BYDERULE's Site (head for the hills)

 

This Layman's GREEN RANT concerning our Planet and some of its inhabitants.and their habits,started out in Spanish ,as an Environmental Awareness lecture for high school students in a rural Mexican town in Guerrero.

It sort of grew into an introduction to sustainable living,and because of additional data  ended up in English .

 I have used Permaculture to explain my actions whilst designing and implementing Environmental work.



Granted every one has different perspectives and applications of this very large concept, But I can only talk with confidence about what has concerned me .So the texts and photos are limited to my own experience

Including many links to relevant questions and Answers,and a few  interesting youtubes.
.
Please note that in some of the Answers i have given in Yahoo Answers I give byderule spaces as a link,In the Meanwhile byderule Multiply has become my New home
Roel                                                      
                                                         
       I N T R O D U C T I O N

THIS IS MARS

The red planet,the dead or desert planet
Also known as  ,the God of war,
                 one wonders WHY?
If the apparent signs of  water are true .There had to be an atmosphere ,which could mean trees .
If there where trees they had companions, like plants and bugs ,maybe even Martians .
What happened to them Did they kill Mars

 Did they use up all the trees to ,make war, crosses and coffins ? Or did they blow them up or poison them.

 And where would they have gone next if they could .Was it here to us ?, their closest neighbor,before a cosmic collision knocked Mars out of its orbit

Is the same thing ,that happened to Mars  ,going to happen to Earth and its lings.?

Because the necessary  biomass ,which permits life as we know it, is disappearing.

We must learn to live with the trees,without them we are vulnerable to cosmic forces

Burning us up during the days ,whilst we freeze at night

Eco-systems are being exchanged  for desserts , concrete or  roads.

An environmentally destructive wave is in motion, caused by people .

How great of a potential threat to our environment are air and water pollution?

World population has doubled in the last 50 years exceeding the growth  of 4 million years (since we became homo sapiens).  

   My yahoo answer on population growth 

,http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...         

 To satisfy the growing demand farmers are  cultivating unstable lands  , too steep or dry to be sustainable.

  Almost all the present Desserts on this planet result from human intervention.

The building of Phoenician trading fleet deforested Lebanon turning it into a dessert.

Just like the Armada consumed Spain`s forests.               

(photos right mono culture farming)                                                    

Ginghas Khan put everything to the sword and torch, then filled the wells with sand,

the sun finished of the job and whole countries turned to wastelands.

But he would have been envious of the effects of modern day farming.

Slash and burn destroys the  protective vegetation (which helps to form the soil ),

leaving it open to the  Sun ,and  then ,wind and,  water erosion.

The Plow  turns the soil ,killing micro-biotic life (essential to soil building
 and accelerates the drying out .

Pressures of the :vehicles,  cattle and rain impact  brings the salt to the surface. 

Mono cultures ,aided by chemicals Exhaust and  pollutes  the soil .

Adding to this the effects of overgrazing has  resulted in large scale desertification.

Each year billions of tons of topsoil are blown or washed away by storms.

 Arable lands and their farms   are lost all over the globe. Many farmers sons abandon farming and head for the cities.

 Northern China is drying up, what once were millions of food producing people,

 are now hungry refugees ,running for their lives  from the all consuming dust storms.

This will have a great effect on world food prices when they start buying at what ever cost, to feed their people.

 Africa and Asia are loosing millions of people to AIDS , many of whom  were food producers.

The farmers that are left have to feed some 70 million more people than the year before  but with less topsoil.

Over the last half century Population growth & rising incomes have tripled world grain demand  from 640 million tons to 1,855 million

 In the near future the global farming community will not be able to feed every body ,food prices will continue to rise. .

  We are cutting trees faster than they can regenerate ,over pumping aquifers is lowering subterranean water supplies.

We release carbon dioxide faster than nature can absorb it. Temperatures are rising and so is the sea, flooding arable lands.

We remove the fish faster than they can reproduce .

