Arno Peters Blog

Web of Goals

2026-05-15T22:22:00+02:00

Web of Goals is a technique proposed by Jacob Lund Fisker. It tries to map out a set of goals in a holistic way. Because for every goal we choose, there are consequences — positive and negative.

For this technique, we create fish bone diagrams for each of our goals where we try to elucidate positive and negative effects. When goals reinforce other goals in their positive effects, it strengthens our web. If a goal has negative effects and works against our other goals, it weakens the web.

When an action serves multiple goals, these goals become quicker to attain. And when goals reinforce each other in their effects, it becomes easier to sustain the actions associated with them.

Link to permaculture design

In permaculture design the attitudinal principle Everything gardens expresses this same sentiment.

A Web of Goals is an expression of another attitudinal principle: Multiple elements x Multiple functions. This is shorthand for

Stacked functions: every element in a design has many functions.
Redundancy: many elements and systems support every essential function.

By choosing goals that mutually reinforce each other in their effects, we Work with Nature and thus utilize a third attitudinal principle.

Note: in the following discussion goals can be thought of as functions. And modules as elements. See also Section 00201 at iPermie.net for an in-depth discussion.

Fish bone diagram

A module groups and names a set of goals. Another name for module could be a mission. Goals include primary objective and first order effects. Take a look at the fish bone diagram for the module Job. Every left turn starting from horizontal is a positive effect, every right turn is a negative effect.

Fish bone diagram for module Job

For example, my primary (0 order) goal for a job is to create savings. A (1st order) positive side effect is that when I ride my bicycle to work, I get a workout. Riding the bicycle more leads to more maintenance, which is a negative (2nd order) effect. Doing the maintenance myself leads to hands-on knowledge and learning about repairing bicycles, which is a positive (3rd order) effect.

Web of Goals in 2018 (first attempt)

The table below summarizes the modules with their primary goal and 1st order effects. This was my web of goals in 2018.

Module	Goals (0 and 1st order)
Simple living	less clutter / frugality / savings
Exercise	health / less clutter / healthy cooking
Financial independence	frugality / savings
Job	savings / networking
Gardening	networking / health / healthy cooking

Web of Goals update in 2019

In 2019, in the next iteration of my life design, I generalized my goals while keeping the modules roughly the same. The graph below embodies the following modules and effects.

Module Homesteading and gardening (green) supports:

good food
good friends (friendship / social connections)
good finances (frugality / savings)
good body (physical fitness / health)
good mind (relaxation / connection with nature)

Module Job (orange) supports:

good finances (savings)
good friends (socializing)
good mind (fascination)
good body (physical fitness / health)

Module Dancing and Meditation (purple) supports:

good mind
good body
good friends (compassion)

Module Financial independence (black) supports:

good finances (frugality / savings)
good shelter
good mind (fascination)

And module Simple living (blue) supports:

good finances (frugality)
good food
good shelter

Web of Goals

Web of Goals in 2019

For me, living a content life comes from having all these elements fulfilled:

good food
good shelter
good friends (friendship / socializing)
good mind (fascination)
good body (physical fitness / health)
good finances (peace of mind)

As you can see, every goal is supported by at least two different modules: simply count the number of distinct colors for each label in the graph.

Web of Goals update in 2023

I was looking at the Constellation Clarity System by Rachael Stephen. She uses six domains for her system: Creativity (Genero), Money (Divitiae), Space (Domum), Mind (Spiritus), Connection (Socialis) and Body (Corporalis).

I liked her classification and I also noted the overlap with the different aspects I have in my Web of Goals. In the list below, Rachael’s label is on the left, and my label is on the right.

Money — good finances
Body — good body
Mind — good mind
Space — good shelter
Creativity — no equivalent
no equivalent — good food

I have come to realize I need a seventh aspect. I call it good fun in my Web of Goals of 2023. It relates to having fun, doing things that nourish the soul, sparkling creativity.

Web of Goals

Web of Goals in 2023. The modules are the same as in the 2019 version.

I use these categories in my bullet journal when doing the weekly and monthly review. I use the following symbols (partly taken from Rachel’s work):

# food
⌂ space / home / shelter
$ money / finances
⚭ friends / relationships
⏀ body
◊ mind
꩜ soul / inspiration / fun

See the page on reviews for more details.

10 years of therapy in 1 minute

2026-05-07T19:27:00+02:00

Chris Williams and Mark Manson summarize the most important lessons of therapy. The first seven are read by Chris to Mark in the video, the eighth comes from one of the comments below the video.

It is good, solid advice worth repeating from time to time to keep it top of mind — lest we forget. As Mark recounts from re-reading his own book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck’ and realizing he was not handling his newfound fame well because he was giving a fuck.

No one is coming to save you. Being a functioning adult means realizing you are responsible for everything in your life, even if it wasn’t your fault.
Strong boundaries make for good relationships. Weak boundaries make drama.
Many of your problems don’t get fixed, you just learn how to live despite them.
Your mind lies to you all the time. It will tell you the world is ending when it’s not. That a mistake is fatal when it’s not. That everyone is thinking about you and laughing about you when they’re not. Learn to tell your mind to shut the fuck up.
Stop trying to convince people to like you. The right people won’t need to be convinced and everyone else will just get very annoyed.
Sometimes, the best thing you can do is let a dream die. No one likes to hear that, but it is true.
Only a few people in your life are going to matter in the long run. When you find them, treat them right, make time for them, keep them close, be grateful.
Grief is the price you pay for love, but love anyway because loving and being loved is the “ultimate, what matters most” experience in life.

Another comment says: “These 7 life lessons are very good. But like most advice, it won’t really hit unless you’ve got the related experience. Knowledge isn’t terribly useful without experience.”

Design Arno’s life

2026-04-27T21:39:00+02:00

This is a permaculture design design for my life. It is a living document. This page documents the process and the design. The first version came about in 2018, in 2026 I reviewed and updated it.

For this design I use CEAP as the design process. It is simply:

Collect information
Evaluate the information
Apply Permaculture Ethics and Principles
Plan for Action

Collect and Evaluate the Information

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. — Aristotle

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom and the end of most illusions. — Gerd de Ley, Flemish writer

See survey of Arno’s life.

Apply Permaculture Ethics and Principles

This is where we take all the information from above and try to work out a set of actions to reach the stated goal.

Ethics

Earth care
- Reduce
  - identified a problem? Instead of buying a solution, can I do without? If not, can I create the solution my myself?
  - shift from being a consumer to being a producer
  - short, low temperature showers, max twice or thrice per week
  - lower thermostat, only heat living room (see survey on energy usage)
  - buy fewer products and services (see survey on expenses)
  - buy only products with little or no packaging, prefer bulk
  - buy fewer items from the supermarket, where possible harvest from backyard, community garden, food forest or forage
  - buy food grown close by
  - make driving the car a special occasion
  - take a plane only in exceptional cases
  - divest from industrial society
  - reduce use of computers and internet
- Reuse
  - reuse plastic containers, bags, bottles, jars
  - reuse glass bottles, jars
  - reuse rope and rubber bands
  - go to clothes swaps for new (to me) outfits
- Repair
  - enhance soil with hugels, compost and biochar
  - ensure year round ground cover with mulch and/or plants
  - create niches and habitat for plants and animals
  - repair bicycles, clothes, computers and other tools and wearables
- Recycle
  - food scraps in the compost bin
  - plastic and glass to recycle bin
  - paper and cardboard for mulch, compost bin or recycling
  - bring working items to collection points of second-hand shops
  - water garden with grey water from kitchen and shower
  - ! human waste in compost bin
- Simplify
  - for writing prefer pen and paper over computer
  - for kneading prefer hands over mixer
  - for traveling prefer bicycle or foot over car or plane
  - for entertainment prefer a walk in nature, reading books or live performances over watching television or surfing the internet
People care
- create loving environment
- build and nurture a community
- grow good food and share it with others
- make time to visit friends, neighbors, family
- invite people over for coffee / lunch / dinner
- approach random people and listen to them
- celebrate successes and failures
- practice compassion and loving-care
Fair share / Future care
- share knowledge
- save and distribute seeds
- multiply and distribute plants
- plant seeds or seedlings in common areas (guerilla gardening)

Note: The item(s) marked with an exclamation mark (!) I am considering, I have not done them.

Attitudinal principles

Multiple elements x multiple functions
- livelihood / money
  - reduce expenses further to need less money
  - IT work
  - parents
  - partner
  - return on investments
  - sell stuff (books, computers, …)
  - barter / give away / sell food (jam, chutney, sauerkraut, …)
  - volunteer repair services (bicycles, clothes, …)
- food / nutrients
  - buying in super market
  - buying in bulk from grain mills and other suppliers
  - harvesting in community garden
  - harvesting in backyard
  - harvesting in front yard
  - harvesting in food forest
  - foraging
- water
  - drinking water from mains
  - rain water from catchment — ! needs treatment with filters and/or chemicals for human consumption
  - ! ground water via hand pump
- heating energy
  - gas and electricity from mains
  - body heat from humans and animals, aided by hot water bottles and with insulation by clothes, blankets, drapes and floor mats
  - passive heating by sun
  - use hay box to better utilize heat
  - use heat from appliances
  - wood for burning — ! house lacks a wood-burning stove
  - ! solar heater
- moving energy
  - electricity from mains for appliances
  - petrol for car
  - legs for walking and cycling
  - ! wind — still fuzzy on how to harvest and where to use
  - ! solar cells — needs supporting equipment and functioning supply chains for spare parts
- tools
  - reduce specialized tools, use generic tools
  - learn how to make tools
Everything gardens (everything has an effect on its environment)
- Maximum Power Principle applies everywhere
- plants in backyard grow
- things happen where I direct my attention
- I influence others, others influence me
- my actions influence other people, the world around me
The problem is the solution
- land is expensive
  - → use property already in possession → urban homestead
  - → use communal spaces → guerrilla gardening
- creating community is difficult
  - → make it a game to connect people and build relationships
  - → attend or organize small local events → build connections
  - → find people and groups with similar interests → build connections
  - → volunteer → build connections
  - → join a church → build connections
  - → celebrate small successes with loved ones
Yield is theoretically unlimited
- the work I do inspires and educates people
- living a good, simple, grateful life
- my Ikigai
Work with nature
- take into account how people instinctively react
- practice meditation, mindfulness
- learning is best done when combining learning styles: seeing, hearing, feeling, doing
Minimum effort, maximum effect
- make the iron triangle (shelter — transportation — livelihood) as tight as possible or break it altogether
- celebrate and enjoy the little things, be grateful: it costs little to nothing and has a large effect on feelings of well-being
- celebrate life: life is nature, nature is us, we are all in this together

Note: The item(s) marked with an exclamation mark (!) I am considering, I have not done them.

Holmgren principles

Observe and interact
- happiness comes…
  - from within, NOT from outside
  - in relations with friends, family and neighbors
  - having a purpose in life
  - NOT from possessions or status symbols
  - What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness — Robert Waldinger (on YouTube)
- dominant culture of consumption and debt feels alien
- I live a blessed life
- and yet I feel a sense of impending doom
Catch and store energy
- save 80% of income, after 5 years working for money becomes optional (see ERE and The Shockingly Simple Math Behind Early Retirement)
- have a pantry with at least a month of supplies
- design stores of water and energy in garden and house
- conserve harvest
- cook healthy, tasteful food from simple, locally sourced ingredients
Obtain a yield
- working for money
- working on interesting projects
- working with interesting people
- learn about the natural world
- eat good food from local sources
- appreciate the time we have
- enjoy life
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
- observe a regular schedule
- take naps when necessary
- exercise / work regularly outdoors
- measure energy / water usage and act on the data
- know own limits of knowledge and influence
- no need to do everything at once
- ask for help
Use and value renewable resources and services
- use collected water from shed to water the garden
- trade plants and seeds with friends, family and permaculture projects
- move plants from living room to attic in winter to take advantage of warmer microclimate there
- use solar heat in the attic to start seedlings in spring
Produce no waste
- prefer getting food from own or community garden
- kitchen vegetable cuttings go in compost bin
- grey water from kitchen waters the back yard
- buy products with little packaging or in bulk
- reuse packaging otherwise
  - plastic yoghurt containers as planters and for storage
  - glass jam jars for jam and chutney
  - glass vegetable jars for kimchi, soup
  - bottles for homemade wine / syrup / lemonade
- use discarded pallets / wood for constructions
- use cardboard packaging as weed barrier
- fly only when absolutely necessary, consider less energy intensive modes of transportation first
Design from patterns to details
- Web of Goals
  - work from or close to home
  - get food close to home (backyard, front yard, community garden, forage, supermarket at walking distance)
  - walk, cycle, use public transport (reduce need for car)
  - increase serendipity for opportunities
- scatter
  - trying similar things at the same time
    - gardening / growing food in backyard, allotment and community garden
    - work on permaculture designs for backyard, life, food forest Weverkeshof
  - sow interest: try to get people interested and involved in doing the same
- Seneca curve
  - idealized shape of the background process of humanity
  - actual shape may look more like a downward step pyramid: alternating periods of relative stability followed by rapid deterioration, each time ending in a lower level of complexity
Integrate rather than segregate
- our household = mini homestead with food growing, food preservation, food storage, workshop, storage for construction materials and tools
- stack functions for machines and spaces
Use small and slow solutions
- walk to supermarket
- cycle to most projects
- think before buying: try to find an alternative to spending money
- turn thermostat down in winter
- hang thick curtains for windows and doors
- caulk seams against air leaking
- water garden with gray water from kitchen
  - dish-washing tub holds ~5 liter max per watering
  - could use output from laundry machine. This gives 90 liters of grey water when collected in a tub. This does require extra handling.
- wash clothes by hand
- use clothesline for drying
Use and value diversity
- make friends from different walks of life
- make friends in different age groups
- learn from many different areas of knowledge
- learn many different skills
Use edges and value the marginal
- look in skips and second hand stores for usable materials
- make friends from different walks of life
- forage food from the side of the road, like blackberry, hazelnut, apple, walnut, plum, …
- throw seeds (apple, plum, walnut, fennel, …) into wild patches
Creatively use and respond to change
- “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” — Alexander Graham Bell
- remind myself to keep an open mind, especially in turbulent times when fear tends to narrow my view on what is unfolding
- meditate to center myself and listen to what intuition is whispering to me

Web of Goals

See Web of Goals for what it is and how to use it.

For me, living a content life comes from having all these goals fulfilled:

good food (physical food / mind food)
good shelter (appropriate size / functional / beautiful)
good friends (friendship / socializing / social network to fall back on)
good finances (money / energy / for peace of mind)
good mind (learning / ideas / projects / ability to solve problems)
good body (physical fitness / health)
good fun (soul / meaning / service / fascination)

To fulfill these goals, I use the following modules:

Homesteading / Gardening
Job / Business
Dancing / Meditation
Financial independence
Simple living / Minimalism

For me each module associates with a set of actions. Homesteading includes gardening, plant recognition, food preservation, skill building, etc. Financial independence is grounded in actions related to Early Retirement Extreme: keeping good records, maintaining a healthy buffer, investing, keeping expenses down, expanding my skill set.

Module Homesteading and gardening (green) supports:

good food
good friends (friendship / social connections)
good finances (frugality / savings)
good body (physical fitness / health)
good mind (relaxation / connection with nature)
good fun (laughter)

Module Job (orange) supports:

good finances (savings)
good friends (socializing)
good mind (fascination)
good body (physical fitness / health)

Module Dancing and Meditation (purple) supports:

good mind
good body
good friends (compassion)
good fun

Module Financial independence (black) supports:

good finances (frugality / savings)
good shelter
good mind (problem solving w/o using money)

And module Simple living (blue) supports:

good finances (frugality)
good food
good shelter
good fun (meaning)

The graph below summarizes how the different modules link to the goals they support.

Web of Goals

As you can see, every goal is supported by at least two different modules: simply count the number of distinct colors for each label in the graph.

Plan for Action

Sow a thought, reap a word;

Sow a word, reap an action;

Sow an action, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

— Traditional saying

And also:

You are what you do, not what you say you’ll do — C.G. Jung

Since starting this design in May 2018 I have published a number of designs on this website. You are most welcome to look through them and hopefully find inspiration from them.

The initial version of this design took about 22 hours of time over the course of one year to get from conception to a published design. I have made occasional additions to it over time. I made a thorough review of the design in 2026.

Survey Arno’s life

2026-04-27T21:38:00+02:00

This survey is part of Arno’s design for his life. This is a living document. The first version of this survey came about in 2018. In 2026 I reviewed and updated it.

Vision and mission

I created the vision and mission in 2018 using a dreaming circle.

Key words in my vision:

elder (trustworthy, knowledgeable)
community of people (family, friends and neighbors)
content life (few wants to satisfy)
simple life (few needs to satisfy)
in harmony (the Middle Way)
with nature (reality)

Additional key words in my mission:

meditate and work (Ora et Labora)
deepen connection
inner world
outer world

Vision

I am an elder in a community of people. I live a content, simple life in harmony with nature.

Mission

I meditate and work to deepen my connection to both the inner and the outer world. I live a simple life — humble, content and in harmony with nature.

About me

I am a 50+ male of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

Location

For the past 30+ years based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Living in a 90 m² house with my partner, our cat and our dog. More details on our location can be found in the site information for the garden.

Short personal history

mid 1970s
- born in the Netherlands
1980s
- grew up in Belgium (Flanders)
1990s
- moved back to the Netherlands
- started indoor climbing
- got M.Sc. in electrical engineering
- started working
2000s
- started dancing
- got married
- stopped climbing
- bought a house
- switched from dancing ballroom and latin to Lindyhop
2010s
- got Linky (Felis silvestris catus)
- started a business
- got divorced
- discovered Early Retirement Extreme
- met Ina
- discovered Limits to Growth and understood its implications
- discovered permaculture
- started at Proeftuin Meerhoven
- started an allotment garden
2020s
- corona measures happened (multiple lockdowns, travel restrictions, social coercion to conform)
- discovered spiritual and self development practices: various forms of meditation, somatic work and shadow work
- Linky died
- stopped allotment garden
- got Wifi (another Felis silvestris catus)
- got Toby (Canis lupus familiaris)

Psychological stats

In my experience, psychological tests seem to only confirm what I already instinctively know. Maybe with a bit of nuance in the relative strength of each characteristic. I can’t say they have provided me with a deeper insight into my being.

The only two classifications that have given me real aha-moments were the Dragon Dreaming mentalities and the Enneagram. And the latter only after an in depth look.

The order of my Dragon Dreaming mentalities is: evaluator > planner > doer > dreamer. My Enneagram type is Nine.

Miscellaneous observations

Roles — past and present

Note: I take these on and off as required. They are not who I am.

baker / cook / brewer / winemaker
cleaner / house keeper / clothers mender
warehouse keeper / grocery shopper
carpenter / electrician / builder / repair man
gardener / horticulturist / tree surgeon
climber / rower / swimmer / football player
pedestrian / cyclist / motorist / captain / sailor
seller / buyer / trader
pet owner / zookeeper
medic / medical assistant / patient / counselor
collegue / team member / team leader / volunteer
secretary / chairman / treasurer / facilitator
dancer / writer / singer / performer / audience member
lecturer / artist / craftsman
designer of: permaculture projects / computer programs
teacher of: permaculture / Lindyhop / programming / spirituality
friend / acquaintance / stranger / enemy
husband / lover / significant other
bookkeeper / accountant / tax consultant / investor / banker
neighbor / citizen / foreigner / tourist
brother / son / baby sitter / uncle / godfather
rescuer / rescued
meditator

First impressions game

Information comes from a game What is the First Impression You Give Off When a Group Gets Together that is played as follows —

Give each member of the group a sheet of stickers and a pen. Have the group mingle. When one participant meets another, have them write down on a sticker a word that comes to mind when seeing the other person. Have them place the sticker on the back of that person. In the end, each participant looks at the stickers that have accumulated on their back.

My stickers read:

expressief (expressive)
gezellig (sociable)
open (open)
timide / lief (timid / sweet)
integer (ethical)
vrolijk (cheerful)
avontuurlijk (adventurous)

9 ways of observing

I wonder…
- what is to come?
- how bad will it be?
- is there anything I can do to soften the blow?
- what part I will play?
Observe communities
- based on location
  - household: Ina, Wifi and Toby
  - family (mine and Ina’s)
  - neighbors and their families and connections
  - neighborhood community association
- based on activity / mutual interest
  - friends
  - Lindyhop
  - Proeftuin Meerhoven
  - Voedselbos Eindhoven
  - Weverkeshof
  - sewing club Lievendaal
  - Repair Café Meerhoven
  - spiritual sangha (IVS and DLR)
  - work colleagues
- other human communities
  - yacht association Beatrix ejvbeatrix.nl
  - allotment association Welschap volkstuinwelschap.nl
  - associations at Urban Sport Park: free-running, calisthenics, survival-run, disc golf
  - homeless shelter Bellefroidlaan
  - churches: debroneindhoven.nl, maranathakerk.nl
  - clubs at Community Center Lievendaal lievendaalvta.nl
  - local Whatsapp groups (buurtpreventie)
  - daily meetings of dog owners at the dog off-leash area in the park
  - volunteers at the petting zoo Eigen Wijs Boerderij
- other communities
  - watershed de Dommel
  - ecosystem in the neighborhood
  - wild life: rats, mice, birds, moles, insects, spiders, etc.
  - family of birds nesting under our roof
Observe edge
- analytical mind
- extensive, mostly technical knowledge
- organized (mostly)
- work with systems perspective
- nerdy
- no-nonsense approach
- dependable
- international experience
- multilingual
- tenacious
- introverted
Observe energy
- life energy is low at times, never very high
- aiming to align life energy with interests
- good food provides good energy
- regular sleep and schedule help
- regular exercise outside help
- working for 2h outside → need a nap
- dancing gives me energy
- money = promise of access to a future energy flow
- global energy supply contracting, sharply since March 2026 with effective closure of Straight of Hormuz taking 20% of global oil supply off the market as well as 30% global supplies of urea, 20% of LNG, 50% of sulfuric acid and 40% of helium — this is a massive shock!
- Ina, Wifi and Toby influence my energy as I influence theirs
- household energy usage
- temperatures below 15°C and above 25°C lead to wanting to reduce energy expenditure: either through hibernating or siesta
Observe flow
- comes about when
  - dancing Lindyhop
  - working on interesting (to me) problems
  - the thinking mind works in service of the whole
- removing obstacles
- without edge no flow
- activities of Ina, Wifi and Toby
- can be found in the sequence of activities during the day
- natural cycles have a flow to them
Observe from stillness
- still somewhat restless, monkey mind
- I am thankful for every day
- I live a great life
- I am in good health
- I am grateful for having a loving partner and friend on my journey
- I am — more than this body, more than these perceptions, more than these emotions, more than these thoughts
Observe limits
- difficult to change the big 5 personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism)
- there are limiting beliefs (still)
- I can only change my thoughts and my actions (cf. Stoicism and Buddhism)
- ego / personality: we are the stories we tell about ourselves
- How I found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne
- Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows et al.
Observe past & future
- Past
  - see Short personal history
- Future
  - see Vision
- related: Life Weeks (see Tim Urban’s Your Life in Weeks) — a body of average life expectancy living to 77 years of age has about 4000 weeks of live available to them. This makes the finite nature of human life salient. As I am in my fifties, I may have already lived about 70% of my allotted weeks. What will I do with the remaining 30% or 1200 weeks?
Observe patterns
- see Thinking in Patterns

Thinking in Patterns

Branching / fractal
- using knowledge and experience already learned to branch out into related fields
- can start a chain reaction using appropriate leverage points
Burdock / hook
- permaculture shows a way to live a good life with low impact
- treat everything as an experiment to learn from
Dome / lobe
- my house is the base of operations
Gradient
- start with a small experiments and intensify appropriately
- partial success is already good enough
Net / web (influences)
- web of influencers
  - parents
  - partner
  - J.D. Roth — Get Rich Slowly
  - Peter Adeney — Mr Money Mustache
  - Jacob Lund Fisker — Early Retirement Extreme
  - Esther Emory and Nick Fouch — Fouch Family Off Grid
  - Rakesh “Rootsman Rak” — Roots’n’Permaculture
  - Leo Bakx — Aardwerk Popup Academy (defunct)
  - Alice Friedemann — Energy Sceptic
  - Gail Tverberg — Our Finite World
  - Category5 — Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre (defunct)
  - Irv Mills — The Easiest Person to Fool
  - John Michael Greer - Ecosophia - Toward an Ecological Spirituality
  - to name but a few
- Web of Goals
  - align secondary goals with primary goals to reinforce them and make them more resilient
  - filters actions based on goals
Scatter
- throw bits of information around to interest / entice people to find out more
- put plants in different spots around the garden to increase likelihood of finding a suitable spot for this type of plant — some specimen will not survive, others will thrive
Sheet
- I do regular Morning Pages. A practice proposed by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. It is a longhand writing meditation. The assignment: every morning write three pages stream-of-consciousness, no interruptions, longhand writing.
- It is impossible to think outside the box. Someone else has drawn a box on our papers. It shapes our thoughts. Culture is constantly (though invisibly) doodling on our blank pages. (From A Blank Sheet of Paper)
Sphere / circle / ring / torus
- keep friends close and reconnect with them regularly
- form a close knit circle of friends to share the journey with
- intersect circles of influence
- create a strong inner circle with partner
Spiral
- aim for spirals of abundance
- work in iterations, trying new variations from time to time to learn from
- revisit earlier writings to observe how thoughts and thought patterns change
Streamline
- focus on the essentials
- eliminate unnecessary work
- eliminate waste
- Do Nothing
Succession
- eldest sibling - feels most responsible
- absorbing new knowledge and learning to apply it
- growing as a person
- passing on knowledge from master to apprentice
- use sociocratic role elections when necessary
Tetrahedron / triangle
- break the iron triangle (coined by writer Dmitry Orlov)
  - The iron triangle of House-Car-Job: you need a car to go to work and make money so you can live in a house to drive to the job and to the shops in order to spend the money you made to keep yourself fed, to keep a roof over your head and to keep your car running.
Tube / barrel
- first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer: keep pantry full, stock from the back, take from the front
- use simple 20 liter plastic buckets for storing wholemeal flour, brewing wine, making bokashi
Wave
- align to the rhythms of nature
  - spring - summer - autumn - winter
  - sun rise - sun set
  - dream - plan - do - celebrate
  - Kondratiev wave (period of 45-60 years)
- Meander
  - using daily Morning Pages to let my mind wander and to tease out what is important to me.
  - going in a straight line costs more energy when going through rough terrain — this also applies to life in general.
  - “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” — Bruce Lee
- Seneca curve (Roman philosopher Seneca noted that when things start going bad, they go bad fast)
  - ‘“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”’ — From The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
  - my working model for the future
  - “Collapse now and avoid the rush” — John Michael Greer
  - Deep Adaptation from Jem Bendell (four ‘R’s)
    - Resilience is ‘how do we keep what we really want to keep?’,
    - Relinquishment is ‘what do we need to let go of?’ and
    - Restoration is ‘what can we bring back to help us through this?’
    - Reconciliation is ‘what could I make peace with to lessen suffering?’
- Logistic curve
  - this is the basis for learning: slow as a beginner, fast in the intermediate, slow again to mastery. Aim for the 80% mark.

Three “Happy” Lives

From: The new era of positive psychology - Martin Seligman

The Pleasant Life (Hedonist)
- This type of life has never held much appeal with me
The Good Life (Engagement)
- I have attained flow in programming and dancing
The Meaningful Life (Meaning)
- I find a higher purpose in learning about and applying permaculture

Ikigai

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive — Howard Thurman

A while back I came across an article by Dave Pollard: Your Ikigai: A Self-Awareness Compass. The image above comes from his article. I use it below.

My Values

Questions:

What do I care about?
What am I grateful for?

I care about my family, my partner, my pets, the trees in our neighborhood, the bees visiting our garden, observing nature from large structures to the smallest details.

What the more-then-human world needs is less pressure from humans. Because there is no incentive to change behavior, this will most likely happen due to disease, war, famine and death (i.e. old age). These are well known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

How far down the population numbers will go is anybody’s guess. Some say human extinction and I don’t exclude that possibility. I think it will depend upon how much of the web of life is left standing after our gorging on cheap energy has ended. I have read that after the last mass extinction there was no animal life left weighing more than 25kg. Humans did not exist back then, this time around they are not exempt from this.

My Pleasures

Questions to ask:

Things that bring me delight
When / where I am joyful
Things that spark my curiosity
Things that spark my interest
How I like to play

I have a difficult time identifying things that excite me. I found an exercise to help me. It’s called a Get-A-Life Tree.

mind map ‘What would you like to do?’
- past self
- present self
- future self
maybe add as extra
- some stuff other people want you to do
- be active / exercise
- a few activities that make you squeamish or uncomfortable

My Community

Questions:

Who / what / where / how I belong
Who / what I relate to
My tribe
My true place / home

My Way of Being

Questions:

What I notice / pay attention to (within myself, & in the outside world)
How I am present in the world
My true nature

An article that resonated with me was Introducing the Cultural Psychopomp by Paul Chefurka. He writes:

It occurred to me that some of the writers I follow in the Doomosphere™, particularly those with a broad multi-disciplinary understanding of the situation as well as an understanding of its spiritual dimension, may be serving in the capacity of psychopomps to a culture they see as standing on the brink of metaphorical death.

Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps

Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps (SCIM) is a Creative Commons licenced mapping and analysis tool for evaluating personal and social resilience. It is intended to be used for planning, and is simple enough to learn during a crisis to facilitate cooperation and effective response. SCIM was originally developed by Vinay Gupta and others.

Individual resilience: 6 ways to die

Tool: 6 ways to die

Shelter (clothes, roof) protects from

Too hot
Too cold

Supply (nutrients, water) protects from

Hunger
Thirst

Safety (community, police, hospital) protects from

Illness
Injury

Not mentioned in the original list, but worth considering are:

Suffocation
- insufficient supply of O₂ (drowning)
- lack of safety (fire, CO poisoning)
Sleep deprivation
- lack of safety

All categories have been met, with some caveats:

Shelter
- payed off house
- roof is a weak point: needs costly replacement within the next few years
- people heating is insufficiently resilient: depends on availability of both electricity and natural gas from mains
Supply
- pantry with rotating supply, may need to increase
- water supply insufficiently resilient
- cooking heat is insufficiently resilient: depends on availability of natural gas from mains
Security
- dependent on functioning state
- could use more community support

Group resilience: Arno and Ina

communications
- voice, touch, SMS, internet
space
- our house
- our allotment
transportation
- walking, cycling, driving, public transport, flying
resource control
- material resources: contents of house / garden / pantry / shed, car, bicycles, tools
- financial resources: functioning bank accounts
- spiritual resources: stoicism, mystic teachings, buddhism, Jezus’ teachings
- see also forms of capital

Organization resilience: Arno and Ina’s homestead

shared map
- Ina and I have a vision
shared plan
- Ina and I have a mission
shared succession model
- use sociocratic role election if need arises

Nation state resilience: the Netherlands

jurisdiction
citizens
territory
effective organizations
international recognition

Effective organizations will be put under stress when flooding of coastal areas force people to evacuate or migrate west.

Coastal defences use pumps to remove water from lower areas. Pumping stations are run on electric motors. A extended disruption to the power grid will mean flooding. Once started, flooding will cause damage to infrastructure that will likely lead to even greater flooding.

Also, since most flooding measures have never been put to the test, there will be some nasty surprises to contend with.

Integrated Needs Analysis Matrix

example INAM

Example INAM for a typical developed world nation. From Vinay Gupta’s talk Dealing in Security July 2010 page 11.

Note the dependence of energy on all aspects of 6 ways to die and the functioning of specialized organizations. Diesel fuel is required for any kind of transportation. Electricity is needed to run the water mains, the sewer treatment facility and communication (cell towers, internet).

Limited communication automatically limits deployment and coordination of police, ambulances and firefighters.

Forms of capital

I have extended 8 forms of capital to also include energy capital. Energy, or more precise, an energy gradient is essential to all life. Every living organism needs an energy surplus to maintain itself. Animals similar in size to humans require 100W to live. In addition, humans use about 200W for cooking. This is energy for pre-digesting food. All power consumption above that is mostly for comfort and to sustain our economic organism.

energy capital
- thermal energy
  - stored in a hay box (initial heat provided by other energy)
  - hot-water bottle (initial heat provided by other energy)
  - stored in central heating (initial heat provided by other energy, improved by insulation)
  - heat from compost or other decomposition (unused other than to encourage growth of other micro-organisms)
  - body heat from humans and other warm-blooded animals
- radiant energy
  - sunshine on 60 m² garden
    - mostly used in summer
    - mostly unused in winter
  - surface area of the house
    - mostly unused
  - radiated body heat
    - cuddling in winter
    - thermal insulation via multiple layers of clothing
- mechanical energy
  - wind (unused)
  - sound waves from neighbors (sometimes leads to angry energy!)
  - bicycle pedal power
- gravitational energy
  - collected rainwater in rain barrel
  - rainwater in gutter
- chemical energy
  - edible food in pantry, refrigerator and backyard
  - wood from trees and shrubs / from pallets
  - natural gas from mains
  - petrol in car / lubricating oil / cooking oil
  - alcohol in pantry
  - battery in car
  - small number of AA, AAA and D batteries in storage
- electromagnetic energy
  - electricity via mains
  - few batteries
  - bicycle dynamo
  - alternator and battery in car
  - incandescent and LED lights
  - compass (via earth magnetic field)
  - flow of sunlight on gardens, house etc.
- ionization energy (binds electrons to atom)
  - microwave
  - fluorescent lighting
- nuclear energy (binds nuclei together)
  - no direct applications
- chromodynamic energy (binds nuclei components)
  - no direct applications
living capital
- living soil in the front yard and backyard teeming with bacteria and fungi
- insects, bugs, worms, etc.
- animals: myself, Ina, Linky†, Wifi, Toby, birds, mice, etc.
- plants and trees
material capital
- house and shed
- tools for gardening and carpentry
- car, bicycles and related repair tools
- home furnishings
- computers (in various stages of disrepair)
- clothes and related mending tools
financial capital
- bank accounts
- stocks
- cash
cultural capital
- Lindy hop (practicing and teaching)
- Balfolk (practicing)
- singing (badly)
- technical drawings and sketches
- permaculture designs
- software programs written
intellectual capital
- creative problem solving
- identify plants
- teach
  - Lindy hop
  - permaculture
- computers
  - programming
  - build systems
  - Linux server administration
  - create websites
  - plumbing functionality with Open Source software
  - create and query databases
- design, create, teach
  - design control systems (electrical engineering) — bit rusty
  - designing permaculture systems
  - designing urban permaculture systems
  - designing food forests
- working in teams
  - organize and facilitate meetings
  - keep logbooks
  - manage projects
  - write articles / status updates
experiential capital
- prepare food / cook
- preserve food
- do bookkeeping and accounting
- do Dutch taxes
- manage pantry stock levels
- make electrical installations
- make water harvesting systems / do plumbing
- repair bicycles
- repair and adjust clothes / make clothes
- do simple carpentry
- plant trees / garden
- forage for food
- do composting
- create maps
social capital
- help a neighbor
- volunteer in community garden
- volunteer at city farm
- volunteer at allotment society
- volunteer at food forest
- help with dance class
- invite friends for food, drinks or an activity
- share in a sangha
spiritual / emotional capital
- familiar with Christian teachings
- familiar with stoicism
- familiar with Advaita Vedanta
- familiar with Buddhism
- somewhat familiar with druidry
- regular meditator

Personal expenses over time

Here’s a birds eye view of my personal expenses. These include all expenses for both my personal life as well as my sole-proprietor business. And all taxes are included: income, healthcare, municipal, road tax, etc.

My expenses over time. Personal expenses have leveled off at about 20k/year.

Note the big drop in outflow from 2017 onward. This is due to several factors: I could stop alimony payments to my ex partner and I worked less hours. Less billable hours leads to less income with corresponding lower income taxes.

What I find interesting in this graph is that my expenses have leveled off in the last few years. The dip in 2021 was mainly due to the government’s corona measures as trips were not made and money was not spent. The bump in 2024 is due to replacing our roof, a job that cost ~10k. Without it, 2024 would have been the cheapest year of the last decade.

Energy usage of our household over time

Our yearly average power usage from 2012 to 2025 in watt.

I try to count every use of energy. Each energy source/usage gets converted into joules and summed over weeks, months, years. Energy usage includes —

Electricity for lights, electronics, microwave and electric kettle. Every kWh of electricity is equal to 3.6 MJ
Car fuel for transportation. Each liter of petrol fuel contains approximately 32.76 MJ of energy.
Natural gas for central heating and hot water. One cubic meter of low caloric natural gas contains 35.1684 MJ of energy.
Public transportation. I use estimates for the amount of energy a bus (0.32 kWh/km) or train/metro (0.15 kWh/km) typically uses per kilometer.
Airplane for transportation. Airplanes use between 37 and 80 kWh per 100 passenger kilometer. I use the distance between airports and multiply by 0.6 to get kWh/km.

From this we derive the amount of average continuous power (in watt or kWh/day) my household uses. In physics, power is the energy flow in joules per second (J/s) or watt (W) for short. In 2025 this household drew 860W the whole year. This means that, on average, every second 860 joules of energy gets converted into (waste) heat. For comparison, a regular human requires/produces about 100W of power. Thus, still using 2025 as an example, that year my household employed about 8.5 extra (human-equivalent) workers.

Note again a significant drop in energy usage from 2017 onward — from over 3500 watt each year to less than 900 watt. That same year Ina came to live with me. This caused the drop in car and public transport since I no longer traveled to The Hague from Eindhoven (~140km one way) to visit her every two weeks. We also reduced heating the house as much around that time. So even though the number of occupants in the household doubled, total energy usage went down.

I will note one caveat: I don’t track Ina’s usage of public transport. Since Ina came to live with me, her usage of public transport also reduced to almost zero.

To show a zoomed in view of power usage, I have included the graph below showing power draw per month in 2025.

Our power usage in 2025 for each month in watt.

Power draw in winter is much higher than in summer due to heating the house. The cold season runs mainly from October to March. Some years April and even May can be a little cold.

Driving (refueling) the car draws more power monthly than heating draws in some of the coldest months of the year. It’s quite mind-blowing how much energy is contained in the fuel tank of a car!

ipermie.net

2026-03-15T13:49:00+01:00

The book iPermie! from Bob Waldrop had a website associated with it: https://ipermie.net. After his death, the site dropped off the internet.

As often happens with domains that have gained some weight with the search engines, the domain got licensed again, and again as I found in the archived copies of the site at archive.org. Traffic must have dropped off sufficient to not make worthwhile to renew the domain and registration lapsed.

The site has been revived with the writings of Bob Waldrop. It contains the 5th version of the Bob’s Almanac, the full set of civil emergency flyers and the full contents of the book iPermie! Everything licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial 4.0 license.

Go check it out at https://ipermie.net!

Holmgren principles

2026-03-05T11:57:00+01:00

In addition to the Permaculture Ethics, David Holmgren’s list of 12 design principles shows us helpful ways to think about our systems.

Observe and interact
Catch and store energy
Obtain a yield
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
Use and value renewable resources and services
Produce no waste
Design from patterns to details
Integrate rather than segregate
Use small and slow solutions
Use and value diversity
Use edges and value the marginal
Creatively use and respond to change

Observe and interact

More and longer observation makes better plans. ‘Interact’ means that we can and should try stuff out in order to inform our observation. After all, we are part of the system and our interactions should be taken into account as well.

Catch and store energy

Energy is a highly sought after commodity in the natural world. Plants compete for sunlight, they store energy in their seeds and their roots. Squirrels store nuts. Animals fatten up for winter. Farmers dry grass and store it as hay.

Obtain a yield

A yield is a surplus, anything that produces more than we can consume. This surplus creates buffers for leaner times. Without a yield (or even a loss), we deplete our buffers and jeopardize our continued existence.

Apply self regulation and accept feedback

Moderation and humbleness!

Use and value renewable resources and services

Thank the Sun for her continuing support of life on Earth!

Produce no waste

Close your loops! Make sure every output in your system is the input to some element in your system!

Design from patterns to details

Broad strokes first, before filling in.

Integrate rather than segregate

Multiple functions for each element!

Use small and slow solutions

Those types of solution also tend to be simple, easy to maintain and quick to replace.

Use and value diversity

Every plant, every insect, every part of creation has a part to play. Diversity provides life, as a whole, with the resilience to withstand (almost) anything and flourish in the face of adversity.

Use edges and value the marginal

Edges are where the action is. Interesting things happen at the boundary between two systems — at their interface. By increasing the surface area of this interface, we encourage more interaction.

