Our Tomorrow

Winter's Soul

2012-01-04T15:59:00.001-06:00

Something I wrote a couple weeks ago... probably needs a good bit of work still. Not that I'm going anywhere with it, just a bit of reflection.

Taking a walk this morning, it was as though I was seeing the soul of the land. Six months ago life was in full swing as the sun beat down, plants harvesting the energy and releasing it to the insects and animals. But today I see the paper thin remains of an oak leaf hanging on to a branch in sleep. A moss covered vine, spotted with lichen, twists and turns in a pattern I would not have seen in September. Just as our own human lives wind to an end, the land has come to its winter death. The life that is still to be seen consists mainly of nuthatches, chickadees, cedar waxwings and their friends flitting amongst the seeds and berries that will remain for them through the winter, as memories of summer youth. In spring, of course, life will return to the land. The soul that is so easily seen today will be less visible when the new forms, variations and patterns of life return. Life will continue its turn.

Jeesh, what a slacker!

2012-01-04T12:07:00.001-06:00

I know. Been ages. I think I've gotten into the habit of updating facebook rather than my blog! Bummer. I think I might try to redirect my routine to the blog first and the facebook second. I'll figure something out. Anyway, I hope and plan to spend more time around these here parts.

So, Happy New Year! Hope you all had a nice holiday season! More soon!!

Shooting the Recurve!

2011-09-06T12:51:00.001-05:00

I just recently traded a website with the folks over at Angler's and Archer's for a new handmade recurve bow and boy lemme tell you, my shoulder hates me now. But what fun! I'm forcing myself to take a couple days off from shooting so I can recover but it's not easy! Tom Dickinson makes these bows by hand from local cherry, walnut and hard maple and they are works of art. He also makes the bow string, cases, quivers, and arrows.

I tried six or so bows and decided on the recurve you see in the image. I've got alot of practicing to do but I've got a knack for it I think. My goal for the next 3 months is to to be able to put 80-90% of my arrows into a 7" circle from a variety of ranges. Thus far I've been shooting from 13-18 yards but would like to have accuracy up to 30 - 40 yards. I'm initially just working on having good form and building up strength in all the muscles involved. My intent is to shoot 60 arrows a day though I expect it will be a month or so before I can do that everyday. I'll work up to it.

I don't see myself hunting anytime soon but I'd like to be good enough that I could hunt if I needed to.

More Chickens!

2011-08-31T09:12:00.001-05:00

For some reason I never blogged it but back in April I'd gotten 5 new chicks to add to my flock of aging hens. I've only been getting 3-4 eggs a day so thought it was time to add in some new ones. In the past three months I've also lost some from the old flock, Boots the rooster was killed by some critter or maybe Chip (the original rooster) back in March. Then in July, the friendliest hen of the bunch, Waffle, died suddenly. In mid-August another hen died. All the others have been fairly healthy as far as I can tell. I sure hate to see them die.

Today, I decided to go ahead and let the new chicks mingle in with the older flock and so far it's been smooth sailing. I expect a bit of conflict but at 5 months the new girls are every bit as big as the older hens and should be able to take care of themselves. They'll figure out their new pecking order before too long.

Oh, they are Columbian Wyandotte, a very pretty breed, mostly white feathers but with a bit of black around the neck and tail that date back to 1893. Here's a shot from May with my niece Emma holding one in my cabin. I'd raised the Guineas back in the summer of 2009 but this is my first batch of chickens to raise. All the others had been raised by Kerry, Greg and the kids.

Based on my experience thus far it looks like I'll be adding 3-5 new hens each year to replace hens that have stopped laying and/or hens that have died. I think though that I'm pretty happy with this sized flock, which is 15 chickens and 2 guineas. Seems about perfect.

Being a one man shop

2011-08-26T08:13:00.001-05:00

This was actually written for the blog on my freelance Mac consulting/web design gig, MacProductive but I thought I'd cross post it here as I'd guess some of the folks that read a site about homesteading might also be interested in making a living doing freelance type work as they seem to mesh together pretty well. I suppose it's meant to just provide a bit of a taste of what the workflow is like for anyone who's not taken the leap but is thinking of it. I may do a few more similar posts, filling in a few details on the things a freelancer has to think about and do.

MacProductive is not a multi-person business. I do it all. Track invoices, meet clients, code css, set-up tables in FileMaker, set appointments, design graphics in Photoshop, write some content, track project status, remind clients when they've not gotten me something I need, slop the hogs and more. Just kidding about the hogs but I do have a small flock of chickens! Going it alone requires organization and a willingness to develop a large skill set. No doubt it is a challenge but it also keeps things interesting.

Oh, and I should offer a bit of context, in this small town setting most of my work is with small business owners, many of which are not all that tech savy. More than a few of them do little more than check email and browse the web. Several of them only have Facebook accounts because a family member insisted and set it up. They are usually middle aged or older and so busy with their businesses that they've not taken the time to really learn what computers and web technologies have to offer.

Here's an example workflow for one of my recent web projects. First, of course, meeting the client. In this particular case I heard from a friend that they were interested in having me do a site so I stopped into their shop when I was in town. Just as often contact is via email or a phone call. Luckily I dropped in at a time when they could actually spend some time meeting so I didn't have to reschedule a return trip for the initial consult.

We spent time discussing the content and design of the site they wanted as well as the domain name. I set a time to return for some photos. We discussed fees and payment and I was on my way. A two days later I emailed them an initial design with some basic content written up and in place. A day later I returned for a follow-up meeting/progress report and to take pictures. We refined the text, filled a few gaps, settled on a domain name and I was on my way.

By the following day I'd set-up the domain name and hosting (which I will manage for them, remind them of payments due... another responsibility for me), refined the text and processed images. At this point I fine tuned the design of the site, photoshopped a few images and then uploaded the site. Over the weekend I made a few more refinements and submitted to Google. The following week stopped in again. At that point the site is, essentially, finished. Time to drop off an invoice. Over the next month or so I'll monitor Google and if the business owner can coordinate with his daughter who manages his personal facebook account, we'll get a business page set-up and linked to. Total time on project: about 7 hours and another hour at the shop talking, over the course of about a week.

Apps used to get it all done: Coda, Transmit, iPhoto, TextEdit and Photoshop to put the site together. iCal for setting meetings/reminders and FileMaker Pro for invoicing.

Jeesh

2011-08-24T22:25:00.001-05:00

Been awhile, eh? Where did the past two months go?

Petunia and her baby

2011-06-05T07:41:00.001-05:00

Petunia was given to me in May 2009 to raise after she was separated from her mother. She's now 2 years old and has her own baby born around May 27th, 2011. Petunia is semi-wild, meaning that she still visits me, allows me to touch her, eats corn from my hand, and, if given the opportunity, will "clean" my arms and hands. She treats me as her mother and at certain times of the year will visit my cabin daily. Other times, usually fall and winter, I might not see her for a week or two at a time.

I don't know yet if the baby is a buck or doe though I'm hoping it is a doe as that would mean Petunia would have a close companion all year. As it is now she hangs with the local deer but I don't think she is a part of their group, probably do to her relationship to me. If the baby is a buck he'll tend to keep more to himself once he has grown up as the bucks keep a bit of distance from the does. Time will tell. In any case the fawn seems healthy and wasn't too afraid of me probably do to Petunia's reaction to me which was not one indicating danger.

My guess is that I'll be seeing them almost daily now that the fawn is past the first week. Petunia visits everyday and the fawn will visit with her. It was amazing to hear the adorable sounds of a nursing baby deer which I'd heard with Petunia when I was bottle feeding her. I forgot just how sweet that sound is. Yes, it is the simple sound of a baby fawn nursing that makes my whole day.

P.S. Where the hell has the month of June gone? This is the third year in a row that we've had a strange spring to be followed by a June that is much more like August. 94-96 degrees??? The forcast for the next 6 days? Above 90 every day. Ugh. While I realize one cannot just look at a day or a month and say, "Ha! Climate change is real and it is upon us!", we've had one record hot year after another. Record numbers of wild fires, record drought, record tornadoes, record hurricanes. Yeah, welcome to human caused climate change.

Heaven on Earth

2011-05-24T22:56:00.001-05:00

As an agnostic I don't believe in heaven or hell or any kind of after life. What I do believe in is the beauty and wonder of a simple life lived in the woods surrounded by wild critters. I spent the late afternoon and evening surrounded by such critters. 2 pair of Canada Geese and their 12 young geese as well as the pair that have been hanging around my cabin this spring, Henry and June I call them. After I filmed this and did a few chores I sat on the deck with a blackberry beer and watched them while the cat made himself at home in my lap and demanded attention. Talula sat in the chair next to me. In the background was a mix of John Denver, James Taylor, Bob Marley, Cat Stevens and a few others which blended into the changing soundtrack of birds, frogs and cicadas. Eventually Petunia showed up (without her baby who is nearby) and I fed her some corn. Of course, upon seeing the handout all 18 geese came over and were eating just eight feet from Petunia and I.

Really, if this is not heaven on earth I don't know what would be. I don't need an afterlife. I'm content with this one. I've lived a good life, simple and pretty poor in terms of money in the context of the U.S., but I want nothing more. To be surrounded by such beauty, to be able to cook good food I helped grow in my cast iron skillet, this is living the good life. This is my heaven, right here and right now.

Small is Beautiful!

2011-05-17T21:26:00.001-05:00

I decided last year that I'd be shrinking the garden down to the area around my cabin and I can say that, as of right now, that was a great decision! I've got more kale, lettuce and spinach than I was ever able to grow in the big garden thanks to these fantastic hugelculture beds! The work involved in getting them set-up and planted was substantially less even with hauling all the wood and the productivity of these beds is off the charts. I'm probably getting twice as much in a space a quarter the size. There's zero loss to rabbits thanks to the raised beds and the fact that they are so close to the cabin which means I can keep a better eye on them. I harvested a bunch of lettuce today and planted tomatoes, eggplant and peppers in those spots. Salad everyday? Check! Kale cooked in butter with eggs and potatoes four times a week? Check!

The food forests around the cabin are also doing really well. The plum-based guild out front is becoming a really nice example of what can be achieved with the guild model. A plum surrounded by comfrey, sage, thyme, lemon balm, yarrow, currant and gooseberry. I had a couple open spots so I put in a couple sweet potatoes and an eggplant today. The pawpaw guilds behind my cabin had some open spots so I planted sweet potatoes and will be putting a couple eggplant, peppers and tomatoes out there too.

Those guilds already had rhubarb, strawberry, purple coneflower, yarrow, oregano, and self-heal. There are also volunteer pumpkins, potatoes back there and in the swale bed of comfrey and rhubarb I put in onions, tomatoes, and eggplant. I've got as much food planted as last year, all within 60 feet of my garden!

Last, but not least, the native wildflowers have all bloomed and look great: columbine, bee balm, jacob's ladder, wild geranium, purple coneflower with a few others to bloom soon.

First Friday in the new Gallery!

2011-05-03T14:35:00.001-05:00

It's been just over a month since we got the keys to the space at 120 West Main and in that time a great team of 12 or so volunteers have put in well over 160 hours transforming it into the new Gallery. We've painted, cleaned, removed carpet and more. We're taking care of some last minute details tonight and then will be hanging art in the next day or so. Come join us for our first art opening in the new Gallery! First Friday Fredericktown is an art opening, potluck, poetry reading and live music the first Friday of each month. This month we'll be showcasing art from local artists Jami Knight, Abi Borrego, Kathryn Buff, Julie Miller and Corey Warner as well as St. Louis artist Aime Oberheim.

It's exciting to have a real space in Fredericktown to display art and host music, poetry and community potlucks. From June through October Fredericktown Revitalization will also be hosting movies and live music in the park on North Main. The Farmers Market will also be there. Our plan is to build the event into a community block party during the warmer summer months with opportunities for any organization or business to sponsor events/games. Chalk art, horse shoes, karaoke and quite a few things have been discussed.

Plenty of rain around here!

2011-05-03T10:03:00.001-05:00

In about 10 days we've had over 20 inches of rain fall, 2 inches a day average! It's wet around here as you can guess. The geese are happy campers but the rest of us are ready for some dry time! Looks like most of the next 6 days is set to be sunny but two days have a chance of rain. Ugh. Both of our lake spillways have been running all out for the past 10 days, our bridge and lower road are washed out pretty bad. The other night I realized 2 of our kayaks were left to close to the water and when it came up they went out. I realized this when I woke up at 3:15 in the morning. So I ended up in the last kayak at 3:30 going across the lake with a flashlight in my mouth trying to find them. You don't want a pair of kayaks clogging up your spillway or the culverts under a bridge that is already washing out! Didn't find them but at least verified that they were not in the spillway. Found them the next morning at first light, one washed up on shore and the other in some brush by the dam. Close call. So, kayaking at 3:30 in the morning, 45 degrees with a bit of drizzel? Not recommended! And that was after spending 2 sessions in the lake Saturday and Sunday inspecting for leaks. Our dam has held up very well for the past 20 years and has weathered this recent storm like a real champ! We do have to do a bit of routine maintenance to take care of though. Dams need to be kept clear of trees but covered with grass or some sort of ground cover to protect the clay.

The hugelculture beds are coming along fantastically! Lots of kale, lettuce, spinach and chard in full swing with eggplant, peppers and tomatoes ready to go in once we get past this last cold snap. They handled all the rain really well and my plants are not at all water logged thanks to the elevation. Not only that but those buried logs must be full of water which will help keep the soil moist for many weeks to come. The food forests are all coming along, most notably the one just out my front door is really filling in perfectly with plum, currant, comfrey, lemon balm, yarrow and sage. All the blueberries have come up looking great too.

Our last construction project is nearly finished. The shower house is almost done with only the last bit of plumbing to do. The walls, shower, sink are all in and it's painted. We still have to paint the outside and then finish the upstairs loft where Jake/other guests can sleep. The red cabin is finally totally finished on the inside with a little kitchen sink and cabinets. There's a bit more to do in terms of an outside roof to keep the door dry and an extension on the back side covered area so that the full length of the backside is covered. After that we should be done for a while with construction stuff! Will be nice to spend more time relaxing rather than filling the weekends with constant work. There's still maintenance to do of course but it will be nice to not have air compressors, nail guns and saws constantly running in the background.

Oh, and an animal update. I've had the pleasant tweet tweet of 5 chicks in my cabin for the past 3 weeks! They are growing up fast and so cute with their first feathers in. Petunia is definitely pregnant and will be having her first fawn in the next 30 or so days. She's been around most days for a bit of corn. The two canada geese have also been hanging out by the font porch every day as well, a nice addition! In fact I'm looking at them both right now as they lounge around in my front yard. I love their personalities, mannerisms, and constant vocalizations.

Greening up fast!

2011-04-13T22:01:00.001-05:00

It's been a couple weeks since I posted about planting the hugelculture beds. They're a carpet of green: lettuce, spinach, chard, radishes, onions and kale. Another week or two and I should be harvesting lots of salads! It will be interesting to see how well they produce, especially once I start adding in the bigger plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and squash. The tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are doing great in the greenhouse with another batch started a week ago. The rhubarb is about ready for a first harvest and the comfrey already has flowers! The food forests are also coming alive with fruit trees taking off as well as all of the perennial herbs: oregano, lemon balm, sage, thyme, yarrow, purple coneflowers, feverfew, and tansy. The blueberries, currants, serviceberries, gooseberries and pawpaws are also awake and growing rapidly. Last but not least, the hardy kiwi vines have really taken off and look great.

