I bet I got some of you going on this one!!! What is this guy talking about? The symbiosis of a natural swimming pool and a handmade road...!?!
PERMACULTURE
A philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.
Bill Mollison
I personally only heard of the concept a few years ago though the term was supposedly developed and coined by David Holmgren and Bill Mollison, back in 1978. My little family and I live in New York City, so you can imagine how much we've been able to practice permaculture!
As we plan to get out of this Concrete Jungle I can't help but think about different aspects of permaculture and learning whatever I can (when I find the time) from Youtube University and now the whole Steemit Universe and Dtube! I am telling you this to say that I am far from being an expert. Most of what I know is in theory, except for washing dishes in a permaculture kind of way (which remains to be another story I will cover later on this summer) and a few other bits and bobs I can practice in a 500 sqft apartment without a yard.
Stacking Functions
In permaculture we speak about getting many yields (outputs) from one element (thing) in your system. For example, a tree might be an element in your system.
Source
This is one of my favorite principles of permaculture. It fits perfectly with my thinking mechanism and I have lived my life looking to stack functions without knowing it was a thing!
If the cap fits... Wear it.
Now, how is this post related to permaculture? We're talking about the relationship between natural swimming pool and a handmade Road...
Well this is where stacking functions commes into play. In a typical situation you may think that perhaps the water runoff from this handmade road would also be used to fill the natural pool and perhaps on to feeding more plants or animals and fruit trees surounding the area by design... well it's not.
The function I am stacking, (the element) is the work. My wife and I want to make a natural swimming pool. We also need to finish building a short road to the area where we will grow most of our food and build not only a gorgeous natural pool but also an abundant forest garden and our base of operations, aka The Launch Pad.
See the natural dip, that's where the pool will be, with a beautiful rock wall on one side... so lovely!
There's a little area from our main driveway which needs to be filled in so the slope isn't too steep to drive small vehicles whitout a problem. I had already started this project, but with the winter snows and the rainy season we're having now, my car will not go up the hill, we need a gentle slope!!!
I also need a pickup truck..I know, and a tractor and lots of other homestead tools... but for now all we have is a wheel barrel, a chain saw, some hand tools and a lot of motivation!
I can't get a machine now, it's lmost done... a few more slabs of shell, a couple layers of crushed stone and she'll be ready to go!
I have been taking most of the stones for the road from the area that will become the pool. There's a natural dip in the ground so we won't have to digg very deep, but why not take slabs of stone from here?
And that was my Symbiotic Relationship of our Natural Swimming Pool and Ohr Handmade Road
Multiply yourself through stacking functions. That is something I have practiced at work a lot and it works for me.
Proof of a-couple-tons-of-work
Expect a post in the near future for a Natural Building Workshop here at No Man's Land in honour of @S-h-e-p!
Until next time...
After all, a dream will remain a dream, if you do not start doing anything.
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