Finishing Law School

I was bemoaning the need to do some serious weedicide and grass fertilisation and that I'd maybe have to bow to chemicals to do it. I really wasn't looking forward to this idea but the rather major encroachment of weeds marching in from next door seems like there's nothing else for it. However, I did some hunting about and read up on some alternative sources and found that in addition to nettle in high concentration, vinegar is also a major herbicide. So, all hail Ebay, I managed to find some completely organic weedicide in concentrated form! Hurrah! It is primarily made of vinegar and has a few other things in it too. The price was right and I'm sure I can just fill a spray bottle and try this out on some of the back lot and down here on the patio level as well and we'll see how it does. This does kill grass so I have to be careful where it is sprayed but I am so utterly thrilled to find something which won't be incredibly toxic.
I've also managed to get some grass feed in the form of concentrated seaweed which is harvested locally and while it will prove to be a bit more difficult to put onto the lawn (that's a lot of watering!) I'm going to give it a go and see how it does. Didn't put a picture on for that but will see how we manage.
The skies are overcast today but it's still rather nice, and the buds on the fruit trees are amazingly doing their thing even when I've only had them a few months. Will we actually have some small fruits this year? The pear looks quite lovely and has set three of these big sprays of blooms, with more on the way. Hopefully not too early for pollinators but there were quite a few bees outside today so maybe it's just fine.
The apple tree is just a little behind the pear, and has even more blooms! About six or seven at my last count which could produce a few fruits as well. Since the trees are so new I'm going to limit production to maybe a handful of fruits, allowing them to work a bit more at their roots and getting situated and not concentrating so much on being productive. I think they'll do fine in the pots I've planted them in, however, and they certainly seem promising!
And what of the cherry? Well it's a bit blurry, sorry, but the buds are finally starting to burst and form up! It's a bit behind all the other cherry trees (as per usual in our weird climate up here on the heath) but it IS doing it now. I'm already thinking it's going to put a load of branches and growth out this year and I'm going to have to do some serious pruning in August whether I get fruit this year or not! I want to keep the tree compact. The first branches were all somewhat upright but I've taken advice that the weight of the fruit will eventually bend these branches down, so I shouldn't get too tempted to cut them. I'll keep that in mind.
It's all coming along, and I managed to get some marigolds planted round sproggo's bit of the garden, transplanted more strawberries, and got some of the long-chitting potatoes into some grow bags though there's another three or four to go. This year, I am option for the coir/manure/compost combination for the potatoes, though I think they're going to be needing some bone meal as well, so I'll grind down some of the boiled chicken bones I've been holding onto just for such an occasion.
Things grow well, and looking forward to sharing some more produce with my son (even though he's starting to prefer his computer to being outdoors these days, heigh-ho).