All of my native perennial wildflowers are also coming up and doing well a year after transplanting. Orange coneflowers, bloodroot, jacob's ladder, geranium, primrose, columbine, bee balm, cardinal flower and blue lobelia.

Last, I'm not a big fan of grass but late last summer we trenched in our water line from the well to the two cabins and the grass never reestablished so I've had LOTS of mud around here. We seeded it with a mix of grass, red and white clover, all of which is starting to rally take off. I'll be glad to be rid of all the mud!

Missouri's Madison County

2011-03-28T09:53:00.001-05:00

I mentioned recently the work I've been doing with our local main street group, Fredericktown Revitalization and the local Chamber. The latest work has been focused on organizing a First Friday event and a space for art and poetry in Madison County Missouri. We've made a good bit of progress with a variety of improvements to our historical buildings as well as several successful community events.

This is a fairly depressed area, economically and morally. It's hard to get folks out of the rut they are in, there's a lot of negativity. There's not much here in the way of art or spaces for teens or young adults. It will be interesting to see what kind of support and interest we get from the community, especially the younger part of it.

Garden Rising

2011-03-26T12:04:00.001-05:00

We're in the middle of what will, hopefully, be our last cold spell of the season. March has been pretty nice in terms of temperature and precipitation. Today it's cold and raining but over the past week I've gotten all my cold crops in. Peas, lettuce, chard, spinach, kale, radish, onions and potatoes. Larry Cooper's broadfork was amazing for loosening up the soil! So easy to use. Thanks again Larry! I'll be encouraging my local garden friends to take a look at these for their own gardening.

The tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant were all started about 2 weeks earlier than last year and have now been transplanted out into little pots and are sitting on my cabin table with a light on them. The fruit trees are all budding out and have flowers. The comfrey and rhubarb are popping up everywhere and the bed by the greenhouse most of all. Those plants are already full of leaves and nearly a foot tall. If they don't get killed off by the cold I could probably get a rhubarb harvest in another week or two! Is that normal?

In other news I've been seeing Petunia around several times a week and I've got two Canada geese that have been hanging out. Not nearly as friendly as Loretta but they are less afraid every day and have been coming up for snacks and visiting just 10 feet from the front porch a few hours a day. I love geese. Their mannerisms are adorable and they are such beautiful birds.

I suppose that's it on homestead news. I'll post a few garden pics soon.

First Friday Fredericktown

2011-03-06T11:57:00.001-06:00

I've been working with the Fredericktown Revitalization Initiative for the past two years and one of our latest projects, in cooperation with the local Chamber, is First Friday. Fredericktown does not have much going on in terms of public art shows or poetry so we're going to remedy that with First Friday which is a monthly art opening/poetry reading/potluck the first Friday of each month. During the warmer months we'll be adding outdoor activities on the north side of Court Square and the adjoining park on North Main. In addition to acoustic and bluegrass music we're hoping to do movies in the park, karaoke, games and crafts.

We just held our second First Friday and had a fantastic turn out... in fact the place was crammed with about as many people as we could handle and still maintain a level of personal space. Very exciting. Even better, we've worked out an agreement to use the whole second floor space above the Chamber for our new gallery/visitor center. It's been unused for years and needs painting, track lighting, old carpet removed. A few weekends and a few hundred dollars and it should be ready to use. We're hoping to have it ready to go by May 1st which should be a pretty easy to accomplish goal.

Hugelculture Beds!

2011-03-04T11:19:00.002-06:00

Hugelculture Beds!
Originally uploaded by Geek in the garden.

The Hugelculture beds are coming along and almost ready for planting. They've got a layer of soil and manured straw from the chicken coop which was all put on this past fall. I'll add another layer of soil and then get them planted with lettuce, spinach, kale and a few other cool weather crops. Will be interesting to see how they work out and if they hold the moisture as well as many claim. It does make sense that the wood logs would soak it up.

I've also buried our rooster, Boots, in that mass of wood. He was killed by an unknown attacker a day before I was planning on adding more logs and finishing the final bed area. I put him in between a few logs and covered him up with soil and then wood. He'll feed the soil for a while and then feed the plants and then me! I'll get these beds seeded early next week after we get through this next cold snap.

Seedlings!

2011-03-04T10:25:00.002-06:00

Seedlings!
Originally uploaded by Geek in the garden.

I started my seedlings about a month early this year. Normally I'd just now be starting tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. This year I got them going the second week of February. The soil I'm using is also a bit richer in nitrogen content thanks to some aged chicken manure. In past years my plants, while healthy, never looked quite as good as commercial plants. I'm determined to make sure this years plants get off to a better start.

Another change in this years garden is that it will be much smaller with many of my plants going into two hugelculture beds near the cabin. It's an experiment!

Solar Air Heater!

2011-02-15T11:45:00.001-06:00

The new solar air heater leaning up against the well/shower house where it will likely be installed as it is a near perfect south facing wall. Thermometer reading after just a minute behind the air outlet? 100 degrees and that's with outside air of 48. NICE! My guess is that this would easily heat our little shower house to a comfortable 70+ degrees on sunny days during the winter. A big thanks to Rick for building it!

Update 1: Went back out to get another temperature reading, 110 degrees! From what I've read online they can be expected to output air between 100-130 degrees or more on sunny days. Even on cloudy days they will put out air that will warm a space though obviously not as effectively.

Update 2: As of this update (1pm) it is 50 degrees outside and the current reading is 120+ (my thermometer tops out at 120) that's a 70 + degree gain.

So, cost on these, is 4x8 plywood, 2x4, paint, caulk, silicone, tempered glass assuming it is all bought new probably $100-150. My guesstimate is that in one winter the savings on electricity would be $300-500 depending on the use scenario. Cost on keeping our well/shower house heated to 50 degrees this winter has probably been $60-80, maybe more. To keep it heated to 75 for comfortable shower house temps would have been MUCH higher, easily $200+ as it would require an actual heater, not just the two heat lamps I currently use. Using the solar air heater, I think we'll be able to keep this structure heated to at least 75 on sunny days, for free next winter.

Winter into Spring

2011-02-12T16:58:00.001-06:00

I think we've seen the coldest part of the winter and are on the way to warming and I'm happy for it. Don't get me wrong, I really love the winter. I love the snow and the frozen ground. The still of the frozen lake and the sound of the winter birds, there is a certain peace to a zero degree morning. And there is the comfort of a wood stove and coffee or soup that contrasts with the frozen outdoors. But right now, today, it is 52 degrees and sunny. Our last snow which fell this past week is now gone. I love the muddy mess outside. Love it.

The weather folks on TV say that we're going to have a week straight 50-65 degree days. I know that as soon as the lake has turned to water I will hear my beloved frogs, the Spring Peepers, as they welcome the spring. For me, that is the first day of spring, the day that I first hear the peepers. I expect that I'll hear them tomorrow and I cannot wait. I've got seeds from Baker Creek Seeds waiting to be planted. I'm going to do a couple tomato and pepper plants early this year, a month earlier than my normal start. Just an experiment to see how early I can go.

I'll soon be missing the cold and the fire but I'll welcome the spring green.

Petunia is alive and well

2010-12-27T11:02:00.001-06:00

Good news regarding Petunia!! I'd mentioned in a recent post that I'd not seen her and that I was worried she might have been shot during hunting season. I took a walk into the woods the other day and spotted the little group she hangs with. I was talking loudly to myself so that if she was around she'd hear me. It was funny, I was watching the group as they leaped off into the woods, about 200 feet away and I just kept walking slowly down the trail thinking that if she was in the group she'd come back to me. Then I glanced to my left and she was right there, just 20 feet away and coming to me. Ah, so sweet. Relief. We hung out for about 15 minutes and then I left her. She followed me for a few minutes but then turned and went back in the direction of her friends. She seems healthy. We had a fantastic acorn crop so she's got plenty to eat. In fact I'd taken some apple out there and offered it to her, she wasn't interested. Didn't even take a nibble. I wonder if she mated this year and if she'll be having her first fawns this year?

The picture above was taken last winter. Amazing just how fluffy they look with their winter coats. The hair is hollow to hold air for insulation. I'm not too sure of the mechanics of it but it seems that when it gets really cold their skin contracts and the hair stands up creating the fluffy appearance and probably increasing the insulation effect of the hollow hair.

MacProductive

2010-12-19T16:02:00.002-06:00

I don't do this often here on my personal blog but every so often I drop a plug in for the freelance work I do as MacProductive. Most of the work I do is website design or FileMaker Pro database development which is perfect for my life in my little cabin as I can do that kind of work from here. I've decided that every so often I'm going to offer up a deal via my facebook page, this being the first time. If you need a website or know someone who does, drop by my MacProductive Facebook page and click the Like button. You'll see a post right there towards the top regarding the special which will be 10% off a new website. The first 5 folks to Like my page and leave a comment on that post get the discount. Most of my recent work has been focused on local Fredericktown websites for small businesses and non-profits. You can follow one of those links above to see some of my work or check one of the most recent: Thal's Hardware is our local and independent hardware store here in Fredericktown and the Fredericktown Revitalization Initiative is our local Main Street group.

The Quiet of Winter

2010-12-19T15:19:00.002-06:00

I love every season. Winter no less than the others. The quiet only makes the song of birds more amazing. The lake has frozen with the below normal temperatures of December and the ice makes these haunting sounds as it cracks as a part of the freezing process. I don't really know the mechanics of it but the sound is really amazing and even though I expect it the cracks and strange echos often take me by surprise.

It's been two months since my last post!! I've spent most of that time doing the usual fall/winter chores. Winterizing the waterline behind my cabin was the top priority and beyond that it is the usual of chopping wood, keeping the wood stove going and keeping an eye on the chickens. We've already dipped into the single digits and had about a whole week below freezing. Last December was pretty cold too but I think not quite as prolonged. I think I prefer the extreme cold of winter to the extreme heat of summer. At least in the winter I can put on as many layers as needed and I'm plenty toasty. In the summer one can only be so naked.

Another thing to love about winter is soup and I make it constantly once the cold sets in. Mostly variations of vegetable soup and pumpkin coconut curry. Not only is it hot and tasty but you can't make a cheaper meal.

We never got the door on the greenhouse and while the improvised door put on when we built it does a fine job of mostly keeping out the wind and cold, it does nothing to keep out mice. It fits pretty well but does have some entry points for mice and so my winter greens, mostly kale, have largely gone towards keeping those furry little shits well nourished. Really need to figure out a way to deal with them. Yes, yes I know traps would work but honestly, I think there are quite a few in and around the chicken coop, I'm not sure traps would really do the job. Maybe that is the only way. It goes without saying that I don't use poison... (wait I just said so I guess it doesn't go without saying). Funny, I never really thought about mice as an issue with a greenhouse until I had one.

The girls have finally started laying more eggs. For a couple months I was getting no eggs, or very few. While I think it is fairly rare in the U.S. I'm convinced they had a virus called egg drop syndrome as they had numerous symptoms that matched such as weak shells, bumpy, rough shells, and sometimes no shell at all, just a membrane. Some have told me maybe it was the combination of the extreme heat of summer and molting but I don't think that totally explains at and the shell irregularities point to something else. At this point not only are they laying again but their shells are much thicker and pretty much back to their normal color and texture.

Potentially sad news regarding Petunia the deer... I've not seen her in almost a month. Now, she might be fine but she's never been absent this long before. I'm hoping she was not shot during deer season and it may be that she really is fine, I don't know. She might well have mated with a buck this year and perhaps that might change her behavior? I know that there is a little cluster of deer that she seemed to be hanging out with so maybe she's just with them. Still, I would not think that she would just completely stop visiting me after being so consistent for the past 16 months.

Okie Dokely, I think that's it for the moment. Hope you all are doing well.

Getting stuff done: Hugelkultur beds and greenhouse bed

2010-10-27T16:34:00.001-05:00

With questions about my residency I'd put a few projects on hold but now that it's all cleared up I've gotten back to work.

I doubt it is possible to mouse-proof a greenhouse but I did my best. Last year they ate up my greens, this year hopefully it won't be so easy for them. I put some semi-composted chicken bedding into the soil and got some kale, lettuce, spinach and chard planted. We'll see what happens. I've also stapled up the remaining bubble wrap on the inside ceiling for an added layer of insulation. Last, I've got the north side wall that is shared with the chicken coop stacked up with an internal straw bale wall. I'll also put bales on the east side. I noticed last year that while the water filled black barrels never froze up they also never gained any noticeable heat. Yeah, they were thermal mass but not warm. What I did notice though was that the straw bales that were in there warmed up really well. I figure it can't hurt and will likely help a great deal. I'll share data as the winter progresses. I'll keep one barrel inside filled for watering the plants.

Next on the list, start the Hugelkultur beds in the little keyhole beds outside my cabin. For those that don't know, Hugelkultur is a form of raised garden bed using wood. This is especially important for me because the soil in this garden is contaminated with lead. Years ago this area was heavily mined and in fact the whole area is called the lead belt. The history of these towns is all based on the mining. Years later folk that probably shoud have known better but apparently didn't started using the tailings piles for roads, driveways and anywhere gravel, rock, or sand might be used. They used it around the lake on the roads and back in the 1970s and 80s they used it all around this place for the camp sites. Not smart. I could have them come in and take out the soil but frankly it is a huge mess and I don't necessarily trust the "soil" they bring in to replace the bad stuff. There's certainly nothing fertile about it as it is the brightest red clay you'll ever see. So, my intent is to build keep these beds raised high above the ground level, contaminated soil. I'll just rebuild them every couple of years until I've gotten several feet up.

Hugelkulter is not hard to explain but I found this excellent post that does the job well:

Hugelkultur: Using Woody Waste in Composting:

Hugelkultur is an ancient form of sheet composting developed in Eastern Europe. It uses woody wastes such as fallen logs and pruned branches in order to build soil fertility and improve drainage and moisture retention.
If you walk through a natural woodland, you will see many fallen logs and branches on the ground. The older these logs are, the more life they sustain. A log that has rested on the forest floor for five or ten years will be covered in moss, mushrooms, wildflowers and even young trees. Poke at it a little and you will notice that the decaying wood is damp in all but the most vicious of droughts.
Hugelkultur is designed to take advantage of the natural fertility and moisture-conserving qualities of rotting wood, while speeding the process of decomposition up. The heat produced by decomposition also helps protect cold-sensitive plants.

In the photos above you can see I've got the semi-rotted wood hauled in and ready to be covered with straw, chicken manure, the last several scoops of wood chips we have. That wood is stacked up about 20 inches. I've got some good soil from our old wood pile (where this wood came from) and will just wheel barrel it down and add for the top layer. It's great stuff full of the rotted bark of lots of logs and is not contaminated. The final beds should be 24 inches above ground level. I'll post photos of the beds when they are completed. These will absorb water all winter and in early spring will be like water filled sponges. The decaying wood will rob the soil of nitrogen so I'll have to fertilize these beds heavily with chicken manure but I think it will be good and is certainly better than digging and growing in contaminated soil.

