So, How have the cows been?

I have not spoken much about the cattle since I lost the calves and the bull. But is actually going quite well now with the two heifers. A brown one and a black one. We move them to new pasture everyday with the portable electric fence.

watch this video

We keep the “camp” small enough to ensure that they graze everything down (not just the tasty stuff). Cattle are picky eaters, they will first go for the greenest grass and then try the other stuff if they have to. So by keeping the camp just the right size I can ensure that they get enough, but that they don’t just pick and choose the best grazing. The important part of this strategy is that all the unpalatable stuff gets eaten as well, making space for other species to come through. The exercise is really all about building the soil. The cattle improve the soil in three important ways:

They leave there manure behind – adding the nitrogen that’s crucial to get life going in the soil
When grass is grazed, it automatically cuts off the proportionate amount of roots underground (thus adding much needed carbon to the soil)
The animals hooves disturb the soil surface helping seeds get a chance to germinate.

Overgrazing is of course an incredibly destructive force, but in the a managed environment, grazing animals can build the soil and save the planet. (life is not possible without topsoil – just think about it)

So how it practically works though the week, it that Mandoza (my trusted assistant) moves the cattle to new grazing every day. I prefer to move them in the afternoon when the sugar content of the grass is higher. I have a simple diagram which I leave in the cottage so Mandoza and I can refer to camps by alphabetical letter. We talk mainly by texting through the day. I charge the battery for the electric fence here at home and once or twice a week I would make sure a newly charged better is taken to the farm. If we use this configuration we have 20 camps. so that would mean that would mean that each camp would get 20 days rest if each camp were grazed for one day. Of course depending on rain and time of the year, 20 days may or may not be enough time for the grazing to recover, so the idea would be to vary the size of the camp accordingly. I can see now that we have had some rain and the days are warmer, the grass is looking good and I can keep the size of the camp quite small, giving me perhaps 30 or 40 camps in total. The grazing is looking quite healthy, If I compare it to my neighbour’s place where he has sheep, cattle and goats continuously grazing the grass down to about 50 mm high, then we are looking very good.

I am also slowly, but surely expanding the pasture. Over the weekends I spend time with the chainsaw cutting out the alien invasive species: Black Wattle, Port Jackson, Inkberry, Blugum, Poplar and Cape Wattle. I start buy cutting paths just wide enough to run the electric fence in. I create a camp in a forested portion. The cattle eat some and stomp down other parts including brambles and vines making it easier for me to come in with the chainsaw. I find it does not take long for the grass to begin to establish in areas where I have opened up the ground to new light that was previously blocked by tree cover. Anyhow, I enjoy working with the cattle. I see them as my landscaping assisants. We work together to bring this farm to be the most that is can be,

Making way for something better.

The thing is, I have refused to accept that my life would become ordinary. I have refused to accept that I would be satisfied with a 40 hour work week and a pay check. I have refused to accept that I would be satisfied with a life that requires me to focus for its duration one specific discipline, one specific focus, one specific profession. But this has caused me some pain and some confusion and some clutter. I can see how, in my defiance I have taken on more and more projects and responsibilities. The assumption in the back of my mind being that I am some kind of superman that has no limit to my ability to take on new stuff. But now, for the last few months at least I have begun with a campaign of cutting down. Taking on the farm has made me realise, number one, that this is what I really want to get right. If turning the farm into a healthy, vibrant and productive family place (perhaps like it may have been many many years before) is the one thing I achieve in my life, then I will consider that a life well spent.

Or at least this is what is running through my head as I dismantle the Hothouse that I built in 2011 to house my aquaponics pilot project. At the time I had expected it only to last a year or two so the time is right for it to go. The real pressure for it to go has of course come from my children and from my wife. They would like things to look a little neater in the backyard. I can resist. I can be forceful, but that would also not be right. So down comes the hothouse.

I had built the entire structure from scrap timber. Timber that I bought from a scrap dealer, called DIY Timber but scrap nonetheless.