Habitat destruction and climate change are destroying plant and animal  species faster than new species can evolve ,

We are now witness to the first mass extinction since the dinosaurs 65 million years ago .                                                    Is the rise in endangered species anyway related to deforestation????

Trouble is a lot of destruction comes from authority


Are US politicians out of the mind on ethanol production sources?

  (photo -deforestation in Brazil)

 Will we ever be able to slow this down ?? Is a change of diet a solution.This was my Yahoo Answer
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...


Can People and Animals co exist happily
http://byderule.multiply.com/tag/7.animals%20%26%20people

(photo right-our very tame Wild boar,Unfortunately  to friendly and cute to eat)



                                                  VIVA MEXICO   

I have taken Mexico as a further example of mans environmental indiscretions because i am here
(see film clip of the river dreams and nightmares)

    
Photos,Vultures sitting on a pipeline getting fat on the dead fish killed  by chemicals used by the Army to kill Marijuana plants in the sierra
















600,000 hectares of forest are lost every year. ( 203.000 hectares by forest fires alone ,mostly started by people)
Do you believe people can cause forest fires?

Jungles, such as Lacandona ,whose region produces 65 % of the water in México ,
 continue to be invaded by slash and burn farmers, despite nation wide publicity campaigns.
 Because of des-interest  from the public and authorities ,lack of  environmental education
,poverty and corruption.

 Almost all sewage systems end up in the rivers or into the sea ,and this is very difficult to change, (photo below)


Suggestions for alternative cheap ecological localized systems were shushed
because some people would loose substantial income. because of existing  contracts (with large kickbacks )for local government officials


To further assist the contamination of ,what once was drinkable water.
 Topsoil's (impregnated with aggro-chemicals ), are washed by the rains of the denuded mountainsides ,
into the rivers , where thousands of women do the washing with non bio-degradable soaps.


Rubbish  is dumped all along the rivers edge , and in the water courses

.
 Another custom which is very hard to change because the people rely on the rains to clean their piece of world,
 with little regard for the rest. 

This does not help the tourist trade because  it all ends up at the beaches and lagoons.
 



Fish breeding grounds are destroyed because of  indiscriminate removal of gravel.
(in the Rio Atoyac 5 species of fish and several species prawns have disappeared in the last 50 years).

 This year( 2005 ) what once was a beautiful river,
according to the many local songs dedicated to it ,,
practically dried up,because Farmers pump  without control ,wastefully using porous sandy furrows to irrigate.,.
And probably because there was less ground water ,deforestation effecting in  less   water absorbing  factors,.



So collectively that is much negativity being applied,
not only in Mexico but all around the world.
With the way both the people in the cities as well as those on the land conduct themselves as far as the Environment is concerned.

The Poor peoples priorities is daily survival,and environmental concern is a luxury.
They would have to have improved economic conditions before we could even expect them to be more positive.And not after intensive educational programs.

The better off parts of humanity have less excuse,but nevertheless ignorance or complacency  abounds.

Unfortunately  many of those,in positions of authority who are well informed (better than most) seem to be more interested in  the Power and the Money.

So it is up to us ,I guess that is the MEEK ,to make an attempt.
Or the Meek`s kids will inherit a lot of hot air and not much else.

And we haven't even mentioned Global Warming yet ,which adds to the planet`s , its peoples and animals, problems.

A world map about Global Warming
http://dsc.discovery.com/converg...

, there are Natural fazes but we are affecting that to a great extent ,with deforestation ,desertification and pollution., especially air pollution.

A few weeks ago one of NASA's top scientists concluded that the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free within five years, much faster than all previous predictions.

when the north pole is gone , you may have polar bears soon in America ,looking for a home ,

Calculations do not include the accumulative ,speeding up ,factor with time. the increase in water temperature will get faster all the time as well as the melting,

 When the ice is all gone ,the deeper cold Ocean currents will less and slow down  ,and the drag will change  with it ,also changing the higher warm currents,which will become warmer. Stagnant conditions in places will be the result.

