KW-08 Pigs and poop.

Run to the rescue with love, and peace will follow - River Pheonix

This week has been frustratingly wet here at the barracks. Mostly, it’s been raining at night, which is usually welcome. In the summer, it’s the greatest thing - to wake up and recognise with joy the freedom from parading stern to bow with watering cans for a day or two.

For Valentine’s Day, I gave the piggies some apples. Not scrumped apples, rotten apples, or apples liberated from the supermarket organic trash bins, but real human apples bought from a shop. This is my best attempt at holding an apple with one hand, a camera with the other, and taking a photo whilst being rapidly approached by a pig.

This week, though, frustrating. I just typed and deleted “this time of the year”, but as we are quickly learning, trying to second-guess the weather based on something as naive as historical records¹ really isn’t a useful path to understanding life in this post-capitialist, intra-collapse, pre-neo-stone-age world.

The point being, it’s disturbingly warm, it is looking likely to continue to be disturbingly warm for a while and I would really love to get a jump on the ground preparation. All it needs is for the heavens to hold on to their rainwater for three, maybe three and a half days, and I’ll be right out there with Mr Rotovator, the choppy chop. I get the sense that I have said this before. Ahh well, constancy.

On top of that, though, it’s perfect weather for sowing summer wheat. If this new crop for the barracks works, at the scale it should work, we are going to grow all the straw needed for the bedding comfort and pleasure of pigs. Which would be nice. It also means, there will be something like 150 - 200kg of grain. On top of the winter rye. And that means bread for quite a few people. Or, chickens. Not bread for chickens. Grain for chickens. I’m not making much sense even to myself this morning.

It just needs to stop raining for a while!

This is the fourth composting toilet at the barracks (no, it’s not finished!). Each time I dig one, I try to do something a little different. This one has walls of black elder. Down by the lake, I planted a couple of dozen 5 years ago. There are millions of them now. I dug a few of them up to make the walls of Bog v.IV. As the saplings grow, I am going to knit them together. And yes, there will be a seat. And some cloth hung up for privacy!

So, in the coming week, the plan is to:

Clear the soft fruit beds. I’m not sure how many of them, and I am reluctant to make predictions, but I think I am comfortable saying that the rhubarb at least will be all shiny clear of everything except rhubarb, edges cut beautifully, and forcing pots in place. Quite probably, covered in rotting pig-house scrapings. If they let me in there.

Tomato house. As always, planning the tomato house.

Finally, if you can, it would be lovely if you could help out the newsletter. We’ve not had a influx of new subscribers in a while, so please do share this post, tell people about what we are doing here and encourage them to sign up, or send me a list of email addresses of people you want to add! The things which motivate me to keep doing this are your comments, your likes, and new subscribers joining the barracks fam. Thank you,

And until next time, much Piratey love

Your Pirate Ben

xoxo

Currently Listening

No Reading List today. I’ve not read a word all week. There is an exciting reason for this which I hope to be able to share with you next Monday.

In 1973, 74 and 75, Stevie Wonder released three albums back to back - Innervisions, Fulfilingness’s First Finale and Songs in the Key of Life - which, in the opinion of this Pirate, represent the an achievement of genius, consistency and truth in poetry and music which will never be surpassed.

When we all get ingurgitated into the belly of collapse; and bipedal life is in danger of losing what was once known as humanity, Stevie will see us through.

1. Historical Records

I rewatched Galaxy Quest recently and not only did I jump for joy when I realised that Malthasar is the dad from Veronica Mars (actor Enrico Colantoni) but also, lurking in the background, there is a random Thermian you will definitely recognise (not in this picture) as Rainn Wilson (Dwight from the US Office) making his film debut.