LINKS 5 things I learnt from living on a permaculture farm http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-eEP   5 Things I wish I knew About Homesteading Before I Started http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-eFj 5 Things To Love About Homesteading http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-eFJ **** This is the World Organic News for the week ending 17th of April 2017. Jon Moore reporting! This week we are on a journey of fives. 5 Things I learnt from Permaculture, 5 Things I wish I’d known about Homesteading and 5 Things to Love about Homesteading. From the blog: She Googled and She Went comes the post: 5 things I learnt from living on a permaculture farm. This is a really good read. Practical, common sense stuff for everyone. I’ll quote two of the five things learnt. Quote: Do every job with pride, and of course, use your brains. There are many ways to get things done – in permaculture, the word that stuck with me was optimisation. Using edges to achieve a multiplier effect and maximise output. And Find your purpose, and the people who share it. Being a permaculture newbie, I was surrounded by people who had already been researching on how to build their earth bag house or build their solar panel system. Everyone had a piece of land they owned or intended to own (and land outside of the city is very affordable, my friends), and here I am, a city girl from Singapore who always casually said I would retire on a farm but never really knew what that meant. End Quote. Purpose, pride, working with your brain and with others. This is a pretty fair way to live a good life. Permaculture is as much or as little as want. I heard a podcast a few years ago where the guest was explaining the difference between purple permaculture and brown permaculture. He was definitely in the brown camp. The brown is all about the landscape design, terra forming and farming for profit without damage or, if you like sustainably. The purple is all that plus peace, love and mung beans. To be fair, the brown permaculturalist wasn’t attacking the purples just pointing out the differences. This article gives another perspective on what Permaculture is and what it can teach. I’ll leave the rest of the article for you to read if you feel drawn to it. Our next two posts come from the blog Gypsyhomestead and are closely interrelated: firstly 5 Things I wish I knew About Homesteading Before I Started and secondly 5 Things To Love About Homesteading Things to know before you start: 1 Location 2 Choosing the Right Animals 3 The Cost 4 Predators 5 Physical Labour Let’s look a little deeper 1 Location Quote Another mistake in the location was the land around us. Yes it’s beautiful farmland, but at the same time that’s part of the problem. It is big farmland, belonging to those that are crop farming, which means chemicals. There are a lot of chemicals that are spread by tractor and airplane. End Quote. Finding like minded people is difficult at times but worth the effort. Learning to live with or accepting the ways of the locals can be difficult, it can be impossible. Organic production under aircraft borne spray drift, for example is impossible. Do not rush into that dream property. Choosing the Right Animals If you’re not going to consume what they produce, have a plan to deal with the excess. Can anyone really eat three dozen eggs each for eight months of the year? And remember good fencing makes for good neighbours! The Cost Quote: I know this is probably a pretty obvious no brainer. While I was aware of the cost of feed, fencing and all of that I failed to factor in vets and medication. I knew there were things I needed to keep on hand, but when it came to emergency farm calls those quickly brought home the grim reality that depending on the situation, vet and so on, it could really eat up any profit you earned and can cost hundreds of dollars for just one visit. End Quote On a personal note, I was in one part of my life 75 ks from town and veterinarian decisions we easy. A bullet costs far less than a vet visit. Predators L