The big movements of the currents will be left up to the moon and the Earths rotation.

This will change coastal climates ,world wide ,almost instantly. All aquatic flora and fauna will be affected,many dying off and many others others becoming invasive,

And recently In Chiapas ,and Tabasco in Mexico .more then a million people became homeless overnight with water coming up to their roofs ,because of rains from super evaporation from the forests,this had never happened before. Millions of animals died.

In India 3000 people died because of super storms .

.A few years ago in Europe 3500 people,died during a heat wave ,many of them in France .

Right now the average death toll annually is 150.000 due to Global warming

. these figures are already out of date and are expected to double soon.

The Sahara is growing by 7 kilometers a year all around the edges ,like a slow burning fire shriveling up their neighbors In the Kalahari huge rivers have dried up and thousand of species are gone due to their habitats disappearing .

The biggest changes are invisible at micro biotic levels species are becoming extinct ,others are multiplying ,

This affects the insect populations that follow ,and changes in that ,affect all that follows in the food chains ,

All life is interrelated of both flora and fauna, And since we are on the top of the food chain ,
we are always the last to know.

So Global warming has its toll there are incidents all over the world ,

And thus putting it mildly, Humans as the Dominant supposedly Intelligent specie should feel obliged to behave more responsibly and frugal with the earths Natural resources  and at the very least attempt to diminish Pollution.

 For our own  sake.

 The clock is running,http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

What steps can I take to make my family, school & community more environmentally friendly?

  


                F O R E W O R D

Fortunately not the whole world
is pursuing these destructive processes .
 Many governments ,
 communities,  organizations
and individuals realize the importance
and value of Natural resources.
 
(photo ,a sandy absorbent dam ,that is connected into the ground water flow system,in the shape of a counter clockwise spiral ,that we build to act as a Swale during the rains to add to the ground water supply,meanwhile it serves as a place to grow bananas and pine apples,Half way up the hill in Monte Grande. see photos Permaculture )
 

Ancient agricultural practices are again being  observed
(proof  of sustainability can only  come from the past )
 Some of the terraced agriculture of the Incas and the chinampas  of Mexico survive until this day,
 having been sustainable farmed for many hundreds of years, 
because of  their design ,and organic supplementation.

                                             (photos Chinampas Past and present)





















Permaculture  ,Organic ,Aggro-forestall ,sustainable and no-till  farming, are but some of  the better known positive practices ,
 together with the present level  of scientific discovery and communication  ,offering man a bigger Chance than ever   to organize his  paradise
                                without having to die first



                                                                PARAEA DAIZA meaning walled garden

 Kublai Khan (a son of Genghis) and prince Babur

 used compost in their Paraea Daiza`s ´

 Some of them many square kilometres large ,with  forest's for hunting ,

 Disciplined in design, including palaces (like the Taj Mahal)

 surrounded by  exotic gardens (The old city of Delhi was one) providing for  all the pleasures in life.


photo is  Prince Babur in his Parea Diaza

                                                                                       
 It is from these large zoned gardens, we derive the word PARADISE.
 Large Permaculture gardens are very similar in concept  , 
however they are  more intense  , better at utilizing space ,                                                             
           &  plan for  all  the aspects of life.

Permaculture is a very large Concept and in this text I only mention what has applied to me personally,For a complete idea read Bill Mollison`s book The Designers Manual.
Byderule


           What is PERMACULTURE
Permaculture means permanent agriculture
a concept put forward by Bill Mollisson and David  Holmgren in the 60`s
Which offers practical solutions for energy systems
animal shelter ,water systems and sustainable agricultural practices.
With the world and it`s history as it`s source
From the chinampas of Mexico to the terraced gardens of the Andes.
From the dessert wadis to the steppes of Russia.
Covering all climatic conditions temporal, dessert, humid and dry tropics.
with chapters on soil ,Water harvesting and land design,Bio diversity
Earth working ,Spirals in nature,Trees and water ,utilizing energy flows,
Strategy for an alternative nation


The Permaculture designers manual by Bill Mollison,which cost about 40 dollars.
The best all round book you can get,on Environmental design,.(tagiari publishing, tagariadmin@southcom.com.au)

this book also has many gardening tips,bio-gas,companion planting and ideas for structures ,how to cool down houses in hot climates ,how to warm up houses in cold climates with out using technology but rather by design.

