Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
TOUGHEN UP with Beck Lowe
996 Plays11 months ago
Throw a chicken bone in the cogs of the never-say-die machine with this week’s convo about DEATHHHHH.
Not going to coat this one in plum sauce and call it “spare ribs” – today Beck Lowe and I go the whole hog on keeping animals, killing animals, and why to hone that skill if you LOVE animals. Get around it.
Book ~ Our Street by Beck Lowe + David Holmgren
Podcast ~ Poetry Unbound
Podcast ~ Big Things. Little Things.
Podcast ~ Ologies
Book ~ RetroSuburbia
For the seekers ~ Do a Permaculture Design Certificate!
Live Online PDC with Beck + David ~ February
Rocklyn Ashram PDC with Beck + David ~ March
Permaculture property ~ Melliodora
Little known gardening program ~ Gardening Australia
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Disclaimer
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, this is Katie and here's a disclaimer. This episode talks about animals. Keeping them, killing them, eating them. Some stories are graphic. If that's not up your alley,
00:00:21
Speaker
I won't be offended if you sail away to poetry unbound, or big things, little things, or ologies, some of my favourite feel-good podcasts.
Living Close to Nature: Observations and Ethics
00:00:31
Speaker
But if you and your ears are still here, welcome to the Good Ship Reskillience, a podcast about skills, the resilience they bring, and about living closer to the ground so we don't have quite so far to fall if our fragile modern systems fail us.
00:00:49
Speaker
And when you do start living closer to the ground, you notice how many things you step on, how many snails fill the wrath of your crocs, how many bugs bear the brunt of your bloodstones. When your face is pressed up against the plants and animals and soil that sustains you, you see a lot more death. It's everywhere, intentional, accidental, and as innocent as digging a hole for a seedling and slaying a few worms in the process.
00:01:18
Speaker
Whether you believe only creatures with eyes and nervous systems are sentient and therefore worth feeling sad about, or if you extend that grace to carrots and rocks and mushrooms too, the question is, do you look away or lean in?
Tasmania Journey: Meat, Emotion, and Taboos
00:01:35
Speaker
That's what I was asking myself when I went to Tasmania in my early 20s, fresh off the veganism boat, wanting to get back to the source of my food.
00:01:45
Speaker
Choosing to eat meat again had me wanting to take responsibility. Even though I was a kid who tiptoed around like a robber to avoid stealing the life of a single ant, I hated the thought of killing. So it was in a small voice that I asked my host family on a little farm in Southern Tassie if I could go with them to a livestock auction and buy myself a rooster.
00:02:09
Speaker
I chose a dilapidated cock rule named number 143, who, after some passionate bidding and bemused looks from the locals, became mine for $6. And that evening, after dark, when the birds were calm in their coop, I pulled him out. I was terrified and blubbering and broke his neck with a broom handle. I was so scared of prolonging his suffering that I yanked extra hard, his head pulling right off like Play-Doh and flying into the bushes.
00:02:39
Speaker
quickly followed by a Jack Russell. And that was the first time I had a pre-existing relationship with a roast. Death happens every day, gazillions of times a day, whether it's in an abattoir or under your foot. It's both humdrum and holy.
00:02:57
Speaker
And leaning into the discomfort of death is a worthwhile practice, not just for the obvious reasons of connecting with your dinner and appreciating every atom, which are bloody good reasons, but more broadly to stick it to our cultural taboo around death. Because acknowledging that everything ends and we all become compost is kind of like throwing a chicken bone into the cogs of the machine.
00:03:20
Speaker
Our machine civilization possessed by limitless growth, infinite potential and always having the lights on. Acknowledging death doesn't make you reckless, it makes you reverent.
Introducing Beck Lowe: Permaculture Expertise
00:03:31
Speaker
And someone who lives that reverence is Bechlo, my esteemed and capable and tough and wry and unshod guest today on Resculience.
00:03:41
Speaker
Beck is a permy through and through. She teaches permaculture, writes about permaculture, and wields her editorial skills on pop songs to make them more permaculture. She comes from the world of ecology, majoring in zoology, has a master's in sustainable agriculture, and is, in her own words, one of those nerdy people who quite enjoys reading academic papers.
00:04:06
Speaker
Beck is also an animal husbandry whiz with a forthcoming book on the topic, always bringing baby goats and dogs and ducklings to the office who follow her around devotedly. She manages a 40 acre rural property under her own steam and sweat, which I find particularly inspiring. And she's the woman you call if you need an animal dispatched with great skill and kindness. Did I mention she was tough?
00:04:33
Speaker
Today we cover all of that terrain and
A Day in the Life of Beck Lowe
00:04:36
Speaker
more. A voracious convo for those interested in taking their ethics as far as humanly possible. While knowing where to stop, of course. Here's Beck Lowe in conversation. And do listen to the end if you want to find out where and how you can learn from Beck in person. Enjoy. Do you have a snapshot you can paint for us around a typical day for you?
00:05:03
Speaker
Nope. There's no typical day, but what's a day on the land for you? Well, yeah, I unfortunately don't get many days on the land. I tend to get more days where I am actually teaching or doing the admin behind the teaching.
00:05:18
Speaker
But yeah, a typical day in the land I do get up and see the goats every morning. About to start milking again after a gap. They've just kitted again, so that'll be good. That really sets the daily routine. Do, yeah, a little bit morning stuff. Yeah, the land stuff I try and fit in around other things. Often I'm heading to the computer and doing some sort of admin. Sounds very boring and unpermy, but that's unfortunately the reality.
00:05:47
Speaker
And I do do face-to-face courses too, so sometimes I'm travelling to various towns or places to do the face-to-face training. Yeah, but getting time in the garden, getting time with the goats, let alone, you know, basic things like doing the dishes, they're all slotted in somewhere.
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much to do in, if you're living from scratch existence, and I'm always curious about how people balance earning a crust versus baking bread. And maybe we can talk about that a little bit later, but there's definitely- But it is such a good little phrase. I love that phrase. I cooked it up myself. Of course you did. I actually, before we get too far into the unpicking your financial situation,
00:06:38
Speaker
Lucky I brought my bank statements, yeah. Thank you. Very good. What attracted you to permaculture originally?
Discovering Permaculture: Activism and Positivity
00:06:47
Speaker
The positivity, I guess. I've always been interested in animals and ecology and things and studied ecology at uni and partway through my uni degree, went to Africa and traveled around Africa and my traveling companion then found the intro to permaculture's Zimbabwe edition and showed me. I thought, well, that looks interesting.
