Pining For A Wind Turbine

Have you ever stopped in your tracks and stared at a thing of beauty?  I know I have.  Kim often catches me looking at a bit of roof porn as we drive around (think about it).

My obsession with renewable energy is a little like train-spotting I suppose, but in a nice way, and without the anorak.

I recently moved office buildings down to Melbourne Docklands, and of late, I have become obsessed with wind turbines.

They are on many water craft;

I believe this is an Air Breeze Marine 12v 200watt attached to a fancy catamaran docked at Victoria Wharf.  This was spinning quite fast as it was windy, and I could hardly hear it.  It would connect up easily to my backup battery box.

Then there are the mother of vertical axis wind turbines on top of the ANZ building.  They are five of them and are 6.5kW each when the wind is blowing at 57 kph (36 mph).  That is a lot of electricity.  These are called qr5 turbines and are made in the UK by quietrevolution.

This is what the qr5 looks like before installation. I don't think they would fit on my house roof, but I can only dream.  Maybe something a little smaller.

So I continue to pine, and seek out my very own vertical axis turbine, which would be better suited to the urban environments and lower wind conditions.  I will keep on the lookout for developments in the industry or an easy to make vertical axis turbine.  How cool would it be to make my own!

Until next time dear readers.

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." - William Arthur Ward

5 Reasons To Grow Your Own Vegetables

Money doesn’t grow on trees, but you can save a lot of it by growing your own vegetables.  However this is only one of the great reasons to pop some veggie seeds or seedlings in the dirt this spring.  So here are my five favourite reasons to grow your own vegetables this season;

1.  The price is right

We usually buy our vegetables from local green grocers or roadside veggie stalls in a neighbouring town, so last weekends visit to the supermarket was an eye opener.  The most significant reason to grow your own produce is the price.  Take capsicums (bell peppers) for example.  For three capsicums in the supermarket, it costs A$7.99, which was extortionate.  I can buy a packet of capsicum seeds for A$2.95 or a punnet of seedlings for $2.50 and grow in excess of 10-20 kg of green, yellow or red capsicums.  That is just one of the amazing savings.  Plant a couple of zucchinis and you will soon know what I mean!

2.  You decide what goes on your food

Another reason for growing your own is that you can control what goes into your food. You can either be very strict in keeping your produce organic, or use limited amounts of fertilizer and pest control that you approve of.  I personally only grow with organic methods, but the choice is yours. Best of all, the security of knowing how and what is used in the process can be reason enough to grow your own.

3.  Freshness and Taste

We've all run into the problem of reaching into our fridge’s crisper drawers and finding limp or bruised vegetables only fit for the chooks. You won’t have that problem when you can pick them straight from the source and put them in your evening meal on the same day. Vegetables found in the supermarket are typically picked half ripe so that they can be transported long distances, which has a detrimental effect on its flavour.

4.  A Cornucopia Of Cultivars 

Given the choice between a few types of tasteless tomatoes in the supermarket, you will probably be surprised at the variety of different cultivars that are available.  From massive Mortgage Lifter beefsteaks to stripy Tigerella, to the tiniest cherry tomato, no two are alike in size or flavour and there are literally hundreds to choose from.  And that is just tomatoes.  The vast choice of variety among veggies like beans, lettuce, chillies, potatoes, pumpkins, corn, or even onions are just simply amazing.  Just try and grow one variety, I dare you!

5.  Fresh Herbs are simply amazing

If you only begin with herbs, which I consider to be "the gateway plant to gardening”, you will not be disappointed.  Easy to grow from seed or ready bought, herbs will flavour your cooking like never before.  Rosemary, thyme, parsley, sage, and basil are great choices for the beginner.  Fresh herbs are great in any dish and leave dried herbs for dead.

Summary

So if I have convinced you, why not pop down the library and pick up a few edible gardening books? It is a great place to start to learn how to grow your own.  However, remember to only plant the vegetables that you use frequently. You don’t want to bite off more than you can chew at the start.  Most of all, start small, and increase your growing space as you gain confidence.

