Free-Range Living

 Wet weather pervades here on the organic eco micro holding (small smallholding) in th UK midlands, with the seasons about a month late, with one effect being that there don't seem to be many garden birds on the feeders. Maintenance work such as hedging , lopping and clearing is the order of the day, along with porch door making.

In terms of organic veg production, runner beans have been a bit disappointing, but other mico holding produce hasn't beeen too bad, with a variety of produce available for use. More wood has been sawn up to top up a dwindling logstore, with the woodstove now in winter mode, lit at midday. Having wood as a main fuel certainly gives a 'hands-on' experience.

One 'freerange' couple decded to live life for awhile 'supermarket-less' and found that after a month or two , they weighed less and their bank balance was more healthy - an interesting 'free-range' type of living experiment. It can be hard to avoid supermarkets which seem to have had 'large-scale'- type power, some of them using it for instance to 'influence' their suppliers. Some of the wider and more longer-term effects of supermarkets have not been seen in a positive light by some, maybe making an argument for there to be curbs on them - ? Maybe writers like Orwell and Huxley were right to warn about the dangers of 'power-block' life - ?

 

[Read more →]

Colder weather finally arrived mid-October on the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding) here in the UK midlands, after the swallows departed later than usual. The later growing season has still proved to be quite productive, and the potatoes crop, for instance, has been quite good. Busy times on the eco micro-holding with a variety of jobs to do before winter sets in.

Independent life might produce a little less in the way of material gain, but the freedoms involved generally make life worth living, although the 'biggist' culture could well threaten such a 'freerange' way of life---? The work culture these days seems to be more of a 'control culture' getting people to work via 'external prompting' rather than 'internal motivation' work prompts, which again, could well not particularly suit those of the 'freerange' bent. One small rural UK farm workforce demonstrated, though, how well the 'internal work prompting' motivation route can work, providing various attributes to the workplace, provided the initial input into the workforce had been invested.

Maybe, though, the modern 'rush for profits' inhibits such longer-term people investment, with money having become a too-consuming focus----?

[Read more →]

It's the 'untidy' time of year on the organic micro-holding here, with also the compost heap building, all the green waste just 'bunged on', a simple system unlike a rather more complicted compost-making system as recommended on TV.

End of summer/early fall bring plenty of jobs such as hedgecutting, door making, potato digging and creeper cutting back which will hopefully have the effect of tidying the place up, along with the 'de-caterpillarisation' process that has to be done if there's to be any greens over winter.

A flyer picked up for solar energy production seemed to be trying to be too generous, presumably in its efforts to catch people on its sales hook. With the plethora of adverts, cold-call phone calls to the home and such-like, consumers seem to be being considerably pressurised to buy and spend money, but maybe show some resistance by not too freely repeat buying - ? One firm local to here does not advertise and yet has customers queueing up, and it's not too hard to see why.

 

[Read more →]

Are there signs of a bit of a revival to self-reliant 'good life' living in these times of astringency and 'commercial pressures' - ?  Good times here on the eco organic micro-holding (small smallholding) in the form of harvesting a variety of produce, help to cushion any cost-increasing trends, as does the building of a new rustic porch , re-cycled out of wood and materials lying about, accumulated over the years.

A recent UK TV programme looked at traditional ways of animal keeping - in this case dairy cows -against a modern trend of keeping large numbers of them under cover, then not being able to practice their natural grazing behaviours. Such an 'industrialised' system of animal keeping would though, seem to be trying to reverse a 'de-industrialised' trend seen, for instance, in the newer 'freerange' ways of keeping laying hens, which seem to have had considerable consumer support - ?

According to some newer 'top bosses', commercial practice has become too one-dimesionally focused on aggressively chasing high profits and needs to focus more on operating in a way more 'balanced' with other culture priorities such as social and evnvironmental priorities, although some of the latest business practices, such as 'zero hour' contracts, don't appear to particularly fit with such sentiments - ?

 

[Read more →]

'Flowers, flowers, everywhere' - it's a really good season for them here on this (UK) eco organic micro-holding (small smallholding). Bees, thankfully, abound.  How long the flowers will last in the current heatwave is questionable, and the black loam soil of the veg growing patch has had to have some watering.

It's a pretty good growing year, though, with quite a variety of produce available to use from the micro-holding, with strawberries one of the year's successes. Self-reliance in the form of home-produced food may well take on more importance, with latest informed reports suggesting food prices could well treble over the next twenty years or so. The latest re-cycling project here is the building of a rustic porch using materials collected up over the years and hopefully therefore without cost.

