Swales Saving Water

Every now and then I borrow The Earth Garden Water Book from the library and dream about the things I could do if I had a block of land. A few months ago I did this and came across swales. I loved the sound of the word and decided I wanted a swale. Unfortunately I read a bit further and discovered a swale is a ditch that follows a contour and catches water which would otherwise just run down the contour and be lost [1]. My small, flat garden won’t be getting a swale any time soon.

Kirsten and Nick at Planting Milkwood have got past the dreaming stage and have designed water into the landscape of their property. This week Geoff Lawton is teaching a three day earthworks course at Milkwood to construct the necessary dams, swales, etc. in order to

harvest that water and divert it across the landscape so that it seeps in gently and slowly, creating places for things to grow, rather than have the water pelting down the cleared gullies on either side of Milkwood, to swell the eroded creek and rush off downstream before the land and the soil has had a chance to benefit from it.

That warm fuzzy feeling

Shawn at Kowai and Vanessa at Green as a Thistle were talking about their philanthropy, so I thought I’d join in. And thank you Shawn for adding me to your blogroll :)

I wonder if the only reason I give money is to get that warm, fuzzy feeling and feel good about myself. I suppose the only reason we do anything is to make ourselves feel good, whether it’s giving someone something or eating chocolate.

When I turned 18 I got a large amount of money from my (great) Aunt Mary. She died when I was a kid and the money was in trust for my brothers, cousin and I until we turned 18. I felt guilty that I was receiving so much money through an accident of birth when there were people in the world who had nothing. So I started donating to various organizations, not just conservation but also social justice and poverty-lessening ones. I got the habit from my mum. When I was little I would watch her filling in the forms and put the stamps on the envelops (ooh licking stamps!). I was amazed she had so much money, back then I got 20c for pocket money.