Week 7 -- 03/17-03/24

Week 7

The on the ground training camp started and a few students from the PDC stayed for that. The excavator was running from day one to put in the new swale. After some surveying the digging bagan with Nadia at the wheel. I got to drive it a few days later. It was pretty weird at first trying to get all the controls sorted. there are like 6 or 7 different ones. here are two for the tracks to make it move. and for for the bucket and arm. and everything is counter intuitive forward is backward backward is up. But after a little bit I started to get the hang of it. It was pretty cool and we had a 5 ton machine which is considered small.

Jackie the smaller terrier mix finally earned her keep by spotting two snakes in one day. She just kept barking and Geoff knew what it meant so he rushed over and there was jackie keeping her distance but letting everyone know something dsangerous was around. First was a Brown snake, highly poisonous and the other was a python. Atta girl jackie.

On thursday I went down to sydney for the australian permaculture conference. It was the 30th anniversary of permaculture so it was a pretty huge deal. It was basically like a crash course in permaculture history. Also it was honoring Bill Mollison who was the co-originator of permaculture but single handedly started the whole movement. It was also crazy to see how many people wanted to talk to Geoff and ask him questions and discuss projects. So i was just like a sponge trying to absorb everything. And of course everyone was wondering who this guy with the beard is that is also with Geoff and Nadia. Especially at the celebration dinner on the last night where Nadia had some guy bumped from the table so i could sit with them At Bill's Table with all the other elders of permaculture history. It was a funny one.

Oh and I finally saw my first wallaby, it just hopped right into view as i was staring out the window from our room Alsothe conference was at this scout camp and there was some awesome woods and rock formations nearby. The sandstone gets cut and shaped into some sweet patterns. In the stream there were al these little holes and pockets that the water flowed in and out of.
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