The marginal means systems that have had to get creative in order to survive. This means they are hardy and exploit resources no other system can (or is willing to). They can be the pioneers to prepare a site for less marginal habitants.

Creatively use and respond to change

Change is the only constant in this world. We should not be surprised by it, and yet most times we are. We tense up when confronted with (unanticipated) changes. By expecting things to change and by being relaxed about it, we are better able to come up with a creative response.

What Have I Been Reading and Watching

2026-01-08T14:30:00+01:00

Articles I have read

From: un-Denial by Rob Mielcarski

The Cactus Lens: A Clearer View

Until recently there have been 3 main lenses through which to view our overshoot predicament: debt, energy, and ecology.

Each lens exposes a different aspect of the picture, but not the complete picture.

Each lens focusses on different threats, with different time frames, and different consequences, and each lens suggests a different optimal response.

[…]

Hideaway, a frequent contributor at un-Denial, Peak Oil Barrel, Our Finite World and other sites, recently introduced a new lens we have named cactus [CACTUS = Complexity Accelerated Collapse of a Thermodynamically Unsustainable System], which focusses on all non-renewable resources and the complexity required to extract them.

[…]

With the introduction of the cactus lens, it is now in the best short term interests of all groups: countries, leaders, and citizens, for awareness to be as widespread as possible.

AI on Collapse

Given the cumulative constraints we have discussed—the fast biophysical collapse (5-10 years to hit the Net Energy Cliff), the collapse cascade (financial failure leading to urban anarchy), and the permanent degradation of the ecological resource base—the likelihood of total human extinction is low, but the likelihood of civilization’s collapse and a severe, multi-century population bottleneck is nearly 100%.

The factors that prevent total extinction are the same factors that ensured the survival of small, isolated human populations throughout the last million years of Ice Ages.

By Hideaway: EROEI [Energy Returned on Energy Invested]

A few years ago, when I couldn’t get a mining project to work economically by using just renewables for the power source, despite the claims of “renewables” being the cheapest form of electricity, I knew I had to go and find out what I was missing. Using diesel to generate electricity at remote mine sites is extremely expensive, so if there was any truth in renewables being “cheaper”, it should be validated at remote mine sites.

[…]

None of the new energy types, including nuclear give us anything like the 10-20 EROEI that’s needed for modern civilisation to operate, yet the older fossil fuel plants have given us a much higher numbers on average well in excess of what’s often cited as the required EROEI.

[…]

I know my numbers and methodology are far from perfect, yet they seem a lot more honest in comparing differences between the various energy providers and clearly show we have trouble ahead as the older much higher EROEI type energy producers are rapidly declining. These older types, even in the fossil fuel domain, are clearly the most profitable ones, so humans being humans are likely to use these much faster than the newer more marginal energy sources.

From: Surplus Energy Economics by Tim Morgan

#316: The class of ‘26

This, though, ignores critical leverage in the system. Most of the energy available to the economy – perhaps 95% in complex advanced economies, and 90% or so in emerging market countries – is required simply for system maintenance. It has to be devoted, not just to repairing and replacing infrastructures and productive capabilities, but also to the support of the population.

The West has long since passed the ECoE [Energy Cost of Energy] threshold beyond which growth becomes impossible, and the same is now happening in less complex, more ECoE-resilient EM [Emerging Markets] economies.

#315: Madmen and economists

Beyond its sheer size, what’s truly fascinating about the mania for all things AI-related is the way in which it fuses together the monetary and technological delusions that support the claim of never-ending economic growth.

#314: How wealth dies

What we have been exploring here is a paradox that is no paradox at all. The world will keep setting new wealth records until the financial system collapses.

From: The Seneca Effect by Ugo Bardi

From Chaos to Control: Is the West Heading Toward a One-Party Future?

From: The Honest Sorcerer

How I Came To Believe That Civilization Is Unsustainable

Finding what follows depressing, discouraging or simply labeling it as ‘pessimistic’ is a normal human response. These feelings are a part of the long journey towards acceptance — and not a permanent state of mind. Once you come to terms with what I have to explain here, and find your inner peace again, you will be much more resilient to whatever hardship might come. While others will have to confront their shock and their deepest fears of an uncertain future when the first major crisis hits, you will already know what’s happening and why, and perhaps will have already developed plans and mental maps how to move on. Trust me, unless you live in a war-torn, heavily sanctioned, economically ruined country you have seen nothing so far… But do not let that fact stop you from appreciating that what ‘others’ are experiencing at the moment might come to theaters near you anytime soon.

It’s also worth noting that what we are going through as a society is perfectly normal. All civilizations follow a similar pattern of growth, stagnation and decline — ours is no exception. What sets us apart from the hundreds of other fallen societies is our knowledge and information about our predicament. We have developed a scientific understanding why civilizations collapse, what true sustainability is, and how we got further and further away from that. Unlike prophets of prior times, we now have solid evidence for trends clearly pointing in the wrong direction. What’s laid out here is thus not informed by vague prophecies or scriptures written thousands of years ago. Contrast that to our prevalent myth — an unshakeable belief in unending progress and growth on a finite planet — an unresolvable contradiction on its own.

From: Ecosophia by John Michael Greer

Situationism: The Road from Raswashingsputin

It’s when you put your awareness into action that you have to be careful. The evidence of history and my experience alike suggest that you can get away with an enormous amount provided that you do it quietly, don’t call attention to yourself, and avoid whatever activities panic the system into police-state actions. This is easiest to do if you’re alone. It’s not that difficult if it’s just you and a partner or spouse. As the number of people involve mounts up, so do the challenges, because anything that looks even remotely like the beginning of a mass movement will set off violent overreactions from the ruling elites.

From: The Whirl of ReOrientation by Mark McGrath

Narrative Weapons Are Being Used Against You; This 5-Part Framework Shows You How to Identify Them And Fight Back

The 5T Protocol is a resource for pattern detection. It examines five elements in any narrative artifact:

TERRAIN – What ground is being claimed? What moral or cultural authority is being invoked?

TARGET – Who is being directly or indirectly attacked, undermined, or positioned as “the problem”?

TONE – What emotional register is being used to claim the high ground, silence dissent, or confuse criticism with cruelty?

TROPE – What culturally familiar scripts are activated to signal virtue or justify attack?

TACTICS – What rhetorical tools are doing the dirty work? Are they logical? Fair? Or manipulative?

Videos I have watched

The Enneagram - a presentation by Richard Rohr

From: RaWMachines on YouTube

iPermie! by Bob Waldrop

2025-11-07T15:00:00+01:00

I came across this book when I was looking into the writings of Bob Waldrop. He was a Permaculture Designer living in Oklahoma City. He created a set of flyers called the Better Times Emergency Notes, which I republished on this site. He passed away in 2019.

In 2013 he wrote a tome on permaculture called iPermie!. Its subtitle: How to permaculture your urban lifestyle: a good-life design guide for Millennials, Boomers, and Generation X.

I originally downloaded the sample from his archived website. It only contains the first three sections of the book and already runs at a whopping 416 pages!

Recently I came across a notice of republication by James M. Branum. You can now get iPermie PDF released under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial share-alike license. I put a copy of the PDF on my website.

This book runs for 891 pages. I will note that there is a lot of internal repetition. This makes it easy to start reading from most anywhere but makes the work seem somewhat unapproachable at first sight.

The introduction talks about the why of the book and who its intended public is. It wants to explain the permaculture design system to people of low to moderate incomes living in a city. Permaculture at its core is action coupled with reflection, a praxis for empowerment and hope. Using a succession of small steps the book guides us to create a good-life design.

A sensible approach is to start with the Introduction and 00 Basics and then pick any topic that interests you and start reading from there.

The book covers these sections:

00 Basics,
01 Invisible Structures,
02 Food,
03 Energy,
04 Shelter,
05 Water,
06 Geography, Access, Transportation,
07 Community,
08 Economics,
09 Constancy, Persistence, Resilience,
10 Health
11 Education
12 Family, and finally
13 Putting this together

If you choose to follow along, and I highly recommend you do, it will guide you to make a permaculture design for your (urban) life. What you will end up with is an ever-evolving design that helps you get clear on what you value in life and ways to bring these values to life.

If you’re interested in permaculture and are looking for a practical, hands-on guide, I highly recommend downloading it, printing (parts of it) out and working through it at your own pace. Or study it with a group of friends by designing and creating a Learning Community (See section 00081, from page 34).

Better Times Emergency Notes

2025-11-04T15:31:00+01:00

I found these flyers a while ago and filed their location away in my archive. I recently came across them again and discovered the original website had vanished. Its creator, Bob Waldrop, has passed away in 2019.

Because the information contained in the flyers is helpful and compact, I wanted them to give them a new home on the internet. I downloaded the PDF’s from archive.org and converted them into HTML.

Please note that these flyers have been written for people living in Oklahoma City in the United States. If you intend to use them, they still need to be adapted to your local situation and circumstances.

This is what Bob wrote as an introduction to these flyers:

The various disasters of the last few years have taught critical lessons:

When the going gets rough, your local, state, and federal government may leave you behind for the wolves to devour.

A very large disaster — and/or several disasters coming on at the same time — will stretch the ability of the government and private aid agencies to respond adequately.

Government disaster response agencies are plagued with politics. Their decisions are not always made in accordance with the best practices of disaster response. Politics can delay or reduce to the point of inadequacy government responses to disaster. Your mileage may vary with this issue, depending on local conditions and the disaster.

Even with the best of intentions, the government can’t do everything, be everywhere, or rescue everybody. During disasters, people may be left to their own resources for an extended period of time. The cavalry may not always come riding over the hill to the rescue.

Besides weather-related disasters, we are at risk of terrorism, military attacks, financial crises, resource exhaustion, & collapse of irrational economic structures. Some disasters, such as an “Electromagnetic Pulse” attack, could affect all of North America. An EMP would destroy all electrical generating and distribution systems on the continent. It could take years for them to be replaced.

We are dependent upon a long and fragile supply line for gasoline and diesel. There are a hundred things that could happen as early as tomorrow that could break that supply chain. If the fuel stops, then so do the trucks that haul groceries. Most major supermarkets only have 3 or 4 days of food in their inventories; if the trucks stop, their shelves will be quickly stripped by panic buying.

The purpose of these “Printable Flyers” is to give general, basic information on coping with a fast-acting, long- lasting disaster where rescue will be delayed. Make copies of these flyers now, so you will have them ready if they were needed. Everyone hopes that something like this would never be needed – but if it is needed, the copy shops won’t be open. So make lots of copies now, when they are cheap and access is plentiful. When your neighbors need the info, you’ll have it for them. That could make a big difference in your neighborhood. The time to copy your printable flyers is before the grid goes down and the copy shops close.

Downloadable and Printable Flyers

UPDATE 2026-03-31: Now you can find all the flyers on ipermie.net. You can download the flyers in PDF, ODT and TXT format.

English language: Extreme Civil Emergency Flyers
Dutch language: Folders voor Extreme Noodsituaties

If you’re interested in internet archeology: you can still find the original PDF’s on archive.org.

Attitudinal principles

2025-10-27T14:57:00+01:00

This is a reformulation of the principles Bill Mollison used:

Multiple elements x multiple functions
Everything gardens
The problem is the solution
Yield is theoretically unlimited
Work with nature
Minimum effort, maximum effect

Multiple elements x multiple functions

This principle asks us to look at how every element of our system performs multiple functions. Take a row of trees. These can act as a wind break, a source of firewood, construction wood and mulch, nesting opportunities for birds and insects, provide shade, stabilize and fertilize the soil, capture moisture and airborne matter from the air, etc.

And similarly that every function in our system needs to have a backup somewhere else. If we want to have a source of water on our site, this can be provided by a natural spring, by capturing rain water, by digging a well, etc. If one element fails to provide the required function, we can resort to a different one without much disruption to our systems. In our example above, if rainfall is insufficient we can supplement with well water or divert some spring water for our purposes.

Designing a system with this principle in mind will produce a smaller yet more resilient design.

Everything gardens

Gardening covers many different actions, like: scattering, sowing, thinning, gathering, harvesting, mowing, pruning, transplanting, constructing, digging, fertilizing, etc. etc.

Looking at how animals, plants, bacteria, fungi etc. change the environment you can easily see how they too are gardening in a sense.

Take the example of a bird harvesting (eating) a fruit. Some seeds get stratified in the bird’s stomach. When the bird poops out the seed it gets sown with a bit of fertilizer attached. Later when the bird scratches the soil looking for seeds and insects, it scatters dormant seeds, it weeds and prepares the topsoil for planting and it removes potentials pests.

The problem is the solution

Change how you think about a problem and sometimes the problem is no longer a problem to be solved or the reformulation makes a solution obvious.

One famous saying by Bill Mollison is: “You don’t have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency!”. Meaning that by introducing ducks into the system, the snails will be dealt with as ducks eat snails.

Yield is theoretically unlimited

This again is about changing how you think. It asks us to take a broader perspective. Leave the narrow, human-focused mindset behind and think bigger and more-than-human!

Work with nature

Nature or reality is the ultimate arbiter. Working against nature will ensure a steady workload trying to counteract where the system wants to go anyway.

Minimum effort, maximum effect

This principle asks us to identify leverage points where small actions lead to big consequences over time. It is also an application of the Pareto Principle where 20% of (well applied) effort leads to 80% of results.

Planting a strategically placed row of trees in a meadow can lead to: a natural wind break, providing shade and shelter from the elements, nesting opportunities, as well as kick starting the change in the ecology from grassland to woodland with corresponding changes to animals, insects and other visitors and inhabitants.

Dreaming Circle

2025-10-15T14:10:00+02:00

The Dreaming Circle is a process for elucidating a vision. A vision puts a dot on the horizon of where you would like to end up. A vision can be for a project, for a company, for your life, for a partnership.

Creating a vision statement has a few aims:

Capture the needs participants of the project try to fulfill and to make these visible for all participants
Engender enthusiasm for the project from all participants because their needs are being met by the project
Facilitate going from “This is my project you’re working on”/”This is your project I’m working on” to “This is our project we’re working on”.

The process has three phases:

gathering information,
organizing the information and
constructing a coherent vision.

Note that this process needs to be revisited as participants join or leave a project. Because of this, the vision can drift as new participants can have different needs from the original founders of the project. These will have to be taken into consideration.

Gathering information

Gather everybody involved in the project in a circle

Ask participants to contemplate the following question:

“What would this project have to be like that afterward you can
say, you could not have spent your time in any better way?“

After a few minutes of sitting with the question in silence, start going around the circle. Use a talking stick or similar technology. Write down what comes up on a whiteboard, on sticky notes or on loose pieces of paper that are visible to everyone.
Every participant shares a keyword or a small phrase (max 3 words) about what they find important about this project. If people have multiple words or phrases, these can be shared in subsequent rounds.
Keep going around the circle until everybody indicates there are no more words coming to mind.

Organizing

The next phase is the ordering and categorizing of the information gathered.

Cluster words and phrases that speak to a common concern or need; ask participants for clarification if necessary. Having pieces of paper that can freely move around is helpful;
Find a descriptive word for each cluster;

Constructing of the vision statement

With the cluster words, construct one or more sentences. Write the sentence in the present tense as if it was already true. Start with the following:
```
<project> is a ...
```

Vegetable Ferment

2025-09-10T14:35:00+02:00

Ingredients:

4 beetroot
3 carrots
1 pumpkin
water
kitchen salt
glass container with lid
old sock

Preparation:

Slice beetroot and carrots;
Cut pumpkin in pieces;
Weigh the empty container, this is to later deduce the weight of its contents;
Put the pieces into the container, make sure the larger pieces are firmly wedged under the shoulder of the glass to keep the smaller pieces from floating to the surface;
Add water until all pieces are submerged. any piece breaking the surface of the water will be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungi;
Weigh the full container again and subtract the weight of the empty container. In my ferment (see photo), I had 900 grams of contents;
Add 1% to 2% by weight of salt. In my case, 1% of 900 grams is 9 grams, 2% is 18 grams. I added 15 grams of salt to the water;
Optionally you can add a teaspoon of sourdough starter or whey water (from yogurt) to kick-start your ferment;
Put the lid loosely on the container. Add an old sock over the top to secure the lid more tightly but not so tight the fermentation gasses stay trapped;
The fermentation produces gasses (primarily carbon-dioxide) and may start to foam at the top. As a precaution against spills you can put the container on an appropriately sized plate.
The ferment can be eaten any time. As you leave the ferment to do its thing for longer, the taste will turn gradually more sour.

Addendum. Unfortunately this ferment started developing white mold after a week or two. Within the white mold were small patches of green mold growing. Green or black mold are not good for humans and I had to throw the whole batch out. This also happens sometimes.

Input-Output Analysis

2025-09-09T20:30:00+02:00

This analysis is a way to track different flows across our systems and how the output flow of one element can be used as the input flow to another element in our system.

Every output stream that is not matched to an input is a waste stream and becomes pollution to the wider system. And for every input stream that is not provided for by an output of our system, we need to bring this into the system from outside.

Example

Consider a system with the following elements and a number of their inputs and outputs:

Element	Input(s)	Output(s)
compost bin	scraps	compost
kitchen	food stuff, fruits/vegetables	scraps, food, packaging
chickens	feed, scraps	eggs, manure
garden	compost, manure, seeds, fertilizer	food
human	food	human manure

In this example, we can match the following outputs to inputs: the output of the compost bin can go into the garden, the fruits and vegetables from the garden into the kitchen and the food scraps from the kitchen are for the chickens and the compost bin. Manure from the chickens can also go into the garden. The human eats the food from the kitchen.

Here’s a graph showing all the input and outputs mentioned as well as the external inputs and the waste streams. Just in this small example, we can already see a high degree of inter-dependency.

Example Input-Output Analysis

Input-Output Analysis from our example system

If our aim is to become more self-sufficient we need to find ways to source seeds, fertilizer, food stuff and feed from within our own system. In addition we need to find ways to use the waste streams of human manure and packaging.

Some proposed changes to our system could include a composting toilet, turning human manure into compost. We could try reusing packaging for long term food preservation, reducing the amount of packaging that leaves our system as well as the amount of food stuff we need to source from the shop. If we save our seeds from the garden, we reduce the need to go seed shopping.

This analysis is far from complete. There’s the tools we use in the kitchen and the garden. The garden needs a steady supply of water. We’re also missing the construction materials for the compost bin and the chicken coop. We’re missing the house the kitchen is located in and its demands for maintenance (that is, materials, tools and energy). The energy used in the kitchen for cooking also comes from outside, unless we’re using wood we’ve collected from our property.

An Input-Output Analysis give us a way to visualize and appreciate the complexity of our system and its connections to the larger systems it is a part of. It can show us where we need to focus our efforts to reduce our dependency on Industrial Civilization.

How to begin

We need a list of elements that make up the system and the different flows between them.

First make a survey of the system using Nine Ways of Observing and maybe do a Flow Survey next. These two tools will give you a comprehensive list of elements and flows to use as inputs to the Input-Output Analysis.

As you do this analysis, you may discover new flows or new elements that you may have missed the first time. It is good to go back to the surveys and add these flows and elements to them.

Practical Haybox Usage

2025-09-08T15:27:00+02:00

I have designed our haybox in 2019. Over time I streamlined the use of our haybox. This page documents the current (2025) way we use the haybox.

First put rice and salted water to a boil. Take one part rice to two parts water. Put on the lid and let it boil for about half a minute.

Put the pan in the haybox.

Our haybox is at the bottom a thick woolen mat. On top of the mat is a felted sheepskin. These two pieces are a standard fixture in our living room. They provide excellent insulation from the floor and are very nice to sit on.

On top of the sheepskin I put a pink fleece blanket. On top of the blanket is a piece of cardboard for extra insulation and to ensure the blanket stays clean.

I then fold the cardboard over the pan. And then fold the fleece blanket over the top. First left to right, then right to left and finally I tuck top and bottom ends into the cavity made by the cardboard.

Finally I cover the fleece again with a smaller felted sheepskin. It is now well camouflaged!

After about 20-30 minutes the rice will be sufficiently cooked. In this case, I took out the rice after 1.5 hours. It was hot and delicious.

Enjoy!

Bookkeeping

2025-08-29T20:00:00+02:00

Knowing how to Keep the Books is a skill, I believe, everybody would benefit from.

Double-entry accounting

Double-entry accounting simply means that this method accounts for every transaction where the money came from and where it is going. It makes “two entries”!

I highly recommend reading Principles of Accounting with Ledger in the Ledger manual. It very clearly explains the principles of double-entry accounting.

I have used GnuCash, SQL-Ledger, Odoo and Ledger. All these programs support double-entry bookkeeping and they make it relatively easy to start with double-entry accounting.

Of the programs mentioned, GnuCash is definitely easiest for beginners to start with. It provides a simple install on all major platforms and gives users a point-and-click interface to work with.

I found it helpful to just start experimenting. Start with a basic suggested Chart of Accounts and start adding transactions to journals. See what changes, compare totals with bank statements, try out different reports and try to make sense of the numbers. As I gained more experience, I started customizing the Chart of Accounts to my needs and liking.

Starting over is always an option! Simple restarts can be done at the end of a month or at the end of a year. Be sure to keep your old files in backup so you can look back at them. This can be like a trip down memory lane: seeing a major purchase, or finding out how much money you have actually spent over the years.

Chart of Accounts

Every set of books has a Chart of Accounts (CoA). This is a hierarchical classification system for your money. How you structure your books is (in principle) completely up to you. Unless you own a company and need to comply with the accounting rules of your country, in which case there can be a standardized CoA you will need to use for your company.

Here are a few general guidelines.

At the top level of most CoAs you will typically find the following accounts (with the Dutch equivalent between parentheses).

Income (Inkomen)
Expenses (Uitgaven)
Assets (Activa)
Liabilities (Passiva)
Equity (Eigen Vermogen)

Depending on your taste Equity can also appear as a subcategory to Liabilities.

The goal of a CoA is to provide you with a way to quickly visualize the flow of money. It answers the following questions.

Where does it come from?
- Income can come from an hourly wage, from a monthly job payment, from dividends or interests from investments. These all bring money into your system;
What brings it with?
- Liabilities, be it a credit or a loan, produces a (one-time) income stream by financing an expense. It brings with it a legal obligation to repay at some later date and may include regular payments of interest;
- It also brings with it a means to exchange tokens for the necessities and luxuries of life: food, shelter, energy, transportation, toys, etc;
What is the effect on my system?
- Money flowing in and out changes your Equity. Over a period of time this change is called a Profit if more money is flowing in than leaving or a Loss if more money is flowing out than in;
- Too much money going out relative to money coming in will present a problem at some later stage;
- A large inflow of money (inheritance, lottery winnings, some other financial windfall) can destabilize your system substantially much like a tsunami can wreak havoc on a coastline;
Where does it leave?
- Expenses are things or services you buy. It’s your cost of living: expenses for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, entertainment, etc.;
- Does it leave in a trickle or in a flood?
What takes it with?
- When liabilities are obligations that a stream of money brings into your system, Assets are its opposite. They take obligations out of your system;
- Having money to solve problems takes away the incentive and imagination on how to solve a problem without spending money; it lets you play life on easy mode.

Example Chart of Accounts

Here is, roughly translated and slightly expanded, the Chart of Accounts I currently use in my own bookkeeping in Ledger (ledger-cli). I will use the same notation as Ledger uses to indicate deeper parts of the hierarchy by separating the parent account and the child account with a colon (:).

Account marked with * have a note further down with some explanation.

On the Assets side of the balance:

Assets
  Liquid
    Cash
    Bank Checking
    Bank Savings
    In Transit*
  Real Estate
  Investments
    Bonds
    Exchange Traded Funds
    Exchange Traded Commodities
    Shares
  Accounts Receivable*
  Prepayments*

Notes:

Assets:Liquid:In Transit: this account is useful for transfers between bank accounts. Each bank account has its own transaction log. If a transfer moves money to Savings when processing the Checking account, a similar transfer will appear when processing the Savings account. The interim account In Transit provides a parking space for the money in transit, recording when the money left Checking and when it arrives in Savings. It also accurately records the value date for both transactions as these can differ.
Assets:Accounts Receivable (Debiteuren) is for invoices sent to customers but not yet payed.
Assets:Prepayments contain subdivisions, one for each purpose; I use this for payments to utilities like water and energy.

On the Liabilities side of the balance:

Liabilities
  Accounts Payable*
  Credit Card
  Mortgage
  Value Added Tax
Equity:Opening Balances

Notes:

Liabilities:Accounts Payable: these are either unpaid invoices or invoices on an ongoing payment schedule and thus only partially paid. If on a payment schedule, I prefer to put these liabilities in a separate account.
Value Added Tax: for businesses these accounts record the amount of tax collected on behalf of the tax office. These amounts will need to be transferred to the tax office, usually on a monthly or quarterly schedule.

On the Income side of profit and loss:

Income*
  Wages
  Sales
  Rental Income
  Reimbursements
  Gifts
  Interests Received
  Dividends

Notes:

Income: Filter by account, date and/or description to get more finely grained reports on your inflows. Add subdivisions to accounts if needed.

On the Expenses side of profit and loss:

Expenses*
  Personal
    Groceries
    Clothing
    Insurance:Health Insurance
    Physician
    Dentist
    Hairdresser
    Taxes*
      Dividend Tax
      Income Tax
    Services
      Accountant
      Notary
      Banking Services
  Shelter
    Rent
    Interest on Mortgage*
    Insurance:Home Insurance
    Taxes:Municipal Tax
    Energy
    Water
    Furnishings
    Maintenance
    Gardening Expenses
    Accommodation Costs*
  Social
    Communications
      Phone Services
      Internet Access
      Devices
    Subscriptions
      Newspaper
      Streaming Services
    Eating Out / Cafe
    Entrance Fees
    Pets
      Vet
      Feed
      Stuff
      Sitter
    Gifts
    Tips
    Donations
  Transport
    Delivery
    Public Transport
    Car
      Fuel
      Rental
      Taxes:Road Tax
      Insurance:Liability Insurance
      Maintenance
      Parking
      Purchase
      Fines
      Toll
    Bicycle
    Plane
    Insurance:Travel Insurance
    Travel Expenses
  Studies
    Lessons
    Media
    Subscriptions
  Other Expenses
    Cash Differences*
    Payment Differences
  Unknown*

Notes:

My Expenses categorization has quite a fine granularity. I do sometimes struggle with keeping sufficient generalization.
Expenses:Cash Differences: This is for small cash expenses without proper categorization, probably because I lost a receipt. It’s to correct the amount shown in Assets:Liquid:Cash.
Expenses:Personal:Taxes: This category only shows part of the taxes I pay.

In other categories, there are also taxes paid. For example in Expenses:Transportation:Car:Taxes:Road Tax or Expenses:Shelter:Taxes:Municipal Tax. By coding the accounts this way I easily filter out how much taxes I pay in ledger-cli with ledger bal :Taxes:

Note that I can do the same for insurance with ledger bal :Insurance:
Expenses:Shelter:Interest on Mortgage: payments of your mortgage usually contain a part interest and a part repayment. The repayment part goes to decrease the absolute amount in Liabilities:Mortgage and is not an expense.
Expenses:Shelter:Accommodation Costs, Expenses:Transportation:Travel Expenses, Expenses:Social:Eating Out, Expenses:Social:Entrance Fees: I use these accounts to record expenses for different aspects of vacations and outings.
Expenses:Unknown: I use programs to classify transactions. These programs use a matching system to map a (bank) transaction to an account in the Chart of Account. If no match is found, the transaction uses this account. Whenever I see it appear in my reports, I need to add a further classification to my data file.

Personal Experiences

Over time I have changed how my Chart of Accounts looks. I have changed the amount of detail, the number of top-level accounts under Expenses, reordered accounts. The Chart of Account I presented here is very similar to the one I personally use.

When starting out, keep it simple. Use less accounts and only add more accounts as you want to have more granular detail on your expense. Accounting programs have more ways to filter transaction than using only the account name. Filtering on description, date, amount can provide additional insight without complicating the Chart of Accounts.

I don’t have separate accounts for expenses related to vacations. When I want an expense report of a vacation, I typically will copy all transactions related to this vacation in a different ledger file. I can than create a dedicated profit and loss report for just this vacation. I put these overviews together in the org-file vacation.org and add a description with the dates and the itinerary.

Flow Survey

2025-08-29T19:39:00+02:00

Flows manifest in systems in all sorts of ways. Here are some things that can flow:

wind — a gentle breeze, a fierce hurricane, jet streams;
running water — streams, flooding, glaciers, avalanches, sea currents, city water;
sand/rock — shifting dunes, mudslides, mountains eroding, mining;
oil/fuel — routes of oil tankers, within refineries, distribution across fueling stations;
electrons — within an electrical circuit, arcing across wires;
people — on the streets of a city, in a house doing their daily routine or shopping routes in a supermarket;
traffic — traffic jams, commuters, commercial transports;
animals — while migrating, foraging or hunting;
information — feedback, feed forward, key nodes;
money — income, expenses, assets, liabilities.

Survey a flow in your system by asking the following questions:

Where does it come from?
What brings it with?
What is the effect on my system?
Where does it leave?
What takes it with?

See bookkeeping as an example for exactly this type of survey. I have also written about how I track flows. Or look in my design of a summer party at the section flow of visitors.

Using Ledger-cli for joint finances

2025-07-24T19:25:00+02:00

I have been using ledger-cli since 2015. At first only for my personal finances. To make it easier for myself, I use the CSV files I download from the bank and convert these into ledger-cli transaction files.

Later I incorporated my business records as well. I use a Python script to export the records from my business accounting software (Odoo) and write them out as ledger-cli transactions. This gave me a single location to view all of my finances: personal and business.

I was looking for a way to give me

a view of just my business
a view of just my personal finances
a combination of both business and personal finances

I realized that much of what I do to make this happen, can be also applied to joint finances.

Simplified setup

My own setup is quite involved with separate files for nearly every account and each split up again by year. I then combine them in separate ledger files that have a lot of include statements.

To explain the basic reasoning for joint personal accounts, I’ll simplify to a single file for each member of a two head household with a husband and wife.

Proposed names for the data files for DH (dear husband), DW (dear wife), DH~DW (joint accounts):

DH.ledger
DW.ledger
DH~DW.ledger

If you want to apply this example to business and personal records, think of DH as the business and DW as the personal (or vice versa). In that case there are no joint accounts.

We can combine these files in different ways using include.

Joint account view with origin

Let’s make a joint account view where every set of accounts is prefixed with its origin. This ledger file could be named all.ledger. It could have the following contents:

# all.ledger

apply account Husband
include DH.ledger
end apply account

apply account Wife
include DW.ledger
end apply account

apply account Joint
include DH~DW.ledger
end apply account

Consolidated view

A consolidated view to show the whole household as one financial entity. This ledger file could be called joint.ledger. It could have the following contents:

# joint.ledger

include DH.ledger
include DW.ledger
include DH~DW.ledger

The trick here is to use the same setup of accounts for all parties. This makes consolidating easy. The former ledger file is capable of showing individual contributions of DH, DW and joint accounts to income, expenses, assets and debts. The latter ledger file gives you the household’s consolidated numbers for each unique account.

Example reports

Generating reports using either all.ledger or joint.ledger could look like this:

# household -- balance sheet
ledger -f joint.ledger bal Assets or Liabilities

# household -- profit and loss statement
ledger -f joint.ledger bal Income or Expenses

# DH -- profit and loss statement
ledger -f all.ledger bal Husband and \( Income or Expenses \)

# DW -- balance sheet
ledger -f all.ledger bal Wife and \( Assets or Liability \)

Dividing expenses between partners

In some prenuptial agreements, partners agree to keep a record of the contributions to the household.

For this you can use these four different reports:

ledger -f joint.ledger -M -n --begin '3 months ago' reg Expenses
ledger -f all.ledger -M -n --begin '3 months ago' reg Expenses and Husband
ledger -f all.ledger -M -n --begin '3 months ago' reg Expenses and Wife
ledger -f all.ledger -M -n --begin '3 months ago' reg Expenses and Joint

The first report gives the total cost of expenses over the given time period. We use this to verify corrections and interim calculations.

The following three reports are views into how expenses were handled individually: by the husband, by the wife and through the joint accounts.

I use org-mode to tabulate and calculate the totals and the redistribution. Here’s an example:

#+name: Auxiliary table for calculating distribution of expenses
| Description     | Husband |  Wife |  Total |
|-----------------+---------+-------+--------|
| Expenses        |   45.85 | 16.19 |  62.04 |
|-----------------+---------+-------+--------|
| Total           |   45.85 | 16.19 |  62.04 |
| Equal distrib.  |   31.02 | 31.02 |  62.04 |
|-----------------+---------+-------+--------|
| Left to pay     |  -14.83 | 14.83 |   0.00 |
#+TBLFM: $4=$2+$3;%.2f :: @3$2=vsum(@I..@II);%.2f :: @3$3=vsum(@I..@II);%.2f :: @4$2=@3$4/2;%.2f :: @4$3=@3$4/2;%.2f :: @5$2=@4$4/2-@3$2;%.2f :: @5$3=@4$4/2-@3$3;%.2f

To do the same by hand, first sum individual expenses: see column Total for the line Expenses. Divide this number by two and put these numbers on the line Equal distrib. for each partner. This how much each partner should have payed if they each payed for exactly half of the expenses. Finally, subtract the amount payed by the equalized amount. The partner with the negative number gets compensated by the partner with the positive number. In the example above, Wife still needs to pay € 14.83 to Husband.

To check your calculations, the amount Left to pay for Husband and Wife need to be the same, except for the minus sign.

Working with transit or interim accounts

For correct reports, we need a special way to record the transfer funds of between partners. In these cases we use a transit account to hold the money. One partner sends money to this transit account while the other moves the money from the transit account to the proper place.

These transit accounts naturally sit under Equity in the hierarchy of accounts.

Example: cash changes hands

DH gives € 50 cash to DW.

In husband’s ledger DH.ledger this is recorded as:

2025/07/07 * Cash to DW
  Assets:Cash   € -50.00
  Equity:Transit

While in wife’s ledger DW.ledger:

2025/07/07 * Cash from DH
  Assets:Cash   € 50.00
  Equity:Transit

When generating a report using the joint.ledger this transit account Equity:Transit will end up with a net zero balance. Compare:

$ ledger -f joint.ledger --empty bal Transit
                   0  Equity:Transit

$ ledger -f all.ledger bal Transit
             € 50.00  Husband:Equity:Transit
            € -50.00  Wife:Equity:Transit
--------------------
                   0

Example: contributions into a joint account

When both husband and wife are putting in a contribution in the joint account at the bank, we record these transactions.

In husband’s ledger DH.ledger:

2025/07/18 * Contribution to joint account
  Assets:Bank:DH Account   € -50.00
  Equity:Contribution

And in wife’s ledger DW.ledger:

2025/07/10 * Contribution to joint account
  Assets:Bank:DW Account   € -50.00
  Equity:Contribution

In the joint ledger DH~DW.ledger:

2025/07/10 * Contribution from DW
  Assets:Bank:Joint Account   € 50.00
  Equity:Contribution

2025/07/18 * Contribution from DH
  Assets:Bank:Joint Account   € 50.00
  Equity:Contribution

Again, generating a report from joint.ledger will show a zero balance for Equity:Contribution. While using all.ledger shows individual contributions. Compare the following:

$ ledger -f joint.ledger --empty bal Contribution
                   0  Equity:Contribution

$ ledger -f all.ledger bal Contribution
             € 50.00  Husband:Equity:Contribution
           € -100.00  Joint:Equity:Contribution
             € 50.00  Wife:Equity:Contribution
--------------------
                   0

Sourdough Cracker

2025-07-10T19:00:00+02:00

This is a very tasty recipe for making a cracker from sourdough. When stored in an airtight container, this cracker will probably keep good for a week if not longer.

Ingredients:

200g sourdough starter
100g flour
80g olive oil
50g seeds (sunflower, sesame)
6g salt

Preparation:

mix all ingredients well
put dough on a baking paper
use a spoon to flatten out the dough until it is roughly 3-5mm thick
(optionally) score the dough with a knife to make it easier to break into even pieces after baking

Baking:

180°C for 30-35min

Alternative options:

use 100g flour and 100g water with some apple vinegar instead of 200g starter
sprinkle seeds and salt on top after flattening the dough
use other kinds of toppings like grated cheese, herbs or spices

Cracker after baking

Financial Implications of Starting a Business

2025-06-24T22:26:00+02:00

Recently a friend mentioned she needed to write a business plan for her new business. The request was to include a section on financials.

Starting a new business is quite disruptive to the way you spend your time, your money and your energy. It helps to think through some of the implications. Here’s how I would approach such a request.

Current Situation

In the following I assume I start from a situation of working for 40 hours for a boss to earn a monthly wage. I would like to start a business giving workshops to groups of people. All numbers and estimates are for demonstration purposes only.

Starting with my current situation:

income (total € 3000 per month)
- wage (€ 3000 per month)
- bonusses and overtime (€ 0 per month)
effort (total 45 hours per week)
- time spent at work (40 hours)
- time spent commuting and preparing (5 hours)
expenses (total € 2700 per month)
- private expenses (€ 2700 per month)
buffer (total € 20000)
- private assets (€ 20000)

Situation After Business Starts

When my business is running smoothly, I aim to give one workshop a week to a group of people. My business covers all its expenses. The profit from the business is sufficient to pay for my personal expenses. My buffer is growing. There is no need to maintain a (part-time) job.

But until that time, before my business is profitable, my situation could look like this:

income (total € 2000 per month)
- wage (€ 1500 per month)
- sales (€ 500 per month)
effort (total 40 hours per week)
- time spent at part time job (20 hours per week)
- time spent commuting and preparing (3 hours per week)
- billable business hours (0 hours per week)
- non-billable business hours (max 17 hours per week)
expenses (total € 4000 per month)
- business expenses (€ 1300 per month)
- private expenses (€ 2700 per month)
buffer (total € 20000)
- private assets (€ 15000)
- business assets (€ 5000, initially from private assets)

Note that long term I can sustain putting in 40 hours per week of total effort. I can allow for occasional bursts of 60 hours per week. If I do this regularly and for a number of weeks at a time it will surely lead to exhaustion and burnout.

By simply looking at income and expenses, I can clearly see that this is not a sustainable situation. My expenses are twice my income. I’m loosing money at € 2000 per month.

I estimate how much money I need to make to reach break-even. This is when all expenses and all income is balanced. So I add all my personal expenses and my (estimated) business expenses. I can subtract any part-time wage. This is how much turnover (sales) the business needs to generate at a bare minimum. With the situation as above I will need at least € 2500 in turnover per month (€ 4000 total expenses minus € 1500 part-time wage), or € 30000 per year.

I calculate my burn. This tells me how many months I have left before I run out of money (buffer). For this, I take my current buffer and divide by all my expenses per month. Note: if I still have some monthly secondary income (wage, benefits) I can reduce my total expenses by this amount before dividing the current buffer. A general personal finance rule is to keep a buffer of at least three months of monthly expenses: the emergency fund.

With the situation as above, my burn is eight months. This is € 20000 total buffer divided by: € 4000 in expenses minus € 1500 part-time wage. In other words: within five months I need to increase my sales by € 2000 per month (total expenses minus part-time wage minus current sales) to stay afloat.

If I want to quit my job completely the business needs to provide for all expenses: € 4000 per month or € 48000 per year. I can now estimate how much money I need to make from each workshop I give.

Out of the 12 months in a year, I estimate I am able to organize nine or ten workshops. The other three months are for vacation, preparation, etc. I divide the turnover per year by the number of workshops in a year. So € 48000 divided by 10 gives € 4800 per workshop.

If each workshop is attended by 10 people, I need to ask at least € 480 per person. With 100 people the minimum financially viable fee drops to € 48.

Effect of Expense Reduction

In the previous example I have kept personal expenses at the same level as the starting situation. If I’m able to reduce my personal expenses by 25% and keep business expenses under control, this is what happens.

income (total € 2000 per month)
- wage (€ 1500 per month)
- sales (€ 500 per month)
effort (total 40 hours per week)
- time spent at part time job (20 hours per week)
- time spent commuting and preparing (3 hours per week)
- billable business hours (0 hours per week)
- non-billable business hours (max 17 hours per week)
expenses (total € 3000 per month)
- business expenses (€ 1000 per month)
- private expenses (€ 2000 per month)
buffer (total € 20000)
- private assets (€ 15000)
- business assets (€ 5000, initially from private assets)

Again, by looking at income and expenses, I can see that this is still not a sustainable situation. My expenses are higher than my income. I’m loosing money at a rate of € 1000 per month.

For break-even in this case I will need at least € 1500 in turnover per month (€ 3000 total expenses minus € 1500 part-time wage), or € 18000 per year.

