Category Archives: Nature

Regular Events: Environment Day

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Creating a Fertility System

Creating a Fertility System

This is a basic outline giving a general overview of what the event Environment Day/days is all about.

We hold regular Environment Days (generally mornings) and they are an open invitation for anyone who would like to come and give to the land.

Peter generally facilitates the Environment Days and each one is a little bit different depending on the projects we are running and what needs doing at the time.
They may include but are not limited to:
  • Putting the Principles of Divine Truth into Action in our environment
  • Tree planting
  • Mulching
  • Water Management Projects
  • Waterless systems
  • Fertility/Living Systems
  • Fauna Boxes (making, placing, renovating)
  • Seed Collection
  • Hole digging
  • Removing Barbed Wire
  • Pond Creation
  • Fauna Projects
  • Flora Projects
  • Experimentation
  • And much more
 We Generally meet at the workshop and go out to the site we are working on together. We don’t want lots of vehicles traipsing all over the land so parking is up behind the workshop (big green shed).
We will let you know on the Events page as soon as possible if the day is cancelled for any reason.
The general things to bring are: (for specifics check the Event’s page)
Water bottle with enough water for the day
Snacks (Vegan/vegetarian food only while on the property please)
Work gloves
Own tools -maddock, digging tool of choice

We are also collecting the following and if you have any you would like to donate we would gladly take it off your hands to put into the projects we are doing.

  • We are asking for your old/new/used newspapers and cardboard (or your neighbours if they care to give it to you) that you do not want any more and would be willing to gather and bring along to Kyabra Station, Kentucky, when you come or we can arrange to drop it somewhere central so we can pick it up?
  • If anyone has any old Trampoline Springs (for fauna boxes) that they don’t want. Or if you know of any that others might not want theirs anymore. We would really like them and are happy to pick them up. please let us know if you do have any.
Thank you.
Please contact us if you have any questions.
Email Peter and/or Eloisa at eloisalh@gmail.com or phone 02 67787348.

During some environmental events held here, there may be talks that include discussions about God, the Human Soul and other spiritual matters. However these will not be of long duration and any person can elect to not be present during these sessions.

Making Snake Haven's

Making Snake Haven’s

Regular Events: A Day in the Waterless Garden

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New Growth in the waterless garden - self seeded

New Growth in the waterless garden – self seeded

A Day in the Waterless Garden is an event (usually a morning) generally facilitated by Lincon Trelor and Philippa Gray. (Check the Events Page for the next one)

It is an open invitation to come and learn the principles behind the waterless garden concept and to gift and contribute your time to various parts of this on-going project.
Lincon and Philippa hold days periodically and will do so until the project is completed. Check out the Events page for dates you can volunteer your time and efforts if you so desire.
For more information please contact Philippa and Lincon via email.
General things to Bring each time, check Events Page for specifics before you come as items may vary depending on the activity:
  • Water
  • Snacks if you want them
  • Sun protection
  • Gloves
  • Anything you feel you need for a day in the garden outdoors
Parking: Please park cars/vehicles up near the big green shed (Jumbuck) on the roadway and walk to the garden, behind the cottage on the grass oval, Thank you.
waterless garden

Soul Experiment Series: Loving Animals equally – Foxes

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Our Friend Mr Fox

We realised some time ago that we had a lack of love for some creatures in comparison to others on the property. We value sheep and cattle more highly as they are/were our income, and we feel small creatures need ‘protecting’. We like native animals especially small and ‘cute’ ones and free and wild animals and love birds often above others creatures. We had very different feelings towards ‘pests’ including foxes, ‘feral’ cats, pigs, large mobs of kangaroos, various insects, eagles etc (we love eagles now but when the family first moved to the property they were deemed sheep killers and so were hunted themselves to prevent attack on the sheep.) Really anything that ‘attacked’ us, ‘our’ food, the livestock, or potentially may ‘attack’ us, the livestock or ‘our’ food.

AJ and Mary were talking to us a couple of years ago about how we don’t love all animals equally and encouraged us to look at the reasons why. At the time Foxes were an issue for us, killing lambs and we feared the attack on the livestock. We had had a shooter who whistled up the foxes and then killed them regularly on the place for years. When we decided that we would eat vegan (for a number of reasons) one being that we no longer wanted to intentionally kill animals, we felt that that applied not only to domesticated animals but to all the animals on the place so we also stopped all contract shooting of any kind of animal on the property.
We also decided to do a soul experiment with the foxes – the hypothesis being if we loved them equally would they feel the need to attack other animals on the property? So we began with our intention set to love the foxes as much as we love other animals and work through our fears, beliefs and reasons that we didn’t value them as much as, say the sheep. God has created ALL creatures and loves all her creations so we needed to ask ourselves why we don’t love all creatures equally just like God does?
For a time it seemed like there were more foxes and we were worried they might ‘take over’ but as we went through the process of working out why we favoured other animals and loved foxes less an amazing thing happened. We noticed that foxes didn’t actually prolifically multiply or attack the livestock. And now there seem to be the least amount of foxes there ever has been on the property.
We talked to our guides about the issue also and felt that eventually the foxes would leave, discontinue breeding or they would regulate their breeding and eat less meat or merely meat that had died naturally rather than having to kill to get food. Foxes have a negative reputation in Australia. But we are finding foxes are a beautiful animal, we found out that up to 80% of their diet is actually fruits, berries, insects and small animals if that food source is available (see scat image below), we feel that the fox (and many other animals that are ‘carnivorous’ at this time) would easily make the transition to eat a diet of insects and fruit if an abundance was available.
Due to humans taking away a lot of preferred food sources for various species they are forced to pray on other animals or what is available. We don’t really consider this when we strip away plants and habitat to graze livestock for money or personal gain, we give little thought to any creature other than those that we can ‘get’ something from, until they become a ‘problem’ or a ‘predator’. What we don’t realise is that we are the cause of the problem in the first place (this is exciting if we can own we are the cause, and find out what the emotional cause within us is, as this is what is going to enable us to change. We need to change our soul not just our intellect on these matters. It is all very well to say ‘we love foxes now’ but honestly that doesn’t work, we tried it and it didn’t stop the attacks. What did stop them was our genuine heartfelt change, the soul change, that is what stopped the attacks*.)
Fox scat: This is what foxes eat