Labels: Garden Project, Good Life

Remember when I was putting a proposal to the Council with regard to the Community Garden locally? Well it seems the idea is taking off, and there's been radio interviews and so on (which so far I've had to abstain from due to concentration issues). However I'll be interviewed by a more sympathetic reporter - I've told them to treat me like Stephen Hawking without the massive IQ: it takes me a while to form a reply, so ask questions in advance! - and so I'll be discussing the project, which is starting to gain interest among the environmental community here.
The problem is the project is up against several challenges - for one, an academy proposal which, from all reports, was never entirely brought forth to the public, but just went through very very quietly. It came as a fair bit of a surprise to the community here that the school would be sold on to the Church of England and expanded, and there's been more than a few protests as the school doesn't need more space - what it needs is quality and control over its students. It seems to be more a bid for a landgrab than of real benefit to the school or its pupils.
The second challenge is this area is based in the roughest area of the village - while not exactly East London, we have had a rise in crime; in particular some local youths who have been stealing motorcycles and mopeds, tearing about in the field with them and then - of all things - setting them alight. With the very dry weather we've had, one of the destroyed mopeds made half the field catch fire, and we could have had a very serious situation here as the field backs onto houses and the school. As the field at the moment is open to the public and yet completely unsupervised (the police have only started to put the field on somewhat irregular rounds) there's definitely a need to mind the area with regard to vandalism if the garden is indeed created, and that will require regular patrols.
The final challenge - and to my mind, actually the most difficult to combat - is the apathy of the community. This is a poor area, primarily unemployed or on benefits, such as yours truly. This has made people here rather indifferent to anything other than their cell phones and the latest on EastEnders. The local Neighbourhood Centre doesn't seem particularly interested in the project, and there's maybe only a handful of people who want to see the park stay in the community. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised - gardening won't get you on X-Factor and isn't very "cool", but I honestly think the majority of the problem has more to do with people wanting to be able to sit back and enjoy, but not actually do the work - especially if they know the project may become a target for vandalism (as a school woodland garden project was destroyed the night before the opening). The thing is, we all know who those kids are - in some cases, the parents themselves are well aware - and if we bothered to stand up to them, I doubt things would carry on for long. I've done it before, and I'll do it again if need be.
The area is so beautiful; a reminder that the country is never very far in England - one of the things I love most about the place. I'd hate to see it turned into a bunch of slapdash semis no one would move into (after all this area isn't a particularly auspicious address). I don't want my favourite elder tree to be torn out to make way a bunch of concrete block buildings, or the wild brambles to be ripped down and deprive a whole ecosystem. This is an ideal permaculture area; a way for the local community to raise its own food, to donate to the Trussel Trust, I can even get the St Mark's group involved, as well as maybe the BCTV volunteers and several community-garden development groups. We could make this happen.
I know, I know, my health is crap and I'm still trying to sort it, I've just had to give up my job because of it. I'm trying to cover myself for the summer, to try and take care of my own house, and my finances, and so on. But I can't just sit and watch this space get trashes because a few bored kids don't realise how stupid they're being or getting overdeveloped because the CoE wants a few more acres to add to its wealth. The land is our responsibility - take care of it, and it will take care of you. With the money crunch hitting the poor, this is even more important that before.

Labels: Garden Project

Oh heavens, who knew a few twigs in a box could make someone come over all unnecessary. But I am overjoyed; my trees arrived today!
I am now the very proud owner of a King James black mulberry, a tayberry, a duo pear minarette and a duo apple minarette as well as (if I needed any more *boggle*) ten free strawberry plants. I may put these in with the trees as they're all going in pots (all are quite happy to be pot-grown provided you stay on top of the watering and fertilising).
In any event I bundled up and decided to sacrifice a few spoons to the lovely day outside. I put on the sunglasses but forgot the sunblock so hopefully I won't pay for that later! But I haven't been out in the garden since September and it was so nice to be outside again.
It was also rather heartbreaking as well. As I was getting rapidly more and more ill in the fall of last year and was in hospital early October, the weeds were really allowed to take hold and do what they would. There's a lot of very weed-infested ground out there and I was well gutted just looking at it! I thus set forth to clear a bit more of the raised bed as well as my horehound plant in its pot - especially as it was so hard to find the stuff last year, I certainly don't want to lose it. It also occurred to me the mint is in the completely wrong place and won't get any light where it's put, so that needs moving. And the bed will also need weeding.
Come on, legs...woooooork!
I refused to be discouraged however: I managed to heel my trees in (it will do for now till I get some soil in) and put the mulberry and tayberry outside as they were already potted up and should be fine for a bit. It wasn't much activity at all, but was I exhausted? Oh yes, yes I was. A mere half hour and I collapsed when I came in, managed to put some soup on for myself and had a cup of tea. Now relaxing and shall be for a few hours today as I've thrown several spoons well far away for all that.
But it was lovely; so nice to be out in the crisp air, pottering about and thinking of how excited my son will be, how eager he'll be to water everything and put on his gloves for "digging". How we'll be able to reconnect another spring and summer by working in the soil and growing things, and how he'll pick the leaves of mint off the plants and chew them with obvious delight.
Those days are coming - and if gardening means I'm obviously "too well to need any help" then fine. I'll struggle on with everything else but I'll save several spoons to garden.

