Category: OFIW (On Friday’s I write)

OFIW (On Friday's I write) Rovira Regenerativa

Responding to the crisis (OFIW)

Post author By Lou
Post date November 22, 2024
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Responding to the crisis (OFIW)

Lou is feeling inspired by ideas of "Holistic Fundraising through love and connection" and also reflecting on collapse, hormones, and the usual Boodaville and Rovira Regenerativa updates.

When I have spare mental capacity my mind always wanders back to the Rovira Regenerativa project and how we are going to make it possible, in a beautiful way, and bring many people with us on the journey.

One of the ideas bubbling around is that we find a few “big donors” who, prior to launching a crowdfunding are committed to adding €5k to the campaign. Then I saw a post on facebook from an old friend Roger Munns, who along with another local friend John Smith have turned their passion for the ocean into amazing documentary footage of the incredible life on our planet. They are both very successful, some of the best on the planet at what they do.

I got to thinking that maybe one of these “big donors” could be a collective from Cornwall; as well as Roger and John, and all the inspiring friends and family I have there, some other people come to mind – Chris Jones and the beavers, Tim Smit and the Eden project, Val Grainger permaculture, Hannah at Ecological Land Coop, Tim at SAS… and more… I got lost in the idea of organising an event next summer and imagining us all in a sharing circle talking about our projects and passions. Then I had the book idea..

How about as part of the crowdfunding we also create a book “Holistic Fundraising through love and connection” in which we share our methods, design and values, and also have pages sharing projects we are connected to via the campaign. Photos of the amazing ocean life and the people who made is possible for us to see it, shared visions from other ecological projects, wildlife shots of the beavers returning again to our ecosystem. I imagine a truly beautiful collection – which we could sell on site for the next decade!!!

I’m managing to feel good in spite of the state of the world this month. I’ve realised that working in ecological design and being inspired hour after hour by Holistic Financial planning, ideas of adding fungal spores to chainsaw oil, ways of regenerating soil by planting the right seeds…. I will not be slowed or dampened by the way things are going.

But it’s really catastrophic now. Humanity noticed briefly in 2019 that there was a planetary health emergency and we were going to break the systems that keep us alive, but then collectively the powerful people in the world did basically nothing. And now about 90%* of rich people just ignore what’s happening. I wonder if my pals in the UK have considered their future if the ocean currents collapse (I’m gonna ask Roger Munns what he thinks about that!!). I see death and then lockdowns in Spain because of Climate Change Adaptation FAILS. I mean 5 years ago we were worried about the rise of Eco-fascism – but who needs eco? The noise about environmental issues was smothered and we just get plain old fascism.

This rant is not helping, or helped by the rushes of hormones that have left me raging this week! I usually start these pieces with a reflection on my own health, and it is incredible how these surges of wanting to smash things come along when the bus to school is stuck in traffic. A wonderful friend of mine has been learning about raw food recipes, and managing hormones that way. He made me think, and insipred me to focus on bringing loads more organic raw food into each day. I was craving thinly sliced white cabbage at 4am this morning when these ideas were flying around my head!!

And now onwards with projects, community and vegetables that keep me thriving.

*completely invented statistic

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

Boodaville Finca is getting tidier and tidier! It’s an amazing place for permaculture living, connecting with nature and regenerating. We are working on an idea “The Boodaville Experience” to share the space (it would have to be for very limited numbers of people!).

Nick came and fixed the drain and we are moving to finally finish fixing the roof. (After the rain we had a better idea of where water gets in, so we know what weak points we want to work on)

We had an amazing weekend with Angela, Sam, Priya and Lou talking about the design for the vineyard. We talked a lot and turned that into a solid plan – we are going to implement a “Seeds as Fertilizer” experiment and get manure down in the fields before the end of the year. I’ll be sharing more about this via Instagram and the Web – and there’s one lovely conversation with Sam about how to use pruning in Syntropic Agriculture that we’ve uploaded already.

