chicken crossing the road wearing shoes -istock photos
Most of us have heard of hydroponics, and many of us have heard of aquaponics, but have you ever heard of chicken-ponics?
Hydroponics is the growing of plants with a water-based, nutrient-infused solution, bypassing the need for soil. There are several methods including roots dangling in the nutrient solution from floating pots to hydroton pellets (expanded clay) that anchor the roots.
There is also aquaponics which takes the hydroponics system up a level by adding fish to the system. (Aquaculture is the raising of fish. Mix this with HydroPonics and you get AquaPonics. ) In a great oversimplification, in aquaponics, the fish water, complete with fish waste, is cycled through the plants. This cycling fertilizes the plants while purifying and aerating the water for passing back into the fish. These systems can contain worms to increase efficiency (vermiponics) but that’s more syllables than I care to discuss, but here is a link for better details on Aquaponics.
Now we come to the fun part: what happens if we add chickens on top of the fish? Better yet, what if we add chickens and rabbits? This is where things can get crazy. A little research shows a variety of animals have been added to aquaponics to add nutrient waste into the system and feed the fish, as well as produce food for humans and animals. I’ve seen ducks (quack-aponics), rabbits, or chickens thrown into the mix. We are possibly looking to incorporate rabbits and chickens along with the fish and plants. My concern is keeping the water healthy enough to grow fresh veggies with the chicken waste involved. We are looking at different versions now and welcome any ideas or constructive criticism. The plan will be completed the second week of April 2024 and the build will be the following week.
The ultimate goal will be to maximize food production while minimizing space and external inputs. The system will be located at our leader, Stephen’s property in South Africa, and will then be used to teach others in his community how to replicate this system. We will also be looking to replicate this system at our demonstration farm in the US – but that is future news to be announced in May!
Stay tuned for pictures, plans, and updates on what we build and how it works. If you would like to donate to Mahala Love and projects like this, please click here. Thanks for reading!
Great things are done by aseries of small thingsbrought together”
Vincent van Gogh
A series of small things, now that is something I can relate to. On some days, I can dream of great things and large impacts with grand gestures. On other days, I can not. On those “other days,” I try and find a small thing to do.
If I am struggling with a project, relationship, idea, or whatever, I will try and focus on one small step I can complete. If there is no small step that avails itself or I can not muster whatever is needed to do that small step, instead I will find one small joy about that thing and hold steadfast until I can take another step.
Today I am joyful for the relationships I have developed through the work of Mahala Love. I am joyful for the people who show me perseverance and dignity as they make strides in their lives. I am joyful for the opportunity to have met and to call many of these people my friends.
That great big bundle of joy is what leads me to the next small step.
We chose the name Mahala because it is indigenous to so many languages and always has the meaning of community or free or freedom. And then we chose love…
Choosing love is more difficult than it seems at first look. The act of choosing to love is something that permeates every thought, action, and breath -until it doesn’t. And then it has to be chosen again and again and again, sometimes all in the same day.
I have read a few articles lately that I will in no way be able to do justice to but will link them below. That along with my personal experience has my mind and heart turning, churning, and searching on what love means to me personally and what it means to our mission in Mahala Love.
I would say one of my deepest fears is ironically being afraid – too afraid to experience and feel life to the fullest. Maybe it’s as simple as the standard fear of missing out. But I fear sliding through life allowing myself to be dulled down with mindless chatter and untethered ideas when I know life is beautiful and meaningful and full of work to do. The article, Fragmentation, does a beautiful job of explaining this in a way that resonated deeply with me, I don’t wish to live my life in a fragmented way. I choose to love with all my heart. That is truly a scary and often painful choice. I have lived a life where I have compartmentalized that and only loved that which was safe to love. And I have stepped out to love more fully only to be driven back by the pain of loving. When I mix the choice of loving fully with my insecurities of not being enough, I can create self-fulfilling scenarios of pushing people away while loving them as hard as I know how. To love with all of your heart is wide open, exhilarating, and the greatest gift we get and what I believe we are called to do. But it also means to feel that which is painful and sit with our feelings as fully as possible and reflect and learn, knowing it is part of the same.