All I can say is give it a go. What have you got to lose?  You will save a small fortune in the process, especially with the climbing prices of fresh food.

Do you think growing your own saves you money? If you are a novice, are you up for the challenge of producing your own veggies?

Why We Need Degrowth

Let me introduce you to a concept that some may not have heard about.  It is the concept of  degrowth.  

Wikipedia lists the following about degrowth:

"Degrowth (in French: décroissance, in Spanish: decrecimiento, in Italian: decrescita) is a political, economic, and social movement based on Ecological economics, anti-consumerist and anti-capitalist ideas. Degrowth thinkers and activists advocate for the downscaling of production and consumption—the contraction of economies—as overconsumption lies at the root of long term environmental issues and social inequalities. Key to the concept of degrowth is that reducing consumption does not require individual martyring and a decrease in well-being. Rather, 'degrowthists' aim to maximize happiness and well-being through non-consumptive means—sharing work, consuming less, while devoting more time to art, music, family, culture and community."

Sound familiar?  It is comparable to Simple Living, Voluntary Simplicity, Downshifting, Sustainable Living or even the Transition Town movements.

What ever name we give it, why do I think we need these movements?  Well, quite simply, because we live on a finite world that has limits and boundaries, therefore continues growth is not feasible.  Ergo our western lifestyle is unsustainable.   

The planet can regenerate about 2.1 global hectares per person per year on a sustainable basis.  The average Australian has an ecological footprint of 6.6 global hectares per person which is 2.8 times the average global footprint of 2.7 global hectares.  If everyone lived like this we would need four planets to sustain our lifestyle.  As there are no new planets to plunder except the one we have, we better get used to living within our means or suffer the consequences.

This means that a possible solution could be degrowth, or put in my language, to consciously reduce our  consumption.

It would be nice if 'Buy Nothing Day' was everyday, and we just reused and produced stuff we grew or made ourselves.  Great stuff in theory, but it would kill our current economic model.  However if you look at it closely, our current economic model is killing itself pretty much on its own because of the finite limits of our world.  

So, the more we walk away from the current economic system, the quicker it fails, which would not be good for anyone.  How do we aim for a gentle landing and not end up in a continuous downward recession/depression cycle when our economic system does fail?  This is not a rhetorical question.  I just don't know the answer.

However, I do know that we have three possible paths that we can take from this time on.  Woody Allen once said "We have arrived at a decisive fork in the road. One path leads us to the extinction of our species and the other leads to despair.  I hope we will be able to make the right choice… "

So far, as I see it we are on the first path, taking down many other species with it.  Second path is one of negative growth history has shown to generate famine, wars, pandemics and can lead to a society controlled by fascism or totalitarian power.  No thank you very much!  I am a bit more optimistic and believe we can turn it around.

I believe there is a third path.  It one of degrowth by choosing sobriety and taking stock of our current reality.  We need to break our addiction to things.  Somehow we need to be able to change our economic system in such a way that reduced consumerism is seen as goodness and a better way of living, giving us more spare time, and wanting for less, therefore softening the impact.  We need to live within the global limits and on or below those 2.1 global hectares we each have been granted by Gaia.  It may seem very neo-hippy of me, but there has to be a better path than we one we are current embarked upon.  

I for one have chosen not to be on this train wreck any more.  Have you?  

Do you have any thoughts on possible solutions to the end of growth?

Megan Learns A Lesson

Thanks for all the great comments on the last post titled "iPhone Marketing Tricks".  

It turned out to be very popular with you all.

Long time readers may know that I have four wonderful children, three of which have grown up and left home, leaving Ben living with Kim and I on the urban farmlet. My youngest daughter Megan as always struggled with the beast that is popular consumerism, however our frequent little talks are slowly working.

Megan works in a mobile phone shop, to pay her way through University, of which I am very proud. Yesterday I sent her the link to the iPhone post via facebook as a fatherly nudge in the right direction. To my surprise, her reply was as follows (posted with permission);

"Dad, I am well aware that this new phone is a crock of shite and a sad excuse to bring out new accessories that generate billions of dollars in revenue for Apple alone under the rouse of 'needing' to change the charger to make the phone thinner.  