The latest emanation of the UK control culture is the intention to 'name and shame' surgeons who are deemed to be performing poorly. Could this seem, though, to work against any notions of professional self-responsibility, and reservationists might have concerns that longer-term work drives such as self-motivation might be adversly affected, a situation maybe not particularly suite to 'freerangers', who may then need to look for more conducive work situations - ?

 

 

[Read more →]

Amazing quick change in the countryside hereabouts, (UK midlands) with it now stunningly clothed in green so soon after its barren mid-winter look. All the produce in the veg ground here at the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding) has come on apace, after much of it had to be put in under covers, with the potatoes, onions and broad beans all doing well.

With questions being asked about tax avoidance practices by large firms and top managers getting healthy pay rises whilst pay restraint is in place, questions have been raised as to the un-levelness of the playing fields - one Uk paper  for instance starting a campaign. One world religious leader has suggested that lack of social awareness is a potential problen these days, with even so-called primitive societies having achieved balance between individual and social needs.

 One individualist, whilst seeming pretty anarchic in some ways, proved to be making quite a social contribution.

 

[Read more →]

Spring has rushed in changing the landscape here in the UK midlands from a 'bleak mid-winter' scene in mid-April to a vibrant green landscape three weeks later. It's been 'catch-up' time planting and sowing crops here on the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding), along with sorting other micro-holding jobs such as storing next year's wood for the woodburner under cover for it to dry out well over the coming summer. It's the lean time for produce to eat - it's a good job the spring cabbage bed is shortly to come on-stream. 'Aspirational' times can foster a trend of 'more, more' which may suit some, and may not fit overwell with others.  One of the possible pitfalls could be presumably getting a strong 'more' focus, then 'missing' on potential current satisfactions -? The other area which might by default suffer from a strong focus on wealth and material gain,  could potentially be the personal development side,  the 'to be' side, as against the 'to have' side' - ?  Some have reconciled these differing aspects by adopting a 'simple living' philosophy, concentrating on a 'living to need' approach, as a couple of case-studies illustrate.

[Read more →]

Seasonal progress here on the organic eco micro-holding (small smallholding) in the UK midlands has been held up significantly due to the east-wind cold, frosty weather lasting throughout March and well into April - at mid-April it's still a pretty wintery landscape. The grass in the nearby fields looks pretty unhealthy - dark, brownish, yellowish - and the clover's been hard hit by both pigeons and frosts. The prolonged cold wintery weather has mean't sawing up more wood than usual for the woodburner, at the same time, though, fortunately avoiding the significant increases in heating costs that many have had to  pay. Many are apparently reverting to 'protective freerange' mode, reportedly looking to grow their own food and have their own fowl, for instance. There's been a heavy media focus on the passing of a former UK prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, with opinion as to her effect being pretty split, and with some discontent regarding the scale and cost of her funeral. Divisive to the end, it would seem, as in public life in the UK, with current contention between politicians and Church leaders. 'Small', non-public life, though, can offer calmer waters - ?

[Read more →]

Mid-March gone and the countryside hereabouts (UK midlands) could by its appearance still be in mid-winter. The woodpigeons are still on the fields of clover, the fruit blossom is struggling to get out, and very little as yet has been planted/ sown in the ground.

The 'freerange' activity of trying to get 'the big boys' to play fair still continues, with various 'big business' skirmishes over the past few weeks, and the pleasant re-discovery that dealing with people directly at a premises can still give a  pleasant  'human' experience.  Encouragement came from the perhaps unlikely source of the obituary of a Frenchman who'd written a well-known booklet extolling the need for individuals to 'counter the system'. 'Business-isation' methods seem to have proliferated in recent years, with governments. for instance, adopting them seemingly wholesale, although the limitations of some, for example, 'target culture', are beginning to be more identified these days.

The seasons change here on the eco micro-holding, with 'countryside combing' now giving way to planting and sowing, only to be hindered by the cold late 'unsprung spring'.

 

 

[Read more →]

After a day or two in early Feb with the sun shining, the seasonal 'growing urge' can strike, reminding of the 'elemental' side of life. Preparing the ground and putting on the compost and woodash here on the miniscule enterprise that is the eco micro-holding (small smallholding) is grist to the 'growing' mill.  Plenty of birds are around here - some resident, some hard weather visitors, although the flock of resident doves now seem to have found new lodgings. 

TV ads seem to proliferate these days - can so many be 'counter-productive' - ? Commercial news can sometimes seem to imply things should be 'ever upward', but realistically, sometimes it can be more of a case of 'damage limitation'.  Does the seemingly march of central and commercial power, though, carry within it longer-term problems for individual rights? There have already been reports of government intentions to offer people money to give up rights, for instance, and reports that there's a move within the UK governing party to 'sign off' from the European Human Rights Charter.

 

 

[Read more →]