Nina Surya

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since Apr 25, 2015
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Biography
Gardening, animals, herbal healing, homebuilding... active nature connection.
Currently level 3-4-ish on The Wheaton Eco Scale (https://permies.com/t/scale).
A Finnish woman travelled via the UK and Netherlands to rural France.
Previously known as a bookbinder, then natural perfume maker, then healer/shaman, now still a hippie but also homebuilder, homesteader and gardener, with hopes of getting back to herbal medicine and healthy food during the summers and art (creative crafting) during the winters in the future, when the house is done.
Critters: 2 dogs, 1 cat, 3 ouessant sheep and a mixed flock of hen with 2 roos.
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in the Middle Earth of France (18), zone 8a-8b
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Recent posts by Nina Surya

Sometimes the lemongrass oil fragrance can be too much for the sensitive bees. If you used anything but 'a bit', it might be too much.
You could try to rub some of the oil off and place a bit of old honeycomb/brood comb, if you have it, inside the bait hive.
Good luck!
1 day ago
How about a hot toddy with elderberry infused whiskey?!
I'm struggling to imagine the flavour - I guess we just have to give it a go and try!
1 day ago
When I was a teenager, I spent three summers at a friends’ place. My friends’ mum said from the very beginning “Be careful in the stairs, many are stumbling there so always keep your focus on your steps.” Also, only grown-ups were allowed to fetch root vegetables and such from the root cellar outside, since “it had such a heavy energy”.

On the third summer that I was there, the family had bought a second-hand furniture set for the salon, the livingroom. It painted the furniture white outside on a beautiful summer day. Eventually my summer stay came to an end and I returned home. About a month later my mum received a phone call from her friend (my friends’ mum), asking if I had painted the undersides of the furniture black. Ofcourse I hadn’t! I had left them plain, wood coloured.

My friends’ mum continued her story, explaining that they had asked an exorcist to come and clear the energy of the house. The exorcist had told the inhabitants to get out of the house for the duration of the procedure, and they had stood waiting at the perimeter of their porperty. A lot of banging noises and commotion followed. Afterwards, the exorcist had told them that their house was built on an execution hill. Also, there had been a ghost of a little girl, who had fallen down the stairs and died, trying to trip people as they went up or down the stairs. And someone in the past had hung themselves in the rootcellar, hence the “heavy energy”. After the procedure they had found out that the surfaces under the furniture that I had painted, were black.

Even though the energies of the property were now lifted, I found the stories too creepy to stay another summer.

A lot of time passed. Later, I understood for myself that there are “only” ghosts who either are very attached to their homes or who have passed away so suddenly that they are in fact not even aware that they’re dead, and they’re then super annoyed when strangers come, uninvited, to their homes.

The latter was the case with the secondary home we acquired in France. We had guests and I was so excited about the new home and entertaining our guests that I didn’t really notice the small nudges in energy, until the little boy of our guests complained he couldn’t sleep “because there was someone there”. So I immediately took a look at the situation.

I found her standing in a corner, very pissed off about us being there. I explained to her that she was, in fact, deceased, and that we had bought her house ( and were the third owners after her passing ). She was surprised, but I could also read in her energy that it all made more sense to her now. I asked if she would like to move on, to “go to Heaven”. She liked the idea very much and so I helped her to ascend. The young son of our guests could sleep again and all was well. Or so I thought.

Some 36 hours later I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I looked outside through the window and had a jolt of a scare – under the light of the streetlamp I saw six ghosts (or souls) standing in front of our home, also wanting to be helped to ascend. I muttered to the Universe / Spirit / Heavens that ok, I’d do it this time, but that’s it, no more!

That was eleven years ago. I’ve moved to another French farm house and am in another period of my Life. I’ve been doing enough remote energy work not to scare easily anymore. In fact, even the “bad guys” are just doing their thing, trying to survive. I’m now confident in guarding personal space(s), cleaning up energies, healing and strengthening energies and commanding entities to leave…forever.