The foxes seem to have now regulated in number. Angelo spoke to us about the fact that when we had been shooting the foxes, generally we were killing ‘an old’ fox with an established den, what happened is we disrupted the hierarchy system and in it’s place maybe 3-5 new foxes would move in increasing the population due to the balance being disrupted. Also the foxes felt hated and attacked by us and due to this bred prolifically increasing the population rapidly (see Jesus’ talks on ‘creating loving eco-systems’ for more information on aggressive and passive creature responses this can also be viewed on YouTube, there are 2 parts to the talk). We have now not had contract shooting for maybe five or so years and we feel quite differently about the foxes and there are the least number there have ever been on the property. They are rarely attacking and have not attacked sheep for a few years that we are aware.

The foxes will sit on rocks and watch us drive past now, they don’t always race away or avoid us at all costs, they are still wary at times but often we will pass a little nose sticking out of the grass just watching us go by. There is even one who lives at the top of the drive to our house.

We did see one who had attacked a galah and we feel the bird life gets attacked at times by foxes (and cats) and so we need to now look at our lack of equality of love in this area. We do love birds more and so they are likely to be attacked until we work through the emotions we have about that.

Now, if or when a creature does get attacked we ask ourselves what are the underlying causes within us that created the attack. We pray to be shown the reasons why these things are happening (we often go into self punishment and feel like we have done something wrong) BUT we are beginning to challenge this and be firm and honest with ourselves about what we feel when it happens. Pete and I voice our feelings as soon as it happens (if we can) and often realise that it is what we say in the first moment that is what has created the incident in the first place. Because the animals reflect us we are responsible for what happens to them on the property. Our soul’s are what protect or do not protect all the creatures great and small. Due to the creatures reflecting us it is an instant feedback system exposing errors, injuries and where we need to heal our soul in order to become more loving and grow closer to God.

Every creature has a purpose and God created them all. Animals, insects, micro-organisms etc are not ‘bad’, ‘wicked’, or intentionally attacking, some are merely doing their job, they are merely reflecting the human soul’s condition of love or lack of it and highlighting the areas where we need to heal and become more in harmony with love. Some of the injuries are intergenerational and have been going on for a long time, some are just starting to be exposed.

So in summation: we feel, and have some strong evidence now, that if you love one creature more than another it will either be attacked or attack (depending on it’s nature) until we love all creatures equally. We feel that when we love all creatures equally then each creature will feel loved and will not feel the need to over breed or attack another creature and the whole environment will eventually be in balance and harmony as God intended it to be.

We are excited and look forward to sharing with you more Soul Experiments, the direct relationship between the soul and the world around us (including flora and fauna) and the eternal wonders of God’s universe that we are finding out about and how our love or lack of it directly affects the environment we live in.

* We are now having a similar situation with the pigs and until we work through the errors within our soul and release all the feelings that come up with each pig attack on the things we love and come to a place of equal love for the pigs and all of God’s creations, I highly suspect (actually firmly believe) that things are not going to change. In fact we know it wont. We have said ‘we love the pigs’, and we genuinely do think they are cute, amusing and have a growing fondness for them, but there are some underlying emotions in us, which are readily and rawly exposed when they dig out the dam walls and furrow through trees we have just planted, that clearly indicate to us that we do not love these little dudes equally – yet.

Note: We love watching documentaries on the natural world, especially David Attenborough, and we find it really interesting when ‘new animal behaviour’ is discovered especially attacking behaviours. With what we feel and know in our hearts now (and with some confirmation and enlightenment from Jesus) we can see the direct correlation with the human condition and lack of harmony with love and working against God’s Laws. For example the Kea in NZ has in the last ten years gone from being a herbivore to a carnivore – now attacking small chicks of other birds as a food source. If you look at NZ’s major exports and what they are economically reliant upon it is meat/animals (and tourism mostly). So the Kea is just reflecting by highlighting the emotional error in New Zealander’s (and the rest of the world) of how we feel that killing and relying on the meat industry is okay. 