My Yahoo Answer on Cooling down a house
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

It is a collection of sustainable ideas from around the world coupled to present level of knowledge
ideally suited for those who want to get back to the country and build a auto/self  sufficient situation for themselves and the family or a community .

People plant rather for the quality of life and to feed their families, than for the market ,so the motivation and the manner are totally different from ordinary agriculture .

Although the basic concept of Permaculture also applies to Organic and sustainable farming,
soil management ,and mulching

The utilization of space is more concentrated ,thinking in cubic and vertical terms instead or merely horizontal on the plain ,

Having many principle to follow such as utilizing all resources and following and enhancing energy flows ,

For example the ditch around the house catches the rain water and leads it through the chicken house where it cleans and picks up the manure to deposit it in the vegetable patch.

How does Permaculture compare to other types of Land Management?

How do you harness the energy of a windmill? a link to Mill wind
http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0oGkmQNeGtHImEALrJXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE4djcxZn...

                           TO THE WHOM`S IT MAY CONCERN

As  it is becoming clear that the farmers alone ,will not be able  feed everybody in the near  future,
Other means of food production will become essential. For many gardening people ,
what started out as a hobby ,has already become a healthy economic alternative  to chemically produced food.

Not everybody lives the rural life .
There  are   the millions (in the cities) who  cannot have gardens .
There is no space and the air is contaminated
They can  be  tourists (a crucial component in the overall concept)

                         BUT MANY PEOPLE CAN
 In  the suburbs ;intense gardens can be made only within meters.
 On the edge of the cities a small holding can  become an organic factory, that supports a large family .
 And in the country a  farm can be subdivided for a community or several families .
to become a paradise garden.

 One can only imagine the environmental effects of a  large scale  reversal towards a garden culture.
Biomass would be created instead of destroyed, not to mention the amounts of food that would become
available, the only snake in the grass appears to be attitude,  if only enough people could change that

                  we might be able to change the tide and restore the balance





a preview of some people who never left
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4432818428220366141

                   1- Method

Establish and close the borders

 When one begins a project usually there is nothing  yet to steal ,
and it is difficult to convince people to spend a lot of money and effort to build enclosing fences and borders .
This has been my experience in most cases .
 
The situation soon changes when a plot is planted with vegetables  or pens and pastures are full of animals.
 A Permaculture operation is very intense and can be compared to a supermarket full of goodies ,
 the whole world seems to be aware of this when things get ready and usually  before .
Chickens, birds, dogs, pigs ,horses cattle, sheep ,deer, and bipeds such as monkeys
and people are only too happy for the chance of a free meal or steal to sell.

 And it makes no sense ,to spend a lot of time and resource ,if one does not protect ones investment .

  Closing  components with borders and or fences sometimes with doors and locks as for monkeys  and people )
 is essential  at the first stages of development.
 Enclosures can be grown with thorny plants. and trees,
Which takes a bit of longer but is a lot cheaper and  get better with time.
 
Pigs can be enclosed by utilizing existing (hollow) shapes and further shaping the ground ,
with thorny plants on the edges, they do not jump very high but are very good diggers.
Places between rocks are good. Horses being one of the easiest to contain with only a few poles.

 Chickens are especially difficult to either keep in or out
and  their enclosures and barriers tend to be the most expensive.
 The normal long legged chicken is very destructive, their scratching killing any new growth

Pest Control

On the other hand Bantams, Silky  ,Chooks , which are antique breeds of chickens usually with plumes on their feet,
 do not scratch but run about and eat 70 % of the flying and crawling garden pests (As do guinyfowel, partridge and  iguanas ).