00:07:07
Speaker
I came back to Australia and decided that's something I wanted to do. But prior to uni, I'd been very involved in activism, particularly against cutting down old-growth forests. So I basically spent a gap year protesting and felt that was the most important thing I could be doing and really didn't see a positive way forward. It was all, no, no, no, don't, don't, don't. Focus on the problems and pushing back from that.
00:07:36
Speaker
Then when I discovered permaculture through just this random picking up the book, suddenly realised that there was actually a positive way forward that instead of complaining about what's there as, you know, creating the future that you want and demonstrating ways to live lighter on the planet and at the same time having a better life than I'd ever envisioned for myself. Like I always wanted to move to the country and do these things and I've been hooked ever since so yeah really was life-changing discovering permaculture.
00:08:06
Speaker
I really love that idea that activism there are the holding actions of kind of pushing back against something and then there are the generative whole bodied or whole life embodiment of your ethics and principles. What does activism mean to you now?
Balancing Activism with Personal Well-being
00:08:27
Speaker
Yeah, as you were hinting, then it could mean so many different things, and I think there is still a place for that negative pushback. It's just there needs to be balance. You've got to be able to show that there's a positive way forward rather than just a whole lot of problems as a bigger picture thing, but also on a personal level that you can't spend your whole life, or maybe some individuals can, but most people can't spend their whole life focusing on the negative. You've got to be able to find that balance.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think activism means different things to different people and you know if someone wants to get involved in activism they need to find what makes sense for them and different things that make sense to different people particularly at different life stages. Yeah I was speaking with David about this yesterday and the phrase enlightened self-interest came up because I'm a big proponent of
00:09:21
Speaker
doing the things that bring you that deep, a deep sense of satisfaction that is beyond hedonism and superficial acquisition of material things. And that's generally, they're generally things that are better for you and people around you and the place around you, instead of trying to
00:09:38
Speaker
do good unto someone else or something because that's when you run into strife of not really understanding other people's contexts in a way that you can influence or intervene really truly in a positive way. But also it leads to burnout. Like so many activists do get burnt out if they're not doing things that
00:09:59
Speaker
that enrich them as well and enrich their lives. So self-care is really important because I just know so many activists who haven't managed to find that balance and have died young or had addiction issues or mental health issues or something. And I think if I hadn't discovered permaculture, that would probably be me as well.
00:10:19
Speaker
So how much of your life is lived consciously and intentionally based on something you've kind of set in motion and how much is it just following your curiosity and following your nose? A bit of both. I'm quite tied to my land because I've been there for 26 years now so a lot of things follow that but in terms of
00:10:43
Speaker
And, you know, I've got a pretty firm vocation in the permaculture teaching world. That's how I make money and that's what I really love the most. So they're sort of set parameters, but within that parameters, there's a lot of follow your nose and a course might come up here or have another idea for a different course and there's more flexibility there or likewise with the land, I've got some ideas, but then I'll, you know, have another idea about, you know, hey, wouldn't it be great to have more of this or more of that or arrange things differently or whatever.
00:11:12
Speaker
A lot of following your nose, but within set boundaries, I guess you'd say. That feels really comforting and that you can actually go really, really deep when you have a bit of an electro net around your interests. Yes. Or maybe just a nice flowing stream or a windbreak. I don't know. Electro nets a bit. A Hawthorne hedge. Yeah, something like that's a bit better than electro. I mean, I've got anything against electro net, but I don't know. I just don't use it much.
00:11:41
Speaker
Well, whenever I hear a permaculture practitioner on a podcast, the host is always very delicately and quizzically asking them, so what is permaculture, really? Can you just give us a definition that people can understand? And I'm wondering, instead of asking you that, can you give us, myself and all of the lovely listeners, some examples of permaculture in practice in your life?
00:12:07
Speaker
Sure. It's a whole life thing, really. As most of the listeners probably know, it started off more as very much a land-based, how do we actually produce food in a way that nature does, basically, and design things for human systems. But it's extended more to that, and I really feel most of my life is about permaculture and thinking about ways to meet my needs, my community's needs, and humanity in general's needs.
00:12:36
Speaker
from what we've got not living too far into the future and understanding how nature does things and copying those things and you ask for specifics and I'll give you a really general answer but let me think about the specifics a bit more so you know the obvious one is eating a lot from the garden but also
00:12:56
Speaker
Most of the rest of the things that you eat buying in bulk through contacts that I don't necessarily know but there's probably only one or maybe two degrees of separation between me and the growers and from ethical businesses or people like Sue who listeners may have already met who does bulk foods.
00:13:18
Speaker
Yeah, things like really thinking about the ethics of what you do for a living and what you buy, upcycling things rather than buying new things. I mean, it's one of those problems that people might get all excited about, something like aquaponics, for instance, which can be great in some circumstances but might take a lot of
00:13:36
Speaker
embodied energy and a lot of materials and energy and you've got to actually say, you know, part of the permaculture thinking is weighing up the cost. Am I actually going to get enough out of this to make this investment right? And yeah, that's not limited to permaculture. It's quite interesting to bring that economic sort of thinking into permaculture, but we do. It gets back to that permaculture principle of attaining yield.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's nice to think bigger than... What comes to mind when you offer that idea is someone buying a keep cup because they want to reduce takeaway coffee cups, but they might have had a camping cup at home or something that they could just take to the cafe that was already there, had already been created, had already had that energy put into it, and it might not be as fancy as something with a lovely cork handle, but it's there.
00:14:31
Speaker
But more fundamentally, it doesn't even change your lifestyle to make you think, okay, I'm addicted to coffee from a commercial source. Please don't go down back. Please don't. Where, you know, and too many of the things are like, let's give up plastic bags at the supermarket and it'd be way more radical. Let's give up supermarkets. Like it's not important. I don't shop at supermarkets except on a very limited situations. And people need to, I think sometimes take that deeper dive and say, okay, why do I need to take away coffee cup?
00:15:01
Speaker
Should I be growing my own coffee? Should I be transferring to something else? Or is this a decision I've made that this is my particular one thing and I'm sticking to it no matter what, but at least consciously making that decision rather than unconsciously assuming that that habit's all right because I've bought myself a new keep cap.
