the house is gradually coming on - we’re now plasterboarding and putting in wiring. still hopeful it’ll be finished in the summer - september? we’ve also been busy planting trees, blackcurrant bushes and sorting out drainage around the place. ben and i also had fun moving some big stones around the place. ben has made lots of beautiul stone steps. it’s all a bit of a mess again because of the digger - but that’s the last time a big machine will be on the site (finger’s crossed).

(via bean sprouts)

rob has done some excellent work introducing the term “resilience” to the sustainability agenda through the transition movement. richard heinberg with typical verve gives a framework for developing a resilience plan which will be very useful for communities less ready to engage with the transition message:

Transition and Relocalization projects tend to have a hopeful, upbeat, attractive tone, and that is one of their virtues. By contrast, disaster management is a sobering subject. Yet while hopeful visions are good and necessary for motivating communities, the real future that is now unfolding is one of crisis heaped upon crisis. Effective response strategies must respond to the facts, however unattractive they may be from a marketing standpoint. The Resilient Communities strategy faces harsh reality and makes the best of it by using it strategically.

if you haven’t encountered him before i can highly recommend ben goldacre’s bad science website. this post on biometrics is typical. (the video of the guys breaking the super secure fingerprint scanner wonderful.)