But you do have to make dormitories for them and keep them locked in at night to protect them from predators,they are easily killed by cats.

No garden should be without them,

 All gardens should be without cats, which kill  many pest control soldiers such as birds and lizards ,irrespective if the cat is fat and fed by its owners, which is a very sensitive issue
In Mexico we got a sort of small lizard that lives on the wall ,and sit near the lamps ,and eat mosquitoes all night,

,however cats make a very good compost if gently placed in a hole beneath a young tree.

There are many animals that can be used ,walking about free amongst you garden, with out doing to much damage and with a lot of benefit such as pest control and fertilization ,

One needs to manage and place them correctly  

Duck work like miniature plows doing maximum damage ,especially if the ground is moist ,they work with their beaks like hoes        

However Ducks contained in a pond provide a lot of fish food         

There is also a miniature white duck which does not do a lot of damage and they are the top expert in getting rid of snails, their favorite food .

Breed these little ducks and chickens and sell them to other gardeners everybody that has them is delighted with the results .

i have bred tree frogs from eggs and released them in the garden to eat mosquitoes and  flies.

    photo-Tree  frogs
The female lays the eggs  on a leaf over hanging the water .

The male then lays the sperm on top,which crawl to the eggs ,

When they meet there is a visible click and a small tad pole drops in the water.Magic to watch. I collected them in a jar. because the fish in the ponds would have made short work of them. When they were bigger they were released





In the mango orchards they release laboratory bred wasps to attack and kill the caterpillars that go for the mangoes
photos wasp breeding
How do i kill wasps and nests in the cheapest way possible?
the answer is you don't

birds we also don't kill
when the passion fruit is ripe ,a little black caterpillar comes and wants to destroy them,luckily a little finch type bird turns up and eats the black caterpillars.

In Mexico we have let Mazacoas,which are python type snakes ,in to the garden to take care of the rats.

In Africa we left mole snakes in the garden and fields, to combat the plagues of Norwegian rats that were destroying the fields.

Ant eaters and armadillos take care of leaf cutting ants that can destroy a large tree in a week.and eat Beatles and such.


Make animals work for you instead of them being the king with you as a slave providing their food and cleaning their pens

 Pigs can clean impossible terrain under controlled conditions if they are corralled in ,this is especially good ,for grassy areas with lots of rocks or the woods.No human can clean like that
You may have to moisten the ground

potbelly pigs and deer and normal pigs are good in an orchard because they eat fallen rotting fruit which breeds a lot of small flies.


Chickens that are contained can be used to clear land in a chicken tractor (a movable corral ) other wise should be in a large fixed enclosure away from the veggies ,but above them in elevation ,and with landscaping you can lead the rain water into the veggie patch so that the chickens work at least as fertilizing agents ,every time it rains ,


You can also have pigpens with a sloping floor or chicken houses with the roosting poles .on the edge of a fish pond to supplement the fish food.
have gutters sloping floors in the stables to collect urine and make for easy cleaning of the manure ,to be used as fertilizer.


Fish in water reservoirs ,ponds ,dams and any place that has permanent water keep it free from mosquitoes because they eat the larvae

We had even put fish in the water tanks on the roof

I am concerned about pesticides in my food. Is this something I should be worried about?


                               DESIGN 
 Almost all lands already have the basic design in them
Exaggerate the existing shapes ,the bumps higher and the hollows deeper
I lie on the ground to get a rabbits eye view which reveals the subtle shapes

  First of all create all the roads and paths,
giving access to the whole terrain , and there by  revealing the overall design .

at the same time putting definition between the three major categories
1 Hard ,high and dry (as appendixes to the roads) for human or animal dwellings. Using the sands ,gravel and rocks
 2 Soft and low for vegetation ,plants or pasture. With the cut vegetation from the cleaning, soils and composts.
 3 Wet for dams, ponds or  swales etc , The excavated materials going to their  walls  and the excess to no 1

. The R.B.M.( road building machine )
 
Examples
Depending on the size of the job and the quantity of people available.
 The tools rather than the people are organized into units

 In Africa in the Drakensberg (at Roger Layton's Computer centre) ,
 Two picks ,one rake,  and two shovels minimum ,made one unit
 the two picks leading, one on the left and one on the right side of the road.
 The picks loosened the ground .