However in the case of the mobile world - build and they will come, as such. No one that is buying this new phone has a legitimate reason to do so they just 'want' it or are lead to believe, through very clever marketing techniques, that they 'need' it.  

It is sad to see so many people so driven by the supposed 'status' that comes from being an iPhone 5 user.  

I came to my senses and cancelled my pre-order after I saw the ridiculousness of the whole spectacle. 

You never know Dad, your ways may be rubbing off on me and changing my consumeristic ways."

I have a big fatherly smile from ear to ear.

iPhone Marketing Tricks

The media is full of the latest phone craze, the iPhone 5.

Yes, I agree that it is a good looking phone (that's it on the left).  Yes, I agree that it is a very useful device, as are iPads, Kindles, Android phones and other tablets.  To have all the functions of a larger computing device in one small object is just simply amazing, and I am being very sincere.

Think about holding many hundreds of books in the palm of your hand without the need to cut down any trees for paper.  It is an amazing environmental benefit.  I realise that mining some of the rare earth metals that are required for the phone/devices has an environmental impact, such as the coltan mining which is driving mountain gorillas out of their habitat, but otherwise this benefit is impressive.

Whilst I have resisted many times to purchase a tablet type device, and still do, I have however succumbed to a smartphone, in the form of the iPhone 4S, simply out of necessity.   After all, there are not many options for just a plain old phone any more.   It may sound hypocritical, especially when I abhor consumerism so much, so let me share with you what I have learnt from first hand experience.

Marketing Devices

Smartphones and Tablets are some of the best marketing devices ever!  Yes, that is what they are primarily designed for.  As content consuming machines.

After you have played with all the free stuff, and there is not much of it, what is the next thing that you do?  You go and buy some content.  Apps, or newspapers, or even eBooks like the ones I publish, then maybe some music or a movie, or even a TV series.  There literally are millions of content items to choose from.  The range is endless.

So, the main goal is to entice you to buy content, and lots of it.  Why do you think the iTunes store or Google Play looks so cool and helpful.  To entice you!  In the end the content could cost you many more times the price of the original device.

Designed Obsolescence

The secondary goal is to create a desire in the buyer to consume more devices.  My last phone, a Nokia died after 7 long years of faithful service.  It became unrepairable.  I did not want for a new phone during its lifetime.  However, I must be a rare breed indeed, especially since I work in the IT industry.  Many people upgrade their phones as soon as the next model is available.

All computer manufacturers design electronic devices with a specific lifespan in mind.  However, Apple is one of the supreme masters of designed obsolescence due to their non-user replaceable battery in all iPod, iPhone, and iPad devices.  The battery has a limited lifespan and soon degrades in as little as 18 months.  You can replace it yourself, but not without some considerable heartache because you have to buy a special screwdriver to dismantle it and it voids the warranty.

The designed hardware capability is no better.  I recently found that when I upgraded to iOS 6, my phone's operating system is now double the size of the old one, and the phone is slightly slower in its operation.  Each version of the operating system is designed to add new features that the older devices just cannot handle, which forces or convinces the user to upgrade to the new hardware, hence making more profit for the said company.

Manufactured Demand

All companies try and manufacture demand for their products.  Apple seams to have a knack at doing it better than all the others, and I am not sure why.  Is it because they market simplicity and sexiness in their products.  Can a phone be sexy?  I am not sure, but I have noticed that at the launch of each of their new products, there is a mass marketing campaign like no other, and an associated consumer craziness that goes along with it.  Release little additional features like a slightly larger display, or thinner body, or better camera at each model release is one way, but there is an even more subtle way.

Why, I ask you, that upon release of a new Apple product does there always seam to be a sudden shortage?  Is this created on purpose to stimulate an artificial demand?  Surely Apple would know how high a demand the last product release had when they release a new one?  Learning from past releases would be in a companies best interest, would it not?  Or would it.  A limited supply creates an artificial demand in the minds of the consumer, some who would sell their first born child to get their hands on one!  Yes readers, this is simply a marketing technique from the marketing masters.

