Springtime in the Hills

Last week I talked about the abundance and fresh greens and it made me realize just how clever nature really is. How so you ask? Well after a winter of eating stews, potatoes, casseroles, pies, roasts and drinking red wine and lying around off gassing the body needs a cleanse. What better way to do this than just keep on eating what’s available. Fill the body with fresh and lightly cooked greens, eat some fish and small amounts of chicken and lamb and then run around outside doing the cleaning, gardening and child rearing. You’ll feel the body start recharging, the kilo’s drop off and that big summer smile return.

In news abroad Mitt Romney’s showed his true side telling his $50,000 a ticket lunch mates what he really thinks of the bulk of the people he wants to govern. I can’t say it better than him so here’s the quote “There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax. “He fails to mention that the richest 5% or Americans also pay no income tax.  It’s little wonder America is f…ed. It’s people like Mitt and his mates who wield the power and make the big decisions. These are the very same people who spend their lives surrounded by others of their ilk in big homes, with flash cars, education, healthcare, food all on tap 24 hours a day. Most have no idea what it is like to struggle, to go broke trying to have a life saving operation for your son, to do without dinner so your kids can eat or to live in respite accommodation. The very people making the decisions keep making ones that serve them and not the society they live in. So what do they do? They put up fences and hire guards to keep the “others” out of their neighbourhoods. They go through life never experiencing true day to day hardship yet they continually make decisions making their lives easier and making other, less fortunate folks lives harder. Then they have the nerve to whinge about those with a sense of entitlement. Mitt, it’s you and your mates with the sense of entitlement, what the 47% want is a society where good education, healthcare, food and housing is accessible to all, not where it is just handed out, except in cases of hardship, just a society where everyone has an equal opportunity to these staples of a fair and just life. It’s time you took a good  look around at the society your ideals has created and realize that change is not only necessary it’s going to be forced upon you in the years to come. To quote and Americanism, Bring It On.

On a positive note the Organic Gertrude vegetable garden and Orchard took it’s first steps to reality on the weekend when we marked out the contour lines on a rather wet and boggy hillside. We’re not expert growers so we’re getting lots of advice from people who know. We’ve decided on planting using what’s known as the keylines. This will allow us to move water from the wet and boggy valley out to the drier ridge lines. It will then allow us, in the future to direct excess water to mini wetlands where we hope to attract frogs who in turn will eat the bugs that would otherwise eat our plants. We’ll post some photo’s when things get a little more interesting.

If you’re in need of some good environmental news after reading about Mitt try this: Solar Power
Russ