Labels: Garden, Garden Project, Good Life

As part of another project I'm researching women who inspire - and one of the women who I greatly admire is Eleanor Roosevelt. The woman was so ahead of her time it wasn't true. She had a hard go of it: she wasn't physically attractive, her husband was not only disabled but unfaithful, she was in a time when women had very little power or influence. And yet many of her ideas were revolutionary and have become such a part of US history and the rights movement that people seem to forget who came up with it in the first place.
One of the movements she created during the 30's dustbowl days was the Resettlement Administration - a concept of resettling the redundant into rural areas and getting them to reskill to be self-sufficient. The government funded the programmes for a little while and then once they got their feet, the idea was they would take off and support themselves. That's right - it's not just all about "hippy movements"; this was a way for people who had only worked on railroads or in manufacturing factories to try and get in touch with land and produce food when doing so was proving very difficult.
It was a brilliant idea, but there were problems, not the least of which being that it sounded "commie" (facepalm). Also that training of people who had never worked on land in their lives wasn't very forthcoming - more to the point, other farmers didn't want the competition and therefore drove the idea back into the ground. In short, it failed due to greed and too much administration and not enough interworking. People were moved who had zero experience living such a life and apparently it was thought they'd be able to do the job solely by instinct alone. Granted, I think "failed" is perhaps too strong a term - as Arthurvale (Eleanor Roosevelt's pet project) is still going today. I think Arthurvale an exception because she was actively involved in the process and would often visit and tend the ground, listen to people's issues and complaints, and find answers. She was there, not just filing paperwork or pouring money into it, but doing hands-on teaching to people who may never have plucked a chicken in their lives. It did pay off, and while the project was considered "closed" Arthurvale exists.
But here's the problem we have right now - with the pushing of Big Society (which is at its heart a rather 'commie' idea, let's be honest here), the redundancies which are biting into every sector now and not merely the mostly-forgotten lower-working-class, wide tracts of farming land open for use and wrapped in red tape so turning it into a bunch of weekend-homes no one can afford isn't a major possibility, even MORE land reserved for rich folk to park their pleasure horses that they only ride when it isn't raining, the insistence on finding jobs for people on the dole when there are no jobs to be had, and communities of people who have every intention of contributing to the UK economy having to fight tooth and nail for the right to do so (it took YEARS for Lammas), no one has even considered the possibility of doing just this particular concept and turning it into a fully government-backed reality.
What are the requirements? Well quite honestly, they're minimal - the land is there! It might need to be settled up with the banks but this can be done, surely (if we can scrounge up the cash to send off some missiles, then there must be some dosh to buy a farm). Alternative building concepts can be used, of which there are plenty and which would cost a fraction of the amount that trad-homes cost (yes, gods, planning permission - could we just agree that if an expert on straw-bale homes who is fully accredited and actually knows what they're doing can just build the damn houses without all the permissions faff? Just once? Kthnx!). There are certainly plenty of people willing and not all of them are yoghurt-weavers, but people like myself who have no chance in hell of getting a "real job" due to disability, but has plenty of experience living on a farm and therefore a fair bit to teach. If people have nothing financially to give, fine, provided they can prove their capability on working together, which is supposedly what the whole Big Society thing is all about in the first place.
