slowlane

Nice post here at Mother Earth News
Stop Putting Off Chickens

In season down in Sydney at the moment (from the Slow Food Sydney newsletter)

• Strawberries
• Spinach and watercress
• Valencia oranges
• Asparagus

Ethical Eating book reviewed in the Eco Pages of the Sydney Morning Herald

We rented a great DVD - How to Cook Your Life should be very interesting to anyone who still has a yellowing copy of the Tassajara cookbook or bread book as it features Ed Brown who also wrote those books back in the 70’s. Ed has been practising Zen and cooking for over 30 years and the video is full of insights.

Its Blog Action Day - my plug is for BEN the Bicycle Empowerment Network of Namibia.
Established by Australian Michael Linke who had previously edited Australian Cyclist, which at the time was Australia’s largest circulation cycling magazine, and ReNew, a magazine aimed at people designing, making and using solar, wind and biofuel energy devices, lowering their energy consumption and designing envirionmentally sustainable houses and businesses.

Since starting in May 2005, they have distributed more than 7,000 bicycles, 80 bicycle ambulances and 9 community-based bicycle workshops. BEN has partnered with 51 community-based organisations, mainly focused on home-based care services for people living with HIV/AIDS and orphans and vulnerable children, as well as the dissemination of information on HIV prevention.

Head over to their web page and make a donation, also check out Bicycles for Humanity.

Reading Alan Watts in my teens I experienced my first taste of eastern thinking which has led to a life long interest. In his essays on Zen and the Tao I could feel deep truths were lurking just beyond the words. A particular favourite is Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown: A Mountain Journal.

This collections of essays and transcribed lectures was compiled in 1973 shortly before his death
Watts was an enigmatic character who during this latter period of his life lived on a houseboat moored near San Francisco. He was a hedonist who loved life and indulged in it, causing many to dismiss him as something of a charlatan. For me and many others however his writings opened the door to eastern thinking. He attempts to convey something to the reader that points to reality and to evoke flashes of insight.
I came across an animated cartoon with an excerpt from a talk of his today via a post at Post at Goodlife Zen, definitely worth checking out.

Eating Locally: Backyard Chickens at Treehugger.com.
Keeping chickens in the urban backyards was commonplace in Australia during the depression and war years and is making a welcome comeback. I wonder how many people are actually able to kill and eat their chickens. I have tried and it takes some getting used to!. Having the chooks for eggs alone is the easier route and very worthwhile as we have posted about before.

Since my post about chickens which mentioned the Linda Woodrow inspired chook dome. I have noticed that people are searching in google for information about chicken tractors. This post provides a few more links to information on this subject.

The Chicken Tractor gallery has over 140 pictures with many different types shown. As the construction skills required are very basic, a good picture will often be enough for you to build your own using materials to hand.

DIY

• Build a chicken tractor from old pallets (video)
•  How not to build a chicken tractor (video)

 
Commercial Chicken Tractors

(before Permaculture they were generally just known as moveable coops or arks)

• McCallum Chicken Tractor
• Royal Rooster

 
General Chook Matters

• Backyard Chickens - check out the coops section.
• Alanna Moore has written widely about keeping chickens, one popular title is
  Backyard Poultry - Naturally, available at Green Harvest Books. She also writes a very popular column in Earth Garden magazine.
• Automatic Feeders

This week we went to the opening night of a new movie - Son Of A Lion. This is a moving and engaging story set in the tribal region of northern Pakistan, home of the Pashtuns. The typical depiction of Pashtuns in contemporary media brands them as extremist terrorists and followers of Osama Bin Laden. This is not the case for much of the population including those in this simple story.

The synopsis goes like this

In the Pakistan tribal weapon making village of Darra Adam Kel, a young Pashtun boy defies his fathers expectations that he will carry on the family’s business and demands an education instead.

The movie was shot in secret by an Australian who was taken in by the local tribespeople and included in their life in a way that a conventional movie crew could never have been. The movie is completely authentic as it is shot during the normal life of the locals. This gives it a vaguely documentary feel, as does the handheld camera work (the only type camera that could be carried in and effectively hidden). The performances are touching as is the very simple lifestyle of the locals who live in mud huts with very little in the way of possessions.