00:15:20
Speaker
Wow. Do you have a name for what that process is? It's like the de-blinkering or the question behind the question or is there a term or a concept that people can apply that is questioning, interrogating something beyond just that face value, swap in, swap out?
00:15:39
Speaker
Sometimes I know it's called deeper green compared to other green, but I'm not sure if that's the actual terminology. But a lot of it is the permaculture systems thinking we are invited to question.
00:15:52
Speaker
all those aspects of your you know your being. One of the big ones that I've heard from Sue is because I have a background in health health care and my orientation is often what's healthiest for me what's what's the best thing I can eat to put in my body and sometimes Sue's retort is
00:16:12
Speaker
maybe it's not about what's healthiest for you right now, it is about what's available or it is about what we have in surplus. And I know she's very attuned to her body and intuitively eats like a master, but that sense of, well, kind of creeping up on the fact of you're going to die and breaking into that space of is it really all about self-preservation and self-interest or are there times when you actually give away some of your own interests
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's such an interesting one and it's a really delicate balance to tread. Thinking about our nutritionist friend who said the two hardest groups to work with are vegans because they won't eat meat and permies because they only eat ethically and what's available.
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, but I also think human bodies are amazingly adaptable. That's why we live all over the world and have done, you know, pre sending different goods and different things around the world and
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah and if permaculture involves re-localising it also involves things like re-mineralising soils and things to making sure we're getting the absolute maximum food value out of these local things and trusting our bodies to know what might be an addiction and what might actually be necessary but also opening up possibilities because
00:17:36
Speaker
I know I feel better if I eat meat, but if I was still reliant on the industrial food system for meat, I would not eat meat. I don't eat things that have gone through abattoirs and through that whole system, but because I've got permaculture systems and I can kill things that have had a happy life and that have been fed mostly on fodder or scraps or
00:18:00
Speaker
some other way that's more sustainable than the mainstream system, I can actually eat fairly optimally in a way that I couldn't if I wasn't a permy. So it's the flip side to that one, I guess. But the wider question is that about, you know, maintaining that balance between health and sustainability, it's, you know, one I guess we all grapple with if we think about these things.
00:18:24
Speaker
Thanks for fleshing that out, for want of a better word. It was that pun intended. Fun, unconsciously intended. This does bring me to the topic that I most want to talk
Humane Animal Dispatching: Responsibility in Animal Husbandry
00:18:36
Speaker
to you about. I was hoping we could have some little softener, more on-rampy questions first, but let's just go there. Recently you came to the property and helped us kill two relatively young goats and your
00:18:53
Speaker
Grace and care and efficiency in that situation was breathtaking. And it makes me want to ask you how you became a woman who can dispatch a cute baby goat. And is your motivation having that personal integrity around your ethics and knowing that you can kill your own meat? Is it more than that?
00:19:21
Speaker
Please tell us about how you cultivated that skill. Yeah, okay. Interesting one, because it's one of the skills I'm quite proud of. A lot of things I'm skillful at seem to have come naturally, and I've obviously developed them, but killing animals definitely did not come naturally. It took work, emotional work, as well as physical.
00:19:41
Speaker
skills, but I just feel it's really important and it might sound ironic, but one of the reasons I've learnt to kill animals is because I love animals and I love living with them and you just need to take responsibility. I think it's far kinder if you've got an excess goat to kill it quickly and easily eat it rather than put it out on gum tree and it might end up on a tether, some random place, all alone for the rest of its life or something.
00:20:09
Speaker
Yes, and as I say, I feel better if I eat meat. The other thing is it just really helps with my own self-sufficiency, like I can feed goats tree fodder and grass, but I can't eat tree fodder and grass, but they convert it into things I can eat but meat and milk primarily.
00:20:30
Speaker
which is the whole reason we, you know, one of the reasons we domesticated animals in the first place. And I just love being around animals, and if I'm going to love being around animals, I want them to have a decent life, which means they probably want to reproduce, which means they'll be...
00:20:44
Speaker
And yeah, I feel it's my responsibility to be able to do that as swiftly and painlessly and less stressed for that animal as possible. So it's been a really important skill to me. But it's also been helpful because it's not a skill a lot of other people have developed, which is why I ended up here killing someone else's goats. Put your back. Put your back.
00:21:06
Speaker
Yeah, which is just so ironic given I'm, you know, I love my goats and other people's goats and I love meeting them and things. But if I can offer this useful, quick dispatch, I'm more than happy to. So I'm blessed in many ways because I've got so many skilled permy friends who produce all sorts of things. And it's actually quite hard to be able to give something back to a community like that. Sometimes everyone's got
00:21:30
Speaker
bottle peaches or, you know, all these things that I could offer to most people, eggs, greens, you know, most of my family friends have them. So in the end, it's really good to have a skill that not so many of them want. So we can trade that. And I've also got the equipment I took, got myself a bandsaw, which I can lend out as well as part of the whole process. Do you remember your first animal kill?
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, it was a bit of a nightmare. It was very long ago. And I think they might have still been living at home or at my parents' place or helping them when one of their chickens was sick. And I had to dispatch and kill it just because it was suffering. And I had no idea. And it was horrible. And that was one of the reasons I say to people, look, if you're going to keep animals, even if you don't eat meat, please learn to kill them because there'll be some sort of emergency where you have to dispatch them. So, yeah, it was awful.
00:22:25
Speaker
It's actually quite a skill, I say giving death, I heard that from Susan Weed, giving death to something in a way that's honourable and swift, as you say. It's not as simple as you'd think. There are techniques, there are ways to make it quicker or bloodier or more traumatic. What have you learned about that process?
00:22:45
Speaker
Yep, yep. It's, yeah, and very, there's a lot of psychology in there. You've got to think you can do it. It's a pop culture thing. Bellatrix says to Harry Potter, you've actually got to mean the killing curse and the gracious curse, and I've got the exact line, but you've actually got to mean it. You can't go in there thinking, I wonder if I can kill this. You've actually got to go in there going, I am going to, because that's the only way to do it swiftly.
00:23:13
Speaker
and quickly, but that said, if you're working with a mentor and you do stuff up, then your mentor's right there. It's not like you have to do it all alone, but you've really got to have that mindset or you can't. Yeah, I know recently we needed to kill a rooster and I think I really share your
00:23:35
Speaker
your desire to lean into that aversion. I was the child who would be swimming around the public pool, pulling insects out and putting them on the ledge because I loved them so much. I didn't want to step on an ant. I didn't want to hit anything in the car. I was absolutely distraught at the thought of killing an animal, which is what led me to vegetarianism and veganism for a while.
