Unofficially we have now had three big breakfasts. But officially we have had two serious ones with peeps that have come from various places around Melbourne to hang out, build community, talk politics, change, movements, and various issues.

What exactly is a big breakfast?

Well inspired by my friend Trianne and her housemates in Victoria they used to put on a breakfast at least once a month that anyone in Victoria (usually activisties) could attend. It was completely dumpstered food that would have normally gone to waste. I tragically was never able to actually go to any of these events and I think that slowly they disassembled because the house broke-up.

Needless to say I was always and still am impressed with their thoughts.

Building community…

I realise now after having just two of these gigs that this is such a beautiful of building community, sharing food, and just talking about sharing perspectives from lots of different ways. And I am about building community these days trying to get people together in whatever way I can. Trying to build strong connections with my neighbours and share knowledge and other things (bartering).

But yeah having the community breaky is a fabulous way of creating a nice environment to allow peeps to come over for some rad food. Yesss sir!

We’ve been serving up vegetarian dishes and vegan dishes (sour dough pancakes) and heaps of other goodies too. And the best part as of yet is that the faces just keep changing which is a pretty cool thing.

Last weekend (we are holding it the last Sunday of every month at our crib) I had a great conversation with some Italian students who were talking about the recently elected leader of the country Silvio Berlusconi. To most this man is considered a serious “right-wing facist,” which in general scares the people. Hearing a perspective on what is happening in Italy since the recent elections creates a scary perspective on what conservative governments have the potential of creating. Yes indeed some protest that these governments actually reduce debt that we pay but then I wonder at what cost? At the cost of those that are living below the living wage, at the cost of everyone through health care, those fighting for equality, and at the cost overall for society. It’s a scary reality.

But then that’s why we are growing community. That’s why I will always think differently and fight for what I believe in. Because I don’t want to create a world that benifits me but not others around me. Not others in the future that I leave it too. Not others in countries that I don’t see everyday but can feel their suffering. Nope I want more to this life then just to think about my pocket book.

I want change. I want to barter/swap/grow food. I want to share thoughts/ideas/reality. I want to work together. I want to love neighbours and know them more than a hello and bye each day. I want to break away from a system that makes me feel as though I’m not doing the right thing at 30 by not owning a house, sharing my house, and having a picket fence that’s white. I’m sorry but having a big house that isn’t fully used isn’t all that sustainable. And we as western people are lucky to have what we have…but for how long?

And no I don’t really judge those around me for living that life either. I love them as I love everyone. I think that we all have to work at this together. We all have to take on what we are comfortable with doing, and when we grow comfortable with that we can try to expand that to other things. But I do think that we have to realise that we all have an impact in this world for whatever way we want.

I have a beautiful friend that I meant at the Dreaming Festival last year named Rachel Shields. She’s aboriginal, a musician, a full of this amazing spirit to which I was immediately drawn to when I first met her. I respect for all the levels of connection she has with this sacred land. The other day I got this little ditty from her and wanted to share. Hope you enjoy it. xo

THE COLOUR OF MY HEART

By Rachel Shields © 2004/2007

They say,

Our songs have no story

Our language lost in the wind

We no longer know the dances

The tradition we lived in

They say there are no real Aborigines

Left to walk the land No one with the fire stick

No paintings of the hand

They say

It’s for the better

The life we’re living now

They say

we don’t appreciate

The milk that’s from their cow!

They say

“Go on then, go bush!”

“Grab ya lap lap and your spear!”

“Go on then go bush, if ya

Want to whinge about what you’ve got here!”

But that’s what they say

To justify their past

They say it without thoughtfulness

They say it without pride

They say it to cover up the fear

They won’t say they have inside

Well I say,

Our songs live through us

Our language dances on the wind

Our Traditions may be fragmented,

Through Spirit we are the next of kin.

We are living breathing Kooris, Murrys

We come in many shades.

We walk this land our mother

We feel her every day.

Our hands are strong and beautiful

They hold our lore’s at heart

Though our firesticks been copied

And our paintings now fine art

Was it for the better?

That we’ll never know!

Though we’re living in the moment,

Our hearts ache as we grow.

It’s a healing journey,

a process that takes time.

I’d love to grab my Lap Lap,

Go bush live off the land.

I’d love to leave my hand print,

And draw pictures in the sand.

I’d love to speak the language,

That swims through my veins.

I’d love to feel the sunrise,

instead of all the pain.

I’m not afraid to tell you,

I tell you this with strength and pride.

I’m a WARRIOR, a SURVIVOR,

NOW look into my eyes.

I carry all you think I’ve lost,

I’m a child of the Dreamtime

And I won’t hide

THE COLOUR OF MY HEART

I used to be of the school of using composting bins that keep all the compost inside. You know … out of sight out of mind … and also so you can apparently keep the smell contained to one place.

I stand corrected.

