Natur – sealion

Integrationen av Market Gardening i en permakulturdesign

I det här inlägget vill jag utgå från en presentation jag nyligen höll för nätverket och plattformen FoodShift.se. FoodShift arrangerade en träff i Göteborg med fokus på bioregionalism och regenerativa livsmedelssystem, och jag som länge grunnat på hur vi kan använda permakulturdesign för att arbeta regenerativt med matproduktion fick möjligheten att presentera tankar kring kopplingen mellan Market Gardening och permakultur.

Som ni märker är det en mängd olika begrepp jag just hänvisat till. I texten nedan kommer jag att fortsätta beröra dem, och mer utförlig information om hur de definieras och används går att finna via sökningar på webben. För mig är senhösten och vintern en tid för förkovran och att lära nytt, är du sugen på samma upplägg så hugg tag i dessa begrepp och grotta ner dig! Det finns både filmklipp och texter att ta del av.

På bilden ovan står David Holmgren, medgrundare till konceptet permakultur, i sin köksträdgård framför sitt egenbyggda hus på gården Melliodora i Australien. Min man Tim och jag deltog år 2017 i en permakulturutbildning som var baserad i området kring Melliodora. Vi åkte på studiebesök till en mängd olika platser, verksamheter och gårdar som en del av kursen, och det följande året fortsatte vi att både besöka och arbeta på olika permakulturdesignade gårdar. Jag tog med mig många insikter kring hur ett funktionellt småbruk kan byggas upp och skötas, och det har i sin tur lett mig vidare till att fokusera på hur Market Gardening/småskalig grönsaksodling kan integreras i en permakulturdesign för ett småbruk, med syfte att öka framför allt den ekonomiska resiliensen. Om vi struntar i idealismen som ofta följer med tankar kring permakultur och istället fokuserar på hur vi ska skapa intäkter nog för att kunna leva på vårt småbruk och ha råda att betala räkningar mm, hur kan vi göra då? Hur går vi från att vara månskensbönder med ett externt jobb till att kunna försörja oss utifrån vår gård?

David förklarar att permakultur som koncept uppkom i skärningspunkten mellan ekologi, jordbruk och landskapsdesign. Ordet är en sammanslagning av permanent och agriculture -> permaculture. På de 40 år som gått sedan han och Bill Mollison skrev en första bok om permakultur så har begreppet vidgats från att fokusera på jordbruk till att omfamna hela den mänskliga kulturen, dvs permanent och culture -> permaculture. I blomman ovan syns alla de delar som samspelar för att vi ska kunna skapa en välmående mänsklig kultur som håller sig innanför de planetära gränserna. Till höger syns en modell för hur permakultur som koncept är uppbyggt utifrån etik och principer, fria från religiösa eller politiska kopplingar.

Grundbulten i permakultur är de tre etiska pelarna:

Omsorg om jorden
Omsorg om människan
En rättvis fördelning av resurser

Etiken förankras genom ett antal principer, t ex “Skapa inget avfall”, “Använd små och långsamma lösningar”, “Fånga in och lagra energi”, “Använd och värdesätt förnybara tjänster och resurser” och “Lägg mönstret först, fyll i detaljerna sedan”.

För att komma igång med sin egen permakulturdesign kan man t ex använda sig av följande iterativa designprocess: OBREDIMET

O: Observation av systemet du befinner dig i.
B: Boundaries. Gränser för designen, t ex fastighetsgräns, tidsgräns, tillgängligt kapital, klimat.
R: Resurser. Vad finns tillgängligt inom systemet? Lista alla resurser så att du synliggör dem.
E: Evaluation. Utvärdera samspelet mellan de resurser som finns tillgängliga inom ditt avgränsade system, t ex personella resurser i förhållande till materiella och ekonomiska resurser i ett företag. Vad rör sig in i systemet och vad rör sig ut ur systemet?
D: Design. Skapa en första design för hur resurserna på bästa vis kan samspela i det fysiska eller virtuella rummet.
I: Implementation. Genomför din design!
M: Maintenance. Underhåll systemet du håller på att omforma och bygga upp.
E: Evaluation. Hur gick det? Blev det en funktionell utformning eller behöver något ändras?
T: Tweak. Justera din design efter behov.

När du genomgått en första iteration av processen är du tillbaka vid observationsstadiet och kan påbörja nästa varv i designspiralen, eller hoppa runt mellan de olika stadierna för att göra uppdateringar och justeringar. Denna designprocess baserad på akronymet OBREDIMET hjälper dig att hålla koll på var i ditt arbete du befinner dig, använd det som ett dynamiskt hjälpverktyg snarare än en statisk processkarta.

Sedan jag själv först läste ordet permakultur i en bok om byggekologi så har jag förkovrat mig rejält, både genom utbildningar, konferenser, lärarsamarbeten och självstudier. Ovan ser ni några av de böcker som varit avgörande för mitt tänkande, och även ett par podcasts vilka gett utrymme till att lyssna till en massa kloka bönder och forskare medan jag själv arbetat hands-on som odlare.

All denna fördjupning i det breda ämnet permakultur leder självklart till nya idéer och tankar om hur jag själv kan bidra till att skapa ett positivt fotavtryck på den här planeten. Jag tycker om att vara i naturen och har därför valt att fokusera på ämnet mat och odling, vilket har lett mig vidare till självstudier inom bl a regenerativt jordbruk och Market Gardening.

Själva idén om ett permakultursamhälle är attraktiv för många, vi kan lite suddigt se oss själva leva i ett fint samspel med naturen i en nutida Edens lustgård. Men när det kommer till kritan så finns det väldigt många tänkare i förhållande till görare. Jag vill uppmuntra fler till att faktiskt sätta igång praktiskt med permakultur, och en instegsmodell är att integrera grönsaksodling enligt modellen för en Market Garden i din permakulturdesign. Då uppstår möjligheten att bygga upp ditt eget odlarföretag där du i första skedet fokuserar på snabba, ettåriga växter för att sedan över tid kunna integrera fler och fler perenna grödor och på så vis etablera ett människoinkluderande ekosystem som tillgodoser våra behov av mat, fibrer, timmer, medicin etc samtidigt som andra organismer också får ett självklart livsutrymme.

En Market Garden är en biointensiv grönsaksodling uppbyggd med permanenta bäddar, där hög input leder till hög output. Effektiv och tydlig planering samt införsel av kompost, fröer, vatten mm leder till höga grönsaksskördar och intäkter därefter. Du arbetar med den mänskliga skalan, använder mycket handkraft och enkla redskap istället för att fokusera på större traktorer och större areal. En Market Garden kan t ex etableras på 1000 kvadratmeter och sedan över tid – om möjlighet till utökning finns – växa sig större.

I en permakulturdesign ser jag en Market Garden placerad i zon 1-2. I takt med att du etablerat denna grönsaksodling och fått bra snurr på dess skötsel så har du möjlighet att tack vare observationerna du hunnit göra utveckla din design för zon 3-4. Då kan de permanenta bäddarna i zon 1-2 användas som en del i ett mönster för inkluderingen av fleråriga grödor i zon 3-4 där anläggning, skötsel och skörd förenklas tack vare den tydliga bäddstrukturen.

Din Market Garden kan svälla till att bli en Permaculture Market Garden som spänner över ett helt ekosystem.

Det jag föreslår här är ingen enkel quick fix för att etablera permakulturdesignade platser, men det är en möjlig väg framåt. Att arbeta med grönsaksodling är stundtals ett tungt och slitigt arbete där du ska uppfylla entreprenörens samtliga roller under osäkra löneförhållanden. Det kan också vara det bästa som har hänt dig i ditt yrkesliv! Ett arbete i samklang med årstiderna, till stora delar förlagt utomhus med en hög grad av självbestämmande, en stor utvecklingspotential tillsammans med driftiga samarbetspartners och en ständigt tillgång till högklassiga livsmedel, c’est pas mal.

Det här inlägget hoppas jag inspirerar dig att leta efter mer kunskap och att bygga fler egna erfarenheter kring alla dessa begrepp som jag nämnt. I en värld som kan tyckas orolig och instabil är det givande att se till konkreta positiva åtgärder vilka är möjliga att genomföra i nutid. Vi är många som gemensamt arbetar med detta omställningsarbete, och även om vi är så små att vi till vardags inte syns i mediebruset så existerar vi, det gäller bara att hitta vägar in i detta mångfacetterade starka nätverk av tänkar-görare! Välkommen du med, alla kan göra skillnad.

Klara

Synthesizing through climbing

’Of belay’, I shout down to Tim, who’s on a ledge sixty meters below me. I’ve built an anchor in a seeping crack, and as the sun is approaching its apex the heat is creating a humid microclimate smelling of childhood aquariums. I look at my dirty taped up hands and belay Tim up the pitch, thinking of nothing much but at the same time processing ideas, while feeling his movement through the ropes.

This simplicity of being a mountain person is what sustains my thinking and analyzing of a larger perspective these days. At work, I’m embodying the outcome of these thoughts, but the perspective is so close and so day-to-day oriented that I find it hard to really zoom out while being at the farm. I can take in and store information and experiences, but I can’t synthesize them. Hence my need for time off in the mountains, for climbing.

Tim reaches the anchor and we swiftly shift gear and sip some water before he takes off on the next pitch. I feed out rope and glance at his movements, enjoy the sight of him solving the puzzle to smoothly flow up the rock face.

Professionally, right now and for the past few years, I’ve been a farmer. I love to grow food as a way of activism, a way to fight climate change by storing carbon in the soil, a way to feed my fellow human beings and other creatures and critters whilst providing a solution to the globally engulfing mess that we’re all in. I’ve spent my whole life learning and looking for answers to the question of how I can be a part of creating a positive change in this world. Some call me naive or pretentious, some get scared by my strong will to reach this seemingly far-flung goal, yet many more seem to get inspired by my meandering but relentless effort to do something. Part of what I do is to write about this human experience of mine, of the way my thinking is changing with every year that passes while I continuously learn more about different aspects of life, my own and the biosphere’s. Nothing is ever going to be certain, I can’t know that I’m doing the right thing, but I trust science and I’m trying my best.

’Watch me now, I’m on blue’ I hear from above. ’It’s a super wet slab traverse here, if I fall I’m on the blue rope’. I shift my stance, ready myself. But Tim just smears his way over the wet section and reaches the next one bolt anchor. I hear the sound of clinging cams and nuts, some muttering, a satisfying carabiner click and then ’Safe! You can take me of belay Klara’. I unclip the ropes, stash my ATC on my rear loop, tie up my shoelaces again and prepare to clean out the anchor and follow up the granite wall.

What does farming and climbing have in common? For starters, farming in the Market Gardening style using low tech, bio-intensive, efficiently standardized practices requires a strong body. There’s a lot of shoveling, digging and dragging heavy things around going on on a weekly basis. The beds need new layers of compost before replanting, the harvesting can easily add up to hundreds of pounds of produce being moved around, heavy sandbags holding down remay might come on and of multiple times during a week and transplanting into dry clay soil often require hours of murderous stabbing to get the little plants safely positioned into their new spot. If I hadn’t been a climbing, freediving outdoors loving yoga practitioner, I would have been screwed. I simply can’t be a farmer without being an athlete. I’ve never managed to figure out how others do it, stay strong and fit and keep away from injuring themselves whilst only farming and not doing any kind of movement based activity on the side. The old cliché of ”Work hard, play hard” describes my life situation quite well. I need a balance.

As I heel hook my way up a slabby arête I’m focusing only on what my body is doing, where my limbs are, how I’m shifting my body weight to access stability. I heave myself into a crack, dig in deep to be able to retrieve the cam that Tim has placed in there with his long arms, and continue up a burly and wet section of gently weathered flaky granite. Beautiful! I follow on the wet traverse, smearing in puddles of water, giggling. How I love these little adventures within the adventure, the unexpected conditions creating an edge to what we’re up to. It was raining further northwest in Norway so we opted out of Romsdal and went to Nissedal. It’s the place where most people in this part of the world goes to have their first multipitch trad experience, but I’ve never been before. After laughing exhaustedly at the howling winds and spindrift of the Fitz Roy massif, trying to climb easier routes up Aguja Guillaumet and Aguja Mermoz, this little wet slab section seems like a very straight forward problem. It’s like anything in life, once you push forward and gain confidence in unknown terrain you can later relax in a less complicated situation, knowing that you’ve got this.

That’s how I feel at work. I’m busting my ass running a small scale Market Garden for the City of Gothenburg, a project funded by the EU for three years. I’m delivering veggies to nearby preschools and schools, testing the thesis that a municipality can achieve better results both economically, socially and ecologically by running their own farming operation rather than buying in food from external sources. Can we opt to pay a salary instead of paying for vegetables, and if we do, what else can be achieved at the same time? Can we run this as a Model Farm where we can train young farmers, preparing them for the highs and lows of working in agriculture, creating a new wave of environmentally sound farmers?

I’ve been circling this trade of growing food and tending plants for years now, linking it to foraging both on land and in water, combining it with the issues of food safety and food sovereignty, with urban farming and climate positive livelihoods. I’m a jack of all trades kind of person and in my line of work as a farmer I’m using all my skills from working assembly lines, making cheese, studying engineering, gardening and geology to traveling the world freediving, climbing and WWOOFing, and I can tell you it’s all coming in handy. What I’m doing at work is an expression of connecting ideas from solutions oriented frameworks out there, applying them to my site specific conditions here on the Swedish West coast. Permaculture, regenerative agriculture, agroforestry, these ideas are all pointing in the same direction. Care for your land, care for your people, share your bounty. Live simply, so that others may simply live.

I put my right foot up on the lip, adjust my grip and crimp down while slowly, breathlessly inching my way towards the roof crack above me. The piton hammered in there is so close, but I can’t reach it yet. I move into a frog position and stand up, belly against the warm rock, reminding myself that this is not a vertical face. Just relax and clip the piton, you’ve got this. I continue right along the roof crack, smearing my feat or delicately toeing into fissures and indentations. The cams are bomber, the sun is shining, the landscape below is like a fairytale. My soul is wide open, in awe of the natural world. This is our wedding day, and there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing right now.

We move up the last pitch of Mot Sola and finish on a grassy ledge that takes us to the top of Haegefjell. We drop our harnesses, take off a layer of clothes and bask in the sun. We slice an apple and put the crisp bits on our peanut butter sandwiches, wolf them down. This was a mere six hour outing, some 350 vertical meters, and a perfect ending to my summer vacation. Life down there on the lowlands will continue, my strive for doing something positive with my life as a farmer will continue, but up here none of that matters. I’m a climber. Right now, I’m right here.

Stadsodling: Ekonomi vs kalori vs ekologi

Scoutar arbets- och (egentligen?) livsmöjligheter, både realistiska och drömska sådana. Jag fortsätter att längta efter en tydligare samhällsförändrande position. Att odla grönsaker i smarta system blir värdefullt framför allt om jag kommunicerar och forskar kring det. Att ”bara” odla räcker inte. I år har jag skrivit bloggar åt magasin Dagg för att iaf få ut en del av mina odlings-lärdomar till en mer publik arena. Men. Drömmen är ju att få till stånd hypoteser, analyser och mätningar av odingssystemen vilket skapar ett vetenskapligt uppbackat faktaunderlag. Att jobba i en grupp med en biolog, en nutritionist, en miljövetare, en ekonom från industriell symbios-arenan, en ingenjör från energisektorn, en agronom, kanske någon mer. Ta det lokala praktiska arbetets grönsaksvolymer, vattenflöden, gödningsmedel, biologiska mångfald mm genom en räknemaskin och se vad den reella effekten är.

Hos Sasha har jag ex varit med och odlat ca 40 olika sorters grödor på strax över 1100 kvm bäddyta exklusive gångar. Hur många dagars standardbehov av 2000-2500 kilokalorier/dag har vi odlat? (Ja, jag ska räkna på det själv med siffror från Livsmedelsverket). Vilka habitat har vi skapat, vilka har vi utraderat? Vilken energi har vi stoppat in – bensin, muskulär, el osv – och vad fick vi ut? Odlar vi en bra sammansättning grönsaker rent kostmässigt? Bidrar vi till hälsofrämjande ätande? Hur kan vi återcirkulera kompost, urin och fekalier till odlingarna? Sker det genom ett mellansteg eller flera, ex biogasproduktion?

Jag har inte kompetensen att själv räkna på alla frågor som surrar i huvudet, men jag skulle mer än gärna samordna ett projekt med ett systemteoretiskt angreppssätt.

Stadsodling och stadsnära odling börjar äntligen ses som självklarheter. Det är fett bra. Problemet med utformningen just nu är enligt mig ett för obalanserat fokus på ekonomin bakom odlingarna. Att det ska vara möjligt att ha en funktionell privatekonomi och vara stadsbonde är ett baskrav, gott så. Men idag bygger många modeller på att odla det som växer snabbt och kan säljas dyrt. Vi mättar inte städernas befolkning genom att odla microgreens och salladsblad, även om det kan vara en ekonomiskt gångbar modell om man är en nutida stadsodlare. Hur forsätter vi att pusha för en utjämning av ekonomi vs kalori vs ekologi?

I SEE YOU

As always, you come to the end of the wave. The rush is over as the force dissipates beneath you, leaving you behind in the frothy surface. Hello..?

Making a decision to act can be a lot like surfing. I decide to go for it (whatever ”it” is), paddle hard, catch the wave, stand up, find my balance and try to adapt to the movement – until the wave throws me of or rolls away. A split second of uncertainty follows, then, sitting up on my board again I have this happy feeling in my body, telling me that I did after all surf that one. The ocean and the waves all look the same, repeating infinitely, but the feeling of success lingers.

Anyways.

It’s fun, comparing different parts of your life, different sides of your personality. I have just decided to act upon an old, hmm, instinct of mine? I’ve just pledged to become a regenerative small scale farmer. The feeling that I belong to the land, to the biosphere, and that I should devote my life to regenerating the ecosystems, it goes deeper then everything else. And so perhaps, perhaps using the word ”instinct” is correct.

After making the decision to become that person, the grower and the stewardess, I relax. I throw my fists in the air, let go of the wave and sink back into the ocean. Making a decision is hard work and I need a break. I read the news, read about different projects, read about what other people have accomplished. Mostly positive, solutions oriented stuff within the frame of climate change and how to address it. It’s nice to see what else is happening outside my little nomadic sphere of right now.

Suddenly, I can sense a shift. The warm fuzziness of achievement is evaporating and a sort of fearful nervousness is creeping into my emotions. Like a hunter I step back and watch, scouting this intruder. Grrrr… I lounge at it and pin it down. Ha!

Oh fear, fuck of! I see you. I SEE YOU. You’re here because I’ve made a decision to act on a small scale and you don’t think that’s good enough. We’ll let me tell you something, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Because if I don’t start here, with something that I can manage without running myself over, I’m never going to be able to scale up this regenerative plan I’m holding.

Hey fear, I see you and I know you from before. You’ve been part of my decision making process for a long time, interrupting and pushing for unrealistic goals, or rather – pushing for super-fast achievement of huge goals.

E r r o r. Not. Possible.

Subconsciously I’ve been so afraid of not being enough. Of not doing enough. Of being that sucker who saw it all happening yet did nothing or too little to prevent all coming generations of life from suffering.

But how do we measure these things, our actions in relation to the health of the biosphere? We’re all different and can accomplish different things within our lifetime. I for one thought you had to go big or go home. That in the end what mattered surely wasn’t how much money you had in the bank but how much good you had done for The One & Only Planet. Did you save it? No? Shame on you!

But now…

My feelings regarding personal responsibility have changed, they’re still demanding but not overly so. I’m a human, a person who only knows so much, who only has the experience of my own life to count on, and who can no longer be fooled by myself into thinking that what I do is not enough.

I’m doing just fine, because I am doing all I can. Own it, Klara.

I’m trusting myself evermore as the years pass by. I read what I’ve written at different stages of my life and the core of it has always been the same. Help the planet. So why worry about not doing enough when clearly I’m devoting everything that I am to making that happen? Not tomorrow, but in the long run.

I can start small and keep evolving.

I will start small and keep evolving.

Adiós, fear, see you round. You’ve been very helpful in your own way.

Klaras odlarmanifest

Djupt inuti finns en stark kraft. Jag har alltid känt att det jag som människa ska göra är att ta hand om planeten. ”Hur då” har varit den ständigt ledsagande frågeställningen, och länge, länge har jag letat efter mitt eget sätt att vara en Bra Människa.

I olika omgångar har jag granskat mitt eget liv för att se var jag befinner mig och vart jag ska styra vidare. Jag listar de möjligheter jag kan se, sätter prioritet och agerar. Ramverket och målet är ett miljövänligt liv: Boende, kost, transport, energi, fritidsaktiviteter, men kanske framför allt – arbete. Vardagsval i all ära, min största påverkan tror jag ändå att jag har genom mitt yrkesval, och därför är det ett Mycket Viktigt Val. Borde jag bli politiker, forskare, lärare, biståndsarbetare, journalist eller jordbrukare?

En skön del av att leva och åldras är att tankar och känslor får tid att utvecklas och mogna. De senaste månaderna har jag återigen inventerat mina möjligheter och kommit fram till en ny insikt, och jag tror att jag kliver in i nästa fas i livet i detta nu.

Jag ska bli småbrukare. Jag ska odla mat och restaurera ekosystem. Det har tagit lång tid att komma överens med mig själv om detta, men nu är jag redo.

Tänker jag igenom de andra möjliga yrkesvalen så placerar de mig alla alltför långt från jorden och samtidigt alltför långt från mina egna etiska kriterier. Jag vill inte motarbeta mig själv. Jag har svårt att se att jag skulle vara nöjd om jag inte får vara med och skapa något verkligt, något att ta på, smaka på, njuta av. Jag älskar att arbeta med odling, kompost, träd, vattensystem, maskar, tång, grönsaker, jord… Ute är mitt inne på så många vis, och om jag får leva i jorden så tror jag att jag över tid kommer att bli allt det andra med, lärare och politiker, journalist och forskare. Jag kommer att göra det mycket bättre om jag grundar mig i jorden, som odlare, trädgårdsmästare och småbrukare. Det är på många sätt att vara aktivist, och det passar mig utmärkt.

//k

Climbing in the Bugaboos

Bugaboos. Bugaboos! Granite spires in all directions. Glaciers melting into streams. Frozen lakes and thawing ones. People dressed in colorful outdoor gear with helmet compatible hoods and crampons dangling in their hands as they come back into camp. Toilet huts built on site from granite blocks, with a view of the Bugaboo spire itself. Small patches of grass and slow growing green cushions flowering with purple, red and white beauties.

It’s magic. I didn’t know much before we came up here, not about the size of it not the natural splendor. It’s so freakin beautiful! I thought, granite – I like climbing granite. Mountains – I like climbing mountains. I love the view, the bird perspective, the far away from everything feeling and the fact that you can only trust yourself and your partner to stay alive. We are climbing safely, but the days are long ones, with approaches, climbs and rappels leading us into 8-15 hour adventures. Active days. Full on days.

Climbers descending the col at night, with Snowpatch on the left and Bugaboo on the right.

Beep, beep, beep! 5 or 6 AM, not super early but still early… We eat porridge and drink coffee in the morning, pack our gear, water and snacks: Nuts, bars, boiled eggs, carrots, then head into the alpine environment to practice mountaineering. Trudging up the steep snow to the col between Bugaboo and Snowpatch takes us about an hour, then we keep on walking over the glacier to the beginning of our chosen route. Gearing up with harnesses, ropes and trad racks, stashing crampons and ice axes for the return, or packing them to go. The person on the sharp end of the rope begins the ascent of the first pitch and the rock climbing is on. Through cracks, flakes, blocks and slabs we go, up, up and away.

Ah! It’s good to be here, amongst silent rock giants and moaning glaciers, with people whom you appreciate and love. The hours pass without us noticing. Already 3PM? Huh. We climb on. Some days we’re back at 6PM, some at 9PM. We boil water and eat freeze dried food. Devour it, hungry after many hours of pushing ourselves mentally and physically. Our tents stand on a hard granite surface at the Appelbee Dome camping. When the chit chat and planning for the next day slows down we brush our teeth and crawl into our sleeping bags, hide from the wind inside the thin tent walls. The camping is a silent one, most people wanting to go to sleep early and rest well before the next day’s undertaking.

There’s a mental simplicity underlining the time spent up here. There are no cafés to go to, no food to shop for, nowhere to drive, no computer screen telling the state of the world. When we are up here, we are separated from the normal everyday life. It makes a difference even for us, Tim and I, who for now are living like nomads. Though it can be straining to be up here, to carry those 35 kilos on our backs when walking in and to push up to summits 3000 meters high most days, the simplicity balances the effort made.

Then comes a resting day. No alarm goes of. When the sun hits the tent it gets to warm in the down sleeping bag and we crawl out. Get water. Boil it. Make coffee. Stretch. Eat. Swim. Talk about stuff, life, adventures, getting older. We’re still looking for what to do with our lives. Acknowledge that this is a pretty good way of spending a week. It feels longer, with a string of new strong memories binding each moment together. This place, magic.

For me, still struggling to fully get back from my knee injury, these days have made me smile. A lot. I could walk uphill for 4,5 km, gaining 950 meters of altitude, with a stupidly heavy backpack on my shoulders – and the knee felt good!

I could hike up the col with crampons and axe, walk the glacier, then simulclimb the Westridge to the Pigeon Spire and reverse the whole thing – and the knee still felt good!

I could hike up to the foot of the Crescent Spires, lead a 5.6 called Lions Way, scramble down a scree-turn-to-snow-slope – and the knee was not even on my mind!

I could climb an 8 pitch 5.9 called Wildflowers and really go for it as a team together with Tim, leading every second pitch. Most memorable was leading the last, strange 5.9 to just below the summit, stemming and pinching and jamming my way up flaky grooves, slowly formed through endless weathering of the hard granite. I lost my way in all the different flared cracks. It turned into a 5.10. Still, I pulled myself together and got through. Proud, thirsty and tired. And guess what, the knee still felt bomber.

If I would ever get injured again, I’d do the same thing. Rehab. Hang in there. Then get back into nature ASAP and let it work it’s magic. It’s been nearly a year and a half since I did my ACL surgery, another six months and all the nerves that can grow back will have done so. Then I’m gonna be ridiculously strong, because right now I’m STRONG.

Ah.

Be the change?

Writing. An activity best undertaken alone. But I am not alone. And so I write only short stories, jotting down thoughts from the small events shaping my everyday experience. These are valuable little texts, nuggets of information telling the story of who I am right now.

In between all of those texts I guess there’s a larger picture to be found, but it annoys me a bit that I’m not writing about that too.

The medium of Instagram, which is my main channel for now, is helpful and limiting at the same time. It’s contemporary in its essence, speedy and fast, forever flowing with new input, new pictures, new stories. I like that flow, like to stay in touch with all these different minds sharing parts of themselves through photos and texts.

But.

It’s just that I also set out on this journey with the intention to write. A lot. Long pieces providing my view on stuff like permaculture, urban food production and regenerative agriculture. Where are those texts hiding? Do I have anything to say? I wish not to speak what I have to say but to write it, to provide for a timescale which allows a maturing process to take place. I thought I would have more space for theses weaving, organic, interconnecting thoughts than I currently do, and so it bothers me a bit. I feel like I’m not doing my part.

At the same time, I couldn’t care less. Each day spent in nature gives me so much. Each day melting occurs inside me, layer after layer of ethically induced intentions dripping away. I’m shedding thoughts, not knowing what will be found underneath. It’s a deconstructing process, becoming aware of which ideas that are truly mine and which have been given to me through a cultural indoctrination. Who am I but a simple human being? Who am I but a person living? Who am I to believe I have opinions worth voicing and pushing forth?

I grew tired of Klara the Orator. She had to be always witty, clever, informed and charming. She gave hope to those who were looking for alternatives but she gave too much.

Now she has become an everyday philosopher, pursuing her ideals through writing while hiding in the open, gorging herself with a high intake of Nature. It seems to be working quite well. It feels good.

Is that because there is no home ground to bounce of from again and again? No constant that pleases or disturbs me? Nothing I feel that it is my job to take care of?
The ever-changing nature of the nomadic pattern is very forgiving in the sense that the only constants are created by me and my traveling companions. What food we eat, what time we get up, how many days we climb vs rest. Being on the road I am confined to a small bubble. Sure, we relate to the outside world all the time but we are mere visitors in the places we come to. We have no means to interact on any deeper level.

And so, something is shifting and changing inside me. I’m not sure I recognize myself, but I am aware that it has been my intention for a few years now to slow down and be a bit less aggressive. The pace I used to have had served its purpose, and now I have yet to become familiar with the Klara of today.

In the periphery of my mind I can sense that I’m worried that I won’t be enough when slowing down. That I won’t accomplish good things. That my life will flow away and leave me behind, working on some mundane task better suited for a non-philosopher who has less ambition to be a change maker.

Maybe it’s the feeling of loosing your purpose. Not that I feel fully lost, I’m just stumbling while looking to find the right path. I’m in the area of knowledge where I want to be: Horticulture, geology, ecology, but how do I want to manifest the work I can do? Gardening? Project managing? Guiding? Farming? Studying?

Trying to make a mind map figuring out the options I get frustrated. It’s like I don’t want to want all these different things anymore. It’s fucking complicated being a curious mind. I just want to dig in and do good, but w h e r e? This is when it would be good to have a mentor or someone else to pick the dilemma apart with and then put it back together in a slightly different order. I like the thinking, the questioning, the twisting and turning, but it needs to leed somewhere.

Here I am, sitting on a balcony of a small alpine hut in the middle of the Rockies. Taking the day of from the others, spending time with myself. Giving space for the kind of thinking that I used to occupy myself with back home much more frequently, but now thinking ”What good is it?”

Why do I try to think about what to do in April next year when it’s only July? Because I’m me. This is who I am, who I’ve been. Maybe I’m changed, maybe not. Maybe when coming home I’ll drop right back into being the same person as when I left, but I don’t think so and I don’t hope so.

This journey, I want for it to change me. Why else make it happen?

Once upon a time back in Violet Town…

Murrnong Farm. Hmm. Where to begin? Let’s tell it like a saga!

Once upon a time, way Down Under, there was a young man looking for a piece of land for himself and his lady. Not just a house with a garden, but a place where you could be and that you could live from. He wanted to create something, to get his hands dirty and just do it, do all those things that people were talking about if you listened in on the alternative scene of the day. He wanted to build a house, to grow food, to keep animals, to plant trees and keep bees and all other things that are part of a self-sufficient-and-beyond kind of farming ecosystem. Why only think about it, when you can act? And so the young man went out on a search for a Good Spot.

In Violet Town, a small place of some 650 inhabitants, he came across an old paddock. The rectangular 8 hectares had some good soil for tree growing and sat just at the edge of the village. It was close enough to a community but still provided space and privacy to do your own thing. Hm. Yes. This was it, this was the place. He just enough money to buy the piece of land, and to build a water storage pond. Bingo!

So began the story of Murrnong Farm, by now a small and constantly evolving piece of land on this Earth.

The young man set about implementing all his ideas and skills, and step by step the transformation took place. What was once a plain cropping or pasture paddock (and maybe cultivated for the murrnong yam daisy before that?) turned into an interconnected system featuring humans, chooks, goats, cat, bees, birds, fruit trees, olive trees, trees for timber, nut trees, shrubs, perennials, kitchen gardens, buildings, water tanks, sheds, machines, ladders, tools, storage, irrigation and fertigation, and much, much more. All these different elements played their own parts at the farm, working together in the symphony of life, co-creating diversity and abundance.

At first the place had looked to some like a mad person’s project, with a bunch of built structures and a few young trees, but as the years passed the maturing system claimed its rightful status as a Proper but Different Farm. Things were really taking off, growing and multiplying and diversifying. As well as feeding the farm household, surplus food was now being rolled out from the former paddock, getting sold at markets on Saturdays. And hey, providing food is what farming is ultimately about, eh?

While the farm was developing, the young man and his lady had two children together but later went separate ways. The children of the farm grew into clever young adults. The young farming man grew into a wise man. All was good at Murrnong, almost. For the wise man, something was still missing in the human puzzle. A loving connection to a partner, another person with whom to share life and all in it. He found it, lost it, found it, lost it… Meanwhile people came to stay at the farm, to learn from hands-on work how a permaculture system can be shaped and maintained. Some were older, most were young. Once there was this one woman, she had something special… then, like other helpers, she went away to continue her life elsewhere. Nothing had happened, but an imprint was left with the wise man.

A few years later he saw news of the woman on the Book of Faces on the internet. ”You look nice in this picture!” he wrote, and that was the start of a long, long conversation. It ended with the woman marrying the wise man and moving Down Under to his Proper but Different Farm. Love. Yes. Yes! Now they were two, one wise man and one wise woman. Life on the farm kept rolling with the seasons, crops came and went, helpers came and went.

The wise woman had a connection to another young woman, who was out travelling the world with her partner. They were researching stuff, like permaculture and agroecology. The couple asked if they could come help out at the farm. Was there a need for more hands, for more skills, for more energy? Always, the answer came, and so they drove their little van to the farm.

Two weeks flew by while moving goats, pruning trees, harvesting olives, chopping wood, mending broken things, making jam, cooking food etc. The couple jumped in with the rest of the current team, working away and thoroughly enjoying whatever they were doing (except when the young woman lured her partner into milking a goat, which he really wasn’t that keen on…). It felt good, deep down on the inside, to be a temporary part of the Murrnong Farm. It felt good to live the shimmering dream of a farming lifestyle and feel content, happy. Then again, it was time to move on.

The wise man and the wise woman were sad to see the young couple continuing onwards, but gave them good food and warm hugs and put them on a train. At Murrnong Farm, people come and people go, so it is.

Maybe one day, the right people will show up, the ones who will want to permanently move into the cob house where the young couple had been sleeping for some nights. Maybe one day the wise ones will have a second nucleus, a second home, forming at the farm, providing skills and stability, furthering the resilience.

I hope so.

The End.

My preferred kind of ”office”

When I give in to my love for the land and just open up to the possibility of working on it, in it, with it, I feel so strong. So calm. So happy. So relaxed. So clever. So in the right place.

All these positive emotions are pronounced and enhanced when the land I’m on is also geared towards food production, not just food for humans but for the ecosystem, hence a cyclic approach. There seems to me little point in farming a landscape unless you make sure that you over time enrich the soil biota, the carbon stored, the living mass above ground, the water cleaning structures etc. Mind you, I’m not arguing that all landscapes should or could be foodscapes with an output suitable for humans, its simply the version which happens to be my preferred kind of ”office”.

Back home, working as a gardener at Gothenburg Botanical Garden, I’ve had the chance to learn more about the skill of taking good care of plants which are not necessarily well suited for your climate. Being a living plant museum, there is so much information stored in the trees, shrubs, herbs, bulbs and tubers which are growing there. In a limited space such as this garden, there is no room for large scale ideas, and so most species have but a few individuals representing them, and we are all collectively pampering them as best we can. There is no special
focus on food, since the focus for a botanical garden by default is on maintaining a gene bank – and to present it in a beautiful and interesting way. I can totally roll with that, I think it’s a valid and useful raison d’être, but it took me some thinking to get there. During this long journey I’ve made a point out of visiting other botanical gardens and to talk with different staff members, and this has really helped furthering my understanding of the ”why, how, who, where and when” kind of questions related to my own judgement of the validity of preserving plant material in the setting of a botanical garden. I’m even more proud now than before of the place as a whole and of the work done back home in the garden in Gothenburg.

Switching back to looking at gardening as a way of providing food, the strategy needs to be a bit different. At a farm, even at a place like Murrnong Farm (where Tim and I are working/wwoofing right now) which is based on the principles of permaculture, diversity will in a way be limited. A farms primary reason must be to provide food, or else it will not be able to continue. You can’t acquire the energy needed to maintain and regenerate your farm (and yourself and everyone else feeding from it) if you dilute the calorific outcome by going all in on diversity. Yes, diversity is key to allowing for anomalies in weather and it’s consequences, e.g. droughts, pests, frosts, floods a.s.o., but be mindful: how will you cope with the myriad of outputs that your farm system will deliver if you are putting diversity too high on the wish list? You can of course find and use many different seed sources within the same species or graft many different varieties of the same fruit tree, because that allows you to work with a meaningful and wide enough diversity. Step too far beyond that, and you might loose sight of the food. If you can’t be efficient enough, your not a viable farmer.

I do enjoy working in the diversity of the botanical garden, because the site is such a great teacher, and of course there are many skilled gardeners and others to ask for advice and information. I feel that everything I learn there will at some point come in handy again. There’s no regretting signing up for a couple of seasons there instead of going of to work at a farm. I’ve learnt through life to value all learning opportunities, you just have to zoom out to understand in what area these opportunities take place. For example, cleaning the husks of from hundreds of nuts last season after my colleagues brought back a batch of North American nut species was a perfect intro to now cleaning hundreds of walnuts and pecans grown for food here at the Murrnong farm. Honing your skills is not something that requires you to constantly be in the same kind of setting, for cross pollination can potentially bring you so much further. All kinds of experiences and skills count, as long as you can live with the fact that you don’t always know when you’ll be able to use them next time.

For me, I can truthfully say that I have a wide and broad range of skills listed on my internal CV. Not all of them seem relevant to a potential employer, but to me they are. So on paper I narrow it down to what’s applicable right now, and of I go.

I am a gardener. I am a food grower. I might one day be a farmer.

Äventyr, Research – och Tänkande

När jag drömde ihop den här resan tillsammans med Tim så hade jag en tydlig vision om att jag ville skapa utrymme för två olika delar:
1. Äventyr: Att klättra, fridyka, surfa mm.
2. Research: Att jobba på småbruk och gårdar för att lära mer om permakultur, agroekologi och regenerativt jordbruk.

Jag såg de två delarna som en bra mix av vem jag är, tjejen som ville bli äventyrare när hon var 20 men som inte kunde med för att det var för egoistiskt, och tjejen som älskar naturen och som försöker hitta ett sätt att arbeta mitt i den för att vara med och återuppbygga våra ekosystem.

Det visade sig dock ganska kvick att jag hade glömt att definiera en tredje och minst lika viktig del. Kanske borde jag ha vetat och noterat det redan innan avfärd, men jag var så fokuserad på görandet. Det jag glömde var mitt mer allmänna behov för Tänkande. Att få ta mig tid att insupa och fundera över geologi, vattenvägar, alla sorters växter och djur, mänsklig kultur, landskap mm. Jag ägnar alltid en stor del av min tankeverksamhet åt att observera och reflektera, och ibland blir en ju så att säga hemmablind.
Jag tänkte inte på hur viktigt det är för mig att ha utrymme att få tänka.

En ny formulering för vad denna resa handlar om kan således summeras med Äventyr, Research och Tänkande.

Eftersom detta böljande tänkande sker lika automatiskt i mig som att jag andas hela vägen ner i magen, så har det klivit in och tagit sin naturliga plats utmed hela resan gång. Det gillar jag! Jag har hunnit tänka j ä t t e m y c k e t. Nästa del av tänkandet är att också formulera det i tal och skrift för att dela tankarna med andra. Det har varit många långa samtal de senaste veckorna, och så småningom kommer de att ge liv åt nya texter.

Jag är glad för att de olika delarna balanserar varandra, vi har visserligen haft större utrymme för äventyr och tänkande än för research, men nu är vi på väg mot en gård för att tillbringa våra sista veckor i Australien med att plocka oliver, mjölka getter, rensa odlingsbäddar och allt annat som hör till en höst i detta klimat. Eftersom jag aldrig tidigare har varit här så ser jag fram emot att få lära mer!

Jag längtar efter att få vara mitt i ett grönsaksland eller bland träd, längtar efter att få använda mina händer för att hjälpa något att växa. Jag är trädgårdsmästare, eller snarare lärling. Det finns så mycket kunskap och erfarenhet att få fatt i, och jag älskar att när jag befinner mig i rollen som trädgårdsmästare så är jag rätt bra på att glömma bort det där med prestation och istället hänge mig åt den tydliga uppgiften framför mig. Rensa morötterna. Beskär fruktträdet. Dubbelgräv landet. Skörda salladen.