Or Termites, it is their job to recycle and clean up dead matter, they are not intentionally attacking us or our houses, they are just doing the job God created them perfectly to do. Another issue is often there are not other food sources available. If we built living structures, which I suggest would actually be healthier for us also to live in, then I suspect that they would not get eaten by the waste warriors as much. Unfortunately instead of looking at our soul condition and the lack of love within ourselves and taking responsibility for what we attract into our lives we just exterminate the Termites. Termites are amazing and without them the foodchain faces real dangers. Termites are vital for so many creatures and they are super genuises in architecture as well, we have much to learn from the humble termite and I suggest taking some time to investigate and find out about them before eradicating or exterminating them.

Soul Experiment Series: What the Aphid’s Revealed

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Comparison November 2012*:
20121103 Aphid infested kale plant
20121103 kale plant next to Aphid decimated one, no aphids in sight

Aphids are small amazing creatures that have a collective consciousness. They are most well known for sucking the life out of your plants and killing them. We did an experiment with the aphids. I had a plant indoors (American Watercress), it was sitting in the window and growing really well, I was looking forward to eating it and it giving me a tasty snack. A few days after I had brought it from the supermarket I noticed a couple of aphids on it. I was a little taken aback and awe struck about how an aphid could suddenly appear on a plant in my house ( I am still wondering about how this actually happened) Anyway over the next week the aphids took over and the plant was getting really hammered, eaten alive literally. I thought about many nasty ways to hurt the aphids and get rid of them. finally I put the plant outside and abandoned it thinking it was going to die. I checked it out a few days later and I was super surprised as suddenly the aphids had diminished in number. I felt sorry for the plant and somewhat guilty that I had just stuck it out in the cold so I brought it back in to see if it would grow again and heal.

I was telling our friends about this experience and in doing so had some really amazing revelations, the main one being that when it came down to it I was the Aphid. I was the one sucking the life out of things around me through my expectations and demands upon them. I was shocked and ashamed. But guess what? Some amazing things happened from just having this intellectual realisation! (Our friends were also telling us about goats and how accurately they reflect the soul condition of most humans on the plant at the moment – take, take, take, eat, eat, eat, constantly, they are never satisfied, never have had enough, greedy, wanting more, more, more, decimating everything that is in their environment and still eating. Like the aphids I also realised I am the goat – this is actually ironically funny in that my star sign is capricorn and I have always hated the fact that the symbol for that is a goat, but on this particular occasion ALL the associations lined right on up and I was horrifically amused, smile.)

When I realised this (I was mortified) I reflected upon what had happened with the watercress and the aphids: I had a demand and expectation that the plant would feed me, the aphids attacked, I unceremoniously and rather abruptly took the cress outside and abandoned it ‘cos it was not going to give me what I wanted from it, the aphids diminished in number, the plant that had been attacked perked up and began living again – my expectations had gone down due to thinking it was not going to be able to feed me and as my expectations and demands on the cress ceased so did the attack. When I brought it back into the house out of guilt, it didn’t thrive and it didn’t heal very well.

I decided after realising that I was a goat/aphid, that I would choose to love the cress and feel love for it without the expectation of eating it, without the demand that it would feed me. I found a lovely little spot at the bottom of our garden tap where water collects and made it a little bed to live in, I literally told it out loud I would not eat it and that it could live out it’s life as long as it liked in this nice moist spot, I also felt really sad that I had treated it so badly and apologised out loud form my heart. I am telling you it has gone from limp aphid attacked unhappy to thriving flourishing and happy. I am in awe of the power of my soul and at how similar to an aphid/goat I am – a demanding life sucker who expects to get everything I want immediately.

This was the cress after being outside a little while.
I will update this with a picture of the Cress now tomorrow.

Unfortunately I didn’t document that one so you’ll have to take my word for it, But I did take some pictures of a similar thing happening in our garden with aphids and the kale. (See top two images for best comparison of the kale up close).

20121008 can’t really see the difference but the left hand plant is getting sucked by the
aphids the right hand side is pretty much untouched – a few bite marks only.
 

There were 3 kale plants and one got decimated and two were left with only a few bite marks pretty much untouched by the aphid colony. We found if you squashed or tried to kill the aphids it was as if every single aphid felt attacked and was terrified that you were going to kill them too, so they began cloning and clone they did till the entire plant was covered in this amazing collective organism. What was interesting is that one plant got entirely covered and attacked and the others didn’t and they were right next to each other.

20121008 aphids up close
20121008 aphids on the stalk

Then a month later the ladybirds moved in.

20121103 Ladybirds and Aphids

Honestly it is as if all aphids are one aphid.

Aside: I notice this sometimes with the sheep, one sheep makes a decision and all the sheep make the same decision almost simultaneously, like they have been told, they can be half a kilometre away from each other and yet they still make the same decision. I was told sheep are dumb, but honestly my experience of sheep is that they are highly intelligent. They have been dumbed down a lot due to domestication but gee whizz, sheep are smart, they are also athletic. We have one dude who easily high jumps the sheep yards without touching the top bar. I am telling you they are super duper cool! Just like aphids.

I think aphids are awesome and due to their helpfulness in highlighting some issues of love I need to look at I am even more grateful to them. I am also in awe of the precision and total perfectness of God’s love, God’s Laws and feedback system. I am still coming to terms with how powerful my soul is and how instantly animals and plants respond to the love or error that is within it!!