I am moving forward with the Sponsorship Mission to make time to get on with accelerating the overall Rovira Regenerativa Project. I hope that many of you will join in as a sponsor to help make the project bigger!

my permaculture / eco activities

I visited Vidalia to participate briefly in a Permaculture Teacher Training course for refugees. It was a wonderful experience – the highlight was talking to a Palestinian Permaculture Olive Framer with 3000 year-old trees who sells the oil to LUSH.

other Boodaville projects

We are offering a Biochar workshop on 21st December! We’re very happy to work with Jordi and Nick again and saw SUCH impressive results using the biochar to help our little trees survive the drought.

The Boodaville volunteers Alessandro and Olivia are nearly half way through their 6 month stay. They went to the whole course at Vidalia as volunteers and rated their experience 9/10.

The next Erasmus+ event will be in May 2025 near Boodaville – RegenerAct. We should have a meeting to look at getting more events for next year in the calendar.

overall admin of the Asociation

The financial situation is sound and thanks to some hard work by Lou we are close to having an organised, transparent, accounting system that actually tells us the funds available four our wish list : seeds, a good strimmer, animal poo without medicines, getting the next report to finalise the persmissions to open legally as a rural classroom, and much much more!

The website continues to have issues and we should move the WHOLE thing over to a new server. Add to previous list “Pay Arnau or Adam to move the website”

We have applied for the Kit Digital grant!

I actually have lots of lovely photos to add to this post – but technical issues have frozen the media gallery…. so see the previous post “12€”, or keep up on Instagram!

Lou

Lou - I started on the Boodaville path when I bought the land in Matarranya in 2008 and have dedicated an incredible amount of time, and not very many euros, to building up the project over the years.

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OFIW (On Friday's I write)

Why am I crying? (OFIW)

There's too much to say so Lou has written something like a poem. It's not a poem. Also find a sensible update about Rovira Regenerativa and our permaculture projects.

I‘m crying for Gaza (again),

I’m crying because 1000 children die each day without access to safe water,

I’m crying because the Earth’s living systems are collapsing and nature on our amazing planet is dying,

I’m crying because people stopped striking on Fridays.

In 2010 I enjoyed healthy debates about climate change on the Guardian comment section. The world used to make sense.

I’m crying because some people want to have more than 999 million.

I’m crying because I don’t know what more I can do.

I’m crying because someone in my circle of friends dedicates her life to encouraging unsustainable travel. She wears smart clothes. I look scruffy, and I never tell her what I think. I worry I might break her, but the truth is the things she does break me a little bit.

I’m crying because I’ve been awake since 5:45 this morning with both my children. My worried 10 year old set an alarm to study long division for an exam today. (We decided to really try and do school after the trip last year).

How do I stop crying?

I find joy in the joyful things we still have left, (and people’s faces)

I work in service to life on our planet,

I ground myself connecting to nature and the beautiful permaculture community around me,

I pay attention to wilding projects,

I think about the Idles album “Joy as an act of resistance”

I don’t feel like crying any more.

Now I go to work.

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

A lovely chat with Jessica, finally moving on to goals and action at the Boodaville Finca. I’m getting to the end of the accounting mess, and probably more importantly it rained 30 litres, and I’m ready to get back to the land.
I now have twenty wonderful sponsors to support my work on with the “boring bits” of the Rovira Regenerativa project. I’m looking for many more so I can dedicate a day a week to this project for the next 5.5 months.
Rovira Regenerativa Project updates include:

– connecting with syntropic agriculture networks and a meeting with the head of the organisation about funding in November.

– Confirming some awesome experts for a design session in November

– Connecting with Regen Hub and opportunities for more networking around funded living labs and pilot projects.

– Going back through the resources we created 2019 – 2024

The licence to open as a “Natural Classroom” is happening! We have three conditions to meet. This week I got even more paperwork to do for condition 2.
We came up with a lovely new idea – “The Boodaville Experience”. There is something very special about being in a place where there are no other humans for a 1km radius, and maybe we could open this experience up for others. (It used to be 2km but now we have awesome neighbours who also do Regenerative Farming!!)

my permaculture / eco activities

Inspiring conversations with Maia – one of my first permaculture teachers in 2014. I visited projects in her region in Italy on the trip and hope to visit again – before and during the planned 2026 International Permaculture event for women. We also talked about the ideas for sharing my design of the big Europe trip – I’m still hoping Looby will publish the story about that!

