In July I had the opportunity to spend a week volunteering there and experience community life up close. Hoppi, the main contact for volunteers did a great job in organising and so I was able to help out on several pots, learning different things from stripping trees, cleaning bricks, liming a round house, repairing a water way and chopping firewood. Others helped the beekeeper to find the queen or put the reciprocal roof onto a roundhouse. We were six volunteers in total and a nice bunch of people – everybody coming from a different angle. I learned alot in terms of alternative constructions, saw an example of a community and had lots of interesting conversations.

The inhabitants are people like all of us, they came because it was their childhood dream or because of a very environmental consciousness or the urge for a change in their life. They might have a little bit of experience as hobby gardeners or hobby furniture makers, but all have lots to learn still and I admire their courage. One thing that stood out for me was a very strong sense of the motto Learning by doing: “If the roundhouse gets a crack, well then we have to fix it. Next time we will know what to do different.”

The ecovillage is part of the Lammas Project, which aims to show that there are sustainable solutions to the challenges of climate change, peak oil and rural regeneration. There will be also a community hub building that allows others to learn about this kind of lifestyle and benefit from lessons learned at Tir Y Gafel.

All the best to all plot holders and thanks for a great week,

Sylvia

PS: For all who would like to visit themselves. There are guided tours offered and another volunteer week is coming up in September, just subscribe to the Lammas mailing list to be kept up-to-date.

http://www.lammas.org.uk

So I partly gave up and focussed on other things, such as vegetarian paté, tzatziki, houmous, bread, gnocchi or vindaloo curry from the base incredients. All alot easier to make then I would have expected (except maybe for the curry paste) and really yummy, not to talk about the excitement and joy of exploration.

Then I found rennet by chance in a Welsh store whilst on vacation. So I re-embarked on my cheesy goal, I still needed to get a cheese cloth and a thermometer and some fresh milk. All of which I found at or close to the Marché des Abattoirs in Anderlecht (Belgium). Onto the internet it was for some instructions, in the end I settled on a goat cheese (which does not even need rennet, but just some vinegar!) and now I am a happy owner of my first (yummy) cheese.

Bon appetit,
Sylvia

Find some of the recipi’s used below
Goat cheese recipe
Mozarella in 30min
Houmous in 10min
Tzatziki in 15min
Gnocchi

photo by Flickr user: fireflies604

A few days ago on my way back home from vacation I sat next to another home-coming guy, who had just left 30 degree warm Finland, where he had spent close to a month at a Rainbow Gathering. What’s that?

Wikipedia describes it as follows:

“Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities, typically held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media.”

Jean-Louis, the man from the bus, goes there every year. It’s back to a simple way of life for him and the place is full with good musicians. He told me that everybody finds a place in the community, be it entertaining or cooking or chilling or helping with other chores. Imagine a bunch of people preparing yummy food, being surounded by musicians and then when the meal is served a hat is passed around and you put in there what you like. Some will put 10Euros each meal others not a penny in four weeks. And it’s all good.

cheers, Sylvia

For more (detailed) info, here some links:
Finland Rainbow Gathering: http://eurogathering.rainbowinfo.net/
List of gatherings worldwide: http://www.roadjunky.com/article/2299/rainbow-gatherings-2010-in-europe-us-and-the-rest-of-the-world

Some years ago, if somebody had asked us about the future, never we would have predicted that we would quit our jobs one day and do a project dedicated to sustainability…

So how do we ended up there? Seeing films like “An inconvenient truth” or documentaries like “How Cuba survived peak oil”, reading Hervé Kempf´s books and being part of the economic crisis, made us understand that our modern society is on the wrong track.


We decided to rethink our future. After having visited several organic farms in Belgium and Spain in 2009, we were captivated by the generosity and enthusiasm of the people we met there. Compared to the authentic values these people were living, our office jobs, our hectic everyday life seemed fake and meaningless.

Many discussions and sleepless nights later, our decision was clear: We wanted to change our life.

Even more: We wanted other people to discover that it is worth to live closer to nature. But how do you do that? Our solution: Travel various countries and meet positive role models, work with them and share their inspiring ideas with others via interviews, video clips and pictures on a blog!


To this end, in October 2009 we also set up an association – Organicvision – as we wanted to show our sincere long-term investment in promoting sustainable lifestyle and setting up a network of activists in this field as our project develops.


Then we started to seriously prepare our world tour, which will start very soon with a survival training in Belgium followed by a permaculture design course in Southern France.


Want to join the adventure? Meet us at www.organicvision.org

Neither the inspiration for the header nor the picture came from me, but I just really liked it, so I hope WWF won’t mind me using it. And what else is there to say? The poster says it all – Are you going to turn the lights of with me and (at time of writing) 5647320 supporters worldwide tomorrow?

Want to know more about it? http://www.earthhour.org

Happy cosy darkness,

Sylvia

Eight years ago a British man had a great idea, he liked to read and did not like to throw books away, but he only had so much space in his appartment. This was when he started a book swap.

The principle is quite simple you bring your old and read books and you pick up some interesting other ones. Over time quite an amount of books was brought in by the readers of Brussels – mainly in English, but also French, German and other language books kept on popping up. The bookswaps mailing list grew to over 200.
Once a month, either on the first Monday or Tuesday, he and his friends would fill the pub’s tables with all those books. At the beginning the book-filled boxes had to be carried there each time, then they found a pub that allowed them to store the books, making the whole organisation of it much easier.

Now the pub has changed owners and David cannot store the books there anymore; and he thinks its time to move on. If you want the bookswap to continue and know of a location and/or would like to organize them, I can put you in touch with David. If no new organiser is found, the books will go to charity.

The last bookswap is happening on Tuesday March 9, no new books will be accepted. I am not putting the address here as I it would feel strange if 30 new people would show up to the last one, but if you are wondering about continuing it and meet David, that would be a date to keep in mind, but drop me a line and you should have all the necessary info ; – )

Happy swapping,
Sylvia