I encourage you to take notice of the living environment around you and the effect your soul (both loving and unloving) is having upon it! It is fascinating, revealing and you can learn so much about your self and God through the process!

*This happened last year, it has taken me some months to actually record it and post it.

Soul Experiment Series: Piggy Bumps

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piggy bumps/God’s ploughs – pigs
We have some friends in the animal kingdom who are reflecting to us and showing us about our soul injuries. The creatures we are talking about are Pigs. The kids love the pigs, they are cute and funny and there are heaps on our place. They are excellent ploughs and create fabulous maddocked areas all ready for planting. We were driving around the property the other day and going over their earth works which Izabella named ‘piggy bumps’.
pig tracks
A little background on the pigs:
Pigs are an introduced species in Australia and unless domesticated and being bred for meat are regarded as feral and are shot religiously, feral animals in Australia are culled by law. In fact our nearest little biggish town is renowned for being the capital of the pig hunter. We periodically have calls from people who want to come and shoot the pigs and other feral or ‘pest’ animals on the property. Unfortunately what we are doing by shooting the ‘problem’ is preventing the Law of Attraction and exasperating the problem, here’s how: When we shoot the pigs (or any animal) the emotion that drives that actually causes the pigs to replicate like wildfire. The more we attack them the more they’ll replicate (see loving eco systems talks for more detailed information).
An aside: We did a course a short while back on animal rehabilitation and it is recommended that any non native animal brought in injured or found needs to be destroyed – put down/killed – you are not to rehabilitate them as you are not supposed to release them back into the wild – you can keep them in enclosures if you want to but it was not recommended. This felt really off to us as it is just reinforcing the emotions that are creating the problems in the first place. It was an eye opener though to our own personal desires and desire as a nation to eradicate the effects of our creations rather than deal with the causes.
For the last five or so years we have stopped shooting any animals on the place and begun looking at what our souls are creating and what the animals are reflecting. We believe that animals reflect us – humans – thus their behaviour is directly linked to us. Unfortunately the more they are attacked and shot the more they breed and the more they destroy, they are aggressive animals rather than passive and go into overdrive breeding wise when attacked (refer to loving eco system talks for more detailed information on aggressive organisms and why they do this.) We are noticing that many of the introduced so called ‘feral’ animals do this in comparison to the native animals that actually do not prolifically breed when attacked.
So how does this relate to us? We have been looking at why this happens and why we have attracted it into our lives. Firstly we found out that we do not love all God’s creatures equally. In each of the four souls on the property have favourites and treat different creatures differently. Pigs have been killed and are deemed a pest. When we stopped the contract shooting of pigs on the property we began enjoying the pigs, (they are like barrels on legs, very quiet and really amusing and funny when you come across them) but the emotions have not completely healed/changed within us. There are still fears amongst other things. When we heal the errors within us the pigs will not feel the need to attack the land or breed as rapidly and intensively as they are now. They are showing us things that we may not have seen otherwise, reflecting a whole heap inside of our souls we need to heal.
Recently we haven’t found them so amusing and realise we still have issues to work through in regards to the favouritism emotions and how we feel about ‘feral’, domesticated, wild, native, all different species of creature.

We went out to Standbye paddock a couple of months ago (one of the Summerfest project sites) and we were quite simply devastated to say the least. In fact we felt like giving it all up and that the whole world was working against us. We felt that everything we create gets destroyed and that it was a waste of everyone’s time who helped out if it was going to be all ruined.
Our friends the pigs had been in the paddock and literally dug up dam walls, trees, rooted through newspaper, everything had been foraged. Physically we could say that is the moist parts, etc etc, BUT we went a little deeper and had our beautiful friends visiting, Jesus and Mary, who were able to tell us exactly what in our soul was creating this (as we did not want to see it ourselves at the time and had gone into self punishment and shutdown numb mode for a time) What a gift from AJ and Mary!!.
We have emotions within us of feeling that:
  • Things that we love and create get destroyed,
  • Why even do anything if it is going to all get ruined
  • and the feeling that if we involve others in projects here we are to blame for the loss of their time and effort.
  • How we feel we are to blame when we are attacked and somehow we must have done something wrong and it is our fault
  • Our willingness to accept attack and our unwillingness to feel the grief of being attacked (by someone, something, spirits) causes more attack.

These were a few of the emotions exposed within us for us to feel through which brought us closer to the stuff inside of our souls that needs to be healed in order to care  for the land and animals in our care more effectively.