Awareness

So dear readers, I am not disparaging anyone from purchasing one of these devices, even Apple products, because they are useful and attractive.  As I said, I own one myself.  But let's speak truthfully and acknowledge their real purpose.  It is to separate you from your hard earned cash, create desire, and boost profits and shareholder value.

Plain and simple.

Mozzarella & Ricotta Course - October

After a bit of negotiation and some fortuitous and wacky events, I have become our towns local cheese guru and have managed to get a cheese making course into the Melton Learning Directory.  Yippee!!!

So lets make cheese! What better way to get busy and learn a new skill for the future.  I have the pleasure to be offering a Cheese making course in October 2012.  Details below;

Mozzarella & Ricotta Cheese Making Workshop

In this workshop you will:

• make your own Mozzarella cheese to take home. 
• learn the techniques about the correct cultures to use, setting the curd, draining, and curd stretching. 
• demonstration of Ricotta cheese being made from whole milk. 
• Bread sticks provided for tasting cheese after completion. 

Workshop length: 3 hours

Milk, cultures and ingredients provided.

Price is around $50 (the centre takes a cut)

Day & Date: Saturday 27th October 2012

Time: 1:00 pm to 4:00pm

Place: Melton South Community Centre, 26 Exford Rd, Melton South, Victoria.

For bookings call 97478576 or email msccentr@bigpond.net.au

---

I am so looking forward to teaching another class.  I have missed the interaction, and after two cancelled courses in at Spotswood Community House, I was a bit disheartened.   Not any more!

Now here for the ironic part.  During the interview for the job,  I found out that the two old ladies that taught me how to make cheese at the very same location, way back in March 2009, have retired.  Apparently people have been asking the community house for more cheese making courses.

Here is the weird bit.  My post lady is also a member of the community house's committee, and Kim and her often have a chat about all sorts of sustainable living things, including, you guessed it, cheese.  It was she who dropped my name to the Program Co-ordinator at the centre!  Weird or fate huh?

Anyway, someone's chakra must have aligned somewhere, so I got the gig, replacing the instructors who taught and gave me the cheese making bug.  In some karmic sort of way I feel honoured.

So if you want to come along and learn how to make Mozzarella and Ricotta, please book with the centre.  Learning a new skill is great fun.  This quote is most apt;

"Cheese is milk's leap towards immortality." - Clifton Fadiman

Who's coming to make some leaping cheese with me?

P.S.  Thanks to one of my readers, Tasos for making the image for me.  You can catch his work at  www.TasosPhotography.com.  

Three Hundred And Fifty

Yes readers, 350 is the magic number so the majority of climatologists say.  That's 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 equivalent that is the level we need to get back to so to have a chance to limit warming to just two degrees Celsius.

Do we have much of a change seeing that in parts of the globe we are already at 400ppm?  Well I hope so, or we better start thinking of climate adaptation and not climate change mitigation which is the less expensive of the two choices we have in front of us.

Personally, I don't think all is lost.  Things have changed, at least in a few countries, but the overwhelming majority of the top polluting countries do not have any major plans to mitigate climate change and begin any meaningful action.

Can we make a difference?  Well, once again I hope so, but sometimes I just don't know.  I would like to think that we are not complete idiots and will begin to lower global emissions, but looking around at the crazy political policies that even our own governments are making, I still think it is business as usual.

Let me highlight two extremely short-sighted political decisions that were made in the last few weeks.  In Victoria, our state government has reduced the state's net solar feed-in tariff to 8 cents a kWh.  As the majority of residential properties are paying between 23 and 25 cents a kWh for every one they import, essentially they are getting ripped off royally.  It lets the electricity retailers buy it at 8 cents and lets them sell it instantly to your neighbour at the higher 25 cents, pocketing a profit of 17 cents a kWh for not even lifting a finger.  It makes justifying the capital outlay of solar PV difficult for the average bloke, and it certainly does not encourage the rapid uptake of renewable energy.  No sense of a fair go in this State.  I think other states in Australia have the same issue now as well.

