"Abundance" is a term I'm hearing a lot lately. Mostly through watching the lovely Geoff Lawton's ongoing series of permaculture videos.
If you've watched these you'll know what I mean ;)
The other day my eldest was out picking beans, carrots & beetroot to prep for preserving / freezing and I could hear her yelling "Mummy! Help!".
Thinking she'd managed to get her beautiful long hair tangled up in something (again), I rushed out into the garden to find her struggling to carry what she'd picked (again).
Funnily enough the same thing happened when she recently harvested radishes, broad beans & silverbeet... then again the other day when she picked tomatoes, eggplant & zucchini. Fortunately the girls took a large enough basket when they picked the peaches as I'm not sure they'd have survived being dropped and then the roll down our steep drive!
This time her basket had so many beans in it most had ended up falling in with the root veggies when she tried to pick up her haul. Of course, being only 5, she then tried to pick up the beans and dropped half the beets & carrots she'd managed to fit in her little arms.
Here she is posing with half of her haul before taking it inside. Her little sister came to the rescue with another basket, a bigger one this time, to retrieve the spilled beans from the root veggies & I grabbed the rest of her beets and carrots. After snapping this of course :)
I realised then exactly what Geoff keeps banging on about when he says an "abundant landscape".
We have abundant annual veggies, we're pretty good on the perennials too, soon we'll have the same situation with fruit & berry crops. We are surrounded by wildlife and our garden literally hums with insects. Our soil squirms with life. The sheer greeness and colours of all the indigenous plants and companion plants in our garden make us grin when we walk out the door. Our small, under 1/4 acre property, has life in every square inch.
All of these things nourish us physically and emotionally.
Our abundant landscape however also nourishes us at a deeper level. The pleasure we gain from caring for the soil, encouraging wildlife, sowing, growing, harvesting, eating and preserving our own food nourishes us emotionally too. As does taking an active part in our communities.
Our home and life is abundant in food, but it is also abundant in enjoyment, fun, happiness, love and respect.
So, Geoff, if you ever read this mate, time to drop the phrase "abundant lives" into your next narration because that's what permaculture has given my family and we thank everyone who has helped us on this journey.
Happy new year everyone and may you all be blessed with abundance in 2014!