Oh, for ranting out loud!

Lately, I feel like the longer I'm away from society, the crazier it seems to be getting. I don't often get swept up in news on the telly or on the radio, or outraged by the latest issues. There's no areal for the TV, and I don't listen to the radio. It's pretty hard to get a good signal, so I gave up a couple of years ago. When I do step out into the "real world", it's a bit shocking.

Marty and I visited my Mum the other day (it's been a long while since we have been there, but she's moving interstate, and I needed to say goodbye). We saw multiple small trucks spraying chemicals, blanket spraying anything within a metre or two on the side of the road. That's a lot of chemicals, not to mention the money, and of course, those weeds will be back and they can do it all over again. No design, no plan, just keep doing the same thing over and over.. what's that the definition of again? Insanity? No, these days it's the definition of keeping the system going, people get paid, everyone's happy.

There are (big expensive) signs on the side of the road warning people to prune and clean up their fruit trees to prevent fruit fly. I have been asked lately if we get fruit fly by people I talk to when shopping in town. It seems to be on people's minds, so I imagine there's quite a campaign, although I don't see it. So, here's my answer.

NO! I don't have a fruit fly problem.

At first, I thought it was because of the frosts, but I think I'm not giving my local bird population enough credit.

Our fruit trees have been here longer than Marty and I have. They're pretty healthy despite neglect over the years, and produce great fruit and don't suffer disease. The ground under them is wild, with herbs, grasses, and mess. Some of the fruit decays on the ground and on the tree, year after year I suppose, for much longer than we've been here. Yet, still no fruit fly.

Yes, people around us have fruit fly problems, so I've heard. They've also got kids, dogs, cats and lawns. I imagine that doesn't leave much for the choughs to pick through, if they're not scared away by the pets. The choughs perform the functions of chickens in a permaculture design, except they feed themselves, breed successfully every year, and are well adapted to living in this environment. This year, the choughs have two babies, and they're spending a lot of time handing around the garden, turning over every leaf and stick. Straw flies through the air and holes are dug, it's a "mess", just the way they like it. You'd have to be a lucky fruit fly larvae to survive all those beaks searching for you!

The mummified fruit on the trees is taken one at a time throughout winter by the butcher birds. Horrible name they have been given.. I absolutely love them! Their song is something else, and they're so intelligent! They take a mummified fruit on the wing, grabbing it with their foot and transferring it to their beaks mid flight! I adored watching it from the loungeroom window. They then take that fruit and find a fork in a log or other such thing we've got lying around, and wedge it in there and peck it apart. I imagine it's quite sweet tasting! It's just dried fruit, after all.

I'm hearing about people getting into trouble and being threatened with fines, if they don't clean up their trees.. prune, pick up fruit, make it clean and neat. There's no way I'll be able to explain to someone "in authority" that no, there aren't any fruit fly issues here, that the wild birds keep the balance, and it's the simplification of our environment that's causing the pest problems in the first place. I can't express myself well when under pressure, so I feel like I have to express it now, before anything like that happens. I know it won't make a difference to the outcome, but I need to get this out there!

Spraying, pruning, netting the trees, mowing and cleaning right up to the trunk of the fruit tree. Those are the problems, not the solutions. Simplifying the environment, trying to control every single thing, and with our human brains already trying to do so many other things, what makes us think we could possibly imagine all the outcomes of everything we do? It's taken me over 3 years to see what's actually happening with just this one system here. This land is my teacher. Mother nature knows what she's doing. We just gotta stop trying to control everything, stop interfering, and get out of the way.

Sure, we don't get every peach that each tree produces. We don't get a perfect crop from every tree every year. There are at least 7 peach trees, so there is plenty enough for us to enjoy sweet juicy fruit in the summertime, the birds and other animals get more than enough, too. It's more akin to foraging than it is to an orchard. Sure, it's not a commercial venture, but it's not suppose to be. It's worked for probably over a decade, and continues to work today, and unless some "authority" trespasses onto our land and tries to tell me to clean it up, I imagine it'll continue to work for many seasons to come.