The other crazy decision is the federal government's back down from the negotiating table after their promise to buy and decommission a few large, heavy polluting coal fired power stations, and ramp up large scale renewables.  It was cowardice at the upper most level as far as I am concerned.  Reports are that they didn't even put an offer on the table, just walked away.

Both decisions designed to line the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and keep things just as they are.  This stupidity does not give me much hope, and just makes me angry that our decision makers are so short sighted.

The founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben has it right you know.  He says we have a fight on our hands, and it is against the most profitable entities in the world which are the oil, gas and coal companies and their lackeys in the political system. (acknowledgement goes to Dawn for the link)


What do you think?  I do have lots of hope and believe that people will turn it around back to 350ppm, but my confidence often gets chipped away at. time and time again.  It is discouraging to say the least.

It’s Not Always Beer and Skittles Living A Simple Life

I don't know if it is someone else's quote but here is one of my simple philosophies;

"If you haven't had a failure yet, you are not trying hard enough!" - Gavin

Everyone has times in their life that things don’t go as planned. No one is infallible especially when it comes to the sharp learning curve that comes with adopting a more simple or sustainable lifestyle.

The word ‘simple’ conjures up the notion of ease, or effortless, but believe me, it is often far from the truth. However I believe that something worthwhile doing or implementing is the ultimate reward and is satisfying.

For instance, two weeks ago, on a very windy day, Kim rang me up at work and told me that the door track of the greenhouse had come loose. I asked her to fix it as best she could and I would fix it when I got home. She did a sterling job with some rope and one of the pylons that hold up the garage roof, however the wind had done more damage than what she initially thought. It took me over two hour to fix two missing panels that had blown out because I had to partly dismantle the greenhouse to slot them back in, and another thirty minutes to repair the door track and remount the doors. A simple job that turned into a difficult one, however the end result was a more sturdy structure that will withstand strong winds once again.

One thing that I really didn’t have any experience in was raising backyard chickens. Sure, I had watched my parents raise them when I was a kid, but that is no real substitute for doing it yourself. With plenty of research and starting off small we have become capable chicken keepers. We did underestimate the impact that a bantam rooster would have on our lives, and had to fix the error by giving Mr Darcy back to the breeder. My failure, not Mr Darcy's.  He was just being what nature intended. In hindsight, it was good experience and I now know why roosters are not usually allowed in suburban backyards!

Another example is my recent Pepino rescue. What I thought would be a five minute job of tying up the Pepino bush to the trellis became a forty minute evolution. Some one had moved my twine and pocket knife and it took me ten minutes to find them. Then I clumsily managed to snap off three of the branches of the bush, but managed to tidy that up. All in all, the bush is now safe from small chickens that have their beady eyes on my melons. I also turned it to my advantage because I used the snapped off branches to propagate the plant and make four new Pepino plants. All being well they will grow roots and I will expand my Pepino harvest. A great result as far as I am concerned.

The final example was our recent sheet mulching effort in the front orchard. I stupidly thought that it would only take a couple of day’s effort. It did not. It took us nearly four full days to weed, sheet mulch then add normal mulch over the top. What complicated matters were that one of the weeds was extremely invasive (kikuyu) and slowed down our progress considerably. Once I managed to dig most of it out, which took a full day, the rest was a breeze. The benefit of all this hard work was a great looking garden/orchard and that the fruit trees are now protected from moisture loss. Very satisfying once completed.

Other things that sometimes don’t quite go to plan, but have got better and easier with experience are bread making, beer making, cheese making, and any new gardening task or plant that we have not grown before. You need to do a bit of research once something has gone amiss, but you soon recover and try again.

However, don’t for one second let failure or hard (but rewarding) work deter you. As Goethe once said;

“Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!”

NB: 'Beer and skittles' is shorthand for a life of indulgence spent in the pub. A saying frequently used during the 19th century, and during my time in the Navy.

Green Videos With A Message

Who likes a good message?

I have been scouring the net for green videos with a message that hit home.  Here are a few of my favourites that I found.

Blue Man Group on Climate Change.

Flashmob Recycling.
 