An article by Wendell Berry entitled, “Can Love Take Sides?” talks about the Lovers versus the Haters. The haters have the pure and easy job of simply hating. Whereas the lovers have to walk the fine line of loving the haters, accepting the haters as they are, and not trying to change the haters in order to love them. The problem becomes when the lovers began to hate the haters and then all is lost. Love and hate are so close together as they are both full and raw and powerful. And I mean powerful also in the sense that it allows us to wield power, a power for incredible good and a power for incredible hurt – with just the slightest word. This applies to politics, religion, and to simple daily relationships. We can love until we feel hurt or threatened and then we feel we must withdraw the love. And often it is a struggle to keep coming back to that place of love to evaluate the truth of a situation.
Reflecting on the mission of Mahala Love, we choose to empower people. We have four pillars of health, education, water, and food but really what we choose to do is to love the people that we know and the people that we meet and to help them be okay where they are. To stand with them to improve their health and security in life through things as simple as antibiotics, a community garden and heirloom seeds, preserving water resources, teaching new skills that they desire to learn, and supporting them unconditionally with love and caring and community.
In, “Overcoming Faith Barriers”, we read that Moses’s insecurity was a block to his faith. When called to go to the Pharoh and demand the release of his people, he answered with “Who am I?” – this is true in my relationship with God as well as my personal relationships. When I don’t feel whole and secure in myself, it is difficult to believe that others can love me, want me, and trust me to be enough as I am. It is no reflection on them, but simply on my lack of faith in myself. And it is difficult to trust that what I believe or know that God wants me to do is really within my capabilities. At times, God calls us to be ready to step forth and be bold. For some of us, that boldness is speaking to a stranger we can tell is in pain – overcoming the fear that this person is a stranger, or we won’t know what to say, or that we will be in danger. For others, the task is changing your life to better serve God and our fellows. But we are all called to Love one another. Finding the faith that we will not be asked to do more than we are equipped to handle, is often our challenge – not the kind word or gentle hug or even the bold change of life.
Great changes are coming to Mahla Love. We have received our 501(c)3 designation meaning we are now a tax-exempt charity. We expect to have a full-time Director starting in September (me) and we will be ramping up our projects in South Africa and our fundraising to support those projects. We have worked for the past 5 years here and there as we could make the time and scrape together the funds. But now is the time, we will be bold and step up and have the faith that Love is the most important thing we can give. We hope you will follow us on this journey and let us all rise to the challenge of embracing love fully together and supporting each other through the beauty and challenges that it brings.
It’s been pointed out lately that I tend to be, “reductive.” I think that’s code for terse, curt, short or any number of other words meaning not only – “to the point,” but most likely, “ too to the point.” Perhaps it is true. I do like a good basic noun-verb combination to start a conversation, with a few adjectives thrown in because I’m Southern by raising. Examples, “pick up your shoes” – Southern version – “Pick up your stinking shoes.”
I think it is in ideas that I tend to be reductive as oppose to words though. What seems to be complicated issues to some people, I seem to think are more simple. If you’re lost, either metaphorically or literally, why flounder alone driving in circles? Pause and ask for directions. When everyone is getting on my nerves, pause, look in the mirror, there is the source.
Here we are in the most confusing times of near history, with a nonstop onslaught of verbiage coming at us nearly 24/7. I find this hard to take. I don’t know why the same story is reported on 73.65 times in a single day, with 18 points of view from 13 people that I can see as having no connection other than someone handed them a microphone and a makeup artist to pat the shine off of their nose. Wait, who is this and why do they have an opinion and where did they get those facts and are those really facts and why do I trust her opinion and who told him to have that opinion in the first place and have any of these people actually searched for a fact on their own or are they merely regurgitating the spew from social media that will keep them existing as a persona, as opposed to be erased if the unpopular view dare be brought in to the light as anything that might beworthyofevenlookingatbutthenwhatabout… You get my point. Does anyone else feel this way?
