I dabble in biodynamics for my garden - both at the community garden patch and the home garden. I did a one day course with the biodynamic education centre in Queanbeyan and since then have joined the BAA so that I can order the 500 and 501. My mother-in-law has actually been to a few horn burying events. I'd like to do that one day. In the meantime, I do my dabbling and a bit of reading, and use a moon calendar to plant vegetables and seeds - when I can. As in, when I'm in the mode to be dedicated to this practice. I have convinced myself of it's worth but as with all dedicated practices they take - well - dedication. So, instead, I dabble. Given that stirring the 500 and 501 is done twice a year, in a large bucket, continously for 1hr, I was enticed when I saw these flow forms. As with all things expensive and whacky (I make it sound like I do a lot of this), I looked at it on the internet many times, did some reading, talked about it around home a bit, prepared the ground - the mental ground that is. Then, when I heard that BAA were going to have a stall at the Melbourne Garden show last year in October, I got quietly excited. I'm not quite sure how I found out they would have flow forms with them - but I did. And I can't quite say I organised our entire family holiday around making sure we were in Melbourne for that weekend because there was plenty of serendipity at play. The show just happened to overlap one of the weekends of the ACT school holidays so it was easy enough to select that week and then just tell everyone (Melbournian husband, his friends and family) that these were our dates.
The Melbourne Gardening Australia garden show was fabulous. The location was great, fairly close to where we were staying (St Kilda), lots of nice historic outside areas and the requisite big shed for indoor stuff. I got to wander around by myself because the others were not keen and really wanted to settle in to the accommodation. Yup. I got them to drop me off at the show on the day we arrived and before we'd even found the flat we were staying in. Later in the day they stopped back and picked me up. In the meantime, I'd chatted with Hamish and his colleague at the BAA stall, told them I was interested in purchasing one of their flow forms but needed to think about it and would I be able to collect it at the end of the show, a few days later. The BAA was trialling being present at the big, mainstream gardening events. Hamish was also giving some courses at the Diggers Club in Dromana while he was in Melbourne. I think they are keen to reach a wider audience, which is kind of interesting. I gather from the little bit I understand about biodynamics in Australia that there are those who do not want the practices to be diluted or misunderstood, while others think the more who use/understand biodynamics all the better for the world. There are already two groups who represent biodynamics in Australia - due to a kind of schism (as I understand it). Given how small biodynamics is in Australia, there's a sense that we shouldn't really need two national organisations.
Anyway, as you can see from the photos, my very kind and tall husband, in the way of these things, called back to the show on the last day, paid over the ridiculous sum of money, collected an enormous box and somehow managed to squeeze it in the car for the trip home to Canberra. It was a very big box because this pottery stirrer would be totally useless if it wasn't wrapped in swathes of bubble wrap for transportation. It has a small pump in the bottom bowl and the brown water is rainwater and 500. The top part of the stirrer is designed to cause the water to whoosh back and forwards in a figure eight motion before dropping waterfall-like into the bowl below. It is then pumped back up to the top part again to begin its journey. You leave it on for an hour, the cat plays with the water, we all watch is mesmerized, thus freeing me up for four hours a year, and no sore arm. Beauty. I love it. And it's pretty.