Eddsworld on Climate Change for kids. Ben put me onto this vid!    
 How not to prepare for Peak Oil with Post Peak Oil Man. This one is a bit weird.
  
 And finally, Tim Robson's edible garden featured on Gardening Australia. My new suburban food growing hero.
 
I think I like the last message the best!

Which one do you like?

I Love Spring

Yes, spring has sprung dear readers. We are nearly at the Vernal Equinox (23rd Sept) which means the days will become longer than the nights, and doesn't nature know it!

Finally, most of the cold weather is behind us, as well as the last frost, and everything is growing well around the garden of TGOG.  Even the seedlings have taken off, as well as every other vegetable in the patch.  Lets have a look around, shall we?

Some of the many cyclamens that we have in pots.  Beautiful when in bloom. 

Rosemary in bloom.

Radishes

Pumpkins.  Australian Butter, Queensland Blue, and some mixed.

Cucumbers growing well.

Tomatoes just poking through after 3 weeks.

Lots of goodies.  Left to right; celery, beans, sunflower, basil, chilli.

Just the right temperature in the greenhouse.

The perennial Stevia is re-sprouting.  

Teddy is looking for trouble

Spring Onion flowers are spectacular.

Strawberry flowers in Kim's hanging basket.

Pink Lavender.

Succulents doing well.

Such pretty flowers in our waterwise garden.

Another week and all the grape vines will have leaves.

Spuds are up!

Mothers meeting taking place in Cluckingham Palace.

The Black Mulberry is looking very healthy and full of fruit.

Eggs abound.

Cheeky Miss Jane.

There is her mate Poppy coming to investigate.

The Pizza Oven herb garden in the wicking bed.

Holey Pepino Batman!

 I must add to this picture.  As the bantams were free ranging they decided to peck a hole in my nearly ripe pepino that I had waited six months for.  Well as the damage was done, we cut off the bad bit, gave it a wash, and enjoyed our very first pepino melon.  It was delicious, a bit like rock melon, but not as sweet.  Looking forward to many more from the bush below.

Pepino Melon bush.

 So I decided that it would be better to tie up the melon bush with old thick shoe laces to ensure that no more cheeky chickens have a go at my melons!  The good thing about pepinos is that they are a perennial fruit, and just need a bit of organic fertilizer each year to keep going.

The remaining pepinos.

Looking forward to working in the garden a little bit more today.

You would have noticed that I have slowed down a bit on the blog.  That is because Sustainable House Day took a lot out of me, so I eased off a little.  Back to regular blogging this week.

Anyway, hope you are having fun in your edible garden.  What are you planting?

The Aviator - A Book Review

I stumbled across this recently published book as I was listening to an episode of Radio Ecoshock, where Alex Smith (the presenter) was interviewing Gareth Renowden who co-hosts a podcast called The Climate Show.  I bought it straight way at the iBookstore, but should have purchased directly from the author as he would have gotten a bigger slice of the pie.  Sorry Gareth.

Anyway, Gareth was given the opportunity to promote his book, The Aviator which he describes as  ;

"Flying around a world battered by rapid climate change and struggling with economic collapse in a hi-tech airship, Lemmy encounters the remnants of our civilisation – the artificial intelligences searching for the singularity, a rocking bishop in his flying cathedral, the last climate sceptics, the technovegans and deep green terrorists, billionaire libertarians in their bubble, and much, much more. Not to mention the goats, the girlfriend with bots in her head and the elixir of life (which is cheese)."

I was attracted to it right away, because it mentioned two things that I am passionate about.  Climate Change and Cheese!  How the two go together is well worth picking up a copy for just for that.

The story centres around the main character ex Californian Lemmy and his airship, the Thunderbird, who travel around this ravaged world.  The Thunderbird is the shell of a body for the Artificial Intelligence, called Jenny, who has a thing for old movies and historical figures.  The story is told by both main characters, and it was very interesting reading from Jenny's point of view.  It gave a lot more depth to the story than otherwise would have been there if it had just been told from Lemmy's side of the tale.  Did I mention that Jenny the AI likes pirates?  Aarrr.

