Having grand plans is all very fine, but there comes a time when one must make the first, single, decisive gesture towards action.

For us, this meant placing a small wooden peg, painted white, at the southern boundary of Milkwood. And then surveying a contour which continued aaaallllll the way around the hillside at the same height as that first peg, right around to the other boundary of Milkwood on the western side of the ridge. This first contour was important to mark out for a couple of reasons:

• it will mark the 'level' for the middle swale of our Permaculture design, and therefore the level of the middle dam (and in turn, therefore, the position of the studio)
• being roughly in the middle of the system, this contour will be used to define the placement of features above and below it (like greenhouse/chookhouse combos, the kitchen garden, the orchard, the bath house)
• as swales are tree growing systems, this contour will define where a belt of trees (all productive, food bearing ones) runs through the centre of the Permaculture system
  
• because you have to start somewhere

And so we whacked the first peg into the soil of Milkwood. Which wasn't too easy at the time, given the 6-year drought - the soil was quite un-enthused about opening up for our peg. But even the soil of Milkwood (in it's sorry, overgrazed state) was no match for our collective enthusiasm. And in a year or so, that soil will be hydrated, friable and hopping with life.

Following the experience of the Cowley level and the laser level, it was clear that the laser level was going to be an indespensable tool for the amount of surveying and earthworks we intended to carry out at Milkwood. And having one around would be quite handy for outside projects and teaching, too. So  we went out and sourced a cheap laser level at auction, and now we are lasering our little hearts out. It's so good. You can re-check levels in the blink of an eye... and earthworks is like carpentry, only to the power of 10... measure twice, measure twice again, cut once.

One of the great things about surveying out a site is that you go through the entire landscape very slowly. You're looking in all directions as you move around the contour, and you begin to appreciate exactly what bits are level with what, and what features are markedly higher than others. And this makes a big difference, when you're trying to analyze how the rainwater runoff 'works' within a particular landscape.  

As i write this, we have finished just about all of the surveying for Milkwood. Everything has been pegged, measured, and re-measured within an inch of its life. All of the swales, dams, access ways and structure sites exist in a language of little white pegs throughout the grassy hillside. It's all action stations from here on in... fingers crossed... bring on the bulldozers... 

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Comments (5)

D said:

Congrats ! How far are you placing your swales apart (out of curiosity) ?

January 31, 2008

kirsten said:

Heya D - yeah the placement of these features need a fair bit of thought. Our middle swale's placement was defined by the southern end of it. This point was in a gully, and we wanted to catch as much of that run-off as possible - so the corner-peg (which is the one in the video) was the highest point within that gully that we could run a swale out from. That subsequent contour line ended up running thru the middle of the property at large, so it became the middle swale. The top swale and the bottom swale were defined by the placement of the top and bottom dams... once the best site for each dam was decided, we ran a swale out on contour with the uphill-edge of the dam, on either side of the dam. Then each swale was mapped back around the hillside until it met up with the next gully, at which point it ended in a small check-dam in the fissure of that gully. If yr in a system that doesn't have dams on each of the swales, the distance between your swales would be defined by whatever features are the most important to you within the system, and those would be taken into consideration when placing the swales - don't forget - a swale can function as a: tree growing system / water harvesting system / road / access-way / windbreak / boundary / fence / run-off negator / visual barrier / whatever else you can think of... so the space between yr swales is defined by what else your system needs and/or contains. Sorry that's not a very straight-forward answer. The other big deciding factor tho is COST and ENERGY .. how many swales would you like? uh huh. how many can you afford? aah. Do the most crucial one first. And then, take it from there... best, xk

February 03, 2008

Nick said:

Hey D, We are building two major swales, they are about 50 metres apart and about 10m difference in altitude. They are pretty big swales, because they are being built by a 27 tonne bulldozer, they are 3.5 metres wide in the bottom and the mounds vary from 600mm to 1.4m high. One of the ideas that our Permaculture teacher taught us when talking about the positioning of swales is the concept of the lowest high point. It seems, if you have a relatively simple shaped piece of land, you can usually find your lowest high point if you start at the highest part of your property (usually on your boundary) and then walk along the border which slopes away at the gentlest angle. When you get to the next corner, where the boundary turns down hill you will probably have reached your lowest high point. If you take a contour from the lowest high point there is a good chance that it will be one of the longest contours on your property and there is also a good chance it will be midway between the highest and lowest points on your land. It also very important to note where run-off water enters your land. In our case our lowest high point coincided with a a gully that runs in larger rain events, so the starting point was an easy choice. As for spacing of swales, like K said cost and the amount of useful space between them were the major factors. I have been told that one good limit is the shade from the trees on the swale above/below. Nick PS: D if you are Darren D, then please forgive the above excursion into water design basics

February 03, 2008 | url

alex said:

I really enjoy reading your blog; it always has great dialogue. I was wondering if your readers have heard anything about online carbon calculators. I am not an environmental nerd but I came across a couple, and with everyone going green these days I thought I would check out my footprint. I took my test at WWF.com, and the EPA site along with www.earthlab.com. Does anyone know about any other ones? Let me know, and it would be cool to hear any thoughts on these things. Oh and I think Earthlab.com is the best site it has the easiest calculator to use and they are doing stuff with the super bowl, spinning football and global warming together is pretty impressive.

February 09, 2008

kirsten said:

hiya Alex - i think there's heaps of them out there now - the most recent one I came across was here: http://begreen.com.au - I would tend to use a couple of good ones and take an average reading fromt he results... there is just *so* much information to account for in a footprint calculation that I am not altogether sure that any one engine could give what might be called an 'accurate' reading... and then, of course, every time you do a google search it's equivalent to 1 hr usage of a energy-efficient globe... the mind boggles... Its all a bit grim, istn't it... make sure you focus on the solutions you have access to and can skill-up on, not the problems - you're no use to the planet if you're immobilized by the sheer weight of the situation... happy footprinting - xk

February 16, 2008

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