Land Update

2010-10-23T09:33:00.001-05:00

It's been a crazy roller coaster this past two weeks. Since my last update we went back and forth several times first thinking we had it worked out to then not and back and forth again. I didn't want to post until things seemed to settle into something solid enough to report. While there is no final resolution I feel pretty good at where we are at with things. Basically we are back to square one with much better communication and understanding. The land has been taken off the market and if it goes back on it will be up to each of the three siblings to keep or sell their own third and when it happens it will be offered to siblings/family first. If this pans out as it looks my dads share is safely within the family for many years so our work is now, in theory, protected. I don't want to say much at the moment but yeah, we're good. I have a feeling I'll be here for a long time to come. The side benefit is that after the past two weeks of thinking I was going to lose the place I now have a new appreciation for what I had come to take for granted.

Thanks to you all for following along and for your thoughtful, kind comments in the last post. Your words offered a great deal of comfort and encouragement and I greatly appreciate it.

Sad, Sad, Sad

2010-10-15T10:16:00.001-05:00

Well, I've got some sad news to report. For me personally, actually, it is far beyond sad. Though it is not decided yet it is looking like our land is to be sold off which will mean the end of my little homestead project. My dad will be meeting with my uncle and aunt on Saturday. Of the three my uncle has no interest in keeping the place and is ready to sell immediately. My aunt, I think, does not really know. My dad wants to keep it since I live here and his children and grandchildren spend alot of time here. I really don't know which way it will go but fear the worst. I don't have a clue as to what I'll do if it sells. I know that for certain I would leave immediately because I have no interest in staying any longer than I have to if it is to be sold. In my heart, if that is the case, I won't be able to bear looking at the trees, bushes, lake or anything else that is here. I knew one day the issue of ownership would need to be resolved but never thought it would come so soon or that there was such a strong tendency towards selling it rather than keeping it.

If it sells I'll have a share of the money but it goes without saying that it is nothing compared to the land and the lake and is certainly not enough to buy anything close to resembling the place. My siblings will be here later today and we'll be talking about the future. Not sure if they will want to pool resources to find another, much smaller bit of land or if I'll be on my own. I think if I'm on my own I'll be looking to find an established eco-village to live. I hate to leave the area and this little town that I've grown so fond of but I don't see myself renting a place in town, don't know that I'd want to buy a place in town either. Feeling kind of lost at the moment.

A Little Village

2010-10-04T13:31:00.001-05:00

Yet another building is almost finished. Our well house, shower, guest cabin in process. We began by "harvesting" a couple of trailer loads of 2x4, 2x6, and plywood lumber from an old shack behind the dam. We've now salvaged enough from that old structure to build three buildings and have exhausted all the material that was useable. The idea was to rebuild our well house which was very small and not at all easy to do maintenance work in. It needed some work anyway. Rather than just repair it we decided to build something a bit bigger in which we could also put a shower and have some room for storing paint and other items that need to stay warm in the winter. I don't have much room in my cabin to store that stuff and last year kept in a sectioned off part of the chicken coop which is not an ideal place for it. Once we started building it we got to thinking that we had enough salvaged lumber to add on a short second story for extra sleeping space. The only added cost would be the plywood for the loft floor and the exterior siding. We had the old kids' playhouse which was originally built from shipping crates and pallets so that wood has now been repurposed twice! We cut them down to size and put them up. The top floor is now mostly enclosed with roof on, will sleep 3-4 folks though at 5.5 feet it is not a standard height and requires a bit of stooping. With my nephew at 14 he may be wanting to bring down friends then there is my brother and his hunting buddies and I get the occasional visitor so having some extra sleeping space would be good. We purchased the siding and metal roof, all other lumber was salvaged as was the insulation. And yes, my brother in law Greg did come down off the roof eventually. I love the crazy shape of this thing... kinda feels like a tree house or a watch tower. We'll probably be putting a deck/walkway on the west and south facing sides. The view from this top floor is really nice. Not only the lake but the garden and other structures we've put up. It is really starting to feel like a little village.

Conservation and Land Ethic

2010-09-30T08:16:00.001-05:00

A great article on the Sand Prairie Conservation Area in Missouri, The Vasculum: Strolling the Remnants: Sand Prairie Conservation Area included this quote from Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac in one of the comments. It's been awhile since I read it but I will again very soon:

‘All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single premise: that the individual is a member of a community of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his ethics prompt him also to co-operate (perhaps in order that there may be a place to compete for). The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species. A land ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these ‘resources,’ but it does affirm their right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state. In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.’

Thanks to Bill for the link.

Early Fall

2010-09-12T14:46:00.001-05:00

I've really been enjoying the sustained cool weather of late summer. I'm trying to get caught up on my winter firewood. I should get it chopped in spring and early summer so it dry out all summer but coming off of winter I'm usually chopping wood daily for the next day and getting the spring garden going so I once the weather warms I've had my fill of chopping and put it off. Right now it's not a big problem as much of the wood I have has been down for a few years and seems to dry pretty darn fast once I've chopped it up and gotten it covered. In the next couple days I should be able to get enough wood done to last me through December. If the weather is good over the next week or two I should be able to get enough done to get me through January or February. I actually don't mind chopping in the winter as it is the only exercise I get and it warms me up on a cold day... as the saying goes, wood warms you up twice.

Aside from the wood I'm slowly working through the jungle of weeds that the summer garden became when I gave up on it. Putting them as a big layer of mulch out around the blueberries so they'll compost into the soil. There is no doubt the soil around here has been greatly improved over the past two years. So much looser and full of earthworms and nutrients... yes, I'm very happy with the soil! Really, that's what I love the most is the soil. I enjoy gardening but I love enriching the soil and digging my hands into it. I'll probably cover the garden this fall with lots of cardboard and straw which I did not do last fall or spring, hence all the weeds. As I said recently I don't plan to plant the garden next year. I'll just let it sit and rest. The real problem is it is way too big for one person.

Next big outside project is to get any rotten wood hauled up into the small garden to start the Huegelkultur process. Next year I'll focus on a smaller area and see what I can produce. I think I'll be alot happier. Other than that we've got to get the new well house built and I've got to get my new waterline winterized. Oh, yeah, I've got water straight from the well now! I don't think I mentioned that before. So nice to turn on the faucet and have cold, drinkable water! That luxury will make living here in the winter so much easier!

Bees and chickens, chickens and bees. I don't know if I want to keep the bees. I hate to give up on a project but I just don't know that I want to keep them and am leaning towards selling them. I spent a good bit of time this past fall and spring keeping them well fed with sugar water. I did everything (almost) by the book and had such an amazing healthy hive back in March only to have it split twice and end up with a fairly small hive that hasn't produced much in the way of honey. We got one good, full frame which gave us two pints of beautiful, sweet honey. The remaining frames are only partially pulled out and capped. Not counting the equipment investment, I probably spent $15 in sugar... those are two very expensive pints of honey! You could argue that the cost of the boxes, if spread out over 10 years is a good investment but the sugar water is something that has to be fed ongoing. On the one hand I do love certain aspects of bee keeping but I'm not sure it is enough to keep them. It's a project that only gets bigger and more time consuming as the hives grow and split and grow and split.

The chickens have been another frustration this summer. The egg harvest went way, way down and really I was/am confused about what the exact cause was. Part of the problem was my own doing I think. Somehow I missed the lesson about the importance of calcium in their diet. I knew they needed it and had been feeding them their ground up egg shells. I did not realize just how important it was though and didn't know that I should probably also be feeding them oyster shells. I did notice their shells were not real strong and then a funny thing started happening. Egg production started to decline back in June and I also started noticing eggs with just a membrane or in some cases no shell at all. They would just sort of lay a blob of egg. This was happening at the same time that black snakes moved in and started stealing eggs. I think I captured at least 8 in July and August. But because of the snakes I didn't realize that they were starting to lay fewer eggs. Add to this mix the fact that I caught the hens themselves eating a few eggs and I've got at least three or four variables/explanations. As of the past two or three weeks I've been lucky to get 2-3 eggs a day from 11 hens.

While I do adore my girls I don't keep them as pets and I want to be able to sell enough eggs that they at least pay for their feed. I've been feeding them oyster shells for a month and am hoping that helps with the soft shell and reduced egg laying. In a way it may be a good thing that they are taking a break from laying because I'm seeing that they are getting their feathers back. Now that I've got their diet fully rounded with the calcium source I'm hoping that perhaps we'll go into the fall with fully feathered, rested hens that have a more balanced diet. I feel terrible that my ignorance contributed to them not being as healthy as they should be.

All in all it was a difficult summer but we've made real progress. A covered porch, running water, renovated interior in the red cabin, lots of new perennial garden beds and no major losses. Kerry and Greg and the kids will be able to spend alot more time down here thanks to the red cabin remodel so that is good news. In theory the work done this summer should make for more frequent and more comfortable visits for my folks as well since they stay in the red cabin too. The next big project is a porch for the red cabin which we should be able to knock out in a couple weekends next spring. There's a good bit of perennial landscaping I'd like to do around the cabins next spring but nothing too crazy. Next year should provide lots more time for enjoyment and less time with construction.

The Gulland Forge Broadfork!

2010-09-02T18:08:00.001-05:00

The UPS guy showed up a little bit ago to deliver my new, hand-made broadfork gifted to me by Larry Cooper. He makes them by hand and let me tell you, what an awesome tool. The ash handles had a really nice smell thanks to the linseed oil/turpentine finish and I pushed them into the metal fork assembly. It was then that I noticed the engraving "Our Tomorrow" which, honestly, brought a tear to my eye. Just when I thought such a gift could not possibly get any better there is that thoughtful detail. Larry: THANK YOU.

I've not had a chance to use it much yet as I was eager to post this. But I DID use it a bit and wowza, this is one fantastic tool. It just works, like an extension of the body. I stepped on to the center of it and my weight pushed it into the earth and then I just gave it a gentle rock back to loosen the soil. I can't wait to work some beds with this! Everything about it from the handles to the tines just feels so solid. America needs to return to this kind of hand-made quality.

Will post more when I've had a real chance to give the broadfork a real workout!

Gulland and his Broadfork Blog

2010-08-26T12:15:00.001-05:00

After yesterday's post I got a comment from Gulland offering to send me a gardening tool that he makes. He didn't mention what it was so I went looking at his blog and found that it is called the broadfork. I've heard of this tool but never used one. From what I read it is used to replace the tiller and is kinda like a very wide pitchfork to loosen/till the soil. I don't generally till as I prefer disturbing the soil as little as possible leaving the soil community intact but I do use a sorta modified double dig method on my beds when I first set them up which lossens the soil 1-2 feet down resulting in a raised bed of loose soil 2-3 feet in depth. It seems this is the perfect tool for that as well as for loosening the soil every couple of years. Not only does it not use oil but I'd guess that it is a much more gentle process in terms of disrupting the layers of the soil. I think it aerates the soil without turning the layers, thus adding oxygen and improving the soil structure without destroying the soil community. That it is human powered is very important given our current climate, peak oil situation. Here's Gulland's blog post reply to a gardener named Tom and I thought I'd post it here as it addresses the issue perfectly:

Broadfork Blog:

Tom told me that he never even cranked his rototiller this year; he did it all with the broadfork he got last year. He also said that he would never have to use the rototiller in any of those beds again.
That's heavy stuff to me; I have created a business that provides an implement that allows people to step back from the use of fossil fuels to do the 'heavy lifting' in their gardens. Because of my broadfork, there is one less rototiller running in California this year!
Tom, I have to say that your email and photos have made me know that I am doing the right thing. Thank you for turning the lights on for me.
I am an Alabama native, and lived my first 42 years there. The Gulf of Mexico was in my backyard, and I loved visiting that coast.
The point of this blog was to inform people about the utility of the broadfork and give some insight into the man that makes them. I never wanted to be political, or controversial. I must say, however, that the disaster that has occurred with the deep water drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico has made me feel that any time I can steer someone away from the use of fossil fuels to good old fashioned hand labor, I have done a good thing. The reason you are reading this is that you believe the same thing that I do.
We need to lessen our need to use petroleum products. The low hanging fruit has all been picked, and the rest of the crude oil that is available is in the inhospitable places where it is probably best to just leave it alone.

When I've had a chance to try it out I'll be sure to post a review. If only I'd had a tool like this over the past decade or two I might have fewer back problems!! A big thanks to Gulland for getting in touch and for his generous offer.

Opps, edit. I did some more reading and wow. Gulland is not only building a great tool but the way he does it is a fantastic example of building the local economy. In these times of rising unemployment and a job market dominated by meaningless jobs at Wal-Mart and McDonalds, Gulland is creating a useful tool from scratch! Read more in this post on his blog.

Finally, some cool

2010-08-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

What a summer it has been. Hot, hot, hot. I just adore climate change. Yes, yes, I know we cannot attribute the heat of any one particular summer to climate change but I mean, really. Records have been broken all over the planet. You can believe what you want, for me, I'll attribute it to climate change. But really, this post was not to be about that.

Hi. How's it going? I've not posted in a month. I've struggled a bit this summer, much more than the first two summers here at the homestead. Not sure if it has been the heat or just my attitude but I've just not been able to be my normal fairly happy, content and appreciative self. Who knows? The human mind is a strange thing, I do know that.

But tonight and these past few nights (and days) of the first real cool wave in awhile, I'm happy and will enjoy it and try to extend it. Got the grass cut today and started chopping the winter wood from the aging pile. In theory it would be best to get it chopped, stacked and covered in the spring. In reality by spring I'm tired of chopping wood all winter and have so much spring time garden work to do I don't do the chopping. I found last year that the wood I have is old enough that If I can get it chopped and drying by mid September it will dry out pretty well by my first fires, usually in November. It is mostly wood that has been down now for 3-5 years and so it dries out pretty fast. I'll have to get that pile burned this year if it is to be burned because some of it has started to rot and by next winter will be too far gone.

Which brings me to my next subject. Huegelkultur. Yeah, hows that for a word?? Yeah, yeah, take that. Huegelkultur is apparently something that has been used in parts of Europe for a long time and really, sounds great. Basically, you take tree logs and stumps and bury them with soil, straw, wood chips or whatever you have on hand. The idea is that these are raised beds for gardening and can be anywhere from a foot to several feet high. The benefit is that the logs absorb winter and spring rainfall and then hold that into the summer keeping the beds moist. They also, of course, slowly decompose thus as long term compost will increase the soil structure and fertility of the beds. The downside is that they will tend to rob nitrogen from the soil but I'll make up for that with lots of chicken poop and pee.

I've determined that next year's garden is going to be MUCH smaller. In fact, I may do nothing at all in the old garden and will likely focus my food production on the area around my cabin, say 100 feet out in any direction, zone 1 in permie terms. The big kitchen garden I'll likely cover with straw and cardboard and just let it be for the forseeable future. I probably will plant some flowers in there and may even work on making it a flower/herb garden for the next two years. Then perhaps when the hornworms have lost the scent and when I've got gobs of established strong smelling herbs and bright flowers I'll try slipping in a few tomatoes and other veg. But really, for my personal food I think I'll have much greater success and a much happier summer if I just focus on a smaller area and do it well.