I put everything together with my Ryobi Hand held electric screwdriver / drill, so taking it apart gain, involved me unscrewing the boards and the brackets. This allowed me to save most of the timber which I have now taken to the farm. I will probably use it for a new hen house project I have in mind. I must say though, that I learned a lot from taking down the hothouse. I could see what worked and what did not. The plyboard that I used to form the circular from were not a good idea. They did not hold their shape. The tunnel plastic was great. It did begin to rip but only in the top point which had a poor detail that was too sharp. I learned from this hothouse in order to be in anyway warm in the winter months, every minute of sunlight must be captured. All shadows must be avoided, and by the same token, things can get very hot in mid summer, not for the Tilapia, they love worm water, but for some of the plant species, so some way to ventilate is critical.

The timber has generally held up very well over the last three years, but where it has been in touch with moisture, either in direct contact with the soil or where tanks or filters cause continuous moisture, the timber has begun to show signs of rot.

By taking this structure down I now make it possible to build a better one. One that is an improvement on the first one. I would not be able to build a better one if the old one is still there, or it is unlikely, because some of the components need to be re-used and because it just never becomes a priority above the other items on the to do list. But what other parts of my life and my schedule have become old and tired and need to be taken down to make way for new possibilities? Or am I extending the metaphor of the hothouse to where it does not belong. Are there some parts of the the way I do business, the way I practice as an architect, the way I invest my money, the way I spend my time, that can be dismantled, pulled apart to make way for something better. Maybe and I can see that is what I have been doing in the last while. Cutting down slowly. realising that I am human and can only do so much in a given day and in doing this maybe, just maybe, I am making way for something better.

Who will champion PE’s ICC?

(this piece first appeared my regularish column in the The Herald on 9 September 2014)

I was fortunate to, last month, spend a week in Durban. I was one of four thousand five hundred delegates from around the world that attended the 25^th World Architecture Congress. It really was a great event with great speakers, great exhibitions and great and inspiring debates in the corridors and coffee bars that make conferences like these worthwhile. Yes, my mind was on the papers and presentations, but maybe, even more than this my mind was on the city of Durban and the International Convention Centre, where this fantastic event was being hosted.

As I was shuttled from the distant airport or as I booked into my beachfront hotel or enjoyed a steak for supper, I was asking myself: “What does Durban offer the conference goer that Port Elizabeth does not?” I was asking myself “What gave the people of Durban the confidence to build the International Convention Centre, where we in Port Elizabeth have failed to build ours?”

Because many of us remember how, before the World Cup came around, Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality was all set to build our own International Convention Centre on our own beachfront. All the studies had been done by the world’s leading thinkers on these matters and showed that there is probably no other investment our city could make that could attract such a significant amount of new visitors to our region as an International Convention Centre. And not just any old visitors, but big spending business people, who, wherever they go around the world, seem to burn money before, during and after the conference on hotel accommodation, restaurant meals shopping and touring. The amount of new jobs, new opportunities, new rates and new taxes that was predicted would have been generated by this project is actually quite staggering.

It is all so sad therefore, that at the precise moment when our city seemed poised to push the big “GO” button on our own very own ICC, that Sepp Blatter announced to the world in 2006 that South Africa would be hosting the Fifa 2010 World Cup. From that day on everyone went crazy. Any plan, any idea, any vision and any project that did not, in some way, support the World Cup was shelved and forgotten. So with the passage of time, people now forget that the plan for our ICC was not shelved because it was a bad idea,it was shelved because the World Cup got in the way.

Back to the streets of Durban and my Hotel on the beachfront. Yes, Durban’s beachfront is nice, but not nearly as nice as Port Elizabeth’s. The Durban beachfront is actually decidedly down market and positively shabby. It seems that the whole “upmarket” part of what was the beachfront has upped and moved off to the North Coast, to Umhlanga, to Belito and to Salt Rock. I don t know the places that well, but I do know that PE’s beachfront still contains its upmarket restaurants, hotels and apartments. It does this gracefully, while still accommodating ordinary people that are unable to spend large amounts of money. PE has cleaner beaches, our sand has a better colour and the skies are crisper. Port Elizabeth has a better beachfront. Fullstop!