I took the children up to WildLab Permaculture farm on Saturday to get them out of the city and spend more time with JB and Ali

overall admin of the Asociation

Well accounting and the mega-spreadsheet is still where I’m investing lots of time. But maybe when I get to the end I’ll find we have enought to buy a strimmer! Or at least a visor so I don’t have to wear those stupid goggles any more.

The website seems to have stabled at “a few glitches every week” so I’ll come back to that later.

I haven’t published anything AT ALL on Instagram for at least a week.

Lou

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OFIW (On Friday's I write)

Five worlds in a week (OFIW)

Post author By Lou
Post date October 18, 2024
No Comments on Five worlds in a week (OFIW)

Five worlds in a week (OFIW)

Lou has been in different worlds of funding, farming, and accounting this week. Read about current permaculture projects and ideas in this week's post.

I can’t believe it was only a week ago that I was sitting here, feeling destroyed from lack of sleep because of Joanna’s nocturnal earache, NOT writing a blog post because the website was broken.

Since then I have been in several different worlds – and carried a slight fever / sore throat with me the whole way.

World 1 – Visit to a finca near the Llobregat river to buy a trampoline from a Spanish grandad smoking a cigar and showing me crazy “lemons with fingers” growing in his garden.

World 2 – Caseres flat and the lovely volunteers who have stepped up to get involved in our next youth activity. I managed a short walk in the mountains too!

World 3 – TV. I managed to find programs I wanted to watch, but I find the transition between tv and real life kind of weird to be honest. My favourite joke of all the comedy’s I could find was John Oliver renaming cats from the TERRIBLE movie “Jinglesphincter and Tinkleshit”. I’m really enjoying The Franchise, Armando Iannucci’s latest.

World 4 – Oh the conference needs to get a mention. This was a trial run for me as I am learning the world of funding. A free “Digital Agriculture” conference. I am finding the strength to show up as myself, comfortable clothes, good ideas, enjoying the day. I had a great day actually; my health status was “floaty”- when you are slightly detached from what’s around you and not thinking clearly, and that actually helped me take things easy and not try too hard. I learnt a lot more about the world of project writing and know a couple of people who can do it. I understand the “Pilot Funding” and the way funding works for smaller projects within projects. I also had a bizarre experience in a session with Romanian Geo-Engineers learning about what they actually do, and future ideas they have for using their rockets to protect solar farms from hail. The “fish tank” future (see further down for more talk of this).

World 5 – Guiri comedy in Barcelona, cycling around the city. Sitting in Bar Nossa. I’m not sure I actually like this world any more. It was fun, I laughed, I was very happy to see a diverse line-up with confident older female comedians rocking the house. The last act was half-cabaret, half comedy that kind of, or really, crossed a line with jokes about young boys. This world feels very unconnected with the rest of my life.

I’ll stop there with the worlds. But I think I’d like a calmer week now, and today I finally feel normal again.

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

It rained enough to stop me strimming, and also stop me worrying about whether to water the trees. The drought is still awful.

We had some seriously GOOD news about the permissions, but still are never sure when to celebrate because the council attitude is always very odd and they look like they never want us to open. In November we will start planning the site preparation for our first LEGAL activity in early 2025!!!! Angela, Jessica and I continue to meet regularly and work as the Boodaville Team.

My 12€ sponsorship campaign for Rovira Regenerativa is on target with the work getting done:

I know what the targets are before March
I already made important contacts and attended one conference
I already asked the first 40 people to support the program

The percentage uptake was lower than expected last week – so I’m looking at how to communicate better. My working time on this for the next three weeks is divided between communication of the sponsorhip idea and the overall project / networking and visiting Regenerative Vineyards / Updating our database on funding calls that are open.

