Starting in my back yard.

Well, with the first beautiful frost of the Autumn, and with the first warm glow from the wood burner this year, it seems that nature is again proving that time and tide wait for no man.

So I thought instead of waiting around for people to get involved with changing the world I'd just start in my own back yard. Over the weekend I met an old college friend who is now a permaculturalist. The idea being to convert my garden into an organic sustainable production site. One thing I'm really pleased about is the neat advice to get rid of my grass... That 'green cancer,' as he called it, now gone and in it's place ten fruit trees, another chicken tractor, a big vegetable plot and a new herb garden. Briliant, No more grass cutting! This set up will provide all my fruit and vegetable requirements and produce a surplus to barter with. I have joined a local farmers market and aim to get a stall there next year, another place that I can help to promote the Utopian message. If people can actually see how life could be then perhaps they would feel more inclined to join up. I feel really positive, not sure what the neighbours think they looked in horror as the flower beds got slashed down and replaced with straw covered vegetable plots. They were however very interested in why I was doing it and admitted that they had toyed with the idea twenty years ago! Ironically a local member of the conservative party came round doing a bit of canvassing. What a joke, he couldnt even give one decent argument against the Utopian ideal stating that, "that could only happen in a perfect world"! I said "you mean a world where everything is shared, War is banned, and Hunger eliminated"? He said " If you want change things you need to get involved in local politics"! I said OK and told him that I was going to start my own party just as an experiment to see what sought of world people actually wanted his or mine. He bid me farewell as he made a hasty retreat down my drive looking at me as if I was a lunatic. Tosser!

We had a bit a of a party though last night to celebrate and foolishly 'sampled' the products of this years cider endeavours a little too early, and a little too enthusiastically. Excellent Cider but not such an excellent top knot! Check out how to start a sustainable vegetable plot here