Now my burn is 1 year and 1 month. This is € 20000 total buffer divided by: € 3000 in expenses minus € 1500 part-time wage. By reducing expenses I increased my runway by five months.

If I want to quit my job completely the business needs to provide for € 3000 per month or € 36000 per year. So I need to earn at least € 3600 per workshop. I need to ask for € 360 per participant with ten participants per workshop or € 36 if 100 people attend (on average).

Questions Arising

These figures can help me asses some difficult questions about the last situation:

is this a viable business?
- at the moment, it is not.
what is needed to make it a viable business?
- there is a shortfall of € 1000 per month
- I need cut my expenses even further so they are more in line with my income; the smaller the gap, the more runway I create for myself
- I have about nine, ten months to get to break-even with a part-time job
can I grow the business sufficiently in the available time (before money runs out)?
- in this example I am already making € 500 per month. If I charge € 50 per participant, I already reach ten people per month and I need to find 20 people per month extra
- if I charge € 100 per participant, I already reach five people per month and I need to find ten people per month extra
- if I charge € 200 per participant, I already reach two or three people per month and I need to find five additional people per month
- in every case, I need to double the amount of clients I service per month
how much is my target audience actually willing to pay?
- better to start with a high price and give discounts than to start with a low price and trying to raise it afterwards
- can I charge € 200 per attendee? what would make people want to pay me that kind of money?
- is my target audience size large enough?
- do I know how to contact them?

My Permaculture Journey from 2021 to 2025

2025-06-15T12:00:00+02:00

This is a continuation from My Permaculture Journey from 2016 to 2020.

On 2021-01-22 I started visiting and volunteering at Food Forest Eindhoven. At that time, it was one of the few activities I could physically go to due to the restrictions imposed on all of us at the time. It felt really good and healing to connect with people and to work with them in nature.

This year I took over full responsibility for the allotment garden. Ina had grown frustrated by the expectations and demeanor of the allotment association’s members. I continued my work as a secretary to the board, being at the allotment association almost every Saturday.

In addition to the work I was doing at the allotment, I continued to work at Proeftuin Meerhoven most every Sunday.

In June 2021 I attended the workshop Zomerstekken at food forest Den Food Bosch.

In July 2021 I organized a workshop Introduction to Permaculture. It was attended by 17 people.

Ina discovered Vedanta, a spiritual path rooted in the Vedic traditions of India. I joined as well and we went to a weekly meditation class. We have been practicing ever since: meditating, reading about Vedanta, singing and listening to mantras and attending a weekly meeting where we discuss these matters. This seems to have been the major driver behind developing a spiritual life for both Ina and myself.

We did a few more experiments that I briefly summarized.

In 2022 Ina and I experimented a lot with wool: cleaning, felting, carding, spinning and knitting. Among other things, we made a scarf and a hat from alpaca hair.

It was also the first year I started collecting seeds from stinging nettles

We did even more experiments that I only briefly summarize on that page.

In 2023 I created a peg loom and tried weaving with it. We have created one small and two big rugs from it.

I attended a community work day at samen-moestuin in Zeelst (a part of Veldhoven). It was lovely to connect with people over clearing the garden and having a communal soup for dinner.

We had a lot of rain at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. It started raining in July 2023 and the rain did not stop until the middle of 2024. The toad pool at the allotment association flooded and about ten percent of gardens were unusable for most of 2024.

In 2024, I experienced a bit of a lull in the amount of experiments.

In December 2024 I quit the allotment as well as my position as member of the board. My activities at the allotment were costing me more energy than I got out of them. I have been able to make a lot of people happy with the plants from my allotment. At the end of December, the whole plot was empty. It felt like the end of an era.

I also felt a huge responsibility lift from my shoulders. I have not missed the allotment since. Because I have a number of other gardening projects I’m involved with, I am still outside working the gardens a few days a week.

In 2025 I did a 10 day darkness retreat among other experiments.

My journey continues.

Design of an Allotment Association

2025-06-14T19:00:00+02:00

Background

I was voted into the board of an allotment association in 2019. In response, I created this design draft to help me get a feel for the challenges facing the allotment association at that time.

I abandoned this design when I ended my involvement with the association in 2025.

Retrospective

In December 2024, I pulled the plug on my allotment garden and a few months later on my board membership. I am publishing this design as a way of tying up loose ends and create a measure of closure for myself. It could be of help to others facing a similar situation.

What went well?

I did gain a broader perspective and having the design in the background helped me to keep focus on what I considered to be important.
What would I do differently?

I did not explicitly formulate a reason for this design, other than to gain more experience using the permaculture tools for design.

I did not have a vision for myself within the association or for the association itself. I think this could have helped me clarify my why and may have helped respond more effectively.

I vastly underestimated the amount of personal conflict between (board) members.

I also vastly underestimated the amount of time I needed to do a good job as the secretary to the board.
What is my vision?

Make my website contain useful information. I hope this information helps someone.
What is my next step?

Publish this design.

Design strategy

I used OBREDIM for this design.

Observation
Boundaries
Resources
Evaluation
Design
Implementation
Maintenance

Observation

Client interview

Observations from 2018.

feelings about current arrangements
- overall layout
  - two main clusters of gardens: one at the top, one at the bottom
- access
  - primary access is on foot or by bicycle, using one of three access gates
  - the main gate allows motorized access
- structures
  - caravan
  - toilet building
  - pump building
  - gates
  - shipping containers for storage
    - garden supplies for sale (poles, chicken wire, fertilizer)
    - garden equipment for maintenance crew
    - machines for maintenance crew
  - structures for wheelbarrow storage
  - yard for storage of building materials, manure and compost
- trees & plants
  - hedge around the perimeter
  - hazel near toad pond
  - borders of the main path
- maintenance
  - weekly cleaning of the caravan
  - daily cleaning of toilet
  - weekly maintenance by maintenance crew
  - irregular maintenance of paths
needs & wants
- priorities
  - dictated by necessity
- wants
  - playground for children?
values & vision
- there is no vision
life style
- events
  - there used to be more activities; the association suffers from a lack of organizers
- visitors
  - access for the general public is limited to Saturday’s between 10am and 12am
  - access for members is limited from sun up to sun down
- food growing
  - primary focus of the association is to facilitate annual vegetable and flower growing
  - some members have fruit trees or walnut trees
- eating
  - the caravan has a coffee machine and a small kitchen area with a refrigerator
  - some members have wood stoves and / or barbecues
- transport
  - trailer for garden waste (discontinued in 2019)
  - trailer for general / bulky waste
  - small walk-behind-tractor
  - most members come by car, motorbike or bicycle
- time on site
  - board members on Saturday from 10 to 12 - experimented with a rotational schedule; that did not work
  - maintenance crew on Wednesday from 8:30 to 11:30 (discontinued in 2024)
  - some members are on site almost daily (their numbers are decreasing)
  - busiest days are Saturday and Sunday
- income
  - member fees
  - sale of garden supplies like compost, fence, fertilizer
  - services rendered: ploughing and / or cultivating a garden
- occupation
  - the grounds can only be used for growing, no commercial activities allowed
limiting factors
- physical
  - most regular members have passed retirement age and are starting to come down with persistent medical conditions
- emotional
  - members can be easily triggered by pressing on their buttons
- mental
  - communication styles can be rough and hurtful
- resources
  - lack of budget
  - lack of time by members
  - expensive to use outside contractors
personal resources
- vision
  - N/A
- network
  - N/A
- skills
  - N/A
financial budget
- in 2018:
  - inflow: €10000 / year
  - outflow: €12000 / year
  - deficit: €2000 / year
site related
- neighbors
  - golf course (since 2022 private property)
  - A2 / N2 highway (Rijkswaterstaat)
  - trailer park
  - yacht club
  - toad pool
  - Brabant Water
- duration of stay
  - access is only allowed from sun up to sun down (i.e. during daylight hours)
- rights of way
  - none
- legal
  - grounds are rented (pacht) from the city
- who owns what
  - city owns ground
  - association own the (infra)structures
- issues like theft, vandalism
  - regular reports of garbage dumping
  - irregular reports of stealing
  - irregular reports of vandalism
time scale
- N/A
any other questions?
- N/A

Budget and target audience

Current prices (2018)

membership 20€
key deposit 50€
land rental 0,50€/m²

Current yearly deficit in budget: ca. €2000.

Encourage more people to become members / active

better contact information on the website / facebook page
create buzz
offer clinics on pruning / grafting / compost / waste reduction / working with nature / permaculture
[option] family membership (cheaper than full membership)
[option] more gatherings
[option] offer more ways for people to engage

Encourage people to pass by caravan / engage with other members

close gates 2 and 3
enlarge caravan / rework layout

Measured interest via website

Data used: all inquiries via the website in 2017 and 2018.

January through April (months 1-4) about half a query per month
May through August (months 5-8) about one query per month
September through December (months 9-12) about 1.5 query per month
over a whole year this comes to about 12 requests for membership

Other observations from the messages: some people specifically ask for small gardens or ask to help another gardener with their garden.

It seems at least some people lack confidence and would like a bit of hand-holding. Alternatively we could match these people with gardens that lack a bit of maintenance.

Gardening season

Info from a sowing calendar.

The growing season in the Northern Hemisphere in a maritime climate starts in March / April.

9 ways of observing

I wonder…
- how many members need the allotment to supply their basic needs
- how many members sell their produce on the side
- what distribution of ages are the members of the allotment association
- how to get more members involved
- can we plant willows in the wet area near the motorway
Observe energy
- more energy is put in maintaining the area close to the main gate and the caravan
- board members combine functions because too few people volunteer
- too few new members, currently 14 plots unoccupied
- many members have two or more gardens
Observe flow
- layout near main entrance allows more fine grained flow
- flow of garbage from gardens and illegal dumpings
- flow of green cuttings from gardens
- incoming and outgoing members
  - leaving to or coming from different allotment associations
  - starting with gardening
  - stopping with gardening due to age, illness
  - NOTE maybe exchange members with other allotment associations
Observe communities
- board
- maintenance crew
- Dutch members (mostly elderly men)
- Turkish members (mostly young and middle aged men)
- expats (mostly young men)
- gardens in upper part of complex
- gardens in lower part of complex
- toad pond
- trailer park
- golf course
- yacht club
- other allotment associations (Bokt, Groen Gennep, …)
- district Lievendaal
- district associations
  - Buurtvereniging Welschap
  - Drents Dorp (FB, wijkblad)
  - Wijk ‘t Ven
- district Meerhoven
- Eindhoven city
- water authority de Dommel
- province Noord Brabant
- rijkswaterstaat
- national government the Netherlands
Observe patterns
- tendency to try to solve social problems with technical solutions
- irregular reports of vegetables gone missing
- the allotment association is miniature reflection of Dutch society
- fibonacci sequences
  - gates: 1 main gate, 3 small access gates
  - plots: all approx. 144m², some members have 2, 3 or 4 plots
Observe edge
- there is seems to be an (w)edge between board and members
- each plot is fenced in to keep wild life out
- cultural differences lead to misunderstandings and hurt feelings
- unskillful communication leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings
- on the edge of the terrain of the Water Authority grows hogweed
Observe limits
- money: budget shortfall in 2018 was €2000
  - increase contribution and / or waste removal fee
  - attract more members
  - reduce costs further
  - ask members for community for money
- time for community service
- quality of services
- discipline of members in upkeep of their garden
- ability to prevent theft
- ability to prevent dumping of trash
- ability to keep website up to date
- enforce rules governing placement of sheds on the plots
- center function is lacking in current setup
Observe from stillness
- lack of trust
  - between board and members
  - among members themselves
- unwillingness to get involved with the association as it is “the task of the board”
- irritation due to
  - dumping of trash
  - mixing plastic trash with green cuttings
  - vandalism to gardens
  - theft from gardens
  - large amounts of green waste
  - perceived inaction from board
- feelings of helplessness to be able to change course
Observe past & future
- allotment association founded in 1977
- allotment members fall into a few broad groups:
  - working class, 65+, white, (mostly) males, Dutch
  - working class, 65+, migrants, (mostly) males, (Spain, Turkey)
  - working class, 25+, migrants (Turkey, Syria, Irak)
  - educated, 25+, migrants (India, eastern Europe)
  - educated, 25+, Dutch

Boundaries

Limited cashflow
Cashflow in does not cover cashflow out
Time
Number of volunteers
Physical land
Small scale machines for light ground work
Around every garden

Resources

member skills - gardening - fixing things - working machines
(small) amount of money in bank account
departments of Eindhoven city - water management - wildlife management - grounds maintenance

Evaluation

Ethics

Earth care
- Reduce
  - fossil fuel use
  - use of poisons (prohibited anyway)
  - disturbing the soil
  - water usage from ground water well
  - destroying a garden after a member leaves
- Reuse
  - concrete tiles, windows and other construction materials
  - leave trees and shrubs for a new tenant
  - relocate trees, shrubs and other perennials to other gardens
  - encourage members to trade plants between themselves
- Recycle
  - put green cuttings in compost pile
- Repair
  - soil ecology
  - connection of man to (its) nature
People care
- connect people
- share stories
- share food
- create friendships
- share a love of gardening
Fair share / Future care
- educate on low maintenance gardening
- exchange seeds
- exchange knowledge

Holmgren principles

Observe and interact
- talk to members
- talk to board
- look at gardens
- observe conversations between members
- observe members and their activities
- observe messages sent via website
Catch and store energy
- recruit new members
- mentor new members
- offer smaller gardens for people to try out
- get members to help with the association and its upkeep
- match members who struggle with members that can help out a bit
Obtain a yield
- harvest gardens of inactive members
- give tours around different gardens
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
- start with quick wins
- expect resistance to a different way of working
Use and value renewable resources and services
- have mentors for new members to ask questions to
- collect green cuttings on one or more compost piles
- have a day to celebrate soil life, our bees and insects
Produce no waste
- organize potluck with food grown in allotments
- have a community compost pile
- have a compost toilet
- when clearing a garden, offer plants to other members for use on their plots
- introduce in-situ composters
- check expenses to see where cuts can be made
Design from patterns to details
- do less work
  - maintain gardens of inactive members instead of razing them
  - find ways for people to take over a garden
  - share what gardens are available
Integrate rather than segregate
- find ways to get members actively involved in the association
Use small and slow solutions
- prefer hand tools over fossil fuel powered machines
Use and value diversity
- many different nationalities - many different cuisines; people can learn from each other and exchange recipes
- every garden looks different: have exchanges where people can exchange information and experiences on their plot
Use edges and value the marginal
- N/A
Creatively use and respond to change
- N/A

Design

Ideas

clinics
- also for non-members at extra charge
- composting
- pruning (snoeien)
- grafting (enten)
- hedgelaying (heg vlechten)
- permaculture
BBQ / potluck
- exchange experiences
- exchange recipes
seed and seedling exchange
open door day
mentoring
- new members
- exchange experiences
- plant consultation
activities for kids
needs / offers board
common gardening day
deck out surplus table
organize activities between associations
ask members to suggest ways they want to volunteer
round up sponsors

Flyer

A5 flyer / 1/0 / 80 g/m²

distribution in Lievendaal district.

Slogan

Ik tuinier bij Volkstuinvereniging Welschap. Gezellig en ontspannen.
- Eten uit eigen tuin
- Gezond en ontspannen leren tuinieren
- Draag bij aan een betere, groenere wereld
- Gezellige vereniging, behulpzame leden
- Super verse, biologische groenten en fruit

Advertisement in Lievendaler

Poster in Lidl / gemeenschapshuis Lievendaal

Conduct interviews with members and publish on website

Implementation

Some ideas realized. I have never shared this design with others prior to its publication on this website.

Maintenance

N/A

Meditation technique: 5-4-3-2-1

2025-05-25T22:55:00+02:00

A method for grounding yourself and to bring yourself back to the present moment.

Focus your attention one after the other on these things:

5 things you SEE
4 things you HEAR
3 things you TOUCH
2 things you SMELL
1 thing you TASTE

This technique brings me rapidly into the present moment. Try it out for yourself!

Thanks to Jay Shetty for sharing it on Therapuss podcast with Jake Shane.

Nettle Soup

2025-05-14T13:03:00+02:00

Quantity: ~2 liter, 6-8 servings

Ingredients:

cooking oil / butter
1 onion
2-3 cloves garlic
2 potatoes
2 carrot / 1 winter carrot
nettle tops (top 3-4 pair of leaves)
water
dash of (apple) vinegar
salt

Extra:

1 top of mugwort (bijvoet)
2 stems of fennel (venkel)
2 stems of lovage (lavas)
2 leaves of motherwort (hartgespan)
2 stalks w/ leaves of celery (bleekselderij)
2 stalks w/ leaves of parsnip (pastinaak)
other vegetables like leftover pepper, Andere groenten zoals restje paprika, peeled broccoli stem, peeled parsnip tuber
pinch of cayenne pepper

Alternatives:

use vegetable stock instead of salted water
use dried nettle leafs instead of fresh ones for example in winter

Preparation:

cut all vegetables and herbs in small pieces or dices
lightly fry in some cooking oil
add water until everything is covered
add salt and vinegar
cook for ~15 minutes until potato and carrot are cooked
puree soup with hand blender or rotary food mill
taste and add salt or spices according to taste

Garnish:

add a spoon of cream cheese just before serving
drip some balsamic vinegar on top
sprinkle flowers of spring onion on top
sprinkle finely cut pieces of spring onion on top

Nettle soup before blitsing

Four Questions (4Q)

2025-05-13T15:45:00+02:00

The Four Questions is an evaluating tool. The four questions are:

What went well?
What would I do differently?
What is my vision?
What is my next step?

Let’s expand on each question.

What went well?

List all the things that went well in your project, presentation, relationship, life or whatever else you wish to evaluate. In our culture there is a strong tendency to only look at what went wrong.

This question asks us to celebrate the things that did go well, in spite of any setbacks.

What would I do differently?

We cannot change the past, we can only change the stories we tell about it. This question asks us to explore alternatives: alternative responses, alternative solutions, alternative perspectives and alternative stories.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you learn. — John C. Maxwell

This question also points to this: what lessons did we learn from our so-called failures? How can we turn our failures into valuable lessons for ourselves and others? Are they then still failures?

What is my vision?

Is this good enough for now? Is my curiosity satisfied, or do I want to pick this up again at some (yet to be determined) later date?

How do I want to apply what I learned? Can I maybe apply this in other areas, in other projects?

Do I maybe want to repeat the same project with a different strategy to see how this changes the outcome? In broad strokes: what will I change in the execution?

What is my next step?

Lofty visions are worthless without action. This question asks us to consider a concrete first step to get going. As the saying goes: “A good beginning is half the battle” or:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu

Six Ways To Die (6WTD)

2025-05-08T19:46:00+02:00

The Six Ways To Die (6WTD) is a tool proposed by Vinay Gupta to help individuals and groups quickly identify urgent needs of individuals in a crisis. It explains what basic infrastructure needs to be in place for people to survive to the next day.

The six ways to die are:

too hot (remedied by cooling and shelter)
too cold (remedied by heating, clothing and shelter)
thirst (remedied by water supply and water purification)
hunger (remedied by food, agriculture, organic and sustainable farming, and permaculture)
illness (remedied by medical knowledge, health practitioners and medical aides)
injury (remedied by emergency medicine and medical treatment)

We can make rough estimates of the threats in each area. We can then select for systems and behaviors to keep people safe. If people are not dying of one of these causes, they are unlikely to be dying at any rate above baseline mortality.

The Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps system expands the Six Ways To Die model to address the minimum functional needs of Groups, Organizations and States as follows:

Individual: Too Hot, Too Cold, Hunger, Thirst, Illness, Injury (solved by Shelter, Supply and Safety/Services)
Groups: Communications, Transport, Workspace, Resource Control
Organizations: Shared Map, Shared Plan, Shared Succession Model (to change leadership)
States: Effective Organizations, List of People, Map of Territories, International Recognition, Legal Jurisdiction

Please see Vinay’s presentation Dealing in Security: Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps for full details.

Finally, this model forms the core of the State in A Box (SIAB) approach to State Failure, which envisages pushing much State responsibility down to the municipal and urban levels, and some of the remaining complex function (currency, identity) up to the international level, leaving a simplified-but-stable State which is capable of continuity in complex contingencies. This way of working is aimed at fragile states.

This article was adapted from Appropedia’s article on the subject. See that page for more information as well as links to Vinay Gupta’s other websites and projects.

Workshop Financial Know How

2025-04-19T10:27:00+02:00

This workshop is currently in the dreaming phase (see Dragon Dreaming). I use this document to collect things I would want to say about the topic of money and personal finance. I appreciate feedback on it. Leave me a message via the contact form.

Background

I see people struggle with money. There’s never enough. It brings stress and anxiety into their lives. I can sense fear surrounding the issue of money.

It seems to me that many people lack basic skills to deal with money. And a lack of courage and interest to honestly look at one’s financial situation, maybe out of fear of finding out just how bad the situation is. I hear stories in the news of people not having enough money to cover an unexpected expense of a few hundred euros. That’s worrying.

After my divorce in 2013, I radically changed my life. For one I started cutting my expenses. The next four years, each year I managed to shave 10% from the budget. Before I would spend 25k€/year. Now I am spending about 15k€/year. And I find that my quality of life has greatly improved: I eat better food, I have more time to spend with friends and family and I can spend my time on activities that I find meaningful.

With this workshop, I hope to inspire other people to do the same. To take their life’s direction into their own hands.

Outline

Workshop Financial Know How (financiële kennis en kunde)

Workshop goal
- Increase awareness on money and about money
- Cultivate willingness to look into own finances
Goal beyond the workshop
- living a good life
- no financial worry
- no feelings of deprevation or lack
Current Mindset
- how do you talk to yourself and others about money?
- what are your expectations of money?
- what are your beliefs around money?
- how was money treated in your family growing up?
- examples of beliefs
  - money is power
  - money is security
  - money can buy me unique things or experiences: a vacation, an expensive dinner, fancy clothes, awesome adventures
  - I dislike people with money
  - I envy people with money
  - I don’t have enough money
  - money stresses me out
  - money can’t buy happiness
  - I am not good with money
  - my partner is too wasteful / too stingy with money
Guiding principles
- Mindset is key
  - fully asses and acknowledge your current situation and take responsibility for how you react to your circumstances
  - feelings, expectations and convictions about money drive decisions; most of those are unconscious
  - therefore,
    - make the unconscious conscious, to bring about rapid change
    - be interested in your money: nobody cares more about your money than you
    - believe you are capable of changing
    - making mistakes is ok and expected
    - be aware of societal programming aka the herd
- One iron rule of personal finance
  - Money coming in needs to be greater than money going out
- Observation is essential
  - keep meticulous records: know exactly where your money is going, when and how much; see further down how to categorize
  - review money flows
    - do it on a regular schedule, at least once a month
    - find out what an average month looks like in terms of income and expenses
    - use 4 questions
      - What is going well? - Practice gratitude
      - What could I do differently? - Resolve to change things that are not working
      - What is my vision? - Remember why you’re doing this
      - What is my next step? - Keep going
  - use 9 ways of observing
  - “Know Thyself”
    - what are your needs and wants?
    - how do you go about getting your needs met?
    - how is that working?
    - what is important
      - to you?
      - to your partner?
      - to your dependents?
  - assess the situation honestly and with a willingness to do things differently going forward; let go of judgement and blame
    
    Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe, American athlete
  - use metrics to help guide you
  - assign responsibilities in a couple according to abilities
  - keep your partner in the loop
    - share your observations
    - share your findings
    - share key metrics
    - make suggestions
    - encourage your partner
    - be sensitive to the feelings and needs of your partner
    - listen to suggestions from your partner
- Use a holistic approach
  - experiment, have fun
  - because everything is connected
    - changing your job can change the way you commute
    - starting a business will bring lots of small and big changes
  - use a web of goals approach
  - be aware of other forms of capital
    - living, material, intellectual, experiential, social, cultural and spiritual
    - find ways to increase their flow into your life to meet your needs
  - be aware of the limitations of money
    - using money as (the only, most important) measure
      - money amounts are one dimensional
      - the world we live in has (at least) three dimensions
      - thus, money can only give you a very limited perspective
- Treat your finances as if you were running a business
  - a business needs to show a profit year on year to keep existing
  - think about investments versus costs, i.e. things that will generate income or limit outflow (after some time)
  - assign the role of bookkeeper / accountant / controller
- Treat managing your money as a game, a challenge
  - cost cutting is then not a punishment nor to deprive you of happiness, it is to get you to a better place
  - get your creative juices flowing on finding ways to cut costs and to increase income without sacraficing your happiness or contentment
  - things can get tough, or difficult before they get better
Visualization
- a bathtub leaking with holes and a faucet trying to fill it
Metrics
- assets (bezit)
- liabilities / debt (schuld)
- equity (eigen vermogen)
- saving rate (spaarsnelheid)
- burn rate (leegloopsnelheid)
- cashflow over time → buffer needed to balance out fluctuations
- use a few general categories to classify expenses; in parenthesis possible further breakdown categories
  - taxes (national, province, council, road)
  - housing (rent, water, energy)
  - eating (groceries, eating out)
  - transportation (car, public transport, bicycle, plane)
  - stuff (clothing, gadgets)
  - debt payments (interest, downpayment)
  - health (doctor, dentist, prescriptions, glasses, hearing aide)
  - insurance (healthcare, for house, for car, liability)
  - entertainment (going out, media, streaming, subscriptions)
  - education (tuition fee, books, outings)
  - other/rest (charity, random fees, cash, unknown)
- use a few general categories to classify income
  - income (monthly)
  - wage (hourly)
  - investment (return on investments)
  - welfare (gifts and handouts)
- graphs
  - expenses in percentage of total per month
  - expenses in currency per month
- rankings
  - top 10 biggest spendings per year
  - top retailers where I spend my money
  - amount of transactions per month
- ERE Wheaton level
(Free) Tools
- your will / determination: this one is actually the most important to get started until you have established a regular process to spend time with your ledgers;
- notebook to record expenses (huishoudboekje)
- spreadsheet software: LibreOffice
- accounting software: GnuCash
Practical
- What does not go out, does not need to come in!
- commit to a process and trust results will follow over time
- it is easier to reduce spending than to increase income
  - you have a direct influence on your own spending
  - getting a raise depends on other people
- focus on easy, big wins
- pay yourself first
  - save or invest a percentage of your income immediately after your paycheck comes in
  - use DCA for investing (buy more when price is low, less when price is high)
- reduce spending
  - find and contemplate on recurring expenses
    - Does it spark joy?
    - is there a similar service for less money? how fast can I switch?
    - is the current service still a good fit or should I move to a different / smaller / cheaper plan?
    - use upcoming contract renewal as a reminder to investigate alternatives (mark in your calendar)
  - find and contemplate on the biggest categories
    - usually these are: food, housing and transportation
    - transportation: find home closer to job / find job closer to home
    - transportation: use a smaller / cheaper vehicle
    - transportation: drive less, cycle or walk more
    - housing: move into a smaller home
    - housing: pay off mortgage
    - insurance: can I self-insure this type of loss?
    - debt: use snowball method for paying down debt
      - start by paying off debt with the highest interest rate first (credit card, payday loan)
      - after that, pay off the loan with the next highest interest rate
      - continue doing so until all loans are gone
      - keep a record of how much interest you are no longer paying per month and add that to the amount you can pay off each month
  - find and contemplate on large one-time expenses
    - how can I avoid/reduce this expense now/in the future?
      - did I really need this?
      - use a cooling-off period before actually buying
      - set a schedule to keep up with maintenance
      - buy a better product
      - buy a second hand product
      - can I do the repair or maintenance myself?
      - can I get it repaired by someone else?
  - brainstorm on other ways to cut spending
    - food: learn to cook
    - food: use a shopping list
    - food: once a week grocery shopping
    - food: buy in bulk
    - food: supplement with foraging
    - energy: keep track of usage and share weekly with co-habitants
    - energy: turn off lights, gadgets, heating, cooling when not in use
    - energy: turn off lights, gadgets, heating, cooling when not in use
    - energy: shower less and shorter
    - transportation: drive 10% below the speed limit
    - transportation: use gentle acceleration and braking when driving a car
    - transportation: short distance: use foot or else bicycle or else scooter
    - transportation: long distance: use public transport or else car or else plane
    - taxes: look into tax deferred accounts
- increase income
  - brainstorm on ways to get more money flowing in
    - ask for a raise at work
    - investigate your eligibility for allowances, benefits and subsidies (food, housing, transportation, medical care)
    - put unused money in a savings account
    - start investing your money
    - diversify your portfolio
    - rent out a spare room (if you have one)
    - rent out use of your car (if you have one) or other equipment
    - start a part-time side gig
- change your life’s direction
  - start a business
  - take care of other people’s homes, pets, cars, etc.
Background on money
- history of money
- what is money?

Financial metrics

2025-04-05T20:40:00+02:00

How much you have

Add together all your bank accounts, investment accounts, retirement accounts (if you can access them), estimates on the value of your house.

Then subtract any debts, mortgages and other financial obligations from that.

How much you make

Take your employers payment slip from the last year of the month. It should mention how much your employer payed you.

If you are self employed, find the amount of profit your business produced last year.

How much you spend

Keep track of every expense. Download your bank statement and sort in-comings from out-goings.

For many people this will be the hardest to nail down.

Life energy

From Your money or your life by Vicki Robin

Take your income and subtract any costs needed for making this money: travel expenses, work clothing and other representational costs, meal expenses, etc.

Then take the time you spend at work and add in the hours you are commuting to work, the time at home you spend preparing for work, the hours worked from home or by taking calls outside of working hours, etc.

Take the income after business expenses and divide it by the hours actually put in for work. That’s your real hourly wage or how much money you get for expending one hour of your life’s energy.

Now you can evaluate every purchase in terms of the amount of life energy you need to expend for work to be able to buy the item in question.

Burn Rate

Divide how much you have by how much you spend

This gives you the time it takes to run out of buffer when / if

all income dries up and
all expenses stay the same

Typical ranges are:

3 months of expenses
- emergency fund
- apply not only to money, also to food
- bare minimum
10 years
- need to keep working part time
- good balance between security and agility
- next 5 to 10 years are reasonably predictable due to inertia
- after that: who knows?
25 years
- See Safe Withdrawal Rate below, 4% rule
33 years
- See Safe Withdrawal Rate below, 3% rule

Saving Rate

Divide how much you make by how much you spend

Typical ranges are:

below 1
- too many expenses, not enough income(s)
- dangerous for too long, eats into buffer
- ends in bankruptcy in the long run
1
- a year of income covers all expenses
- all income is spent
- unexpected expenses can easily push you below 1
1.1
- typical Western household
- saves 10% per year
- also spends most or all savings some time later
- work ten years, take one year off
- creating a 10 year buffer takes 100 years

Exceptional ranges are:

2
- every year of income covers 2 years of expenses
- work one year, take one year off
- creating a 10 year buffer takes 10 years
3
- every year of income covers 3 years of expenses
- work one year, take two years off
- creating a 10 year buffer takes 5 years
4
- every year of income covers 4 years of expenses
- work one year, take three years off
- creating a 10 year buffer takes 3.3 years
5
- every year of income covers 5 years of expenses
- work one year, take four years off
- creating a 10 year buffer takes 2.5 years

Safe Withdrawal Rate

This is the rate at which you can safely withdraw from an investment portfolio. Safe can be either in the sense that the portfolio will not deplete (run out of money) before you die, or it can be in the sense that the principal of the portfolio will be maintained, or may even increase.

4% rule / Trinity Study
- when invested, historically provided sufficient return in most cases to cover living expenses over a 25 year period
3% rule
- when invested, historically provided sufficient return in all cases to cover living expenses over a 25 year period

These “rules” depend on market conditions and the allocation of asset types in your portfolio. See portfoliocharts.com for many different portfolios and their historical performance.

Caveats

In my opinion, money is in fact an abstraction over the flow of energy. The underlying assumptions for investing with buffers exceeding 25 years of living expenses are probably not correct in a world with declining energy availability.

OODA loop

2025-04-05T20:12:00+02:00

OODA is an abbreviation for the words: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. Developed and taught by John Boyd, a US military pilot, as a mental model for training other pilots.

Observe is about overseeing the whole, everything, facts and emotions, the different players and their (apparent) motives, culture and history and lots more. Or at least as much as I can muster and for as long as I feel there is time to do so.

Orient is about filtering important issues from less important ones. What do I find to be an important development right now and what is less urgent. What part of the totality do I want to focus my attention?

Decide is about making a decision on an which action at the moment can make the most impact on the situation as I think to perceive it. Where can I make the biggest difference? The decision to do nothing and to let things develop by themselves is also a valid choice and much overlooked in our current culture.

Act is to act out the decision.

The loop then starts back up from the top: observe changes.

Boyd learned that when a fighter pilot can go through this loop faster than his adversary, he can win the fight. The situation for the adversary will change too fast. Effectively his decision making is running after the facts.

Of course a pilot’s loop is encapsulated in a different, bigger airforce loop which in turn is part of an even bigger loop of military strategy and doctrine.

We can apply this tool equally well to our own lives. By improving our observation: by taking stock of our whole life and its surroundings and knowing our own strengths and weaknesses, we can then orient better.

Then we can focus on the areas of our life we want to prioritize without having our attention drawn away by irrelevant (to us) distractions. And we’re able to make better decisions that can make a difference.

In addition, I can imagine that when working on two or more different areas of your life, each area will have its own OODA loop going on. In each case a loop working on a finer scale both in time and in space.

If you would like to further think about this, consider the link with the following permaculture principles:

Observe and interact
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
Design from patterns to details
Creatively use and respond to change

These four principles also have parts of the OODA loop in them.

How to choose an (allotment) garden?

2025-03-30T13:40:00+02:00

Below you’ll find a number of questions to ask yourself and others. If you are serious about starting with an allotment or any other kind of garden, these questions can help you make a clear choice.

Reasons for starting a garden

Why do you want a garden?
- Your goal and focus determine in part what kind of plants you would like for your garden.
Is your main interest in harvesting?
- Would you like to harvest mostly annuals?
- Would you like to harvest mostly perennials (asparagus, rhubarb, some cabbage varieties, …)?
- Would you like to harvest mostly fruits or nuts growing on shrubs or trees?
- Would you like to cultivate (decorative) flowers?
Is your main interest socially?
- Are you looking to make new contacts/friends?
- Are you looking for an alternative to sitting at home?
- Would you like to organize events?
Is your main interest in gathering knowledge / learning?
- Would you like to try out different techniques (traditional, bio-dynamic, Ruth Stout, …)?
- Would you like to learn from different gardeners?
- Would you like to learn about the use and maintenance of different machines?
Is your main interest in nature?
- Would you like to help solitary bees and other insects?
- Would you like your garden to be an oasis of biodiversity?
- Would you like to restore the soil?
- Would you like to garden in a way that works with nature instead of against her?
Is your main interest in recreation / relaxation?
- Would you like a nice place for your children to play in?
- Would you like to barbeque regularly and have a beer with friends?
- Are you looking for a quiet place to withdraw from the world?
In the founding documents of allotment associations you can often find the specific reason for their existence: to promote allotment gardening where each member has their own plot where they can grow vegetables, fruit and flowers for their own use.
- Does your reason fit within the stated goals of the association?
- Is finding a place in a recreational park nearby possibly a better alternative?

Your experience with gardening

What experience do you have with (pre)sowing, planting, transplanting, propagation by cuttings, weeding, pruning, composting, harvesting and conserving?
- Do you know what these terms mean?
- Have you done any of them (recently)?
- Do you know when each activity can be done in a growing season?
Can you make enough time available for maintaining a garden?
- Maintaining a garden of about 100m² is a challenge. You will need to work the garden at least once or twice a week. If you have little experience gardening, the initial enthusiasm can quickly turn to disappointment.
Have you experimented on your balcony, in your front or back yard?
- Try a square meter garden
- Try creating a herb spiral
Are there communal gardens or gardens with shared maintenance in your area?
- In Eindhoven there are:
  - Iristuin in Centrum;
  - Proeftuin Meerhoven in Meerhoven;
  - Samen-moestuin in Zeelst;
  - Kloosterbostuin (inactief) in Stratum;
  - Heempark Frater Simon Deltour in Stratum;
- In Veldhoven is belevingstuin de BijenBerkt;
- and in Nuenen is dorpsboerderij Weverkeshof.
Follow a course in gardening, for example
- at VELT,
- LOI or
- Aletta Buurma
Follow a Permaculture Design Course (PDC)
- as self study or
- make contact on social media, search for Permaculture.

Time investment and help with gardening

How much time a week can you free up to maintain your garden?
- As mentioned above, once or twice a week is a minimum to properly maintain a garden to the standards (often) set at allotment associations.
Who can help you in the garden and how much help can you expect?
- partner
- child
- other family member
- neighbor
- friend
Does your help have the same interest as you (see above)?
What do you both agree to in terms of the chores and when to work at the garden?
Who coordinates?

Activities and associations nearby

Closer by is better: at walking distance is better than at cycling distance, at cycling distance is better that at (car) driving distance. The bigger the distance, the higher the threshold to (quickly) visit the garden.
What associations are near you?
- Check Google Maps, search for ‘volkstuinvereniging your city’
- Contact them, visit them and ask questions
  - Are they accepting new members?
  - Is there a waiting list? If so, how long is it?
  - Do you have a choice of different gardens?
  - Do they have a mentoring system in place for new gardeners?
  - Are there additional rules for starting gardeners?
  - Do they organize events or workshops? Can you learn through them about composting, making cuttings, etc?
  - What infrastructure is available? Is there a club house, watering points, the use of wheelbarrows, sale of seeds, fertilizer or other materials?
  - What other services are available?
  - How much does it cost to rent a garden? Are there extra expenses like administrative fees, contributions for waste removal, deposits for access keys and / or garden, etc.?

The garden itself

What to take note of in a garden?

location and orientation in relation to the sun
wind: where does it (primarily) come from and how protected is the garden from it
availability of water
existing structures like a shed, greenhouse, tool and materials box
existing planting like trees and shrubs
soil conditions: sand / clay / loam, acidic / neutral / alkaline, compacted or open, chemical composition, water permeability
possible micro-climates
water catchment

Some time in the dark

2025-03-27T22:15:00+01:00

Earlier this year I have spent over 10 days in complete darkness, with almost no contact with the outside world. It was the second retreat of this kind I have done. The first was a year earlier where I spend over five days in darkness.

To say it is a transformative experience is selling it short. I feel humbled by it. It has been one hell of a journey, literally, both times. And I feel thankful for having gone through it.

This time I came out feeling incredibly energetic, somewhat manic. Quite the opposite from last time actually where I came out very mellow, relaxed, loving; Zen-like. I think that the energetic release comes from having found and released a piece of inter-generational trauma.

This is the backstory.

My dad was about eight when the war ended. Half a year ago my dad told me a story about sheltering in a makeshift bunker in some of the final months of the war. His parents had dug a hole in a paddock and covered it with bushels of willow twigs. When the time came to actually use it, they discovered the “bunker” had flooded. My dad had actually wryly smiled about it as he related the story to me.

In the dark, I connected with this story on an experiential and emotional level. I imagined myself as a young child in that situation. It’s the middle of the night. There are no lights and it’s pitch black. I hear the sirens and my parents are panicking. We scramble to the makeshift bunker in the paddock. I descend into it and find myself standing in freezing cold water up to my knees. I hear heavy bombers flying over head, the whistle of bombs being dropped and explosions far away and some quite near. I don’t know if I’m going to survive this night. And I felt the fear, sadness and anxiety going through this child.

In a vision I saw my dad as a five year old boy. He skipped towards me and looked very happy. He wore short brown trousers and a white shirt. He had scrapes and bruises on his knees and lower legs. I hugged this inner child and felt the sadness and the injustice of what this child would go through in a few years time. As the waves of emotion subsided, I felt the child let go of the embrace. I asked: “Won’t you stay?” He said: “No, no, I have to go back”. And with that, I stood up and waved him goodbye as he skipped away and disappeared.

In a later meditation, I recognized a sensation in my heart region that felt like a shard. I visualized my heart with something in it and proceeded to remove the shard. It fell to the ground with a heavy clunk. My heart felt lighter and healed. I later mulled this experience over and recognized that this shard represented the trauma that my dad unconsciously had transferred onto me.

On the return journey, I stopped at my parent’s place. I met with my brother and sister separately and have shared this story with both of them as well as with my mum. I hope it helps them to find and heal the trauma that was transferred onto them as well.

In addition, I have left a note for my dad in the mailbox as I was leaving. I had written a small letter for him in the dark about this. I have not had the courage to talk to him directly about it. At the moment our relationship does not lend itself to freely sharing. I have set the intention of changing my relation with my dad by changing my actions. That is, to start sharing stories about my life and involving my dad in the way I live my life. I’m curious to see how this will evolve the way we relate to each other.