From what I can figure the book is set around 2030-2040 from various comments throughout the book, however a specific date is never given (it could be a little later).  I believe that is because the author tried to steer away from having the story compared to a prediction of sorts.

The description of a post climate change world was eye opening.  It was well researched as to what may happen if we do not take climate action soon, and stop using our atmosphere to dump our waste.  With a melted Arctic Ice Cap, a Greenland void of ice, methane fires in Siberia, and violent global weather patterns, it was the stuff of nightmares.

However, dystopian future aside, the story keeps you flipping each page, and the adventures that Lemmy and Jenny have together are varied and wondrous.  They travel from their base near Nelson, New Zealand (after all, the author is a Kiwi) to what is left of the USA, to northern Canada, across to Greenland, over part of the North Pole down to Russia, to China, and Melbourne, Australia.  Wait until you find out what happened to Australia!  It is not difficult to imagine either given the droughts, bushfires and floods that we are already experiencing at the beginning of climate change.

Introduce a foxy lady in the form of Lemmy's love interest Kate (also from Nelson), and throw in a  jealous AI, and things get really interesting.

Without giving away any more spoilers, I found the story enthralling, entertaining, humorous, chilling in places, and believable. It was also a definite page-turner. I couldn't put it down once I started and it took me a day to finish. Normally a work of fiction would take a week or two to get through, especially then it weighs in at over 100,000 words.

It even featured goats, with magical cheese, and they even stumble upon what is left of the Heartland Institute which has a hilarious twist.

Well written, well thought through, and well edited.  This book is a must read and well worth the asking price of US$4.99

The Aviator, the first in a series set in The Burning World, is available from in multiple formats from Smashwords, iBookstore US, UK and AU, and on Amazon for Kindle and in Paperback ($US15).  You can read more about the author here.

I can't wait until Part Two is published and I know it will be well worth the wait.

Gavin out.

Arctic Ice Cap Record Melt

If our civilization was in tune with what is going on around the world, we should be very, very concerned about what is going on up at the North Pole.

No, Santa and the elves are not feverishly whipping up toys for Christmas.  Something much more disturbing is going on.

This year we have, by our inaction, caused a record ice melt of the polar ice cap.  This graph from the US based National Snow and Ice Data Centre tells a sorry story of the reduction in extent of ice coverage over the Arctic Sea.

source: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Here is another graphic to try and show the difference between this year and previous ones.

So why are I so worried about a lack of summer ice on the North Pole?  Well it is as simple at this. Dark surfaces absorb more heat than lighter coloured surfaces.  Basic physics.  The more sea water exposed, the more the ocean heats up and less infra-red heat is reflected back into space.  This in turn melts more ice and so the vicious circle continues until all the summer ice pack is gone.

Sure it comes back in winter, but it is thinner and melts quicker in summer.  Even the IPCC reports  didn't predict this quickening rate of sea ice melt.

source:  http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/observed-and-projected-arctic-september

The green line are observations of the extent of Arctic sea ice vs. the predictions of the best scientific minds in the field.  The observations on this graph are only up to November 2010, so we are now well below the mean.

As the north pole heats, it causes havoc with climate patterns all over the northern hemisphere.  Hotter summers, cold snaps in winter, and little stability like we have been used to over the Holocene.  No stable climate makes it very difficult to grow food.  No food, smaller populations of humans.  A vicious cycle all around.

Any of this in mainstream media?  Not that I can see.  So all I ask is a simple favour.  Share this post with anyone who is concerned about our future on this planet so that it may, in some small way, prompt people to look up from their game of angry birds for a second and take notice to what is happening around them.  It may prompt them to think about lowering their environmental footprint while they are at it.

Please.  For the sake of our kids and future generations to come.   I beg of you.

Sustainable House Day 2012 - Wrap Up

What a beautiful day we had for Sustainable House Day.  It was sunny, but cool in the morning, warming up to about 18C (64.4F) in the afternoon.

