g'day joel,

be good hey mate it used to be the case back in the 50's when neighbourhoods didn't have 2 meter high wood batton fences that you can't even see over let alone lean over and talk to your way too close neighbour on pocket handkerchief size blocks where the obligatory 4 bedroom multi toilet/bathroom macmansion spreads out. the yards are not user friendly and growing a good shade tree is almost out of the question.

it's a socialy engineered cultural change of encouraging neighbours to dob on each other than hop over the fence and share a coldy or a bbq. and it isn't even in rural anymore rural had a unique culture that has long changed as those who can't cop the urban squash seek their own hole in the wall.

so the shed culture is just to simply sell a book and maybe a little reminescing, but for the most modern folk just won't dig it.

and a good open sharing caring culture is very much permaculture.

happy aussie day

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

len... I got the gist of your reply on the first read-through (had to translate some of it a bit at a time into Canadian!).

Still wondering about some details: "it's a socialy engineered cultural change of encouraging neighbours to dob on each other than hop over the fence and share a coldy or a bbq. and it isn't even in rural anymore rural had a unique culture that has long changed as those who can't cop the urban squash seek their own hole in the wall."

"dob"?? "cop"??

"urban squash" I take it is what we'd term "congestion"...

g'day,

J.

g'day j,

sorry mate

yeh 'dob' means to report your neighbour to the police or administrator for some obscure reason, this sort of new cultural attitude doesn't make for good neighbours.

'cop' a police person

um yeh could mean what you said 'conjestion' more like sardines in a can, but the new suburbs are designed to cram as many houses into them as they possibly can, they are little more than rabbit warrnes with streets and cul-de-sacs all over the place and barely the width of 2 cars wide, not trees no birds. in the past the average block was around 800 square meters with a home app' 8 meters wide and 15 meters long on it, not the average block is more like 400 sauare meters and the house is nearly twice as big. so you don't socialise in your yard you don't have one you don't socialise or become good neighbours with your neighbours once they are in their homes like you you barely hear them and never see them, oh except when they except the front area to go to work each morning, there are no front yards to speak of.

anyhow that's about how it is, ghettos' with modern homes in them.

anytime ya wanna chat just yell hey

len

len... Let me get this straight (LOL)... When you wrote: "rural had a unique culture that has long changed as those who can't cop the urban squash seek their own hole in the wall." it translates to: "...a unique culture that has long changed as those who can't police person the urban congestion seek their own hole in the wall."???? (ROFLMAO)

Whew!! I'll leave that aside a moment...

But, I believe what you are saying is that things have changed and there is very little "shed culture" left in Australia.

Well, I wonder if it may come back in a new incarnation of some sort. There is a bit of a back-to-the-land movement or rural revitalization Down Under, isn't there? (Inlcluding such aspects as eco-villages, permaculture experiments, etc)??

Joel

g'day j,

sorry mate 'cop' in a different context that means when someone is fed up with being a sardine in suburbia, they move to rural and pretty much keep to themselves so then rural becomes a place where people on varying size acreages have little to do with each other but they have their own space.

no eco' type villages won't work aussie have long lost the ability to live as a community and get on with each other. those places are little more than yuppie hang outs somewhere for those who can afford to buy there to go to on weekends, has little to do with permaculture and more to do with ego.

ah the culture of the sheds will never return the younger set those that will repalce us know nothing of it so ahve no desire to return to it, like these new sardine can suburbs with the macmansions that consume huge amounts of power that is all they know, the only wild life they will see will be in zoos if they can afford to go to one.

len

Here's an oldie but a goodie

Here is a link that might be useful: Funny shed culture page

fairdinkum Len, your giving the wrong impression

sheds are an escape mechanism whereby men can avoid the everwatching eye of their lady friends. Sheds are where blokes go to work on things and have a beer or two.

My shed is at the front of my house (its a garage - no room for a shed in the back yard) and nugget (my dog) and I love going out there, ostensibley to work on something, but invariabley just to watch the world go by. That's where I have all of my tools and a radio that I can tune into a station I like to listen to. Its also the only place in the house that I catch up with the cricket without She Who Must Be Obeyed giving me the evil eye. And a couple of chair and a table with a pack of cards on it - essential work tools if a mate drops in.

Sheds are a tradition.

Gardenlen - you might know a poem about australian sheds - I've tried a google but couldn't find the one I'm after - I remember Leonard Teale reading the poem about a mans shed on ABC years ago. Does this wake any memories??

Paradisi, now we're getting into the territory I was thinking of. Thanks for the post. Perhaps the shed tradition is not completely lost.

Joel

sorry paradisi,

can't recal the leonard teale poem, but we just moved from rural and the shed is dead out there, yes we did have that culture but it is a culture (dads all sitting in someones shed sharing a sunday arvo' beer and yarn) long lost for the greater majority, you may have a shed and some good neighbours friends to share it with but i can assure you that in modern suburbia they can't even see their neighbour and don't have any room for a shed. any one in the new hi-density populated 'burbs with shed use them for stroage as the new homes don't have any, i can guranteee there is no room for idle banter in them and there is not much frindly neighbour feelings. the greatest aussie past time that i recall was being able to talk over the fence with yiour neighbour and share a drink and yarn and now nothing.

i am with you but society would be so much richer and the better for a return to the good old days, i remember when i was a kid we lived in suburbs with 4 foot chain wire fences (that any kid could climb over and any adult could step over)not 6 foot close gap wood panel fences and we lived on 700 or so sq/mts blocks not the 300 to lucky if you can 600 sq/mtr blocks of today.

even in rural now the folk there have gone there to get away from that social engineering of the 'burbs and they all have their own space and don't share outside a very small exclusive buddy group, in other words they have all found their own little hole in the wall there own niche. in rural now for the main there is no bush telegraph you and your neighbours stand alone.

ah but hang on to the romance it maybe all that keeps those of us who know of better things going, the young will never go there.

len

Len, I shoulden't and won't comment on Australian society, but if humans are a social species (and I believe we are) isolation may not appeal to people forever. I will also say that in my part of the world (western North America, and Canada specifically), there have been revivals of some "good things" from the past. Organic farming (and even organic gardening) was nearly dead by 1965 (and thought of as old-hat) in North America, but it began to revive around 1970 or a little earlier, and is now gaining momentum, complete with a more generally-evolved understanding.

Check out the link I'm providing, mate...

Joel

Here is a link that might be useful: North American back to the land movement

agreed joel,

just it aint here yet and is a long way off i reckon. like the saying goes mate "what goes round - comes round" hey?

but if you could see these new suburbs i am living in you will realy have to stretch the imagination for them to return to the good old friendly neighbourhoods of days gone by. it's called social engineering, they design, build and convince people through media hype that this is the way, and they get what they want people who would rather dob on each other, rather than be friendly and helpful.

anyhow where there's hope there's life hey?

len