Biochar Cooker

2025-01-29T14:30:00+01:00

We created this biochar cooker during the second week of my first PDC. It is made from two large drums and one smaller can.

Materials required

two drums with a lid of equal size (fuel drum and cooking support)
one larger drum (optional, air inlet skirt)
one can (chimney)
two metal rods (for drum manipulation and for the cook-pot to sit on)

Schematic diagram (from toolbox). The fire resistant grips for the lid are missing in this diagram.

The schematic mentions three drums. The third drum is optional. It can be used to preheat the air flowing into the top of the fuel drum. Therefore the diameter of this drum needs to be larger than the other two drums. In our case we used the lid that came with the drum to only seal the top part.

Constructing the cooker

The construction of this cooker was as follows:

make holes in the bottom of the fuel drum
- the purpose of these holes is to provide the initial fire with more oxygen to ensure a good start of the fire;
make holes along the edge of the fuel drum about 5-10cm below the top
- these are the air inlets during the main burn;
- by sticking the metal rods through them, the drum can be transported or emptied without getting burned;
make incisions in the lid of the fuel drum; bend the incisions up to provide a way for the chimney to stay in place on top of the lid;
- provide a way for the lid to be removed by bending part of the lid outwards; this extrusion can be used to hold a wooden stick in place as a fire resistant handle (see photo of initial burn below);
- the lid with the chimney is placed only after the initial fire reaches the main fuel;
make incisions in the bottom of the chimney can; bend these partially up;
- the chimney concentrates the heat and the gasses;
- the ragged edges of the bottom of the can provide a mixing action of wood gasses and oxygen;
cut out a hole in the bottom of the drum for cooking support. The hole needs to be big enough to easily fit over the chimney; and cut out a few holes in the middle of the cooking support for the metal rods to slide though;
- the metal rods form the support for a cook-pot;
- the metal rods can also be used to transport this drum without getting burned;
- the cooking support is placed after the lid with the chimney;

Preparing for a burn

Have a bucket of water on hand; - this is for safety reasons; - and to quench the biochar before it burns to ashes;
Place the fuel drum on an even surface;
Place the fuel drum away from fire prone areas, be sure to watch where heat and embers might unintentionally start a new fire;
Fill the fuel drum with wood; start with small twigs at the bottom, growing larger towards the middle of the drum and use medium size wood to fill the fuel drum to a few centimeters under the air inlets on the side;

The burn

Put a stick under the fuel drum; this lets air in from the underside of the fuel drum; this is necessary to get the fire started;
Put a fire pile on top of the fuel to start the fire;
Light the fire pile;
When the fire pile is burning well, distribute the pile across the top of the fuel drum;
Remove the stick under the bottom of the fuel drum;
If the fire keeps burning, place the lid with the chimney on top and the fire should now start to burn even brighter;
Place the cooking support drum with the metal rods;
Place the cook-pot and start cooking;

After the burn

After some time the wood will have completely gassified and the heat will reach the bottom. The fire will start to smoke. When this happens, it is time to rescue the biochar from turning into ashes.

Use the metal rods to take off the cooking support. Remove the lid with the wooden sticks attached to the lid, or use the metal rods again. Push the metal rods through the air holes at the top of the fuel drum and empty the drum in the bucket of water.

First burn after construction. Note the wooden handles that can safely lift the lid from the fuel drum.

Looking into the biochar cooker. Note the jagged edges on the chimney. In this case we lifted the lid with the metal rods.

My PDC’s version of a biochar cooker. Note the air inlet holes in the bottom drum. The drum is charred at the inlets because the fire can only burn where there is oxygen in addition to wood gas and heat: at the top of the fuel drum near the air inlets.

Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE)

2025-01-16T12:15:00+01:00

Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, or TRE for short, is a simple way to relax the body and shake out tensions. It uses the natural shaking mechanism present in every mammal for getting rid of tension.

Start by laying on the ground on a mat. Pull your legs up and place your feet on the mat. Let both of your knees fall outward while keeping your feet touching the ground. In yoga, this posture is called the lying butterfly. Now gradually pull up your knees back up. When your legs start shaking, put your feet flat on the ground and vary the angle of your legs to find a sweet spot for shaking. Shake until your body takes a deep breath in and a long exhale out. Stretch your legs out and lay for a few moments to integrate the relaxation.

If you’re really strong, it may take quite a while for your legs to start shaking. To speed the process up, you can push your pelvis off the floor until you start to shake and then lower your body back down. Officially TRE has a number of additional exercises to exhaust main muscle groups before you lay down. These can also be used.

Personal experience

I find TRE is wonderful to get rid of tension. It requires no conscious attention from me. There are no exercises to memorize. The body shakes as it needs. It has been an eye opening experience to learn about the wisdom of the body, independent of the mind.

I have noted a progression from when I first started doing TRE. In the beginning I had a lot of difficulty to even get my legs to tremor. When the tremor started it could get quite violent at times. Over time, this mellowed out as the tension in my legs subsided. Because of this, I believe it is good to monitor the process and dampen the response if it gets too violent. And for me this has always been possible: I stop shaking when I want to. By default however, I let the process take its natural course.

It took a few months of regular shaking before I was able to move the tremor into different areas of my body other than my legs. My hips and abdomen were next. As a new area of my body started shaking, again I experienced some violent outbursts of energy because of all the stored tension in these body parts.

Sometimes I was surprised by what newly started to shake: “I didn’t expect that part to start shaking!” Things my body has shaken: toes, feet, ankles, knees, legs, hips, abdomen, lower back, upper back, shoulders, elbows, wrists, arms, fingers, neck, cheeks, mouth, eyelids, eyebrows and ears. Currently I default to the position: if it is attached to a muscle, it can probably shake.

My shoulders, head and neck were some of the last parts to start shaking. When I now lay down for TRE, it may happen that my shoulders start shaking even before my legs.

Over time I became more conscious of tension arising in my body. At one point I noticed when a thought passed my mind, my body automatically tensed its shoulders. A micro-expression of a flinch or wanting to move into a fetal position. At that point I have the option of dismissing the thought and consciously relaxing the shoulders.

More information?

For more information, check out David Berceli’s website or his YouTube channel.

Contemplation on cycles

2025-01-12T16:20:00+01:00

My overview of the cycles as I have encountered them or studied as part of Systems Thinking and Permaculture.

observations
- a cycle is observing an aspect of reality and noting
  - the aspect seems to change
  - the aspect seems to regularly return to a similar previous configuration
- our notion of time is an abstraction from observing cycles
- cycles can only be construed due to the memory aspect of our mind
  - without memory there are no cycles, there is no time
- can be nested: cycles within cycles within cycles
- can seem independent of other cycles
- at any time there are multiple (independent) cycles active
- cycles only arise because of a relationship to another entity (i.e. yourself or some (in)dependent other entity)
- graphical representations of cycles
  - a circle, ellipse, wheel
  - a line oscillating around an axis
  - a spiral
  - a gradient
  - animations
names for divisions
- 1/2: 1st half, 2nd half
- 1/3: trimester
- 1/4: quarter
- 1/12: month of a year, hour of half a day
- 1/24: hour of a day
- 1/60: second of a minute, minute of an hour
some cycles in nature
- solar cycle (~ 11 years)
- solar year (~ 365 days)
  - seasons: winter, spring, summer, autumn
  - day length: winter solstice, spring equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox
  - daily cycle (~ 24 hours): night, dawn, day, dusk
- moon phases (~ 28 days): new moon, 1st quarter, full moon, last quarter
  - tides: nipe tide, ebb tide, low tide, high tide, flood tide, spring tide
- materials
  - evaporate, vapour, condensate, fluid
  - visual spectrum
    - additive color mixing
- human body
  - stages of the body: fertilization, embryo, newborn, toddler, child, pubescent, adult, elderly, death
  - heart cycle - diastole: early and late - systole: early and late
  - menstrual cycle
- earth temperature: glacial periods, hothouse earth
- ecosystems
  - woodland as climax: exposed rock, lichen and mosses, annual weeds, shrubs, pioneer trees, climax forest
  - grassland as climax: exposed rock, lichen and mosses, annual weeds, shrubs and grasses
- agriculture: soil preparing, sowing, weeding and tending, harvesting
- Wheel of Life
  - Exploitation
  - Reconnection and Growth
  - Conservation (or Consolidation)
  - Release
  - Break-up
  - Reorganization
personal development
- 9 stages of ego development (Cook-Greuter)
  - Impulsive (2)
  - Self-defensive (2/3)
  - Conformist (3)
  - Self-conscious (3/4)
  - Conscientious (4)
  - Individualist (4/5)
  - Autonomous (5)
  - Construct/Ego-aware (5/6)
  - Unitive (6)
- archetypal transformations (Simon Sheridan)
  - child
  - orphan
  - adult
  - elder
- alchemical stages
- spiral dynamics (Wilbur)
- Eight Soulcentric / Egocentric Stages of Human Development (Bill Plotkin)
project management
- dragon dreaming: dreaming, planning, doing, celebrating (https://dragondreaming.org/)
- design web: growth phase, exploratory phase, productive phase, reflective phase (Looby Macnamara)
spiritual
- Lonerwolf: Spiritual Calling, Resisting the path, Finding Guidance, Starting the Journey, Turning Inwards, Facing the Darkness, Illumination, Traps & Pitfalls, Rebirth, Integration
- Wilber: Wake up, Clean up, Grow up, Show up, (Screw up)
storytelling
- Hero’s Journey (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey)
  - Departure
    - Ordinary world
    - Call to adventure
    - Refusal of the call
    - Meeting with the mentor
    - Crossing the first threshold
  - Initiation
    - Tests, allies, and enemies
    - Approach to the inmost cave
    - The ordeal
    - Reward
  - Return
    - The road back
    - The resurrection
    - Return with the elixir
history
- empire (Sir John Bagot Glubb)
  - The Age of Pioneers (Outburst)
  - The Age of Conquests
  - The Age of Commerce
  - The Age of Affluence
  - The Age of Intellect
  - The Age of Decadence
  - The Age of Decline & Collapse

For more examples and inspiration: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cycles

Tools for Personal and Spiritual Development

2025-01-12T15:50:00+01:00

I have done and tried a lot of different things.

The list below is probably not complete. I will try to give a brief overview of the tool and what it aims to achieve, based on my (limited) understanding and how it has helped me.

Lindyhop Dancing

To me, this is Meditation in Motion. I have been dancing for almost 20 years. It gets me in a flow state and a joy-without-cause arises. It anchors me to the present: connected to the music, my partner, other dancers surrounding me.
Non-violent Communication (NVC) by Marshall Rosenberg

Connect with what is alive in you and others by a process of direct observation (without judgement), finding and naming the emotion(s) that comes up from the observation, finding and naming the need that is or is not met and coming up with a request (not a demand) for an action to get the need met.

The important parts for me were
- learning to identify and name my emotions
- learning the difference between judgments and observations
- learning the universal (human) needs that live in all of us
- learning the difference between a demand and a request
- learning to apply this in written and oral conversations
The Octagon Society

Using journaling to excavate past experiences and to transform them through acceptance, forgiveness and love.

The important parts for me were
- learning a process to accept my past experiences and myself
- learning a process to forgive others and myself
- learning a process to love others and myself
- realizing all the different stories I tell myself about myself and the world are only half-truths at best
Feeding Your Demons by Lama Tsultrim Allione

A guided meditation to transform an inner demon into an ally.

I had a profound experience during the only time I did this meditation. The demon I had visualized from something I feared turned out to be a scared 7-year old self that I helped to transform into an ally.
Internal Family Systems by Dick Schwartz

Another way of looking at parts of yourself. Finding, nurturing and integrating inner children.
Voice dialog: Ik (k)en mijn ikken by Karin Brugman et al.

Another way of looking at different parts of yourself.
A breath workshop by Karin Oudshoorn
- the first workshop released a lot of grief without a direct connection to my experiences or my life and I saw an intense field of light
- the second workshop again released more grief, this time connected to an older brother of mine who died shortly after birth.
The Headless Way by Richard Lang

By doing a few simple experiments, I gained a new perspective on myself and the way I relate to the world. The exercises emphasize direct experience: what is my personal perception of myself and of the world.

I am upside down to everyone else. I have no head. Where others have a head, I have the whole world.
The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa

An extremely detailed meditation guide for beginning and advanced meditators.

It explained to me how to [do] (concentration) meditation. The exercise is not to clear the mind, it is to notice when the mind is no longer on the meditation object and to bring it back to it.
Other books on meditation and jhanas
- A Guide to Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation by Bhante Vimalaramsi
- I Am That by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

A self-directed study book with 12 chapters for 12 weeks of weekly reading and a set of exercises per week intended to unblock your creativity and start you moving again.

I thank the daily morning pages for getting in touch with myself. It also showed me that the most important aspect of creativity is to just do the work. Three morning pages a day make quite the book at the end of 12 weeks.

The second time around I appreciated the weekly artist’s dates to kindle a more creative outlook on life.
Deconstructing Yourself Podcast by Michael Taft

Interviews with meditation teachers on meditation and non-dual understanding
International Vedanta Society NL
- Introduction to Vedanta by Swami Dayananda
Yoga Vidya retreats
- I had an experience while trying to do the Frog in a Mantra Yoga class. I was both laughing and crying at the ridiculousness of my attempts to attain this particular position and at the same time being in awe of the whole experience.
Integral Eye Movement Therapy (IEMT)

Connect with an emotional experience in the past and with the help of a therapist disconnect the emotion from the memory to let the emotion dissolve.

This therapy helped me to detach the emotion of despair from an early childhood memory. I have not had this emotion come up again since then (3 years and counting).
Walking the Camino Portugues

I learned on the Camino in a direct, viceral way that nothing is permanent, everything changes.
Trauma Release Exercises (TRE)

This is a regular practice I use to release tension from my body. It involves letting the body shake without trying to steer or control it.

I have found that it is way harder to get the mind settled into any kind of meditation if the body is not relaxed.
Myo-fascial Energetic Release (MER) massage

This is massage that targets the fascia and the muscles. Habitual patterns get locked into the fascia. Trauma responses also get locked into fascia. When this massage loosens the fascia, the energy locked in them gets released.

The responses I experienced with this type of massage were similar to TRE: the body shaking and tremoring to get rid of the excess energy.

The day after the first massage I felt like a large truck had run me over. In subsequent massages, my fascia had loosened up considerably and there was way less energy needing to be released.

For years my posture had been hunchbacked. I noticed, now, it was easier for me to stand up straight and look forward.
Darkness Retreat with Spirit Balance

A profound experience with me spending over 5 days in complete darkness.

I have had a number of experiences that I can only describe as mindblowing. I have worked through a traumatic memory from when I was born. I had a unitive experience with the birds singing outside of my window. I have found a whole new appreciation for the world of light and form. I have experienced an inner silence and inner peace like I have never experienced before in this life.
Speech therapy sessions with Cindy Maes.

These 5 or 6 sessions have been very helpful to me. Cindy showed me what I could do differently to enhance the power and projection of my voice. With a few simple daily exercises I made quick audible progress.

Looking back I now recognize that “finding my voice” also meant that I had to re-examine/redefine my self-image and how I presented myself in the world.
Teachers

I would like to acknowledge the following teachers in addition to everyone I already mentioned.
- Rupert Spira
- Eckhart Tolle
- Mooji
- Biet Simkin
- Anjali Ma
- Prabha Ma

The Allotment - wrapping up

2024-12-31T19:10:00+01:00

I have decided end my contract with the allotment association. A number of factors have lead to this decision.

The allotment was evolving towards a miniature food forest. This meant that regular maintenance came down to mowing the “unwanted” plants about once a month.

I have found my enthousiasm for going to the allotment fluctuating wildly over the weeks, months and years. Nevertheless, I have been regularly going to the allotment. The past few years I was there about once a week but never more frequent.

I found there was little to do in the garden. I came away with a sense that the garden was very capable of taking care of itself and did not need, or even want, my involvement. Also I found myself rejecting the idea of investing more time in pushing the garden in some other direction. And besides, I had no other vision for the garden.

In addition I have found that gardening with more people around feels better. I like having the opportunity to socialize a bit while gardening. At the times I was gardening on the allotment the complex was almost completely deserted and at more popular times I had other activities that I would rather go to.

Looking back, especially the last few years, the garden was primarily a way (continue) to be a member to the board. As such it was only a means to an end. It had no real function in my life. Harvest from the garden last year was minimal: a few tomatoes, some pumpkins, fennel seeds, figs. We got more produce from a few pots in the backyard and from Proeftuin Meerhoven than from the allotment.

This sense of waning involvement had been growing over at least the past two years. I strongly wanted to quit last year for the same reasons already mentioned. At that time I did not take action. Things came to a head in late October 2024. It was a good moment to start wrapping up the allotment: I had given myself two months to move all the plants to new homes and to clean up the garden.

At the time of writing this, the garden is empty except for two fig trees and some thornless bramble. I was in the garden three times a week to dig out plants, shrubs and small trees. I have given most of these away to friends. For plants I could not find takers, I have moved those to Proeftuin Meerhoven.

When I left the allotment the last time, I thanked it for all our shared moments and I wished it the best for the future.

What went well?

I have learned a lot!
- I don’t particularly enjoy maintaining an intensive garden
- it takes a lot of time, energy and skill to create a productive garden
- 160m² is too much space for one person to maintain at 2 hrs/week
This brings me joy
- the aliveness of the garden
- seeing insects and small animals enjoying the garden as their home
- experimenting with making cuttings from various trees and shrubs

What would I do different?

I have been putting off cleaning the fragments of sidewalk tile that littered the shed since I got the allotment in 2019. I would have cleaned that up earlier.
Some of the trees I planted, I planted too close to the fence. This made it more difficult to uproot them when I wanted to move them to a different location. Next time, I will plant any tree or (potentially) big shrub more then one meter from any fence.
After the windows of the small greenhouse shattered, I had left the remainder standing. I would take that down immediately as it had no real purpose any more.
We never used the allotment for pleasure or invited friends over. We could have done that differently.
I could have involved other people when Ina stopped coming to the allotment instead of going at it alone.

What is my vision?

Why did we / I start this project in the first place?

Learning about growing our own food;
Enjoying fresh harvest;
Running experiments on a larger garden;
Helping raise awareness.

All these things I can still obtain through another project: Proeftuin Meerhoven. I can put more effort in this project to better reflect my values and interests.

What is my next step?

For now (end December 2024) it is to wind down my activities as a member to the board. After that, I’m open to new developments and new activities.

I’m updating the design for the allotment.

Experiments in 2024

2024-12-31T16:02:00+01:00

This is a list of experiments Ina and I have been conducting in 2024.

gardening
- the fifth, and final year of having an allotment garden
- cleaning out the allotment garden and distributing the plants to other gardeners
- helping out at Proeftuin Meerhoven
spiritual development
- morning pages
- bullet journaling
- regular meditation
- weekly learning about Vedanta
- spending 5 days in complete darkness
- attending a week at Yoga Vidya ashram
- attending mantra singing
- working with trauma / emotions
  - by writing about it (spiritual alchemy / bullet journal / morning pages)
  - by body movement (Tension Release Exercise / mantra yoga)
  - by meditating
  - by attending retreats
social
- connecting with nature
- connecting with friends
- connecting with family
- connecting with volunteers and visitors at food forest Eindhoven
- connecting with volunteers of Proeftuin Meerhoven
- connecting with volunteers of Dorpsboerderij Weverkeshof
- connecting with members of sowing club
- connecting with members of allotment association
- connecting with visitors of community center Nieuwe Maan
- connecting with dancers at Ketelhuisplein and other venues
- connecting with sevakas, volunteers and visitors of Yoga Vidya ashram

PASTE survey allotment garden (2024)

2024-12-20T21:00:00+01:00

Starting from September 2018, Ina and I have rented an allotment at an association nearby. Ina quit the allotment in January 2023. I have ended our contract with the association in December 2024.

This survey lists the species found in the garden in 2024.

This list is part of the design for the allotment garden.

Plants

Achillea millefolium (common yarrow / duizendblad)
Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
- tender leaves used as a spring leaf vegetable, much as spinach
- dried leaves taste like parsely
Aquilegia vulgaris (European columbine / wilde akelei)
Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / mierik)
Brassica juncea ssp. Integrifolia (leaf mustards / bladmosterd)
Brassica juncea ssp. Juncea (mustard greens / mosterdplanten)
Capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd’s purse / herderstasje)
- Brassicacea family
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
- Brassicacea family
Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
- resistant to frost
- important source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron
- whole plant is edible
Corylus avellana (hazel / hazelaar)
Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
- nitrogen fixer
- edible berries
- propagated from a cutting
Erigeron canadensis (horseweed / Canadese fijnstraal)
- used to treat boils, snake poison and menstrual pain
Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
- a highly aromatic and flavorful herb
- along with anise, one of the primary ingredients of absinthe
- bulb-like stem base can be used as a vegetable
Galium aparine (cleavers / kleefkruid)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
- tubers are used in the same ways as potatoes
- tubers can be eaten raw
- when raw and sliced thinly, they are fit for a salad.
- can be fermented after cleaning and drying
Houttuynia cordata (fish mint / moerasanemoon)
- smells and tastes like Coriandrum sativum (cilantro / koriander)
Humulus lupulus (common hop / hop)
Juglans regia (common walnut / okkernoot)
Leonorus cardiaca (motherwort / hartgespan)
- herbacious, perennial, mint family
- leafs used to spice pea and lentil soup
- attractive for bumble bees
- used in treating heart disease and muscle cramps
Lycium barbarum (Chinese wolfberry / boksdoorn)
- berries known as gojiberry
- nightshade family
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
- scent attracts bees
- make tea from leaves
- use as flavouring for dishes
- source of essential oil
Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint / witte munt)
- blooms July - October
- make tea from leaves
- source of essential oil
Morus alba (white mulberry / witte moerbei)
Nepeta cataria (catnip / wild kattenkruid)
Oenothera biennis (common evening-primrose / middelste teunisbloem)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinaak)
- main supplier of calories before potatoes were introduced
- cook or fry
Potentilla indica (mock strawberry / schijnaardbei)
Pulmonaria affinis Jord. (lungwort / tuinlongkruid)
Prunus avium (sweet cherry / zoete kers)
Rheum × hybridum (culinary rhubarb / tuinrabarber)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / rode bes)
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / gewone braam)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganbes, braamboos)
Rumex acetosella (sheep’s sorrel / schapenzuring)
Rumex obtusifolius (bitter dock / ridderzuring)
Salvia officinalis (sage / salie)
Solanum lycopersicum (tomato / tomaat)
- several cultivars
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)
- several cultivars
Stellaria media (chickweed / vogelmuur)
Symphytum officinale (common comfrey / gewone smeerwortel)
Tulipa tarda (tulip / tulp)
Urtica dioica (common nettle / grote brandnetel)
Urtica urens (dwarf nettle / kleine brandnetel)
Vitis vinifera (common grape vine / wijndruif)

Animals

birds / vogels
- Columba palumbus (wood pigeon / houtduif)
- Corvus monedula (Western jackdaw / kauw)
- Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborstje)
- Garrulus glandarius (Eurasian jay / gaai)
- Pica pica (common magpie / ekster)
- Troglodytes troglodytes (/ winterkoning)
mammals / zoogdieren
- Felis silvestris catus (domesticated cat / huiskat)
- Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
- Mus musculus (house mouse / huismuis)
insects / beetles
- Aphididae (aphid / bladluis)
- Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebee / aardhommel)
- Coccinellae (ladybird / lieveheesbeestje)
- Formicidae (ant / mier)
- Pieris rapae (small white / klein koolwitje)
- Pyrrhocoris apterus (firebug / vuurwants)
- Sphinx ligustri (privet hawk moth / ligusterpijlstaart)
- Syrphidae (hoverfly / zweefvlieg)
- Vanessa atalanta (red admiral / atalanta)

Structures

shed at the back
greenhouse at the back (somewhat shaded)
greenhouse in the middle (missing 5 window panes)
concrete tile seating area and path
fence made from wood and chicken wire
compost bin
two rain barrels

Tools

small gardening tools
plastic gardening pots
plastic storage container
two plastic buckets (10l)
one plastic bucket with lid (20l)
two watering cans (10l) and one detachable rose (NL: broes)

Events

humans walk by garden along main path
humans sit in garden
humans walk, work, harvest in garden
cats visit garden
last year (2023) 1199 mm rain, extremely wet autumn and winter

Patterns in Business

2024-05-31T20:46:00+02:00

Some of the patterns most businesses will face at some point.

legal structure
- See Wikipedia: List of legal entity types by country
- what capital requirement is needed for its foundation
record keeping
- bookkeeping
  - what counts as business expense
  - what counts as income
  - is the business liable for taxes
    - VAT
    - income or corporate tax
    - other taxes? duty, excise, tariffs,…
  - when does income become taxable
    - at the moment of sale or at the moment of payment
  - who keeps the books?
    - owner / dedicated employee / external bookkeeper or accountant
- archival requirements
  - number of years
  - accessibility of records
viability assessment
- trends in expenses and income
  - recurring expenses (try to reduce)
  - incidental expenses
  - recurring income (try to increase)
  - incidental income
- what is my burn rate
  - burn rate is months or years before financial buffer is depleted at current expense levels
- when is my business reaching break even
  - break even is when income equals or exceeds expenses, i.e. there is a surplus
- when is my business making profit
  - when will all incurred losses in the previous years have been recuperated by the surplus generated by the business
regulatory environment
- tax requirements
  - schedule for VAT payments to the government
  - schedule for income or corporate taxes
  - need for an accountant or tax specialist
- certificates
- licenses
- bank accounts for business
- (in)voluntary membership to a professional organization
- cost of these add to the expenses
sales process
- who is my client?
- why should my client choose me? Unique Selling Points
- how do I reach my client
  - personal visits
    - cold calling
    - introductions through other people
  - word of mouth
  - (social) media / advertising
- how can people reach my business
  - opening hours
  - physical store / place of business
  - by telephone
  - by email
  - by contact form on website
  - by messaging service (Whatsapp / Signal / Telegram / …)
- what are my products and services
  - online or offline
    - physical products
    - digital content: writing, code, audio, visuals, podcasts, movies, games, chatbots, …
    - online workshops, meetings or one-on-one sessions
    - face to face workshops, meetings or one-on-one sessions
- setting prices / how much to charge
  - who is offering similar products and services?
    - what are they offering?
    - at what price?
  - working backwards from desired income
    - take non billable hours into account
    - take needing a (part time) job into account
fulfillment process
- purchasing
  - where to get the products
  - how much delay between ordering and receiving
- warehousing
  - how much stock is needed to smooth out delays
- production
  - does my business modify the products in any way
  - what is needed for that and are they available: energy, input materials, knowledge and labor
- packaging and shipping
  - how to package the product
  - how to get the finished product to the client / customer

Design: Coaching Practice

2024-05-28T15:44:00+02:00

Background

I recently felt a longing to do a design based on the Design Web of Looby Macnamara. An opportunity presented itself as I came into contact with Marieke, a woman who was looking for a way to reboot her business. I proposed to facilitate a design with her.

Design team

The design was done by:

Arno Peters (permaculture designer)
Marieke

Design Strategy

Marieke has no prior experience with permaculture designs. My primary goal has been to guide her through the design process.

As with a previous design I did with a friend of mine, I choose Looby Macnamara’s Design Web as the guiding design process. You can read about it in her book People & Permaculture. I resonate with using its anchor points and allowing jumping between points as questions come up and get answered.

Looby Macnamara’s Design Web

The Design

Over the course of several sessions in person and over the phone, Marieke and I have gone over the anchor points in the Design Web. Below is the result of our collaboration.

Vision
- transformation of self and other through ceremonies, rituals, personal coaching and group coaching
Helps
- partner
- good friends
- editor (to improve textual communication)
- web designer
- Hipsy
- bullet journaling (already tried and rejected)
- meditation / visualization techniques
  - visualize an energy condom to shield from negative energies
  - alternatively, not block energies but allowing to flow through you
- asking for feedback
Limits
- mindset and beliefs
- time sinks:
  - bookkeeping / administration
  - booking / reserving a location
  - finding a date that works for everybody
  - avoiding double bookings
- energy management, the ability to sustain a steady pace
Patterns
- ‘As within, so without’
- reuse patterns from previous experience in teaching
- every business needs a website
- communication channels / patterns of communication
  - website
  - posts on instagram / socials
  - word of mouth
  - local newspaper
  - hipsy / event websites
  - event announcements on dedicated channels
  - interview with podcaster
Ideas
- use Hipsy to promote activities and to put detailed information on the website. The Hipsy activity can point to the website and the website can point to a specific activity or to a set of activities on Hipsy
- treat everything as an experiment
  - don’t know the best day to organize a workshop: try a number of different options
  - don’t know what topic people resonate with: try a bunch of different workshop formats
Principles
- Multiple Elements x Multiple Functions
  - reusing exercises in other workshops
  - reusing lesson elements
- Work With Nature
  - Marieke needs to accept being a Projector and work with that: rest when needed, wait for the invitation, etc.
- Minimum Effort, Maximum Effect
  - A good principle to keep in the back of your mind. This prevents you from getting lost in details that bring little forward momentum.
Integration
- Outline of website to showcase Marieke
  - On Offer
    - For Individuals
    - For Groups
  - For Whom
  - Vision and Process
  - About Me
Action
- get started on website texts
- use well-known platform to create website (e.g. WordPress)
- contemplate workshops
Momentum
- set up regular appointments to discuss progress
Appreciation
- appreciate the opportunity to give a workshop when cooking tea or when placing yoga mats or sitting cushions
Reflection
- setting an intention when setting up the place for a workshop; when placing yoga mats or sitting cushions
- regular meditation
Pause
- calming down
- properly grounding before a workshop
- sufficient sleep
- regular meditation

Behind the veil

2023-12-19T12:10:00+01:00

In English:

Beneath the hectic of the outside world is rest.

Beneath the chatter of everyday is silence.

Beneath the judgements of people is love.

May you find this rest, silence and love.

In Dutch:

Onder de hectiek van de buitenwereld ligt rust.

Onder het geroezemoes van alledag ligt stilte.

Onder de oordelen van mensen ligt liefde.

Moge je deze rust, stilte en liefde vinden.

Zones

2023-12-15T20:20:00+01:00

Zones in permaculture is a concept for roughly categorizing areas according to ease and/or frequency of access.

00:	Your own body.
0:	The base of operations under consideration.
1:	Offers easy, quick access but not as immediate as zone 0.
2:	Somewhat more involved access. Still regularly visited.
3:	Even further away. Regular visits become scarcer.
4:	Visited only a few times a year.
5:	Wild, untamed wilderness - rarely, if ever visited.

A typical example is a design for a house and surrounding areas. In this case, the zones would roughly map to the following areas:

00:	Your own body (in the house).
0:	The house.
1:	The front yard and the back yard.
2:	The shed in the backyard.
3:	The neighborhood.
4:	The rest of town.
5:	Beyond city limits.

However, changing to the context of designing a shed in the backyard for this same house. The zones could roughly map to the following areas:

00:	Your own body (in the shed).
0:	The shed.
1:	The back yard.
2:	The house.
3:	The front yard and the neighborhood.
4:	The rest of town.
5:	Beyond city limits.

Spiritual Alchemy

2023-12-15T20:02:00+01:00

This is a type of shadow work. It helped me tremendously and I am thankful for having found these through the writings of John Michael Greer. He published the teachings starting in July 2021.

Back then, he wrote:

Spiritual alchemy begins with the transmutation of the emotional life. This is the work of the material covered in the outer order, which is named the Octagon Society. I will caution my readers that this work is not easy. Its material requirements are very simple – it’s the work itself that’s hard. […]

I have not enjoyed doing this work, but I do feel better afterwards. There have been a few lessons where initially I thought I don’t have any experiences of that kind. After a day of chewing on the lesson, I realized there were numerous examples. Some even happened just the day before!

The lessons provided me with a structured way of working with difficult emotions and the memories that keep them in place. By feeling these emotions again in a safe context and accepting, forgiving and even loving what happened to me helped me release these emotions.

As of August 2023 I have made a first pass through all of the lessons. I realize there is still more work to be done, for sure.

All the material has been collected and published on a dedicated website for the Octagon Society.

To get a feel for the work, start with the Preliminary Lessons. They help stir up memories and emotions, some long repressed, so they become available for transformation. The preliminary lessons are for working on:

Blame. Because: Carrying the weight of blame causes more harm than the things for which we blame others ever did.
Shame. Because: Carrying the weight of shame causes more harm than the things for which we feel ashamed ever did.
Guilt. Because: Carrying the weight of guilt causes more harm than the things for which we feel guilty ever did.

The Main Lessons are about exploring and transforming different emotions and aspects of mind:

feeling good or bad - Acceptance: We can heal and learn from our experiences only if we accept them.
feeling sad or unhappy - Happiness: Happiness is a decision we make at every moment of our lives.
feeling fearful of anxious: Joy/Courage: your capacity for joy/courage is measured by your ability to let go of fear.
feeling angry: Peace: it is not feeling angry but clinging to anger that deprives us of the peace we seek.
feeling hurt or harmed: Forgiveness: we can advance to the heights of our spiritual path only to the extent we can forgive ourselves and all others
mental models and changing them: Strength: every person can become who and what they want to become.
desirable qualities: Teaching: we teach others all the time because of who and what we are, whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not.
loving what is: Unconditional Love: Love is the ultimate expression of our freedom as spiritual beings.

Periodic Reviews

2023-09-13T11:35:00+02:00

I use periodic reviews in order to keep track of the main currents in my life. The day to day is too chaotic to discern much structure. Looking back over longer periods of time teases these patterns out in the open. It’s similar to canoeing in a white water river. Moment to moment you’re busy looking out for obstacles, plotting a course to keep you safe from them. It’s only in the evening when you have set up shelter for the night, can you consider where you are on the journey and realize how far you have traveled.

As of 2023, I use a weekly review, a monthly review and a yearly review.

I started out using only the yearly review. I discovered the Year Compass in 2017. It is a booklet that you fill out at the end of the year. The first part is looking back over the year that is drawing to an end. The second part is looking forward to the year ahead and setting intentions. I liked the process of looking back over the year and summarizing the main points in a couple of categories. For now I stick to the Year Compass for the yearly review.

I started using a bullet journal at the end of 2019. It was only in 2023 that I heard Ryder Caroll talk about the benefit of using regular reviews. I had a period of experimentation to find a way that works for me.

I have settled on doing the weekly review on Sunday. I reserve a single A5 page in my bullet journal for that. The following page contains the planning for the next week.

I have seven domains across which I survey my life. For the week review I will go through my daily notes and put a summary of what happened during the week for each category. For the month review, I will do the same but then I use the week reviews as input.

For the weekly and monthly review, I use the following symbols. Thanks to Rachael Stephen’s Constellation system for the inspiration. There is a direct connection with my web of goals.

Life domain symbols
#	good food
⌂	good space
⚭	good friends
$	good finances
⏀	good body
◊	good mind
꩜	good fun

Good food relates to both physical and mental foods. What do I put in my body and mind to nourish them?

Good space relates to the locations I spend my time. What do I do to keep them clean, welcoming, functional and beautiful?

Good friends relates to the people I meet and interact with. Over time it maps my social circle. Who did I spend time with and which meetings mattered to me?

Good finances relates to the flow of money and energy. Where does it come from, where does it leave to?

Good body relates to what my body does and what it gets subjected to: exercises, activities, relaxation, injuries. How did I use my body?

Good mind relates to anything involving the mind: mental challenges, solving problems, learning experiences, meditation and shadow work. How did I use my mind?

Good fun relates to inspiration, creativity and nurturing the inner artist child. It includes spirituality and fun activities that make the soul sing. What inspired and animated me?

Building and Using a Peg Loom

2023-06-29T17:27:00+02:00

A peg loom is a weaving technology that has been around since at least the Viking period - and probably much longer. The loom is made of a single log with holes at regular intervals. Each hole will fit a peg. Each peg has a hole near the bottom to allow a yarn to be threaded through. These yarns become the warp threads of the loom.

The weaving takes place over the pegs. For our experiment we use raw fleece. The fleece has not been washed, carded or processed in any other way. This has been our first project on the peg loom.

The loom I built features 39 holes spaced at 2.5cm each, measured from hole center to hole center. Thus the width of a woven piece on this loom can be at most 97.5cm. Due to some shrinkage after washing the final product will probably be closer to 95cm. The pegs are 12mm wide and fit in 12mm holes in the board. I have tapered the end of the pegs to about 10mm. This makes it easier to put them in the holes of the board.

When I originally drilled the holes in the board, I did not have a 12mm drill bit. I used a 10mm drill. This meant tapering the pegs to make sure they would be able to fit in the holes. I discovered that it was difficult to keep the pegs stay secure in the holes. After finishing the rug from this article, I have drilled out the holes to 12mm. I found that this makes the weaving much easier as the pegs stay in the holes better.

Weaving over the pegs. Warp threads are visible at the bottom.

Closeup of weaving over the pegs. Part of the peg loom is unused because this mat will measure 55cm wide by 90cm long.

Sliding the woven piece down the warp threads by pulling the pegs and the warp thread through the weft, in this case, the woven wool.

The rug at full length.

Cleaning up the warp threads at both ends of the rug.

The rug, before cleaning.

We soaked the rug in warm, soapy water and wrapped in plastic. We rolled it around to encourage a bit of felting.

We rinsed the mat several times in clean water. The last rinse we added vinegar to the water as a fabric softener.

The finished mat. What a beauty - and very soft to boot!

The mat has found a place in the bedroom, next to the bed. I look forward to waking up in winter and putting my feet on this soft and warm mat!

Note the color difference between the photo of the finished rug and the one of the rug before cleaning. The whites have definitely brightened up in the cleaned rug.

Also note that in the final picture of the mat, the bottom part is wider than the top part. We started our weave at the bottom. Having no prior experience, We started out weaving quite loosely. As we gained more experience, we began weaving more tightly across the pegs. When you pull the warp threads through the weave has a natural tendency to tighten up, shrinking the width of the piece in the process.

We have already started on the next project: a rug for the living room. It takes up 32 pegs at a width of 80cm and we try to make it 150cm long. Below is a preview of the mat.

Design Web

2023-05-25T20:20:00+02:00

Looby Macnamara’s Design Web is a design process. You can read about it in her book People & Permaculture. I resonate with using its anchor points and allowing jumping between points as questions come up and get answered.

The tool gives 12 different anchor points to use as a starting point for reflection and idea conception. Take an anchor point that resonates and start recording what comes up in relation to that anchor point. As things come up, it may trigger things that are more appropriate under another anchor point. When that happens, put the item under that anchor point and either continue on your current anchor point or jump to the anchor point that came up.

I have used this process to help design a healer’s practice. See that page for a more detailed look at how I used this tool in practice.

Wheel of the Design Web

Anchor points

The first three are about where we want to go and what possibilities and limitations we envision getting there.

Vision
Helps
Limits

The next set is about generic solutions and principles that we can find that may apply to our particular situation. These include patterns we can see in nature, principles from exact sciences, permaculture and other areas.

Patterns
Ideas
Principles

The following three are about putting the previous information into action and how to maintain momentum when things get difficult.

Integration
Action
Momentum

The final three are about learning from the experience, setting appropriate times to appreciate the process and taking enough time to rest in order to not burn out.

Appreciation
Reflection
Pause

Useful tools per anchorpoint

Vision
- tool: dreaming circle
- to share: why create a vision, process for creating a vision, generative question
- result: a first version of a vision
Helps
- tool: brainstorm
- examples: own support network, subsidies, coaching, schooling
- result: list of people, institutions that may be of help
Limits
- tool: brainstorm
- examples: time, energy, access to people, lack of skills, money
- results: list of current limits, what blocks, limits growth or speed
Patterns
- tool: peruse lists of patterns
  - patterns in business
  - patterns in nature
- result: patterns that are applicable to this specific design
Ideas
- tool: brainstorm and captured in the moment
- result: list of ideas and inspirations
Principles
- tool: Permaculture principles
- result: filter other results thought this lens
Integration
- tool: multiple needs x multiple strategies (functions and elements)
- examples: list of NVC needs, strategies from vision or action, talked about how multiple connections create resilience
- result: some sense of how to bring it all together
Action
- possible tool: mental inventory + filtering
- result: list of actions to get things done
Momentum
- possible tools: time blocks, pomodoro, visualize progress, spend max 20-30h per week working on your company, reading the design document, seeing happy faces
- result: list of strategies to keep going
Appreciation
- possible tools: gratitude journal
- result: list of things to be grateful for
Reflection
- possible tools: year compass, bullet journal, 4 questions: what went well vs what to do differently next time, periodic reviews
- result: how to evaluate progress with a list of activities and advise
Pause
- possible tools: Artist’s dates, plenty of sleep, connect with nature, spend time in solitude
- result: list of (non)activities and advise

For further study

Podcast with Looby Macnamara on the Design Web

Bullet Journal

2023-05-05T20:19:00+02:00

I have started bullet journaling on 20 December 2019. I have kept to a very minimal set of collections.

