Terrific photos of the house

Lottie’s put some terrific photos of the house, chooks, bees and things up on her blog, here: aplaceaday.blogspot.com… Thanks, Lottie, may the photos be with you, Michael  Read More

Waste doco that includes Chippo in Flickerfest

The new short film documentary, Waste Not, will have it’s world premier at the Flickerfest in Sydney in January and the programme guide on the festival web page says: ‘Waste Not Australia Directed By Ruth Hessey What keeps a 21st Century metropolis like Sydney clean and sparkling? Even as we hover on the brink of a monumental eco-catastrophe, an army of truck drivers, scientists, environmentalists, gardeners and even a famous chef are working to transform the mountains... Read More

Food box data

Sydney Food Connect has provided data about this months boxes: “Households/week: 247 City Cousins: 32 Price to farmers: 40c/$ Organic or chemical free: 100% Food miles/week: 173km Our market comparison with five other organic and non-organic produce box services this month showed we are on average 14% cheaper!” Julian Lee, co-founder of Sydney Food Connect, is one of five environmentalists named in today’s the(sydney)magazine’s list of Sydney’s top... Read More

Emotions can cause physical illness, and restore health

Dr. Gabor Maté is the author of the book, “When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection” The Vancouver-based Dr. Gabor Maté argues that too many Western doctors seem to have forgotten what was once a commonplace assumption—that emotions are deeply implicated in both the development of illness and in the restoration of health. Based on medical studies and his own experience with chronically ill patients at the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver... Read More

Living with two zen masters

L to R - Bob, Bert I live with two zen masters, both of them chooks. They dwell constantly in the here and now.  Watching them doing anything is a gift; they teach me to be myself, to come into the now of the moment. If I were to say they teach me spiritual lessons and you laughed, I would, too, but it’s true. They peck joyfully.  You want to see a simple peck for what it is, just that, then my Bob and Bertadina are your girls. They peck, totally in the moment. And walk... Read More

Of bees, gurus and lost opportunities

In her autobiography, Images and Shadows, Iris Origo the American who married an Italian and lived in Italy but, more importantly, overcame great wealth to live and write and to love with disciplined, accessible passion and learning, describes her brief time with a wonderful teacher when she was 15. In the chapter, Reading and learning,  she describes learning Greek and Latin poetry.  Like all wonderful stories hers are layered, with life in front of her described as she was... Read More

A murmuration of swallows

If, say, we were gardening in the street and I was to yell, “Huh, look, a murmuration of swallows”, would you know I was using the collective noun for a gathering of swallows, not the sounds they may be making then? And if it were a particularly abundant day in the skies of Chippendale, and, looking up, we espied lots of magpies, and you said, “Crikey, a tiding of magpies”, would I know what you referred to? It’s not essential to know these things... Read More

Measures of happines

On this so sweetly beautiful day, another one where Earth sings out triumphantly, “look at me, look at me”, and when I’ve just come back in from watering my garden (with my recycled sewage) to this computer screen, my thoughts have turned to the question, “Why do I feel still, easy and  . . . dare I say it, ‘happy’?” Part of the reason I’ve asked it is that on my way back to the house a friend, Nathan, has shown me these 2001 figures... Read More

When your pump runs dry

No, this is not a song. But it can help to sing when your pump runs dry; who knows, it may bring peace to your otherwise un-abluted flesh and grumpy heart, and distract you from the debris of a shower that won’t work in the morning. Pumps are pretty simple creatures but can put a Buddhist monk back years on the path to simplicity and inner peace. For now, let’s list how to fix one type of pump, the self-priming pump: - to prime the pump’s belly undo the largish... Read More

Beaut local blog

There’s a beaut local blog by Charlotte with some great photos of the Chippo gardens here:  A Place A Day  Read More