In the evenings after the lectures, exhibitions and talks, my wife and I would visit Durban’s Florida Street. It’s a restaurant zone about 10 minutes taxi drive from the ICC. It’s nice, with a good range of restaurants, bars, antique shops and art galleries. To be honest though, our own Stanley Street is better. Stanley Street offers a wider range and has a much better “street vibe” and is distinct by being nestled in a uniquely preserved heritage precinct that is Central and Richmond Hill.

So, I come to ask myself : “What it is that is standing in the way of Port Elizabeth becoming a world class conference destination?” We really do have an offer that can out-compete Durban. We have all the key ingredients to make ourselves into a conference city, that can be better than Durban and, importantly, we have the rare opportunity to locate an ICC on the beachfront. Imagine being able to step out of the conference and see the waves, smell the sea and check out the talent along a public promenade back to your beachfront hotel or your fancy restaurant. Colleagues, our city has it all. All except an International Convention Centre. Yes, I know our friends at the Boardwalk Casino have tried to convince us that what they have built at their new hotel is the same thing. While we must all understand that the casino bosses were well motivated to convince that gaming board that what they were building would save the city from building an ICC, the truth is that their conference venue is nice and it’s better than what they had before, but just does not do the trick. It just does not have the scale required to attract the kind of conferences envisaged by the city prior to 2006.

But all is not gloomy, because we are very fortunate to have in our city many very highly paid and skilled public leaders. They can be found in our Development Corporations, Development Agencies, National Departments, Provincial Departments and Municipal Directorates. (Remember, an ICC is a public investment, requiring taxpayer’s money.) So my challenge to the clever and powerful people of this city is: Which one of these individuals in these powerful institutions will step up to the plate?

This project needs a champion.

Who will it be?

Freedom is our Heritage. It belongs to us.

Well today is Heritage Day, but is so wet here that I cant bring myself to make a braai. Its quite interesting actually that the idea of having a braai on Heritage day has caught on. Because, if I were to question people I meet in South Africa everyday and ask them about their heritage, they will most often speak about their specific national, tribal or language identity. In some cases the individual may also have some kind of clan or family heritage that they like to speak about. Heritage, for so many of us has been about trying to answer the question “How are you different from other people?” Well I am not sure that’s the only way to think of it. There are so many things that we in fact have as a common Heritage. That’s why I like the idea of “Braai” day, because no matter who you are, your ancestors at some stage cooked meat over an open fire. This is an in and inescapable truth and a comforting ritual that we are all still drawn to in some way. We are all drawn to music, we are all drawn to conversation and laughter and we are all drawn to being outside and breathing fresh air. This is our common heritage and this is what we should be celebrating. In my life these are the things that I celebrate. The minuscule and scientific differences between us are not of such a great fascination to me. Rather I see as academic, the differences between Irish Whiskey and Scotch Whiskey, I see as academic the differences between Rooseterkoek and I’rostile. I see as academic the difference between Pot Roast Chicken and Umleqwa or Umqa and Pap.

I would also argue that it is our common heritage to interact with each other in a civilised way in order to exchange with each other goods and services, In fact, on our way out to the farm this morning Hlubi and I stopped in at the Lake Farm Centre for Intellectually Challenged Adults. They were having their annual fair. Unfortunately a little washed out, but there were still enough people to form a queue at the coffee and cake table and to buy out the boerewors rolls. We huddled indoors looking through the bric-a-brac or choosing the fresh fruit and veg on sale from local farms. It just came to me how different and pleasant this experience of trade is. It feels honest. It feels caring. Dealing with ordinary pleasant people like you and me. Not sexy, Not Flashy. Just ordinary and pleasant.So different from the malls and superstores where I am constantly on my guard, un-relaxed, conscious that this big huge business, is a very clever machine and it is trying its best to drain my wallet and suck my blood. There is no relaxing in such an environment.