Most everything in the way of berry bushes and fruit trees survived the hot dry summer. We've got a few apple trees that are overcome with cedar rust and need to come out. I've no interest in fighting that every year and would rather just put in those that are resistant. We lost one plum this spring and one peach tree that came back from the ground after dying up top. Looks pretty good actually. The kiwi vines are looking fantastic and growing very well. The potted eggplant produced but have struggled with the heat. Next year I'll pot them up again but will transplant when they reach a foot high. The flea beetles that seem to devastate them the first year seem to have been much less of a problem this year due to the pots and/or the location over here by the cabin.

Biggest lesson learned this year is the garden is too big and way too much work when it is hot and dry. Yup. More to come, hopefully in an update before another month has passed. I've got a bit of news about projects I've been working on in town.

Me and Petunia

2010-07-15T09:09:00.001-05:00

Petunia is a year and two months old now. This picture was taken last fall. What an amazing animal and experience it has been to raise her and watch her grow. She still comes around almost once a day for a visit and I enjoy every second of it. There's nothing quite like a deer that lets you love on her and returns the favor. If I stay outside long enough she'll lay down after eating and she always faces the lake, it is as though she is watching the sunset. So beautiful.

Darn it

2010-07-09T08:44:00.002-05:00

Apprently I had comment moderation turned on and did not realize it till today! I think I must have turned it on sometime last summer though I don't remember doing it. Anyway, got lots of comments posted that I would have responded to. Most notably the comments to my post about killing the dogs last fall. It was not something I'll ever be at peace with and I don't know if I could do it again... I'll never forget that day. Just read through the comments and posted a short response. Most folks seemed to understand but one was very angry to say the least. In any case, I'm going to turn comment moderation off as soon as I post this.

Growing and eating local food

2010-07-09T07:38:00.004-05:00

It is raining here this morning which is something we really need. As I recall we had about a quarter inch of rain in June and May was fairly dry too. Not only that but daily temps in June averaged 4-5 degrees above normal, above 90 most days in June. Very hot, very dry and not an easy month for gardeners! So far we've had just over an inch in the past two days, maybe 1.25 and that's not enough. We could easily do with another 5-7 inches, preferably spread over a week or so! My rain barrels have filled a bit but have a long way to go and the swale has yet to show any signs of filling. Looks like we'll get a good bit today and then they say a good chance of rain much of next week with temps at or below 90 so that is welcome news. Lesson learned this summer? Heavy mulch will only do so much to retain moisture. No doubt it is a huge help but things DO eventually dry out!!

So, the garden looks pretty ragged. The potatoes and tomatoes in particular. One bed of tomatoes look okay but the other two have struggled. I planted onions and lettuce in those beds in early spring with the intention of having a nice living mulch and it did not work out so well. Back in late March/ early April not long Ifter I got my lettuce, spinach, carrots and other cool weather crops planted we had a pretty nasty hot spell and weeds started popping up everywhere. The end result was that the beds of annual green veggies I envisioned were heavily mixed with LOTS of weeds and not nearly thick enough to really serve as a mulch for the tomatoes which got planted in later. The tomatoes which I mulched with newspaper and straw is, by far, the best of the tree beds. Next year I'll go back to the paper/straw mulch and just plant the outer edges with basil and flowers.

I got my squash in a bit late and that was another mistake. With the exception of a couple lost most survived the heat and are growing but they are not thriving. The watermelon volunteer that sprouted up early is doing great and has taught me that next year I REALLY need to get my squash/melons started earlier. In fact, really, I think I need to get EVERYTHING started about a month earlier. All that said, I do have better potatoes than last year and a nice bed of carrots and I had a great harvest of sugar snap peas. The blackberries that I left out in the food forest by the chicken forage have done great this year and I'm really glad I left them when I set up that area. I've been harvesting many big handfuls everyday. I probably could have set some aside for preserving but have just been eating them up! Further out from the cabin I know the blackberries are producing gobs of fruit so I really should go out and gather some.

Last would be the food forests and they are doing pretty well considering the drought. Blueberries, currants, gooseberries and pawpaws are doing great. I've got gobs of comfrey I need to get put in the ground and am going to give the last few rhubarb plants to Karen. I think I've got 12 rhubarb plants in the ground now. Yeah, that's a crazy amount of rhubarb but it is a beautiful plant and fairly easy to grow. I'll give or sell what I can't eat! I've planted it with Comfrey around the greenhouse and in the food forest behind my cabin.

One last thing, not about the homestead but about the local farmers market: fantastic! I went last night and came home with a bag of sweet corn gifted by Karen and David (THANKS!!) as well as a loaf of Donna's yummy home made bread. Also a very nice cucumber and some peaches. Dinner was a cucumber tomato sandwich, two of those actually and 4 cobs of sweet corn. I don't cook the corn or add anything at all, just peel and eat!! I'm surprised more people don't eat it that way. It doesn't need to be cooked and is so sweet and juicy. Yeah, the corn was desert. Oh, oh and a big glass of iced Kombucha too thanks to Juli. It took 10 days but the fermenting tea is now a perfectly fizzy and tasty treat. The perfect meal to eat while enjoying the soft patter of rain on the roof.

Homestead Life and Death

2010-06-20T13:57:00.001-05:00

It's been a couple weeks since I posted a homestead update. I've had my first chicken deaths by predator. Just over a week ago I lost two of my girls, I think to a fox. Whatever it was came out just before dark before I'd put the girls in for the night. I've since been very cautious. Putting them up earlier and making more frequent trips outside to make my presence known during the day. I've also been playing music during the day in the hopes that it might be a bit of deterrent. Towards evening when the original incident happened I've made it a point to be out doing a project in the garden or near the coop. With this hot, sticky weather I'm always more likely to be working in the evening anyway.

I've also discovered why I was seeing a decline in egg laying: the girls are laying as usual but a big black snake had taken up residence deep in the straw bedding of their coop. I shoed him out once but he's back. I'm going to try to catch him in a pillowcase and relocate him. It took a full year before I had a black snake messing with the coop so I'm hopeful that if I can relocate him perhaps I'll have another year without another.

My comfrey has really taken off this year and I'm getting a good harvest which is going into five gallon buckets for brewing into a potent comfrey tea. After 7-10 days the leaves have transformed into a stinky green slurry full of nutrients. This can be applied as a foliar spray or watered into the roots. I've also got a bucked of chicken manure tea that will be watered down and used after a couple of weeks, probably on the comfrey and tomatoes.

The garden is coming along with everything planted at this point. The peas finally gave up but I got a good crop out of them. After a slow start I've gotten gobs of lettuce though it is now starting to bolt. The carrot and onion crop is looking really good. The squash and watermelon are looking great and have blooms. I was a bit late getting my pumpkin seed in but better late than never! I've potted the eggplant up and have them closer to the cabin. Last year the eggplant plated in the garden was decimated by flea beatles so I'm hoping to control that by potting them and keeping them closer. So far so good. The perennial borders are starting to fill up with coneflowers and feverfew with the gaps filled in by annuals such as zinnias. The tomatoes are coming along and the basil seedlings are starting to take off.

I've gotten my first harvest of rhubarb and will get a good bit more this year. The rhubarb seedlings started this year are doing fantastic but I won't harvest them till next year. I've still got more rhubarb to get into the ground as well as 18 comfrey plants. I may end up selling some of the comfrey at the farmers market. Last but not least, the Hardy Kiwi is growing very well and has, in this second year, already reached the top of the garden entry arbor. I have little doubt it will completely cover the arbor by the end of July given the current rate of growth. It is a beautiful vine!

It's been a very hot June with temps way above normal. I'd really love some rain and a cool-off!!

The Economics of the BP Gulf Disaster

2010-06-14T07:35:00.001-05:00

The last three or so paragraphs in the quote below are really fantastic. Really.

The Automatic Earth: June 10 2010: BP, Forrest Gump, Mr. Bean and the White House:

Matt Simmons knows oil. His 'Twilight in the Desert' is one of the best books on the topic, highly recommended. Simmons also knows finance; he’s, after all, an oil banker. And he insists that both the Gulf spill is in fact much worse than BP and the White House are willing to admit, and that BP's liability commitments will bankrupt it within weeks. While there will always be the notion that Simmons says what he does in order to turn a profit, I personally lend quite a bit of weight to what he's been saying since the spill started. Simmons is one of the few voices left in the drama worth listening to.
BP has now officially, as I've said was likely to happen, seamlessly moved from 'just' an environmental disaster into an economic calamity as well. Don’t underestimate the impact of this. BP is the planet's fourth largest enterprise. For one thing, this means the company has vast political influence, especially in the US and UK.
...
That should put you right in line with what will be playing out now. BP's bankruptcy looks like a foregone conclusion. That is, unless the US and UK governments step in, and do so broadly and very loudly. With both money and legal changes. The former, because BP faces far more in lawsuits and damage claims than it has in liquidity (its shares are now worth less than its assets, always an alarming sign). The latter, well, for more or less the same reason.
One party you don’t want to be when BP's bankruptcy lands square squash on the table is a Louisiana fisherman or a Florida tourist operator. British pensioners first! Sure, Obama has declared that BP is liable for all damages yada yada, but there’s a long list as we speak of Gulf Coast residents who can’t hardly squeeze a penny out of the company even now, and that’s before any serious litigation has started.
It’s all just posturing. By the time the real claims arrive, BP will likely be very deeply mired in interminable Chapter 11 and/or subsequent proceedings, and the little man will be dead broke and waiting for years to see if he may ever get a single penny for what he worked long and hard to build up, whether he’s Forrest Gump in Terrebonne Parish or Mr. Bean in Coventry.
And don’t kid yourselves, it’s not about BP, one single oil company, and it’s not about Obama or Cameron, about single politicians. With perhaps slight differences, Shell and Exxon perform within the same dismal agenda's BP does, and there's no politician left in our Western hemishpere who rises to true power and has not been pre-empted by the system he or she voluntarily chooses to function in, and who doesn't voluntarily participate in perpetuating the hologram their voters long for in order to continue their feeling of comfort, so they can sit in their oversized homes and watch pictures of dying birds on oversized plasma TV's.
And please don’t be too eager to proclaim you're different, or better than that. That’s nothing but the easy way out.
Remember, you’re not watching real life with real people, you’re watching a 24/7 theater play that has no other reason to be than to provide you with what it knows beforehand you will respond positively to. Remember that, and then look at the dying pelicans. You may be running out of chances to make it right. Is that the way you want your life to be?

Some Climate Change Facts

2010-06-10T11:13:00.000-05:00

Irregular Times has a great post regarding the climate data from the NASA Goddard Institute. For those that like to pick one winter and pretend that it voids reality because it snowed and was cold, well, they're wrong. Frankly it is pathetic that so many are so cowardly that they will do anything to continue living a life of convenience rather than step up and deal with this crisis. Yes, it is cowardly.

The Goddard temperature data speak:

By Month
5 Coolest Januaries on record: 1893, 1887, 1885, 1909, 1895
5 Warmest Januaries on record: 2007, 2002, 2010, 2005, 2003

5 Coolest Februaries on record: 1893, 1887, 1905, 1891, 1917
5 Warmest Februaries on record: 1998, 2010, 2002, 1995, 2004

5 Coolest Marches on record: 1911, 1917, 1888, 1898, 1908
5 Warmest Marches on record: 2002, 2010, 2005, 2008, 1990

5 Coolest Aprils on record: 1911, 1907, 1909, 1918, 1892
5 Warmest Aprils on record: 2010, 2007, 2005, 2002, 1998

5 Coolest Mays on record: 1917, 1890, 1907, 1918, 1909
5 Warmest Mays on record: 1998, 2007, 2009, 2002, 2005

5 Coolest Junes on record: 1913, 1907, 1903, 1894, 1885
5 Warmest Junes on record: 1998, 2009, 2005, 2006, 2007

5 Coolest Julys on record: 1912, 1907, 1909, 1904, 1890
5 Warmest Julys on record: 1998, 2009, 2002, 2005, 2008

5 Coolest Augusts on record: 1912, 1907, 1903, 1918, 1890
5 Warmest Augusts on record: 1998, 2003, 2006, 2005, 2009

5 Coolest Septembers on record: 1912, 1903, 1890, 1904, 1964
5 Warmest Septembers on record: 2005, 2009, 2003, 2006, 2008

5 Coolest Octobers on record: 1912, 1887, 1903, 1917, 1882
5 Warmest Octobers on record: 2005, 2003, 2009, 2006, 2004

5 Coolest Novembers on record: 1890, 1919, 1892, 1907, 1910
5 Warmest Novembers on record: 2009, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006

5 Coolest Decembers on record: 1917, 1916, 1882, 1910, 1892
5 Warmest Decembers on record: 2006, 2003, 2005, 2009, 1997

By Season(temperatures still measured globally; season labels refer to Northern Hemisphere seasons)

5 Coolest Winters on record: 1892-1893, 1917-1918, 1916-1917, 1910-1911, 1886-1887
5 Warmest Winters on record: 2006-2007, 2009-2010, 2001-2002, 2003-2004, 1997-1998

5 Coolest Springs on record: 1917, 1911, 1909, 1918, 1890
5 Warmest Springs on record: 2002, 2005, 2007, 1998, 2008

5 Coolest Summers on record: 1907, 1912, 1903, 1890, 1904
5 Warmest Summers on record: 1998, 2009, 2005, 2007, 2006

5 Coolest Autumns on record: 1912, 1903, 1809, 1884, 1910
5 Warmest Autumns on record: 2005, 2009, 2003, 2006, 2004

By Year
5 Coolest Years on record: 1917, 1907, 1890, 1887, 1909
5 Warmest Years on record: 2005, 2007, 2009, 2002, 1998

(Source: NASA Goddard Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index, accessed May 16 2010. The pattern in land-only temperature datavaries only slightly from the land and ocean data, bearing out the same general pattern.)

Geek Gardening: A Wired Guide to Domestic Terraforming

2010-06-09T09:00:00.001-05:00

I was browsing through my RSS feeds this morning and come across this fantastic article in Wired which is basically about permaculture though they don't use that word. Instead they discuss gardening as a process of careful design described as terraforming... essentially, permaculture. Excellent color design diagrams ranging from small gardens on apartment terrace or big garden spaces in a suburban or rural setting. If you are the least bit interested in taking gardening to the next level this is really worth a look, a great introduction and a nice surprise that it came from WIRED!

Making my claim in the gulf

2010-06-08T15:01:00.001-05:00

I've not written about the oil spill here yet. But like many people it has been on my mind much of each day. Anyone that knows me will tell you how I feel about cars, lawn mowers and other machines that require oil to run. I truly detest them. My life here on the permaculture homestead is all about trying to use less energy, less oil. Even so I can't help but feel the deepest regret and guilt when I see the images of oil covered birds struggling to lift their heads or to take a breath or blink their eyes. Eve though I try very hard not to drive without necessity the truth is I still drive a car. I purchase food grown with oil and other fossil fuels. I purchase other synthetic items derived from oil. I am a part of this. One of those oil covered birds is my bird. I claim it. I own it. That is what I see with each picture and the question I ask with each one is that my bird? It is breaking my heart over and over and over.