00:23:58
Speaker
So yeah, when I had to kill Mr. Lavender, the rooster recently, that week prior I was thinking about it, I was feeling nauseous, but I was also feeling that sense of resolve and mental strengthening that needed to happen prior to that dispatch. What do you tell yourself when you are going through that process, especially with an animal that you may have known and formed a relationship with?
00:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, I try not to get too emotional and I think part of it is just practice. I mean, I do feel for the animal and feel sorry for it, but a lot of that's around, okay, how can I do this least stressfully? Let's make sure, you know, none of the rest of the flock can see or hear and let's make the distance as short as possible and maybe they could be eating something to distract them.
00:24:46
Speaker
really focusing on the practicalities rather than the emotional side. And sometimes I think I might have gone a bit too far to the unemotional side. And I think part of that stems from doing workshops for other people when you're actually got, you know, potentially 20 people watching you. You really can't have that.
00:25:05
Speaker
emotional time. I mean, I guess you can to some extent, but you can't. You've got to stay safe. You've got to be talking through what you're doing at the same time and dealing with their emotions often because it's the first time they've seen anything like that. So I think that was a bit of a turning point for me doing the workshops in terms of how I managed to be quite objective and a bit distant from the thing. But as I said, possibly gone too far in that direction.
00:25:29
Speaker
Although I'm still very conscious of honouring a life and how, you know, what an experience is to give death to use the same term you use there. This might be too much for a Tuesday afternoon and I can just edit it out. But what do these experiences offer you in terms of your own mortality and how you think about death in general?
00:25:58
Speaker
I'm not sure how much it's in for, so I've thought about not being here quite a lot. Especially now I've got to this age of over 50 where things I'm doing are not necessarily going to benefit me. Like I've got right into planting acorns in the last few years. We've had the London New Year's, so it's been great for just popping them.
00:26:16
Speaker
straight in the ground. And, you know, I'm not going to reap the benefits from most of that, but I'm really, really excited to think someone in the future is going to be keeping pigs or keeping goats and be really grateful that someone thought to plant these oak trees at some stage, and they may not know their name. My name they might, who knows? But, you know, I'm giving a gift to the future that's beyond my death. So, yeah, I'm not that fussed about death.
00:26:43
Speaker
Yeah, it'll happen, but hopefully not too soon because I've got loads of things I want to do, which is quite exciting. Whereas my younger self was a bit more, I don't know about this life business, but I've got to the point where I feel I am making a meaningful difference to the world and to different people. And I'd like to be round in it for a long time, but yeah.
00:27:07
Speaker
I'm interestingly very aware of bodies and death processes and things, I guess, in a way, I wouldn't be if I hadn't been a butcher. Yeah. So you haven't always lived in a rural context. No. How did you end up in the country? It's funny. Yes, I grew up in a very suburban burb, went to a very burby private school, although I did go to an alternative primary school. I went to a very
00:27:36
Speaker
Yeah, very conservative school uniform, blah, blah, blah, high school. But I just always knew I wanted to move to the country, which is quite funny, actually, because mum said to me, well, I've heard her say to someone, she really surprised us when she moved to the country. I thought, what? You weren't listening to me my whole childhood when I kept saying I wanted to move to the country.
00:28:02
Speaker
My uncle and aunt had a holiday house in central Victoria, so I fell in love with River Red Gums and that sort of landscape, so I sort of knew I was an inland person. And just, yeah, really didn't like city life, always felt quite overwhelmed by it, and just always knew I wanted to move to the country.
00:28:21
Speaker
Have you always felt sure about the course of your life? And you said you studied ecology. Have you had points where you've deviated along the way? Yeah, at the point when I was studying ecology, I still hadn't discovered permaculture, hadn't discovered me or whatever yet. So I had the activism, but then I also thought, you know, there must be meaningful ways to do
00:28:44
Speaker
other things from inside the system, I guess, and I was originally thinking that would be the path, I'd be some sort of academic, in some way studying ecological systems and making a difference in that way.
00:28:59
Speaker
Yes, and funnily enough, at that high school, they tried to talk me out of doing science. My careers counsellor said, I don't do science because it doesn't make enough money. And I just wished back then I'd said, I want to do permaculture because they probably would have had a heart attack and it would have been very amusing.
00:29:16
Speaker
What did they suggest for you? Medicine or engineering or something that gave you a better degree. I mean, I got good marks. I was a nerdy spot at school. But then I thought I should be aiming higher than just science, but I stuck to science and what I actually want to do.
00:29:32
Speaker
Little did they know that you'd be giving presentations at permaculture convergences about short, strong and single? Yes. Sorry, I really wanted to ask you about this presentation. We will, but just before you go there, I'll just say that they also didn't know I'd be on the front page of the age for being in jail about two weeks after I got out of school. That was a bit of a surprise. Same, same.
00:29:55
Speaker
What were you sent to jail for? We didn't sign the bowel conditions in this logging coop.
Early Activism: A High School Journey
00:30:02
Speaker
So we were transported from East Gippsland to jail and there were quite a few activists in jail at that time. And actually got my HSC results in jail, was my claim to fame. But yeah, it was a surprise to the school because I was very shy at school and nerdy and quiet. And my younger brother was still at the school and he said, you know,
00:30:24
Speaker
They were talked about in assembly and told this was not an appropriate behaviour for graduates to the school. I bet you were such a hero. Probably, but by being there I didn't even want to know about school. I was off away. I'm really glad you told that story.
00:30:43
Speaker
So this is my own personal curiosity because I haven't had a chance to talk to you about this. But the rumour mill of Hepburn, it came back to me that you gave a presentation at the Australian Permaculture Convergence and maybe the title was something around short, strong and single. And I just want to know what you were speaking about. The title was...
00:31:06
Speaker
Tie-downs are a girl's best friend getting things done as a short single woman. Tie-downs are a girl's best friend. I meant ratchet straps but people have actually taken that the wrong way and it wasn't meant to be sexual at all but I got so many jokes about it. Can you make the part B?
00:31:21
Speaker
Maybe, but I'm not the expert in that sort of thing. But no, what was happening, I was creating a, I got a new, I got a new little tractor very secondhand. It's almost as old as me and older than my brother. But I had to quickly construct a structure to keep the rain off. And one of the quickest ways to do a structure is get a bit of real mesh from, you know, they're used in concrete slabs.