But at Lake Farm this morning I wondered: “Is the act of buying and selling our daily needs in a pleasant and civilised environment which we own and control not a common Heritage that we should reclaim for ourselves?”. Really, its only in the last 50 years or so that the act of consuming has been turned in to massive industry that it is. Can you think of a shopping mall that even existed in the seventies? I cant, but maybe there was one somewhere far away. The point is that Heritage is something that has come a long way from the past and belongs to us. We need to defend against those gifts being taken away from us. The corporations taking those gifts away from us are mindless and soulless. I don’t mean this as an insult. It is an observation. Remember, while corporations were all at some stage founded by people, they are not people, they are code, like a computer virus, a piece of programming. They employ humans yes, but they are not human. Corporations are machines and they are out of control. They have no “off”switch. Any single human who tries to switch off Walmart or Macdonalds will be ejected by the machine. Discarded, disciplined, imprisoned…

Am I digressing?

Is it not our heritage to have clean water and breathable air? Is it not our heritage to have clean food, free toxic commercial chemicals? Is it not our heritage to be free from toil and drudgery? Yes, I know some will say that it is also our heritage to be riddled with lepracy and dying from bubonic plague, But have the scare mongers not been too successful in convincing us all that we have had to accept drudgery, toil and environmental collapse in order to achieve the technological advances that have brought us the anti-biotic?

No, I think we can confidently lay claim to a heritage of freedom. We are more knowledgeable now as a species than we have ever been before. If freedom is the freedom from drudgery, poverty and environmental collapse, then yes, it can be achieved if we set to it as a project, as if we had to get a man on the moon or build a Hadron Collider or rid Iraq of Saddam Hussain. It can be done.

Freedom is our Heritage. It belongs to us.

Two dead Chickens

Its not that I expected it to happen, but I am not surprised. Two chickens were taken last night, probably something as small as a mongoose. It must have slipped under the frame of the chicken tractor. We have re-enforced the pen now, by adding a trim of chicken wire that I believe a mongoose may not be clever enough to dig under.

I suppose the other way to have gone about this would have been to have built an absolutely impenetrable concrete and brickwork fortress for the chickens. Something that would have taken a year and something that could withstand any attack including hurricane and leopard. But I don’t think that’s the approach that I care to take. What I am trying to get right at the farm is efficiency in design. The question I continuously ask myself is: What is the appropriate response?

I suppose this is what I am trying to get right in my life. Because I can be cautious but it may stop me ever setting a foot out the door. Or I could be reckless and risk hurting those that depend on me. Too much caution is bad. Too much recklessness it bad. But what I am doing with the chickens and what I am doing on the farm generally, is observing. Taking and action and observing the response of the farm.

Through the action of introducing the chicken tractor, I have been able to observe that I have a mongoose challenge. I can now prepare a measured, sensible response to the mongoose challenge. I can respond with design. The kind of design that does not destroy habitat. The kind of design that is the gentlest possible intervention to address the challenge.

Do you see how this is different to the approach of conventional agriculture, conventional medicine or conventional city building.? In conventional agriculture where we find we have insect challenge we introduce insecticides and destroy all insects, good bad or indifferent. We do not take the time to observe and develop a measured response. In medicine we respond to microbial infections with antibiotics. We do not take the time to observe. We annihilate all bacteria, good bad or indifferent. In city building we act against variety, where one noisy business upsets one complaining resident, we abolish all mixed use suburbs and replace them with a monoculture of residential, a monoculture of offices and a monoculture of factories. We act in this way perhaps because we are afraid of things going wrong. We are afraid to make mistakes. We are afraid perhaps of the ridicule or the mockery, So we become cautious. We make very safe decisions that cant possibly go wrong. We get life cover, medial aid and short term insurance. We get cars with a “motor plan”.We get safe jobs that promise a pension to look after us so we don’t embarrass ourselves by being a burden by making the mistake of running out of money before we die.