More excitingly – Angela and I are planning the next weekend activity at the vineyard for 9/10 November!

my permaculture / eco activities

Well I would love to tell you more about Dougald Hine and the “fish tank” model, and the amazing statistics I just read in his book reminding us that just 30% of all the world’s food comes from the industrial food chain. Maybe I’ll have time to get back to this next week. Oh and can I please mention that Dougald and Claudia sent me a photo to say hi from the Swedish Transition Conference last week. That made me smile.

other Boodaville projects

We have started organising the event for youth as part of the Rio Algars solidarity project. The plan is to gather young people in the cinema in Caseres and then have a party! (DATE – 25 or 26 of November tbc)

overall admin of the Asociation

Now there were some real advances here this week! The boring but important running of the association.

The website is fully functional most of the time, with just one little malware left that messes the link to the site from Instagram!
The accounting is up to date
We have started on the mega spreadsheet which will keep an up to date record of balance, net income and cash flow.
I’ve prepared agreements on how to share project funding when people use Boodaville’s legal structure for external projects. I just need to check it brings us enough money! and sort out the costs for people using the legal structure when there’s no “project”.

Lou

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OFIW (On Friday's I write) Rovira Regenerativa

Strimming and screens (OFIW)

Post author By Lou
Post date October 4, 2024
No Comments on Strimming and screens (OFIW)

Strimming and screens (OFIW)

Lou's weekly update includes adventures, accounting news, ESC project applications, and some actual farm work with the strimmer at Rovira Regenertiva!

I’ve been all over the place since last Friday – teaching at Wildlab then an amazing drive round the back of Monsterrat that ended very badly, after a beautiful sunset, with a missed junction and a 40 minute detour on a dark motorway, before arriving feeling very exhausted at Monkey Business festival.

I lasted just under 24 hours at the party before crashing out at Caseres on Saturday night. We laughed a lot about people’s reactions to me being there “Oh, we didn’t expect you to actually come, it’s lovely to see you” as I staggered around feeling old, wearing the last clean t-shirt in my bag (I’m still basically living out of a suitcase since the trip, but that’s another story involving bed bug scares and a toxic fumigation). I’m glad I went, I had some fun, it was great to participate in a workshop run by young people for a change.. they call it “Erotic Ecology”.

Then I had a few days in the village, an afternoon making a community garden at the Cooperative housing project I’m in, and then back in time for homework, cuddles, and Kira’s weekly Cello experience. Maybe you saw her buzzing through Barcelona on the back of a moped with a Cello last night. What a life for a 10 year old!!

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

We had a visit from Priya and, together with the volunteers living in Caseres, she worked to clear out silt and level an infiltration irrigation ditch in the Thyme Terrace project where we planted 100 tiny Almond Trees before a drought. (Some of them are alive. We’ll see how it looks when the rain comes back).

I finally got to use the strimmer on Tuesday to keep up the plan to chop and drop the wild fennel and grass growing between the vines in the Rovira Regenerativa vineyard.

I’m also really pleased to report that I’ve raised the first 108€ in my patreon style “Would you give me 12€?” campaign, which means I can spend some hours raising the next bit, and taking the first steps with growing the project. Thank you to my first supporters: Kerry, Mark, Elaine, Ruth, Manu, Rob, Jessica and Priya you are wonderful humans!!

my permaculture / eco activities

I’m looking at the calendar for October and November and wondering what impact it would have on the world if I got into the “Impact Week” rich people’s investment, “let’s bring tech to Africa”, conference here in Barcelona. I’m very interested by the presence of Stockholm Resilience Centre who I’ve seen on the Donut Economics Action Lab. The Global Donut Days are the same dates, maybe there’s some synergies emerging here.