Swale and Food Forest Update

2010-06-07T07:27:00.001-05:00

Last year I put in a swale and food forest on the north and east sides of my cabin. I planted the swale with comfrey, rhubarb, juneberry and yarrow with space between for annual veggies. This spring I seeded it with radish, chard, broccoli, kohlrabi, and cabbage. I'm pretty happy with the results thus far. The comfrey and rhubarb have filled it nicely and the veggies are going great in the swale. Now, if only we'd get some rain. Been a pretty dry spring. In the past 6 weeks we've had maybe one really good rain fall. The five rain barrels have come in very handy though they are nearly empty!

The pawpaws and juneberries are doing great. Well, Petunia has nibbled the juneberries so they're not great but would be were it not for her. She's left the pawpaws alone and they are growing very well. The herbs growing around the pawpaws, a mix of yarrow, self-heal, oregano, lemon balm and coneflowers are also growing pretty well. I've got some strawberries I'm about to put in though I'll have to put some chicken wire over them to protect from deer and chicken. I'd put them in the main garden originally and they were doing fantastic but Petunia got to them and ate ALL of the foliage. Soon after they were taken over by weeds.

One key difference between the food forest and the kitchen garden is that the food forest seems much less prone to weeds. I think the reason is that, while in a sunny pocket, this area has mostly been wooded and the mix of foliage here is much less aggressive. The kitchen garden by contrast is located in an area that has been an open field for the past couple of decades or more. Any bare spot of soil up there quickly sprouts up with "weeds". I'm thinking the strawberries will do much better over here. The key will be keeping them protected with the chicken wire.

One other key to this food forest area is the combination of light and heavy mulch. This pocket of woodland gets full sun most of the day with just a bit of dappled shade. That combined with the heavy wood chip mulch and leaf litter has really helped with the water retention. I've also got lots of big bark chunks from chopping wood that I place around the little trees. It helps discourage the chickens from scratching to close to the trees and holds in the moisture. The fertility of the soil is also being improved greatly I think. At the moment the chickens are back in the fenced forage area but they've been free ranging for the past ten months or so and have stirred and pooped in the food forest mulch that whole time. Next on my to-do list in this area is to add in more low level herbs to begin filling it out.

Lots going on...

2010-05-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

In the past couple of weeks we've had lots of progress with a variety of projects. The cabin finally, really feels complete. The porch is my favorite place to be which is what I fully expected. I added a new flower bed and have put in rock creek paths to replace the composted mulch which was raked into the flower beds. The garden beds in the area immediately around the cabin (Zone 1 in permaculture terms) are shaping up pretty good. Lots of lettuce, chard, kale, kohlrabi, cabbage and radishes as well as perennials such as rhubarb and comfrey. The flowers too are starting to take hold with blooms. The last touch was moving the little garden pond from it's somewhat neglected location to a spot just a few feet away from my porch. Frankly this little corner of the world is starting to resemble a moment or scene in a storybook which is what I'd hoped for.

Other projects that have been tidied up or finished include the new fire ring which also got a thick layer of rock creek gravel. The kids cabin is fully painted and trimmed with the last bit of deck finished. In the main garden the crop of onions, garlic, and peas are fantastic. The potatoes are looking great. Two beds of tomatoes planted and looking good with another bed to go in soon. Still to do, transplant or sell my remaining rhubarb, tomato, and comfrey seedlings. I also need to get the basil planted as well as melons and pumpkin.

The chickens have been spending their days in the lush chicken pasture that I prepared this spring and they seem to be pretty happy with it. I miss having them free range and do intend to let them range for a couple evenings a week but they will be spending most of their time in the pasture as long as it is holding up. I won't let it get run down to the same point as last year. While it was sometimes somewhat problematic I really miss having them in close proximity to the cabin.

It's gonna be getting hot and humid soon so I'm going to go crank out a few loads of laundry. Have a good day!

Covered Porch Progress!

2010-05-17T00:32:00.001-05:00

Deck, cedar poles, and rafters ready for metal roof. Steps and railings have been added in this photo. The Deck is salvaged from an old deck that has been in use on various other structures for at least 20 years. The rafters were salvaged from yet another deck and the cedar logs were from tornado damage as well as a few selectively harvested from a grouping that desperately needed thinning. The metal roofing will be added soon and is the only thing that will be purchased new.

In this image you'll notice that some of the logs have had the bark removed, others have not yet been cleaned up. I actually prefer the way they look with the bark but that usually means that insects will get in and when the bark eventually does come off (which it will after a couple years) it will likely have a bit of damage in the form of small grooves. By taking off the bark now the logs will be a bit nicer in the long run.

I'm very happy to have this up before the heat of summer kicks in because I rarely use the air conditioner. I think last year I used it maybe three days. That is a south facing wall so having the porch should really help keep the cabin cool as it will completely shade the area in front of the door and that south facing wall.

First Salad!!

2010-05-10T08:01:00.000-05:00

Harvested my first bit of lettuce and spinach Wednesday night and it was so tasty!! There's nothing quite like eating salad that was picked 5 minutes before eating. I've got an okay crop of greens coming in though it's not as thick as had hoped it would be. I planted it pretty dense but we had such a warm spell back in late March/April that I think it stunted things a bit and gave a head start to the weeds that were plenty happy to have the warm weather! In any case, nice to have fresh salad!

I've also started harvesting strawberries from the plants donated by friend and fellow Fredericktown Revitalization member Juli. I probably won't get many this year but the plants are healthy and should produce very well next year!

New Natives

2010-05-09T19:55:00.000-05:00

Lots of planting the past couple days. Saturday I picked up some ferns, hostas, Russian Sage, and Catnip from my aunt. The ferns come from my great grandmother and have been passed around the family for years. They are beautifully lush and spread quickly. They're also quite large, some of them reaching a height of 5 feet. I'm not sure what kind they are but I planted a row across the front of the cabin and can't wait for them to fill it in hiding the base of the structure during the summer and softening the lines. Then I picked up a whole bunch of native wildflowers: Columbine, Jacob's Ladder, Bee Balm, Purple Coneflower, Orange Coneflower and Black-eyed Susan most of which was planted into the shade garden in front of the cabin, in front of the ferns. Some of them were planted in the new flower border that lines the northern fence of the garden.

I probably planted 150+ plants in the past two days. When they all fill out, probably by the end of next summer the planted areas will be about full. I don't cut the flower heads in the fall because the gold finches and other birds will eat the seed. The seed they don't eat will fall and germinate. By the spring of 2012 I'll have more plants than I can use and will be able to pot them up and sell them. The plants originated at my parents' house which I planted in 2004-2005. The plants there are now multiplying exponentially. Thousands of seedlings now cover the area and serve as a growing nursery. I'll probably go back for another batch of transplants in early June though I don't really need to.

The Garden Grows!

2010-05-05T12:47:00.000-05:00

It's been slow going this spring, or at least it seems that way. I am impatient. The onions, peas, potatoes, strawberries and various greens are looking pretty good. I think I should have planted my greens (lettuce, spinach, chard, etc) a week or two earlier than I did. The greenhouse is full of plants that will be ready to plant out pretty soon: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, comfrey and rhubarb. Unfortunately my tomato varieties got all jumbled up so while I know what I planted I have no clue which is which. I'd thought I might sell a few plants at the farmers market but I'm not sure that folks will want to buy if they don't know what variety they are getting. I'll just call them all "Denny's Great Tomatoes".

In other green news, the last year's chicken pasture is really looking good! With the exception of a couple of spots it is now a lush polyculture with a base of red and white clover. Other notable species: comfrey, self-heal, yarrow, violets, daisies, plantain, and honeysuckle. There's far more but those are the most numerous. Now that the chickens are free ranging I'm not in any kind of hurry to open this back up. I'm going to give it another week or two for the clover to grow a bit more and then I'll start leaving the gate open for chicken browsing. Th peach tree and apple tree in this area are both looking fantastic.

Speaking of fruit trees, we now have plums, apples and blueberries coming in. Pictured here are some of the plums. I need to learn about proper fruit tree care. Should I have clipped these off to promote more growth this year? These are still pretty small trees. Also, I know they need major pruning. Their rate of growth is taking off but in terms of the shape of the growth, they are a huge MESS. Assuming no major natural disasters the trees, bushes and vines should all be putting out a really good crop in the summer of 2012. The currants, gooseberries and blueberries will probably be producing pretty good as early as next summer. I can't wait.

Cowbirds!!

2010-05-05T11:28:00.000-05:00

Since early spring I've become a favorite hang out for Brown-headed Cowbirds and even Red-winged Blackbirds. Apparently they often hang out together. The Cowbirds are certainly not the prettiest of birds but I really love their song. They've taken to scavenging around for corn and chicken scratch leftover from the chickens and the deer. The other day Petunia was in for her evening snack of corn/scratch and a Cowbird was there by the bowl. She nosed up to the Cowbird and followed her in a circle around the bowl. They did a couple laps that way, with Petunia pushing her nose up to the bird and the bird moving away a few inches, over and over. Really very comical.

Speaking of birds, I was scouting about the iPad applications and found a $5 app called iBird Yard and wowza! Very cool. I've not downloaded it yet but plan to the next time I have some highspeed access. Drawings, photos and bird song audio of North American birds with a variety searching modes based on bird color, shape, size, and location as well as a pretty nifty comparison mode for looking at similar birds. I'm going to have to look around for some other reference apps... butterflies, insects, edible mushrooms, edible plants, trees, etc. I'm thinking the birds apps will be most useful as they have the added dimension of audio.

The Quiet Moments of the Simple Life

2010-05-02T19:42:00.000-05:00

Life is strange. I know that right now in the Gulf a tragedy is unfolding as oil continues to gush out of the sea floor and spread ever further across the waters. I know that huge storms have created hardships in Tennessee and elsewhere. I know that in Iraq, Afghanistan and in many other countries half a world away a good many people are suffering.

But in my little corner of the world, at this particular moment, all seems right. The sun is setting over the lake and an Eastern Phoebe fly catcher sits on the fence outside my window looking for dinner. In the distance I hear the mingled song of Red Wing Blackbirds and frogs as they go about their business. Petunia came in for an evening snack and has wandered away. There is a gentle breeze blowing in through the open window. I know that these moments of bliss come and go, surrounded by the turmoil that nature or we ourselves create. I'll soak it in while I have it.

The Morning Crew

2010-05-01T08:18:00.000-05:00

These are the folks I wake up to. I couldn't ask for a better start to a day.

P.s. Notice the new deck! Not new actually but salvaged and relatively intact. This thing was heavy as can be because it was made of oak many years ago. It has served as a porch for thee or four different places. We cut it up into two pieces to move it. A big thanks to Greg and Jessie for all the help! I've got to power wash it and then stain it with something. It is a bit rough at the moment but after a bit of work it will look pretty good and should last many more years.

Location:Unnamed Rd,Fredericktown,United States

My iPad Guilt

2010-04-30T16:01:00.000-05:00

So, I finally have internet access at the cabin thanks to a new iPad. On the one hand I'm happy to have easy access again. I like going into town to get online as it usually fits with my schedule of errands and meetings but it also means I go in more than I should. I've probably been going in 2-3 times a week in recent months rather than the 1-2 times that is really necessary. Having the iPad means that when I do go in I will be able to spend that time talking to folks and developing better relationships rather than staring at my laptop trying to get everything done that I need to get done. It also means I can go back to my 1-2 times a trip frequency. So, I'll save gas in that sense but lets face it, an iPad or any other computing device is a lot of embodied energy. I look at the oil spill in the gulf coast and know that that is a result of my driving and my consumption. Sure I drive less than most and make a real effort to minimize my consumption but I still consume.

Yes I think this is a fantastically cool device. I can now easily update my blog, check email and update my clients' websites all from home. But it is a bittersweet enjoyment I'm getting today. I know that I could have done without this device.

And let me just go on the record as saying that not only should we not be expanding drilling in the gulf, we should start cutting back on production in the gulf altogether. Yes we'll have less oil. GOOD. It is well past the time that we should be cutting back our consumption drastically. Getting in a vehicle without thought and need should have been a thing of history... should never have been a thing in the first place. Our consumption generally should always be questioned whether it is a trip in an automobile or the purchase of an iPad or any kind of purchase at all.

Location:Unnamed Rd,Fredericktown,United States

Visiting Adventurers!

2010-04-26T10:25:00.001-05:00

This past Friday I was in town distributing the annual reports and map brochures for the Fredericktown Revitalization Initiative and I came across a couple of traveling folks talking to Bill in front of the library. It was kinda funny how quickly I knew that these were "my people" even from across the square. Living at deCleyre for 5 years and before that at the "Anarchy Farm" I've come to quickly recognize the young nomads that travel the country. We hosted hundreds of them during my time at deCleyre and they are almost always a joy to have around. Nothing goes better with a good dinner than tales from the gravel back roads, woodland encampments and railroad yards.

Garth and Sarah are currently walking west from Illinois. They document their travels at their website Pursuing Nothing though are currently having problems updating as many public libraries have lots of filtering and random glitches that can make the process difficult. They may not be updating from the road anytime soon but they have lots of fantastic stories already posted that could keep a reader busy for many days. They've also got a fantastic photo archive documenting their journeys. Keep in mind that they are not hitching, they are walking.

I always love the reminder from such folk that life can be lived as an adventure!

Swarms and Other Homestead News

2010-04-19T17:32:00.001-05:00

Bees
Just a few days after my last post my bees swarmed! Luckily Greg was down that weekend and was able to retrieve the cluster from a cedar. We moved them into the honey super that I had on hand and then moved the super of bees several hundred yards from the original hive. All seemed well till the next day when they swarmed again while I was gone. When I came out to inspect the new hive the air was full of bees and they were in the process of flying away. There was nothing I could do but watch. The only thing I could have done differently (that I'm aware of) was to enclose the bottom entrance of the hive more completely as I've read many people do when creating a new hive from a swarm. The problem with that was we were so hot last week I was afraid to close it more than 80%.

So, that was a bummer. I still have the original hive which is still a very nice, healthy hive and I've got the honey super on. Still waiting on the two I ordered to arrive. My hope is that I'll still get a good harvest of 2-3 honey supers. I'll be picking up another couple of deep hive bodies and hope we'll be able to successfully split the hive next year via a caught swarm or pre-swarm split.

Garden
The garden is slowly waking up. The onions, sugar snap peas and potatoes are looking good. The lettuce, spinach and a few other cool weather greens are slowly getting there. I think the week of crazy warm/hot weather did not do them well. I watered a good bit this past weekend as we've not had rain for over two weeks. The tomato seedlings in the greenhouse are looking pretty good. I'm eager to sow the fence borders of flowers like cosmos, zinias and a few perennial herbs such as feverfew but I was waiting for the past few days as we had some pretty chill night time temps. The rhubarb seedlings came up great and were just transplanted to pots. I'll likely sell or give a few of those away as I have far more than I need. Strawberries, blueberries, currants and gooseberries are all doing great. Two of the hardy kiwis look fantastic and two died for some reason, no clue why. I've lost three fruit trees also not sure why. One was a bit flooded, the other two I don't know. The comfrey seeds are coming up now. I planted 30 or so and will be transplanting them out around the fruit trees.

