The Chronicles of Smurf – Principle 7
Design from Patterns to Details
Day 27
The Suzy has completed a grand design for the property, entitled ‘Dry Creek Farm: Permaculture Plan’. On overlapping sheets of butcher paper, it now graces the wall in the living room.
It has been a group effort: the Fern assisted with colouring-in. This accounts for the purple and yellow pigs, whose vibrant aura extends somewhat beyond their outlines. The Fern’s art betrays her German Expressionist leanings, I suspect.
The Harper was in charge of cutting-out, as he is a big boy now and allowed to use scissors (with rounded ends) without supervision. At the Jolly Possums Waldorf School he is encouraged to use edged implements in the whittling of spurtles and other arcane wooden objects. The Suzy is in two minds about this but the Hub is wholly in favour: ‘Start ’em young. Get ’em used to the sight of their own blood.’
The Harper has also contributed a disturbingly large, bipedal lizard to the plan. He calls it a Tee Reks. It towers over the potting shed, slavering with predatory mien. I have not seen the Tee Reks in real life and hope that it will be an infrequent visitor. There is room for only one apex predator on this smallholding, and I am determined to be it.
(Banjo is rude enough to remind me at this point of the recent incident with the chooks. I point out that, as a fine-tuned killing machine, I must preserve myself from damage. Sometimes, a tactical withdrawal is prudent.)
I am wholly in favour of large-format displays of information such as this plan. They make it much easier to educate oneself. Humankind is remarkably inconsiderate in hoarding most information in forms only accessible to humans: books — whose pages are difficult for paws to turn — and ‘smart’ devices — which remain insolently dumb to feline voice commands and paw swipes.
Thus I have to make do with random pages where books chance to fall open; newspaper articles in the bottom of my litter tray — for which I must scrape the annoying granular material to one side; information that happens to be displayed on screens. An intellectual cat must needs be an opportunist.
For this reason, the Suzy’s Permaculture wall chart is a great boon in my quest for knowledge, along with those fascinating farmyard documentaries Shaun the Sheep and Peppa Pig, which the Kidz watch for their edification before Bed Time.
Principle 7, I see, urges us to step back and ‘observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.’
This is all very well, but some details are important. For example: soft soil — but never damp! — for toileting activities; dense vegetation around birdbaths, the better to lie in ambush. This vital information is missing from the Suzy’s plan.
The proverb “can’t see the forest for the trees” reminds us that the closer we get to something, the more we are distracted from the big picture.1
A perplexing proverb: I do not see a forest on the Suzy’s plan. Moreover, trees are the dominant vegetation form of a forest, are they not? Where the eye discerns a large number of trees, it seems reasonable to infer a forest. Possibly with birds. Plump, juicy birds fluttering enticingly from branch to branch …
But I digress. Clearly I have much to learn about Permaculture.
Next week in the Chronicles of Smurf:
Principle 8: Integrate Rather Than Segregate
Smurf and Banjo struggle with communication difficulties, but agree firmly on the importance of putting the right things in the right place.
David Holmgren is the originator of the 12 permaculture design principles, which are cited above.