Ryder Carroll encourages you to record an intention for your bullet journaling practice. Mine is: “I want my BuJo practice to help me record the ebb and flow of my life because my memory is fallible and tends to forget the many things that happened during the year”.

I use the following collections:

title page and in case of emergency (first page)
index with marker and signifier legend
future log
monthly log
monthly review (since 2023)
monthly mental inventory (since 2023; discontinued)
weekly planning
weekly review (since 2023)
dailies
year at a glance (since 2023)
assorted notes on
- Year Compass
- recipes
- observations
- summaries of information

I use the following markers:

Markers
O	a meeting
—	a note
=	a mood
·	an open task
/	a delegated task
<	task migrated to future log
>	task migrated forward
X	task done
[strike]	task canceled

I only use the exclamation point (!) to signify inspiration.

For the review collections, I use the following symbols. Thanks to Rachael Stephen’s Constellation system for the inspiration. It connects the review to my web of goals.

Life domain symbols
#	good food (physical and mental)
⌂	good shelter (maintenance)
⚭	good friends (social circle)
$	good finances (flow of money)
⏀	good body (exercises)
◊	good mind (mental challenges)
꩜	good fun (inspiration, spirituality)

Contemplation on oil, gas and coal

2023-05-05T16:39:00+02:00

oil is used
- in powering machines for moving / transporting
  - raw materials
  - half finished products
  - finished products
  - people
- in these environments
  - water - boat, submarine
  - land - car, shovel, tractor, truck
  - air - airplane, helicopter, drone
- it is also used as a basis for
  - lubricants
  - solvents (in paint, as a cleaning agent)
- characteristics
  - oil/diesel is the densest store of energy known to man
  - very easy to move using pipes
  - very easy to store using simple containers
  - easy to transport by ship
  - versatile to use
gas is used
- for most heating needs (cooking, house warming)
- as a basis for
  - plastics
  - poisons (all x-icides)
  - fertilizer (ureum)
- to provide buffer capacity on the electric grid
  - quick to turn on and off depending on load
- characteristics
  - usually a byproduct from oil pumping
  - easy to move using pipes
  - difficult to transport by ship
  - somewhat difficult to store (needs underground vaults)
  - lower energy density than oil
coal is used
- as a basis for
  - electricity generation
- characteristics
  - difficult to move
  - easy to store
  - needs diesel equipment to delve and transport
catabolic collapse
- complexity needs surplus energy to sustain itself
- when energy supply is insufficient, a (partial) collapse in complexity follows
- hence, we can expect periods of stability followed by a step down
  - production of surplus energy forecasted to drop by 6%-9% per year from 2018 onward
    - at -6%/year, halving of available energy takes 12 years
      - 2018: 100%, 2030: 50%, 2042: 25%, 2054: 12.5%, 2066: 6.25%
    - at -9%/year, halving of available energy takes 8 years
      - 2018: 100%, 2026: 50%, 2034: 25%, 2042: 12.5%, 2050: 6.25%
  - ask yourself: “How much activity / wealth can be sustained in 2050 with, at best, only one eighth (12.5%) of current energy surplus available?”
my advice
- Finding the Gift
- be thankful for what you have
- prepare for having (much) less energy available
- apply: Start where you are / Use what you have / Do what you can - Arthur Ashe

Permaculture Ethics

2023-05-05T15:17:00+02:00

Ethics

Earth care
People care
Fair share / Future care

To consider for Earth Care and Future Care:

Refuse
Rethink
Reduce
Reuse
Repair
Repurpose
Recycle
Recover

Permaculture Ethics and Principles

2023-05-05T15:17:00+02:00

Ethics

Earth care
People care
Fair share / Future care

To consider for Earth Care and Future Care:

Refuse
Rethink
Reduce
Reuse
Repair
Repurpose
Recycle
Recover

Attitudinal principles

Multiple elements x multiple functions
Everything gardens
The problem is the solution
Yield is theoretically unlimited
Work with nature
Minimum effort, maximum effect

Holmgren principles

Observe and interact
Catch and store energy
Obtain a yield
Apply self regulation and accept feedback
Use and value renewable resources and services
Produce no waste
Design from patterns to details
Integrate rather than segregate
Use small and slow solutions
Use and value diversity
Use edges and value the marginal
Creatively use and respond to change

Thinking in Patterns

2023-05-05T15:09:00+02:00

Below is a list of patterns found in nature. Every pattern is a response to a specific challenge.

branching / fractal
- scattering or gathering information / nutrients
- cover a lot of surface with little material requirements
- applications: leafs and branches
circle / ring / torus
- strong
- small interior, large exterior
- used for constriction
- applications: hunting strategy of boa constrictor
cloud
- dispersed, low density
- saturation can change phase rapidly
- a seed can change its phase
  - for vapour clouds: condensation / rain
dome / lobe
- able to take input from all (upper) directions while sitting on a strong base
- applications: general shape of trees and shrubs
gradient
- signaling mechanism for distance to food, mates, construction (e.g. trunk > limbs > joints > fingers > knuckles)
hook / burdock / ogive (pointed arch)
- for catching and holding on
- strong
- easy to go in, difficult to take out
- applications: cat’s nails, thorns
meander / wave / seneca curve / logistic curve
- natural consequence of a flow across a surface
  - water across sand
  - wind across water
- describes different phases of development
- shows where the path of least friction is
- applications: a stream of water, river
net / web
- catching and filtering things
- applications: a spider’s web, a fishing net
scattering / camouflage
- blending into the environment
- smaller elements are more difficult to detect
- increase chances of finding a favorable niche
- applications: scattered seeds, leopard spots
sheet
- very large surface area, very small interior
- for exchange with exterior
- applications: leaf
sphere / bubble
- protection (for seeds etc.)
- smallest surface area for largest interior volume
- applications: shape of nuts and fruits
spiral
- makes a cone from a central line with branches perpendicular to the growth of the central line
- applications: arrangements of flowers in a sunflower
streamline
succession
tetrahedron / triangle
- basic construction element
- keeps shape under both compression and tension
tube / barrel
- transport fluids or gasses across some distance

Mental Inventory

2023-05-05T15:02:00+02:00

I first came across the mental inventory when I started using the Bullet Journal method.

Find the original explanation here.

Create it by rapid logging / brain dumping into three columns
- Things I am working on
- Things I should be working on
- Things I want to be working on
Filter your Mental Inventory
- Is it vital? If yes, keep;
- Does this really matter to me or to someone I love? If yes, keep;
- If this never gets done, will there be repercussions? If yes, maybe keep;
- Otherwise drop it because it is a distraction.
Celebrate.

Survey for a location design

2023-05-05T14:45:00+02:00

I’m collecting information for a design on location. This to validate our current choice of location and / or to find another place that is more suitable to our wants and needs.

Focusing on the basics

Tool: 6 ways to die

Shelter protects from heat and cold.
- having appropriate clothes for the different seasons
- having the means to make and repair clothes
- having an appropriate shelter to take cover from the elements
- having tools and materials to repair the shelter or ways of obtaining them
- having a source of fuel for heating
Supply protects from hunger and thirst.
- having a dependable source of food
- having sufficient food storage to cover gaps in food supply
- having a dependable source of drinkable water
- having a source of fuel for cooking
Safety (community, police, hospital) protects from injury and illness.
- having knowledge of treating wounds and infections
- having a way to sterilize water
- knowing a local nurse, doctor, herbalist or other health practitioner
- how’s the local culture?
- can we depend on neighbors in case of emergency?

Each of these categories must be considered when evaluating a location.

Money and energy needs of different sized communities

Estimation of monetary needs for a community of size n. Expenses grow approximately by the sqare root of the number of people. Money is a proxy for the energy needs of the community. The expenses need to be covered by energy available in close proximity to the location of the community.

n	√n	Total expenses	Expense
		€/year	€/year/person
1	1	12000	12000
4	2	24000	8000
9	3	36000	4000
16	4	48000	3000
144	12	144000	1000

Tim Garrett proposes a relation of 7.1 watt for every 1000$ (in 2005) of wealth.

Say we house several people in a house like the one I live in that cost 160000€ in 2005. EUR to USD rate in 2005 was 0.85€ for 1$. This house cost 136000$ in 2005. Based on Garrett’s assertion, the house requires a continuous flow of energy of 965W (~1000W) to maintain.

This is a smoothed estimate over time. In typical building maintenance, this energy is required in concentrated bursts when doing renovations and replacements with little ongoing energy expenditures in between, except for regular heating to maintain humidity levels.

Using bunk beds and with a bit of cramming, the house can probably host about 10 people.

Energy needs of active males is 14 MJ/day and about 11 MJ/day for active females. This translates into 162W for males and 127W for females. A couple together would need about 290W to keep alive. In terms of raw energy this means 5.1 GJ per year for active males and 4.0 GJ per year for active females. Together 9.1 GJ per year.

Below our household’s energy usage for gas in MJ per month.

Month	MJ
2019-07	428
2019-08	491
2019-09	442
2019-10	535
2019-11	1277
2019-12	1239
2020-01	1890
2020-02	1246
2020-03	944
2020-04	593
2020-05	536
2020-06	444

Eyeballing the table, energy usage for cooking is roughly 0.5GJ per month or 6GJ per year. This comes down to about 200W of (continuous) power. I believe this will also scale with the square root of the number of people as cooking for more people at once is more efficient.

I see gas usage rising above summer levels in November (1.2GJ), December (1.2GJ), January (1.9GJ), February (1.2GJ) and March (1.0GJ). This totals to 6.5GJ for 151 days or 500W of (continuous) power during these five winter months. Of that, 200W is for cooking and water heating and 300W is for central heating.

Raw energy required for heating one room 5 months of the year to keep the house frost-free is 4 GJ.

Using wood energy

Some facts about wood:

Living wood has at least 50% moisture content
Drying time between 12 and 24 months
Seasoned wood has 20% to 25% moisture content
Density of seasoned wood is roughly 700 kg/m³
Energy content of seasoned wood is 5.3 kWh/kg or 19 MJ/kg
Stacked wood means about 2/3 of volume is wood

From above:

cooking requires 6GJ per year
heating requires 4GJ for 5 months

Wood required for 2 person household, numbers rounded:

for cooking: ~315 kg per year or 0.7 m³ of stacked, seasoned wood
for heating: ~210 kg per year or 0.5 m³ of stacked, seasoned wood
rule of thumb: 0.75 kg of seasoned wood per person per day

Growing space required

From a Dutch forum:

From 4 full grown pollarding willows you can harvest about 1 m³ of wood once every 4 years. This is with leaving any branches with a diameter less than one’s wrist. These smaller branches can be chipped down to around .67 m³ of wood chips.

To get 1 m³ of wood every year, you need 16 pollarding willows. The growing area required per willow is about 4 m². One cubic meter of wood takes 64 m² of growing area.

Note: sun irradiates 1350 W/m² @ 52° is only 61.6% (= cos 52°) efficient.

Trees that can be coppiced or pollarded:

beech, ash, oak, popler, alder, willow
growing cycles of 4 to 7 years between coppicing or pollarding

From above:

for cooking: 0.7 m³ per year of stacked, seasoned wood;
for heating: 0.5 m³ per year of stacked, seasoned wood;
in total 1.2m³ per year of stacked, seasoned wood.

This means, for a two person household:

having 20 willows in a 4 year rotation;
every year pollarding 5 trees;
setting aside about 77m² of growing space dedicated to wood production.

Note: Article on fire wood collection in Brabant (in Dutch)

Area required for food

From Wikipedia on Potatoes:

The food energy yield of potatoes – about 95 gigajoules per hectare – is higher than that of maize (78 GJ/ha), rice (77 GJ/ha), wheat (31 GJ/ha), or soybeans (29 GJ/ha).

Active males require about 10.5MJ per day, active females about 8.4MJ per day. An active couple requires about 19MJ per day.

My notes

Getting your calories only from potatoes requires at least (from above): ~405 m² for active males (365*10.5/95000) and ~325 m² for active females (365*8.4/95000). Or ~730 m² for an active couple.

Using only wheat, the required surface area tripples to ~2200 m². With soybeans, we would need at least ~2410 m² of growing space.

I will note that these yields are only possible due to heavy use of fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation and other fossil fuel inputs. It also assumes perfect harvests and storage and does not take into account the amount of seed required for next year’s planting.

Also note that the area grows linearly with the amount of people we want to feed.

Potato aside from: https://homeguides.sfgate.com/average-potato-yield-per-plant-48132.html

According to Colorado State University Extension, when fertilized and watered correctly and planted in a place that receives a healthy dose of sun all day, the average yield per potato plant is about 2 pounds (1kg). Fedco Seeds notes that the average yield of potatoes per pound of planted seed potatoes is 10 pounds (5kg). If the return is less than 6 pounds (3kg) of potatoes per pound of cut seeded potatoes, then it could be due to an unmonitored insect infestation or a lack of water during a critical growing period.

For the best yield, wait to plant until the last frost has passed. When the plants are 6 to 8 inches (15-20cm) tall, add more soil to the stem of the plant in a mound. Only the top leaves should be visible above the mound. This is called “hilling,” which will keep the tubers underground protected.

Continue hilling the potato plants as they grow. To do this, mound dirt around the stem when it has grown 6 to 8 more inches (15-20cm). This will ensure an abundant yield of potatoes when it is time to harvest. Generally, potatoes can be harvested 10 weeks after planting.

A more general approach to land use

7Wannabe5 recommends per capita:

0.2 ha buildings/roads/technology (0.5 acres)
0.4 ha fiber/raw resource (1 acre)
0.6 ha food (1.5 acre)
0.8 ha wilderness/recreational (2 acres)
total: 2.0 ha = 20000 m²

This means a population density of less than 50 people per km².

Activities to deploy for a self-sufficient community

From Kommune Niederkaufungen:

Within the commune, there are now a number of collective enterprises. There is a construction firm with builders and metal workers, a carpentry workshop, an organic market gardening collective, a kindergarten, a seminar centre team, an organic dairy farm, a kitchen and catering group, and an administrative collective. A number of people work together more informally as a consulting group, giving advice and help to other self managed projects and communes. In addition, a new collective activity is coming into being at the moment, the day-care centre for old people, which opened on 1st April 2006.

From the newsletter ‘Nieuws uit Longo Maï’ of fall 2020:

Activities that can be learned in our cooperatives:

sewing course with wool

forestry school

basics of working with a chainsaw

wood felling and pruning techniques

how to make soap

caretaking and pruning of fruit trees

how to use the all the machines in the cannery

basics of wine making

metal working and welding

basics of bakery and pastery shop

animation of a live radio program

beekeeping and honey harvesting

seed cultivation

ecological building

dragging wood with a horse

sheep shearing

herbs and medicinal plants

a season in the kitchen garden, from soil cultivation to harvest

In short:

food
- growing (market garden, orchard and dairy farm)
- preparation (kitchen and catering)
- preservation (seed collection)
fiber
- sheep shearing
- wool spinning
- weaving
- felting
- sewing
construction (wood and metal)
caring for the very young and the very old
self-care
- workshops on Nonviolent Communication
- Qi Gong
administration
legal and other advise

Approaches to creating strong communities

This section is from a Comment from RiggerJack in the thread Re: apocalyptic techno-optimism

Post by Riggerjack » Sat Sep 19, 2020 3:00 pm

What scares me about many intentional communities is that they attract (they’re attractive to ..?) people with liabilities/few skills/other issues.

I think this is a design flaw of existing attempts, rather than an inherent design limitation. Design a more attractive community, and raise the bar for entry, and this problem gets replaced with attraction and filtering. Each of these is more tractable than the original.

There may be some people/families who have both the survivalist resources and the personality type to go it alone and both survive (food, water, shelter) and flourish psychologically; but seems that must be a rare breed indeed. It’s about building strong communities.

This. There is some thought loop among our most educated, that keeps them looping in this box. This is some serious G class (gervais) juju. Too many years in school, and one cannot think outside this box.

Here is the secret: if you read an establishment book on anything outside of the establishment, you are reading a perspective that was created for you. That may or may not align with the perspective one would choose for oneself. The presented perspective is likely to be chosen to make the reader feel better about where they are (within the cozy embrace of the establishment), or it may be chosen to highlight how difficult and dangerous life is without that smothering chokehold- eh-hem uh, cozy embrace.

And because we live in a society drowning in information, there will be books written from the above perspectives, carefully written to appeal to the anti establishment audience, to help guide them back into the fold. And for the establishment audience, and every step in between.

I understand the desire for a strong community. I share it in my own twisted way. But strong communities are an emergent feature of getting the other parts right. One doesn’t build strong communities, one grows a strong community, and with luck, success is copied.

Scale is important, but the auto scale-up thought loop will kill any productive line of thought.

If one were interested in solving this riddle, one should look at what has been tried, and failed. If only to ensure the path one wants to follow doesn’t lead to a known hazard.

I would say that all G class paths out of the establishment have been tried and have known hazards. Perhaps a different starting point is appropriate.

(I’m not calling you out, I chose this quote because it is such an excellent example, well written, and clear. )

A couple years ago I got mildly obsessed with ecovillages/intentional communities and read eight or so books on the topic. Most of them were concerned to a significant degree with answering the question “what are the common causes for the ~90% failure rate?”

A very good start, and there was good info in your post.

But I was thinking more in terms of “what are the common causes of the failure rate/how does this compare to the failure rates and failure points of traditionally founded communities”.

If that had been the approach, I think we might find paths not fully explored previously. Success is more likely to be found in under explored territory than going over the same old ground that has thus far yielded a high failure rate.

If one is determined to go over the same old ground, bringing new tools/techniques would at least bring the possibility of better results. But I haven’t heard of any new tools or techniques, yet.

I think, maybe, there is a problem with trying to convert what is inherently a individual solution into a group/tribe solution. First in the types of people it attracts, and secondly in the type of thinking it perpetuates. Hence it has some problems unique to it, vs other intentional communities.

What is a group/tribe solution, that is also not an individual solution?

So, founding an ERE group/tribe/religion is not my goal. But if it were…

I would look at how cities are typically founded.

Step 1. Economic center.

There has to be a reason people want to be there, and this is usually because they perceive an opportunity, and move to it.

Step 2 establish land ownership.

This needs doing asap. Perhaps before anyone knows of step 1. One doesn’t need contention in this step.

Step 3 divide up your land, mark it up and sell lots.

Repeat steps 2&3 until the demand, determined by step 1 is filled, or some other failure point.

So here on the west coast, this looked like someone building a cabin and dock at the mouth of a river.

Then expanding as fishing and logging made that dock make $$. Then expanding as the opportunity presents itself.

This is a coastal variation on the Railroad model. As the railroads moved west, one of the ways they capitalized their project was to lay out a town where they needed to stop. Everyone wanted to be close to the railroad access points, they bought and built.

Are you noticing a pattern here? All these people are buying into a dream. They are all coming of their own accord. And most of them will be young and relatively unskilled. Because that is the time of life when people are most likely to go on an adventure.

Individualists simply need a reason to go do their thing where you want them to. Typically this reason looks like you made a space that is appealing to them.

So, if I were a high income younger man, looking to start my ERE cult in a small town in the Dakotas, I would look at buying something like the sorority house linked in some other thread. (Sorry, no link)

It was a 9 bedroom, 3 bath house. Classic architecture, brick siding, and big all over, on a quarter acre.

The typical first thought is get lots of roommates, and life gets cheap, fast.

I would go the other way, though. What do I want in a housemate? Great. Now what would a person like that want in a house?

So then I would rent out a room with a studio/office.

Just like that, I went from attracting based on cheapness, to attacting based on a special appeal to people who want/need studio/office space. Now we’re filtering!

I would have the garden planned and laid out as well as any other major changes, before I let anyone in. When people move in, they should be aware that the space is going to change ahead of time. How the changes are made is another filter.

So, 9 bedroom becomes 3 bedroom, 3 studio, and 3 craft rooms. How you divide that up is up to you.

But I would suggest that the applicant who want a room for $300/mo is different from the applicant who is looking at $750 a month for a room/studio/craftspace in a pretty house with garden.

Make the space you want, with space enough for others, attractive enough to the kinds of people you want to know.

When the first 2 spaces are rented, start looking to expand. Watch for opportunities in the neighborhood. People sell all the time. Simply repeat as often as desired. Ideally, getting neighboring property, and maybe set up your ideal little urban/suburban compound. (Little known fact: if one owns multiple adjacent blocks, it is possible to have the street closed between them, now look at all that garden space…)

If I were looking for a rural version, I would start with the economic incentives to be there. Maybe start with a woodlot, and make log cabins for folks to move into. Get good internet. The world is full of back to the land types. Make a space, make it as easy/hard as you want to filter for.

There is nothing complex about any of this. The hard part is letting go of the childhood treehouse mentality (boys club-no girls allowed!) And moving in to an adult mentality, understanding that you don’t have or want control over anyone. That path leads to the extreme divergence/high failure fields…

Of course, knowing what you want and building it in a way that appeals to others is no small feat, either.

I think the cause of high failure rate of intentional communities is that they are generally started without enough capital, by people of an idealistic bent. The ideology is often opposed to capitalism, so they skip step 1.

If one wanted to build a house, but were ideologically opposed to the standard tools and materials, one’s odds of failure would be similarly bad. Though the successes would be extremely divergent (like Flying Concrete).

Now note where the successes are in IC. Extremely divergent. Places that are so different from our day to day system, that people will put up with the downsides, to participate in the dream.

Not screwing up step 1 means the extreme divergence shouldn’t be necessary. The less divergence, the broader the appeal. The broader the appeal, the higher one could raise the bar for entry. The higher the bar, the more successful the average participant, does everyone see the positive feedback loops?

Now, to this idea that an WL5 would want to team up with other WL 3-7’s. The whole point is to get synergies. One doesn’t get synergies without differences. What ERE WL5 wants, is a gardener/permaculturalist or a carpenter/woodworker or whatever you want to attract, who is also ERE compatible.

You learn the skills and practices that appeal to you, the same for them. We have plenty of folks here from other interest groups. One doesn’t need the full theory of ERE to live an ERE compatible life.

Jacob wrote ERE in an academic way, because that is both his background and his style. His goal was to blaze the efficient path WL7+. And that’s great, perfect, for me. But most people don’t learn the way I do, especially in the realm of lifestyle design. People learn from the people around them. I think the beauty of the ERE commune would be allowing people to do what they love, while in an ERE soup. Their actions are influenced by their environment, and after they are partially down the ERE road, and have experienced the benefits, they are more likely to be open to more.

We know ERE works in HCOL and LCOL economic zones. So simply set up ones franchise in the space you like, that will attract and support the kinds of people you want. The examples of group living that work, don’t diverge greatly (the folks from YMOYL) took care of step 1 as part of their system, or as an accident (7w5’s bohemian youth experience). I don’t know how one could progress to WL5 without enough economic theory to get step 1 completed early. In other words, this should be easier with ERE.

I believe Leadership is the opposite of what is needed. OWNERSHIP is needed. There is nothing unusually difficult here. This is all standard real estate practices. You can get standard financing. You just have to figure out what and how you want to do it, and then follow that up by taking ownership, and actually doing it.

Other sources

Population density

Current population densities (Wikipedia List of countries and dependencies by population density)

Population density of Europe.

Source: Reddit Europe population density detailed map

Some population densities in Europe (from individual Wikipedia pages retrieved 2020) in inhabitants per km²:

Country	Area	Density	Notes
Netherlands	Amsterdam	5206
Netherlands	Eindhoven	2641	my current village area
Netherlands	Noord-Brabant	517	my current province area
Germany	Kaufungen	478	village area of Kommune Niederkaufungen
Germany	Hessen	297	province area of Kommune Niederkaufungen
Germany	Pfalz	256
Netherlands	Drenthe	187	lowest density province in Netherlands
Netherlands	Middelbeers	134
Germany	Saksen-Anhalt	108	province area of Gunsleben
France	Auvergne	52
Germany	Am Großen Bruch	41	village area of Gunsleben

Elevation map

Elevation map of Europe. Darker is higher elevation. Source: GMTED2010

Solar irradiation

Solar irradiation in Europe. Source: Zonneschijn in W/m² - www.warm-water.be

Habitable zone in world +4°C

Habitable zone in a hot world.

What are other people advising

See their advise.

Considerations

Language barriers

Languages spoken by myself
- Dutch
- English
- French
- German
Languages in the same family that may be learned (relatively) easy
- Germanic languages
  - English;
  - German (Deutsch);
  - Dutch (Nederlands);
  - Swedish (Svenska);
  - Afrikaans (Afrikaans);
  - Danish (Dansk);
  - Norwegian (Norsk);
  - Yiddish (ייִדיש);
  - Scots (Scots);
  - Limburgish (Lèmburgs);
  - Frisian (Frysk / Noordfreesk / Seeltersk);
  - Luxembourgish (Lëtzebuergesch);
  - Low German (Platt / Neddersassch / Leegsaksies);
  - Icelandic (Íslenska);
  - Faroese (Føroyskt).
- Romance languages
  - Ibero-Romance: Portuguese, Galician, Mirandese, Asturian, Leonese, Spanish (Castilian), Aragonese, Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish);
  - Occitano-Romance: Catalan/Valencian, Occitan (langue d’oc), Gascon;
  - Gallo-Romance: French/Oïl languages, Franco-Provençal (Arpitan);
  - Rhaeto-Romance: Romansh, Ladin, Friulian;
  - Gallo-Italic: Piedmontese, Ligurian, Lombard, Emilian-Romagnol;
  - Italo-Dalmatian: Italian, Tuscan and Corsican, Sassarese, Sicilian, Neapolitan, Venetian, Istriot;
  - Sardinian;
  - Eastern Romance: Daco-Romanian, Istro-Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian.

Existing, available community support

Prefer a place that already has:

(close) relatives
(old) friends
existing community of like-minded people

Money

How much do we need?
- size of house
- size of property
- size of barns
- size ties in with energy / money needed for upkeep
How much can we buy?
- cost of land
- budget
How much can we spend on repair and upkeep?
- initial repairs
- yearly upkeep
Plans for income streams?

I’m using Hofgut Sachsen-Wagner in Geichlingen, Südeifel, Rheinland-Paltz, Germany as an example:
- sell produce
- rent rooms / vacation houses
- petting zoo for summer guests
- do chores for others in community
- generate electricity with biodigester
- distill spirits
- press oils
- make mustard
- sell meat from cows, horses
- teach cooking
- restaurant
Recently on Collapse Reddit, someone mentioned Collapse Insurance. This is a monthly fee paid to ensure a place at a farm at a future date (notably post collapse). While working under BAU, the fee helps the farmer care for buildings, setting up infrastructure and preparations in general.

Hair Soap

2023-05-03T19:45:00+02:00

We made a shampoo bar / soap for washing our hair. We did this for the first time in 2021 and after we had used up the first batch, we made a second batch in 2022.

We took every precaution to do this safely. Please familiarize yourself with the process before attempting to do this for yourself. At the bottom of this section are links to videos showing the process and how to protect yourself.

Ina researched and created the following recipe. This recipe makes 447 g of soap:

90 g coconut oil
75 g olive oil
72 g rapeseed oil
57 g castor oil
101 g rain water
6 g citric acid
46 g NaOH

Mix all four oils together. Add a little heat to get the coconut oil to liquify. Not too much heat though because the best reaction comes from having oils and lye water a approximately equal temperature.

Add and dissolve citric acid in water. Add NaOH in small quantities until fully dissolved. We put the mixing container in a bigger container filled with water to quickly dissipate the heat from the lye’s reaction with water.

Add the lye water to the oil. Mix with a blender until everything is emulsified.

Pour the liquid soap into a container lined with plastic or baking paper or use a silicone mold.

Remove from the mold after a day. Cut the soap into pieces, if necessary. Leave the pieces to cure for about 1 month.

Be sure to view the following videos:

Soap Making Safety Essentials - Detailed Lye Safety Video - ESSENTIAL Viewing for all Soap Makers.
Then watch the following video that explains the whole process visually: Soap Making Tutorial for Beginners - Full Demonstration & Cold Process Soap Beginner Recipe.
Another good video to watch to see the whole process from start to finish is this one: How to make 100 % coconut oil soap - Simple cold process soap making.

Saponification table

Source: http://www.soap-making-resource.com/saponification-table.html

oil or fat (acid)	SAP	Hard/Soft	cleansing	fluffy lather	stable lather	skin care
avocado oil	133.7	soft	fair	yes	no	amazing!
coconut oil	191.1	hard	great	yes	no	fair
castor oil	128.6	soft	fair	yes	yes	great
olive oil	135.3	soft	good	no	no	great
palm oil	142	hard	great	no	yes	fair
peanut oil	137	soft	fair	no	yes	great
soybean oil	135.9	soft	good	no	yes	fair
sweet almond oil	137.3	soft	good	no	yes	amazing!
jojoba oil	69.5	soft	fair	no	yes	great
kukui nut oil	135.5	soft	good	no	yes	great
lard	138.7	hard	good	no	yes	fair
tallow	140.5	hard	good	no	yes	fair

On the chart above you’ll notice 7 columns: “Oil or Fat”, “SAP”, “Hard/Soft”, “Cleansing”, “Fluffy Lather”, “Stable Lather” and “Skin care”. Except for “Oil or Fat” which merely tells you which ingredient is being discussed and “SAP” which tells you the amount of sodium hydroxide (lye) needed in order for saponification to occur each of these sections is a characteristic of soap that could be produced by a specific acid. Click here to learn more about fatty acids and soap making.

Keep in mind that most saponification tables merely reveal the Saponification value (more on this later) and not the characteristics of oils in soap; but for your convenience, I’ve added the 5 most important attributes that are contributed to your finished product by using a specific fat or oil.

Soap calculator

Sources:

Knowing the exact amount of caustic soda or sodium hydroxide should be added to the different oils or fats that you may use is important, because if you add too much, it could burn your skin. If you add too little, your soap will contain excess fat which will cause your soap to go rancid.

Use the following saponification saponification chart or table for making soap by multiplying the number of grams of oil or fats by the figure stated and this will give you the exact amount of sodium hydroxide to saponify it. For example, if you are going to use 150 g of sunflower oil or olive oil, multiply 150 x 0.134 which will give you 20.1 grams. You can round up or down your numbers accordingly, and therefore I would only add 20 grams of sodium hydroxide or caustic soda to the sunflower or olive oil to get the correct balance and to saponify your soap.

Homemade Insulated Insoles

2023-01-20T11:35:00+01:00

I was looking for a way to create insulated insoles. I considered covering a piece of plastic with felt. As I looked around at what I had laying around to use as a felting template, I considered radiator foil.

The foil is made of a layer of foam and a layer of aluminum. I realized I can turn this into insulated insoles quite easily: just cut them into the shape of an insole.

Construction

Two pieces of radiator foil cut out into rectangles of sufficient size.

Using other insoles as templates for the new insoles.

Cutting along the markings.

Conclusions after use

The insole changes my perception of heat loss through the sole. I do detect a small difference.

The insole is quite slippery and will have a bit of difficulty staying in place. It’s probably a good idea to sow a backing onto it. This probably makes the insole also a bit more resistant to wear and tear with regular use.

I have not used the insoles after my initial experiments with them. The difference in comfort they make is not really big and because they slip they’re a bit of a hassle.

Still, I found it an interesting experiment to do. And I have some ideas for further improvements should I feel a need to revisit this experiment at a later date.

Journal of work in Proeftuin Meerhoven in 2022

2023-01-04T13:58:00+01:00

Since mid 2017 I have been involved with gardening at the Proeftuin Meerhoven in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This is a community garden maintained by volunteers in the neighborhood adjoining ours. We use the space with approval from the local council. The harvest from this garden has supplemented our lunches and dinners with many freshly grown vegetables and a few berries.

I do not been keeping meticulous records. What you see here is pieced together from e-mails, notes in my bullet journal and the spreadsheet I keep of incoming groceries from buying in the shops, harvesting in our gardens and foraging in the wild.

Winter 2021/2022 (December, January, February)

Harvest

turnip / stoppelknol (2kg)
parsnip / pastinaak (3kg)
Brussels sprouts / spruiten (0.2kg)
cabbage leaves
musterd seeds

Plant

magnolia cuttings
seedling laurel / laurier
seedling bamboo

Sow

broad beans

Maintain

add compost to seedlings and bushes
add compost to growing beds
repair hedge
repair gates
construct cold frames from plastic
prune trees
cleanup litter

Spring 2022 (March, April, May)

Harvest

bieslook (0.15kg)
asparagus / asperge (0.2kg)
strawberry / aardbei (0.2kg)
tops of nettle / brandneteltoppen (0.5kg)
turnip greens / raapstelen (0.4kg)
rhubarb / rabarber (0.75kg)

Plant

seedlings of pumpkin and zucchini
seedlings of tomato
seedlings of hazel
relocate mint for ground cover

Maintain

repair hedge
construct frames to guide pea plants
watering plants
mowing grass around beds
weeding beds with potatoes and strawberry
weeding around currants and raspberry

Summer 2022 (June, July, August)

Plant

cabbage / kool
seeds from plum, cherry, quince

Harvest

potato / aardappel (1kg)
strawberry / aardbei (0.25kg)
beans / bonen (0.55kg)
nettle seeds / brandnetelzaad (0.05kg)
zucchini / courgette (10kg)
turnip / knol raapsteel (1.5kg)
cucumber / komkommer (0.9kg)
peultjes (0.6kg)
rhubarb / rabarber (0.2kg)
radish / radijs (0.1kg)
red currants / rode bes (0.3kg)
tomato / tomaat (8.5kg)
black currants / zwarte bes (0.3kg)

Maintain

experiment with wool as mulch
mowing the grass on the garden paths
watering plants
weeding the beds
adjust IBC containers after vandalism

Fall 2022 (September, October, November)

Sow

rye / rogge
alisander / zwartmoeskervel

Harvest

potato / aardappel (5.8kg)
bieslook
beans / bonen (0.04kg)
zucchini / courgette (0.45kg)
cabbage leaves / koolbladeren (1.1kg)
horse radish / mierikswortel (0.1kg)
pumpkin / pompoen (1.4kg)
cabbage / kool (1.8kg)
rocket / rucola (0.03kg)
chard / snijbiet (0.5kg)
tomato / tomaat (1.2kg)

Plant

seedlings of hazel / hazelaar
cuttings and seedlings of raspberry
rooted cuttings of red and black currants

Maintain

add compost to beds
prepare beds for planting
weed beds
repair hedge and gates
take cuttings from red and black currants for propagation
turn compost heaps and move compost to beds
mowing the grass on the garden paths

Proeftuin Meerhoven in winter 2022.

Experiments in 2022

2022-12-13T16:02:00+01:00

This is a list of experiments Ina and I have been conducting in 2022.

gardening
- a third full year of having an allotment garden
- involved in creating an edible lawn / tiny food forest
- propagating more plant cuttings
  - elaeagnus varieties
  - fig varieties
  - grape
  - willow
  - red and black currants
cooking / baking
- making pseudo olives from kornoeillekers
- using a pressure cooker
- making a second batch of apple vinegar
- making a second batch of soap
- drying berries
- drying nettle leaves and nettle seeds
working with fibre
- darning pieces of clothing: socks, scarf, T-shirts, etc
- sowing
  - quilt
  - curtaining
  - drum cover
  - fleece vest with zipper and welt pocket
  - replace the arms of a coat
  - replace a zipper in a winter coat
- working with wool
  - washing or fermenting wool of sheep and alpacas
  - drying multiple kilos of wool
  - cleaning the wool of vegetable matter
  - carding the wool to straighten the fibres
  - spinning the wool into threads
  - twining the wool threads into yarn
  - knitting, knooking the yarn into pieces of clothing
  - felting sheepskin
  - felting slippers
spiritual development
- morning pages
- bullet journaling
- regular meditation
- weekly learning about Vedanta
- attending a week at Yoga Vidya ashram
- attending special days at Anjali ashram
- attending mantra singing
- working with trauma / emotions
  - by writing about it (spiritual alchemy / bullet journal / morning pages)
  - by body movement (Tension Release Exercise / mantra yoga)
  - by meditating (visualizing inner children / Feeding Your Demons)
social
- connecting with friends
- connecting with family
- connecting with volunteers and visitors at food forest Eindhoven
- connecting with volunteers of Proeftuin Meerhoven
- connecting with volunteers of Dorpsboerderij Weverkeshof
- connecting with members of sowing club
- connecting with members of wool spinning club
- connecting with members of allotment association
- connecting with visitors of community center Nieuwe Maan
- connecting with dancers at Ketelhuisplein and other venues
- connecting with sevakas, volunteers and visitors of Yoga Vidya ashram

Ikigai

2022-12-13T15:10:00+01:00

My understanding of Ikigai has changed from my initial contact with the concept. I recently came across two articles by Dave Pollard that explain his take. I resonated with his views more than I did with other explanations. Below is Dave’s synopsis. I highly recommend reading the articles linked for a better understanding.

From What Makes Your Life Worthwhile and What It Means To Be Human by Dave Pollard.

Your Values
- What you care about
- What you are grateful for
Your Pleasures
- Things that bring you delight
- When / where you are joyful
- Things that spark your curiosity
- Things that spark your interest
- How you like to play
Your Community
- Who / what / where / how you belong
- Who / what you relate to
- Your tribe
- Your true place / home
Your Way of Being
- What you notice / pay attention to (within yourself & in the outside world)
- How you are present in the world
- Your true nature

Your Ikigai is not that the intersection of these quadrants; it is everything in any of these quadrants. It is not what you think should be true; it is what is actually true, for you. It doesn’t tell you what you are ‘meant’ to do, or how your are ‘meant’ to be, but rather it provides some self-knowledge and self-application so that you can be your authentic, fulfilled, unique self.

Felted slippers (finally!)

2022-11-16T11:38:00+01:00

Two weeks ago I finally managed to complete the felted slippers we started almost four years ago at the Permacultuur Festival (2019) in Belgium. Even though they came out a bit rough, they are quite comfortable to wear. We found them to work exceptionally well in plastic clogs.

Yesterday I created another pair of slippers. This time I documented the process.

I used a pair of molds from our previous attempt. To make these: draw the outline of your foot on a piece of plastic. Add a border of 4 cm all around. Cut this larger outline out. Do the same for the other foot, or mirror the outline you already have.

I measured out 50 grams of wool per slipper. I then divided this into two piles of 25 grams. One pile for the top, one pile for the bottom of the slipper. I used a plastic tray to keep the whole process a bit contained on the kitchen counter.

Piles of wool for top and bottom, both molds visible. We will be working on the mold in the plastic tray.

Next step is to add layers of wool. Take a piece of wool and hold down one end, the draw the other end out. This makes the wool fibers aligned in the same direction. Repeat the process laying down fibers like rooftiles.

I made the first layer horizontal, the second layer vertical and the third layer horizontal again. As you can see, I left a bit of overlap with the mold.

First 3 layers of wool on the mold. Note the overlap with the mold. Zoom into the picture to see the direction of the top layer.

Adding a layer of sheer fabric on top.

Pour boiling, soapy water on top.

First pad the wool down. Then gently rub in one direction while keeping the sheer fabric in place. As the wool starts to felt, rub in circles. Rub until sufficiently felted. This took me about 20 minutes.

After having felted the first side, pull off the sheer fabric. Note that the wool can have felted to the fabric. If so, place your hand close to the edge and keep the wool down as you carefully pull on the sheer fabric. Move your hand over the exposed wool before pulling further.

Carefully fold the overlap under the mold and flip the mold over. Rub the overlap to the middle of the mold and make sure the edge follows the edge of the mold. Once done, it is time to add three layers of wool, again with a bit of overlap. Note that because the underground is wet, this will be a bit more difficult than in the beginning. Felt these together.

Preparing the second layer at the top.

One mold fully enclosed in 2 layers of 3 layers of wool on both sides. I rolled it in a plastic bag to speed the felting of the whole thing, alternating the directions in which I rolled the slipper.

From the timestamps on the photos, this took from 14:20 to 15:50, so about 1,5 hours for one mold. This corresponds to about 4x 20 minutes for the layers and then about 10 minutes rolling in a plastic bag.

At this point I took a break, had dinner and resumed after a bit of rest. I don’t have a starting time, but I guesstimate it was around 17:50.

At around 19:20 I had both molds enclosed. The left one being the most recent one.

With a pair of cissors, I cut a slit in each slipper to create a hole for the foot to go through.

Working both slippers with soap and lots of hard rubbing and rolling.