Between them was a man with a rake ,who directed (following a guideline of sawdust  )
 and kept an equal distance between the two.

 The shovels threw the earth on the road , not anywhere, but on the places were it was needed
,which made the job ,of raking  the road level ,much easier.

At first this needed some direction from the rake man but with experience they soon saw the point .
 
This is a disciplined action which may seem slower  but which is much faster in the end.
 
At the same time another unit was digging ponds
(2 wheelbarrow's,2 picks and 4 or more shovels)

The wheelbarrows bringing the excess earth that was not needed, on the walls or sides of the ponds ,
to the road were the earth was lacking .

The result was the overall design of the whole project  ,
all the roads with drainage ,together with a water harvesting system ,all at the same time ,with not  one wasted move

.The roads ,of a small indigenous  park ,were created at about 20 meters per day.

In Ocotillo in the sierra above Acapulco in Mexico the job was bigger ,
with more than 1000 people ,  with many units ,and many people to one tool.

 The tools working all the time ,  people relieving the ones that got tired ,
about 10 minutes of dramatic effort per person .And each unit being followed by  more people,
 who learned the ropes by watching and who began another branch of the road whenever this applied.
 
At the same time as with Africa other people were digging the dams
and the excess earth was brought to the places on the road.

 which called for more earth, by many wheelbarrows  and  with  every type of container imaginable,
children with sacks ,buckets and very  old grannies  with very small toy beach buckets.

 In three days we made the complete  design ,  with  the road system , furrows  and dams,
of what was to be an ecological park of about 5 hectares


                                            PATH WAYS
This is the first thing i do ,to act as a guide for all the work that follows


Pathways made from painted cement, are my favorites relatively cheap quick to build,easy to clean and raised


Emphasize  the path ways, made by animals or people ,add  a balanced design of staggered branching paths,

Simplify and deepen the existing water flows, (or their tracks) making sure they remain inter connected to the roadside gutters

On the completion of the road system one has a life size blue print of the overall plan Curved paths and roundish plots(See patterns)
The resulting shapes,cells /plots/components , can now be easily developed  with minimum of instruction,
into  any one of the 3 main categories,
Hard (constructions) ,Soft (plantings) and Wet (ponds or dams)

                      PATTERNS.
What are practical applications  of patterning ?

A difficult question .a bit like the chicken and the egg
Because patterns are results ,but they also in turn cause patterns

We find patterns everywhere on surfaces, with in shapes, from the microscopic, to the landscape as seen from space.

And the unseen patterns ,with in the air or water ,which in turn make patterns on what they touch.

And in different time frames or/and dimensions .

The climate is a pattern ,as a whole ,over a year ,many years ,causing further patterns in the way things grow.which  in turn cause other ones ,such as the rings of a tree.

Or the shorter view,Night and day,Winter and summer
patterns from things in motion ,the air or water currents makingthe markings on the sand ,

The meandering of a river ,which gets its movement from the Moon ,sun ,night day,and the rotation of the Earth itself.which patterns the shore line

And also patterns resulting from things being in the way ,like a line of trees causing patterns in the air (the Ekman effect),by putting diversions in to the air flows.
A rock in the river causing unseen patterns in the water.
A branch hanging in the water causing rippling from the flow of water.