Looby told me she wants my voice in her book and likes the story I wrote! To fully participate in that publication I need to write up the Permaculture Design I did for the trip in some kind of readable format.. which gets me thinking about whether I should move forward with a Permaculture Diploma at one of the national academies that exist. I also want to design the food forest and vegetable garden at the Housing Coop (La Fabrica de la Transició)

Here’s a stunning quote from Dougald Hine about statistics… I’m still enjoying his book and following the project A school called HOME

“The patterns that can be traced when lives are reduced to statistics do not reveal an underlying truth, deeper and more trustworthy than the evidence of our own experience. These patterns are the footprints left on a beach across which we have walked. Read with care, they have things to tell us; but are silent about almost everything that mattered about the day we spent together on that beach.”

other Boodaville projects

We’ve applied for another project coordinating the next 2 volunteers who will live in Caseres, and very much hope Catalunya has enough money to fund it. In theory, with the accreditation we ALREADY have this approved, but times are hard and budgets have been cut (or badly planned). This is very important as these projects pay a large part of the Association overhead costs, and fund the flat in Caseres.

We are still looking for young people to join the latest Solidarity Project, and this application will be sent in the next few days. We will organise a series of practical work days and encourage a community of young people, from rural areas to get to know each other by attending several events around Southern Catalunya during 2025.

We are taking the first steps to oranise an event in November near Caseres, as part of the Rio Algars solidarity project. We are looking for co-organisers and ideas!! There’s a small budget available for this one..

Sergi at Mas Les Vinyes asked if we want to do another youth project at their place, this time with me doing more teaching! That felt great and made me smile.

overall admin of the Asociation

And finally…. boring but very important..

WE GOT PAID!! and have moved the money on very quickly to pay 27,333€ to people who were waiting. Thanks so much to everyone for their patience!!

I have also been reminded that the website doesn’t work properly. I know this, but need to be pushed into action sometimes. I’ve added a new plugin to try and solve the problem, and must move forward with the Kit Digital to get an ACTUAL paid web person. For me.. like the computer.. it’s just a tool. I can’t get into how it works or how it breaks!!

Well that felt pretty complete.. now it’s time to get back to the job list. See you next week!

Lou

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I feel surprisingly organised (OFIW)

Post author By Lou
Post date September 20, 2024
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I feel surprisingly organised (OFIW)

Updates from Boodaville and Rovira this week include news from the vineyard! While Lou has been writing for Looby (hooray!!) and using patterns to plan out the next months.

I slept last night. I fell asleep with Joanna around 9pm and didn’t really wake up until 7am. This is a strange and new sensation for me, and maybe why I feel organised.

Joanna (and me) just about made it through the drama of celebrating a third birthday during the first full week of school. She had some proper tantrums in the classroom, but today, after a walking through the rain adventure, she was relaxed about staying in the classroom.

The third birthday also marked the end of an intense period of moving, cleaning, learning the new weekly patterns of child care and activities. Without going into too much detail I’ll just say that now I know which days I do which kind of tasks, and also my daughter plays the cello.

I really need to by some waterproof boots.

Boodaville finca and rovira regenerativa

Both Jessica and Angela have been at the finca and the vineyard this week. Angela took loads of data about which trees are alive, and how the vines are doing. There’s zero harvest this year! They also got some strimming done to keep the fennel around the vines under control and leave the cut stalks as ground cover.

Jessica, among other things, was planting winter veg in the wicking beds. After a final experiment we have concluded that the larger wicking bed has a massive leak and is irreparable – it lasted 7 years.

my permaculture / eco activities

I am so very excited to have written a contribution to Looby McNamara’s next book. She said it would be wonderful to include my piece about the importance of “integration” in the design of planning the massive European trip. So fingers crossed it makes it into the book!! I am very keen to speak, write,and make presentations about how I made our adventure happen, and this perfect opportunity came my way.

Last weekend I attended both the BiorNE conference at Mas Les Vinyes AND an asamblea for the cooperative housing project I’ve joined called La Fábrica de la Transición.

At BiorNE I caught up with Sam and drank some Torres regenerative wine with Oliver Goshey.