The slippers will shrink while rubbing. They shrink in the direction you’re rubbing. I was done at 20:00. At this point, I was satisfied with the shape and the size of the slippers. I rinsed both slippers with water and wrung them out in a towel. Then I set them out to dry.

The end result (for now)

The final fitting will be done at a later point in time. This will involve soaping both slippers up again and then rubbing them on the feet they are intended for.

The molding of the slippers took about 40 minutes. In total I spent 3 hours and 40 minutes with another 20 minutes left for the final molding and fitting. All in all I estimate 2 hours per slipper for a grand total of 4 hours for both.

Pseudo olives

2022-11-03T11:25:00+01:00

Ina found an interesting video on YouTube a while ago that talked about turning the cherries from Cornus mas (European cornel / gele kornoeille) into something resembling olives.

We have discovered three Cornus mas in the park nearby. This year the trees had a mast year. Naturally we decided to try this recepe ourselves.

Wash the cornel cherries and dry them. Put in a clean, sterile jar.

Prepare salty water by adding two tablespoons of salt to every liter of water. This corresponds to approximately 4% of salt to water by weight. Bring to a boil.

Pour the boiling water into the jar, covering the cherries.

Close the lid on the jar and let cool. Store in a dark, cool place for at least a month.

We made three jars at the end of July. In early September, I discovered one had started to ferment. We have transferred that jar into the refrigerator and we are eating the cherries. They do taste like olives!

The video linked above makes the suggestion to replace the water with olive oil after the resting period. We have not tried this (yet).

Contemplation on money

2022-09-07T02:54:00+02:00

Let’s start with some basic questions:

What is money?
What does it represent?
Why is a bank note in my wallet different from a candy wrapper? They’re both colored pieces of paper and yet we treat them differently.

What is money?

In today’s culture, there is the understanding that if you have money, you can transform the world. When we believe that, we miss the forest for the trees and we become blind to what actually transforms the world: energy. Energy, in physical terms, is the ability to transform your environment. No energy, no tranformation. The saying “Money makes the world go round”, is more accurately “Energy makes the world go round”.

Money is an abstraction over a future flow of energy.

Why a future flow? When I go to the baker with my money, I expect the baker to give me an energy product, in the form of a bread, in exchange for this money. The baker in return expects this money to pay for his oven, the fuel for his oven, the flour to make bread with and the petrol that he uses to drive to the mill. It takes energy to maintain the bakery, the oven, the mill, the cargo vans etc. Tim Garrett shows that for every 1000$ of accumulated wealth (measured in 2005 USD), we need an energy flow of 7.1W (that is, 7.1 joules per second) to maintain it.

Users of money work on the assumption that these energy flows will be available if and when they need them. This assumption has held with hardly any exception for most of ~250 years, since the beginning of the industrial revolution. I believe this assumption has been broken from 2008 onwards.

Where does our energy come from?

Energy can only be found or caught and then transformed into a form we can more easily work with. We find energy in deposits of oil, gas and coal. We also find energy in the food we eat. We catch energy by spinning turbines using wind or water and by catching photons as they travel through exotic materials.

More than 80% of our (flow of) energy comes from fossil fuels: coal, oil and natural gas. The rest is hydro, solar, wind, nuclear and biomass. Of these, most also depend on fossil fuels for their construction, installation and subsequent maintenance. The fate of these alternative sources of energy is thus tightly linked to the fate of fossil fuels, in particular: oil. Without the diesel component of oil, none of our heavy machinery would run. No excavators, tractors, trucks, ships or planes. The world as we know it stops without oil.

So, of the energy flow we have available today, over 90% is due to fossil fuels. Looking at the energy outlook of the IEA from 2020 it seems obvious to me that the decline rate for the coming decades will be between 6% and 9% per year. Using the rule of 72, a decline of 6% per year halves the available energy flow every 12 years. A decline of 9% per year halves it approximately every 8 years. Let’s work with a 6% decline per year.

Peak extraction of oil worldwide was in 2018. We will be at half that in 2030 (2018 + 12 years). And at a quarter of peak in 2042 (2030 + another 12 years). How much of our global economy will still be intact by then is anyone’s guess. Based on these estimates, I think most parts of the world will have been forced to go back to fully renewable (wood) living by the time 2050 rolls around.

Apple Vinegar

2022-08-19T09:55:00+02:00

This month I made another batch of apple vinegar. I had harvested a few apples from my mother’s front yard. They had fallen down and were brown and desseccated in the middle. The tree had rejected them as viable seeds because of this. The outer part was still usable to make vinegar from.

I cut the apples into pieces. The good parts I put in the mason jar, the bad parts I discarded to the compost heap. I added water to fill the jar, leaving only a few centimeters of air at the top. I placed the jar on a saucer. The saucer is to catch any overflowing liquid which makes cleanup easier.

Because of the hot weather, bubbles started forming the same day. The fermentation slowed down again after about a week. I stirred the whole thing daily, pushing down the parts that were above the water. The smell turned from apple juice to cider quite quickly. The apple parts that were exposed to air turned brown.

After fermentation was mostly done, I pushed the concoction through a sieve. This is to separate peels, apple cores and bigger/harder bits from what will end up as apple vinegar. I poured the resulting liquid back in the mason jar. I had lost about 1/3 of the volume, so I added water to compensate for that.

I placed the mason jar back on the counter. This time leaving it alone to do its thing. After two days I noticed a thin film growing on the surface of the liquid: the vinegar mother. I observed this by very lightly rocking the glass back and forth and seeing tiny wrinkles appear on the surface.

I will monitor the smell and when it has turned sufficiently acidic, I will transfer the vinegar into a glass bottle for use in cooking.

The white layer on the surface (at the edge of liquid and air) is the developing vinegar mother.

The side view of the jar. From top to bottom: air, vinegar mother, water/alcohol/vinegar mixture, apple sediment. Note that the vinegar mother is very thin (< 1mm) but covers part of the side of the glass, making it seem much larger than it actually is.

Sheepskin with felted back

2022-08-04T16:48:00+02:00

We did an experiment with felting a back to a recently shaved fleece. The wool came from a Ouessant sheep. Below is a photo series on how we created a sheepskin without having to kill a sheep.

The fleece we started with; fully detached from the sheep.

We mostly followed the instructions layed out in this video: Leicester Longwool Sheep - Having a go at making a fleece rug by wet felting. Nicely explained and I can confirm the process works as described.

I saw this video Mongolian Felt Making for yurt (Ger) a while ago. It is essentially the same process, only on a larger scale. As an aside, I also found it interesting to see the whole process of constructing a yurt: Making a Yurt in Kyrgyzstan. The felting of the mats is shown from timestamp 12:35 and in this video is more mechanized than in the first video.

Table with plastic sheet and broomstick.

Putting the fleece upside down on the platic sheet on the table.

A close-up look.

After adding two layers of “carded” wool.

Soaking wet with boiling hot soapy water.

The part not show is that we then put a net curtain over the top and started padding down the wool.

After the wool was sufficiently padded down, we started rubbing in a single direction. This starts the felting process. After a while we started rubbing in circles.

At some point, I believe after about 15-20 minutes, the wool started coming through the curtain. We then rolled the fleece with the plastic on the broomstick and tied the roll with string to keep it in place. After another 20 minutes of vigourously rolling, we untied the whole thing.

Front side after felting. First by hand, then by rolling in plastic.

Back side after felting.

We rinsed the sheepskin in cold water and then let it dry on a rack.

Drying on a rack.

Front side after drying and fluffing up.

Showing part of the felted back.

Harvesting Nettle Seeds

2022-07-26T11:31:00+02:00

Let’s start with a question I get every time I say that I collect nettle seeds: “Why?” Well, for sowing, of course! ;-) … and other uses. So, why would you want to collect nettle seeds? Here are a few reasons (Source):

nettles are a source of minerals: they contain iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium, manganese, silicon and other elements;
nettles are nutricious: they are a very good source of energy and proteins and they are high in fiber;
nettles are healthy for you: they contain beta-carotene, folic acid, fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin C.

While the source study mentions the nettle leaves only, I believe that what makes up the leaves, also makes up the seeds.

We use the dried neetle seeds mainly as an extra ingredient to our overnight oats (1/2 tablespoon for 2 people). I’ve seen suggestions to put it in bread, sprinkle it over salads, adding it to honey or pesto, making tinctures from them.

Last year I started harvesting nettle seeds. Then it was only a relatively small amount. This year I intend to harvest quite a bit more. This page is to document what I did. The featured image shows the end result of a single harvest: about 60 grams of seed.

I started out by harvesting the tops of nettles that had very thick seed clusters. I used pruning shears to grab and direct the top of the plant into a paper bag. Only when the stem is in the bag, I cut the stem. At home, in the attic, I put down two newspaper sheets and folded the sides up. I did this to prevent seeds from accidentally falling from the window sill.

In the following days, I turned the nettle (with gloves) every day so they would dry out evenly. It was a warm week with lots of sunshine and after 5 days, the nettle had completely dried out. I separated the stem from the rest with a bit of rubbing.

Next step was to remove most of the bigger elements from the collection. I did this by hand. I shook the container to make the seeds collect at the bottom, leaving the rest floating on top.

The bottom container is what I was left with after doing this.

The next step in the process is to separate the seeds from the finer chaff. For this I use a metal sieve.

The end result:

PASTE survey for the backyard (2022)

2022-06-07T20:00:00+02:00

This survey is for a revision of the design for the backyard.

The extra information for each plant is derived from the following sources:

Plants

DAFOR(N)

Dominant

Prunus domestica subsp. syriaca (mirabelle plum / mirabel)
- only one, takes up most of the space in the backyard
- blooms very early: late February / March
- maybe cultivar Mirabelle de Nancy
- great for making jam
Prunus laurocerasus (cherry laurel / laurierkers)
- leaves contain hydrogen cyanide (blauwzuur)
- berries are food for birds
- has grown quite big these last few years

Abundant

Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry / bosaardbei)
Geranium robertianum (Herb-Robert / robertskruid)
- used as a remedy for toothache and nosebleeds
- used for or useful in healing wounds

Frequent

Chelidonium majus (greater celandine / stinkende gouwe)
- toxic in moderate doses
- use latex to treat warts
- attracts pollenators
Digitalis purpurea (foxglove / vingerhoedskruid)
- toxic
- used in medicine to treat heart problems
Hedera helix (common ivy / klimop)
- used for soaps
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
- used like mashed potatoes or in soup
Taraxacum officinale (dandilion / paardenbloem)
- edible
- young leaves are less bitter
- make syrup from flowers
- tap root
- blooms from April
Tradescantia virginiana (Virginia spiderwort / eendagsbloem)

Occasional

Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard / look-zonder-look)
- biennial plant
- chopped leaves used flavoring in salads and sauces such as pesto
- flowers and fruit can be included as well
- leaves are best when young, and provide a mild flavor of both garlic and mustard
- the seeds are sometimes used to season food directly
- used as a disinfectant or diuretic and sometimes to heal wounds
Allium sativum (garlic / knoflook)
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
- resistant to frost
- important source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron
- whole plant is edible
Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ (Crocosmia / Montbretia)
- yellow juice from the flower can be used as a substitute for saffron
Humulus lupulus (common hop / hop)
Hydrangea macrophylla (bigleaf hydrangea / gewone hortensia)
- attracts pollenators
Lamium purpureum (red dead-nettle / paarse dovenetel)
- ripe flowers contain nectar
- flowers are edible
- leafs can be used in salad, soups or briefly boiled like spinach
- make tea from dried leafs
Lonicera caprifolium (Italian woodbine / gewone kamperfoelie)
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
- scent attracts bees
- make tea from leaves
- use as flavouring for dishes
- source of essential oil
Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint / witte munt)
- blooms July - October
- make tea from leaves
- source of essential oil
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinaak)
- main supplier of calories before potatoes were introduced
- cook or fry
Phytolacca esculenta (Indian Pokeweed / Oosterse karmozijnbes)
- young shoots can be eaten
- seeds, root and unripe berries are poisonous
- berries can be used as colorant
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)

Rare

Allium ursinum (wild garlic / daslook)
Bryophyta (moss / mos)
Buddleja davidii (summer lilac / vlinderstruik)
- food for butterflies
- blooms only on non-wooded parts
- blooms July / September
Campanula poscharskyana (Serbian bellflower / kruipklokje)
- blooms lavender-blue from mid-spring to early autumn
- leaves are edible year round
Chlorophyta (green algae / groenwier)
Cirsium vulgare (spear thistle / speerdistel)
- The stems can be peeled and then steamed or boiled. The tap roots can be eaten raw or cooked, but are only palatable on young thistles that have not yet flowered.
Crocus vernus subsp. vernus (spring crocus / bonte krokus)
Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
- nitrogen fixer
- edible berries
- propagated from a cutting
Erigeron canadensis (horseweed / Canadese fijnstraal)
- used to treat boils, snake poison and menstrual pain
Euphorbia platyphyllos (Broad-leaf Spurge / Brede wolfsmelk)
Fallopia baldschuanica (Russian-vine / Chinese bruidssluier)
Forsythia × intermedia (border forsythia / Chinees klokje)
Muscari botryoides (grape hyacinth / blauwe druifjes)
Myosotis sylvatica (woodland forget-me-not / bosvergeet-me-nietje)
- short-lived herbaceous perennial or biennial growing to 12–30 cm tall by 15 cm wide
Oxalis articulata Savigny (pink-sorrel / oxalis)
- native to South America, naturalized in Europe
- the leaves contain oxalic acid, which gives them their sharp flavour
- edible in small quantities, the leaves should not be eaten in large amounts
Petroselinum crispum (parsley / peterselie)
Rhododendron ? ( / Rhododendron)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / rode bes)
Ribes sanguineum Pursh (red-flowering currant / rode ribes)
- edible berry, insipid taste
- bumblebee favourite
- blooms March - April
Ribes uva-crispa (gooseberry / kruisbes)
Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary / rozemarijn)
- blooms April - June
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme (cherry tomato / kerstomaat)
Sonchus oleraceus (common sowthistle / gewone melkdistel)
- young leaves are edible
Skimmia japonica var. japonica (skimmia / skimmia)
Stellaria media (chickweed / vogelmuur)
Trifolium repens (white clover / witte klaver)
- fixes nitrogen
Tulipa tarda (tulip / tulp)
- leaves can be used as soap
Viburnum tinus (laurustinus / sneeuwbol)
- fruits have been used as purgatives against constipation
- flowers in winter

Non-existant

tropical plants

Other

Experiment

Nepeta cataria (catnip / wild kattenkruid)

Also in the neighborhood

Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
- appears as early as February
- flowers in May to June
- tender leaves used as a spring leaf vegetable, much as spinach
- dried leaves taste like parsely
- after flowering leaves take on a pungent taste and have a laxative effect
- flowering can be stopped by pinching out the flowers
- medicinal herb to treat gout and arthritis, applied in hot wraps externally upon boiling both leaves and roots together
- ingested, the leaves have a diuretic effect and act as a mild sedative
Aesculus hippocastanum (horse-chestnut / paardenkastanje)
Bellis perennis (common daisy / madeliefje)
Betula pendula (silver birch / ruwe berk)
Castanea sativa (sweet chestnut / tamme kastanje)
Chaenomeles japonica (Maule’s quince / Japanse sierkwee)
- we made jam from this fruit
Cornus mas (Cornelian cherry / gele kornoelje)
- we made jam from this fruit
Corylus avellana (common hazel / hazelaar)
Crataegus laevigata (midland hawthorn / tweestijlige meidoorn) - near canal
Crataegus monogyna (common hawthorn / eenstijlige meidoorn) - hedges
Hypericum perforatum (/ sint-janskruid?)
Jacobaea vulgaris (common ragwort / Jakobskruiskruid)
Malus domestica (apple / appel)
Prunus cerasifera Nigra (Purple-leaf plum / mirabel) - neighbor’s garden
Quercus rubra (northern red oak / Amerikaanse eik) - side of the street
Rubus allegheniensis (common blackberry / braam)
Sambucus nigra (elderberry / gewone vlier)
Taxus cuspidata (Japanese yew / taxus)
Tilia cordata (small-leaved linden / winterlinde)
- linden flowers are a traditional herbal remedy made into an herbal tea called lime tea
- The young leaves can be eaten as a salad vegetable.

Animals

insects
- Apis millifera carnica (Carniolan honey bee / Carnica honingbij)
- Cydalima perspectalis (box tree moth / buxusmot)
- Grapholita funebrana (plum fruit moth / pruimenmot)
  - overwinters in Prunus fruits like plums
  - two generations per year
  - moths fly from end of April to well in September
- solitary bees
  - Andrena fulva (tawny mining bee / vosje)
- bumble bees
  - Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebee / aardhommel)
  - Bombus lapidarius (red-tailed bumblebee / steenhommel)
- hoverflies / zweefvliegen
  - Syrphus vitripennis (hoverfly / kleine bandzweefvlieg)
- Lasius niger (black garden ant / wegmier) ???
- Calliphoridae (blow flies / bromvliegen)
  - Lucilia caesar (common greenbottle / groene keizersvlieg) ???
- Culicidae (mosquito / steekmug)
- Aphidoidea (aphid / bladluis)
- beetles / kevers
  - Leptinotarsa decemlineata (/ coloradokever)
  - Pyrrhocoris apterus (firebug / vuurwants)
  - Coccinellidae (lady bug / lieveheersbeestje)
    - Coccinella undecimpunctata (/ elfstippelig lieveheersbeestje)
worms / wormen
- Lumbricus terrestris (common earthworm / gewone regenworm)
snails / slakken
- Arion rufus (red slug / gewone wegslak)
- Helix pomatia (Roman snail / wijngaardslak)
geleedpotigen
- Porcellio scaber (common rough woodlouse / gewone pissebed)
- spiders
birds / vogels
- Accipiter nisus (sparrowhawk / sperwer)
- Columba palumbus (wood pigeon / houtduif)
- Corvus monedula (Western jackdaw / kauw)
- Cyanistes caeruleus (Eurasian blue tit / pimpelmees)
- Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborstje)
- Fringilla coelebs (common chaffinch / vink)
- Garrulus glandarius (Eurasian jay / gaai)
- Parus major (great tit / koolmees)
- Passer domesticus (house sparrow / huismus)
- Pica pica (common magpie / ekster)
- Sturnus vulgaris (common starling / spreeuw)
- Turdus merula (common blackbird / merel)
mammals / zoogdieren
- Felis silvestris catus (domesticated cat / huiskat)
- Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
- Mus musculus (house mouse / huismuis)

Structures

House
Shed
Gate
Concrete tile seating area and path
Wooden fence
Concrete fence
Neighbors extension (stone, flat roof)
Neighbors extension (steel, pitched roof)
Compost bin
Wooden bench
Rain barrel
Mini containers for general waste and garden waste
Gardening pots and containers

Tools

Gardening tools
Gardening pots
Construction tools
Bicycles

Events

humans walk house → shed → gate and back
humans walk house → compost bin and back
humans sit in garden
humans walk, work, harvest in garden
humans walk by front garden with dogs
cats visit garden
4 seasons
~800 mm rain / year

Human body energy requirement

2022-06-02T21:24:00+02:00

Recently I got asked about about creating a garden with the specific aim of keeping starvation at bay. I came to the conclusion you need crops that contain at least sufficient calories to keep you going. So starchy, sugary, oily or protein rich.

Check out the table on the Potato wikipedia page comparing the different staple foods around the world. And seeing how much energy an average adult needs: a sedentary male (like myself) needs about 11000kJ per day!

Note that the human body needs more than just calories. It needs to replenish building blocks so a reliable source of protein is also vital. Think of beans, eggs, cheese or other milk products and meat.

Looking at the energy content of sunflower oil (3700kJ/100g), I can sustain on about 300g of oil per day.

Looking at the energy content of potato (1500kJ/100g dry weight, about 500g of raw potato per 100g of dry weight), I need to eat at least 3,5kg of potato per day. Note that of all the staples mentioned, only the potato contains all the nutrients your body needs in one neat package.

For white rice I need to eat at least 700g per day. (11000kJ/d ÷ 1700kJ/dry × 114 wet/dry).

Multiply everything by about 400 to get what you need per year: 120kg of oil, OR 1400kg potatoes OR 280kg white rice. That is: using ONLY that food source.

Combining the three (taking 1/3 of each), I need 40kg of oil AND about 500kg of potatoes AND about 100kg of rice PER YEAR.

As an aside, ethanol has an energy content of 2680kJ/100g. At 40% proof that reduces to 1072kJ/100g (2680kJ/100g × 0.4). I need to drink 1026g per day (11000kJ/d ÷ 1072kJ/100g) to get sufficient calories. Eat whipped cream for additional oil and protein.

PASTE survey allotment garden (2022)

2022-05-20T21:00:00+02:00

Starting from 2018-09-01, Ina and I have rented an allotment at an association nearby. This survey lists the different species discovered in May 2022. For comparison, last year ago I did the same thing.

This list is part of the ongoing design for the allotment garden.

Plants

Achillea millefolium (common yarrow / duizendblad)
Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
- tender leaves used as a spring leaf vegetable, much as spinach
- dried leaves taste like parsely
Alium (onion family / uienfamilie)
Allium hollandicum (Persian onion / Persische ui)
Allium sativum (garlic / knoflook)
Amaranthus blitum (purple amaranth / Kleine Majer)
- leafs edible like spinach
Aquilegia vulgaris (European columbine / wilde akelei)
Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / mierik)
Beta vulgaris (chard / snijbiet)
Brassica juncea ssp. Integrifolia (leaf mustards / bladmosterd)
Brassica juncea ssp. Juncea (mustard greens / mosterdplanten)
Calendula officinalis (common marigold / goudsbloem)
- florets are edible
- used a medicinal herb, and color for dyeing
- marigold leaves can also be made into a poultice to help scratches and shallow cuts to heal faster, and to help prevent infection
Capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd’s purse / herderstasje)
- Brassicacea family
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
- Brassicacea family
Carduus crispus (curly plumeless thistle / kruldistel)
Cerastium glomeratum (sticky mouse-ear chickweed / kluwenhoornbloem)
- The leaves and shoots were used as a wild food in ancient China. In Nepal, the juice of this plant was applied to the forehead to relieve headaches. The juice could also be dropped into the nostrils to treat nosebleeds.
Chenopodium album (lamb’s quarters / melganzevoet)
- cultivated as a grain or vegetable crop (such as in lieu of spinach), as well as animal feed in Asia and Africa
- as some of the common names suggest, it is also used as feed (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens and other poultry.
Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
- resistant to frost
- important source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron
- whole plant is edible
Commelina communis (Asiatic dayflower / Aziatische dagbloem)
- medicinal herb with febrifugal, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic effects
- also used for treating sore throats and tonsillitis
Cytisus scoparius (common broom / brem)
- can fix nitrogen in the soil through a symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium bacteria
Digitalis purpurea (foxglove / vingerhoedskruid)
- toxic
- used in medicine to treat heart problems
- bumble bees love it
Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
- nitrogen fixer
- edible berries
- propagated from a cutting
Epilobium hirsutum (great willowherb / harig wilgenroosje)
Erigeron canadensis (horseweed / Canadese fijnstraal)
- used to treat boils, snake poison and menstrual pain
Eruca vesicaria (rocket / rucola)
Fallopia convolvulus (black-bindweed / zwaluwtong)
- grows most commonly on disturbed or cultivated land, in northern Europe typically on warm, sunny, well-drained sandy or limestone soil types
- seeds are edible, and were used in the past as a food crop
Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
- a highly aromatic and flavorful herb
- along with anise, one of the primary ingredients of absinthe
- bulb-like stem base can be used as a vegetable
Galinsoga parviflora (Gallant Soldier / kaal knopkruid)
- edible leaves, stem and flowers
- its subtle flavour, reminiscent of artichoke, mostly develops after being cooked
- dried and ground into powder for use in soups
Galium aparine (cleavers / kleefkruid)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
- tubers are used in the same ways as potatoes
- tubers can be eaten raw
- when raw and sliced thinly, they are fit for a salad.
- can be fermented after cleaning and drying
Hemerocallis fulva (orange daylily / gewone daglelie)
- flowers are edible
Houttuynia cordata (fish mint / moerasanemoon)
- smells and tastes like Coriandrum sativum (cilantro / koriander)
Humulus lupulus (common hop / hop)
Juglans regia (common walnut / okkernoot)
Lamium amplexicaule (henbit dead-nettle / hoenderbeet, soort dovenetel)
- The leaves, stem, and flowers of the plant are edible and have a slightly sweet and peppery flavor, similar to celery. Henbit can be eaten raw or cooked.
Lamium purpureum (red dead-nettle / paarse dovenetel)
Leonorus cardiaca (motherwort / hartgespan)
- herbacious, perennial, mint family
- leafs used to spice pea and lentil soup
- attractive for bumble bees
- used in treating heart disease and muscle cramps
Lycium barbarum (Chinese wolfberry / boksdoorn)
- berries known as gojiberry
- nightshade family
Malus domestica (apple tree / appelboom)
Malva sylvestris (common mallow / groot kaasjeskruid)
Medicago sativa (alfalfa / lucerne)
Melilotus albus (honey clover / witte honingklaver)
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
- scent attracts bees
- make tea from leaves
- use as flavouring for dishes
- source of essential oil
Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint / witte munt)
- blooms July - October
- make tea from leaves
- source of essential oil
Myosotis arvensis (field forget-me-not / akkervergeet-mij-nietje)
Myosotis discolor (changing forget-me-not / veelkleurig vergeet-mij-nietje)
Nepeta cataria (catnip / wild kattenkruid)
Oenothera biennis (common evening-primrose / middelste teunisbloem)
Papaver somniferum (breadseed poppy / slaapbol)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinaak)
- main supplier of calories before potatoes were introduced
- cook or fry
Petunia axillaris (large white petunia / petunia)
Pisum sativum (pea / erwt)
Portulaca oleracea (common purslane / postelein)
Potentilla indica (mock strawberry / schijnaardbei)
Pulmonaria affinis Jord. (lungwort / tuinlongkruid)
Prunus avium (sweet cherry / zoete kers)
Pyrus communis (European pear / gewone peer)
Raphanus sativus subsp. sativus (radish / radijs)
Rheum × hybridum (culinary rhubarb / tuinrabarber)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / rode bes)
Ribes uva-crispa (gooseberry / kruisbes)
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / gewone braam)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganbes, braamboos)
Rumex acetosella (sheep’s sorrel / schapenzuring)
Rumex obtusifolius (bitter dock / ridderzuring)
Salvia officinalis (sage / salie)
Scrophularia auriculata (water figwort / geoord helmkruid)
Solanum lycopersicum (tomato / tomaat)
- several cultivars
Solanum nigrum (black nightshade / zwarte nachtschade)
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)
- several cultivars
Stachys byzantina (lamb’s-ear / ezelsoor)
- edible herb, prepared battered and deep-fried sprinkled with lemon juice and said to taste fish-like
- plant extract has shown antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant to vancomycin.
Stellaria media (chickweed / vogelmuur)
Tanacetum parthenium (feverfew / moederkruid)
Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion / paardenbloem)
Thymus vulgaris (common thyme / echte tijm)
Trifolium pratense (red clover / rode klaver)
Trifolium repens (white clover / witte klaver)
Tropaeolum majus (Indian cress / oostindische kers)
Tulipa tarda (tulip / tulp)
Urtica dioica (common nettle / grote brandnetel)
Urtica urens (dwarf nettle / kleine brandnetel)
Verbena officinalis (common verbena / ijzerhard)
- herb, perennial
- use as tea for treating infection and fever
Viola tricolor (wild pansy / driekleurig viooltje)
Vitis vinifera (common grape vine / wijndruif)

Animals

birds / vogels
- Columba palumbus (wood pigeon / houtduif)
- Corvus monedula (Western jackdaw / kauw)
- Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborstje)
- Garrulus glandarius (Eurasian jay / gaai)
- Phasianus colchicus (pheasant / fazant)
- Pica pica (common magpie / ekster)
- Troglodytes troglodytes (/ winterkoning)
mammals / zoogdieren
- Felis silvestris catus (domesticated cat / huiskat)
- Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
- Mus musculus (house mouse / huismuis)
insects / beetles
- Aphididae (aphid / bladluis)
- Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebee / aardhommel)
- Coccinellae (ladybird / lieveheesbeestje)
- Formicidae (ant / mier)
- Pieris rapae (small white / klein koolwitje)
- Pyrrhocoris apterus (firebug / vuurwants)
- Sphinx ligustri (privet hawk moth / ligusterpijlstaart)
- Syrphidae (hoverfly / zweefvlieg)
- Vanessa atalanta (red admiral / atalanta)

Structures

shed at the back
greenhouse at the back (somewhat shaded)
greenhouse in the middle (missing 5 window panes)
concrete tile seating area and path
fence made from wood and chicken wire
compost bin
two rain barrels

Tools

small gardening tools
plastic gardening pots
plastic storage container
two plastic buckets (10l)
one plastic bucket with lid (20l)
two watering cans (10l) and one detachable rose (NL: broes)

Events

humans walk by garden along main path
humans sit in garden
humans walk, work, harvest in garden
cats visit garden
last year 916 mm rain, extremely wet summer

Journal of work in Proeftuin Meerhoven in 2021

2022-01-08T20:52:00+01:00

Winter 2020/2021 (December, January, February)

Harvest

winter purslane / winterpostelein

Plant

cutting of Japanese wineberry 14x
cutting of raspberry 36x
seedling of Japanese wineberry 1x
seedling of raspberry 6
cutting of thornless bramble 20x
cutting of tayberry 12x
seedling of yellow raspberry 2x
cutting of yellow raspberry 30x
cutting of hazel 15x
cutting of willow (unknown amount)
cutting of elaeagnus 4x

Sow

parsnip
pea
chard

Infrastructure

repair hedge

Spring 2021 (March, April, May)

Harvest

winter purslane / winterpostelein
asparagus / asperge

Plant

mint near peach sapling

Summer 2021 (June, July, August)

Harvest

potato / aardappel (10kg)
endive / andijvie (0.1kg)
zucchini / courgette (12kg)
pea / doperwt (0.25kg)
cucumber / komkommer (6kg)
garden orache / tuinmelde (0.25kg)
pumpkin / pompoen (1.5kg)
rhubarb / rabarber (0.25kg)
red currants / rode bes (0.25kg)
onion / ui (0.25kg)
chard / snijbiet (0.5kg)
green bean / spercieboon (1kg)
cabbage / spitskool (1kg)
turnip / stoppelknol (1.5kg)
broad bean / tuinboon (3kg)

Infrastructure

repair container after vandalism
remove (broken) wine bottles used for decoration
mow grass around saplings with sickle

Fall 2021 (September, October, November)

Sow

seeds from apple
seeds from pear
seeds from prune

Harvest

potato / aardappel (4kg)
nettle seeds / brandnetelzaad (0.5kg)
zucchini / courgette (1.5kg)
cucumber / komkommer (2kg)
cabbage leaf / koolblad (1kg)
mustard seed / mosterdzaad (0.25kg)
parsnip / pastinaak (0.5kg)
pumpkin / pompoen (16kg)
spinach / spinazie (0.75kg)
turnip / stoppelknol (0.25kg)
onion / ui (0.5kg)

Plant

cuttings and seedlings of raspberry (early and late varieties)
cuttings and seedlings of tayberry (hedge)
cuttings and seedlings of willow (hedge)
cuttings of currants
seedlings of thornless bramble (hedge)
seedlings of Japanese wineberry
seedling of hazelnut
seedling of mulberry

Infrastructure

add compost to saplings
hedge laying willow
repair hedge

Experiments in 2021

2021-12-22T16:36:00+01:00

This is a list of experiments Ina and I have been conducting in 2021.

gardening
- Arno taking over full responsibility for the allotment
- Ina helps with voorcultuur, odd jobs
- harvesting musterd seeds
- cleaning musterd seeds
- harvesting mirabels
- more hedgelaying at the Proeftuin
- more planting cuttings
  - raspberry
  - black and red currant
  - Japanese wineberry
  - willow
  - apple mint
  - elaeagnus varieties
- storing pumpkin and zucchini
- seed harvesting from nettle, amarant, pumpkin, zucchini, and others
cooking / baking
- inleggen komkommers zonder te koken
- preserving soup in glass jars
- making Amaretto with mirabel pits
- baking cookies
- making apple vinegar
- making mustard
- eating overnight oats for breakfast
- keeping an eating diary
- eating less sugar (Ina)
- cooking with stoppelknol
- making soap
teaching
- giving a workshop Introduction to Permaculture
- demonstrating how to make bread
- helping a friend with a permaculture design
- book editing
- giving a tour at Proeftuin
- giving a tour at food forest Eindhoven
spiritual development
- morning pages
- regular meditation
- weekly learning about Vedanta
- day workshop OSHO meditation
- attending 2 retreats at Anjali Ashram
- attending special days at Anjali Ashram
- attending mantra singing
- working with difficult emotions in an IEMT session
- working with difficult emotions by writing about them (spiritual alchemy)
- trying TRE (Tension Release Exercise)
social
- connecting with people at food forest Eindhoven
- connecting with members of Proeftuin
- connecting with members of sowing club
- connecting with members of allotment association
- connecting with dancers at Ketelhuisplein
- helping out at Leef en Groei Hoeve
- connecting with friends
- connecting with Vamilie
sowing
- repair zipper in winter coat
- making a scoody (scarf + hood)
- making a quilt
- making protective covers for an axe and a cleaver (hakmes)
- repairing various items of clothing

Contemplation: Pray and Work

2021-10-31T19:37:00+01:00

In 2021 I visited the abby of Val Dieu in Aubel, Belgium. The abby was founded by Cistercian monks in the beginning of the 13th century. The Cistercian order followed the Rule of Saint Benedict as guidelines for their order. The motto Ora et Labora is associated with these guidelines.

From Wikipedia:

The phrase pray and work (or ‘pray and labor’; Latin: ora et labora) refers to the Catholic monastic practice of working and praying, generally associated with its use in the Rule of Saint Benedict.

Benedict viewed prayer and work as partners, and believed in combining contemplation with action. The phrase expresses the need to balance prayer and work in monastic settings and has been used in many religious communities from the Middle Ages onwards.

I learned about this motto during our tour of the abby. I thought about it the following morning as I was laying in bed. I wondered what a contemporary take on this motto would look like. I realized that meditation is the modern name for praying. As we meditate, we transform our inner world. By contrast, work is something we do to transform our outer world.

Today’s version of Ora et Labora would be: Transform both your inner world and your outer world.

Kamienna Góra, ul. Karola Miarki 1, kartusz z dewizą “Ora et labora”

By Aw58 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Mustard

2021-09-13T13:57:00+02:00

This month I made mustard from mustard seeds grown in the Proeftuin. The recipe follows further down the page. But first a bit of botany.

Flowers of Sinapis alba (white mustard) being worked by a bee. Lower on the stem you can see the seed pods developing. As the plant grows, new flowers continually develop at the tip.

The seeds ripe and ready for harvest. A white mustard seed pod has up to 6 seeds in it. From the volume of two large shopping bags, I harvested about 250g of seeds.

I cleaned the seeds. Initially the broken seed pods end up in the same container as the seeds. I set up a small fan and let the seeds and chaff fall through the air current. The seeds fall straight down, the chaff gets blown away by the current. After doing this a couple of times, the seeds were clean.

To make mustard, I soaked 55g of seeds in 150g of vinegar.

The next day I put everything in a blender and added 1 tea spoon of turmeric, 1 tea spoon of sugar, and a touch of salt. The turmeric is for the yellow color. The sugar is to soften the sharpness of the mustard seeds; you can add a bit more if so desired.

Blend until the consistency is to your liking. If it is too thick, add 1 or 2 tea spoons of water. Put in a mustard glass - this recipe produces ~200g of mustard. Leave in the fridge to let the taste develop for a few days. And… enjoy!

Contemplation on wind

2021-08-03T15:46:00+02:00

Hello, my name is Air Flow. You may also know me as wind, breeze, storm, gale or gust. People also have called me far worse.

I am a child of the heavens and I am powered by the sun. I have two siblings: Water Flow and Lava Flow. There’s a bit of rivalry as to who arose first.

I have been around for many eons. I have watched biological life arise and I will see it perish.

I am everywhere. Move your hand across your face: I am touching you right now. I caress everything the same way.

Some say I’m evil for I destroy houses and crops. Others say I’m friendly for I carry pollen and rain. I am neither. I like to play: pick things up, carry them with me and set them down. Be it small things like vapour, pollen, oxygen, virusses, sand or leafs. Or big things like cars, trees and houses.

It’s been getting warmer lately. I’m not worried, I have seen this before; usually just before a decline in biological life. My sibling Water Flow is also hotter. He sweats… a lot. I try to cool him by blowing harder and harder. Earth rotates below me and forces me in circles. A new life is born.

You may call my child a tornado, a hurricane or a cyclone.

Facilitation: Design: Healer’s Practice

2021-07-20T16:12:00+02:00

Background

After the recent completion of his courses in alternative forms of health care, a close friend intends to set up a business offering these types of therapy for clients. I offered my help in creating a design for his practice. I have run my own business for over ten years. It feels natural to offer my insight for the benefit of others.

Design team

The design was done by:

Arno Peters (permaculture designer)
Arno’s friend

Design Strategy

Since my friend has no prior experience in permaculture designs, my primary goal has been to guide him through the design process. I explain elements as they come up.

I choose Looby Macnamara’s Design Web as the guiding design process. You can read about it in her book People & Permaculture. I resonate with using its anchor points and allowing jumping between points as questions come up and get answered.

Looby Macnamara’s Design Web

In a introductory session of about an hour, I presented the process and explained each anchor point a bit.

I have been thinking how to make the process fun and self-documenting. The design should function as a remainder to keep going even when things get tough. I want to encourage him to make the design an expressive, creative statement, using a variety of colors using pencils, crayons, paint and whatever else is on hand.

My idea was to make each anchor point the start page of a section. The first page is a mind map around the subject. The pages after that can expand on the concepts found in the mind map. I want to try using a system of page numbering based on Zettelkasten method. This allows pages to be added to the document without needing renumbering and still being able to reference different parts of the document using the page identifier. This allows linking from the mind map on the first page to the details further in the document and linking between sections in a natural and expandable way.

Example for this design:

Design Web cover page

A. Vision mindmap

   1. Keywords from generative question
   2. First version
   3. Second version

B. Helps mindmap

   1. Category *Family*
   2. Category *Friends*
   3. Category *Institutions*

      A. Tax office
      B. Chamber of Commerce
      C. etc. etc.

   4. Category *Collegues*
   5. etc. etc.

C. Limits mindmap
D. etc. etc.

This way each page has a unique page number. For example the page on ‘Category Institutions’ has number B3. The ‘Tax office’ is at page B3A. This unique number allows you to cross reference a page from any other page.

Design session

The session was from 9:00 to 18:00 with several small breaks, a one hour walk in the nearby forest and a lunch. Total time spent on the design is approximately 6 to 7 hours. During this time we went over the following anchor points:

Vision
- tool: dreaming circle
- shared: why create a vision, process for creating a vision, generative question
- duration: ~1.5h
- result: a first version of a vision
Helps
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: resources I have used
- duration: ~0.5h
- result: list of people, institutions that may be of help
Ideas
- tool: captured in the moment
- shared: -
- duration: ~
- result: list of ideas
Patterns
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: patterns for bookkeeping, record keeping, business expenses, tax requirements, archival requirements
- duration: ~1h
- results: list / mindmap, rought sales process, estimation on break even cashflow, burn rate, possible services and prices
Action
- tool: mental inventory + filtering
- shared: process for creating a mental inventory, filtering process
- duration: ~1h
- results: list of actions
Momentum
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: explain reason for anchor point
- duration: ~1h
- results: list of strategies to keep going
Limits
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: typical limits of time, energy and money; comparison to leaky barrel
- duration: 0.5h
- results: list of current limits
Pause
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: Artist’s dates, plenty of sleep, spend max 20-30h per week working on company
- duration: 0.5h
- results: list of activities and advise
Reflection
- tool: brainstorm
- shared: year compass, bullet journal, what went well vs what to do differently next time
- duration: 0.5h
- results: list of activities and advise
Integration
- tool: multiple needs x multiple strategies (functions and elements)
- shared/used: list of NVC needs, strategies from vision or action, talked about how multiple connections create resilience
- duration: 0.25h
- results: -
Principles
- tool: Holmgren principles
- shared/used: short explanation of some of the principles
- duration: 0.25h
- results: -

We skipped the anchorpoint Appreciation. We only touched upon Principles anchorpoint. I would have liked to expand the latter. These could be covered in an additional session.