And patterns don't stay with just shapes they also go into colors and sounds.
The irregular  sounds we hear in nature but still there is a rhythm of sorts
The  blotches on plants or animal markings that become a pattern collectively

All seems irregular up close ,but becomes a rhythm,or pattern  from only a bit further away

The shape or pattern of power is a mushroom ,jelly fish are this shape ,(maybe they form very quickly
Nuclear explosions form a mushroom,And the mushroom itself is something that shoots up overnight ,If we blow air through a small tube into water it forms a Mushroom shape .try it with ink

One can write a book about what all has patterns and where they come from
The Bottom line is that nothing in Nature is straight
or even colored,everything is wobbly,curved, blotchy .varied or spiralling

Humans go dead against this and design roads ,cities and towns in straight lines ,straight canals ,straight houses ,And invented the level to make sure all is dead straight (dead being the operative word).even though everything in nature has been build  without one .(this must be a part of our alienation from nature program)

But there is a lot of sense to having things bent
(lol)
The waters from heavy rains arrive to fast at the end of Straight canals causing floods ,
the same way too much water reaches the bottom parts if the mountain slopes are deforested


In building ,to the mistrust or disgust of other builders , hardly use a spirit level
as long as the tops are level it makes not much difference if the legs are bend.
Most things are build by eye ,and like the garden plots i also like to make round or oval buildings

Photo is a cottage  build in Africa using sandstone blocks or sand stone facing applied to concrete blocks ,the plaster work  painted to blend in with the sand stone mountains behind

A practical application of shape or pattern can be in the design of buildings
The floor plant of our garden kitchen is mushroom shaped ,the bulb part in the back is where the cooker is .
The curved wood stove and curved working area are on the sides,and the head  forms a  large serving front ,halfway  around is the Bar ,covering a large area.
(see photos in 5- People,under Kitchen)


When it comes to path ways  ,they are always curved (this way they meet up with another curved one automatically)

Branching of the roads and pathways should be rhythmic or regular,so that the resulting plots in between also end up evenly spaced ,

My plots are always round or oval ,and the roads do not have rectangles ,so that wheel barrows can race along the pathways,driven by other guys (not me).
But they are also easier on the horse or the bike .

. The width tends  to be twice the length of the rake ,so that one can rake everything from the paths .but all paths,meander like a river .
Creating  a pattern ,then bound by them , creating more

So Following HARMONY (or balance)we end up with a patterned garden ,because everything else follows the initial shapes .

There are some very sound reasons for the undulating shapes

Like the edge of a pond becomes twice as long if it is serrated ,
And the more edge the better.
(see edge effect Can anyone explain what Edge Effect is?)

A garden with an undulating border which has key hole pathways going into the deepest parts becomes accessible every where with the least number of path ways
So here we have pinned down another practical application of patterns to design,namely -- accessibility

If we plow the fields in straight lines ,the wind speeds up along the furrows ,robbing the topsoil to deposit it somewhere else.

However curves and pockets especially when they have been planted with bushes ,trees ,or anything else--Trap airflows with anything they may carry as well as heat ,moisture and so forth --turning the place into a mouth rather than an Anus.
Another practical application receptiveness with GAIN instead of LOSS.

This multiplies hundred fold In the big picture by the way we lay out the whole landscape,where we plant the tree lines harvesting the forces of the airflows and redirecting or influencing them so that we can even manipulate the movements of the clouds

So Patterned planning in a big way will have big benefits all around.

I even used anti clock wise spiral movements of all the one way traffic ,when i was building a path way system and dams for a 4 hectare park ,with over a thousand people ,working in HARMONY .
Nobody bumped into any one else ,no accidents ,and for supervisors it was very easy directing ,walking against the flow ,seeing every bodies faces.
I am sure they employed similar disciplines when building Pyramids
So we have Pattern applied to psychology and method of operation,(most peoples right foot is bigger, hence the anti clockwise,this is the natural direction we curve when walking)

It is why the Naztec lines were such a mystery because they are in straight lines,which is unnatural,

My Dams (the most recent ones ) are also anti clockwise spirals because they are easy to dig and easy to bring the sand out with a continuous road leading  out

I had a straight fast road out or in depending what went on to keep the flow one way


The masters of using patterns with design must have been the ancient
central Americans,their buildings literally talked.

Patterns that had linguistic meanings as well as symbolic,were incorporated in the stone work .
Even the very shapes and layouts of the buildings had meaning.