00:31:48
Speaker
and arch it over and put a tarp over the top. And I was doing that myself and had to drag it through the scrub. And one of the things I was doing was pulling it together with the ratchet.
00:31:59
Speaker
tie dance straps to make that arch because I had no one to push from the other end. And I started, my subconscious just started singing tie dance are a girl's best friend, the chin of diamonds are a girl's best friends. And that's what actually made me think of the title. And then I thought, hang on, I should be talking about this because I'd actually had a bit of an awareness recently with some of my
00:32:23
Speaker
students and I always thought I was promoting permaculture, but one of them said to me, no, you're actually giving people hope and resilience and strength and role modelling what a single woman can do on a farm and you're an inspiration in that way. And I was like, yeah.
00:32:42
Speaker
actually thought of it like that so let's let's dig into that and it was more of the actual thing at the Convergence was a workshop to all get together and share our stories. Inevitably I ended up talking a lot though but the idea was to say you know one of these things about permaculture is having big households and lots of people to do things which is totally great. I don't deny that but for whatever reason a lot of us end up
00:33:06
Speaker
single or alone or doing their own thing and I wanted to yeah really I guess give tips but also hope and inspiration to people in that circumstance to you know don't wait around for the right community to show up or the right person or the love of your life or blah blah blah just go out and do what you you think you should be doing.
00:33:28
Speaker
It is bloody hard on your own. I feel like there are lots of things to field and a team of two people, two or more people, is miles more efficient. But then, yeah, getting mired in this, getting into the holding pattern of wanting a partner, wanting something that you may or may not necessarily be able to cultivate in your life can be very paralyzing. What were some of the tips that you gave?
00:33:56
Speaker
Well things like using those tight end using ratchets using levers the practical component we did was how to move a heavy log by yourself where I get it just a standard wheeled trolley and strap that onto the log well onto the log upside down then you can turn it over with a
00:34:18
Speaker
crowbar and then you can pull it along by the end of the dog and it goes on the wheels on the trolley. So little techniques like that. Leavers. Leavers are great. Leavers are great. Yeah. Yeah. What about psychologically? How do you maintain motivation? I'm really motivated by other people. So when I'm on my own, I flap around a bit.
00:34:41
Speaker
No, I think partly because I don't get enough time to do all the things I want to do. Motivation is never a trouble. Motivation to do the dishes, maybe, but motivation to get out the farm, do things has never been an issue. But that's me. I mean, I know I'm a bit of a loner in many ways. And, you know, I've talked to one woman I used to work with, for instance, was, I just can't do this by myself. I don't want to be able to land by myself. And I'm like, well, I could have been waiting my whole life for the right person to come along and they never did.
00:35:10
Speaker
Things are actually easier now. I started my journey and bought my land when I was a single mum of a two-year-old. So doing these things, not having a two-year-old in tail actually is easier.
00:35:23
Speaker
And what about if someone is on their own and they're wanting to consolidate with another household or what are the pathways for people who don't necessarily want to be alone and to be on the land? Yep and you probably shouldn't be alone on your land and I mean I've got plans to have more people on the land. It's not necessarily by choice but part of the workshop was whether it's by choice or not by choice you can still do things. It wasn't saying we should all be single and doing it all ourselves because
00:35:50
Speaker
Apart from anything else that is actually quite silly but some of us just have ended up in this situation and we deal with it best we can. But yeah totally into working bees and work chairs and you know all these other methods so this is just sort of one little aspect of what should be a wider bigger picture where you know you are integrated in community and other households and things.
00:36:15
Speaker
Are there platforms or ways of people connecting that you've seen that are really flourishing or is it simply being part of a community and putting your ear to the ground and putting the word out there? Yeah, I mean part of my trouble is personally level is a lot of my friends are over this way and I live an hour's drive away and
00:36:35
Speaker
There's only so many relationships you can maintain meaningfully, and a lot of mine are filled up with people who live way too far away. But in terms of bigger picture, things like you're doing here as multi households on the one block,
00:36:53
Speaker
make total sense. But on a smaller scale, finally, in my local area, we have got a key group now who do do working bees and can help each other out, you know. We were laying the pars. Someone got a big pile of wood chips the other day. This was the latest one. And there were about 10 of us. And we brought wheelbarrows and we, you know, got all the wood chips laid on this quite big extensive veggie garden, market garden, in the morning and had way more fun than we would have otherwise and socialised.
00:37:22
Speaker
had a cup of tea later and it was lovely, so... What did you call that group? A key group? I don't know. I can't remember the term. It wasn't an official term. It was more just, yeah, we've now got enough people together to make that happen. Yeah, right. And if you've only got a small group and a couple can't make it, then it doesn't really happen. But now we've got a dozen or so potential people. And if half of them turn up or more, you get a really good day or half day generally out of it.
00:37:49
Speaker
How did that start? Did someone initiate a group with the intention of being able to roam around and help people with projects and blitz things? I'm trying to remember now. I think it was just, it came out of an idea where a few of us got together and we heard a rumour that there were people wanting to meet up and eventually we did meet up. And one of the first things we said was, hey, let's go and help each other at each other's places. So that's one of the things we do.
00:38:14
Speaker
We also have a full moon. Gathering most full moons is a social thing to continue that relationship on. And as I said, it's sometimes hard with work and everything to maintain those relationships. So having some set ritual things like the full moon gathering can really help.
00:38:32
Speaker
And when you're actually getting shit done together, it serves so many different functions. Like you said, it's the social element, but we've all got a lot of things to do. So it's not just going to a cafe and socialising, it's getting together and ticking something really big off your list. Yeah, absolutely. And you'll have probably as good a time as you did at the cafe and you'll learn stuff.
00:38:50
Speaker
way more memorable. Yeah totally so yeah that's lovely and I mean I do know that more stuff gets done with people like even you know when I have had partners I haven't been single the whole time I've been there and yeah it's quite mind-blowing it's like oh wow we got more done and we've got free time afterwards but anyway.