I've been nurturing the original forage area used by the chickens last summer. It is now full of red and white clover, yarrow, self-heal, and comfrey just to name a few. It is well on the way to being a lush polyculture of nutrient accumulating plants that will provide a food source for the chickens as well as our pollinating insects.

Water Harvesting
I finally finished off my rain barrel system. Five barrels behind the cabin will collect up to 275 gallons of water! There's another barrel to collect water from the greenhouse roof. I may paint them at some point but plan to try growing ground nut or some other food producing vine first. They're not real pretty to look at so I want to do something to pretty it up a bit, growing food on them would probably be the best choice. Some folks were wondering if this was for drinking water and the answer is no. I'll use it mostly for the garden in the area right around the cabin. Also for washing my hands or for the critters to drink. It is fairly clean though and I probably could drink it if need be. I filter it at the inlet with a screen. There's probably a bit of minute grit from trees and wind making it in. I suppose worst case scenario is a bit of bird or critter droppings from the roof and I do have the wood burning stove so the first few rains of spring probably contain some sort of smoke/soot type contaminates. If I were going to drink it I would run it through some sort of filter and would feel pretty safe with it. The barrels previous use was food grade flavorings with the exception of one that had concentrated hydrogen peroxide. They've all been very well cleaned.

One last bit of news, the kids' cabin is finally finished! Greg came down this past weekend and finished off the soffits, trimmed, caulked and painted. They'll likely repaint the trim with a different color but for now it all has at least two coats and is safe from the weather.

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Cabin, Chickens, Conservation, Ecological Landscaping, Edible Forest Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Fresh Water, Gardening, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Missouri, Natural Resources, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Water Harvesting

Happy Bees and other news

2010-04-05T15:47:00.001-05:00

I finally did a bee hive inspection yesterday and have good news to report: a very full hive! In fact, I've gone ahead and ordered two more honey supers for a total of three. I'm in an ideal pollen situation surrounded by autumn olives, red buds, and dogwoods just to name a few of the flowering trees and bushes. I've also got an amazing variety of perennial wildflowers, white and red clover, and grasses. The nectar flow should be fantastic. If I remember correctly a small honey super, when full, contains around 30 lbs of honey so if the girls fill all three that would be 90 lbs!! I'm hoping I don't have to deal with a hive split/swarm just yet as that would knock down production a bit. It will happen sooner or later though.

The chickens and guineas are all doing great and enjoying the warmer weather and time outside free ranging all day. I'm very happy with the chicken situation. They've got lots of space and a fantastic diversity of foliage/insects to browse on. I've got more fencing scattered about than I'd like but as long as I want them to free range and also keep my young plants alive it is a necessity. They are relentless in their scratching and so the mulch is always a mess but I've accepted it as a good tradeoff for happy healthy chickens. It's also lots of turned and manured mulch/soil which is a great thing.

The earthworm population in and around the garden seems to have really boomed since year one of the garden. Any time I have occasion to dig I uncover far, far more than I remember seeing in the spring of 2008. Very cool and I have little doubt the result of all of the cardboard/straw/woodchip layer mulching.

Planted in the garden: a huge bed of potatoes, onions, lettuce, radish, kale, chard, spinach and more. Tomato seedlings look great though the peppers never came up so I started more. The fence row of sugar peas are doing starting to really take off. I'm about to start several trays of seeds: feverfew, comfrey, hyysop, and marshmallow. Also about to direct seed calendula, cosmos, zinnias and marigolds. Very soon will be time to put in basil, melons and squash.

The only real negative is Petunia the deer. She's very skinny which is understandable coming off a winter with no acorn or nut crop. But what really worries me is what I saw yesterday. She seemed to be a moving just a bit strangely so I started having a look at her. Her legs seemed fine but when I looked up under her tail (warning, this gets very gross) a mass of ticks all around her anus. I mean a MASS. My guess is at least 1.5 inches out in every direction from the outer perimeter of her anus. They were completely covering her bum with no skin showing. 60? 100? Maybe more. It must be terribly painful for her to poop and my guess is that the skin underneath that mass is a terrible mess. Is that normal for wild deer? You'd really have to see this to believe it. I had no idea ticks could be so thick. Pardon the language but this was really FUCKING gross. So, I'm a bit worried about her. I don't think there's much I can do. I'd pull them off if she'd let me but I tried repeatedly to no avail. They'll just have to fall off.

Homesteading with critters is mostly a wonderful experience and one I'd not want to give up having had a taste of it. That said, it has its gross and difficult moments.

Hopefully my next update will bring news of my rain barrel system finally plumbed up and ready to collect rain. I'll be jumping up from one 55 gallon barrel to five for a total of 275 galons. The current barrel will move back to the greenhouse for collection there for a grand total of 330 gallons. I'd like to add more but that should suffice for this summer.

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Bee Keeping, Bees, Chickens, Conservation, Edible Landscaping, Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Local Food, Medicinal Herbs, Medicinal Plants, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Water Harvesting

Simple Life, Community Life

2010-03-24T11:34:00.001-05:00

Around 5 pm yesterday my uncle Ron (and neighbor) showed up at my door with a very large fish, a 16 inch Crappie. I don't think I've ever seen a Crappie of that size. As he walked up I thought he was carrying a good sized bass. He offered him up and I happily accepted. I'd planned on having a bit of pesto pasta for dinner and now that would be complimented with fried fish. I watched the sunset while I ate and listened to the emerging frog song and the chickens as they wandered off slowly towards their coop. I was just about finished when Petunia (the deer) showed up for an evening snack of corn and a sprinkle of chicken scratch.

I've happily lived well below the poverty line for my entire adult life and have always been very content with living small or in shared spaces with others. Of course this is easier with no children but is still entirely possible with them as I've confirmed with a bit of research. But it requires a different outlook on life. I'm not the least bit interested in a huge house full of material possessions. That generally requires a life long commitment to wage slavery. Give me a part time job or freelance work and I'll enjoy the free time gardening or working on a community project. I can't enjoy the pesto if I don't grow the basil and sharing it at a potluck almost always makes it taste better!

Strangely enough living the "simple life" allows for the freedom to become a much more complex person through on-going self-reflection and education. This is not to say that those with large houses and full time employment cannot continue to learn, but to say that there is something important about the pace of living. When I lived in Memphis I mostly got around by walking or riding a bike. Yes, it took me longer to get where I was going but along the way I picked figs and literally stopped to smell the roses. I learned the local bird population and met neighbors. I also got the health benefits of the exercise.

Out there in the nation trouble continues to brew. The fundamentals of the economic/financial/energy system have not changed and we're still headed for collapse. The political system of the country, guided by corporate media, become more divisive and less constructive. It is a system which has served the wealthy elite for far too long but most working people, be they "conservative" or "liberal" don't seem to get the fact that they are being used. The two party system should be destroyed. Our sense and understanding of what is possible is far too limited. We're letting ourselves be emotionally manipulated by a cultural process designed to divide and herd us around like livestock.

I think we need to slow down. We need to stop listening to the party lines, stop aligning ourselves with the party lines. We need to remember what it is like to be humans. We need to remember what it is like to grow and harvest food and then to share it in community. We need to remember what it is to feel connected in community. Community is like a complex tapestry with many weavers. We all share the task and add our bits, we weave it together. It is our work, comfort and support and it tells our history as well. It's long past the time that we get back to this task and that we remember that it is up to us to do it well. It is up to us to do it together.

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Activism, Chickens, Collapse, Community, Consumerism, Consumption, Democracy, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, Food, Food Production, Foraging, Freedom, Gardening, Homesteading, Living Simply, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Politics, Poverty, Small Town Life, The Long Emergency, Transition, Working Less, Local Food

Keeping the Peace

2010-03-22T09:16:00.001-05:00

With each day spring becomes more evident. The Yarrow, Self Heal, and Lemon Balm that I planted in the food forests are all waking up with great energy. The Autumn Olives are full of buds about to open to leaves. The white and red clover seed I scattered a couple weeks ago has sprouted into carpets of green in the original chicken run and around the fruit trees. Spring is always a busy time on a homestead!

A week ago I had to harvest the Guinea rooster. I'd not planned to do that anytime soon but he suddenly decided it was time to mate with the chicken hens and was quite violent about it. I woke up last Saturday to a hen that was terribly wounded with several large holes pecked into her and a bloody, bruised back. The minute I got out there to let them out to range he was after her. I put her in the greenhouse and began the process of getting her back on her feet. I kept an eye on him the rest of the day and he was on a tear. He wasn't like this two weeks ago. I'd noticed a bit of increased aggression but in just a few days it was like a switch had been flipped. So, I butchered him Sunday morning and made a big pot of really good guinea curry coconut soup. Thanks Mr. Guinea and I'm truly sorry to see you go.

As crazy loud as those Guineas are, I still adore them. Oh, and they've started laying their eggs right in with the chickens so I'm getting 2-3 little guinea eggs a day!! The shells are so much thicker that they don't break when dropped. I have to SLAM them into the cast iron skillet to break them open.

After a week in the greenhouse the wounded hen has recovered very well and I put her back with the flock Saturday. During her time in the greenhouse she did a great job of tilling up the bed. I'll get that planted with something this week.

Other news, Petunia the deer has been back quite a few days, often several times a day. The other day she laid down right in front of the front door. Adorable. I've got the chicken coop all cleaned out and set with fresh straw. The garden has been planted with a big bed of potatoes, 2 beds of onions and multiple beds of lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, radishes, carrots and, along the fence, sugar snap peas. The broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi are about ready for transplanting. Tomatoes were a bit slow to sprout but seem to have woken up. No sign of the eggplant yet. Next to start are peppers and various herbs: lemon balm, comfrey, oregano, lovage, borage and a few others, medicinal and culinary.

I'm doing all this planting in the garden extension that I mulched last spring. The soil in that half has far fewer rocks and after a year of worm activity is really looking fantastic. The straw and cardboard mulch is still thick enough that I won't have any problems over there this summer. The garden fence improvements I did last year seem to be keeping the rabbits at bay so I should have a good harvest this year.

Last but not least, thanks to Juli I've got a nice new patch of about 40 strawberry plants. My guess is that with the three rhubarb plants I put in last year we'll be having quite a bit of rhubarb strawberry pie next summer, if not a bit this summer. Next year I expect to also be harvesting blueberries and the year after that hardy kiwis. Add to that mix the juneberries, currants, gooseberries, apples, peaches and plums and, well, there should be lots of sweet fruit for the picking!

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Chickens, Composting, Conservation, Ecological Landscaping, Edible Forest Gardening, Edible Landscaping, Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Greenhouse, Guineas, Herbs, Homesteading, Living Simply, Medicinal Herbs, Medicinal Plants, Missouri, Natural, Natural Resources, Permaculture, Self Reliance, The Long Emergency, Transition

Geek in the Garden

2010-03-22T09:15:00.001-05:00

Please excuse this momentary lapse into a bit of geekitude. A few years back I started using geekinthegarden for email and various account user names because I was, after all a geek who spend a good bit of his time in the garden. These past two years living at the homestead I've been much less a geek and more a gardener. In fact, a big part of my push to move to the homestead was to get my hands back into the soil and to finally learn more about permaculture and put it into practice. Beginning in 2005 I'd started to see a pileup of evidence that peak oil and general collapse were finally at the door and felt it was time to get serious about growing my own food.

As I've gotten a bit more involved in town via the Fredericktown Revitalization and in working with the city on their website this past winter I found myself at the computer more often and have really enjoyed the work. I've built a few new websites as well as a pretty extensive FileMaker database. Something that I've really taken note of is the lack of local utilization of technology by the small businesses and non-profits around main street. Most people know the basics but VERY FEW get beyond the web browser. I've met lots of folks that could benefit from knowing more about the available tools. Small businesses should not be tracking inventory with a spiral bound notebook in 2010.

It was easy to sit at the computer during the cold days of winter but now that the weather has warmed it is increasingly difficult and the internal conflict has gotten me thinking a bit about the future. What is the role of technology in our lower energy future. Is this kind of work to build the digital literacy of a community a wasted effort given the kind of future we have coming? Just how important will laptops and iPads be in two years? Five years? What about websites, spreadsheets and databases? While I really like the idea of sharing the knowledge I have about these kinds of digital tools spring suddenly reminds me that this is the time to grow food. Should I also be shifting my community time in the same direction?

I'm also thinking about this in the larger context of the FRI and the larger Main Street movement. I strongly support the general idea of building the local economy as well as the preservation of historical main street architecture. Neighborhood and main street revitalization is a good thing but there should be a balance in our efforts to build (or rebuild) the local economy within the context of a limited energy future. Peak oil is here and will only become more obvious. Have I spent too much time thinking about building/stabilizing the local economy and not enough time thinking about the local food and energy system? I realize that it does not have to be either/or, there can be a balance. When I joined up with the FRI I knew it was a Main Street group and had (have) no problem with that but I was more interested in the Transition Towns idea. Main Street is in the right direction but I'm impatient with our lack of progress and what often times seems to be a lack of interest in the local business community.

As an anarchist I'm not all that interested in the profit motive or volunteering my time to help others make a profit. I don't have a local business, they do. They don't seem to understand the interconnection between their business and their community. That said, I AM interested in building the self reliance and resilience of the local community and that means working with business owners to some degree. I suppose what this post comes down to is that I'm trying to find a balance in how I spend my time. I'm wondering what folks in this community want and need most, trying to understand how I can have the most meaningful impact.

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Activism, Capitalism, Collapse, Community, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, FileMaker Pro, Food, Fredericktown, Gardening, Global Depression, Great Depression, Homesteading, Living Simply, Missouri, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Permaculture, Recession, Self Reliance, Small Town Life, Sustainable Development, The Long Emergency, Transition, Main Street

Dreaming of Loretta

2010-03-09T08:55:00.001-06:00

Two nights in the past few days I've dreamed of my sweet Canada Goose buddy, Loretta. I miss her friendly smile and the sound of her puttering around behind me in the garden. I hope she comes back and stays for the summer. I really miss her!

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Homesteading, Living Simply

Fun with Bees

2010-03-09T08:54:00.001-06:00

Every so often we have moments of spontaneous comedy here at the homestead. Serious comedy. No, really, you don't want to have a mouthful of coffee while reading.

This is a two part bee story. Part one. Last week I was out to feed the bees on one of our kinda warm days. I went out with the jar of sugar water but no gloves or head gear. I'd done this before but in the early spring bees tend to be a bit more aggressive. I remove the entrance cleat (a piece of wood that keeps out mice and cold air) and put the feeder in place. A couple bees popped out and I backed up a bit. No problem. Except that one of them continued to buzz me. I backed up more... another 15 feet. Still buzzing so I backed up further. At this point I was a bit puzzled because I could not find him and the buzzing was pretty loud. So I start with my shirt and sweatshirt. Yes, I took them off. Still the buzzing. Then the shoes quickly followed by the sweat pants. Still the buzzing. At this point I'm a little freaked out and jumping around a bit looking for this very angry bee. I'm wearing socks and boxing shorts and jumping around in the woods, hands flailing through the air. Then I realize where my little friend is. The beard. So now I'm pulling at my beard trying to comb him out with my fingers. Still angry buzzing. More frantic pulling at the beard to which turns into a kind of squeezing of the beard and then smacking of the beard. Yes, mostly naked, jumping around and smacking myself in the face.