Brody Ekberg wrote:

This is something I struggle(d) with about my marriage. I commented a while back but don’t remember getting any responses.
.....

This is one of the many reasons I’d like to expose middle and high school students to permaculture, so that they can realize their options and find purpose and meaning BEFORE they go to college, get married, buy houses, start careers and accumulate debt. Although honestly, it seems like college, marriage and careers are already disappearing from kids horizons as it is for other reasons.



I just found this thread today.
I'm totally enjoying the infographic, and reading the posts.

Brody, and others struggling with partners who are ideologically 'somewhere else' than you are - I feel you.
My spouse of 20+ year, now ex, actually referred to permaculture as "spermaculture" with a big sneer and dissing comments to follow.
It's heartbreaking and so very tough to create your dream in a corner of your life without the emotional (or other) support, but just the opposite thereof - those mean comments...

So imagine my surprise when, during walking my dog, I started having conversations with someone about world views and values and found we shared the same kind of ideology.
Fast forward two years and a bit, and we're now creating our permies Paradise from scratch. It's hard work, but I'm absolutely loving it - and him :)


Hi Catie,

I'm an advocate of WD40. Here at the old farm there were a lot of squeaky things, from hinges to barn door closure clamps (if you know the correct name for them, please educate me) and, yes indeed, a squeaky wheelbarrow wheel.
I was the one running around spraying it on everything that squeaked and am now enjoying a smooth, silent opening of doors and pushing of wheelbarrows.
If anything gets noisy again, I just re-apply. The little red reed that comes with the can is the best accessory, don't loose it.

But then again, I'm a relative newbie/noob to farm style living; 8 years of play time during vacations + 4 years full time, with a steep intensifying some 2 years ago
Maybe the more experienced have more educated advice?


2 days ago
Thanks for your helpful input Kate,

I was baking my loaves at 200*C. I did cool the loaves under a teatowel since I've seen my mum do that

Next time I'll try heating up the oven higher than the (higher) baking temperature and adding a steaming element.
If that doesn't give the desired result, I'll try adding thermal mass.

I don't have a recipe but I go by feel, I'm stubborn like that with all the consequences... Mixing the dry ingredients (flour and salt) with a wooden spatula, then adding water and then kneading the dough, adding water or flour if needed with the aim of making a 'bouncy' dough that doesn't stick to the bowl but also definately isn't crumbly.
I'll try aiming at as wet a dough as I can handle next time?

Thanks again!
2 days ago
Our cellar is a cold room built on the shadow side of the house, without a window.
The tile floor is directly on the soil, so it's a bit moist, good for making cheese, less good for cardbord boxes...
We have a lot of fruit compote, next year I'll be more patient and cook it longer to make jam. Compote is great as filling for baking pies though
I processed the pumpkins and preserved them as mash in jars. Next year I'll just keep them as pumpkin I think.
There's still some tomatoesauce left from last years bountiful harvest.
We've made country wines and liqueurs, the cherry wine was great! The others need to age some more.
The cellar room is next to the kitchen, and since it's so cool in the cellar room, our fridge is in there as well.
And a cabinet full of processing utensils, but maybe that will change in the future.



3 days ago
Thank you all for your helpful input, I've got variables to play with again - aiming for the 'perfect bread'!
Will post any breakthroughs here
3 days ago
Tiago, from my point of view you have a lot of land. We're homesteading on 3000m2 and coming from the suburbs I feel rich with my little plot of Paradise.

I read your post and I feel you. But would it be possible to turn the negativity around and see the situation as a challenge? After all, there have been people who have created lush forest in the desert with creative systems and Nature working together hand in hand. Maybe you are there to be the epicenter of a tsunami of Nature returning to heal the land? Can you heal the soil and provide shelter, at the edges of your plot, to small wildlife? Can you find like minded people to connect with and help each other out?

Good luck, don't give up!