Last Friday I didn’t write because I was down in the Matarranya having a meeting about the permissions for activities at the Boodaville Finca near Caseres. It was a rollercoaster of a meeting, ranging from “We don’t have anything approved by the Environment Agency” (which is the exact opposite of what other people have told me about the 59 page document we sent and waited a year to get a response to) to “you have to have a disabled access flush toilet”. 

Soon after, they commented that we are nearly finished with the process and can have everything approved in three months! Which lifted the atmosphere somewhat. So at the moment we are looking at 1) forget about kitchen and showers 2) put a good toilet with a greywater flush system and natural composting and purification system. 

The next steps are to find out whether we need to send the application to the state capital, or whether we can do it all with the village council (this depends on how the activity we want to run is legally classified). One thing that feels like real progress is that I have clearly explained the three types of activity we want to do which are: implemeting elements of the finca permaculture design as a group (“campo de trabajo”), community events, and guided tours. 

So now I’m waiting for the quote… let’s see. Hopefully this team from Valderrobres can gather all the information from different people who have contributed to the process over the years, and take us through to the end! Which according to some is “just one more step” and “possible in three months!”

nuts nuts nuts

I have been deeply involved in funding applications the last two weeks, for projects here in Barcelona with the council and the EU, and for projects in rural areas connecting with nature. They always want you to be innovative to get enough points to get funded. This has been driving me crazy for a while, because if you are doing something great, and it works, why do you need to keep adding jazz? We just want to get out there and reach more people with great ecosocial and regenerative design ideas. Permaculture is still an amazing compass to guide our decisions and the use of our time. We don’t need to replace the idea with the next buzz word. 

But what really made us feel exasperated is that Aline was part of an online course explaining the science behind why “being in nature” is good for us. Have we really come so far in our totally misdirected culture that we need a powerpoint to justify the “innovative” idea that nature is good for us? How have we lost the basic instinct / reflective capacity / space in our lives to just KNOW and FEEL that connecting with nature is a deep necessity. There’s an image below from this workshop. How can anyone in their conscious, calm, collected mind think that replacing nature with images of nature on a screen is the kind of “innovation” that should be funded?

I blame the economic system. The base of almost all our culture. We started mapping the economic world with simple diagrams which ignored the reality of the limits of our home – Planet Earth. People made a lot of money and got away with this for a long time, but “Economics” MEANS “management of the home” and now we are seeing the fundamental problem of our economic system that we are ignoring “externalities”; but nothing is “external”, we are all part of one planet, and it’s health can no longer be ignored. 

I love the story that Adam Smith sat in his room writing about the economic system, without thinking to include another of these “externalities” which is that the only reason he could work was that his mother was feeding him and looking after the home. 

I am increasingly happy to throw my energy behind the new economic model “Donut Economics”. How would your economics course look if you started with the image of where the “safe and just space for humanity” is, and recognised that Economics needs to work in that space. Not the crazy idea of growth and more growth. 

I also heard another amazing quote on the Futurenauts podcast about systems (which I LOVED) – We have always heard and probably accepted the mantra “Time is money”. We’ve heard it so many many times as part of our cultural base. But here’s another idea, from a different culture. “Time is life”. Now which one do you prefer?

what’s going well?

Loads of things! Boodaville Caseres are very happy and it seems we have too many quality volunteers and will have to see how we can fit them into the funded days available. And we planted 112 trees last weekend in the most gorgeous weather you can imagine. Well – gorgeous for us, let’s hope it rains very soon. 

We managed, with intense efforts by some amazing people – Silvia, Elena, Vianna, and myself, to get ALL the funding bids sent. And I’d say half of them are really good. (For the donut economics bid we just put link from their very own council website entitled “Donut Economics – Why is it innovative?”)

The preparation to share all our opportunities and get people signed up for the funded activities is going well, we nearly have everything ready. 

Kira and Joanna are both healthy enough and bringing joy and fun to each other. I enjoyed teaching Kira maths and she got a high mark in her Catalan exam, which made her and her teacher happy (after the teacher told the class “almost everyone has failed” and left it like that for a week before actually sharing the results with individuals. But that’s another story..)

What’s going ok?

Well I’d say the permissions process is ok. The Boodaville Barcelona project is ok, with some issues to deal with in order to properly support one of the volunteers, and to meet our obligations with the National Agency. We also still need to find a good solution for volunteer accommodation, it’s not working out in the place we have. 

The Mas Les Vinyes project is going ok – although I’m a little behind with preparing the infopack, and the Green Travel options won’t really work for the distances people have to travel. Can we tell people to drive? The issue there is that a carshare is eco and fun compared to flying, but driving is relatively dangerous. 5 young people driving over 2000 kms? 

The cash flow crisis (our own personal “cliff edge”) has been managed and we’ve got our heads above water for the next 1.5 months which should be enough.

What’s going badly?

Not too much! But the builder is still not fixing the roof or answering calls, and my house is a disaster after such an intense two weeks. There has not been enough sleeping or time for communication with adult members of the family.