Inge Leonora-den Ouden

Welcome back Ash!

Welcome back Seth!

It might be a little off-topic, but I want to say that much better than the ordinary store-bought lettuce is freshly picked lamb's lettuce (aka mâche or corn salad) from the garden!

Yes, the season has started! There's Ground elder (Aegopodium podagraria), Stinging nettle (Urtica dioica), Crow garlic (Allium vineale), Wild garlic/ ramsons (Allium ursinum) ...
and so much more coming soon

In my post 'a year ago' I wrote that balsamico is hard to find here. But now I found a really good one, even organic! The taste is great, combined with good quality olive oil, a little 'Greek style yoghurt' (soft cream-cheese is possible too) and lots of freshly picked herbs. It's the start of the season for the wild (foraged) herbs now here!

I did make 'fish emulsion' a few times. That's very smelly, made of dead fish in water in a bucket. It's a good fertilizer in the garden.

When I put fish or other bones in my compost, I first mix them in with the other kitchen scraps. Then put on the compost heap and cover more, like leaves, small branches, a.a.

My compost heap is in the back yard, at a distance of about 8 meter (almost the same as 8 yards) from my back door. It's often said that fish and meat scraps in the compost attract rats, but I never saw a rat in my garden.
I did have some mice in my apartment, but I think they came from under te floor. After I stuffed the holes (from heating pipes) with steel-wool I never saw the mice again.
There might be mice (a different species, not the house-mouse) in the garden, but I didn't see them. Maybe they are hiding because there are many cats in the neighbourhood, some of which frequently visit my garden.

Anne Miller wrote:The theme is more about using sustainable products rather than having a sustainable built house.

Most folks have to deal with what they have though living a clean life is achievable ...

Yes, I live happily in my rented ground-floor apartment, built mostly of concrete, not sustainable at all. But still there are many things I can do to follow the permaculture principles in my daily life. It has to do with what I buy, what I don't buy and what I make myself; what products I use to clean (the interior, the laundry and myself); where I get my food and how I prepare it, etc.

After reading some post here I understand the thread is about having tinnitus. But in some of the post I read about frustration too, frustration about the way other people (without a hearing problem) can react.

Myself I don't have a hearing problem, in fact my hearing is very good. But I'm always afraid I will get a hearing problem, because my ears are very sensitive (to low, high and loud sounds, and to cold). As a child I had an ear infection with high fever, and it damaged my right ear. It didn't affect my hearing, only sometimes for some minutes the ear gets 'deaf', or I can hear hissing sounds in that ear.

I feel compassion for people with hearing problems. I knew someone who was totally deaf and I still know some people who can only hear with a hearing aid, or a device called CI. I know these people can't understand/hear me if I just say something. I have to get their attention first. And then, when they look at me, I talk in their direction and do my best to articulate as good as I can. That was what the lady who was totally deaf told me to do.

Please, don't be ashamed of your hearing problem. If someone wants to have a conversation with you, explain it to them. If they don't want to take it into account ... that isn't your problem, but theirs!

A hedge forum? Interesting.
I do have hedges at all-sides-but-one of my gardens (front and back). These hedges were already there long before we moved in (and that was over 20 years ago). Maybe the liguster (privet) hedge around the front garden has been planted when these houses were newly built, around 1960? It's a good dense hedge, as long as I trim it several times every year.
It's a pity it isn't 'edible'. The nice smelling white flowers and black berries won't appear with all this trimming. But now it's a good wind-break, and a hiding place for birds, insects, etc.

At the back there are hedges of some different species of conifers. These are so high, nobody can look over them ... But the neighbours living in the apartments above (mine is the ground-floor apartment), they can look in my garden. These hedges need trimming only once a year. But because they are so large, it's still a lot of work. At one side there isn't a hedge anymore, because that neighbour replaced it with a wooden fence (the kind you can't see through).
Conifer hedges may not seem fitting in permaculture, but they have the same advantages as the other hedges: birds and other creatures can hide in it. And one of the permaculture principles is: 'use what's there'... these hedges were there. :-)