I encouraged my friend to regularly leaf through the booklet we created. I would like him to expand on the anchorpoints as he thinks more deeply about the design. I’m hoping my friend takes the work we’ve done so far and uses it to inform the decisions he makes in his life.

I would have liked to spend another session on this design with my friend. This has not happened thus far.

Reflection

What went well?
- Lots of subjects and experiences covered.
- As time progressed more jumping between anchor points made the session more dynamic
- Celebration at the completion of the vision, helps and at the end of the session for the work done and the mutual time spent
What would I do different next time?
- My friend is a thinker. It takes a bit of encouragement to let go of the thinking mind and adopt a more associative way of working
- Encourage jumping between anchor points more. “We’re working on a vision and you mention a limit, let’s park that on the limits sheet!” This maintains momentum and creates a more interaction with the anchor points.
- Encourage to use more colors
- Explain and encourage the use of mind maps
- Explain the process and my envisioned end result in an email prior to the session
- Shorten the total time: I was quite exhaused at the end of the day
What is my vision?
- Use this approach with other people as well
- Examine if this can be used in a workshop of sorts
What’s my next step?
- Publish these findings.

PASTE survey allotment garden (2021)

2021-06-22T21:00:00+02:00

Starting from 2018-09-01, Ina and I have rented an allotment at an association nearby. This survey lists the different species discovered in June 2021. For comparison, last year ago I did the same thing.

This list is part of the ongoing design for the allotment garden.

Plants

Achillea millefolium (common yarrow / duizendblad)
Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
- tender leaves used as a spring leaf vegetable, much as spinach
- dried leaves taste like parsely
Alium (onion family / uienfamilie)
Allium sativum (garlic / knoflook)
Amaranthus blitum (purple amaranth / Kleine Majer)
- leafs edible like spinach
Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / mierik)
Beta vulgaris (chard / snijbiet)
Brassica juncea ssp. Integrifolia (leaf mustards / bladmosterd)
- cultivar King Mustard (Chinese mustard / amsoi)
Brassica juncea ssp. Juncea (mustard greens / mosterdplanten)
Calendula officinalis (common marigold / goudsbloem)
- florets are edible
- used a medicinal herb, and color for dyeing
- marigold leaves can also be made into a poultice to help scratches and shallow cuts to heal faster, and to help prevent infection
Capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd’s purse / herderstasje)
- Brassicacea family
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
- Brassicacea family
Carduus crispus (curly plumeless thistle / kruldistel)
Cerastium glomeratum (sticky mouse-ear chickweed / kluwenhoornbloem)
- The leaves and shoots were used as a wild food in ancient China. In Nepal, the juice of this plant was applied to the forehead to relieve headaches. The juice could also be dropped into the nostrils to treat nosebleeds.
Chenopodium album (lamb’s quarters / melganzevoet)
- cultivated as a grain or vegetable crop (such as in lieu of spinach), as well as animal feed in Asia and Africa
- as some of the common names suggest, it is also used as feed (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens and other poultry.
Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
- resistant to frost
- important source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron
- whole plant is edible
Commelina communis (Asiatic dayflower / -)
- medicinal herb with febrifugal, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic effects
- also used for treating sore throats and tonsillitis
Digitalis purpurea (foxglove / vingerhoedskruid)
- toxic
- used in medicine to treat heart problems
- bumble bees love it
Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
- nitrogen fixer
- edible berries
- propagated from a cutting
Epilobium hirsutum (great willowherb / harig wilgenroosje)
Erigeron canadensis (horseweed / Canadese fijnstraal)
- used to treat boils, snake poison and menstrual pain
Eruca vesicaria (rocket / rucola)
Fallopia convolvulus (black-bindweed / zwaluwtong)
- grows most commonly on disturbed or cultivated land, in northern Europe typically on warm, sunny, well-drained sandy or limestone soil types
- seeds are edible, and were used in the past as a food crop
Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
- a highly aromatic and flavorful herb
- along with anise, one of the primary ingredients of absinthe
- bulb-like stem base can be used as a vegetable
Galinsoga parviflora (Gallant Soldier / kaal knopkruid)
- edible leaves, stem and flowers
- its subtle flavour, reminiscent of artichoke, mostly develops after being cooked
- dried and ground into powder for use in soups
Galium aparine (cleavers / kleefkruid)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
- tubers are used in the same ways as potatoes
- tubers can be eaten raw
- when raw and sliced thinly, they are fit for a salad.
- can be fermented after cleaning and drying
Hemerocallis fulva (orange daylily / gewone daglelie)
- flowers are edible
Houttuynia cordata (fish mint / moerasanemoon)
- smells and tastes like Coriandrum sativum (cilantro / koriander)
Humulus lupulus (common hop / hop)
Juglans regia (common walnut / okkernoot)
Lamium amplexicaule (henbit dead-nettle / hoenderbeet, soort dovenetel)
- The leaves, stem, and flowers of the plant are edible and have a slightly sweet and peppery flavor, similar to celery. Henbit can be eaten raw or cooked.
Lamium purpureum (red dead-nettle / paarse dovenetel)
Leonorus cardiaca (motherwort / hartgespan)
- herbacious, perennial, mint family
- leafs used to spice pea and lentil soup
- attractive for bumble bees
- used in treating heart disease and muscle cramps
Lycium barbarum (Chinese wolfberry / boksdoorn)
- berries known as gojiberry
- nightshade family
Malus domestica (apple tree / appelboom)
Malva sylvestris (common mallow / groot kaasjeskruid)
Medicago sativa (alfalfa / lucerne)
Melilotus albus (honey clover / witte honingklaver)
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
- scent attracts bees
- make tea from leaves
- use as flavouring for dishes
- source of essential oil
Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint / witte munt)
- blooms July - October
- make tea from leaves
- source of essential oil
Myosotis arvensis (field forget-me-not / akkervergeet-mij-nietje)
Myosotis discolor (changing forget-me-not / veelkleurig vergeet-mij-nietje)
Nepeta cataria (catnip / wild kattenkruid)
Oenothera biennis (common evening-primrose / middelste teunisbloem)
Papaver somniferum (breadseed poppy / slaapbol)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinaak)
- main supplier of calories before potatoes were introduced
- cook or fry
Petunia axillaris (large white petunia / petunia)
Pisum sativum (pea / erwt)
Portulaca oleracea (common purslane / postelein)
Potentilla indica (mock strawberry / schijnaardbei)
Pulmonaria affinis Jord. (lungwort / tuinlongkruid)
Prunus avium (sweet cherry / zoete kers)
Pyrus communis (European pear / gewone peer)
Raphanus sativus subsp. sativus (radish / radijs)
Rheum × hybridum (culinary rhubarb / tuinrabarber)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / rode bes)
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / gewone braam)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganbes)
Rumex acetosella (sheep’s sorrel / schapenzuring)
Rumex obtusifolius (bitter dock / ridderzuring)
Salvia officinalis (sage / salie)
Scrophularia auriculata (water figwort / geoord helmkruid)
Solanum lycopersicum (tomato / tomaat)
- several cultivars
Solanum nigrum (black nightshade / zwarte nachtschade)
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)
- several cultivars
Stellaria media (chickweed / vogelmuur)
Tanacetum parthenium (feverfew / moederkruid)
Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion / paardenbloem)
Thymus vulgaris (common thyme / echte tijm)
Trifolium pratense (red clover / rode klaver)
Trifolium repens (white clover / witte klaver)
Tropaeolum majus (Indian cress / oostindische kers)
Tulipa tarda (tulip / tulp)
Urtica dioica (common nettle / grote brandnetel)
Urtica urens (dwarf nettle / kleine brandnetel)
Verbena officinalis (common verbena / ijzerhard)
- herb, perennial
- use as tea for treating infection and fever
Viola tricolor (wild pansy / driekleurig viooltje)
Vitis vinifera (common grape vine / wijndruif)

Animals

birds / vogels
- Columba palumbus (wood pigeon / houtduif)
- Corvus monedula (Western jackdaw / kauw)
- Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborstje)
- Garrulus glandarius (Eurasian jay / gaai)
- Phasianus colchicus (pheasant / fazant)
- Pica pica (common magpie / ekster)
- Troglodytes troglodytes (/ winterkoning)
mammals / zoogdieren
- Felis silvestris catus (domesticated cat / huiskat)
- Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
- Mus musculus (house mouse / huismuis)
insects / beetles
- Aphididae (aphid / bladluis)
- Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebee / aardhommel)
- Coccinellae (ladybird / lieveheesbeestje)
- Formicidae (ant / mier)
- Pieris rapae (small white / klein koolwitje)
- Pyrrhocoris apterus (firebug / vuurwants)
- Sphinx ligustri (privet hawk moth / ligusterpijlstaart)
- Syrphidae (hoverfly / zweefvlieg)
- Vanessa atalanta (red admiral / atalanta)

Structures

shed at the back
greenhouse at the back
- clad with plastic sheeting
greenhouse in the middle
- May 2020: 5 out of 7 windows smashed in
concrete tile seating area and path
fence made from wood and chicken wire
compost bin
two rain barrels

Tools

small gardening tools
plastic gardening pots

Events

humans walk by garden along main path
humans sit in garden
humans walk, work, harvest in garden
cats visit garden
last year 836 mm rain, extremely dry from April to September

Precipitation 2019-June 2020:

====== ======= ======
 Year   Month    mm
====== ======= ======
 2019     1      56
          2      79
          3     100
          4      17
          5      54
          6      77
          7      29
          8      71
          9      36
         10     121
         11      97
         12      99
------ ------- ------
 2020     1      47
          2     165
          3      87
          4      19
          5      26
          6     116
====== ======= ======

Introductieworkshop Permacultuur

2021-06-03T18:43:00+02:00

Deze workshop is vol.

Had je mee willen doen? Meld je interesse via de contactpagina, dan houd ik je op de hoogte van nieuwe workshops.

Hallo allemaal,

Ik ben Arno Peters en ik wil jullie graag uitnodigen voor mijn Introductieworkshop Permacultuur. Ik houd deze workshop in Voedselbos Eindhoven op zaterdagmiddag 3 juli 2021 van 14u tot 17u.

Wil je meer weten over hoe je kan zorgen voor de aarde, voor de mensen en voor de toekomst? Dan is dit een mooie workshop om kennis te maken met het gedachtengoed van Permacultuur. Gedurende de middag lopen we door de principes en de achtergronden van Permacultuur. We wisselen theorie af met praktische oefeningen. We maken er een leuke, speelse middag van.

We zijn te gast in Voedselbos Eindhoven, een inspirerende plek en een levend voorbeeld van Permacultuur in de praktijk. Ik geef deze workshop met medewerking van Natuurlijk Maartje. Maartje is coördinator van Voedselbos Eindhoven. Ze stelt het voedselbos elke vrijdag tussen 10u en 12u30 open voor vrijwilligers. Kom vooral een keer kijken en meehelpen!

Heb je interesse om naar de workshop te komen, laat het me dan snel weten! Het aantal beschikbare plaatsen is beperkt. Ik kijk uit naar je aanwezigheid!

Wil je wel meedoen maar kan je die dag nét niet, laat me dat dan ook weten. Dan laat ik je weten wanneer ik een volgende workshop organiseer. Ik hoor graag van je.

Ik vraag voor de workshop een donatie. Je geeft wat je het waard vindt. Heb je toch een richtlijn voor een bedrag nodig, dan stel ik 20€ per persoon voor. Als alle deelnemers gemiddeld dit bedrag geven, dan ben ik in staat meer workshops te organiseren.

Gebruik het contactformulier op mijn website om je aan te melden.

Spring harvest

2021-04-21T16:50:00+02:00

A sample of the species I harvested. From top to bottom and from left to right, starting in the left top corner:

leaf of Armoracia rusticana (horseradish / mierik)
leaf of Galium aparine (cleavers / kleefkruid)
leaf of Achillea millefolium (common yarrow / duizendblad)
leaf of Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
flower of Taraxacum officinale (common dandelion / paardenbloem)
stem of Mentha (mint / munt)
leafs of Leonorus cardiaca (motherwort / hartgespan)
leafs of Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
stems of Lamium purpureum (red dead-nettle / paarse dovenetel)
leafs of Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
leafs of Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
stems of Urtica dioica (common nettle / grote brandnetel)
leafs of Beta vulgaris (chard / snijbiet)
leafs of Brassica juncea ssp. Integrifolia (leaf mustard / amsoi)
leaf of Eruca vesicaria (rocket / rucola)
leafs of Brassica juncea ssp. Juncea (mustard greens / mosterdplant)

We made tea from yarrow, dandelion, mint, lemon balm and red dead-nettle. We made soup from the rest of the greens.

Ideas for workshops in permaculture

2021-04-19T14:02:00+02:00

I have grouped this information by theme. The subsections detail possible subjects within this theme.

Depending on the subject, these can be taught in workshops and courses ranging from 2 hours to 2x 8 hours.

An appropriate selection of all these workshops can make up a full Permaculture Design Course with the required minimum of 72 hours of teacher-student interaction.

intro to permaculture
- ethics of permaculture
- principles
- some practical applications
social permaculture
- sociocracy
- nonviolent communication / compassionate communication
- dragon dreaming project management
- spirituality / grief work
- life design
soil and plants
- building soil
- pruning / grafting
- identifying mayor plant families
- composting
forest gardening
- nutrient calculations
- design process
water management
- water harvesting
- key line design
- swales / leaky weirs / ponds
housing / urban permaculture
- zones
- natural building design
- food preservation
- appropriate technology
- greenhouses
- rocket stoves
- permaculture in your veg plot / front yard / backyard
design tools
- ways of observating
- design frameworks
- thinking in systems
- making maps / measuring with A-frame, bunyip, theodolite
- analysis tools
permaculture in practice (hands-on)
- observation
  - mapping
  - finding out about the history of a place
  - nature walk: using the 9 ways of observing
    - wonder: childlike appreciation
    - energy: sunny/shaded, high/low traffic, storage/use
    - flow: water, wind, sunshine, people, animals
    - communities: plant families, animals
    - patterns: whatever recurs in time and/or space
    - edge: forest/meadow, water/land, path/plant bed
    - limits: nutrients, time, energy, vision
    - stillness: meditation, connect with what’s alive in you
    - past/future: previous uses, proposed uses
- water
  - nature walk: observing water flows
  - water harvesting
  - swales
  - wadi
  - check dam
  - leaky weir
  - using a key line plow
- plants and soil
  - nature walk: identifying (mayor) plant families
  - pruning
  - making biochar / a biochar cooker
  - compost tea
  - comfrey press
- appropriate technology
  - raised bed
  - wicking bed
  - weeping bed
  - compost toilet
  - hugelkultur
  - hay box
  - cold box
  - hedge laying
  - snake wall
  - walipini: in ground greenhouse
  - biochar cooker and biochar
  - rocket stove
  - herb spiral
  - drying rack
- housing
  - nature walk: observe housing of humans and animals
  - urban environment
  - ecological building
  - wofati
  - movable and mobile houses: yurt / tiny house / tent / caravan / van / camper
- preservation / resilience
  - yeast ferment - bread / beer / wine
  - lactic acid ferment - kimchi / sourkraut
  - making jam / chutney
  - seed saving
  - seed stratification
  - urban farming - square meter garden / front yard & backyard / community gardens
connecting / designing
- Permablitz: creating and implementing a design in a weekend
- study circle of permies
- mentor group of permies

Nine Ways of Observing

2021-04-19T11:22:00+02:00

The Nine Ways of Observing come from The Earth Path, a book by Starhawk.

I have used this tool in all my designs. I find that good, thoughtful, long observation is key to making good, thoughtful and effective designs.

I wonder…
- Looking at the system with childlike amazement. Fostering an open mind and leaving behind fixed ideas about what the system is and why it does (not) what it does (not).
Observing energy
- Energy is the thing that makes any system come alive.
  
  “Labour without energy is a corpse, and capital without energy is a sculpture.” – Steve Keen
Observing flow
- Flow shows how matter and information move around a system. It shows mayor sub-systems and connections between them. Loops create feedback, both positive (reinforcing) and negative (stabilizing)
Observing communities
- Communities reveal the different elements of the system. Communities can be subsystems of a system, they can also point to interactions between the system and its surroundings.
Observing patterns
- Patterns show us the ways a system solves problems. Use the tool Thinking in Patterns
Observing edges
- Edges show potential interfaces to different systems
Observing limits
- Limits show where the system can not go, which area’s are unreachable
Observing from stillness
- What is system’s impact on the observer, it asks us to look at how and why we participate in the system, why we may want to change it
Observing past & future
- Past and future asks us to look at the evolution of the system as a whole. Where does the system tend to move towards as a general direction?

Thinking in terms of systems, these different aspects cover things all systems have in common.

This list of different ways of observing invite me to take a detailed look at the different aspects of the system I’m studying. It helps me avoid blind spots because the tool reminds me to cover all these aspects. Every aspect is important in its own way. Without understanding, we’re flying blind.

Journal of work in Proeftuin Meerhoven in 2020

2021-03-24T21:18:00+01:00

Since Sunday 2017-07-30 I have been involved with gardening at the Proeftuin Meerhoven in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This is a community garden maintained by volunteers in the neighborhood adjoining ours. We use the space with approval from the local council. In addition to helping with gardening, I learned a lot. The harvest from this garden has supplemented our lunches and dinners with many freshly grown vegetables and a few berries.

The main obstacle has been the lack of reliable water at the site. We remedied this by installing 2x 1000 liter IBC containers on site.

I have not been keeping meticulous records. What you see here is pieced together from e-mails, notes in my bullet journal and the spreadsheet I keep of incoming groceries from buying in the shops, harvesting in our gardens and foraging in the wild.

Fall 2020 (September, October, November)

Harvest

bean / boon
cabbage leaves / koolbladeren
carrot / wortel
haricots verts
potato / aardappel
pumpkin / spaghettipompoen
rocket / rucola
tomato / tomaat
zucchini / courgette

Sow

Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
Asimina triloba (common pawpaw / gewone pawpaw)

Plant

mirabel seedlings
planting cuttings of Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganbes);
relocating seedlings Salix caprea (goat willow / boswilg);
relocating seedlings Prunus and Corylus avellana (common hazel / hazelaar)
divisions of raspberry (red and white) / framboos (rood en wit)

Infrastructure

hedgelaying of a few existing willow sapplings
incorporate downed birch in hedge

Observations

most cuttings of Salix caprea (goat willow / boswilg) failed
all raspberries from Doorntuin failed
all currants from Doorntuin struggle
unknown if spring cuttings of Rosa pimpinellifolia (burnet rose / duinroos) survived
unknown if spring cuttings of Salix caprea (goat willow / boswilg) survived

Summer 2020 (June, July, August)

Harvest

potato / aardappel
chives / bieslook
kale / boerenkool
spring onion / bosui
Pisum sativum subsp. arvense (field pea / capucijners)
doperwten
gele courgette
graan
gras voor Erica’s konijnen
groene courgette
haricots verts
knoflook
komkommer
koolrabi
palmkool
rode biet
spaghettipompoen
tomaat
wortel

Infrastructure

hedgelaying (20m)

Spring 2020 (March, April, May)

Harvest

winterpostelein
rhubarb
spinazie
aardnoot (van Gert-Jan)
asparagus
bloemkool
koolblad
brandneteltoppen
munt
sla
citroenmelisse

Sow

wheat
kikkererwten
Lens culinaris (lentil / linze)

Plant

potatoes
cuttings black currant
plant onions
relocate apple tree
relocate kweepeer
cuttings of willow
daglelies uit park

Infrastructure

repair hedge
augment walkways with wood cuttings
change container

Observations

mirabel blooms
peach blooms

Winter 2019 (December, January, February)

Harvest

winterpostelein

Plant

laurierkers
cuttings laurier
cuttings willow

Sow

seeds of asparagus
aardpeer

Infrastructure

repair hedge

Fall 2019 (September, October, November)

Plant

donations from Doorntuin: raspberries and currants

Examples of increasing complexity

2021-02-08T17:41:00+01:00

Below are a number of examples of growing complexity due to available energy surplus. As the available energy inexorably turns down we will be forced to live by the Permaculture principle of Use Slow and Small Solutions.

Car:

1800s: engine, brakes, frame, wheels, steering wheel;
2020s: as above but with: power steering, rear view camera, airbags, traction control, rain sensor, motor management, satelite navigation, cruise control, air conditioning, automatic windows, and more.

Drilling Oil Wells

1800s: drilling 21m deep; oil used for kerosine lamps;
2020s: rotary drilling, floating rigs, horizontal drilling, seismic survey’s, 3D modelling, fracking tight oil (shale), boiling tar sands; oil used for transportation, chemicals, plastics, road surfaces, packaging and much, much more.

Healthcare:

1800s: doctor, pharmacy, hospital, surgeon, nurse, dentist, priest, bartender;
2020s: as above but with: specialized hospitals for children, cancer patients, heart patients, eye patients, burn patients, tropical diseases, cosmetic alterations; doctors specializing in different body parts and body systems; organizations split on body care and mind care.

Finance:

1800s: safety deposit and (very limited) lending
2020s: credit cards, bonds, stocks, options, futures, collateralized debt obligations, zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP), negative interest-rate policy (NIRP), modern money theory (MMT)

Education:

1800s: learning to read and write, university, professor
2020s: kindergarten, primary school, secundary school, college, university, evening classes, bachelor degree, masters degree, doctoral degree, post doctoral degree.

Law:

1800s: Napoleontic law
2020s: national laws, municipal rules, EU rules, WTO rules, UN declaration of rights, environmental laws, rulings

Tracking flows

2021-01-31T19:13:00+01:00

Let me shed a little light on how I record, track, and plot various streams across my domain.

My Workflow

I have a git repository that holds my records. I clone this repo across the various machines I use. It contains records pertaining to the flows of: money, energy, water and more.

Central to my workflow is Ledger. Ledger is a text based accounting program. I use it to show my balances and summarize my transactions. Most everything I record either is in Ledger format, or small custom programs convert various CSV files into Ledger files. I created a Makefile to help create or update the Ledger files based on new input files.

For example —

I download my bank records in CSV format. Every export I request from the bank spans from January 1st to the current date.
make install will detect the newly downloaded file and rename it to csv/2021_ACCOUNTNR.csv where 2021 is the current year and ACCOUNTNR the specific identifier for this bank account.
make all runs a Python program that converts the CSV into generated/2021_ACCOUNTNR.lgr using a simple matching system for putting expenses and income into appropriate accounts.

I have a top-level Ledger file all.lgr where I include all the different transaction sources into one. I use this for example to generate seperate views on my personal finances, my business and on the combination of the two. You can find more info on that in the blog article Using Ledger-cli for joint finances.

Meter readings

I record the meter readings from gas, electricity and water in a separate csv file: data/verbruik.csv. This file has four columns. The date and one column for each meter. This csv gets converted into the ledger file generated/verbruik.lgr. Below an extract from data/verbruik.csv:

datum,elektra,gas,water
[...]
2021-01-08,28457,31515.18,376.33
2021-01-15,28473,31533.55,377.04
[...]

I wrote a small Python program to calculate the differences between the dates and spit out ledger transactions. The program can also estimate CO₂ emissions from electricity generation and the burning of the gas. These go into their own transaction. See an example below. Each measurement gets its own commodity. Ledger can convert these commodities into each other using commodity pricing. I created si-units.lgr to define the conversions between kWh, J, kJ, MJ, GJ, m³(n), liter(petrol) etc.

# partial from si-units.lgr
P 1970/01/01 00:00:00 kWh 3600000.0 J

# partial from generated/verbruik.lgr
2021/01/15 * Energie elektriciteit
    verbruik:energie:elektriciteit  16 kWh
    omgeving

2021/01/15 * Uitstoot CO₂ elektriciteitsverbruik
    verbruik:CO2:elektriciteit  3.1 kg
    omgeving

Note: verbruik = usage, omgeving = environment.

I communicate with Ina how much electricity, gas and water we used in the previous week. We can usually pinpoint what causes an uptick of drop in usage. We say stuff like: “ah yes, we did laundry twice last week”. A laundry load takes about 90 liters of water. Or “ah yes, we went away for a few days” when there is a drop in usage. I find it creates awareness and establishes a baseline for comparison.

Reporting and Visualization

Another major component to my system is org-mode in Emacs. I have org files containing reports on specific topics: money, energy, expenses, my business, transportation, shelter, projects, investments. I include the various source files I like a report on. I use command line options to Ledger to give me broad overviews or to drill down on specific area’s. When I update these reports, I put them in version control as well.

I also wrote a few Python programs to visualize these various flows. For energy it calls out to Ledger to create the summarized data and then I use Python libraries pandas and matplotlib to visualize the data.

Energy Usage

The output of the program to plot energy usage per month shows me:

Energy usage

I can clearly see the influence of the seasons on our gas usage. Note my car usage since March, the time of the first Dutch lockdown. It seems I resumed traveling by car again mid-May, though maybe a bit less than before.

Let’s look at the same data, now summarized per year:

Energy usage per year

From this graph, I see a major turning point was 2017: halving the usage of gas and of car. I note that we did our first PDC in that year. I got to know Ina in 2015. I used public transportation (green, ov) to visit Ina in The Hague.

Fuel Efficiency

Let me share one more graph with you:

Driving efficiency

This shows the amount of fuel my car needs to travel 100km. Lower is better mileage. The blue line is a smoothed function of the raw data in red. Note the drop in the second quarter of 2016. Going from 6.5 liter/100km to 5.5. That lasted half a year. From 2017Q1 to 2018Q2, I experimented with various ways to get fuel consumption down. Raw data for this graph is: date, odometer reading, fuel taken in, price per liter. Again yet another Python program converts it to Ledger input.

Evolution and Evaluation

The first commit to my ledger repo was end of May 2014. It was an experiment to track my income and expenses directly from the transactions in my bank account. It progressively expanded and transformed to this system. Over time I also imported records from other bookkeeping software I used prior to this. My financial records go back to 2005. I looked at old utility bills to expand records on my energy and water usage going back to 2008-2009.

The nice thing about having all this data in plain text, is the ease to add and adjust. Having git keep track of changes, I can roll back when a change is not to my liking. And since I’m a programmer, I can mold this system the way I like to work.

I’m curious, which parts of this inspire you most? Leave me a comment on the contact page.

Designer’s Toolbox

2021-01-06T19:32:00+01:00

A toolbox contains a set of useful tools for artisans to use. A carpenter’s toolbox has hammers, chisels, planes, etc. A plumber’s toolbox has wrenches, nuts, pieces of pipe, etc.

A permaculture designer’s toolbox contains tools useful for designing with permaculture. I have documented a few on this site. I have a physical toolbox.

Toolbox ready for transport

My toolbox contains a brief description of almost every tool I have come across for designing systems. It also has entries for some solutions found in the wild.

Toolbox ready for use

The items in the toolbox are simple A6 sheets. To create the sheets, I cut an A4 into two A5’s. Cut again they yield four A6 sheets.

On the top right I write the classification for the tool: (design) process, survey, analysis, design, implementation, facilitation, etc. I include the name of the tool and a short description of how to use the tool.

My Permaculture Journey from 2016 to 2020

2020-12-31T12:00:00+01:00

I cannot say for certain when I became aware of Permaculture. There were hints, websites read, questions asked. My partner Ina has been an active participant in researching and proposing activities. She was instrumental in nudging me over a few thresholds. I am very grateful to have her in my life.

The earliest date I can find as to when my Permaculture journey started in earnest is Monday 2016-10-31. Ina and I enrolled in the Intro to Permaculture Design on Canvas Network. This course was provided by Oregon State University and was given by Andrew Millison. I finished a preliminary design on the backyard.

Next, Ina and I attended the Permaculture Festival in Belgium from Friday 2017-07-07 to Sunday 2017-07-09. We had a lot of fun and we learned about fermentation, wild food foraging, urban permaculture and natural building. Our interest in Permaculture deepened.

On Sunday 2017-07-30 we helped for the first time with gardening at the Proeftuin Meerhoven in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This is a community garden maintained by volunteers in the neighborhood adjoining ours. The space is rented from the council for a period of three years. In addition to helping with gardening, we learned a lot and have been supplementing our lunches and dinners with some freshly grown vegetables from this garden. In 2018 I created a design for creating a shed in proeftuin Meerhoven. I have not been able to realize this design.

Then from Saturday 2017-11-04 to Saturday 2017-11-11 my partner and I joined a PDC given by Rakesh “Rootsman Rak” in Empel, a small village near Den Bosch. This was the first week. The second week was from Friday 2018-02-02 to Friday 2018-02-09. One of my first designs was creating a social design for a former monastery in Reek

On Sunday 2018-01-28 we started Basiscursus Bijenhouden (Basic course Bee Keeping) given by Wil Brans of the beekeeping association Place To Bee. We finished the course successfully on Sunday 2018-09-23.

My involvement with the food forest that is taking shape at the Weverkeshof in Nuenen started on Monday 2018-02-19. The design of the food forest Weverkeshof is ongoing.

On Saturday 2018-05-19 we attended a lecture by Marc Siepman: Ondergronds Gezwam (subterranean chatter/fungi) in Knoflook, Den Bosch.

To get more insight in the design tools for the social domain, I designed and organized a summer party on 2018-06-02. Another design in this space I did was for an online learning community.

From Saturday 2018-06-30 to Saturday 2018-07-07 we attended a second PDC with Rakesh in Gunsleben, Germany. The second week was from Sunday 2018-09-16 to Saturday 2018-09-22. During the course I helped design a property in Gunsleben.

Saturday 2018-08-15 marks our first visit to allotment association Welschap to orient ourselves on finding an allotment. We rented an allotment from 2018-09-01. I have been working on a design for our allotment.

In 2019 the allotment took center stage. Ina and I attended a workshop on hedgelaying at a nearby village. We did also attended the Permaculture Festival near Sint Truiden, Belgium. I got elected to the board of the allotment association. We harvested a lot of zucchini and tomatoes this year. I experimented a lot in the summer.

In 2020 corona happened. A lot of activities and meetings were cancelled. I felt the negative effects of a limited social life. Two friends who had wanted to come visit eventually could not come due to travel restrictions. In response to their need and to tickle my curiosity, I organized the online workshop Design Your Life for a group of participants.

I got interested in Non-Violent Communication. We ordered the book by Marshall Rosenberg and closely watched a video registration of his workshop. I have been trying to put his philosophy into action since.

In June 2020 I did a blacksmith workshop with Niek Eikelenboom at Phoenix Cultuur in Veghel.

I followed an Online Teacher Training with Rakesh and Graham Bell from 2020-07-05 to 2020-07-31. Four weeks long, three days a week, 4.5 hours per day. Online. I found it exhausting. Good, and exhausting.

In October 2020 I presented information on fermentation and how to make bread at the Online Permaculture Convergence 2020 organized by the Permaculture Association of Britain.

Summer 2020 experiments

2020-10-19T19:43:00+02:00

This is a list of experiments Ina and I have been conducting during the summer of 2020.

deepen experience with baking bread with sourdough starter
- different types of flour
ferments
- using sourdough starter for things other than bread
drying
- nettle
- mint
- leaves of horseradish (blad mierik)
growing seedlings
growing cutlings
- eleagnus
harvesting
- tomatoes
- raspberries (framboos)
- gojiberries
- zucchini
- cucumber
- chard (snijbiet)
- red beet (rode biet)
- scarlet runner bean (pronkbonen)
- butternut squash (flespompoen)

Forms of capital

2020-10-18T19:39:00+02:00

I got this originally from an article from Appleseed Permaculture on 8 forms of capital from April 2011. I have added energy as the overarching type of capital as it is the basis for all the complexity and beauty we experience daily in our lives. To give you but one example: the economy is alive.

As noted in the original article, different types of capital can be exchanged with each other. For example: I can teach gardening (intellectual + experiential) at a workshop (social) in exchange for food (energy + living), lodging (material) and a bit of money (financial). I meet new people (social). My students and I form a community (cultural) where we can help each other (social) become better people (spiritual).

Capital	Currency	Complexing to…
energy	energy flows	everything
living	carbon, nitrogen, water	soil, living organisms, land, ecosystem services
material	materials, ‘natural’ resources	tools, building, infrastructure
financial	money	financial instruments and securities
intellectual	ideas, knowledge	words, images, ‘intellectual property’
experiential	action	embodied experience, wisdom
spiritual	prayer, intention; faith, karma	spiritual attainment
social	connections	influence, relationships
cultural	song, story, ritual	community

Making bread

2020-10-18T16:43:00+02:00

Here are some of my presentations on baking bread and using a sourdough starter.

I have kept a record of the steps I take in making bread. Below is a table that shows the times for one such sessions. The introduction presentation uses this on the sixth slide.

Timestamp	Elapsed	Activity	Approximated time
17:10
17:30	00:20	prep	20 minutes
19:00	01:30	rest in warm spot (autolyse)	1.5 hours
19:07	00:07	mix	7 minutes
20:39	01:32	rest in warm spot (1st rise)	1.5 hours
20:45	00:06	fold and put in	6 minutes
07:46	11:01	rest in refrigerator (2nd rise)	11 hours
07:48	00:02	bake prep	2 minutes
08:35	00:47	baking	45 minutes
08:37	00:02	take out	2 minutes
09:15	00:38	cool down	40 minutes

Sourdough Bread

2020-10-18T16:43:00+02:00

I use the following basic recipe for all my breads:

200g sourdough starter
700g whole meal flower
550g warm water
salt to taste
linseeds / sesame seeds / sunflower seeds to taste

On this site I have dedicated a few articles to making bread. Peruse them at your leasure:

Introduction to Fermentation

2020-10-18T16:42:00+02:00

Here is a presentation with an introduction to fermentation.

Introduction to Fermentation

Personal Philosophy

2020-10-01T19:45:00+02:00

Putting together a personal philosophy can be helpful for focussing your energy. Keep it as a daily reminder in your journal, calendar or hang them somewhere you regularly see them.

Below are a few examples of personal philosophies. There are many more to choose from. You will notice recurring themes between the philosophies of different people. This is no accident.

Pick and choose the elements that appeal to you. Create your own, personal, individual philosophy! Good luck!

Attitudinal principles (Mollison)

Source: Attitudinal principles - Permaculture Design Handbook
- Everything gardens
- Minimum effort, maximum effect
- Multiple elements x multiple functions
- The problem is the solution
- Work with nature
- Yield is theoretically unlimited
Reiki principles (Usui)

Source: Reiki Course Level 1
- Just for today…
  1. … I will not worry
  2. … I will not be angry
  3. … I will do my work honestly
  4. … I will give thanks for my many blessings
  5. … I will be kind to my neighbor and to every living thing
Adaption principles (Category 5)

Source: The Adapters Movement
- Acceptance
- Location, location, location
- Self sufficiency is a myth
- Adapting will not cure your existential angst
- Make food first again
- Grow it and they will come
- Openness and accountability
- Build social capital
- Triage
- Don’t be a dick
- Don’t blame anyone but yourself for not adapting
- Collapse now and avoid the rush
mindfulness trainings (Plum Village)
- 14 mindfulness trainings
- 5 mindfulness trainings
7 habits (Covey)

Source: Summary of habits
- Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- Put first things first
- Think win-win
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
Nonviolent Communication intentions (Rosenberg)

Source: Key assumptions and intentions of NVC
- Open-Hearted Living
  - Self-compassion
  - Expressing from the heart
  - Receiving with compassion
  - Prioritizing connection
  - Beyond “right” and “wrong”
- Choice, Responsibility, Peace
  - Taking responsibility for our feelings
  - Taking responsibility for our actions
  - Living in peace with unmet needs
  - Increasing capacity for meeting needs
  - Increasing capacity for meeting the present moment
- Sharing Power (Partnership)
  - Caring fully for everyone’s needs
  - Increasing capacity for needs-based sharing of resources
  - Protective use of force
Rules of the Road (Cameron)

Source: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and Blog post by C.S. Kinnaird
- Show up at the page. Use the page to rest, to dream, to try.
- Fill the well by caring for my artist.
- Set small and gentle goals, and meet them.
- Pray for guidance, courage, and humility.
- Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work.
- Be alert, always, for the presence of the Great Creator leading and helping my artist.
- Choose companions who encourage me to do the work, not just talk about doing the work or why I am not doing the work.
- Remember that the Great Creator loves creativity.
- Remember that it is my job to do the work, not judge the work.
- Place this sign in my workplace: “Great Creator, I will take care of the quantity. You take care of the quality.”
Stoic principles

Source: 11 Stoic Principles to Adopt to Live a Happier, More Fulfilling Life and Stoicism Reddit FAQ resources. Note the list below is incomplete.
- The mind is your power
- Time is your most precious resource
- Be present
- Be grateful for what you have
- Remember your why
- Don’t look for happiness in the material
- See that everything we experience orginates from within
- Have a role model to measure your character
- Change your perspective on failure
- Apply what you learn
- Reflect on how you spend your time
Noble Eightfold Path (buddhism)
- Moral conduct
  - Right speech
  - Right action
  - Right livelihood
- Mental discipline
  - Right effort
  - Right mindfulness
  - Right concentration
- Wisdom
  - Right thought
  - Right understanding
construct your own set

PMI

2020-09-28T13:45:00+02:00

PMI stands for Plus, Minus, Interesting. It is an analysis tool for ranking between different options to find the one that may be best among the available alternatives at this point in time.

Procedure

When in a group, someone presents the different options. For every option, the other participants give their opinion on what they find are positive, negative and interesting (neutral) aspects of the option under consideration.

These aspects are written down and scored. For every positive aspect assign +1, for every negative aspect assign -1. Optionally, aspects can be weighted. For every option, take the total of all aspects.

The option with the highest score can be considered the best among the available alternatives.

Example of PMI

This PMI analysis is from the design Hexagons Proeftuin Meerhoven:

Shapes →	Dome	Tunnel	Silo	Beecomb	Cube
Aspect	dome	tunnel	silo	beecomb	cube
Modular / versatile	1	1	1	2	1
Oranic shape	3	2	2	3	1
Simple construction	0	3	2	2	3
Fits available area	3	1	2	3	1
Wind resistant	3	2	1	2	1
Total	10	9	9	12	7

In this case, the beecomb emerges as the best among the available options.

Sevenfold Wheel of Thought

2020-09-03T21:13:00+02:00

This is a tool I came across not too long ago. It can be used in discursive meditation.

The tool takes seven questions and combines them with seven concepts. So, if you have no clue on how to approach a subject, concept, text, image or other object to meditate on, the Sevenfold Wheel of Thought gives you 49 questions to start your meditation off with.

The seven questions are:

Whether?
What?
How?
Who (or whose)?
Where?
When?
Why

The seven concepts are:

Being
Becoming
Source
Substance
Power
Purpose
Value

Being

Whether it is?
What is it?
How is it?
Who is it?
Where is it?
When is it?
Why is it?

Becoming

Whether it becomes?
What does it become?
How does it become?
Who does it become?
Where does it become?
When does it become?
Why does it become?

Source

Whether it has a source?
What is its source?
How is it sourced?
Who generates it? / Who sources it?
Where does it come from? / Where is its source?
When does it arrive? / When is it generated?
Why did it evolve?

Substance

Whether it has substance?
What is it made of?
How is it made?
Who makes it? / Whose substance is it?
Where is it made?
When is it made?
Why is it made?

Power

Whether it has power?
What is its power?
How has it power?
Whose power is it?
Where is it powered?
When is it powered?
Why does it have power?

Purpose

Whether it has purpose?
What is its purpose?
How is it used?
Who uses it?
Where use it?
When use it?
Why use it?

Value

Whether it has value?
What is its value?
How is it valued?
Who values it? / Whose value is it?
Where is its value?
When is it valued?
Why value it?

