So where to now?

OK, I have my PDC and a head stuffed full of information and ideas - what do I do now? I think the principles that most apply here are observe and interact, and small and slow solutions. To sum it up I need to take a "hurry up and wait" approach!

There are so many things I want to do on our property, but I really need to cultivate (no pun intended!) patience and just watch the sun, wind and weather, and really plan the best use of all our space. It's not going to be easy though - I WANT IT ALL NOW :*) .

In the meantime there are some small things that I am doing:

• valuing a renewable resource by putting buckets in the sink and shower to collect 'waste' water and recycling it onto the garden
• I've turned off the house pump and we now gravity feed all water into the house. It's a small thing but it makes me feel better. It also helps to reduce water consumption as there is less pressure. An added bonus of this is I have learned about tap architecture as I had to take the flow regulator our of our kitchen tap to get any water out!
• Mulch, mulch and more mulch - I've raked up the grass clippings and put them on the garden beds
• Harvesting a yield - growing even more of my own food

Day 11 - Violet Town / Murrnong

Today we visited David Arnold's property in Violet Town. It was great to see a different permaculture property in action. A real contrast to other places, as it was flat, and very orderly with rows and rows of trees on the way into the main building.

He has an incredible diversity of fruit and fodder trees, and a dam that made me really envious! As well as the property tour, we did a session on water, and spend some time calculating how much water we could catch from our roof, and also catch in our soils. I was amazed to find I could store about 10 olympic swimming pools of water in my soil - safe from evaporation and available to the plants. Time to start planning my soil improvement and keyline ripping for next spring!

You can see David's vid's at www.youtube.com/murrnong.

On the subject of water a mini rant - I was dismayed and annoyed to see this heading in today's age: "Water worries temporary" Claims that Melbourne will not need new rainwater tanks or greywater systems in homes . HELLO PEOPLE!!!! We need to catch and store!!!!!!!!! That way you wouldn't have to take water from regional victoria and pipe it away from agricultural land and down to the city. And you could spend the money for the desalination plant on public transport. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR