Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House - 959

Cleo's Summer Hangout

No, just one cat in the yard and she mostly lounges on the trampoline.  This old house is from the 1920's i'm told, and as with anything old, it tends to sag and creek and have a lot of history worth uncovering under the aged exterior.  One of the windows was covered over in the master bathroom and the first step was to locate it and the second to cut it out to let the light shine in.  More light and airflow through these older houses are a must and this includes the inside, attic and crawl spaces.  Just some helpful knowledge worthy of passing on as i open this old house up.
  i was offered another "rental" house that was a deal hard to pass up - free rent for a year while i pay the utilities and insurance.  They needed a care taker for the property and i had grown to know this family over the last couple years.  As much as i appreciated the offer and trust with their house, i thanked them and told them that God had already provided what i needed.  A blessing of a place with need of some tender loving care, a lot of scraping and painting, new flooring and several new doors.  i have a deep purpose here in this place and i view it as analogous to my walk of faith with Jesus.  This restoration manifesting in this old house has taken place in me, in my heart.  i was surely in need of some repair and some tender loving care and restoring through the Holy Spirit.
  i haven't written much in the last year and a half, partly due to technology challenges and partly due to my increased work load.  i had written much about my spiritual walk on my website and almost chronicled the process in word and drawing, in projects and ministry outreach.  The antbrotherfarms.com site has been dormant for a while and i hope to concentrate on getting it back up, while this house comes back up to being habitable.  i think that would be a good groundbreaking and reopening focus.

Our House is a Very, Very, Very Fine House

Joshua 24:15
But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

Love and God Bless You,

~ antbrother

He is Risen! - 906

If you're an optimist... - 864

Excerpt - Interview with Bill Mollison: Permaculture

Alan: Let's get back to permaculture. What's your current best definition of it?
Bill: You could say it's a rational man's approach to not shitting in his bed.
But if you're an optimist, you could say it's an attempt to actually create a Garden of Eden. Or, if you're a scientist, you could liken it to a miraculous wardrobe in which you can hang garments of any science or any art and find they're always harmonious with, and in relation to, that which is already hanging there. It's a framework that never ceases to move, but that will accept information from anywhere.
It's hard to get your mind around it - I can't. I guess I would know more about permaculture than most people, and I can't define it. It's multi-dimensional - chaos theory was inevitably involved in it from the beginning.
You see, if you're dealing with an assembly of biological systems, you can bring the things together, but you can't connect them. We don't have any power of creation - we have only the power of assembly. So you just stand there and watch things connect to each other, in some amazement actually. You start by doing something right, and you watch it get more right than you thought possible....


..."Then I sort of pulled out for a while in 1972 - I cut a hole in the bush, built a barn and a house and planted a garden - gave up on humanity. I was disgusted with the stupidity of the University, the research institutions, the whole thing.
When the idea of permaculture came to me, it was like a shift in the brain, and suddenly I couldn't write it down fast enough. Once you've said to yourself, "But I'm not using my physics in my house," or "I'm not using my ecology in my garden, I've never applied it to what I do," it's like something physical moves inside your brain. Suddenly you say, "If I did apply what I know to how I live, that would be miraculous!" Then the whole thing unrolls like one great carpet. Undo one knot, and the whole thing just rolls downhill."

Source - Complete Interview : http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC28/Mollison.htm

Additional Links / Research - Building your own Oasis
Permaculture in Austria with Sepp Holzer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHkFG21mtcI

Permaculture: A Quiet Revolution - An Interview with Bill Mollison
http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/mollison.html

2,000 Year Old Food Forest in Morocco with Geoff Lawton
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=E5120F998378156892BA39C1F9AE5F45

7 Food Forests in 7 Minutes with Geoff Lawton
http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=33B3A51230BB04745756E3E88DFA81FC


God Bless and Good Growing,

~ antbrother

Compassion - 845

We had a great church service tonight in the jail and there were a lot of testimonies.  Both the inmates and the visitors are going through many challenges in their lives and because this church family is so close knit, we bring those things to others as a witness to what God is doing in the situation.  Encouragement for one another, directed prayer, laying on of hands, and anointing with oil are the natural things that come forth when we are in one accord, and when our compassion for one another is greater than our own concerns.  This is a changed heart that many described and one that we shared with each other.  God changes our hearts from cold stone to soft flesh.  Compassion for others is a result. 