But of course in all this cautiousness our dreams are postponed and the richness of what could have been our lives becomes displaced with a life of slavery to those that offer the promise of comfort and security. This life my friends, is not for me. And yes there will be some blood and guts along this path.

But this is the path that I am committed to walk.

ECIA Chair slates ‘too big to fail’ developments

This piece appeared on the mype.co.za website on 6 September 2014. It captures some of my views on the city and the profession at the moment.

ECIA Chair slates ‘too big to fail’ developments

6 SEPTEMBER 2014 BY ALAN STRATON

The past two years have seen the Eastern Cape Institute of Architects’ (ECIA) take on a higher level of advocacy and engage more actively with the public, business and government to educate and share the power and joy of the art of architecture; and on how design can be used for good.

?ECIA President, Tim Hewitt-Coleman says, “The city is its buildings; and the city is the spaces between its buildings. We must work hard to develop a dialog about the ‘Art of Architecture’. A critical dialogue that helps us all see what it is that we like, what we don’t like and what we would like to see our own cities and towns become.”

“I continue to be astounded at how architects in our region manage to achieve such excellent buildings against significant odds, something we must consider a major achievement. There are many of these and we have taken the time to build an exhibition of outstanding design currently on display at the Athenaeum.”

Hewitt-Coleman is adamant that architects have a crucial role to play in protecting excellence. “We are in a desperate fight to defend the tradition of excellence in the built environment against a recent irrational and completely ill-considered attempt to buy the services of an architect on the basis of ‘cheapest is best’,” he said.

“The public sector, spending tax payers’ money, is the number one culprit in this mindlessness. We call upon the public to assist us in this fight, by demanding excellent buildings, excellent parks and excellent spaces. Architects in our region are ready to provide these services.”

The celebration of excellence has been an on-going call to action of the current ECIA committee, which has been in place since 2012. Today a new committee was also elected to carry to mantle forward building on recent achievements.

The ECIA has made significant inroads in involving the profession and public more actively in the design process and engaging them in debate around the way urban spaces are shaped.

“The inaugural Urban Assembly was hosted in October 2013 presenting an ambitious collection of regular ECIA events and a series of new public events, including the popular Archi Race and the prestigious Milde McWilliams Memorial lecture given by the inspirational Luyanda Mpahlwa of Design Space Africa,” said Debbie Wintermeyer, ECIA committee member.

In April 2014 the ECIA also hosted an exhibition at the Athenaeum which showcased competition design entries for two major projects at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) and the design of the new NMMU Alumni building, allowing the profession and public to engage with the idea of the architectural competition as a method of procurement. The ECIA also promoted awareness of the Union of Architects World Conference inDurban in July.

Hewitt-Coleman said the new ECIA committee must remain focussed on what he sees as the “needs” of the profession and the built environment: Clarity, education, training and ethics: “It was a joy to serve with this committee over the last two years. To be an architect is to be a member of a very old profession that pre-dates Roman, Greek and Egyptian civilisations. Those of us who are asked to care for this profession in our specific corner of time and place, do so out of a deep sense of gratitude to the generations on architects who shaped our tradition.”

Recently the Eastern Cape has seen innovation temper local design, with the construction of green buildings which are less expensive to heat and cool, use less energy for lighting and are generally more comfortable to live and work in. Many of the projects in region are leading the way nationally.

However this is not the norm. “For the large part, our cities a terrible sprawling dust raps of poverty and desperation. While much of this is understandable because of our history of apartheid city planning, what is happening right now in 2014, in architecture and city building is completely inexcusable.

“I don’t just mean the mindless rows of matchbox houses sprawling over the hills, but also the megalomaniacal big capital shopping centre monster way outside of our city to the west and in all other directions of the compass where cheap land can be found to build ‘too big to fail’ monuments to our system’s uncaring arrogance,” Hewitt-Coleman said, adding that architects everywhere are calling for a “human face” to the planning of buildings and cities.