The benefits are huge of course - agricultural land being worked again and the UK becoming a self-sufficient purveyor of its own food (and you can't tell me there's no demand for that when the "local food movement" is gaining momentum). People who may originally thought of gardening, animal husbandry, working on equipment, building by hand, etc as merely "hobbies" as they needed to work their nine-to-five in the City to stay alive could instead do something they loved. Farmers could be paid not just to keep their land idle and fallow, but to act as farm mentors to communities and show them the tricks of the trade which aren't in the agricultural books; they could even hand on their own farms to communities which they would teach themselves if they had no children willing to take on the job (and most don't - it doesn't pay enough). As a disabled person, I could finally have a "real job" that people might accept as being work as I have done this sort of thing before - I know how to spin, make soap, make bread, cook on a wood stove, brew beer and wine, make butter...on and on, but what prevents me from doing it now is almost all communities are looking for healthy 30-somethings with jobs outside of the farm as the land-prices are too high to just jump in and get started. The "multiculturalism" hit that Cameron plays up would finally be kicked as people from different backgrounds would join together provided they had a willingness to do so - and as a multiracial purple-haired chick living in New Forest for a few years I can tell you that the community accepted us readily when they realised we weren't the druggies or satanists they may have previously thought we were (having a really cute baby and paying our tab at the pub helped!)
In my mind, it works - and granted, I'm well aware that I'm not an economist, a big-plantation style farmer, or a sociologist. But then neither were the people on these communities. I know that it is A Change - and a rather big one, and one thing I know for a fact is how much British people hate change. I'm aware there will be arguments that the land isn't free and still needs to be paid for (yes, when a farm goes into administration the only people owed are the banks, and sorry but a government subsidy should be able to deal with that). Or that what we need is land for more housing - yes, true, but building weekend homes in the middle of nowhere is not a solution for that. Then there's the "commie" thing again: well that's just reactionary language to get people to knee-jerk at something you don't want to have to do. It gets quoted a lot both here and in the US and it's ridiculous. If anything, what we're talking is more like a feudal system with the government being the "lords" and that sort of system has been on this soil for thousands of years.
The fact is the current economic model which came into being over the past 200 years is unravelling, and fast. There are people who want to work - disabled, redundant, what have you - and yet can't as there's no jobs. There are long-abandoned farms which due to planning-permission bureaucracy are never going to be anything else but farms and therefore will stay abandoned and dormant for years. We keep running short of food in this country because we import a lot of it and the crops are failing in Europe and round the world due to major changes in climate.
If the British people pride themselves so much on being an island and staying insular, then it seems to me they need to start thinking about how to encourage that, and not keep importing every single thing they want or need. We need to make advancements in figuring out how to be more self-sufficient. The means are here and the willingness as well (good gods, do a search for homesteads/intentional communities and you'll see how many people there are who are willing to get involved, but are held back due to massive land prices).
I know there are a bunch of textbook reasons why this isn't an easy or immediately-financially-viable thing to do. I know that land-greed is a major issue in the UK and if the government can just start handing land over to needy folk (as the Powers will try to interpret to their own ends) then there will be an uprising of corporate bods who were hoping to turn that stretch of farmland into another rapid-devaluation suburbia. I know that locals get weirded out by the idea of communities as they're plagued by the idea of "dirty travellers" and "druggie hippies" as the only people who are interested in that sort of lifestyle. I know that the apple industry collapsed because supermarkets wanted either red or green apples, not apples that looked like both, and eggs are brown here because the marketing team thought they looked more "rustic" and they sell better than white eggs. I get that, I do. But at the same time the way things are going, the economy as we know it is collapsing, and since the government keeps asking for "alternatives" I don't know why they can't just take a chance on a pilot community and see what happens.
So I guess...I have to wonder and ask "Why not? After all, what is there to lose?"