Just another picturesque morning in the country.

Okay. Ready for part two? Tonight I go out to gather up the empty sugar water jar. Yes, I'm wearing the gloves and head gear. I pull the feeder and slide the entrance cleat over. A few bees come out. All done I turn and walk away. Buzzz. Buzzzzzzz. I keep walking, not too worried as I know my beard is safe. Then I realize a bee had somehow made it into my boot. Okay buzzing getting angrier and I move more quickly towards the cedar bench over by the chicken coop. I plop down quickly to take my boots off and yes, I, along with the bench, tip right over. So now I'm on my back trying to kick my boots off.

After a few minutes I get them off and push myself and the bench up off the ground. For a brief moment I and bench almost fall back over but I make the save. The bee is gone and I retrieve the boots. End scene.

All that said, I do love my fuzzy little buzzing friends and am looking forward to the summer honey harvest!

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Bee Keeping, Bees, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Self Reliance

Fredericktown, MO Website

2010-02-21T23:30:00.001-06:00

This is one of those rare posts that has absolutely nothing to do with the homestead. Just a note about a project I've been working on which is finally starting to come together. The small town of Fredericktown, Missouri finally, in 2010, has a website! Better late then never I suppose. For such a small site it sure has taken me a long time to pull this together! I'm collecting most of the information myself (hence the duration of the project) and I've still got a good bit more information to collect but it is slowly getting there. It's nothing fancy but it's I think its simple, clean design get's the job done.

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Fredericktown, Missouri

Thinking of Spring

2010-02-21T16:43:00.001-06:00

We've now had two days above 55 degrees! Yesterday was fantastic with full sun all day. The bees were out of their hive scouting around. The chickens and guineas were happily taking dust baths and scratching through mulch looking for bugs. We've had snow cover over much of the ground for most of January and February. It has finally melted off with only a few spots remaining in the deep shade. I've started a tray of broccoli, cabbage and kohlrabi and will be starting another of tomatoes and peppers. Oh, and eggplant as well. Basically, I'll have seed trays on every flat surface in the cabin and greenhouse. Last night, right on que, the Spring Peepers began singing just after sunset. There is nothing more beautiful than the early spring song of these amazing frogs. Listening to them sing in the cool evening of late winter/early spring is magical.

Technorati Tags:
Bee Keeping, Bees, Chickens, Food Production, Gardening, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Snow

Warm and Cozy!

2010-01-04T17:31:00.005-06:00

We've had some pretty cold weather since my last update on the wood stove and thermal mass. I'm happy to report that the thermal mass has continued to make a huge difference in the moderation of indoor temperatures. In the past week we've had several days in a row with overnight lows at or below 10 and highs of 20 or less. Inside the cabin I've been waking up to 52 or warmer with a daytime average of about 75 inside once the morning fire is going. In these frigid first days of January I've burned an average of 7 logs in the morning and 7 in the evening. Last winter without the blocks I would have woken up to 38 degrees or so on mornings this cold even if I kept a hot fire going till 1 in the morning! While 52 is chilly it's quite a difference from 38 and remember I'm only burning half the wood which means much less work for me and much less carbon in the atmosphere.

Here are some stats from December: Morning average 28 outside, 59 inside. Evening average 34 outside, 66 inside. Noon inside average 72. Overall outside average 31, inside average 65.7. That inside average is a bit misleading as it is based on a morning temp with no fire. I get the morning fire going as soon as I get up so the temp quickly rises so in terms of the time that I'm actually awake and doing things in the cabin the average is more like 75. On average the cabin is staying at least 32 degrees warmer that outside.

One last observation. New Years day I went to a community hike and potluck and observed during the drive over that most of the houses that had chimneys were spewing pretty heavy amounts of smoke. I'm happy to report that even with my old wood stove I'm only getting visible smoke during the start-up of my fires. Within just a few minutes that smoke is replaced by nearly invisible smoke/vapor and heat waves. I doubt it is as clean burning as the newer double burn stoves but even those will burn dirty if not burned properly with well seasoned wood.

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Cabin, Carbon, Climate Change, Conservation, Energy, Energy Conservation, Global Warming, Homesteading, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Permaculture, Self Reliance, Wood, Woodburning Stove

Homestead Critters and the Cold

2010-01-04T17:31:00.003-06:00

The winter has been cold thus far and in fact feels like a real winter, the first time in a long while. I'm hoping the bees are good and will survive. I fed them almost daily for two or three weeks in the fall. I also used four straw bales to build a wind break on the north and west side of the hive. They are in a fairly sheltered area with great southern exposure so hopefully they are fine. This is my first year keeping bees so I'm a bit nervous. Going into early fall I did an inspection and the hive looked pretty strong with lots of honey being produced in the second super I put on. Time will tell.

The chickens and guineas seem to be doing very well even with these bitter cold days. I've got a daytime 150 watt heat lamp running in the coop and at at night I switch to a red colored 200 watt heat lamp which as I understand it allows them to sleep better than a regular light would. Even with that there was a thin layer of ice on their water this morning which was easily remedied with some hot water from the wood stove. Last night was down to about 7 degrees so I'm not too surprised. Everyone seems healthy and I continue to let them out to free range every day. They don't seem to behave any differently. I'm not sure what I expected. I suppose I thought they might stay closer to the heat of the coop but so far they've been much more interested in getting out. It's been sunny so that might be a factor. It is supposed to snow a good bit Thursday so it will be interesting to see if that changes their behavior.

Petunia the deer has been showing up 5 or so days a week to eat an apple and a bit of corn. Little Bob, the resident cat, is doing well and seems to stay plenty warm in the solar cat house I built using a straw bale, re-used windows, cardboard and bubble wrap. I supplement the sunlight with a 75 watt light at night.

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Bee Keeping, Bees, Chickens, Deer, Guineas, Homesteading, Honey Bees, Living Simply, Orphan Deer, Permaculture, Self Reliance

Chicken Coop Greenhouse Update

2010-01-04T17:31:00.001-06:00

This past spring I wrote about our building of a chicken coop greenhouse. Anyone that has read through any of the permaculture literature has probably seen this combination structure mentioned. The idea is that the chickens share their night-time warmth and carbon dioxide with the greenhouse and during the day the warmth of the greenhouse helps to heat the coop. Another benefit would be the proximity of coop to greenhouse during chores.

I've seen doubts posted about the actual, real-world benefits of this design so was curious to see what results we would have. There is no doubt that there are benefits in proximity in terms of chores. For example, a compost pile inside the greenhouse or just outside greatly benefits from the manure of the chickens as well as the scratching of the chickens. Having it in or near the greenhouse makes using the compost that much easier. Also when disposing of plant material from the greenhouse is easier as it can be thrown to the compost with little effort and the chickens will munch and scratch-whatever they don't eat is tilled into the compost.

So far I'd say the heat and gas benefits are hard to pinpoint. Part of the problem is that I need to increase the size of the current vent as well as add a bottom vent and probably a small fan to aid in the exchange. I will say that the greenhouse is definitely warming up nicely. On a sunny day it is easily 30 degrees warmer than outside temperatures. With proper venting and a small fan I'm pretty sure this warmth would help keep the coop warmer during the day. The question is whether the warmth of the chickens would keep the coop any warmer at night. I've read that each chicken produces about 40 watts worth of heat but have come to doubt this. We've got 15 chickens and 4 guineas which would add up to at least 600 watts. I'm not real sure how to accurately measure the effect in terms of heat but it does not seem that we're getting that much heat from them. Short of kicking them outside for a night (which I'm obviously not going to do!) and taking temperature to measure I don't know how I could get any kind of accurate reading to compare.

That said, I've had the water freeze up if I don't run a light at night if temps are below 20. Anything above that and the water tends to stay water so that might indicate about 12 degrees of generated warmth. I'm thinking the real benefit in terms of temperature exchange is from greenhouse to chicken coop. If I could get a bit more thermal mass in the greenhouse via a few more straw bales I might see more night time heat retention that could be shared with the chickens to eliminate the need for heat lamps. I was planning on putting in at least two more bales anyway to form a work table for spring seedlings. Perhaps I can fit in 4 more which would be a total of 8. The straw bales seem to collect and hold more heat than anything else in the greenhouse. In fact, I'm thinking that next fall I might use straw bales as the base of the planting bed which would not only add thermal mass but would keep the lettuce and other winter greens up off the colder ground. In early summer all of these straw bales could then by cycled out to the garden and food forests for mulching or to the chicken coop for bedding.

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Chickens, Composting, Conservation, Energy, Energy Conservation, Homesteading, Living Simply, Permaculture, Greenhouse

Deeper is not Better

2009-12-28T09:57:00.001-06:00

Over the past couple years Automatic Earth has become one of my favorite economic blogs and Ilgari's Christmas Eve post is a good example of why I venture there daily. Ilgari makes the point that the past year's economic developments were, essentially, about the transfer of private debt to the public. This picture just gets worse and worse:

Many people today feel happy and positive when they look at the stock markets, because they think these reflect the real economy, and since the markets are up, things must have changed for the better in the past year.

But they haven't, not below the surface. It's all veneer and no substance. What actually has happened is that -virtually- no debt has been paid off in our economies, in fact we’ve added trillions of dollars more in debt. What is different from a year ago is that a huge part of the old debt and all of the new debt has been transferred to the public, and away from private business, in particular financial institutions (and, to an extent, carmakers).

So it comes down to the fact that people feel happy for being deeper in debt, and quite a bit deeper. Being the humans we are, we focus on the short term gratification which can be found in the Dow and a whole slew of increasingly fabricated numbers and government reports, while we conveniently ignore the enormous increases in debts, both public and private, that we will have to pay off down the line.

But, you say, it's not as bad as it may look, because when the crisis is over, we will return to growth, and that will take care of the debt. That and shrewd dollar-inflation strategies by the wizards at the Fed and Treasury.

Really? What if the crisis lasts, let's say, ten years? All that needs to happen for that is for home prices to keep falling, or even stagnate. And that seems a near certainty.

The US has no private mortgage market left, or even a viable housing market. Neither do Canada, Britain, Holland and many other countries for that matter. Homes are sold and mortgages approved only because the state takes them off the lenders' hands and books the minute the deals are closed. The loans are then securitized and sold on to, in America's instance, the central bank. In other words, all of the risk for all of the entire loans processed in this fashion lies squarely with the taxpayer.

And that is not a good thing if prices keep dropping. When unemployment won't come down. When governments start raising taxes because sovereign debt goes through the various rooftops.

The main problem's not even paying off the principal of the debt. That won't start happening for years to come, if ever. It’s paying the interest on the debt that will become the most immediate headache.

Read it.

Technorati Tags:
Capitalism, Collapse, Economic Collapse, Economic Depression, Economy, Global Depression, Great Depression, Recession

Copenhagen Aftermath

2009-12-28T09:55:00.001-06:00

I'd planned on writing about the recent climate change talks but Asymptotic Life has a great post on the Copenhagen Aftermath to get it started. I may add more later.

The leader of the G-77 group of developing nations said, "It is asking Africa to sign a suicide pact, an incineration pact in order to maintain the economic dependence of a few countries."
...
A Greenpeace press release warned that President Obama "now risks being branded as the man who killed Copenhagen."
...
Yet Amanda Little, in an unexpected post at Treehugger, excuses Obama by noting that "Fully 55 percent of Americans surveyed in a recent Washington Post-ABC poll disagree with the way Obama is handling the climate issue, concerned that he is moving too far too fast."

Personally, I believe that's because corporate intervention has prevented appropriate education-- and the realization that if we burn less energy, we'll spend less money! But the powers that be don't want us to burn less energy: the more we waste, the more money they make.

And again here, rightfully suggesting that since the government can't be counted on it is up to people to do it themselves:

The Copenhagen climate summit has ended. The result: a non-binding agreement that we ought to do something about CO2 emissions, but with no commitments as to who will do what. There's also a generalized statement-- again, nonbinding-- that there will be a fund to provide up to $100 billion per year to developing nations that must cope with climate change, with no indication of who's going to ante up.

In short, the summit was a failure. Some argue that getting nations to agree on anything is itself a success. But the fact is, two nations blocked this process: the United States and China. These just happen to be the world's biggest carbon polluters-- and two of the nations least likely to be affected by early climate changes. Coincidence? I think not.

In essence, my country and its new ally China have thumbed their noses at the world. We Americans have said that we don't care what the cost is to others, we insist on maintaining our current levels of decadence and waste. And no one can stop us: we are the most powerful nation in the world (and China is probably second).

I am yet hopeful that the other industrialized nations will reduce their emissions, despite our refusal to do so. They will be at a significant economic disadvantage, since the U.S. will continue to plunge ahead without the added expense of paying for the cost of its carbon. We may regain hegemony as a result.

I am yet hopeful that the citizens of the United States will defy their leaders and demand change-- the change that then-candidate Barack Obama promised, but has yet to materialize. I am yet hopeful that each of us will cut our own emissions to the extent we can, and elect legislators and executives who will give us the resources to cut further.

It's too late to eliminate all effects of climate change. People will die because of our inaction. The best we can do is to act now to stop climate change from becoming worse than the present and future effects we've already caused.

The Bible (it's Sunday-- you knew I'd bring it back to the Bible) teaches us that we are responsible for the failures of our government. We will pay the price for the inaction of President Obama, and President Bush before him.

Will we stand by as our leaders heap guilt on us? Or will we stand up and demand what should have been done already? Sadly, I think we'll probably let Obama lead us down the road to Hell.

Technorati Tags:
Capitalism, Carbon, Climate Change, Global Warming

Climate change, the translation

2009-12-21T18:48:00.001-06:00

I've FINALLY gotten around to reading through Dimitri Orlov's blog and it is excellent. Some will think he is a bit harsh in his humor but I'm loving it in part for that reason. A recent post on Selling Climate Change is a great example. But not only is it funny, it is right on target.

Climate scientists and environmental activists who support them have been struggling to get their message across: that an increase in average global temperature of 6 degrees Celsius by the end of the century is likely and would be a catastrophe.

Let's deconstruct this message on behalf of the person you see seated here. Starting at the end, there is this big scary Greek word. Tune that out: 'cat... here, kitty-kitty!' Let's also cross out all the words he doesn't care about: 'scientists,' 'average,' 'global' and 'Celsius.' These are all noise words. What we are left with is 'It will be 6 degrees warmer.' If he were wearing a sweatshirt, he might be prompted to think about taking it off, but as he is already down to just the boxers and the wife-beater, we shouldn't wish him to disrobe any further. If he succeeds in processing 'by the end of the century,' he would translate it as 'not any time soon.' If the word 'likely' makes it through his cognitive filter, it would come out as 'maybe.' The message, as received, thus reads: 'Maybe it will get a bit warmer long after I am dead. Well, whoop-tee-doo! What else is on TV?'

