Flora Eerschay

Eino, cool idea! When I change this setup I can remove fish from this aquarium and seal it completely.

This thing still exists! Now it has only two terrestrial plants: wandering willie and vanilla. I added moss and anubias (which was a gift) into the aquarium. Seems like only springtails live in the soil now, which is strange, because I didn't do anything to remove the mites. They just disappeared along with the plants that were most vulnerable to them. I had to cover the aquarium with glass, because guppies jumped out every now and then... seems like they can do it for no reason too.

When you're at a restaurant and you order a dessert which comes with passionfruit sauce, and there are whole seeds in it, and you're tempted to collect them and plant them at home...

Thanks! I'm planning to remove most of the water and the guppies, so it won't be very alive in winter... ideally, guppies need at least +15 during the night (they say +20, but mine survived +12...).

Also, I forgot to add that there is a thick layer of sheep wool under the pond, mostly to protect the form from any sharp rocks etc, but also to stabilize it and the temperature, and as a fertilizer for plants around. So maybe I'll take everything out to see how the wool decomposed, and I'll add more wool in spring? We'll see.

My experiment with keeping guppies in a small pond was successful! It's only a 250 litres pond (made of a ready-made form), and of aquatic plants, the arrowhead did best. Watercress died. Later on I added a thick willow branch, which developed roots and shoots in and around the pond; it was mostly for lizards which kept drowning in the water... they stopped after I added the willow.
I also threw in some excess pistia and duckweed from my aquariums, but they didn't grow much in the pond; just survived.

Speaking of guppies - I had a small group of them from my aquarium, and a bigger group from someone else, which I exchanged for my fish and plants. I released them all into the pond and I thought that they will get eaten by predators, jump out or get hurt by extreme conditions... nothing like that! Guppies are really hardy. They survived heatwaves (water was still colder at the bottom), and after worst nights (only +12 degrees Celsius at night, or a storm) I found newborn fry in the morning, and the babies usually survived.

So they reproduced a lot, and now (autumn is coming) I will keep a group of fry in the aquarium, to release them again next spring. The only filtration was provided by a small solar pump; I only cleaned the sponge (really tiny) every now and then and it worked really well. Of course I also removed excess algae (to use them as mulch around the pond), and sometimes I used the water for plants (and replaced it with rainwater from a barrel), but in general the pond didn't need much maintenance.

There is a layer of soil on the bottom (just regular soil from anywhere in my garden seems to work well enough). Once friends visited with their kids and they were very disappointed that I didn't allow their kids to jump into the pond and play... oh well, the tiny ecosystem is too fragile for that! I was worried that larger birds or other animals will mess it up too, but they didn't. I guess it would be more child-friendly if it was larger.

I think you need to say both 'yes' and 'no' to certain things and people :)

The yes - it's often more embarassing than we believe it to be. Many people feel ashamed of saying that they'd prefer to grow tomatoes along with the elderly, instead of going to fancy parties. Whatever you say yes to, people will put labels on you, some of them unwanted. Stay strong and hold your ground.

The no - seems obvious but again, can be difficult, especially when you still love the people you'll say 'no' to. All those smoking musicians may be dear to you, and they will continue to be after you tell them that you're not into their lifestyle. You can still find some common ground and care for each other.

Now, do the "people care" (referring to permaculture ethics) and build your community like you'd grow a garden. Start with what you have (maybe with a bare ground of no useful friends right now...) and grow a community of whoever you need - doesn't have to be huge (like a permaculture garden often isn't), will probably be a little different than you imagined in the beginning, but you should harvest some fruits eventually!

I give this book 9 out of 10 acorns

I'm reading this book now, and I'm a huge fan of Lierre Keith. It's really impressive, how dedicated she was to do the right thing - regarding her veganism, environmentalism, etc. I love her conclusions too. Anyone who cares about anything should read this book... besides, it's just well written, and can be read just like any other literature. There is so much drama in her struggle against slugs, or when she ate tuna for the first time after many years... I think it could be made into a feature film.

John Weiland wrote: As an example, imagine sitting down to your favorite piece of cake, that you could immediately eat yourself (hedonism) or alternatively only a portion of as your mind and senses go over all of the positive and negative ramifications of saving some for other members of the household, family, tribe, etc.

Why only eating the cake yourself would be hedonistic? Sharing is caring! Imagine baking a cake only to watch others enjoy it, which would be your main source of joy, besides tasting it yourself, and any other pleasant contexts of the sitiuation.
Also, I remember some research which said, that giving gifts is more fun than receiving them (that can be for a number of other reasons, too...).

As for your qote - now a combination of Zen and hedonism would be bold, haha. But I think it can be doable... see simple pleasures of the day, for example?

This is just a number of musings, in which I'll try to stay on the positive side.
I'm recently connecting the idea of permaculture with cooking gourmet food, and some ideas from people who aren't involved with either, but they seem to do the right thing in the hedonism department.
I looked up the word here on permies, and it's been used both in negative context (e.g.: "consumerism, materialism and hedonism"), and as a positive ("hedonism isn't necessarily selfish").
Seems like a lot of what I'm thinking about is in Paul's book "Building a better world in your backyard" - that doing the right thing can be easy, interesting, pleasant and ultimately very healthy.
Of course, sometimes people don't seem to know what's actually good for them and their surroundings, and make decisions based on fear, or their insecurities, and that leads to all the disasters... but those who do practice permaculture successfully - aren't they doing it mostly for pleasure?
It's been said many times, that a lot of "beginner environmentalists" seem to believe that they need to deny themselves things, such as certain foods or activities. But with permaculture approach, we actually get to have more of these things - better food, more activities, more time and energy to do things. We also get to have deeper and more meaningful connection with others, whether it's about helping to do some jobs, or teaching, or exchanging goods. And the intimate relationships, too - in all cases we just have to learn to say both "yes" and "no" in a healthy way, and to communicate what is it that we're into (or not), as well as care to hear it from others.
I remember an interview in which an actress was asked by the journalist: "What is your guilty pleasure?" and she said: "I don't think that pleasure should be guilty."... while it does sound controversial (and it's much easier to say when you're a living goddess), I do agree with her... from the perspective of a "hedonist permie". I wonder how far we can go with that idea.

One more inspiration came with a Quora answer that got emailed to me earlier today in a digest. Here is the link: If I am ugly, single, poor, unlovable and unhappy, is my only chance at happiness/inner peace in this life through attaining spiritual enlightenment and destroying my ego identity? A short summary of the coolest answer: no one is unlovable; "unhappy" is a temporary state, although uncontrollable - but the happiness conditions are not an unchangeable script; there are a veritable metric fuckton of good people, who don't care about someone's external appearance (I totally want to be counted as one of that fuckton of people, also my new favourite word!).

I made this today! Sorry for being lazy but I'll share my Instagram post, as I don't know how to extract individual photos from it: my feather brushes made of forsythia and cockerel feathers.
A ton of possibilities! Thanks for the idea!!!