Jesus had also suggested fencing the areas we were planting down but we chose not too, thinking that it was only the sheep that would be a problem and we would solve that by keeping them out of the paddock. The irony is we thought fences control the sheep when it is actually our souls and this goes the same for the pigs. We are missing a big truth about our soul and how powerful it is. Jesus saw much more than we did and we did not choose to follow his direction on this one and thus set ourselves up to be open to self punishment which we ended up going into with the damage that was done.
We did not see the wild animals as under our control. We saw the fences as the method of control not our souls and the piggies showed us this loud and clear.
We learnt some valuable lessons:
  • Don’t be afraid to see my soul’s true condition at the time and make the appropriate compensation in love, for its condition with as much effort as possibly can at the time.
  • Know I can’t trust my feelings while I have injuries and errors around certain things. If I know I need time to deal with the feelings/emotions and if I have not dealt with them then make some compensatory effect that is loving that gives me time to deal with the feelings while still allowing for the growth to occur.
  • Everything is not always our fault. We are not responsible for everything that goes wrong. Everyone who works on the property contributes to what happens it is a collective law of attraction the areas that have had the gift of volunteers and our time.
  • It has not been a waste of time. It was an awesome and valid project that has highlighted areas where we need to patch up ‘holes’ and feel through emotions that are out of harmony with Love and Truth.
  • Find the reason WHY these things happen so we can feel through the emotions within us and no longer have the holes that allow the attack in the first place.
  • Pray for a willingness to see the things we do not want to see or ‘cannot’ see, if we cannot see them we cannot heal them. So grow the desire to see everything about yourself ( I reckon I need to grow some big humility for this one!!!)
  • Keep working on our favouritism emotions and get to a place where we love every creature equally (this needs to extend to loving every one of our brothers and sisters equally and all God’s creations equally. At this time we do not.)
reptile heaven piggy digging
reptile heaven piggy diggying
It happened again on the 21st May at the bottom of reptile heaven. It was triggered by a specific emotion or set of emotions at a specific time and the end result was what is seen in the photos. The beauty of this is that we could trace it back to what we were feeling just before it happened. The pigs have never been in this close to the houses and where we live. We were shocked and devastated again, highlighting that the emotions mentioned above have not yet been healed.
We thought you may be interested in how the soul affects everything around it and how our soul attracts events to highlight things we don’t want to see, God is continuously wanting to refine us in Love and to teach us about growing closer to her. This is an example of that process and how when the injuries exist within us they are played out through the Law of Attraction. It also highlights how our souls influence every creature around us.
Reptile heaven Piggy bumps (or pig digging/destruction):

Aviary Update

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There have recently been new arrivals in the Aviary including some little fluffy additions also. They are most gorgeous, and facinating. They are so small and trusting and just hang out in the bottom of the aviary seeming to sleep until food is brought to them or they want to feed. We are enjoying observing and learning about these little guys.
The folk at the Aviary now include:
Blue Faced Parrot Finches
Diamond Firetail Finches
Masked Finches
Painted Firetail Finches
Red Star Finches
Yellow Billed Longtail Finches
Yellow Star Finches
Zebra Finches
Some images of the aviary are below.
Painted Firetail & Yellow Billed Longtail

Yellow Billed Long Tails
Yellow Billed Longtail Finch baby (we think) hanging out so still and unmoving (sleeping?). Notice it has it’s eye closed.
Zebra Finch
Zebra Finch Fledgling (Baby Fluffball)
Diamond Firetail Pair
Red Star Finch
Yellow Star Finch
Painted Firetail

Bees & Thoughts on Insects and the Smaller Creatures

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We think bees* and flies, ants** (waste warriors), bugs, mosquitos, etc, etc, insects and creatures of all types, shapes and sizes are really very clever, very cool and very interesting. The amount of things they do are amazing. They are so talented and we don’t think that we would survive without them. We feel it is important to provide for the bottom of the food chain and all creatures***.
Where would we be without the insects, microbes, little soil warriors? The worms, soil makers and all those in between. They break down our waste, organic matter and are beautiful recycliers. They pollinate, clean up, and have perfect symbiotic relationships with various other living creatures and flora.
They facinate and intrigue us and we love learning about what they do, how they do it, their purposes, roles, and their individual talents and the wonders that they are.
Since becoming interested in insects and the smaller creatures and life creators we have discovered some amazing species. We don’t think they are new to Earth (we know they are not), but they are new to us and they are beautiful and awe inspiring to observe and learn about.
We were talking to a friend of ours the other day and he has seen blue bees.
We have (for the first time) seen blue/green iridescent flies with black and white polka dot undersides and yellow heads, purple iridescent ants with blue legs, rainbow bugs – jewel beetles and christmas beetles, soldier beetles; there are mud wasps working with Izabella, Charlie and Archie in their mud pits and building perfect mud castles on the underside of our veranda and in the kids curtains. The kids love bugs and are always finding species to come and show us. We are beginning to love bugs of all kinds, shapes and sizes.
There are so many wonders in this world. So much to explore, discover and enjoy. I am grateful to our creator for making such diversity, perfection and wondrous creatures so perfectly and precicely.
If we (the human soul) are the pinnacle of God’s creation imagine what we are like in all our glorious perfection****- something to aim for, smile.
Bee and Fly collecting from the sunflowers
Bee Day (one of Michael’s and the kids passions) – checking bees and setting up a new hive for a swarm
Bees checking out their new home
Check out the website http://www.aussiebee.com.au/beesinyourarea.html#locationtable for more native Australian bee information.
Golden honey from domesticated bees
A wild bee entering it’s hive in a hollow in a manna gum near the creek
Wild bee hive found in the paddock. How amazing are bees to build such perfect honey
comb from scratch.

Really God has created such beautiful, perfect, precise, amazing, awe inspiring creatures both great and small! Think of all the things, all the creatures we have no idea about and yet they are working in perfect harmony all around us doing all sorts of things that I often feel we take totally for granted and are often in total ignorance about the how’s and why’s of. Nature is definitely one beautiful way to explore and discover more about God and God’s perfect creations. Tread lightly and carefully on your discoveries. smile.

 
* A really cool Australian bee website is http://www.aussiebee.com.au/beesinyourarea.html#locationtable it has some great photos and basic information on lots of types of bees.

**Check out Mary’s blog for some really interesting images of insects in extreme flood conditions and a documentary on ants who are seriously amazing!!

***We still are working through some feelings we have around certain insects, creatures and bugs that attack things but realise that their behaviour is to do with our emotions and projections towards them rather than just an un warranted intent to attack. They wouldn’t attack if they felt loved, ‘safe’ protected, provided for and as important as every other creature in the environment. At the moment things are still out of balance for us. We are working to love all creatures equally. Observing ourselves in this experiment is very enlightening!
 
****We are not there yet by any means, but sometimes I like to wonder and imagine what the possibilities of my soul are if I am stretched all the way to being at-one-with-God, Wow! (I don’t think my imaginings even come close).  I love wondering and entertaining thoughts about the possibilities of creation in nature of a soul who is in a state of perfection!

Waterless Nursery Project

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The waterless nursery project is an ongoing project. We are keen to do some experiments with other materials to hold the water also. This project ties in with the Waterless Garden project.
Observations: We have had some really hot weather this summer and have found the waterless nursery to be fabulous. It has saved us time watering every day and worry about if plants are getting enough water or not.
We feel that this could be modified in many ways to create plantable veggie gardens and other things. Just keep in mind root length of plants if planting in these systems as you may need to modify designs to accommodate different plants etc.
Now we are getting heaps of rain we are wondering if we needed to put more woodchip in ours so there was less room in the tops where the plants are. We have done a variety of heights and will see what happens after this rain. Also wondering if an overflow may have been a good idea so the plants don’t drown, we have needed to scoop out some water over the last few days as the tops have filled out.

How to make a waterless nursery:

1. Place newspaper on the ground quite thick (to prevent plastic tearing or things sticking though).

2. Stack two kiwi collars on top of each other on top of the newspaper:

You could also make your own out of old crates/pallets or other wood. Kiwi collars are great as they can be shaped into different shapes and have a special stacker lock hinge so they don’t move when attached together. (check out www.kiwicollars.com.au for more information).

kiwi collar

3. Line the kiwi collars with plastic, peg the plastic to the sides to keep it in place (we used a double layer of builders lining plastic.

line with newspaper
4. put newspaper on top of the plastic in the bottom of the kiwi collars to prevent the woodchip from sticking through the plastic.
5. Add a piece of pipe as a water inlet so you can fill the kiwi collars with water and add water incase it gets too dry from time to time if needed. (we put a flower pot with a bit of shade cloth over the pipe inlet so that the woodchips do not block up the pipe and water has a free flow in.)

newspaper lining, water inlet
6. Add woodchip to desired height
adding woodchip
7. Put in a layer of regen felt, this stops weeds and creates a wicking effect
felt layer

8. Add woodchip on top of the felt

add woodchip (trim plastic if needed)

9. Add a soil layer to the top if you desire to plant into it to make garden beds

10. We didn’t put a soil layer as we just want this to be a nursery, so all our plants are in pots at this time and sitting directly on the felt wicking the water up. They are working really well!!

nursery plants in their self watering beds
Other methods and ideas for waterless gardens (these have been implemented in the Waterless Garden Project):
Depending on weather conditions it could be a good idea to actually line this with plastic. I know on the illustration
it says don’t need lining but Lincon and Philippa have noticed with the dry weather that it would have been a much
better idea to line it. The ‘Kiwi collar’ in this image can also be dug into the ground, it does not have or need to be above ground to work. Decisions can be made to suit the design you desire for your project.
This is an experiment and not sure how it is going. We are going to also try one with small pebbles and woodchip and see what happens. Same concept as above. The layers can be used and modified for your particular project.
An experiment with collecting dew  to water plants. – we suggest plastic lining for both logs and rocks at this time
condensation collecting area in the waterless garden
Once again we suggest to line the dug out area with plastic. (The wood is underground)
‘Hotspot’ in the waterless garden project

Thank you to AJ and Mary, Philippa and Lincon for some of the photos in this post.
Thank you also to AJ for demonstrating and bringing our awareness to this method of gardening.

Living Fertility Systems

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If you haven’t read the blog ‘Creating Loving Eco-Systems -An Introduction’ yet we suggest that you do so especially if you have the intention to actually create a living system yourself.

We began these systems in 2012 and it is an on going project.

It is really important to understand that you need to have a feeling of love and put love into this project. Without love it is not going to flourish and be abundant. If you don’t desire to give love to what you are doing we suggest not to begin the project (better to look at why you don’t want to first, and do the project at another time).

Living Systems are about creating, food, habitat, moisture (water) for Bacteria, fungus, microbes, soil-based creatures (worms, ants, white ants etc), Plants that prepare the environment (weeds, trees seemingly without “purpose”) Above ground and airborne creatures (insects, spiders, etc). 

They very basically consist of putting a lot of dead matter in one place and creating a decomposing (not composting) mound or hole to give all the little life creating creatures/primary recovery organisms food and a place to flourish. 

If your intention is to get from the mound or hole, to take for yourself e.g. plant a fruit tree right away in it so you can eat rather than purely just wanting to create fertility in the soil you may find there are issues (this does not mean that eventually there wont be a fruit tree there that you can eat, but we need to be very honest with ourselves about why we are engaging in the projects in the first place, expectation and demands on plants and creatures causes negative results in our experience (this is a process). 

Living systems are about properly preparing the soil and environment so that eventually it will be wholly self sustainable and will support all life (flora and fauna). The intention of living systems is to provide abundance to the living intelligence that knows best how to repair what is damaged – in this case the soil. Soil based living intelligence knows best how to heal, balance soil, water based living intelligence know best how to heal, balance water systems, if we create places where these primary recovery organisms have all they need to live and flourish abundantly close by then they will feel loved, not attacked and will abundantly be able to procreate and multiply which is exactly what the land needs.

These creatures are all your friends. It is only when organisms feel attacked that they can get out of balance and ‘attack’ back (for them they are only ensuring their survival). Example: when white ants eat your house they are not purposely attacking you out of spite, they are just doing their job of recycling dead matter. If you loved the white ants and had a whole heap of dead matter and gave the white ants an opportunity to create a home that they loved with abundant food and water nearby they could well leave your house alone. If we love these organisms as much as we love other creatures e.g. your cat or dog, and give them as much love, food, shelter, water as we can then they wont have reason to attack and can get on with having lots of sex multiply at a rate that is sustainable for where they live (totally in balance and harmony) and doing what they do best – recovery jobs. That will cut down your work and effort and make everyone and everything in the environment around you much happier and more plentiful. They don’t need us, we do need them and in our arrogance we often think that we don’t. 

primary soil recovery creature! These guys are truly intelligent
and completely amazing in many ways!!

Living System example, Below Ground Variety (Hole):

 
Living System Example, Above Ground Variety (Mound):
 
 
Basic Construction of a Living System:
Give Abundantly to your living fertility systems, both love and matter!!
 
note: you do not need specific ingredients to construct a living system. you can use what you have on hand and you can do it over a period of time. For example you could have a hole in your back yard and put all your organic food waste, old clothing, some tin and metal (avoid aluminium where possible), your own manure – if you are vegan and want to, (meat eaters excrement has toxins and different bacteria in it), all paper (ripped up, or scrunched to create air pockets for worms), cardboard, newspapers etc (put it in vertically so worms and organisms have somewhere to go if it gets wet), old broken furniture, bits of wood, grass clippings, what ever you have in it, cover it with a board until you fill it up (so you don’t fall down it) and when a few inches from the top cover it with a thick layer of wood chip, put an optional decorative stump, log or rock on top of it and let the primary recovery organisms do their wonderful thing. You could also have little holes all over the place and put your household waste in it.
 
If you do have access to fallen branches, dead trees (these need to be covered and have as much surface area contact with the ground as possible to encourage decomposition and so that the organisms can eat them without being open to attack, hay, debosia, manure, etc etc, use that!
 
Below Ground Variety:
Dig a hole:
 
This can be very large to small depending on the scale of your project and how much matter you have to put in it.
or Find a bit of erosion:
Collect a whole heap of matter (be Generous): 
Newspaper, cardboard, paper, shredded paper,

Hay, debosia, damaged hay, mouldy hay, etc etc

Manure, horse, cow, sheep, any animal (note that bat and chicken are extremely strong, might need to mix these with less astringent manures), human – if vegan

windfall trees/branches etc

seeded dead weed/grass matter, lawn mowings etc

Add what you have got, what you can find, what you have on hand.
Encouraging what is already there & using what you have at hand:

We suggest if you have a pile of wood as above to begin that as the basis of your mound, stuff the other matter, cardboard, paper, hay, woodchip, smaller sticks, manure, manure slurry – for the worms etc, what ever you have in all the holes, stuff it up tight and then cover it with manure, and finish it with hay so you have a lovely big mound of dead matter that is covered as much as possible. This can be done with tree stumps also, create the mound around them where they already exist.
encouraging what is already there – feeding a white ants nest,
adding cardboard and wood chips to encourage the
life and support it where it is.
Add minerals (be generous):
 
You will need to identify what minerals the soil needs. A soil test is good for this. We used gypsum for the project in standby paddock as there was a clay base. In other areas of the land we have used different mineral combinations. Each hole may be different.
You can put an optional layer of newspaper (2 sheets thick) over the minerals if you want.
Put compacted matter into the holes:
 
put cardboard bales, hay bales, fallen trees, tree stumps, branches -cut up to fit hole, (compacted items) in the hole.
jostling a bale into place
Pack it in tight – generously:
Pack Cardboard/hay/matter around the compacted matter to fill up the hole tight. When using paper and cardboard put it standing up ways so that worms and other organisms are able to crawl upwards to the top to get out of excess water.
Adding cardboard and newspaper
the more cardboard the better –  food
Adding more food
Add Manure and worms – generously:
 
Worms love manure and will chomp through it. We also created what we called ‘worm slurry’ a water manure brew that was soaked for a few days before putting it into the system. We did this to add moisture and a place for worms to begin feasting and breeding right away. Worms need moisture. (No need to deplete your worm breeding centres too much, take what you can and then wait till the worms breed up more and add more to the living system at a later date, if needed.)
(We put manure all through the systems and then made little worm pockets with slurry at the top of the holes to create a worm feasting/breeding area from which they can multiply and spread through the system).
 
