Excellent piece, as always, my friend. So much that resonates; from the profound experiences of interactions with other animal species, over the encounters with hairy caterpillars and other troublemakers, the trials and tribulations of tropical gardening for someone with zero prior experience, to our escalating alienation from alienating technology, and the rage and desperation at seeing the land being destroyed out of sheer ignorance…
(I mean, yeah, we bitter, old “expats” complaining about the locals, right?!)
I’m truly glad to hear about insect numbers rebounding, and I’m happy to report that it has been similar here. Not (yet?) for the fireflies, but – surprisingly enough – we had a SHIT TON of butterflies and dragonflies, pretty much all year long. All this was mirrored by local farmers’ complaints about the alleged inefficiency of even the strongest insecticides to curb the steady onslaught of caterpillars and other critters “attacking” “their” crops. A last-ditch attempt from our Great Mother to fight back? Or the result of larger predators dying off? Perhaps both. But it felt good to see massive swarms of butterflies descending onto the battered landscape, a brazen show of defiance.
It fills me with so much joy to hear about your daughters growing up, and it also gives me hope to know that there are young people like that in today’s world. Not only in regards to Taylor fucking Swift it seems you’re doing everything right. Much respect for that, I’m not sure I’d be up to the task these days.
All the best wishes to you, friend, and (because I know I don’t say it often enough) KUDOS to you for everything you’re doing, your parenting, your planting, your conservation efforts, and – last but not least – your writing.
Also, many thanks for your emotional & financial support for us two, and for your steady stream of advice regarding fermentation and other haphazard subsistence experiments. I wish we were neighbors^^
Thanks mate for the kind words. Have you made a kimchi yet? I send you a recipe if you need. I much prefer over the sauerkrauts. If you need any more convincing of fermentation benefits, was listening to this today and it’s got lots of good stuff about the gut microbiome:
Yeah, over the last few months we've made about a dozen batches of green papaya kimchi using the recipe you gave me. So fucking delicious! I think I don't need any more convincing, but I'll give it a listen anyway - thanks for the recommendation!
Oh yeah the papaya kimchi is good, but if you ever also have daikon radish and chinese cabbage and lots of chilis on hand, Sandor Katz has a good recipe
Yes, the hairy caterpillars. Sometimes they find their way into the laundry basket and when they get squashed up in the wash, you will get a rude surprise when you wear your clothes!
Do you know of any effective home remedies to reduce itchiness? I've read that the Penan of Borneo squash the caterpillars between their fingers after getting stung and rub the juice over the itchy area, but I've never tried this. Obviously this only works if you see the culprit, like when you brush your arm against one while walking through the garden. One of the things I've never expected to encounter before moving to SEAsia were definitely caterpillars that make you itchy for up to an hour! European stinging nettles are a joke compared to those bastards!
I'd like you to try this first David and report back to us, haha.
I'm trying to think if I doused mine in some vinegar, not sure it really helps much, I guess once the hairs are embedded in your skin, you've got to live with the discomfort for the day or so ("discomfort", bit of an understatement there). It's not like a honey bee stinger that you can spot and scrape out carefully.
My Lipa tree experience, which is a nettle, was several orders of magnitude worse than any of the insect stings though. I was screaming like a baby. The local guys I've hiked with were laughing about it, because they are very familiar with the tree and avoid it at all costs but this was the first time they'd known of someone actually touching it. Stupid foreigner, haha.
Interesting, I think we don't have Lipa trees here in Thailand! Maybe you can send me some seeds so I can spread them in the orchards and around the houses of known elephant killers^^
Your soil is so black, looking at your pond photos. Yes I have always wondered about people living with volcanoes. A while back I read some news of some villagers in Indonesia refusing to leave them homes when the nearby volcano might be erupting soon. It makes me think a lot about why. Maybe they just see death differently, not something to be avoided at all cost, especially if you cant lead the life you want. Maybe they trust and submit to god more than us. Maybe their animals need humans to care for them. Maybe all their assets (house, livestock, land) are there and not mobile like money in a bank. I dont know, but i often think about it. Quite similar to farmers that choose to live on flood plains by the river, like the Chinese with the angry and unpredictable Yellow River. The silt deposit is too tempting!
