Hey Burra...how you doing?

Discussion in 'General chat' started by kimbo.parker, Jul 3, 2009.

  1. kimbo.parker

    kimbo.parker Junior Member

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    g'day Burra,
    i wanted to say thanks for your support when things got 'testy' a while back. My mouth often gets me in the shit but it takes a brave soul to stand with the underdog. Your noble deed not un noticed. If ever I need a body guard, someone I can count on to 'take the bullet', I'll bellow for Burra.
    good luck to you my friend.
    regards, Kimbo
     
  2. Burra Maluca

    Burra Maluca Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    And the Burra bellows back, in her own inimitable style...

    HEEEEHAAAAWWWWWWWWWWW !!!!!

    [​IMG]

    That's me in the photo - not telling which one though.... :lol:
     
  3. tsi

    tsi Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    I think I am becoming a Burra fan too :) Hi Burra, nice ears you have LOL :mrgreen:

    Yeps, Thanks for the photo! looks so exotic!
     
  4. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    That picture actually looks familiar. I would even say nostalgic...
     
  5. Burra Maluca

    Burra Maluca Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Ah yes, Burras are special creatures. Loyal (when they feel like it), intelligent (something to do with those ears...), fiercely independent, mostly quiet but with both a terrific bellow and a terrific kick when motivated. Good for building compost heaps, too!

    Yeah - the picture is a bit nostalgic. We were cutting and collecting hay from a paddock in the village where they wanted it cleared for summer because of the fire risk. Good application of permaculture principles there - help the neighbours, feed the Burra, protect the village, keep traditions alive and supply the compost heap. :lol:

    I made a bit of a garden blog on the Aussies Living Simply site in the Teia's Garden in Portugal thread if anyone wants to read more about the Burra and our attempts to garden in Portugal. I know a lot of folk on this board don't approve of that site, but I've always found them really friendly and helpful and I was much more comfortable blogging there, even though I'm not an Aussie. I'd really like for people to feel as comfortable on this site...

    Wolfjag - every time I find a really useful book that suits this climate, I put it on my book list on Amazon. Happy to talk about, or possibly even lend out, any of them. Here's a link. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R2KVLTRVH4JY31/ref=cm_pdp_lm_title_2
     
  6. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Great list, Burra, and a very comprehensive one as well! I would indeed love to exchange a few ideas on Permaculture in Portugal (not many people out there sharing the interest, so far :( ). If you feel like it, please feel free to PM anytime.
    Cheers.
     
  7. Burra Maluca

    Burra Maluca Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    I think the PM's have been disabled... :cry:

    I think there may be more permie types lurking in Portugal than you think. Most of us are also hermits though, and tend to hide away instead of sharing. The main things I've learned are 'mulch' and 'shade' and 'swale'. Of course, getting hold of anything to mulch with is a different story. We finally have somewhere we can buy straw from, and I'm going to raid the local olive press this autumn to see how much olive waste I can scrounge and use it to sprinkle over the straw mulch to add a bit of much needed nitrogen. Burras are useful too - people donate grass and apples and bean stalks for them, and you can use them to blag sawdust from the saw mills (for bedding) and they process it all so you can compost it. Just remember to keep your compost heap contained, watered and covered else it dries up and won't rot down.
     
  8. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Have you ever tried convincing your local municipality to hand you their garden waste? They usually dump it. That would save them some space in the local landfill and make a very happy burra.
     
  9. Burra Maluca

    Burra Maluca Junior Member

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    !

    We're a bit too far out in the sticks to be able to persuade them to make a special journey. And then there is the language barrier, plus our only experience in scrounging waste was obviously such a culture shock to them I'm not sure if they can handle it. We'd driven to the city and in the industrial estate we'd found where someone had dumped a yucca tree cut up into chunks. We stopped the jeep and were eagerly loading up bits of yucca trunk to plant (they regenerate really easily - just plant them the right way up and water a bit) and a lorry full of council workers stopped to tell us off for dumping stuff. The boss couldn't get his head around the fact that English immigrants were pinching their rubbish but dumbfoundedly allowed us to load up all the bits of tree trunk. But the next time we went to town the whole area had been bulldozed clear, presumably as they had no system for dealing with having their rubbish stolen so they had to clear it. We got six yucca trees out of it though! :lol:

    Seriously though, have you ever tried to get anything out of the municipality if it didn't involve thirty bits of paper? You need *very* good language skills and they need to know you personally and know that you won't report them for not using the relevant paperwork. I'm sure the reason that half of Portugal is covered with eucalyptus is that it's needed to supply the government with paper for their pen-pushing habit. Oh, and some is needed for wiping theses... :butthead:

    I'm busy learning about green alternatives for bedridden old men who can no longer use the bathroom. Great fun. I just stocked up on cheap hand-towels, bought by the kilo, which he uses to catch the piddle, then I take about a dozen of them to the font every morning to wash out. We have metered water in the house, and no water pressure worth speaking of, but the font is 'real' water pumped straight from source with brilliant pressure, which makes the whole process a bit faster. And I'm waiting for some washable absorbent bed-pads to arrive, and some washable adult nappies. I have a neighbour saving all his old newspaper for me to help with clean up operations (all adds to the compost heaps!), and have some compostable wipes to make things a bit easier for me.

    Never a dull moment here!

    Here's a photo of the font - it's the 'new' one, recently rigged up to the electricity supply so you don't have to turn the handle any more.

    [​IMG]

    Surplus water drains through a channel in the wall and feeds the burro water trough to the right. Good system!
     
  10. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Burra, sorry to hear about your bedridden old man who can no longer use the bathroom and all the trouble washing those towels!

    If you want, I can write you a letter you can send to the mayor, or the city councillor in charge of parks and gardens (suppose they must they have one) asking them to send you their green waste... We can always try...

    Cheers :drinkers:
     
  11. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Hey Burra!
    What are you guys planting these days? Over here looks like everybody's on the cabbage, for Christmas.
     
  12. Burra Maluca

    Burra Maluca Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    Wooohoooo - I managed to log in again!

    I feel a bit of a fraud as I'm stuck indoors not planting anything, but my other half is busy planting endless cabbages, broccoli, turnips, spinach, carrots. We're trying broad beans (fava) too - the locals tell us it's the wrong time of year but we like to eat the young tops as a green vegetable and there's always a possiblility that we might get actual beans from them next year if we don't take too many leaves. It took us a while to get any kind of bean growing on our soil as it was so sterile there weren't any of the right bacteria in the soil that are needed to innoculate the beans. We managed to import a bit of innoculant and with a bit of fiddling around we can now grow them quite well in some parts of the garden.

    Also we've dug out a lot of fruit seeds (peach, apricot, plum) that I've had in a bag of moist soil in the fridge for a couple of months and we're going to plant those in pots to try to get them growing. We tried last year and out of a dozen peach stones six grew and three survived. We planted those three out and they have done better than any tree we have bought in. The plants are nice and bushy so they shade the soil a bit and they seem to have sent down a nice deep root so didn't need as much watering as the bought ones. All the nurse trees we planted out last year died, so we're going to use fruit trees as their own nurse trees. We have two surviving tagasaste plants and a few pea trees in pots (we lost a lot when uncle fell ill and we got a bit behind with the watering during August) but I think we'll wait till the spring before risking planting them out.

    On the odd time I do manage to escape and spend a couple of hours on the farm, I've been busy mulching. We've been buying in straw when we can find any and mulching around the baby fruit trees, and then trying to fill in the gaps to create whole mulched areas. The morning after the first rain a few days ago (we had three inches in half an hour!!!) I went out to check out the state of the soil in different places. Areas that hadn't been mulched were apparently bone dry where they had baked hard in the sun and the rain had just washed off. In places that had been 'spot mulched' around trees, some of the rain had penetrated and the soil was a little softer. Places where I had mulched whole areas and that had been under mulch for several months over the summer were amazing though. I could pull back the mulch and bury my whole hand in soft, moist soil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Last year I was a composting freak - this year I'm still composting, but I'm a mulch freak! Hopefully I'm going to be able to raid the olive press next month and get some nice high nitrogen olive waste to scatter over the straw. I'm determined to have good, rich, moist soil one day....
     
  13. WolfJag

    WolfJag Junior Member

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    Re: Hey Burra...how you doing?

    That's the spirit! I've been mulching as well, although the size of my garden is minute! I've been using garden waste and the neighbouring lawn mowing, but found out that what seemed as a good thick layer in the beggining practically disapered! I can't even spot in in some places! Amazing! Good thing I stacked a lot of mowed grass on the composting pile. The funny thing is that the gardener that gave me my first pile of mowing waste has been droping some more in my garden. He just gets in and deposits it on the corner where we layed our first pile. I've only found out later!

    I've been upset, though, with what's happening to my tomatos and peppers. A good number of them have been ruined, presenting huge holes on the skin and through the flesh, even when they're green and very small. Some of the tomatos actually manage to grow and rippen, despite the holes. The peppers don't, though... :(
     

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