ARACARIA BIO DYNAMIC FARM - a 20 year project

January 2004 \| November 2003 \| October 2003 \| September 2003 \| August 2003 \| June 2003 \| April 2003, \| February 2003 \| December, 2002 \| November, 2002 \| Progress before Feb, 2003 \| What is aracaria? Click here. About the name: Click here. About the logo: Click here.
lemon myrtles in flower first lotus aerial view oblique aerial view area division		10.1.03 Lower Gully cleared off lantana, brush-cut and weeded. Ready for re-planting. Lotus in flower - amazing. 5/1/03 Lower Gully cleared off lantana. Big effort. Omer and I, all day. 4/1/)3 Checked out Des & Michelle's reforestation effort in Yankee Creek Road. Plans for shade house. 2/1/03 Lemon Myrtles and Mangos cleared and mulched. 25/12 Grid mapping. Area mapping. Plant database. Preparation garden layout. First cow shit run with Michelle. 23/12 First good rain for weeks. Thunderstorm, rain started 5pm, heavy till 7pm. Check gauge and dams tomorrow. 19/12/02 aracaria is a beautiful 22 acre bio dynamic farming property in Mullumbimby, NSW, Australia. The intention is to create an environment at this location that expresses the Steiner philosophy on architecture and landscape in the way the Goetheanum (1st Goetheanum, 2nd Goetheanum) does in terms of architecture. How this will evolve only time will tell. Progress and ideas will be recorded on this website. OK, as best as possible. And by the way: if anybody wants to put up an article on something, that can be done. If we haven't got a button, we'll make one. Personally I would like to read something from Amirel on jazz and from Chris about passive solar energy. He told me about this in a very interesting way. In addition I would like to see an article from Russell about his sound ideas and stuff. Back to the project. Maybe the idea is to encourage a natural and content growth of the land into a form that becomes a visual expression of the Steiner idea (or ideal) of 'living nature experience'. Not necessarily as a homage to Steiner but more as an experiment what such an expression would actually look like. As in the case of the Goetheanum these ideas can be expressed in a style of architecture that distinctive and unusually aesthetic So why not in landscape? And what would it look like? And how would one go about it?. For a start the name: aracaria. 1. Araucaria cunninghamii is the name of the local Hoop Pine tree of which quite a few grow on the property. 2. The word 'ara' has several Latin meanings: ara - sanctuary / altar / refuge arare - verb - plough, till, cultivate; produce by ploughing, grow caria - sound a bit like 'care' which is a good thing the ending 'ia' echoes the word 'utopia' which is, as Aisha said 'an impossibility' but still has a nice potentiality flavour. 3. The sound of the word has a bit of an Aboriginal memory which is a good thing. 4. Linda tells me that it is also a 'Steiner type of a word'. That's great but I don't understand this as yet. The Logo: I've developed if from Aiesha's sketch. I like the way it breaks the word and puts a little pause before the sharp 'c'. It also indicates that something is happening above as well as below, if the word itself represents the surface of the land. The colours are fairly wild, maybe something better will emerge. Questions to ponder: 1. What to do first? Linda has had the two lower paddocks slashed. Very effective. A new experience for me. One can see what's going on. Answer: this has produced a large quantity of hay used to mulch the trees. I like the look of the big figtree very much and would like to clear the lantana and other stuff growing around its buttresses. But am not quite sure how to do that. Answer: All cleared and mulched, See 'progress' 2. How to get around the place? Do we need a tractor? If not, what do we need? It seems to me that we definitely need some sort of a vehicle to get the tools around the place. But what exactly is the best for our needs? Not sure. Answer: See progress 3. The bore pump. I would like to have it fixed but I am getting some funny impressions: Peter never had it fixed (why not?). Linda seems to think that we really don't need it. And Neville, the guy from Farm Care who is meant to fix it, simply doesn't turn up. Maybe we don't need this bore? Answer (partial): see water