I agree with you on using big machinery for your pond, or just in general. It is just too much power to put in our control, when we know so little of the land and what she needs. Feels like giving a machine gun to a toddler. I hired an excavator for some works a couple years back on our old ponds but more for a safety reason. The bank was built vertically with a deep drop and we have had animals fall in, and I dont want to risk my kids doing the same. I still dont know if it was the right decision.
And the mulcher with an accident prone operator is not a good idea! It is very unpleasant to use, for me personally. Super loud, dangerous, and oil guzzing. Better let the bugs and microbes do the job happily and slowly...
Thanks for your comments. Yeah we definitely seem to have fantastic soil in this province. Our land maybe over two decades ago was rice field and there's one particular spot that has perfectly black soil and I wonder if this is where they used to burn all the rice bran etc.
One thing about the volcano, I guess there's the very real risk of being evacuated from your land and not being able to return (either through land grabbing or considered a risk area) - and like you mention, that would be ALL that many people have. We have been getting a lot of emergency warnings over the phone of it giving hiccups and rumbles. Last time we were at a friend's place near the lake for lunch we had to make quite a hurried departure when the volcanic smog (Vog, I think they call it) blew our way, instant sore throats and very smelly.
Haha, that's terrible about the caterpillars in the laundry basket. We have hairy caterpillars where I grew up in Australia but I never knew them to be itchy, it took me years before I believed Monica that I should avoid them at all cost!
That was a fantastic read, love what you say about the internet (I know you read some of my stuff still so I feel VERY honoured to have slipped through the net on occasions). I'm so fascinated by your challenges and solutions and general style (not similar to my neck of the woods).
One thing I was thinking about was the extent to which you share work or ideas/expertise or emergency plans or whatever with others living close by? Do you sometimes feel like an agriculturalist without a tribe, so to speak? Would more collaborators help or increase your exposure or?
Thanks Jonathon for the kind words. The good thing about Substack is it’s easy enough to avoid any algorithm suggestions and just read the stuff I’ve chosen to read (I only ever go to the inbox, never Home haha, and my phone is too old to run the app)
Yeah it has taken us a while but we’ve found a good bunch of lovely like-minded friends here, unfortunately don’t see them as much as we’d like to (I find traveling here extremely tiring) but they’re always just a message away.
Excellent piece, as always, my friend. So much that resonates; from the profound experiences of interactions with other animal species, over the encounters with hairy caterpillars and other troublemakers, the trials and tribulations of tropical gardening for someone with zero prior experience, to our escalating alienation from alienating technology, and the rage and desperation at seeing the land being destroyed out of sheer ignorance…
(I mean, yeah, we bitter, old “expats” complaining about the locals, right?!)
I’m truly glad to hear about insect numbers rebounding, and I’m happy to report that it has been similar here. Not (yet?) for the fireflies, but – surprisingly enough – we had a SHIT TON of butterflies and dragonflies, pretty much all year long. All this was mirrored by local farmers’ complaints about the alleged inefficiency of even the strongest insecticides to curb the steady onslaught of caterpillars and other critters “attacking” “their” crops. A last-ditch attempt from our Great Mother to fight back? Or the result of larger predators dying off? Perhaps both. But it felt good to see massive swarms of butterflies descending onto the battered landscape, a brazen show of defiance.
It fills me with so much joy to hear about your daughters growing up, and it also gives me hope to know that there are young people like that in today’s world. Not only in regards to Taylor fucking Swift it seems you’re doing everything right. Much respect for that, I’m not sure I’d be up to the task these days.
All the best wishes to you, friend, and (because I know I don’t say it often enough) KUDOS to you for everything you’re doing, your parenting, your planting, your conservation efforts, and – last but not least – your writing.
Also, many thanks for your emotional & financial support for us two, and for your steady stream of advice regarding fermentation and other haphazard subsistence experiments. I wish we were neighbors^^
Thanks mate for the kind words. Have you made a kimchi yet? I send you a recipe if you need. I much prefer over the sauerkrauts. If you need any more convincing of fermentation benefits, was listening to this today and it’s got lots of good stuff about the gut microbiome:
https://open.substack.com/pub/didipershouse/p/ancient-relationships-beyond-the?r=fhgru&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Yeah, over the last few months we've made about a dozen batches of green papaya kimchi using the recipe you gave me. So fucking delicious! I think I don't need any more convincing, but I'll give it a listen anyway - thanks for the recommendation!