Mindmap around Early Retirement Extreme

2020-07-29T19:52:00+02:00

Mindmap of ERE

why is it important to me?
- freedom to persue my interests
- takes money out of the decision making process
- gets me out of the rat race
resources
- Jacob Lund Fisker’s blog
- ERE Forum
insights
- having no expenses means you don’t need an income and you can immediately stop working for money
- spending all your income means you can never stop working for money
- having a buffer large enough to cover your expenses for the rest of your life also means you can stop working for money
mindset
- core concepts
  - spend less than you earn - but extreme
  - create a large buffer (> 10 years living expenses) fast
  - develop alternative income streams
  - become a producer ←→ consumer
  - create a resilient (permaculture) system to support yourself and your family
- common objections / blocks
  - I’m not good with money
  - It’s too difficult / hard
  - I don’t know where to start
- my own observations
  - (change of) mindset is essential
  - it’s a skill
  - it takes time and practice
  - anyone can learn it
- how to begin
  - set intention: I take responsibility for my life
  - start with observing inflows and outflows
  - start simple
  - start small
expenses side
- plug all recurring leaks
- keep only the essential
  - that what makes you truely happy to pay for
  - what you cannot reasonably provide for yourself
- DIY: do things by yourself and learn something
- money to buy / hire specialist help is there as a backup
- “Using money to solve problems is a huge crutch”
income side
- create income streams
  - diversified
    - some streams may do poorly for a time
    - to try new stuff out
    - to keep it fun
  - (mostly) independent of effort
    - part-time work (barrista fire)
    - pension
    - royalties
    - subscriptions
    - commission on sales or referrals
    - revenue from advertisements
    - interest or dividend from investments
    - capital gains from selling investments
    - turning waste into income
    - renting out something
      - lodging: a room / an appartment / a house / a tent
      - equipment
      - experience
        
        teaching
        
        repairing
        
        designing
  - non-monetary income / capital: apply forms of capital
    - growing your own food
    - bartering for food
    - work in exchange for lodging
    - teach in exchange for equipment
    - pray in exchange for companionship
links with permaculture principles
- earth care / people care / fair share
- observe and interact
- produce no waste
- apply self regulation and accept feedback
- multiple elements x multiple functions
- obtain a yield
- work with nature
metrics (financial)
- burn rate
  - divide how much you have by how much you spend
  - time it takes to run out of buffer when / if
    - all income dries up and
    - all expenses stay the same
  - typical ranges
    - 3 months of expenses
      - emergency fund
      - apply not only to money, also to food
      - bare minimum
    - 10 years
      - need to keep working part time
      - good balance between security and agility
      - next 5 to 10 years are reasonably predictable due to inertia
      - after that: who knows?
    - 25 years
      - 4% rule / Trinity Study
      - when invested, historically provided sufficient return in most cases to cover living expenses over a 25 year period
    - 33 years
      - 3% rule
      - when invested, historically provided sufficient return in all cases to cover living expenses over a 25 year period
    - caveats
      - underlying assumptions for investing with buffers exceeding 25 years of living expenses are probably not correct in a world with declining energy availability
        
        See Our Finite World by Gail Tverberg
        
        See Surplus Energy Economics by Tim Morgan
- saving rate
  - divide how much you make by how much you spend
  - typical ranges
    - below 1
      - too many expenses, not enough income(s)
      - dangerous for too long, eats into buffer
    - 1
      - a year of income covers all expenses
      - all income is spent
      - unexpected expenses can easily push you below 1
    - 1.1
      - typical Western household
      - saves 10% per year
      - also spends most or all savings some time later
      - work ten years, take one year off
      - creating a 10 year buffer takes 100 years
  - exceptional ranges
    - 2
      - every year of income covers 2 years of expenses
      - work one year, take one year off
      - creating a 10 year buffer takes 10 years
    - 3
      - every year of income covers 3 years of expenses
      - work one year, take two years off
      - creating a 10 year buffer takes 5 years
    - 4
      - every year of income covers 4 years of expenses
      - work one year, take three years off
      - creating a 10 year buffer takes 3.3 years
    - 5
      - every year of income covers 5 years of expenses
      - work one year, take four years off
      - creating a 10 year buffer takes 2.5 years
my journey
- started in earnest in 2016
- reduced expenses from 40k in 2015 to 12k in 2018 by 20-25% per year
- started working less from 2017 onwards
- target safe withdrawal rate reached in 2018
- income (from 2020 on) about 40k with 14k or less in expenses (income tax subtracted from both sides) holding steady
- saving rate:
  - 1.06: before 2015
  - 1.9: 2015
  - 3.2: 2016
  - 3.5: 2017
  - 5.0: 2018
  - 4.7: 2019
  - 2.5: 2020
  - 5.0: 2021
  - 3.1: 2022

Contemplation on global economy and society

2020-07-26T19:42:00+02:00

Contemplate on the notion that our global economy is alive and can be likened to an animal.

Key insights:

alive:
- requires at least a constant flow of energy to sustain itself
- emergent behaviour from a large number of smaller elements
- arises, persists over a period of time, fades away / dies
- referred to as a separate entity
- under this definition are also alive:
  - trees, insects, animals, bacteria
  - tornadoes, typhoons, thunderstorms
  - ocean waves
  - rocks, mountains, mountain ranges, oceans
  - earth with all of its ecosystems
  - the sun and every individual planet and moon
  - solar system
  - universe
cells:
- humans
- machines
- infrastructure
  - buildings
  - pipes for water, sewage, gas
  - wires for electricity, communications
circulation system: transport networks
- function: a means to transport building blocks, energy and waste products across the body
- blood vessels:
  - roads
  - railways
  - canals
  - air traffic corridors
- blood:
  - ships, trucks, busses, aircraft, cars
  - fluids in various pipes
digestive tract:
- function: to provide energy and building blocks to the cells of the body to renew themselves and to dispose of (unusable) waste
- mouth: mining industry, agriculture
- stomach: smelting, distilling, chemical industry, food industry
- colon: waste processing, waste recycling, sewers
- in mammals there is just one digestive tract. In the economy these are all geographically separated. A more apt analog would be a fungus.
digestion:
- food / drink:
  - for energy: oil, gas, coal, wood, peat, grain
  - for building blocks: iron, copper, aluminium, zinc, gold, silver, water
- poop: overburden, contents of junkyards and other waste disposal sites
- pee: toxic fluids, sewage
nervous system:
- function: to communicate between seperate parts of the systems, to influence production or to signal satiation
- telecommunications networks, internet, satelite links, gossip, message boards, television, radio, newspaper, theatre, music
immune system:
- function: when the body senses it is under attack, it responds with its immune system to eliminate, subdue or subvert its attackers
- (popular) culture, media, politics, judicial and penal system, military
cell specialization into organs: all types of organizations
effect of lockdowns on this body: massive heart attack shutting large parts of the circulatory system down, accumulation of surplus at production sites, deprevation of goods where they are needed
effect of peak energy extraction (2018) on the health of the body: parts of the body are not getting enough energy to renew cells. The body goes into starvation mode.

Needing further thought:

Is a fungus a more apt analog? Mycelium shows some of the same patterns as our networks (roads, internet, infrastructure).
How to create an offspring that will survive without being eaten or attacked by the host body? Interface like umbillical chord? How?
Does the host body need to die before offspring is safe / viable?
How does an embryo emerge? Is it already among us? How to keep it safe from the immune system?

PASTE survey food forest Weverkeshof (2020)

2020-07-06T14:39:00+02:00

This is part of the design for a food forest in Nuenen.

This year we did a new PASTE survey. The data was gathered on 2020-07-06. See also the previous PASTE survey.

In this section we list the available plants, animals, structures, tools and events we have observed directly or indirectly at the Weverkeshof in 2020.

Plants

Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard / look-zonder-look)
Aquilegia vulgaris (columbine / wilde akelei)
Arum maculatum (snakeshead / gevelkte aronskelk)
Bryophyta (moss / mos) (a lot)
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
Cardamine pratensis (cuckooflower / pinksterbloem)
Dipsacus pilosus (small teasel / kleine kaardebol)
Elytrigia repens (couch grass / kweek)
Ficaria verna (pilewort / gewoon speenkruid)
Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
Fragaria vesca (wild strawberry / bosaardbei)
Fragaria × ananassa (garden strawberry / aardbei)
Galium aparine (cleavers / kleefkruid)
Galium odoratum (sweetscented bedstraw / lievevrouwenbedstro)
Geranium phaeum (dusky crane’s-bill / donkere ooievaarsbek)
Glechoma hederacea (ground-ivy / hondsdraf)
Hedera helix (ivy / klimop) (on some of the trees)
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
Lamium album (white dead-nettle / witte dovenetel)
Lamium purpureum (red dead-nettle / paarse dovenetel)
Lapsana cummunis (common nipplewort / akkerkool)
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
Narcissus (daffodil / narcis)
Plantago major (plantago / grote weegbree)
Potentilla indica (mock strawberry / schijnaardbei)
Prunus avium (wild cherry / zoete kers)
Prunus insititia (mirabel / mirabel) (most trees)
Pyrus communis (pear / peer)
Quercus robur (common oak / zomereik) seedlings
Quercus rubra (northern red oak / Amerikaanse eik) seedlings
Ribes nidigrolaria (jostaberry / jostabes)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / aalbes)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / braam)
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Rumex obtusifolius (bitter dock / ridderzuring)
Salix alba (white willow / schietwilg)
Sambucus nigra (elderberry / gewone vlier)
Silene dioica (red campion / dagkoekoeksbloem)
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)
Stachys sylvatica (hedge woundwort / bosandoorn)
Symphytum officinale (comfrey / smeerwortel)
Taraxacum officinale (dandilion / paardenbloem)
Urtica dioica (nettle / grote brandnetel)
Vitis vinifera (grape / druif)

Visible last year, not spotted this year:

Hypericum perforatum (perforate St John’s-wort / sint-janskruid)
Myosotis sylvatica (forget-me-not / vergeet-me-nietje)
Oenothera glazioviana (large-flowered evening-primrose / grote teunisbloem)
Origanum vulgare (/ wilde marjolein)
Ranunculus repens (creeping buttercup / kruipende boterbloem) inedible
Rubus fruticosus x R. idaeus (tayberry / braamboos)
Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganberry)
Scrophularia auriculata (water figwort / geoord helmkruid)
Vaccinium corymbosum (blueberry / blauwe bes)
Viola tricolor (heartsease / 3-kleurig viooltje)

Animals

Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
Ovis orientalis aries (sheep / schaap)
Equus africanus asinus (donkey / ezel)
Equus ferus caballus (horse / paard)
Oryctolagus cuniculus (European rabbit / konijn)
Rattus norvegicus or Rattus rattus (Brown or black rat / bruine of zwarte rat)
Talpa europaea (European mole / mol)
Pavo cristatus (Indian peafowl / blauwe pauw)
Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborst)
Vespula vulgaris (common wasp / gewone wesp)
Several (other) types of birds
Several (other) types of insects
Possible life in the stream

Structures

fences around meadows and property
nesting box on one of the cherry trees
further away:
- bee shed
- compost piles
- manure piles
- animal sheds
- green house
- area for general garden waste
- farm house

Tools

gardening tools (coutesy of Garden team)

Events

Due to corona the farm has been closed since March. All planned events for this year are canceled. Visitors need to register beforehand and indicate a time slot for when they want to visit.

PASTE survey allotment garden (2020)

2020-06-22T21:00:00+02:00

Starting from 2018-09-01, Ina and I have rented an allotment at an association nearby. This survey lists the different species discovered in June 2020. For comparison, at two years ago I did the same thing.

This list is part of the ongoing design for the allotment garden.

Plants

Aegopodium podagraria (ground elder / zevenblad)
- tender leaves used as a spring leaf vegetable, much as spinach
- dried leaves taste like parsely
Alium (onion family / uienfamilie)
Allium sativum (garlic / knoflook)
Amaranthus blitum (purple amaranth / Kleine Majer)
- leafs edible like spinach
Brassica juncea ssp. Juncea (mustard greens / mosterdplanten)
- cultivar King Mustard (Chinese mustard / amsoi)
Calendula officinalis (common marigold / goudsbloem)
- florets are edible
- used a medicinal herb, and color for dyeing
- marigold leaves can also be made into a poultice to help scratches and shallow cuts to heal faster, and to help prevent infection
Capsella bursa-pastoris (shepherd’s purse / herderstasje)
- Brassicacea family
Cardamine hirsuta (hairy bittercress / kleine veldkers)
- Brassicacea family
Carduus crispus (curly plumeless thistle / kruldistel)
Cerastium glomeratum (sticky mouse-ear chickweed / kluwenhoornbloem)
- The leaves and shoots were used as a wild food in ancient China. In Nepal, the juice of this plant was applied to the forehead to relieve headaches. The juice could also be dropped into the nostrils to treat nosebleeds.
Chenopodium album (lamb’s quarters / melganzevoet)
- cultivated as a grain or vegetable crop (such as in lieu of spinach), as well as animal feed in Asia and Africa
- as some of the common names suggest, it is also used as feed (both the leaves and the seeds) for chickens and other poultry.
Claytonia perfoliata (Indian lettuce / winterpostelein)
- resistant to frost
- important source of vitamin C and minerals like calcium, magnesium and iron
- whole plant is edible
Commelina communis (Asiatic dayflower / -)
- medicinal herb with febrifugal, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic effects
- also used for treating sore throats and tonsillitis
Digitalis purpurea (foxglove / vingerhoedskruid)
- toxic
- used in medicine to treat heart problems
- bumble bees love it
Elaeagnus umbellata (silverberry / zilverbes)
- nitrogen fixer
- edible berries
- propagated from a cutting
Epilobium hirsutum (great willowherb / harig wilgenroosje)
Erigeron canadensis (horseweed / Canadese fijnstraal)
- used to treat boils, snake poison and menstrual pain
Fallopia convolvulus (black-bindweed / zwaluwtong)
- grows most commonly on disturbed or cultivated land, in northern Europe typically on warm, sunny, well-drained sandy or limestone soil types
- seeds are edible, and were used in the past as a food crop
Foeniculum vulgare (fennel / venkel)
- a highly aromatic and flavorful herb
- along with anise, one of the primary ingredients of absinthe
- bulb-like stem base can be used as a vegetable
Galinsoga parviflora (Gallant Soldier / kaal knopkruid)
- edible leaves, stem and flowers
- its subtle flavour, reminiscent of artichoke, mostly develops after being cooked
- dried and ground into powder for use in soups
Helianthus tuberosus (Jerusalem artichoke / aardpeer)
- tubers are used in the same ways as potatoes
- tubers can be eaten raw
- when raw and sliced thinly, they are fit for a salad.
- can be fermented after cleaning and drying
Hemerocallis fulva (orange daylily / gewone daglelie)
- flowers are edible
Houttuynia cordata (fish mint / moerasanemoon)
- smells and tastes like Coriandrum sativum (cilantro / koriander)
Humulus lupulus (common hop / hop)
Juglans regia (common walnut / okkernoot)
Lamium amplexicaule (henbit dead-nettle / hoenderbeet, soort dovenetel)
- The leaves, stem, and flowers of the plant are edible and have a slightly sweet and peppery flavor, similar to celery. Henbit can be eaten raw or cooked.
Leonorus cardiaca (motherwort / hartgespan)
- herbacious, perennial, mint family
- leafs used to spice pea and lentil soup
- attractive for bumble bees
- used in treating heart disease and muscle cramps
Lycium barbarum (Chinese wolfberry / boksdoorn)
- berries known as gojiberry
- nightshade family
Malus domestica (apple tree / appelboom)
Malva sylvestris (common mallow / groot kaasjeskruid)
Medicago sativa (alfalfa / lucerne)
Melilotus albus (honey clover / witte honingklaver)
Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm / citroenmelisse)
- scent attracts bees
- make tea from leaves
- use as flavouring for dishes
- source of essential oil
Mentha suaveolens (Apple mint / witte munt)
- blooms July - October
- make tea from leaves
- source of essential oil
Myosotis arvensis (field forget-me-not / akkervergeet-mij-nietje)
Myosotis discolor (changing forget-me-not / veelkleurig vergeet-mij-nietje)
Nepeta cataria (catnip / wild kattenkruid)
Oenothera biennis (common evening-primrose / middelste teunisbloem)
Papaver somniferum (breadseed poppy / slaapbol)
Pastinaca sativa (parsnip / pastinaak)
- main supplier of calories before potatoes were introduced
- cook or fry
Petunia axillaris (large white petunia / petunia)
Pisum sativum (pea / erwt)
Portulaca oleracea (common purslane / postelein)
Potentilla indica (mock strawberry / schijnaardbei)
Pulmonaria affinis Jord. (lungwort / tuinlongkruid)
Prunus avium (sweet cherry / zoete kers)
Pyrus communis (European pear / gewone peer)
Raphanus sativus subsp. sativus (radish / radijs)
Rheum × hybridum (culinary rhubarb / tuinrabarber)
Ribes nigrum (blackcurrant / zwarte bes)
Ribes rubrum (redcurrant / rode bes)
Rubus idaeus (raspberry / framboos)
Rubus fruticosus (blackberry / gewone braam)
Rubus phoenicolasius (Japanese wineberry / Japanse wijnbes)
Rubus × loganobaccus (loganberry / loganbes)
Rumex acetosella (sheep’s sorrel / schapenzuring)
Rumex obtusifolius (bitter dock / ridderzuring)
Salvia officinalis (sage / salie)
Scrophularia auriculata (water figwort / geoord helmkruid)
Solanum lycopersicum (tomato / tomaat)
- several cultivars
Solanum nigrum (black nightshade / zwarte nachtschade)
Solanum tuberosum (potato / aardappel)
- several cultivars
Stellaria media (chickweed / vogelmuur)
Tanacetum parthenium (feverfew / moederkruid)
Thymus vulgaris (common thyme / echte tijm)
Trifolium pratense (red clover / rode klaver)
Trifolium repens (white clover / witte klaver)
Tropaeolum majus (Indian cress / oostindische kers)
Tulipa tarda (tulip / tulp)
Urtica dioica (common nettle / grote brandnetel)
Urtica urens (dwarf nettle / kleine brandnetel)
Verbena officinalis (common verbena / ijzerhard)
- herb, perennial
- use as tea for treating infection and fever
Viola tricolor (wild pansy / driekleurig viooltje)
Vitis vinifera (common grape vine / wijndruif)

Animals

birds / vogels
- Columba palumbus (wood pigeon / houtduif)
- Corvus monedula (Western jackdaw / kauw)
- Erithacus rubecula (European robin / roodborstje)
- Garrulus glandarius (Eurasian jay / gaai)
- Phasianus colchicus (pheasant / fazant)
- Pica pica (common magpie / ekster)
- Troglodytes troglodytes (/ winterkoning)
mammals / zoogdieren
- Felis silvestris catus (domesticated cat / huiskat)
- Homo sapiens sapiens (human / mens)
- Mus musculus (house mouse / huismuis)
insects / beetles
- Aphididae (aphid / bladluis)
- Bombus terrestris (buff-tailed bumblebee / aardhommel)
- Coccinellae (ladybird / lieveheesbeestje)
- Formicidae (ant / mier)
- Pieris rapae (small white / klein koolwitje)
- Pyrrhocoris apterus (firebug / vuurwants)
- Sphinx ligustri (privet hawk moth / ligusterpijlstaart)
- Syrphidae (hoverfly / zweefvlieg)
- Vanessa atalanta (red admiral / atalanta)

Structures

shed at the back
greenhouse at the back
- clad with plastic sheeting
greenhouse in the middle
- May 2020: 5 out of 7 windows smashed in
concrete tile seating area and path
fence made from wood and chicken wire
compost bin
two rain barrels

Tools

small gardening tools
plastic gardening pots

Events

humans walk by garden along main path
humans sit in garden
humans walk, work, harvest in garden
cats visit garden
last year 836 mm rain, extremely dry from April to September

Precipitation 2019-June 2020:

====== ======= ======
 Year   Month    mm
====== ======= ======
 2019     1      56
          2      79
          3     100
          4      17
          5      54
          6      77
          7      29
          8      71
          9      36
         10     121
         11      97
         12      99
------ ------- ------
 2020     1      47
          2     165
          3      87
          4      19
          5      26
          6     116
====== ======= ======

Feedback on Workshop Design Your Life

2020-05-30T14:35:00+02:00

The feedback on this page talks about the workshop Design Your Life.

Gábor says

First of all, thank you again for offering the life design workshop. It was well facilitated, well organised, a valueable workshop. I wish you will have more opportunities in the future as an elder in your community to support the others by sharing your knowledge.

While I was at Rakesh’s course, I lived in a car with Ana, and was exploring the world to find a place to settle. Compared to that, by the time I joined your workshop, we were settled down in Spain and are expecting a baby. I’m saying this because on one hand, I felt well-prepared joining your workshop and saw it rather as a second round of life-design exercises for myself. At the same, my life progressed quite a lot, so it also felt absolutely timely to do all this exercises again. In fact, this is one the lessons I took away: revisit my life design at least at every major life change. My life-design toolbox is now full of great tools, thank you!

Things resonated well with me:

The delivery of the sessions was always very clear, straight to the point, and giving enough space for the participants to contribute.
I enjoyed it a lot that you introduced tools from a wide range of domains, not limiting your audience to “permaculture principles” or so.
The web of goals tool was very helpful for me. It’s a very simple visualization yet it enables me to see the relations between my needs and activities clearly. I’ve just done this exercise today again and found some weak links.
The Arno’s Wheel (“Contemplaying saying”) is brilliant. Such a powerful way to connect different dimensions. It underlines that change is only possible in the here-and-now through action in a profound way.
You managed to squeeze in quite a lot in the 80 min sessions without the feel of being rushed. Well done!
My aha moment: I don’t have a vision statement for my life. I want to have one.
I really appreciate your transparency about the workshop outline upfront and thank you for sharing it in you blog. You lead by example.

Things didn’t make it to the previous list (observations, feelings):

I missed engaging more with the other participants.
Bullet journaling didn’t work for me. What I really enjoy in keeping a journal is the extensive writing. I don’t want to be straight to the point and systematic. Usually that’s my life at work: being organized, being productive, eliminating waste. When I’m with myself (through my journal), I wanna be absolutely free of expectations. I stopped doing BJ after a week or so.
Once or twice I got confused for what reason we were talking about a certain tool. Like what is that we want to achieve by the end of the workshop. Maybe this was just somewhat confusing for me coming from a SADIMET-driven workshop with Rakesh where each tool was clearly connected to one of the phases and it was clear that the end goal is to have the first iteration of your design that you can live.
I wonder if it was necessary to have a group vision. There was no time for the group to form. I wonder how it would have been if in the very first session you ask us to write down our personal vision statement (dreaming phase), and iterate it during each workshop, maybe even sharing with the others to say it out loud to others to manifest it stronger.
It sucks have a low-fi internet connection but I’m enjoying to be in nature.

Milou says

Je workshop heeft me geholpen bij bewustwording van wat ik belangrijk vind en het belang van voedende gewoontes creëren. Dankjewel. Mooi om te beseffen hoe we invloed kunnen uitoefenen op het designen van ons leven, en actie te ondernemen.

Clément says

The workshop helped me in different ways. First of all I became way more serious concerning my Journaling. After the workshop I went further into bullet journal tutorials and made a combination of the things that are valuable to me. So each day is logged, which falls into weekly sum ups falling into monthly sum ups.

The key here is that I have a rational tool to keep track of what I have done in a month and make conclusions of how I behave regarding what happened during a certain month. Applying this for a lifetime and I think I can really draw good lessons out of it! It also is a tool for making sure I keep achieve the important goals that I’ve set up and that can be forgotten in the chaos of life sometimes.

Concerning the tools you described in your workshops I particularly, as you know maybe, enjoyed the tools helping you sorting out what are the positive and negatives aspects of things you are doing in life. The quotes we had at the last meeting were very valuable as I write them again at the beginning of each month as a reminder of mindset to keep. Also the firsts workshops with the vision of the wheel was a great eye opener!

To me, I think a part that could really be interesting to work on during a workshop is the implementation of the tools for everyday life. I feel like we have covered very interesting topic and powerful tools. However I question the reccurence of when to work again with the tools. Obviously Journaling is a daily task, but for the rest, I haven’t had a clear idea of when to use them in daily life?

I also wanted to evoke the SMART way of formulating goals. Do you know this tool? This is a tool that I use personally because it’s the way we have been taught to formulate goals in Physiotherapy for our treatments. But the key of this tool is really to break down a global vision into making it specific and doable on a weekly basis. And it starts by the way we formulate our goals. This was an idea that I wanted to share.

Katharina says

Now is the time for my feedback! Still, I am very happy that you asked me to participate in your first workshop session. Thank you! I am surprised that you offered us to work on topics that I am interested in general.

The exercises are useful completions to the routines that I have and challenged me to work even more on them.

I enjoyed their diversity and to talk about them with the group. Nontheless I found it helpful that we did not have to answer each of them publicly. Some content might be too private.

For me, the structure and the content of your presentations were clear. It is great that you offer us to check the slides afterwards again! You took time to explain and answered our questions. Every session had a different topic/theme which made it different from others. Keep up with it!

Concerning the duration of the workshop: 1 ½ h were nice! If you think about changing it, I think you could try 2h to have more time to discuss, but not shorter than 1 ½ h.

There is still something which is a bit hard for me to get and to explain: the first session. As I can not explain accurately why I had difficulties, here are some of my thoughts about it:

I remember that I liked working on the saying. My interpretation was far more open and chaotic than yours. So I had difficulties to understand the wheel(rational and tidy) at first.

Maybe you prepared too much content for the first session. Maybe I was a bit overwhelmed meeting new people and seeing you again after a while… I could not always follow during the session. But when I checked your slides afterwards, everything was clear!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Contemplation from thought to destiny

2020-05-08T20:00:00+02:00

Contemplate the following saying by Lao Tzu:

Sow a thought, reap a word;

Sow a word, reap an action;

Sow an action, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.

Key insights:

thoughts and words are predictions (mental formations about the future)
habits and character are memories (mental and karmic formations about the past)
all models are wrong, some are useful
link with Dragon Dreaming project wheel: dreaming (character / destiny / thought), planning (thought / word), doing (action) and celebrating (habit / character)
a change in destiny is possible through a change in action; the change is immediate but will only become visible after percolating through habit and character.

Workshop Design Your Life

2020-02-19T13:53:00+01:00

This workshop is in response to a question from Ana and Gábor for help with finding direction in their lives. The outline below is based on the process I followed for the design of my own life with additional resources from books, websites and blog posts I have read and experimented with in the mean time.

Some of the participants of this workshop have provided me with valuable feedback on the workshop.

If you would like to take part in this workshop, please let me know. When I have found 6 to 8 people interested in doing this workshop with me, we can set a date.

Outline

Before we begin
- Think about your evening. Think about your habits and rituals;
- Find one activity you do in the evening that you do out of habit but that ultimately leaves you unfulfilled;
- Replace this activity with 10 minutes of Bullet Journaling for at least the duration of the workshop.
Opening thought

Sow a thought, reap a word;

Sow a word, reap an action;

Sow an action, reap a habit;

Sow a habit, reap a character;

Sow a character, reap a destiny.
Introduction
- Life design is impossible… but here’s what we can do
  - above all make sure the basics necessities are fulfilled: supply of food and water, shelter and security
  - focus on process not outcome
  - focus on joy and simplicity: “Does it spark joy?” Remove what does not (any more)
- Workshop structure based on Dragon Dreaming project cycle
  - Celebrate - Dream - Plan - Do (- Celebrate - …)
Celebrate - answers: “Where do we come from?”
- Slides week 1
- Get to know self
  - keep a journal (bullet journal, diary, morning pages, …)
  - meditate / contemplate / practice mindfulness
  - why do you want to Design Your Life?
- Apply 9 Ways of Observing as it relates to your life
  - I wonder…
  - Observe energy
  - Observe flow
  - Observe communities
  - Observe patterns
  - Observe edge
  - Observe limits
  - Observe from stillness
  - Observe past & future
- Apply 9 Forms of Capital as it relates to your life
  - energy capital: list of income and expenses / access to sunlight
  - living capital: list of living beings in your life
  - material capital: list of inanimate objects in your life
  - financial capital: list of assets and liabilities
  - cultural capital: list of roles, cultural expressions
  - intellectual capital: list of knowledge areas
  - experiential capital: list of learning experiences / failures / turning points
  - social capital: list of relations / connections
  - spiritual / emotional captial: list of practices to keep you sane, grounded, balanced, and cultivate gratefulness and joy
- To dig deeper:
  - TED talk: What makes a good life?
  - Finding purpose: 12 exercises to help you discover purpose and passion
  - Personality tests
    - Myers-Briggs
    - The Big Five: IPIP-NEO
    - Enneagram
    - Cognitive Function Model
  - Mindfulness practices
    - Bullet journal (Ryder Carroll)
    - Morning pages / Artists dates (Julia Cameron - The Artist’s Way)
    - Metta / Loving kindness meditation
    - Contemplation / Discursive meditation
    - Yoga
Dream - answers: “Where do we want to go?”
- Slides week 2
- Do a mental inventory
  - Three columns: Working on / Should be working on / Want to be working on
  - Ask: Why am I doing these things? Filter using:
    - Is it vital? If yes, keep;
    - Does this matter to me or to someone I care about? If yes, keep;
    - Are there consequences for not doing this? If yes, maybe keep. If no, drop it because it is a distraction.
- Create a vision using a Dreaming Circle
  - of self;
  - of couple or family;
  - of group.
Plan - answers: “How do we get there?”
- Slides week 3
- Evaluate activities using a Reverse Fishbone Diagram
  - positive effects go above the line;
  - negative effects go under the line;
  - mark primary focus and all first order effects.
- Remove activities before adding new ones;
  - Move from Complicated to Simple by focusing on the essential;
  - Move from Simple to Complex by combining essentials.
- Apply Multiple elements x multiple functions to make a Web of goals;
  - Take elements from Mental inventory;
  - Take functions from Reverse Fishbone Diagram and your Vision.
- Treat everything as an experiment:
  - Start simple;
  - Start small;
  - Keep it fun.
- To dig deeper:
  - Choose a set of guiding principles to tickle your imagination:
    - Permaculture ethics
    - Holmgren principles
    - Attitudinal principles
    - Permaculture principles through a druids lens;
  - Read the Inner landscape of our lives for a way to apply the last set of principles;
Do - Let’s Go!

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe, American athlete
- Slides week 4
- Focus on process not outcome;
- Create a culture with good habits and fun rituals;
- Create a personal philosophy;
- Choose activities that reinforce multiple goals;
- Find joy and encouragement in small things;
- Use reminders, affimations and celebrations;
- Keep at it;
- To dig deeper:
  - Affirmations: An Introduction by John Michael Greer
  - How to get started with difficult tasks
  - Use the intend / release / notice loop (intend = plan, release = do, notice = celebrate);
Celebrate - Start the cycle anew regularly
- Appreciate the AHA moment;
- Close the feedback loop by failing early, failing fast, failing often and failing better;
- Turn failure and rejection into learning experiences: “Either things go well, or you will learn something”;
- Create daily rituals / habits to integrate celebration in your life:
  - review the day;
  - write down three (or more) things you’re grateful for;
  - plan the next day;
- Enlist the help of a partner / sangha / community to keep you motivated, accountable and to provide a sounding board;
- Regularly check in with and review your vision, intentions, habits and roles; choose to do this monthly, on solstices and equinoxes, or during major holidays;
- Fill out a Year Compass;
- Try Guided Journaling.

Learning Journey

2019-11-28T12:13:00+01:00

This learning journey or guided journaling is sourced from precencing institute. See their guided journaling description for more details.

1. Challenges:

Look at yourself from outside as if you were another person: What are the 3 or 4 most important challenges or tasks that your life (work and non-work) currently presents?

2. Self:

Write down 3 or 4 important facts about yourself. What are the important accomplishments you have achieved or competencies you have developed in your life (examples: raising children; finishing your education; being a good listener)?

3. Emerging Self:

What 3 or 4 important aspirations, areas of interest, or undeveloped talents would you like to place more focus on in your future journey (examples: writing a novel or poems; starting a social movement; taking your current work to a new level)?

4. Frustration:

What about your current work and/or personal life frustrates you the most.

5. Energy:

What are your most vital sources of energy? What do you love?

6. Inner resistance:

What is holding you back? Describe 2 or 3 recent situations (in your work or personal life) where you noticed one of the following three voices kicking in, which then prevented you from exploring the situation you were in more deeply:

Voice of Judgment: shutting down your open mind (downloading instead of inquiring)
Voice of Cynicism: shutting down your open heart (disconnecting instead of relating)
Voice of Fear: shutting down your open will (holding on to the past or the present instead of letting go.

7. The crack:

Over the past couple of days and weeks, what new aspects of your Self have you noticed? What new questions and themes are occurring to you now

8. Your community:

Who makes up your community, and what are their highest hopes in regard to your future journey? Choose three people with different perspectives on your life and explore their hopes for your future (examples: your family; your friends; a parentless child on the street with no access to food, shelter, safety, or education). What might they hope for if they were looking at your future through their eyes?

9. Helicopter:

Watch yourself from above (as if in a helicopter). What are you doing? What are you trying to do in this stage of your professional and personal journey?

Watch your community/organization/collective movement from above: what are you trying to do collectively in the present stage of your collective journey?

10. Footprint:

Imagine you could fast-forward to the very last moments of your life, when it is time for you to pass on. Now look back on your life’s journey as a whole. What would you want to see at that moment? What footprint do you want to leave behind on the planet? What would you want to be remembered for by the people who live on after you?

11. Help:

From that (future) place, look back at your current situation as if you were looking at a different person. Now try to empathize with and help that other person from the viewpoint of your highest future Self. What advice would you give? Empathize, and sense, what the advice is—and then write it down.

12. Intention:

Now return again to the present and crystallize what it is that you want to create: your vision and intention for the next 3-5 years. What vision and intention do you have for yourself and your work? What are some essential core elements of the future that you want to create in your personal, professional, and social life? Describe as concretely as possible the images and elements that occur to you

13. Letting-go:

What would you have to let go of in order to bring your vision into reality? What is the old stuff that must die? What is the old skin (behaviors, thought processes, etc.) that you need to shed?

14. Seeds:

What in your current life or context provides the seeds for the future that you want to create? Where do you see your future beginning?

15. Prototyping:

Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the future in which you could discover “the new” by doing something, what would that prototype look like?

16. People:

Who can help you make your highest future possibilities a reality? Who might be your core helpers and partners?

17. Action:

If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 to 7 days?

Lessons learned baking bread

2019-11-26T09:13:00+01:00

I have been making bread regularly since 2017. As I look through the photo’s I have made over the years I notice quite a shift in how I do things now versus how I did them when I started out.

Notable changes:

I started using more water in my dough;
I grease the tin with vegetable oil instead of butter;
I use a bigger bowl (with a lid) to mix the dough in;
I use either sourdough starter exclusively or use yeast mixed in from a small amount of commercial bread mix;
I use almost 100% whole meal flour for all my breads;
Using the mixer with dough hooks only for the initial mixing. The second mixing now only involves folding over the dough with a silicone spatula I already would use to get the dough out of the bowl;
All utensils get cleaned directly after being used. Cleaning off dried up dough is very hard.

Basic recipe

I use the following recipe for all my breads (2019):

700g whole meal flower
200g sourdough starter
600g warm water
salt to taste
linseeds / sesame seeds / sunflower seeds to taste

If I use a commercial bread mix, I limit it to 250g and add whole meal flower to 700g total dry mass.

I mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl with a tight fitting plastic cover and then set the dough to rise. With the yeast from the commercial bread mix, the rise takes between 1 and 2 hours. Using only sourdough starter, the rise takes 6-8 hours.

When making a bread in a baking tin, I fold the dough over itself in the bowl with a spatula. I pour it in the greased tin and push it out with the underside of a table spoon. I then let the dough rise for a second time. This time uncovered in the tin until it makes a nice dome over the top of the tin.

When making a no knead bread, I put white flower on a counter top and pour the dough on top of it. I put more white flower on top of the dough. I stretch the left side and fold it over the rest. Then the right side: stretch and fold. Then top, then bottom and finally left and right once more. Then put the folded dough on a lightly dusted baking tray.

Depending on the height of the dough, baking time is 50-60min at gas oven setting 4-5. Place the bread in the middle of the oven.

Water content

When I started out my dough had trouble rising sufficiently. I have found a wetter dough and a consistently warm spot really help with the rise.

Bread samples

A bread with raisins mixed in from 2018.

An experiment with no knead bread in 2019.

First rise

An experiment I did it in 2018: putting the bowl in a pan of warm water and covering with a lid.

This is what I do in 2019. Notice the bigger bowl, the better fitting cover, the free heat from the router and the wetter dough.

Second rise

On the left an image from 2018. I used butter to grease the tin and covered with a plastic foil.

On the right an image from 2019. I use vegetable oil to grease the tin. I no longer cover the tin for the second rise. Note that the dough is not yet pushed into the sides of the tin.

Sour dough starter

The image on the left is a sourdough starter directly after feeding. The image on the right is less than 3 hours later (in August, without refrigeration). Notice how much the starter has increased in volume in such a short time.

For a friend I created a second sourdough started. I took 200g from my starter and added the usual 100g of whole meal flower and 100g of water. The rubber band indicates maximum filling capacity to avoid the container overflowing as the started will double in size in a few days even when living in the refrigerator.

Survey of Arno’s house (2019)

2019-09-21T21:15:00+02:00

Background

Ina and I live in a house in a bloc constructed in 1957. Our house is a terraced house; we share two side walls with our neighbors. The house has three floors: the ground floor, the first floor and the attic.

Over the last years, Ina and I have wondered if our current arrangement and use of the different rooms could be improved.

Current use of the house

Ground floor

toilet
- toilet with water closet
- toilet brush and cleaning products
- female hygiene products
- reading material
- waste bin
- access to hallway
hallway
- coat rack
- fire extinguisher
- cat litterbox
- shoe rack
- staircase to first floor
- access to front, toilet, kitchen, closet, living room
closet under the stairs
- short term food storage
- empty bottle storage
- empty container storage
- fuse box
- meters for gas, electricity and water
- garden shears and saws
- access to hallway
kitchen
- stove
- cutlery
- refrigerator
- washing machine
- measuring cups and weighing scales
- mixer, toaster, immersion blender
- spice rack
- sink
- drying rack
- pots and pans
- cleaning brushes and sponges
- towels
- soap, detergent, washing soda and other cleaning products
- vases
- working surfaces
- bins for plastic, general waste, paper
- kitchen spoons and spatulas
- mixing bowls
- rolling pin and baking molds
- empty containers
- some running experiments (e.g. drying bread, kombucha)
- access to hallway, backyard
living room
- books
- glasses, plates, cups
- empty containers
- fermentation experiments
- home decoration
- seed library
- potted plants
- table with 6 chairs
- sofa
- low table
- two
- sound system
- television
- tree cabinets
- three cupboards
- one small table
- cushions and blankets
- scratching post
- access to hallway, backyard

First floor

bathroom
- shower and bath
- sink
- closet
- towels
- hygiene products storage
- access to first floor hallway
(walk-in) closet
- previously bathroom with shower and sink
- water point and drainpipe available
- Arno’s clothes
- shoes
- fashion accessories
- access to first floor hallway
storage room
- table freezer
- table
- cupboards
- clothes drying rack
- dry storage for wholemeal flour and rice
- jams and chutneys
- empty jars
- Ina’s clothes
- ironing board
- drying rack for plants
- access to first floor hallway
study / workshop
- laptops
- computers
- Ina’s workbench for goldsmith work
- cupboard
- archive of Arno’s company
- office chair
- access to first floor hallway
first floor hallway
- staircase to ground floor
- staircase to attic
- access to study, bathroom, storage room, (walk-in) closet

Attic

storage
bedroom

Arno Peters Blog

Web of Goals

Link to permaculture design

Fish bone diagram

Web of Goals in 2018 (first attempt)

Web of Goals update in 2019

Web of Goals update in 2023

10 years of therapy in 1 minute

Design Arno’s life

Collect and Evaluate the Information

Apply Permaculture Ethics and Principles

Ethics

Attitudinal principles

Holmgren principles

Web of Goals

Plan for Action

Survey Arno’s life

Vision and mission

Vision

Mission

About me

Location

Short personal history

Psychological stats

Miscellaneous observations

Roles — past and present

First impressions game

9 ways of observing

Thinking in Patterns

Three “Happy” Lives

Ikigai

My Values

My Pleasures

My Community

My Way of Being

Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps

Individual resilience: 6 ways to die

Group resilience: Arno and Ina

Organization resilience: Arno and Ina’s homestead

Nation state resilience: the Netherlands

Integrated Needs Analysis Matrix

Forms of capital

Personal expenses over time

Energy usage of our household over time

ipermie.net

Holmgren principles

Observe and interact

Catch and store energy

Obtain a yield

Apply self regulation and accept feedback

Use and value renewable resources and services

Produce no waste

Design from patterns to details

Integrate rather than segregate

Use small and slow solutions

Use and value diversity

Use edges and value the marginal

Creatively use and respond to change

What Have I Been Reading and Watching

Articles I have read

From: un-Denial by Rob Mielcarski

From: Surplus Energy Economics by Tim Morgan

From: The Seneca Effect by Ugo Bardi

From: The Honest Sorcerer

From: Ecosophia by John Michael Greer

From: The Whirl of ReOrientation by Mark McGrath

From: Sasha’s Newsletter by Sasha Chapin

Videos I have watched

The Enneagram - a presentation by Richard Rohr

From: RaWMachines on YouTube

iPermie! by Bob Waldrop

Better Times Emergency Notes

Downloadable and Printable Flyers

Attitudinal principles

Multiple elements x multiple functions

Everything gardens

The problem is the solution

Yield is theoretically unlimited

Work with nature

Minimum effort, maximum effect