Labels: Advocacy, Garden Project

Sun was shining today and for the first time in months, I decided I'd venture into town as the whole Valentine's Day thing was going to get to me otherwise. I ignored pain and fatigue (four hours sleep last night), ignored everything but the bright, beautiful day. I bought myself a piece of indulgent chocolate cake. I purchased not one bouquet of flowers, but two. I got the usual cheese-straws and biscuit for child, and I wandered about and did my best to enjoy the day.
Riding home on the bus I saw one of the mum's from my son's school; the one my child attempted to strangle, so of course I was horrified, but it turns out that her daughter and my son are best mates and the girl announced to her mum "He didn't really mean it, he can't help it. He's my friend." They're inseparable and she actually said she was very proud of her daughter and shooed off my apologies as she's heard of my son. She had rather scathing things to say about the school however and a few suspicions were confirmed.
Even so, all the while I was blissed out on the day, until I got home and realised my mobile had been ringing. A LOT. And then the phone rang: it was the head-teacher. I've come to treat this calls with tired resignation but this caught me up - child's behaviour today was so bad they were going to exclude him, and I was to pick him up immediately.
Gone the day euphoria, replaced instead by frantically searching for taxi money - and cursing my earlier frivolity with self-indulgence as I would have had that money otherwise. A call to ex who had also been trying to ring me resulted in him paying for a cab for me via his own card so I could get son. He had called my son's social worker who was so useless that I will never call the man for help ever again. Thank you, Big Society.
In any event, rushing to the school and talking with ex, the school apparently has moved for a Change of Placement; in other words, they're done. The named pupil allowance they get isn't worth the headache so the holding onto my son for his extra paycheque was no longer worth it. Now, what they would normally tolerate, they were going to start excluding him for, leaving a definite paper trail to follow - and maybe that's what needs to happen.
In any event, I went into the school and was greeted by very grim faces; one of the assistants was fighting off tears. Child had literally destroyed the quiet room (which honestly still looks like a cage); ripped books, tore off the blinds, and as they held the door shut he was pacing like a tiger and yelling. I managed to hold in my temper and they let me in. He didn't even register it was me at first and kept kicking off even more - and even I could see he was playacting. He was "performing" for his audience; which is probably why he gets so out of control there as they lock him in and then stare inside. "Autism experts" indeed! Still I managed to hold it steady and said his name, firmly, then said "Stop." Immediately, the display was over. And he knew it.
He came out shamefaced and yet somewhat smiling. He'd forgotten everything, as he does, but of course everyone else certainly had not. Is it really any surprise he kicks off every Monday when these faces surround him, just waiting for him to blow up?
I managed to get him out of there and into the cab, and he'll be home with me till Thursday. I've got some really insulting meeting to attend that morning to "discuss" his return to school - however again, this seems to be an exercise. If the LEA won't take things seriously, then the school has to leave a paper trail.
On the one hand, I'm furious - granted I had said several times now that this sort of behaviour my son has been doing would in any other child result in exclusion. So why not my son? Well, again, leave enough paper trail and the LEA will move a child or step in directly - and what I have suspected (and what was confirmed today by the other mum as she suspects the same) is in these times of New Austerity, my son's named pupil allow was worth too much money to risk. So they tried to keep it off the record, under the table, doing things quietly as if somehow they were doing me a favour. But that money isn't theirs, it's my son's. It isn't for them to cling to and want to hoard just for the sake of it, and now as I've shot right over their heads and got the LEA directly involved, they're having to admit it now, admit they can't control such a child with major behaviour problems, and the parents won't put up with their children coming home battered and bruised.
Ex has warned me (as if I didn't already know!) that the LEA meeting for child's placement into a special school will take a few months. And, likely as not, there will be more exclusions in child's future. I'll have to reserve some cash on hand for emergency taxi trips and will try and keep my schedule as open as I can manage it. But, this also means that the LEA has little choice now but to grant the request to move my son, and to do it fast before my son's behaviour means a permanent exclusion.
In the interim, what have we done today? Well...to be truthful there is zero point in trying to punish my son as he honestly doesn't understand what he did or why. "I can't help it" he said, even though the headteacher tried to chastise him "But can't you try - " "He probably did," I responded. "He's right...he can't help it, he doesn't have that ability inbuilt." I wanted to add "and locking him in a small room, watching him sternly through a window won't help" but I refrained. What we DID do was eat lunch, get changed out of school clothes ("I don't like that school, mum" - "I know, son. I know.") and then head out into the garden for some dedicated gardening time. He very enthusiastically tore weeds out the ground, planted some runner strawberries with a care that made me proud and then - to my surprise as he hasn't been inside the thing in yonks - child went and played for nearly an hour in his Wumpy House whilst I bustled about planting more strawberries in his windowboxes as his request, checked on what was growing and what needed tidying up (the hollyhocks are bursting out of the ground already!) Brought some compost up to where I'm going to allow strawberries to self-sow themselves along the house and then spread some more along the hollyhocks (but they'll get a manure topdress shortly). I may cover them with leaves as I'm sure we're going to get some really brutal frost soon and I don't want to lose them.
In any event, things aren't so bad today (and I was up most the night, worrying and tearful and in pain). I'm sleep depped like mad and it will be difficult to get through the next two days as we are both effectively "grounded" only a week before half term, but we certainly have been till now. At least with spring coming we can do some planting. Where I upended the toms and peppers last year, the soil and roots broke down into a lovely, worm-filled compost which I think will do nicely for getting some seeds going, so shall do that tomorrow.
We will manage. We will get by. And child is enthusiastic about flowers and digging and wumpy houses again. Surely, it's not so difficult to get him to respond with smiles if you give him the chance to work on his schedule, not yours.

Labels: Garden Project, Sprog

Sprog and I spent a little time sorting through our saved seeds, in order to make a decision on what to grow. Moving plans are still up in the air but I've decided to carry on anyway. It may mean I won't be able to do squash this year, however, but everything else should be all right. The squash seeds are all rather old now anyway (with the exception of the Orange Hubbard which I have had for a year in the freezer). There's a really nice selection here of peppers, tomatoes of the paste varieties, carrots of three different types - got a bit ambitious! - leeks, shallots, and various lettuces. There's also tonnes - TONNES - of potatoes as I overdid it once again and ordered way, way too many. But child would eat tatties for every meal if he could.
The order I made got held up (who would think that getting DIRT would take ages, go figure) so have got something else sorted out so I can get the portable garden sorted out.
Righto, got to get ready to get the tea sorted, bit distracting here at the moment!

Labels: Garden Project