This is your man C Piddy (Colton) rocking the keys.
Day 13 was filled with, well, not much. We took advantage of
the down time to sleep in, chill with the bus collective, and make fun of the
Super Bowl. We ironically spent a large part of the day bashing on the mass
consumerism, mindless entertainment, and horrible food associated with this
American holiday, and then subsequently watched the Super Bowl. However, we did
break tradition and ate healthfully with artisan vegan pizzas, homemade salsa,
and vegan chili.
Day 14 brought another day of rest and relaxation. I can’t
speak for Casey, but I know that I felt physically sick from being in the city,
so we took this opportunity to escape to Venice beach! We joined the bus
collective for a day of building sand tunnels, twirling sand in our beards, and
burying people alive (I was legitimately buried standing up; quite an
impressive feat). The Venice Skate Park and boardwalk provided us with entertainment
as well; quite a relaxing day at the beach. We even got a free souvenir, as we’ll
be finding sand all over our bodies and in our gear for weeks to come.
On day 15, Casey and I had quite a novel experience. We
parted ways. Casey’s neck has been hurting him throughout the trip, and today
we were going to do some manual labor so he wisely opted to rest his neck. I
teamed up with the rest of the bus collective to check out a site called The
Growing Home and we offered our strong young backs for the day. We had come
across this permaculture gem doing a simple search for Permaculture in LA, and
it seemed pretty darn impressive from the website. We gave them a call and they
said they would have some stuff to work on if we came on over.
We arrived at the address and for a second couldn’t tell if
we were actually in the right place. The neighborhood couldn’t have been any
more suburban, but you could tell that this house was set apart from the
neighboring dwellings. We entered the backyard and the magic began to sink in;
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a suburban home with so much green-ness. This
typical home had been transformed into a veritable food forest with rich and
beautiful soil through the use of sheet-mulching and terracing. They were
growing various annuals and herbs, but the stars of the show were the several
dozen varieties of trees. On this small plot you can find fig, papaya, “sweet
lemon” (tastes like a lemon but isn’t sour), orange, tangerine, banana,
cherimoya (if you haven’t tried it, put it on your bucket list; it tastes like
cotton candy), pomegranate, autumn berry, curry leaf, kaffir lime, almond,
mango, apple, guava, mulberry, jujube, and numerous other trees. A couple of
the other stars were perennialized collard and broccoli trees. Yes, I said
trees. These monsters were 8 feet tall and resembled something out of Dr.
Seuss. He even had the components of the food forest labeled with painted
signs, which you don’t get with too many of these types of operations.
The magic of this system, though, was the integration of
different aspects of the house to make a true ecosystem. He had chickens and
rabbits in the same cage, which provide meat, eggs, and fertilizer. There was
an outdoor shower so that shower water could be reused, the greywater from the
laundry was directed out to the garden, and he was even developing a
micro-wetland system with cattails that he could put his kitchen sink water
through. The cattails would clean out the water for later reuse in the garden.
The Growing Home is a stunning example of how much food can be grown in a
sustainable way on a typical suburban plot of land, and Rishi, the
manager/expert on hand, shares his knowledge with others in the community
through various workshops and classes hosted at the property. http://thegrowinghome.net/
That day, we were able to help out in the construction of an
integrated system in the front yard to accomplish fertilization, water
catchment, and quail feeding. We cleared an area, dug out a couple swales (or
trenches), and then constructed berms (or raised mounds) by piling the soil on
top of old logs, branches, and various organic matter. Rishi got permission to
direct rainwater from the neighbor’s roof into the swales, which will soak in
and water the raised beds (in which he will be planting papaya trees). The
swales will also be used to plant ground cover that can serve as food for
quails, as he has a “quail tractor” that can be pulled through the swales to
provide the quails with food. This will provide the quails with food, but will
also provide fertility to the soil that can feed the fruit trees! So much
integration!
Thanks for listening to us geek out about permaculture. I
thought it was pretty neat.
Casey and I reunited back at Synchronicity, the intentional living community that was kind enough to let us park in front of their place and join them for group meals. It was great connecting with this group of community-oriented individuals whilst making new friends. Speaking of friends, Casey invited his old buddy Nick (an LA resident) over to share about his life living on a bus. This bus comes around the corner, OPEN sign blaring, flat black paint gleaming, couch perched on the roof, purple lights lighting the ground below, and piano nestled on board in order to offer the perfect artists' safe haven. Theallnightdiner.com is a showcase for street musicians and other talent to come perform and talk about their experiences in a decked out school bus. Check it out, it truly is a novel idea and we wish him success.
Moving on to the home stretch,
C’s get degrees
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