We now get to keep our eyes open to watch the great I AM change things for good. 



God Bless You,

~ ab

Go To The Ant - 844

Proverbs 6:6-8
Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no captain,
Overseer or ruler,
Provides her supplies in the summer,
And gathers her food in the harvest.

Cocoons, Rocket Stove Research, and Other Natural Systems - 807.2011

Cocoons, now there is a natural system.  A system of rebirth, one of transformation from crawling to flying.  i wonder sometimes if the caterpillar ever gets depressed wondering if he will ever get out of this cocoon.  Do such thoughts ever enter into your mind or maybe that is just how we feel at times.  Will we ever get out of this constraining bondage, these closed in walls?  The cocoon as a natural system really doesn't care what the contents think or feel.  It is there, created by it's occupant to protect and sustain a process of transformation, a process of change, one that the caterpillar must go through and one we often have to go through ourselves.  The difficult time is in the bondage and times of walking through the valley.  Sure is quiet.  The time of rebirth and regeneration comes after one emerges from the cocoon.  Instead of crawling, it is a time to fly.  i also remember that we often create our own cocoons or walls in order to separate ourselves.  Time to ponder, reflect and hope for the future.
  One of the interests i have had over the years (pondering) is to research and learn the simpler ways, old technologies, time-tested methods, and this has sparked a renewed interest in researching additional pieces to a puzzle.  My love for good masonry and the fireplace as the hearth of the home lead me to find a European fireplace called a masonry heater.  Lately i've looked into simpler variations on this, something the common man may be able to build and afford.  The rocket mass heater surfaced and the many varieties of use were only as limited as the immense body of imagination out there.  Really amazing to see what people around the world are doing to survive and live with the basics, the inventive nature is very alive.  Several well outfitted, well financed examples of homesteading exist, but i have witnessed that many of the simplest solutions are the most elegant and easy to maintain. 
 i've had my head in various research on energy and natural systems, permaculture and wood gasification.  Real broad variety of sites and videos leads me to realize that there is a huge move in people to already be living a life different from where they once were and who they used to be.  There is a better way and a simpler life, within this beautiful creation, just open your eyes and watch it work, then borrow the beauty and truth of the natural system.  Permaculture is the best current description, with a pioneer Spirit guiding this new movement.
  There are the complex, expensive solutions, but my eye was always drawn back to naturally sustaining systems.  It was a real eye opener to see working examples of people helping the soil by rebuilding it and increasing the wormbed, organic matter, etc., the results are a whole host of changes in the natural system.  Grasses, weeds and trees find a fertile soil, birds and beneficial insects return, and what was initially planted takes a home in the naturalized landscape.  You help the soil and it returns the favor, ten to one hundred fold.  Creation of natural swales on a slope allow the rainwater to percolate into the layers as it drains into the hill rather than washing over it.  Building up the organic matter on these hills creates vistas of planting beds and the water allows the process of garden making to begin.  Makes me want to dig more, continue growing the compost and organic base.
  Beyond the land i am also looking back into a greenhouse that will morph out of and into some type of structure.  i've always seen this garden house as a hybrid of multiple natural systems and technologies and there may be one possible outlet to actually build something now that the idea is pretty ripe.

There is an amazing garden in a couple places that show what is possible with a little property and an insanity and love of growing, innovating, and making a whole lot out of a small lot.

One great example is from my hometown, Milwaukee, WI .  Growing Power 
Will Allen, Founder of Growing Power 

Path to Freedom Urban Homestead - Pasadena, CA

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and May God Bless You and Your Family,

love,  ~ antbrother

The Ways of The White Man - 757.1

  Once I was in Victoria, and I saw a very large house.  They told me it was a bank, and that the white men place their money there to be taken care of, and that by and by they got it back, with interest.
  We are Indians, and we have no such bank; but when we have plenty of money or blankets, we give them away to other chiefs and people, and by and by they return them, with interest, and our hearts feel good.  Our way of giving is our bank.

Maquinna

Nootka Chief

 Native American Wisdom