Worm Slurry:
 
This can be a mixture of all sorts of things that worms like, could include food scraps too if you wanted to.
Can be water, manure, decomposed matter, small bits of cardboard soaked, or just manure and water. Make use of what you have or can easily access.
make a worm food slurry/brew water, poo,
decomposed hay, small bits of cardboard
put the slurry/brew under the newspaper in all the
holes and cracks so that there is moisture
Cover with Mulch:
 
to keep it moist and also add more food and places for insects to live.
adding mulch
Cover with mulch to keep moist (what a lovely ‘bug’ palace)
 
Adding dead matter:
 
We were really grateful to our neighbours (the Munsies) for their generous gift of felled trees to put both underground into the living system hole and also on the top of it.
moving dead matter onto the top – creating habitat and
food sources for fauna.
Put as much matter as possible in and on top of the holes.
Cover as much surface area as possible:
Pack matter around the wood to ensure as much surface area of the logs are covered or touching hay, woodchip, etc so that it breaks down faster and so creatures can easily eat and make homes and do not have to endanger themselves or work hard to do so.
cover with woodchips (optional, you could use the wood chips in the living
system or if limited supply keep them to use for mulching around the
 regeneration ‘support’ plants (legumes) rather than putting it
over the top.
Woodchip packed around the tree stumps to enable more
surface area to be available to primary recovery organisms.
(You can use hay, or any other materials you may have
access to).
Living System Above Ground Variety:
 
To construct an above ground living system is pretty much the same as below ground but without a hole. There are heaps of ways you can build it, some examples: on crates, straight on the ground, cut a small cut or swale into the ground before piling matter.
Important to note that the above ground system is about decomposition not composting. You do not want it to be overheating (unless specifically designed to do so for example in the case of cold climate and creating micro climate hot spots.) Composting kills life as it gets too hot. Decomposition encourages life, (decomposition still feels warms just not hot).
above ground (mound) living system
Make a cut, or just lay a crate, hay or any other matter on the ground to build upon.
You could use an old tree stump, piles of wood, windfall branches, logs, trees. You can make living systems around what already exists if it is too hard to move. GIVE ABUNDANTLY to your Living Fertility Systems!
The beginning of the worm ‘mound’
Bale of hay wedged into a bit of open soil
and separated to create decomposition not composting.
Primary Recovery Organisms don’t like too much heat
fill the gaps with cardboard and manure/logs/fallen branches etc

put the slurry/brew under the newspaper in all the
holes and cracks so that there is moisture

Put it all together

cover in manure, mulch it with hay, cover with wood chips and
then put fallen branches  (ones that have not been on the
ground long and that have not begun creating habitat.) To
hold the mound in place and create habitat and encourage other
fauna and flora to come and make their homes!
cut timber for the top and middle of mounds
 
The mound
Creating Living Systems (to improve soil fertility) was a great day learning about the earth, ourselves and how to create abundance through giving love and supporting the intelligent life systems without expectation* that support us. 
I feel that one of the greatest gifts was the fact that if want to take and we want for everything to be given to us from the earth; If we do not desire to give and love the earth, land and all the intelligent life – the fungi, bacteria, microbes, micro-organisms, worms, insects, and all the creating things – then it is really best to not begin in the first place. The whole exercise is an exercise in giving for the pure desire to give to that which creates. To give without gain. 

Personal Note on what Eloisa learnt from creating Living Systems: I need to be like a worm hole.

To stop expecting and demanding** from the earth and the land and to trust God’s abundance and her way of creating and see the way she creates and help out the best that I can by providing food, water, shelter to everything that sustains life. To all the insects, fungi, bacteria, microbes, micro-organisms etc these are our friends and our desire to erridicate them reflects how much negative, self serving desire we have and how little we understand about the way that the world operates as God designed it. We create more and more problems that then need fixing. We are exhausting ourselves with meaningless things that could be done so much more easily if we were more humble, more logical and actually understood what God has gifted us in the first place. We humans claim to be intelligent but I am beginning to wonder, smile. What I saw today is that God’s way is best*** and it is beautiful, magical, abundant and can create wonderlands…. We are excited about the experiment and to see ‘who moves in’ and what happens.

* Today I learnt how much expectation I have about things giving to me in order for me to get what i want. I learnt how much demand we have and how much pressure we put on the earth rather than giving to the earth abundantly and without expectation to encourage intelligent living flora and fauna to create it’s own living self creating systems. 

** This is an emotional change not just an intellectual exercise that we can think into existance. It takes us emotionally releasing the demands and expectations that we have on things to sustain us. To grow our desire to love, grow our desire to give and our desire to find out about all the intelligent life that God has created and support it purely because we desire to support it and for no other reason. 

*** In my arrogance I am not always humble to this fact and try to force my way, but when it is logically explained I wonder why I thought there was any other but God’s way. Much to learn and how exciting!