So, with all of that, I would like to get to my point. Times are strange, people are stranger. I probably don’t understand you, and you probably don’t understand me. But I can still love you, honor you by listening to what you believe, and know you are a person as worthy of your opinions and place on this earth as am I. As we navigate unknown, unprecedented waters, let’s grow together – whether it be community, flowers, food, a government responsive to the folks who elect them, let’s all try and remember that we are neighbors, friends, and family long before and long after the stress and politics and pandemics of the day are over. Let’s just be kind, and grow some stinking things, shall we?
The word regenerative kept popping up, as things will do when something resonates with you. I was telling my kid’s dad that my goal has always been to create a regenerative home and life for our family. He asked me to explain and here is part of my reply.
Regenerative- practices that create abundance; Actions and thoughts that leave you full rather than depleted, Time spent rejuvenating energy, mind, and soul. Time spent with family developing bonds, ideas, and support. Creating a place where people can develop their next level thinking and plan their futures based on their hearts, not on needing to chase the dollar.
The whole permaculture design concept is about this. Permaculture is not just about how to plant a garden, it is about using regenerative practices in your life, for the benefit of yourself, others and the planet. Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share – in its simplest terms. It’s a systemic design process using natural patterns and rhythms to create abundance- food, joy, community, habitat.
It is definitely taking some stretching in my mind to move these ideas from the garden into daily life, and it’s a process I have barely consciously tapped, as of yet. But as the word, “regenerative” continues to resonate with me, I will continue to bring it into the daily life of myself, my family, and my community.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you do this? What are ways you see to be regenerative in your relationships with others and the planet? 😊
Since I was introduced into Slow Food Network five years ago (2015), I started developing interests in practical activities of people producing food for their own consumption as well as to sell the surplus to their communities. This has encouraged me to be part of the Slow Food 10 000 gardens project in Africa, and since then we have created over 50 community gardens in Vhembe area, in association with Adopt A River group (an association of people with over 99% women representatives who voluntarily collect garbage to clean their community, water ways and river banks for better environment). I have been the coordinator of the Slow Food 10, 000 gardens project in Africa in Limpopo (South Africa), since then.
Apart from that, I have been engaged in policy platform nationally, continentally and even globally with the Landless Peoples Movement of South Africa since 2011. I have participated in policy debate platforms led by the South African Government under the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Land Reform including Civil Society Mechanism Platforms. I also had an opportunity to participate in the United Nations on the Declaration of Peasants Rights and Other people working in Rural Areas, in Geneva, Switzerland, for over six years until it was adopted in New York in my absentia in 2018 due to other logistical issues.
With Mahala Love, we are going to complement the already work done on the ground and ensure that initiated projects are sustained through skills development and other programs that will benefit the community.
Food production is not a once off thing, it is a continuous practice that needs everyone in the world to play an important role, and there is a need for continuous support (Technical, Financial, Emotional, skills training, etc.) in community projects and Mahala love is here for that.
In reality, we cannot end poverty, but we can end hunger and the only way we can eradicate hunger and malnutrition is by affording the community the opportunities to grow their own food and place resources at their disposal and we want Mahala Love to be the vehicle to achieve this goal.
There is still much work to be done on the ground and by walking together we will go extra miles.
I wanted to wish you all a Happy Mother’s Day, whether you are a Mother, in the formal sense of the word or not. Regardless of your status, we all have, or had, a mother at some point. It is a great day to be reflective of the gifts we have in this life – gifts of birth mothers, step mothers, friend’s mothers, mother-in-laws or you can always reflect on Mother Earth if you’re struggling in the other categories.
I thank all the strong women in my life. I have been blessed with several and am equally blessed to be raising a couple more. I have always felt that whatever age my kids are, it is my favorite. My children, (I have four by birth and a couple more by heart), most are adults or young adults at this point. I find each one complex and fascinating. Although the Lockdown of 2020 has been stressful for many, I have truly cherished the slowing down of my life and having my kids around more. I am so grateful for a 15 minute conversation when they blurt out something or they process an idea or they just explain something for the 5th time because they are sure I can’t possibly understand. I see with great pride the kind hearts and sharp minds they each possess and I anticipate their futures.
So Happy Mother’s Day to us all. May you have peaceful days and take the time to focus on the good amidst all else that may be going on.
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