Memories of Miss Memory

Finally I got to visit my wonderful friends Kirsten and Nick over at their farm Milkwood, not far from Mudgee, and only a few hours by public transport from Sydney. Kirsten picked me up in a pretty town called Rylstone, where we did a spot of op-shopping before dropping in by accident on a workshop on useful australian weeds hosted by Pat Collins. On the way to Milkwood, we stopped on the side of the road to take some cuttings from a HUGE old apple tree she had spotted on the way. Getting a cutting was trickier than usual because a large black bull was keeping watch over it. We negotiated our way around it to pilfer a couple of twigs and one large apple for tasting.

We also stopped by the Cudgegong River for a photo opp.

Since their last Milkwood blog post, Kirsten has been busy doing a residency at First Draft Gallery in Sydney, and Nick and Kirsten have been running permaculture courses in Sydney and at Milkwood. They have been running their courses in the the wool shed, which is so homely and comfortable, and reminds me somewhat of their old warehouse in Melbourne. Kirsten has been cooking up feasts of beautiful organic food made fresh every day. Because they have had an influx of people at the farm, they have built a shower and toilet block and washing up area.

They now have twelve chookies for eggs as well as creating a rich bed of compost for the food forest floor that resides on the hill above the planned studio/home. The dams and swales have created a fascinating landscape that will create beautiful surrounds for their abode.

Over the weekend i got to help plant the vegie garden, where little silverbeets, chicory, parsley and carrots heads are starting to rear their heads through the mulch.

Kirsten and I also sowed onions, leeks, kale, parsley and lettuce into seed trays, using river sand and home made compost. We also created some new beds, and laid out the rest of the beds for mulching and planting.

I got as dirty as possible and had a brilliant time exhausting myself doing manual labour, which is a rarity for me being a city dweller.

At the end of a day in the sun, Nick watered and turned the compost heap,

Then we chilled out and watched the sun go down drinking a glass of red and basking in the glow of accomplishment. For me this was a great inspiration, as a budding permaculture convert who dwells in the city, I am excited to get back to my home and into my own tiny garden to clear the excess scurvy weed from my garden beds and mulch the soil ready for a winter crop.

I have been pretty obsessed with dubstep for a while now, and the style still seems to be gathering speed in Sydney. The defining point for me was hearing Mala and Mr Pritchard at the Abercrombie (i can’t remember when that was, a year ago maybe?) and making the unavoidable, yet possibly rather oblique associations with electro and industrial music, but needless to say I totally clicked with it.

Void on Friday night was a killer, I made a new dance move that could be described as a two-step ski jump, and noted how dubstep seems to have picked up a 4 on the floor beat as the new “thing”.

Meanwhile, although this doesn’t seem to be reflective of the state of dubstep in Sydney, I found this cartoon to be pretty funny (thanks to Luke)