The following is a comment on something I was re-editing that I saw and read again. I like it so much I’m going to post it again because I think building community amongst Permaculture people is incredibly important but it’s also important for a community to be able to criticize freely. And I also do not believe that Permaculture is about finding the “best Permaculture way to kill something.”<\/p>\n
Requote— So I made the following response to someone else\u2019s post on this website http:\/\/www.permies.com.<\/a> And apparently Paul Wheaton felt that it was over the top and needed to be deleted. What I was responding to is someone who was saying that they needed to find a way to kill voles and kill the mice and kill the Gophers on their property. And I had previously posted that I thought that the idea behind permaculture was long term stability and that if you kill something you will always need to kill it. Where as if you give the predators a chance to move in you can sit back and be lazy and let them do your work :-) <\/p>\n They had responded that they were a struggling little farm and needed to kill stuff to survive. So I posted the following:<\/p>\n Start post\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013 And I grant you a big problem might be your neighbors. I\u2019ll bet you they do not welcome in the Coyotes and the Bobcats. I have got a picture, that I don\u2019t advertise because of _my_ neighbors. It is a picture of a young coyote maybe 25 or 30 feet away from me just lying there with its head on its paws, ears up, watching me. It is waiting for me to quit taking pictures of it so that it can go down into my constructed wetland and hunt voles. Owls, snakes, Hawks, Raccoons will eat voles. But if you kill and poison the voles and mice the Hawks, snakes, owls, and raccoons are going to find someplace else to regularly visit.<\/p>\n You need them to regularly visit to be an effective deterrence. Which if you think about it means a constant low level of mouse and vole destruction. If you want the instant gratification of seeing the slightest bit of vole damage and having the owl come and get it that night \u2014 it\u2019s not going to happen. And here\u2019s 1 of my biggest complaint about cats \u2014 they kill the lizards and snakes which are such effective natural controls for insects and voles and mice. I saw a garter snake just yesterday. Dj I get so tired of going to permaculture meetings and listening to everybody describe how they tried to kill everything they don\u2019t like. Guy wants to know what to put in a beehive to kill spiders. So wrong, so wrong, on so many levels. Everybody wants to kill rattlesnakes and Gophers because they\u2019re \u201cin the way of what I want\u201d. Everybody rationalizes that they really do love nature, and are the world\u2019s best environmentalists and permaculturists, because they like hummingbirds and compost.<\/p>\n Course it\u2019s sort of (edit for readability) easy to like hummingbirds and compost. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014- how about being a great permaculturist and great environmentalist because you do the stuff that\u2019s hard. \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 And for all your reasons, and rationalizations I didn\u2019t read once \u2014 and I went back and checked \u2014 the words \u201cyou know you\u2019re right we do kill too many things and we\/I could do better.\u201d It was still all about what _you_ want with _your_ property. As I said, I am sure I will never change your mind. I have about 1 acre of usable land. I have been gardening for many years myself. Maybe less than you but I\u2019ve progressed further than compost. It is not urban and we have a lot of the same critters that you have. And except for 1 animal, which I regret, I have not deliberately killed anything higher than an insect in the years I have been here. And knock on wood, I have very little rodent critter damage. So you asked for my solutions \u2014 I have told you, over, and over, but I will never change your mind. And you might jump to the conclusion that you could say the same about me, but there you\u2019re wrong. See I already have changed my mind. I used to be like you but instead of rationalizing I used to think \u201cI can do better.\u201d Looking forward to reading all your future rationalizations. :) End post<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014 Yep I\u2019m terribly mean spirited and call him all sorts of derogatory names so that post needed to be deleted. And, in retrospect I should\u2019ve left off that last line but that is certainly reason enough to delete the entire post right Paul? Couldn\u2019t have just sent me a quick note to be more careful. And you know no one _is_ ever going to change his mind. But I wasn\u2019t responding to change _his_ mind Paul, but to talk to all the people who were reading it behind the scenes. I don\u2019t believe permaculture is taking the easy way out. And as an open letter to Paul Wheaton. As someone who is dedicated to Permaculture, I believe that we need to tell people that Permaculture is not about destroying everything in our way. And not just to have the biggest Permie website to sell things on. Bob <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The following is a comment on something I was re-editing that I saw and read again. I like it so much I’m going to post it again because I think building community amongst Permaculture people is incredibly important but it’s … Continue reading
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