We played the tours of the garden a little different this year.  The plan was that I would be the singular tour guide and take groups around the grounds every 30 minutes.  However plans don't always work out that way.   The first tour took 40 minutes, the second took 50 minutes, and then it took an hour each after that.  No two tours were exactly the same, and it all depended on how many questions the visitors asked.

So the grand total for the day was;

68 Guests and 13 volunteers = 81 Visitors for the day.

We were pleased with the turnout, and managed to get everyone around.

The gardens looked lovely in the warm sunlight, and everyone enjoyed themselves.  This year we had many more locals than in previous years, probably due to the fact that I managed to get an article into one of the local newspapers four days before the event.  Kim and I also got to meet many of the local readers of this blog, which as always was a great joy to us both.  It was so nice to show readers around the place, that before hand they had only read about.

As always my daughter Amy volunteered to be the greeter who signed people in and gave away the free information sheets and magazines that we were given by the sponsors.

We set up a soap display showing some of the ingredients for home made soap.  Many visitors were impressed the with simplicity of how it was made, and with minimal ingredients.

Whilst people were waiting for the next tour, Kim and the other volunteers made sure that they felt welcome with a chat and answered any questions.  The display boards were also popular and many questions were asked and answered whilst waiting.

By lunch time, I had given two tours to quite large groups.  I believe that there were about 12 or so in each tour.  One of the visitors was Jessie (aka Rabid Little Hippy) and family who we had the pleasure of meeting for the first time.  She recently bought a property in Ballan which is not far from us.  She gave us a gift of a small jar of Lemon Butter (yum) and some home made dark chocolate, which Kim was so impressed with that she is going to have a go at making it herself.  Cheers Jessie!

We had a few things on display, and Kim made up descriptions of each item.  The two worm farms were a hit and kids just loved looking at the wriggly worms!

The emergency blackout box or standalone power supply was a big hit.  So many people asked if I had electrical experience, but I told them that I just read a few articles on the net and figured it out for myself.  I was into electronics when I was a kid, and was a radio operator by trade in the Navy for twenty years, but other than a basic grasp of low voltage electronics a long time ago, it was all self taught.  I should write an eBook about it I reckon.

People were also amazed that I had free transportation, other than riding the bike of course.  The fact that I could charge the electric bike from my battery box amazed a few.

The pool are looked very inviting, however for safety reasons, we fenced off the entire area with orange temporary fencing.  Everyone liked the potential of the grape vines, and the fact that all of the lighting around the arbour and gazebo was solar LED fairy lighting.

Then the photos ran out as it got busy again.  You have already seen Cluckingham Palace, and the clay oven, which were also big hits.  The chooks put on a great show, and many fell in love with the idea of backyard chickens.  I think I managed to convince a few and dispel the myth that they smell.

I also had two displays on the oven side of the house which were the old trusty Fowlers-Vacola water bath preserving pan with lots of preserves that we made last summer, and a display of my home brew kit.  I put down a batch of my well-liked Aztec Gold beer on the Friday evening, and people saw it fermenting away.  Many were surprised with the low cost of making your own beer and the little effort it took from start to finish.

The wicking bed got a lot of attention especially for those who were thinking of starting a veggie patch.  The big selling point was the once weekly watering it needed, and that I told them that you could even go away for a week and your veggies would not be dead when you came home.

Explaining my reasoning behind removing the front lawn and planting an orchard instead was interesting to most, and hopefully a few more lawns will be ripped up around here in the coming season!  All the fruit trees looked very healthy and even a few were still covered in blossom.  I showed them the way that we sheet mulched the beds, which made sense to everyone.

That is where each tour ended, and I got a round of applause from each group or a hearty round of thanks.  Many visitors then wandered back around at their own pace to look, read and ask more questions of the volunteers.  It was quite laid back, and now rush, and some even came on the tour twice!

I must have talked for 6 hours straight, and welcomed the five minute break that Kim made me take in-between tours.  I really enjoyed the day as did Kim and all the volunteers which I thank from the bottom of my heart.  Without the members of the Melton Sustainable Living Group, the event would just not have been possible.  Well done team.

Did any of my Aussie readers manage to get to a Sustainable House on Sunday?  What did you learn?