April Showers

Home
Blogs
April Showers

So the image above is actually a potato plant. It’s taken a while for them to break through. I have some small potatoes growing in a bag on the veranda and they came up much quicker and the plants are about a foot tall. This one was planted outside the same day and as you can probably tell it’s just a couple of inches or maybe 3 or 4 centimetres tall.

I have been here coming up on 2 months. The longer I am here the more challenges arise. Someone stole a stone trough from the side of the house, which made me a little resentful, not really about the item, but the trust being broken. I am trying to trust the local community and as part of The Healing Path, show people that living in fear is not a solution. So the place is wide open. My valuable stuff, is under lock and key , I am not and idiot, I understand human nature. But to lift a stone trough that could be ancient and worth a lot of money to the correct buyer, well you must be in some great need and for me, it’s okay. I am not holding on to it and perhaps the Universe just wanted it gone. That’s the philosophy of acceptance that keeps me sane.

It seems like we are being gifted a chicken coup. The recent winds blew the tiles off a small outhouse which faces away from the body of the property. The door is about 60cms from the neighbouring property which used to be part of this. In the past , that was used as a chicken coop. The door itself is unusable and completely rotted. I was investigating how to make a door in the opposite wall and eventually after much debate about the structure collapsing on my head if I just made a hole in a wall. I have decided to build a run, or basically cage, on the outside of the old structure. The tiles will have to be replaced ( another expense ) and material bought to build a wire cage that will wrap around 2 sides of the building. I can make a new door and keep the chickens in the coop and the wire cage will be the chicken run. However that won’t be done for a couple of months, one reason is finance and the other is more pressing matters in the house.

Someone spoke me about how they could help and wanted to make a donating that wasn’t cash and so a brand new wooden chicken coop is being purchased and sent to us. This allows for the presence of chickens much sooner, the chickens eat the slugs and provide eggs and manure for compost. That is a huge step in the soil creation process that we want to be involved in and real strong tool in our permaculture process.

Even with an unlimited budget, things would take time.

It’s difficult to know what is a priority and what’s not. It’s difficult to know which priority is the most beneficial one. For example, I feel exposed, we have no fencing, hedging security etc; However in the 10 year plan of the Healing Path, is hedging and fencing the most urgent thing to be focused on?

Rooms have to be stripped and decorated. While that may seem cosmetic, I can’t host anyone in a place that looks like a bazaar on a bad day. There are boxes everywhere and no where to store things. I got rid of a lot of furniture before I came here. It was old, not fit for purpose and I envisaged more study, higher quality pieces for books and clothes. I do have some pieces, but unless the rooms are decorated I can’t actually waste my time putting things in shelves that have to be taken out of rooms for the painting stage.

The insulation is just bloody awful on one part of the house and excellent on the other… There is a breeze blowing up through the toilet floor. Perhaps comfort here could be a priority?

What about the food growth? I have four beds now, but I will need more if we are to hope to be sufficient or even close to it this winter.

The living room which is on the north side of the house has a damp wall. The exterior of that wall is rendered, as is the whole house. Do I take off the render now and reseal the wall correctly from the outside? When do I do that? Is it before or after I paint the interior, which I have to do, to put the furniture in there, to have storage space so the house is not cluttered and mental health is good?

The prayer room is however being used. That’s the good news. I have all I need to make it a functional meditation space. The last element of some fixings arrived today in the post which is great. It gives me space to consider the flooring. I am leaning towards big wide rugs on the floors for comfort warmth and a sense of security.

So I have a request. Tell your friends what is happening at The Healing Path. If they want to come and volunteer for the garden or the house, if they have know how and want to reach out, if the want to make a donation, or even if they just want to send me positive vibes, The Healing Path will prosper for it.

Thanks for reading and catch you all soon.

Collie