KW-52 Goodbye 2024 - in Pictures

It's not all about the pigs

Good morning, dear Pirates. It has been a year of some wonderful moments, fabulous people and experiences.

It was also the year that we comprehensively broke through the distraction of 1.5 degrees of warming; when a new category of storm was added, because the existing top level 5 was insufficient to describe the newest strongest hurricanes; and the human factors which will precipitate societal collapse - insecurity, population displacement, and biodiversity loss - became undeniable. Except by the deniers.

But that’s enough of that! We had a good 10cm of snow last night, so it looks like a white Christmas indeed. And although I have had the crappiest of crap weeks, let’s look back with happier glasses on, and try to cheer ourselves us with some memories of what was really a very nice year.

January

Last year - October until December was cold and mostly unpleasant, but the 2024 end of winter was quite short and not too grim. Most years, the light extracts all of the colour from all of the things, and you can spend a couple of months in monochrome. That didn’t happen in 2024, and I got in the garden super early. We did have a very late frost, which killed every single blossom on every single fruit tree, but we have a plan against that ever happening again!

February

I had actually forgotten that I managed to get out and rotovate. This plot, the pumpkin patch, never got quite clean enough to grow vast amounts, but we did get a few hundred sweetcorns out of it. And another 25kg of wheat. Next year, it’s hopefully going 50% corn, 50% soya, but I am going to have to get the ground a lot cleaner for soya. It starts very slowly and is easily smothered by weeds.

The redwood has doubled in height since this photo was taken!

March

I resolved to spend more time away from the barracks in 2024. I am glad that I did because, for reasons, that will not be possible in 2025, which is a bummer. In March, the Greens assembled in the UK - my first time back in a while - for Grandad’s 80th birthday. Well, Great Grandad now! This bunch of gingers are the best and favouritest people in my life and no contest.

April

The Pirate Keith (also known as Keiths Potatoes) came for the umpteenth time to help with the annual rebuilding of the pig house. I hope he’s coming again in 2025, because I have major plans! Every year, the pig house gets better. In 2025 (helpers permitting!), I want to build them something more human / pig dual purpose and also somewhat more permanent. Sounds like fun? Of course it does!

May

Furry pigs are the cutest pigs. We also had the reading retreat in May, which I think you could call a success. We have to do it again!

June

In the summer, we had two volunteers here for a good few weeks who turned the summer into a proper delight. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of them together, so I have had to split them up over two months. This is Adele and me pouring concrete for the base of the tomato house.

Great news, by the way. I started on the wooden part of the tomato house construction this week. Making jigs. I figure that if I made all (?) the jigs I need now, then the rest of the construction can be done with gloves on. Which is mighty important this time of year.

July

This is the Anderson family who were here for a while in the summer, and brought a completely different and much needed energy to the barracks. They are on a world tour, currently in Nepal. Or Bangladesh. On the right are Nynke who has been visiting the barracks for years now, and Rachelle, the other long term summer volunteer whose work in the vegetable garden, and whose perspective on life enriched the summer.

And another photo from July. If only to remind myself of what an absolute state the cellar was in, and what a fantastic job we made of cleaning it up. Progress down here will double next year, with the final installation of the showers and the sauna.

August

Over two glorious days, by which I mean the hottest of the year, we got all of the wood sawn into planks for the tomato house, the sauna, and the bookshelves for the library. They are all stacked and drying nicely and getting ready for transformation.

This photo is the three of us hiding in the shade while Stefan the Saw is replacing a blade on the travelling sawmill that came to visit.

Also, the Collapse Laboratory. Taking the learnings from last year, and also being flexible enough to try new things on the fly and having a barracks full of thoughtful and diverse people really justified for me the other 51 weeks of the year.

And, my actual single favourite day of 2024. The day we played croquet. Everything just came together perfectly, and I loved it. I loved it so much, I didn’t take a single usable photo. Sorry about that. I really must try harder with the chronicling next year.

September

Obviously, birthday month, a great time was had by all. Our first collaboration with an outside group - Berlin WriteNow. I cooked a lot, but had nothing to do with the event, other than enjoy again another new and wonderful vibe of some great people being here and doing their thing. Definitely more of this, please!

October

All of my photos from October seems to be of piles of wood, mushrooms and potatoes cooked in new and exciting ways. So here is a picture of a pig.

November

I try to put off lighting the big fire in the loft on a 24/7 rotation until as late in the year as I can, with the aim to be to hold off until at least November. I know that I have failed every year until this one. October was still very mild all the way until the end, and the first half of November was too. And then, the last two weeks were properly winter. December eased up again, although it appears to have properly set in now. But for at least half of November, the temperature fell off a cliff and everything went white.

December

So far this month, lots of messing around with wood. This last week, I resolved to bring 3 wheelbarrows of chopped firewood inside every day for a week, and also to make daily forays into the forest. This year, they were harvesting trees around the barracks all year. They have also replanted a good five figure number of saplings, so we might be free from the harvester for the next 10 years or so, which would be nice. They only take out the trunks, leaving some pretty substantial branches on the forest floor. I’ve been going and fetching a few of them every day. It all helps, right?

But also, I’ve been in the woodshop a lot. Making things, and tidying up. I hope to be in here a lot over winter, although it does get kinda cold!

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It’s not all about the pigs.

And finally, I want to thank all of you for being here. We are growing slowly, but surely. I am grateful for you being here, for reading it, for your comments and engagement. When I ask you to consider becoming a paid subscriber, which I hope it not too often for it to become tiresome, I always say that all the money from here goes to pig food. This is still true, and will continue to be true for some time, but I would like to admit that it is the human who benefits really. It is a struggle, and the financial weight of the pigs is honestly something I would rather be without. Knowing that they are to a large percentage taken care of is of a huge benefit to my health and well being as well as theirs.

If you can manage the 5 euros, pounds, dollars a month, my gratitude is eternal.

And for now, have a very lovely Christmas, guten Rutsch, and see you all in 2025.

Much love

Your Pirate Ben

xoxo