In this weapon making village, where the tribes people have been making weapons for decades, people are constantly wandering out of their workshops and firing their loaded guns into the air to test them. This constant firing forms one of the recurring themes of the movie and is central to the unfolding of the plot. The soundtrack is also very good and would be well worth listening to on its own.

Highly recommended. http://www.sonofalion.com/

I have love notebooks, especially interesting quirky ones that help me feel creative.

My latest notebook is the Makers Notebook from Make magazine. Its modelled after a lab book with graph paper pages. Solidly bound and with loads and useful (and just plain weird) data in the back pages.
Included in the book are two manifestos, The Makers Bill of Rights and a Crafters Manifesto. Here is an extract

People get satisfaction for being able to create/craft things because they can see themselves in the objects they make. This is not possible in purchased products.

The things that people have made themselves have magic powers. They have hidden meanings that other people can’t see.

The things people make they usually want to keep and update. Crafting is not against consumption. It is against throwing things away.

People seek recognition for the things they have made. Primarily it comes from their friends and family. This manifests as an economy of gifts.

One of my other favourite notebooks are Moleskins - these are fantastic and come in many great formats. Lots of magnificently illustrated moleskins can be found at moleskinerie and at their Flikr pool (here).

This photo is taken from the Logan Wines Cellar Door in Mudgee.

Putting Things Off has a nice post about changing the way we work.

Many of us have been aware of many of the dangers associated with processed foods and the artificial chemicals introduced by the food industry for some time. I was reminded of the horror story again recent after reading Michael Pollans excellent book
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.
The book starts with a blistering criticism of “nutritionism” - his term for the ideology that underlies much of the food marketing and health food industry. The work specifically refers to the idea that individual nutrients are the key to understanding food and that food is no more than the sum of its parts (in this case the parts are those that have been identified by the food industry as having valuable qualities). 

The second half of Pollans book provides a series of guidelines for eating. The simplest of which is

Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants

Here are some of the other gems (paraphrased), each of which is given a concise explanation in the book

• Avoid food products containing ingredients that are unfamiliar, unpronounceable, more than five in number or contain high fructose corn
• Avoid products that make health claims
• Get out of the supermarket whenever possible
• Eat well grown food from health soils
• Regard non traditional foods with skepticism

There are many others. One that has resonated with me since I read the book is the reference to no more than 5 ingredients. Its a simple yardstick for how processed a food is and quite effective when selecting foods during the weekly shop. Although it has to be said that not many foods in the supermarket can meet this rule!

Excessive packaging is another give away and for this reason as well as the fact that it is inert, I have always looked out for food in glass jars. After all people have been preserving food in glass and ceramic jars for millenia. However, the humble glass jar turns out to be harboring a hidden menace. Its the seal under the lid. These are usually made from PVC and contain chemicals including Plasticisers which give it the properties to form a good seal. They work by softening the PVC and can make up as much as 40% of the gasket. The plasticisers are mostly made from expoxidised soybean oil (ESBO) and a combination of phylates. ESBO reacts with hydrogen chloride released from the PVC under the high temperatures used when sealing the jar. This forms chlorohydrins which can be toxic. Phylates are not permitted at all in food materials in the US and some have been banned from use in toys (eg DEHP).

Choice magazine recently published an article highlighting Plasticisers in food. In their tests many products including those labelled organic contained levels ESBO and Phylates in excess recommended EU limits. The foods which showed high levels were those with fat levels over 4g per 100g. A typical example is pasta sauce which often has much more fat than that.

Check out the article have a look around on the web and you will be looking at glass jars with fresh eyes.

We wandered along to the Art Gallery of NSW today for our Slow Sunday. I wanted to take another look at the Harold Cazneaux exhibition. It is the most inspiring collection of photographic images. Wonderful use of light and location, especially when you consider the equipment that he was using compared to what we have available today. The images are highly atmospheric and clearly present themselves as art.

Click here For an online gallery of his pictures.

We also took in the Taisho Chic exhibition which shows Japan coming to terms with Western culture in the 20’s and 30’s.