00:39:09
Speaker
Are there skills that you really prize, you don't necessarily have to be embodying these skills, but what would you say are most important in the skills department for people to be cultivating into the future? Definitely food, growing your own food, well not your own food, or the community food, but understanding how to grow basic food stuff, particularly greens and things. I mean if there's some sort of collapse
00:39:36
Speaker
Grain stores and things last a while and also they're transportable without refrigeration and things. So at absolute minimum, being able to grow your own greens to supplement that part of your diet, but ideally to be able to grow whole veggie gardens and really understand the soil where you are and how it works and be able to get a good yield. I mean, that's number one. I think number two, and I'm not even sure if this could be called a skill, but to just toughen up a bit, like,
00:40:05
Speaker
you know, learn to not be always in a room that's 20 degrees or whatever air conditions and heaters are set for. Be able to get out there, wander around, you know, get out into nature and be able to cope without some of those things you normally have. And it gets back to the conversation I guess we're having at the start, the difference between understanding how to insulate a house and make it more efficient compared to
00:40:32
Speaker
learning to live with a bit of heat and cold and let your body work out the temperature itself because actually human bodies are quite good at that and we've lost that resilience because we've lived with heaters and air conditioners for too long but you know going a bit deeper beyond the let's buy another product, the insulation, let's actually learn to live without insulation maybe. I'm not saying this is a prescriptive thing for everyone but as an example of you know toughening up in a way
00:40:59
Speaker
I really like that attitude adjustment. How do people find the impetus to do those kind of things when they're not necessarily in their face just yet as a do or die? You've just got no choice but to live without your air conditioning. Should people make it a game? Should people get together and kind of practice these things? Or where does that impetus come into it?
00:41:23
Speaker
Yeah, great question. I mean, part of using that example again, I guess, just getting out and appreciating nature will help you understand, no, I prefer to be outside and that in turn will help your body adjust to those particular conditions. And, you know, you realise if you're outside doing things or walking or moving, you actually warm yourself up and you don't need that heating as much. So getting off your bum from whatever you're doing inside.
00:41:51
Speaker
And this is coming from someone who does sit in front of the computer quite a lot. So, yeah, just get moving, get outside. Not sure if that addresses the bigger picture though. I mean, sometimes it's the cohort you're hanging out with, which is one reason I like running courses. You meet a new course and meet the new cohort of people and can all encourage each other. But it's also where community outreach comes in, just chatting to people who might be almost on board but aren't quite.
00:42:19
Speaker
I know there's a lot of theory around this too that I haven't actually studied, but I do sort of like the $30,000 barbecue example. I haven't heard that one. That's because it's my one. I think it is. I can't remember. Maybe I read it somewhere.
00:42:38
Speaker
where there's these ridiculously expensive barbecues that you think no one will ever buy that. And the whole point is no one will ever buy that, but it makes the other barbecues look cheaper. You don't feel so bad about buying a $9,000 barbecue because you're not buying a $30,000 barbecue. And I'm pretty radical and out there. And I think, well, if I'm being that radical and out there, maybe people are more inclined to take the first steps.
00:43:04
Speaker
You're the $30,000 barbecue. I'm the $30,000 barbecue. I could have told you that, Beck.
00:43:11
Speaker
Yeah, it was interesting having a conversation with someone about how they were going to show retro suburbia ideas, which is a book about downshifting, basically, and sell them to their mum. And I was saying, well, probably don't start with a bucket composting toilet. And he was like, no, I'm actually going to start with that, because that's the one she would point blank, say no to. And once she said no to something, she'll probably feel a bit more comfortable about doing all the other things.
00:43:37
Speaker
I really love this, especially from a marketing perspective, having the sandwich of like, yeah, the most expensive thing, the Goldilocks thing, the low class thing. Speaking of being radical and making change.
00:43:50
Speaker
What are some things off the top of your head that you think people could do, especially in an urban context, because that's where the bulk of our population is in the city.
Urban Permaculture: Practical Tips
00:44:00
Speaker
What are some things that people could do if they're feeling the itch and the urge to live a more permaculture slash reskillient life?
00:44:09
Speaker
If you still got a lawn, get rid of it and grow food in that space instead. Really get your hands dirty. And if you're in a smaller place or you've got an apartment or a flat or something, go and join a community garden and you can do the same thing there. If you haven't got a local community garden, start working out where you can put one and either radically just start that community garden or go through the approved channels, depending on your personality type.
00:44:36
Speaker
but it's often easier to ask forgiveness than permission. So if there is a fair chunk of land, why not start gardening it? That's a really big number one thing, but I think also just reaching out to community, seeing who else is interested. Maybe you don't need to keep chooks because someone up the road is keeping chooks and you can supply them with the greens or trade them for your beetroots or vice versa. I think they're two of the key underlying things, but
00:45:05
Speaker
I guess having a bit of store of other stuff on hand. It's another win-win situation where if you buy things in bulk, you get them at a cheaper price. You're probably supporting a farmer. If it's grains in particular, you get it fresher if you're grinding them yourself, but you've also got in a bit of built-in resilience if there's some supply chain issues you've still got.
00:45:24
Speaker
half a sack of wheat sitting there ideally. When do you least permaculture? It's a good one. Probably when I'm driving, I do a lot of driving. And if I'm driving to a face-to-face class, even if it's distant, I don't mind it so much because I sort of feel it's
00:45:43
Speaker
It's a way I can do something useful that doesn't mean 20 people have to drive to me. It makes more sense that one person drives to a local course, and most of the courses are local. But when I end up driving for other reasons, like socialising and things, I think, no, this is not actually a very sustainable way to live my life. But to be honest, that's what I do a lot of the time. Are cars really that bad? Can you remind us how bad these death machines are?
00:46:10
Speaker
Well, yeah, they're death machines. I mean, I've always had second-hand cars, and I've got a really small fuel-efficient car, which is less convenient than a ute in terms of the things I do with it, but it's basically a ute. I have fit so much stuff in that poor little car, but it served me really well.
00:46:32
Speaker
So yeah, there's all these issues with car transport and emissions and making cars in first places and things, but it's also, the bigger picture thing is the way it reduces the re-localisation and we really need to be re-localising and having a quick and easy way to get somewhere else.
00:46:49
Speaker
is, yeah, it's a totally different mindset as a society that we really need to get out of because, you know, for most of human existence you didn't socialise with people a long way away and if you did it was a special thing that you might save up for for a train or a particular journey or something and you really got to know the people around you and you had to cope with the people around you like good or bad or issues you had to work through those because they were the people you were stuck with and now, you know, I can
00:47:17
Speaker
anyone can move and our society can go somewhere else if they don't get on with the people locally. Yeah, being able to transcend our natural limits is something that I'm constantly thinking about and wondering how I can impose limits back on myself. How do you limit yourself consciously? In terms of that or generally? Well, yeah, it doesn't have to be the car thing but...