At La Fábrica we seeded trees in the vegetable garden and met the neighbour who is starting a commecial organic farm on the next plot. We are looking for more families to join the project and come and live at La Fábrica – the next open visit is 12 October.

other Boodaville projects

There is one solidarity project on the go which is Ecologistas de Rio Algars and I have a meeting about our next event.. now!

We are applying for another solidarity project next week – to run from January 2025. We are looking for young people to get involved in creating a community around Green Skills Gatherings at different farms and projects (including Boodaville!). We’ll include a special event where we invite all our ex-volunteers back to Boodaville for a week of fun practical projects and celebration!

overall admin of the Asociation

Well we still have no money and a cash flow crisis. Sorry everyone.

The admin is done to get the money our ON MONDAY! as long as it arrives.

Lou

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OFIW (On Friday's I write)

Back in BCN (OFIW)

Lou is back in Barcelona after 6 months away on adventures. This post is an update about what's going on with Boodaville Permaculture Association.

So here I am, back at my desk for the first time since February, and writing an OFIW post for the first time since.. I don’t know. Things got incredibly busy before the trip; creating that adventure is a whole story, or even a book in the making.

I will publish a post with the top 50 photos as soon as I have the technological capability. And for now – I just hope you can read this post! We STILL have some kind of malware in the wordpress, but are one step closer to getting a government grant to employ a website manager since I spoke to our accountant last week.

So what would a Friday post look like this season?

Well there will inevitably be comments on how I am: Today I’m fantastic because I did some incredibly successful parenting this week and got both kids tucked up for the night by 21:30. This is an all time record and will hopefully become normal. I aim to have evenings and children that aren’t so tired they are like zombies.

Then I think it’s really important to let people know how Boodaville is going, maybe with a bit of Rovira Regenerativa thrown in.

My exciting permaculture / eco activities would be a good section and I hope there will be many things to report.

Then an important part of any post would be other Boodaville projects – what’s coming up, where we might need participants, ideas or help.

And for my own benefit I guess it would be very useful for a comment on the overall admin of the Aso and what’s occupying my time this week. Ok – let’s give that a shot!

How is Boodaville Finca going? and Rovira Regenerativa?

Thanks to Angela and Jessica who have become regular visitors, and are supporting the overall vision and strategic plan of the association we have an INCREDIBLY tidy and organised space. A few of our favourite Permaculture Design examples have been lost over the years and we are working to reintroduce them. The land is suffering after a very harsh drought, we got 60mm last week — let’s hope for more.

In about a month we should have another nail biting moment when we receive news about our application to run the “Rural Classroom” at Boodaville Finca. If it’s a YES then we are FINALLY absolutely ready to open and start offering workshops and guided tours legally!! If it’s something else then we have some serious issues.

Jessica is onsite right now preparing a winter veg bed, and showing our new volunteers how it is possible to live at Boodaville – water, energy, waste, comfort. Ooh and hopefully making some compost tea as well – with a barrel of whey she brought down from her current home with the goats in Navarra.

Rovira Regenerativa – well there’s no grape harvest, Angela is monitoring the vines, we are planning to keep working to see what happens next year.

The 1000 trees we planted were looking pretty good in June and I’ll be honest.. I didn’t dare go back and look at the end of August. So you’ll have to wait for more info on that.

My exciting permaculture / eco activities

Well I’m reading “At Work in the Ruins” by Dougald Hine and absolutely loving it. I folded down the page about the difference between knowledge – arm’s length facts – and “knowing” which is when we let the knowledge in and it becomes part of our way of being.

I really feel I’m in the second category; and that teaching Environmental Systems and Societies in a white classroom was just knowledge and less wisdom.

And my other most exciting of adventures is an invite to submit a story to Looby McNamara’s next book. This is huge, and a tight deadline. I’ll be achieving one of my goals to share more about the Europe Trip and how and why I designed that into our lives.

And, as someone who sometimes says yes to things now.. I have a teaching gig up at WildLab in two weeks! I’m not sure about the details and have a call about that.. well ..now!

So for more categories and another update I’ll be back next week.

Anna Louise