After being up at the permaforest trust for 3 months and seeing how they were making compost large scale (turn around about 1 week I think) I was pretty inspired. They had theories about mixing a proper proportions of cow manure, mulch (grass), food scraps, and also ensuring that it stays in a proper square shape.

In an urban setting it’s a bit trickier to obtain cow manure (although I have realised that taking a short trip out of town you can usually find bags of free horse poop to supplement your compost with - or even horse tracks in town work). The idea behind making the compost initially into a square or rectangular shape was to ensure that the core of the compost can heat up to a proper temperature.

The biggest problem I have had with the compost bins is that my back ends up hurting from rotating the heap, AND to make proper compost you really need to rotate your compost every day to get proper amounts of air in there.

We gleaned a compost bin like the one above and I thought, “Sweet i know how to use these cause I used to use them back in Calgary and they are great.” So for about three or four weeks we kept adding stuff into the bin and occassionally I would try and mix the contents (and having back spasms afterwards because of the awkward angle you have to use to rotate). And it was quite smelly in comparison and I still thought that it was doing good.

Then one day I got thinking that the smell wasn’t quite good (cause a working compost actually doesn’t smell). I started thinking about my experiences at the trust, and also how my roomate Thom had setup his brick system and decided to stop using this stupid bin.

Frankly I wouldn’t go back. I finally succummed and removed the compost bin and built an open brick compost system around the contents inside. The contents were spread out in a square and then I have routinely been doing the following:

• Adding woodchips - great source of browns to balance out the green manure (fruit & veg) you are adding — sourced from: my friend Matt found a wood turner that gives him woodchips for free which means it doesn’t end up in the landfill and helps your compost.
• Adding manure - great source of nitrogen (not necessary but does bring good organisms to help break things down) — sourced from a rural area where they were giving it away for free! Or try a horse racing stable or something like that.
• Daily rotation - turning the heap each day to bring in air is probably the most important bit.
• Tarp ontop - great way to help increase the heat (black one)

The crew at the trust used to always measure the temperature of teh compost heap as it’s pretty important to get it up to a high temperature in order to properly break everything down. Our compost these days steams in the middle of the day when I take the tarp off, which is a pretty good indication that things are working.

As a test I put a pumpkin in there last week and it’s completely broken down (it was 1/4 of a pumpkin) in one week which is pretty amazing. And Matt (a good friend and mentor) said that if you can’t put your hand into the compost heap and leave it in there for very long then it’s probably at a good temperature. Today a bunch of us tried to keep our hands in and it was pretty much impossible after about 30 seconds.

It’s just interesting to me how previously I had these compost bins and how as a culture we tend to like to have everything really neat and clean. Personally, now that I’ve had an open bin I kinda like seeing all the organisms and bugs working in there breaking things down. It’s full of activity and all the food we are producing near it seems to be taking off more than the other parts of our garden.

And the best part about having fast turning over compost is that I can stick it right into the garden for my winter crop this year! YAHOOOOO!

This tasty recipe will not only wet your appetite for more but it will make you want to make your own. And that’s what we are about is sharing and expanding the recipe to include all the zesty additions that you have to contribute.

Ingredients

• Concepts
  • Progressive people - not all have to be environmentalists just willing to commit to something progressive and good. Frugality is a bonus as it makes it easy to convince of actions = reducing cash usage
  • Frugality - always seen as a stingy norm but this misconception is getting a new come back in Australia with three new released Gold plated albums. In all seriousness frugality is the end result of learning how to actually live with less.
  • Creative minds - The more ideas the more you move…
• Stuff
  • Buckets - to save water of course
  • Jars - bring on the canning
  • Timers
  • Shovels
  • Seeds

Recipe (Preparing the goods)

Taking Stock of What We Have

It seems that over time in this house and I suppose in my life I’ve just been working towards having / building / making more community. Why? Simple really. I just don’t think our world is sustainable without building community, without re-learning old things we used to do (rather than relying on products that others make, emissions needed to make that stuff, and throwing it away in a dumpster for me to find), and because with community we create support.

Mixing Ingredients Thoroughly

I don’t think it’s about adopting heaps of things at once either. Building slowly and definitely put the heat on simmer until your ready to boil. Here’s some funky action:

Water Systems

• Grey water systems - All the shower water (redirected water piping or showering over bucket) is used to flush our toilets - 6 litres per day at least
• Bucket in Shower - Catches our clean water when we first turn on the shower and wait waaaait for it to heat up - used to water our food YEAH!
• All washing machine water saved to water plants
• Dishwater - Towards the plants or toilet you choose!
• Toilet dams - Placing a bottle filled with water reduces your toilet especially when you don’t have dual flush — frankly even with dual flush here it still helps

Electrical — zzzzzzTT

• Unplug from the walls or turn the wall switch off - Believe it or not it still draws electricity from the wall when a computer is off or other appliances
• Use energy efficient bulbs - Way WAAY less zzzT zzT being used
• Timers - Oh this one is coolio to use on your fridge. Set a timer to turn the fridge off for a few hours in the middle of the night and the fridges body mass will still keep food good.