Oh yeah the papaya kimchi is good, but if you ever also have daikon radish and chinese cabbage and lots of chilis on hand, Sandor Katz has a good recipe
Yes, the hairy caterpillars. Sometimes they find their way into the laundry basket and when they get squashed up in the wash, you will get a rude surprise when you wear your clothes!
Do you know of any effective home remedies to reduce itchiness? I've read that the Penan of Borneo squash the caterpillars between their fingers after getting stung and rub the juice over the itchy area, but I've never tried this. Obviously this only works if you see the culprit, like when you brush your arm against one while walking through the garden. One of the things I've never expected to encounter before moving to SEAsia were definitely caterpillars that make you itchy for up to an hour! European stinging nettles are a joke compared to those bastards!
I'd like you to try this first David and report back to us, haha.
I'm trying to think if I doused mine in some vinegar, not sure it really helps much, I guess once the hairs are embedded in your skin, you've got to live with the discomfort for the day or so ("discomfort", bit of an understatement there). It's not like a honey bee stinger that you can spot and scrape out carefully.
My Lipa tree experience, which is a nettle, was several orders of magnitude worse than any of the insect stings though. I was screaming like a baby. The local guys I've hiked with were laughing about it, because they are very familiar with the tree and avoid it at all costs but this was the first time they'd known of someone actually touching it. Stupid foreigner, haha.
Interesting, I think we don't have Lipa trees here in Thailand! Maybe you can send me some seeds so I can spread them in the orchards and around the houses of known elephant killers^^
Thanks for the update!
Your soil is so black, looking at your pond photos. Yes I have always wondered about people living with volcanoes. A while back I read some news of some villagers in Indonesia refusing to leave them homes when the nearby volcano might be erupting soon. It makes me think a lot about why. Maybe they just see death differently, not something to be avoided at all cost, especially if you cant lead the life you want. Maybe they trust and submit to god more than us. Maybe their animals need humans to care for them. Maybe all their assets (house, livestock, land) are there and not mobile like money in a bank. I dont know, but i often think about it. Quite similar to farmers that choose to live on flood plains by the river, like the Chinese with the angry and unpredictable Yellow River. The silt deposit is too tempting!
I agree with you on using big machinery for your pond, or just in general. It is just too much power to put in our control, when we know so little of the land and what she needs. Feels like giving a machine gun to a toddler. I hired an excavator for some works a couple years back on our old ponds but more for a safety reason. The bank was built vertically with a deep drop and we have had animals fall in, and I dont want to risk my kids doing the same. I still dont know if it was the right decision.
And the mulcher with an accident prone operator is not a good idea! It is very unpleasant to use, for me personally. Super loud, dangerous, and oil guzzing. Better let the bugs and microbes do the job happily and slowly...
Thanks for your comments. Yeah we definitely seem to have fantastic soil in this province. Our land maybe over two decades ago was rice field and there's one particular spot that has perfectly black soil and I wonder if this is where they used to burn all the rice bran etc.
One thing about the volcano, I guess there's the very real risk of being evacuated from your land and not being able to return (either through land grabbing or considered a risk area) - and like you mention, that would be ALL that many people have. We have been getting a lot of emergency warnings over the phone of it giving hiccups and rumbles. Last time we were at a friend's place near the lake for lunch we had to make quite a hurried departure when the volcanic smog (Vog, I think they call it) blew our way, instant sore throats and very smelly.
Haha, that's terrible about the caterpillars in the laundry basket. We have hairy caterpillars where I grew up in Australia but I never knew them to be itchy, it took me years before I believed Monica that I should avoid them at all cost!
That was a fantastic read, love what you say about the internet (I know you read some of my stuff still so I feel VERY honoured to have slipped through the net on occasions). I'm so fascinated by your challenges and solutions and general style (not similar to my neck of the woods).
One thing I was thinking about was the extent to which you share work or ideas/expertise or emergency plans or whatever with others living close by? Do you sometimes feel like an agriculturalist without a tribe, so to speak? Would more collaborators help or increase your exposure or?
Anyway, brilliant Leon, thanks :)
Thanks Jonathon for the kind words. The good thing about Substack is it’s easy enough to avoid any algorithm suggestions and just read the stuff I’ve chosen to read (I only ever go to the inbox, never Home haha, and my phone is too old to run the app)
Yeah it has taken us a while but we’ve found a good bunch of lovely like-minded friends here, unfortunately don’t see them as much as we’d like to (I find traveling here extremely tiring) but they’re always just a message away.