KW-12 Spring Equinox week

And on the seventh day, we did some more work.

It has been a people-y sort of a week at the barracks, with friend-of-the Barracks visits from Berlin, Lugano and Zürich. Three people who have never met before, but who have all, in their own way, been supportive of The Barracks since before I moved in, almost exactly 5 years ago.

One of five Stone pine trees (Pinus pinea) that we planted at the barracks three years ago. It makes the best pine nuts. It doesn’t grow all that quickly though.

The Pirate week was mostly given over to being interviewed by one of the VIPs - for she is, plucking a single arrow from her vast quiver of creative and intellectual achievements, a documentarian. She creates long-form, first-person accounts from people who have done interesting things with their lives. When I hear her tales of former subjects, it seems a little ridiculous to include a poor gardening pirate who grows vegetables and argues about collapse, but I’ll be happy to share it with you when it is done, some time later in the year.

I do like talking about the state of the world, and I don’t really mind the presence of a video camera while I do it, but I’m unlikely to actually watch the finished project myself. I understand why the creation of documents is important, but I have already told her that it I probably won’t be watching it. By the time it comes out, all of the cells of my body will have been replaced, I will have read 20 or 30 more books, and had thousands of conversations with other humans. I won’t much want to see what crazy ignorant soliloquising I was up to in March 2024.

Visitors always mean presents for the piggies. This week, they were treated to two sacks of stale bread, 25 kilos of root mangolds and one of their favourites, a big bag of beetroots.

On top of the interview schedule, we actually got quite a lot done in the spring sunshine. More of the vineyard was subdued to the agricultural will of Mr Rotovator than ever before. We’re not going to quite max out the whole nearly 1000m2, but seeing as last year, nothing was planted up there, and the year before, just under half of it was used, I’m pretty pleased with how it’s looking.

In places, the soil is improving a lot. The places where I dumped organic matter two years ago.

Similarly, the pumpkin patch, which was never the worst soil on the barracks, is now incredibly rich and fertile. It almost seems a shame to put it all down to wheat. But then, when I think this, I imagine the late summer, and 450m2 of glorious golden wheat, shsshhhing to and fro in the light warm breeze, and I know how amazing it is going to look and how great it will feel. Is it possible that this year, we grow nearly all the pig food, and their straw as well? Time will tell.

The Nutzfläche has always been a little separated from the rest of the barracks. Now that the orchard has grown all the way up to it, and the pumpkin patch adjacent, the whole 120m from the soft fruits to the vineyard has been connected with useful ground, and in the same moment that it all joined up, it shrank enormously in a visual trick, and optical illusion of connectivity

This week at the barracks, the plan is:

• To finish the re-building of the pig house which was started this week

• Sow the summer wheat. I think I said I was hoping to do that last week. I prepped the ground instead. Now, I just need to rake it for two days, and sow for another one.

• Get the first veg seeds sown. Aubergines, peppers, tomtaoes mostly.

• Get the blurbs done for the Reading Retreat (€140, Whitsun Weekend, 17th - 20th May) and the Collapse Laboratory (€490 per person, discounts available; 18th - 25th August). As subscribers to this newsletter, this is your advance invitation to come to either or both of them. Get in touch to reserve your place now, before the tickets go on sale to the public.

fire dancing

And so, until next week, do please be excellent to each other, and enjoy the equinox

Your loving

Pirate Ben

xoxo

Everyone: Come on Ben, take a day off. Even God rested on Sunday

The Pirate Ben: Yes, and if the lazy bastard hadn’t been such a slacker, maybe we wouldn’t be in the mess that we are in today.

… and on the seventh day, God ensured that everyone’s basic needs were met, and he saw that it was good.