. We were also amazed at how dry the first pic looks, because we don’t remember it being a drought. Of course having swales all over the joint (that’s what that dark green and grassy line flashing across the middle of the photo is) stops our moisture running down the hill. As a result we virtually never water anything, unless they’ve just been planted and/or they are still vulnerable in a particularly dry period. With the wet season about to start, we should soon have a forest that I can interplant with the coffee bushes I am planning for this zone 4. We’ve had additions to, and unfortunately subtractions from, our menagerie of animals. Three of our ducks have disappeared, presumably taken by wildlife, plus three of our hens. It’s a real blow because it takes so much effort to raise ducklings, and to see them just disappear makes me furious. We fortunately have ten new Australorp chicks growing like mad in a protective cage, so hopefully it won’t be too long before our source of eggs reappears. The other news is that our goats (both females) now have a young stud for company! This time next year, all things being equal, we should have our own milk, and making cheese too.

The house, though still unfinished, is coming along. The Council seem to be more concerned than me about the finition of this project, and they’ve given us six more months to get a final approval. I would’ve told them to get stuffed, but She Who Must Be Obeyed had other ideas. With the Matrix now in full collapse mode, I think six months from now they won’t care what state our house is in. We like it like it is, and frankly had we spent the money we spent trying to get it up to scratch for them on additional fencing, our ducks might still be alive. Authorities just do not understand sustainability….