00:47:42
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that we can do so many things. Someone like me expands to feel that opportunity and I know a lot of other people do. Not everyone's like a Beclora Sue Dennett.
00:47:54
Speaker
in terms of, or Sue at least, like how principled she is and able to somehow stick by her ethics in the face of coffee and cacao and all of the things. But do you consciously impose your own limits on yourself to change your behaviour? Sometimes it's conscious. Sometimes it's, I mean, sometimes I'm just not interested in, like I'm not interested in the latest iPhone. I'm not interested in most what's on TV. Like there's things that are sort of no brainers, but
00:48:20
Speaker
I guess I did in the past, so maybe there has been some sort of change. But if it had been conscious, I probably would have remembered it. It's probably more around the people I talk to and getting more interested in stuff that I find more interesting. I'm trying to think of example. I do sometimes. I mean, there are things I would probably eat if I wasn't thinking about ethics, for instance. And there's some things I've made a conscious decision like the cocoa I have in the morning. I do have...
00:48:48
Speaker
Coco in the morning is a drink and I know it comes from a long way and at least it's fair trade. But there are other things like I love cheese but I don't want to buy a lot of cheese because the dairy industry is awful, even the organic one involves taking, you know, in most cases with a few exceptions taking kids, calves off mothers and things. So yeah, I do consciously put some limitations on but the reason I gave the car example I guess is that's when I'm very conscious of
00:49:18
Speaker
That's an area of my life I'm really not very sustainable and it's one of the issues of living in a rural area apart from anything else is the car use.
00:49:30
Speaker
non sequitur to travel and exotic places. I feel like Instagram, role models, it's like a fetishisation of all the places that you aren't. And I'm wondering, you mentioned relocalisation, if you could give a bit of a sales pitch for relocalisation and why it's sexy to stay in one place and explore your neighbourhood and enjoy all of the perks and challenges of being more place-based?
Relocalisation and Community Connections
00:50:00
Speaker
There's always something more exciting to find out about, no matter how long you've been in a place. I've been at my place for 26 years now and I still learn things. There's that blue sky wonder, I guess, but then there's also the really practical thing. If you're always moving around, you don't get to know your soil type, you don't get to know your climate, the weather.
00:50:19
Speaker
you don't get the feel for, you know, I think the frost will be earlier, I think the frost will be late, and you can't consciously say why that, you start to become embedded in the area. And that's, of course, you know, really deep knowledge that practically all our ancestors had in one way or another, whatever their lifestyles, because they were pretty much in place, with a few major exceptions, obviously, transportation from wherever to Australia in a lot of our cases. But in general,
00:50:47
Speaker
were in place and understood how it worked and how it could meet our needs in one way or another. And as I was saying before, the other thing is understanding people better and learning to work with differences and appreciate and value differences because you can't escape. You're there with someone and a group of people.
00:51:07
Speaker
You can't just swipe them to the left. Yes. And I think, you know, often rural communities tend to be a bit more diverse in some ways for that reason. You know, there's eccentricities and you just, you know, that's who that person is. Do you have a favorite quote or saying that you offer to people as inspiration?
00:51:33
Speaker
Not that I could think of. I've got a favourite, and you've taken a favourite saying, like, don't cry over spilt milk. When I was growing up, I always thought that was like, don't sweat the little things. It's no big deal. But now I've been actually milking myself. And milking yourself? How do you do that? I've been milking the goats myself. Much better visual. Yes, thank you. I didn't even go there. You went there.
00:51:58
Speaker
It's a very professional platform. Yeah and thinking well actually it's a right pain when you actually spilled some milk that the goat you know is giving it to you, you've fed the goat, you've gone to the effort of getting out there in the cold morning and milking the goat and all these other things and realise it's actually more about
00:52:17
Speaker
don't get stressed about things you can't change, then don't stress about the small things. That's the first thing that, it's not an inspirational thing, but it's the first thing that sprung to mind. Yeah. I dig that. What do you think is normal? Wait, wait, wait. What do you think should be normal but isn't?
00:52:38
Speaker
Growing your own food. I know we've come back to that lots of times, but that is a real focus of who I am. Yeah, being in tune with the seasons, being in tune with the people around you, not wearing shoes much. Bex feeder on my couch right now. Without shoes or socks. This is my esoteric self asking this question. Do rocks and trees and rivers have feelings?
00:53:05
Speaker
No, not in the way humans have feelings, but that doesn't mean that I don't see them as living entities in their own right. But I certainly don't think even if Rock had feelings, its feelings would be similar to human feelings. So I'm totally all over.
00:53:25
Speaker
Yeah, acknowledging different things like I like to say hello to trees or... One day I was cutting the lawn and accidentally cut off a toadstool and said, oh, sorry toadstool and my son was there and he said, mum, did you seriously just apologize to a toadstool?
00:53:42
Speaker
Yeah, I did actually. I hadn't even noticed it was subconscious. So yeah, I'm very much into acknowledging these things and they're, you know, especially living things have got all sorts of wisdom and yeah, but they're not necessarily human style feelings. Are there certain animals or non-human entities that you really identify with?
00:54:05
Speaker
Yeah, there's a few, sort of my totem animals from my place, the cockatoos and the great kangaroos, but there's also other animals that tend to let me know when I'm on the track, like carawongs calling and things are often a pretty good symbol to me that, you know, I'm on a good track or it might be a lucky day. Yeah, that's getting quite deep.
00:54:29
Speaker
That's beautiful. Does permaculture come into play with your human relationships? Yeah, that was one night. That's like a kind of daft question, really, isn't it? Of course it does. Or do you want to talk to that? Yeah. I mean, you can answer it on one level in that most of my friends and relationships, put it that way, not relations, are permaculture related. And I actually work with a lot of my friends
00:54:56
Speaker
and a lot of my friends at work colleagues, and it's all a bit of an incestuous loop about what's work and what's friendship and how I know people. So yes, on that level, whether I actually go deeper and apply the permaculture principles to how I relate to people,
00:55:14
Speaker
I probably could do that more and actually when you first sent me that question I've been thinking a bit about how do I actually apply permaculture thinking to my relationships and could I do so more and the answer is of course yes.
