Hello from deepest darkest Dorset, UK

Submitted by Thrifty1 on Thu, 07/29/2021 - 16:40
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Introduce Yourself, New Green Wizard

Hello, and thank you for adding me!

Some of you may have come across me before, in one or other odd corner of the WWW under the name "thriftwizard" which I'm beginning to think is somewhat inappropriate in this company! In no way am I a "real" wizard; I have no magical training whatsoever. The moniker came from a magazine I wrote some articles for on moneysaving, back in the early 2000s; they only printed one of them & spiked the rest, because the idea of NOT spending money was a bit too radical for their advertisers. Never mind; they'd already paid me for the whole series, and given me a nickname I rather liked. However in all humility I feel I should drop the wizard bit now!

I live in a beautiful part of a beautiful but overcrowded country; very near the south coast of England, in the rolling green hills of Dorset but 20 minutes from the beaches, though I'm originally from further south & west. We have a biggish home (by UK standards!) and moderate-sized garden on the outskirts of a little medieval market town, but we still have 3 of our 5 "kids" (now all adults) living with us, thanks to the horrendous increases in property & rental prices. (One of those has a doctorate, is working for his university, & still can't afford a place of his own.) In our garden we grow lots of fruit; apples, quinces, figs, pears, raspberries, gooseberries, red & black-currants, Japanese wineberries, kiwifruits, hazelnuts and lots of herbs. It's not really big enough for many vegetables, as we also keep chickens. So I also have a small "allotment" on the other side of town, a mile away, where I'm currently harvesting potatoes, runner beans, courgette/zucchini, and assorted leaves & beets. I've been interested in permaculture for many years, but have never managed to actually take a course; I just follow the principles, and have advised a number of friends on how to get the best out of their gardens. I'm also into preserving and fermenting, and enjoy cooking food from all sorts of cuisines - mostly!

No time to write more, but very much looking forward to "meeting" you all and exchanging ideas & experiences...

ClareBroommaker's picture

ClareBroommaker

Thu, 07/29/2021 - 17:37

Hi, I really look forward to your contributions here! I found your blog on wordpress.com. Admittedly, I paged through quickly, looking at your pictures and reading a small amount. I'm going to so enjoy spending some hours with it! Glad you are here.

David Trammel's picture

David Trammel

Thu, 07/29/2021 - 18:26

Thank Greer for the name, lol. If you haven't, here is the ADR post which explains it.

"Merlin Time"

"For that, I have come to think, is one of the things the soon-to-be-deindustrializing world most needs just now: green wizards. By this I mean individuals who are willing to take on the responsibility to learn, practice, and thoroughly master a set of unpopular but valuable skills – the skills of the old appropriate tech movement – and share them with their neighbors when the day comes that their neighbors are willing to learn. This is not a subject where armchair theorizing counts for much – as every wizard’s apprentice learns sooner rather than later, what you really know is measured by what you’ve actually done – and it’s probably not going to earn anyone a living any time soon, either, though it can help almost anyone make whatever living they earn go a great deal further than it might otherwise go. Nor, again, will it prevent the unraveling of the industrial age and the coming of a harsh new world; what it can do, if enough people seize the opportunity, is make the rough road to that new world more bearable than it will otherwise be."

While a few of us are pagan, we're I hope welcoming to people of established religious groups and even those of no group at all. Pull up a chair around the fire, I'll get you a bowl of stone soup, lol.

Welcome to Green Wizards.

Kay Robison

Fri, 07/30/2021 - 07:22

I look forward to hearing what you have to say about all the subjects you mentioned above. I am an avid gardener also and tomatoes are just starting to come on and we are awash in beans.

Teresa from Hershey

Fri, 07/30/2021 - 17:09

We're glad to have you with us.
Tell us all your thrifty secrets; doing more with less is a very useful skill.

There's always something new to learn.