“Architects are being called upon to step forward, out of the shadows, and claim the space needed to design and plan the cities of our future. We are slowly and tentatively developing the courage to do what it takes to wrestle this space back.”

Reflecting on 30 years of a changing architectural landscape – which is shaping and reconstituting modern South African cities – the Eastern Cape Institute of Architects’ (ECIA) latest exhibition, Excellence in Architecture: 1983-2013, celebrates how the region has morphed through architectural intervention.

The ECIA exhibition opened on Friday 5 September, and runs through to 12 September in the Athenaeum.

Moving the Chickens

I am not entirely sure that I am ready to move the chickens to the farm, but its done, I moved them today on the back of a hired trailer, with a whole lot of potted trees from my hothouse which I am busy dismantling. All but the one hen that is broody and sitting on eggs.

I am sure I could have built a better shelter for them. In fact I have a much better one planned, drawings and everything, but like with so much in my life, this is what I am able to do now, with the time and resource that I have. I console myself by saying it is a temporary solution. But I say this as I look around my study on the Sunday evening with all many of the temporary shelves, piles of books, heaps of tools un-carpeted floors and skew hung posters, which were all “temporary ” solutions.

How much too in my business is the result of pragmatic thinking. “This is the best that we can do, let it out the door, or run the risk of missing the deadline”.* But is it not in this way that my life becomes a sequence of compromises. Is it not in this way that I miss on the opportunity to do great work, lovely chicken sheds, great articles, beautiful buildings? But perhaps its better this way. Rather a life of compromises than a life of waiting for the time to be right. Waiting for the movement to strike. But never taking action, Never doing stuff, because the circumstance is just not right. I don’t know!

But I do know that we have 5 fowl in the new pen. One hen got out when I was moving them out of the transport cage. I hope we can somehow get it back. I will ask Mandoza if he can think of a way to catch it tomorrow. The danger of course is that unknown predators roaming the farm kill all the chickens tonight. I have not yet taken the time to make the shelter “dig under proof”.

I will keep you posted. Lets see how it goes tonight.

* In a way too, this blog is a battle between getting something out and getting something right. I would like the blog to have more meaningful articles. I would like there to be thorough videos explaining some of the things we do. I would like the photograph to be of better quality. But I suppose if I waited for all those things to happen, I would never put a blog out at all!

update – 8 9 14

Chickens all still alive this morning and I managed to catch the one that got out. (I popped into the farm on the way back from a meeting nearby.

update 11 9 14

Added a nest box this afternoon.

A simple design of 300 X 300 boards cut from a 19 mm Shutterboard sheet. A little plank across the front to keep the eggs and nesting material in. Then simply screwed into the side wall of the Chicken Tractor.

The chickens seem happy. The peck at the grass all the time and scratch in it. Mandoza is moving them to new grass every day. So far so good. No predator attacks. I put a bunch of Bluegum leaves in for them to nest in. I heard somewhere that Bluegum leaves are some sort of natural bug repellent.

We’ll see!

A Place of Power

I have been cleaning up the yard a bit at home. I suppose now that we have the farm, I have little excuse left for turning our sub-urban backyard into an ongoing agricultural experiment. We have veggies, fruit trees, grape vines, Tilapia, a duckweed pond and a chicken run. I am under pressure to move the chickens, the grape vine, the tree nursery and the Tilapia hot house out of the back yard and on to the farm.

But its kind of sad. I know I am making space for bigger and better things, but I still have a vision for this backyard, that will now remain unfulfilled. I would have like to have completely taken out the lawn and replaces it with a tree nursery or chicken forage. I would like to have drained the pool, roofed it into a Tilapia aquaponic garden hothouse. I would have liked to have gone further with rainwater harvesting, composting and grey water systems.

But in clearing out the yard, I am also taking stock. I am clearing out the rubbish that has accumulated. Burning those short bits of timber I thought I would use here and there. Its funny, its almost as if all this stuff grows to have some power over me. And as I burn it I feel the power return to me. Too much stuff! That’s the real problem. We get more and more of it and it begins to mess with our minds. It begins to take my personal power.