Cooking with Chef Shano

• Canning / pickling (soon) - Great way to store food before it goes off & allows you to can in season food - How come we have started to think that we can get the same food all year round? What happens when we can’t rely on that any more? Not saying we should be scared but think about it though.
• Bread making - oh yeah baby experiment away with sour dough and it doesn’t require a large amount of work
• Hot box - A sleeping bag or insulation is placed inside a plastic box, sheet overtop, and when pot on stove reaches boil place it inside the box and cover. No joke the pot is still quite hot after 40 minutes of cooking = no energy use
• Cook Together - Loneliness sucks yo
• Sunday Breaky - One day a month invite other peeps over (we are dumpstering goods and makin a big cook-up for anyone who wants to come — thanks heaps Trianne for the inspiration yo)

Foody FOod

• Dumpstered (heh it makes for good jams and pickling - you waste and I taste)
• Grow Your Own - This is a big one for us and important to do! Eating healthy and saving seeds
• Buy local / buy ethical - Reduces those good ole’ CO2 emissions and when you can’t get it local you are supporting a closer community. Oh yes and for those far away purchase just consider the ethics and surge ya money into something healthy and good and a fair wage.
• Share - Repeat and then repeat again

Community

• Food Collectives - A good way to actually get more organic food is to create your own collective. We are in the process of setting up a collective between three or four houses where we buy organic dried goods at cost from supplies (like a grocery store) and then distribute that amongst us. It saves money and the envrio yo
• Swap - Clothes, canned food, food you’ve grown, whatever. The foundation of a community comes from what you make not what an institution or a corporation makes you think it is. Seriously!

Got more…bring it on.

Have freakin fun!

Heaps of

Shane

“No man is an island, entire to itself…
Any man’s death diminishes me
Because I am involved in mankind…
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.” - John Donnne, 1624

This quote from John Donne makes me realise a lot about my life. Where I’ve come and where I’ve been.

A great deal of my twenties was spent trying to prove to myself that I was an independent male. Converge with social western norms that dictated that in order to be attractive and strong one must be really REALLY super independent. To be independent meant that you had to be a strong as bricks. This meant that you were to not rely on other people, not ask for help, not talk to people about your problems, and certaintly not show any level of weakness. Being strong and independent meant that you should have your own house, spend time in that house, and be super SUPER successful.

It kinda makes me sad.

When I came to Australia I spent a great deal of time travelling on my own and yet interacting and trying to find community along my journey. I found myself surround by good community, beautiful people, and heaps of loving friends (close and far) all while trying to find some grounding and my true centre. (Note: To me finding my true centre is heaps different then attempting to being independent. Finding your centre is more about being strong/solid in your boundaries, thoughts, and open to growth. But not shutting out other things as independence can).

I strive to feel centred in my decisions and thoughts and follow my heart whether the decisions I make are good or bad I know there’s a reason they are happening. It’s a different approach to that of independence that benchmarks your success based on pay raises, how successful you are, and heaps of other unimportant things. I means seriously if something bad does happen due to climate change it’s what we have inside, what we have built around us, and what skills we know that are going to make us sink or swim. So what about all this community you speak of?

The more I embrace, meet, and bring together into a common community the more I feel closer to the culture here, closer to people/activists/permaculturalists/etc. There is something innate about wanting to associate yourself to a group of people that you relate to and that makes sense because we all come roots of tribes of celts, aboriginals, gypsies, or whatever.

When I was down in Ecuador the people there had little money. They had little things to offer and when they did offer something to us it meant a great deal because you knew it came from somewhere special. But I realised early in my trip that they had so much more than some of the upbringings that I had. They had a massive amount of strength in their culture and sense of community. It was this very thing that really has helped them maintain their lives and survive. You can’t quantify something like that nor should we. But it’s something that I truly see myself striving towards having for the remainder of my life.

And that takes me to the support and love I feel here in my new home. It’s a really amazing space that is fostering of all things right. Really loving, giving, and communal. I think that sometimes we can really undervalue sharing a home with other people (especially when one might thing it’s a bit hectic having 6 people in our house — but actually it isn’t).

The future …

The recipe is simple. Create more spaces where you can involve peeps. Bring them in to your place through “Big Breakies” (thanks Trianne you rock), food nights, gathering at events, seeing live music, and just plain trading some of your skills for theirs. The trading bit is becoming more and more paramount here (we trade bottles of tomatoe chutney for bread or salad greens from a garden). Sure it seems kinda strange but it’s helping to foster relationships and building community from a love for food. So I say Fuck Yeah!