00:55:29
Speaker
Thanks for being so candid. To finish up, I know that I've been someone listening to lots of podcasts, consuming lots of content in the hope that someone will give me a piece of advice around what to do, what to do in my life when there's a yearning to do more.
00:55:51
Speaker
to participate in the unfolding of things as they're happening. Maybe that's to move from the city to the country, maybe that's to create more greenery in your backyard in the city, maybe that's to feel a sense of belonging.
00:56:06
Speaker
this sense of belonging that people talk about and I never really knew what that meant until I moved to such a close-knit community. What would you say to someone listening who is in that space of not really knowing what to do to satisfy this yearning that they might be feeling, whether that's towards nature or towards a more connected existence?
The Transformative Power of Permaculture Design Courses
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I guess it's not an unbiased opinion, but I'd love people to do a permaculture design course, which is the main teaching I do, the PDC. It's a long-term course with lots and lots of different topics, often taught by multiple people with a community of like-minded people who are doing similar seeking. And I think that recipe works really well, whatever level you're coming in at.
00:56:54
Speaker
you'll learn stuff, you'll be inspired but you'll also have this other cohort of people around you helping you to work things out and you know I've done other forms of permaculture education and still do but I always keep coming back to that PDC because it's the one that seems to have that magic ingredients where people do come out of it saying okay I've got to change my life. I mean mine was the PDC I did was life changing and
00:57:21
Speaker
A lot of people describe it in that way. Not everyone. Don't get your hopes up. It's not necessarily a good thing for everyone, but for a lot of people, it is a life-changing experience that opens you up to a whole lot of different possibilities because everyone's life's past different. Just because you want to be a Permee doesn't mean you have to
00:57:39
Speaker
specialise in making food forests and growing veggies, because there's lots of other ways to be a Permi or to live your life in a resilient, sustainable way. And you certainly don't have to move to the country. That's part of the reason we talk briefly about retro-suburbia before, but that's Permaculture Coro, Genator David Hongwen's book all about how you can retrofit suburbia and country towns and not necessarily big
00:58:08
Speaker
places in the country to be more resilient and sustainable and also nicer places to live.
00:58:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'll link to these resources in the show notes because you're running online PDCs as well now that aren't just the traditional kind of residency style PDC. Yeah, we run a few different styles. I mean, I really love face to face, but the online ones are allowing us to reach other people we wouldn't have otherwise and we're getting good feedback from parents and things who say it's great to be able to do it in the evenings when the kids go to bed.
00:58:41
Speaker
It works for some people and we've actually been quite surprised by how well and how well they've been received. Beck, what three things are alive for you at the moment in your life?
00:58:57
Speaker
I guess the participants in my courses are always so alive and I love being in amongst that energy of people exploring and contributing and asking questions and giving examples and trying things and meeting up.
00:59:13
Speaker
whatever. So that's always alive for me. This time of year it's very much about baby goats.
Spring on the Farm: Joys of Nature
00:59:20
Speaker
I had 11 kids born within about a week, about two weeks ago. So home life's just insanely cute with all these little goats bopping around being completely mental. So that's happening and I guess the unfolding spring is the other thing. It's, you know, spring's really hit its stride this week and there's frogs and there's green grass and
00:59:43
Speaker
You don't have to bundle up so much and you can enjoy the sunshine and start thinking about, okay, what's this year really going to bring and how much time and energy do I put in the garden compared to writing or compared to this or compared to that.
00:59:59
Speaker
Have you got a hilarious anecdote from the world of permaculture that you'd like to share?
A Humorous Goat Story: TV and Dinner Overlap
01:00:04
Speaker
I think so. I'm not sure everyone will appreciate it though, but it does relate back to goats.
01:00:15
Speaker
Gardening Australia came to visit Meliodora one day for a permaculture special, which is great. And there's about a year between it being filmed and it actually coming up on your screen. So I wanted to watch it on a proper telly and I haven't got a proper telly. So my partners at the time did have a proper telly. So I thought, let's make a night of it and make a nice roast and go around and
01:00:36
Speaker
Sarah was sitting there with the dinner on our lap watching Gardening Australia and seeing my mates, Dave and Sue on telly and Melliodora where I work and it's all exciting and then this little kid comes bounding along in screen and I realised that's the goat we are eating that's sitting on our lap on the place.
01:01:00
Speaker
So everyone laughing at each other, it never happened that you're actually watching live on TV the thing that you're eating. Did the goat have a name? Yeah it did actually because the idea was Sue was going to raise it and then it was going to become the main buck in my flock. So he'd fathered a few kids but after a year we realised he was a complete escape artist and we couldn't keep him so unfortunately he had to go. I can't remember off how he had two names because Sue named him one thing and I named him another thing.
01:01:27
Speaker
That is, I don't know what kind of closed loop system that is. Anyway, it was a very funny moment and they appreciated it too, who I was eating with because they'd helped me kill him. So it wasn't like they were totally freaked out. We all just sat there and laughed and laughed. Blessings on the meal. Yes. Not laughed because the goat killed, but just a weird situation to be in.
01:01:56
Speaker
Thank you so much. It's been a really delicious conversation.
01:02:03
Speaker
Ah, Beck is definitely the $30,000 barbecue. So good. And in a happy coincidence, at the time of this episode's release, which is January 22nd, 2024, you can actually be in Beck's educational orbit quite soon. There's a couple of permaculture design courses coming up, which I'll link in the show notes, but just briefly, there's a live online PDC with Beck and David Holmgren, which kicks off in February. It's really great if you can't get to central Victoria in person.
01:02:32
Speaker
But if you can make it to our neck of the woods, the Rockland Ashram PDC, which is also led by Beck and David, is running in March. It's a two-week residential retreat at a serene ashram with all the yoga, meditation, local food, camaraderie, and permaculture learning you could possibly wish for.
01:02:51
Speaker
So again, I'll pop those details in the show notes or you can head to Holmgren Design and sign up for the newsletters and they will furnish you with all the information. Also keep an eye on Beck's website if you want to know when her book on animal husbandry in the context of permaculture systems lands. I'm really excited about that one.
01:03:12
Speaker
Well, next week's guest is someone great. You'll just have to wait to find out, and I'm also pretty excited to find out who it'll be. And as always, a huge thanks to everyone who is supporting Rescilience by sharing it around, sending me eye-wateringly kind messages, and leaving reviews on iTunes. Especially you, Dr. Page. It's nice to know that these conversations are landing. Looking forward to hanging out in your ears next Monday. Bye for now.