I am not sure that I know what I mean by “personal power”, but I have come to see that inside me there is a personal energy or “power”. Some days it is stronger, some days it is weaker. I can feel it change sometimes. If, maybe somebody close to me says something hurtful. I feel my power diminish. If I am doing physical work, I may feel tired, as if though I cannot go on. And piles and piles of disorganised stuff has a similar effect on the energy. This “power”. It makes me feel weak and discouraged.

This realisation is behind my drive to simplify, to live with less. I can see that living with less will give me greater vitality and greater strength. I have go no idea why, of course. But, the mechanics of this phenomenon are not as important to me as the absolute knowledge, that for me, in my life, the less clutter there is, the less noise there is, the less stuff there is, the stronger I feel. And, what’s more, I notice that its like some sort of spiral effect, because the stronger I feel, the more I am able to do to rid myself of those things that are making me feel weak, so I, in turn become stronger again.

My quest , and I suppose, many of yours to, is to find my strongest self, my fullest self. All else flows from there. My ability to love and give. My ability to lead and contribute, all of these are by products of a strong self.

So, as I step back into the work week tomorrow, let me remember the feeling of power and strength I hold today. Let me carry it with me to the meetings, in the proposal and the reports. Let me remember that the place from where I come is a place of power.

Some Perspective

I went out to the farm with my mother on Sunday. She helped me identify some of the trees that I don’t yet know. But also by her just being there with me it helped me gain some “lifetime perspective”.

My Mom

A perspective that helps me see that its OK if things take the time that they need to take. Its going to take a lifetime sculpting this land, this giant garden. The task will never end. My learning, I am sure will never end. I see this time now as just the beginning of the relationship. The “getting to know each other” stage.

I wish I could tell you more about what has been done, since last I checked in, but to be honest, I have been really busy in business. I have been toiling, mostly mindless toiling, the kind that I just have to do to keep afloat. The kind of toil that makes me wonder if there is a different way, a simpler way, perhaps a more beautiful way for me to live out my life. A direct way. A way that cuts straight to the chase. A way that does not see everything as a means to and end. A way that is the end in itself.

I spend so much of my time doing stuff, not that I want to do, but what I am required to do in order to achieve an objective and so much of the time even the objective that I am trying to achieve is not actually what I want but rather just something that helps me achieve another objective which is not what I want but helps me achieve the next objective. Yes I can see the insanity in this cycle and you can see the insanity in your own life, but just because I know the question does not mean I have the answer. I can see the treadmill that I am on, but that does not mean I know how to get off. And without wanting to push the metaphor too far, I can see that it really is possible to fall quite hard once you realise you are on a treadmill and look around, take your eye off where it should be and loose a footing, tumbling face forward and head over heals.

I tried not to think of these matters while I was out in the forest with the trees and my mom, where we found a tree that I very much hope is indigenous, but looks very much like

What tree is this?

the Australian invasive Acacia Mearnsii (known here as Black Wattle). As far as I can see its an Acacia Caffra, but some of my clever friends think is could be Peltophorum Africana.

Its not that I have a facination with latin sounding names or the classification of each plant and tree, but rather just that I would like to know if they should be chopped down or not. If they are invasive, then they are just going to cause me more work over the years as I have to keep them out of areas I don’t want them to be in.So if anyone reading this blog can identify this tree or perhaps knows a internet group or forum that is likely to be able to, please let me know.

My mission in the next few weeks is to get going with planting potted trees that I have been moving from my house in Walmer. My mom tells me its late I should have planted in autumn already. Here I was holding on until spring, but I will plant anyway.

The other project that is becoming urgent, is for me to move the chickens to the farm. Two of the chickens have turned out to be roosters and have taken to crowing early in the morning, I am sure upsetting the same neighbours who complained last time I had a rooster. So watch this space for chicken coop progress.

The Mystree tree