You may ask yourself, What difference does it make what this individual thinks? Well, it does and it doesn't. It doesn't because he has zero political or economic power or influence. It does because those who run the country in which he resides find it convenient to pretend that his opinion matters, to dumb down public discourse so as to frustrate the smart, educated people to the point of not wanting to participate, because dumb people are easier to exploit than smart people. If we want to influence public policy and try to prevent climate catastrophe (to the extent that it is still preventable) we need to have this fellow squarely on our side. This is not impossible by any means, but it is a dead certainty that scientific mumbo-jumbo won't make a convert of him.

The word 'climate' is a bit of a non-starter already. He likes 'climate control,' and what we are telling him is that he might have to get a bigger air conditioner... by the end of the century. That's just great. But the real howler is the persistent use of the word 'average.' Imagine him poking his head out of his double-wide trailer home to surmise the weather, and, turning to his Spandex-clad, morbidly obese wife, exclaiming 'Sweet Jesus, what an AVERAGE day! Take out your teeth, woman! Let's celebrate!' Are you beginning to get the picture?

Here is a mapping I would like to contribute to the question of how to sell climate change to the general public.

Unlike the problem of stopping climate change, I see this communication problem as solvable. The issue, as I see it, is that nobody has really tried to solve it. The reasons for this are many and varied, but none of them is particularly good.

Technorati Tags:
Climate Change, Fossil Fuels, Global Warming

In Transition 1.0

2009-12-21T18:47:00.005-06:00

In Transition 1.0 is Now Available!! » Transition Culture: "‘In Transition’ is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humour, and setting about rebuilding their local economies and communities. It is positive, solutions focused, viral and fun."

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Climate Change, Collapse, Community, Conservation, Oil, Peak Energy, Peak Oil, Self Reliance, Transition

Roger Ebert reviews Collapse

2009-12-21T18:47:00.003-06:00

Not only does Roger Ebert write an excellent review of Collapse, but does a fantastic job of explaining peak oil, the issues surrounding it and what some of the details will look like in real life.

I have no way of assuring you that the bleak version of the future outlined by Michael Ruppert in Chris Smith's 'Collapse' is accurate. I can only tell you I have a pretty good built-in B.S. detector, and its needle never bounced off zero while I watched this film. There is controversy over Ruppert, and he has many critics. But one simple fact at the center of his argument is obviously true, and it terrifies me.

That fact: We have passed the peak of global oil resources. There are only so many known oil reserves. We have used up more than half of them. Remaining reserves are growing smaller, and the demand is growing larger. It took about a century to use up the first half. That usage was much accelerated in the most recent 50 years. Now the oil demands of giant economies like India and China are exploding. They represent more than half the global population, and until recent decades had small energy consumption.

If the supply is finite, and usage is potentially doubling, you do the math. We will face a global oil crisis, not in the distant future, but within the lives of many now alive. They may well see a world without significant oil.

Oh, I grow so impatient with those who prattle about our untapped resources in Alaska, yada yada yada. There seems to be only enough oil in Alaska to power the United States for a matter of months. The world's great oil reserves have been discovered.

Saudi Arabia sits atop the largest oil reservoir ever found. For years, the Saudis have refused to disclose any figures at all about their reserves. If those reserves are vast and easy to tap by drilling straight down through the desert, then ask yourself this question: Why are the Saudis spending billions of dollars to develop offshore drilling platforms?

Ruppert is a man ordinary in appearance, on the downhill slope of middle age, a chain smoker with a mustache. He is not all worked up. He speaks reasonably and very clearly. 'Collapse' involves what he has to say, illustrated with news footage and a few charts, the most striking of which is a bell-shaped curve. It takes a lot of effort to climb a bell-shaped curve, but the descent is steep and dangerous.

He recites facts I knew, vaguely. Many things are made from oil. Everything plastic. Paint. There are eight gallons of oil in every auto tire. Oil supplies the energy to convert itself into those byproducts. No oil, no plastic, no tires, no gas to run cars, no machines to build them. No coal mines, except those operated by men and horses.

Alternative energies and conservation? The problem is the cost of obtaining and using it. Ethanol requires more energy than it produces. Hybrid and battery cars need engines, tires and batteries. Nuclear power plants need to be built with oil. Electricity from wind power is most useful near its source. It is transmitted by grids built and maintained by oil. Wave power is expensive to collect. Solar power is cheap and limitless, but we need a whole hell of a lot more solar panels and other collecting devices.

Like I say, you do the math. Ruppert has done his math, and he concludes that our goose is cooked. He doesn't have any answers. We're passing the point of diminishing returns on the way to our rendezvous with the point of no return. It was nice while it lasted. People lived happily enough in the centuries before oil, electricity and steam, I guess. Of course, there were fewer than 6 billion of us. In this century, Ruppert says, there will be a lot fewer than 6 billion again. It won't be a pretty sight.

This May will mark two years since my move to the homestead and given what I see in the economic sphere I have no doubt it was the right move with fairly good timing. There are alot of folks out there desperately hoping that the economy is recovering. What they don't understand that even if such a recovery was in process (which is not the case) it could only be a short-lived recovery because the economy is based on oil. If we've passed peak (and I believe we have) there will NEVER be a recovery. Call it a collapse or the long emergency, it is here now.

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Failure?

2009-12-21T18:47:00.001-06:00

Reading through the comments in an article at The Automatic Earth I came across this:

As I talk to colleagues who are unable to see our civilization is already dead, it occurs to me their self-absorbed denial comes from a terror of recognizing how badly they've failed their own children, providing so little of essential value.

The above is a common thread about the near and far future of our world and what it is we will be living in that pops up on the AE as well as blogs such as Sharon Astyk's Casaubon's Book, Jim Kunstler's Clusterfuck Nation, John Michael Greer's Arch Druid Report and Orlov's Club Orlov.

Birds!

2009-12-18T09:33:00.001-06:00

For some reason last winter, my first as a full time resident, I did not feed the birds. Of course I watched them as I do all year but winter feeding of birds is always a treat because it seems to bring so many in. This year I noticed that they noticed the chicken scratch everywhere and were coming in as though I was purposely feeding them. Since then I've made it a point to put out bit extra and have added black sunflower seeds. The number of birds has been amazing. I'm not used to seeing six male cardinals at once! One or two is not unusual but six is not something I've seen. Not as many females. I'm seeing the usual number of other winter birds: Titmice, Black-capped Chickadees, Juncos, Red-bellied Woodpecker, and Downy Woodpecker. I've not seen any Pileated Woodpeckers here though I have heard them a few times. I've not seen any Gold or Purple Finches recently. One new bird I've seen is the White Throated Sparrow which is a very pretty bird similar in look and behavior to the Fox Sparrow.

I've not been taking any new bird photos largely because I've already got so many shots of these particular species. It's been awhile since I posted any of my nature images so thought I'd pull a few from my flickr archives. For anyone interested in birds, frogs, insects, flowers, moss, fungi and other nature related photography please visit my flickr archives. Most of my nature images were posted in 2007 and early 2008 so it's easiest to browse them via one of the sets.

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My Climate Change “Action Plan”

2009-12-14T12:02:00.001-06:00

I have nothing to add to this... thought it was excellent. Actually, she is somewhat joking but it is no joke. I'd suggest that even her most radical suggestions should be implemented and probably much, much more. The fact is we past the time for moderate measures 10 years ago. We've waited far to long and at this point even drastic measures are not enough.

From the Riot 4 Austerity:

My Climate Change “Action Plan”: "Since it is becoming increasingly obvious that there will be no binding agreement in Copenhagen next month about how to achieve necessary greenhouse gas emission reductions, I thought I would propose my own binding climate change mitigation strategy. Why not, eh? Members of the so-called 'developed' world seem to need a little direction in the matter, a little gentle urging perhaps. So here goes. By the way, I haven't decided if I'm joking or not.

Benign Dictator Theresa's 'My Way or the Fry-way' Climate Change Action Plan

All international and national sporting competitions will cease immediately. That includes the Olympics. All that travel is totally unnecessary and wasteful. Everyone bike/walk to your local sporting venue instead and support your local kids competing out of a sense of fun, rather than a sense of 'when-will-I-get-that-Nike-endorsement' greed.

Politicians, business people, you are heretofore directed to use conference calls and webcams. All your jet-fueled travel is canceled. Your 'leadership' isn't helping anyway.
Tropical and other 'must-have' vacations, same goes: canceled. There's lots do see and do within walking/biking distance of where you live. And if you need that much distraction in your life you have bigger problems anyway.

The Las Vegas strip is closed until further notice. Same goes for all other similar locations worldwide. Way too much electricity used for no good reason. Not to mention setting a really, really bad example on so many levels. (November 27 addendum: Thanks Dubai, for getting right on that.)

Sorry race fans, NASCAR, Formula 1, etc., canceled. Those fossil fuels are needed for other things. Get a pedal bike or a canoe and race that.
Everyone will be vegetarian and like it, so there.

Every household will be required to have and tend a food-bearing vegetable garden. If you have no yard, a community garden plot within walking/biking distance will be found and/or reclaimed for you (i.e., uncovering the soil under now-unneeded parking lots, etc). Seeds and gardening implements will be provided. Gardening/Cooking/Preserving classes will be taught to young and old, in your local community by cool people like Sharon Astyk and her many minions.

Work weeks will heretofore be limited to 4 days out of 7.
Two days a week will be mandatory car-free days. You need to work in your garden, or volunteer, or take a Preserving class, or take a nap, or have some local fun on those days anyway.

Cheap plastic crap will no longer be manufactured or sold. If we're expending resources to manufacture things, those things will be useful and built to last.

Get ready for it: Oil sands operations will be reduced by 50% immediately. We will use natural gas as a primary fuel, rather than using it as part of the tarsands extraction process. No new coal-fired electricity plants and 50% of existing ones will be shut down. All nuclear plants will be shut down, effective immediately. The precautionary principle will be the guiding principle from now on, period. All subsidies to fossil fuel industries will be entirely re-directed to renewables, effective immediately. All buildings will be retrofitted with these cool solar panel shingles.

Carbon/Greenhouse gas emissions will be capped on a per capita basis, to ensure that the 350 ppm goal is reached in the next 10 years, or maybe 5 years, I haven't decided. The cap will be the same for everybody, regardless of geographical location, income, celebrity status, or political office. If this means you have to reduce your consumption down to 10% of what it is now, get used to it. Fair is fair. Compliance will be enforced by whatever nefarious means I deem suitable.

Oh, and no one has any more kids until all the kids around the world in orphanages or on the streets have been adopted. 'Something' has been 'put in the water' already.

Really, compared to that, would it be so difficult to get something together at Copenhagen? I am being generally facetious and sarcastic with (some) of these points, but come on! It doesn't take that much planning and it is not a hardship to cut down electricity consumption by half, and in our household we've managed to cut back to 35% of the North American average. I realize that is just a drop in the bucket, but instead of working to increase the number of drops in the bucket, my Canadian government is just throwing out excuses and downplaying expectations before the Copenhagen meeting. It's sickening. What passes for leadership these days is absolutely sickening.

Ok, time to make some ginger tea to reduce my nausea.

Does anyone have any 'dream clauses' you would like to add to this 'action plan'?

November 20th: Friendly Amendments. The following amendments have been suggested by commenters, and are hereby incorporated into the Action Plan . I am a benign dictator after all....

Hadv's amendment: The status quo is not good enough anymore. The time for change has come. Get used to it.

Sensible Vermonter's amendment: Renewable power retrofits will be fully subsidized up front. Power generated by these renewable sources will be sold back to the 'grid' up until the subsidy is paid back, after which it will become a source of income for the homeowner.

Amber's amendment: Household composting is mandatory. A suitably sized composter will be provided to each household free of charge. Compost can be used by the homeowner or sold back to local compost exchange stations. Barter among neighbors is encouraged. Courses on regular and humanure composting will be offered alongside the Gardening/Cooking/Preserving courses noted above.

Theresa's afterthought amendment: In the spirit of re-localizing sporting and business events, all national and international travel for concerts, book tours, etc., will also be cancelled. Wherever you are, there are lots of talented local artists, authors, musicians and crafters who deserve your patronage.
Additional amendments and clauses remain welcome!"

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Loretta Missing

2009-12-14T11:57:00.001-06:00

I've not seen her since Friday night. This is only the second time she has not returned. The first time she did not show up for a day. Given that it's been three days I'm guessing she has flown away or gotten hurt, hopefully the first. I don't know much about their habits other than what I've seen. The only thing that has changed is that the lake was frozen for a couple days. Perhaps that would be enough for her to leave? I had not expected that though.

I'm really bummed about it. I suppose I knew this day would come sooner or later but that doesn't really make it any easier. I find myself looking down at the lake constantly hoping I'll see her. Ugh.

Wood Stove Thermal Mass Update

2009-12-03T18:07:00.001-06:00

First, a bit of background for those not familiar with the construction details of my cabin. It is standard 2x4 walls with R-13 insulation, R-19 in the ceiling and inside walls finished with plywood beadboard. While the floor is not properly insulated I did very carefully stuff MANY layers of bubble wrap in this fall with rolled wrap tightly stuffed into each end to block the wind. It's not real insulation but I'm certain that there is FAR less wind and air movement under the space that had previously been open. The bubble wrap was not purchased but re-used from Greg's shutter business. I've also got stacked rock along the base of the cabin from ground up a couple inches past the outer 2x8 rafter.

For this winter I stacked concrete blocks around my wood stove with excellent results thus far. I've got a total of 24 solid blocks (3.5" x 7.5" x 15.5"). They're stacked on the the two long sides and behind the stove and up about 2.5 feet on the back side of the stove pipe. On the sides I've got them stacked two thick (about 7"). On top I've got a big enamel canning pot full of water which leaves just enough room on the stove top to put my coffee pot. I also reinforced the floor deck under this corner of the cabin using a couple concrete blocks placed snuggly under the floor rafters.

I'm finding that I can do two very distinct fires, morning and late evening. Thus far each fire is 3-5 logs for a fairly hot burn of 1.5 to 2.5 hours. The result is that the concrete blocks moderate the hottest peak of the burn because they are of course absorbing lots of heat. About an hour after the fire has burned out the heat finally really makes it's way to the outer edges of the concrete. They are hot to the touch but by no means hot enough to burn anything. I type this at 3:15pm and the blocks and pot of water are still noticeably warm. My morning fire was over at 8:15am -that's seven hours of steady, slow warmth. I expect that they'll radiate heat for another hour, maybe two before diminishing. A huge improvement. Rather than peaking at 85 (or higher!) and fairly quickly dropping to 60 I'm peaking at about 80 and VERY slowly dropping. In fact, there is a moderation of temps even past the time that the blocks feel warm. I'm going out this evening and won't be back till 9pm to rekindle the fire but if the past week is any indication the cabin will still be at 60 or above at that time... 12 hours past the morning fire. Outside temps today: 30 at sunrise, 40 at 3:30pm. Inside temps today: 60 at sunrise, 68 at 3:30pm. I've just started keeping track 9 days ago and in that time I'm seeing an average difference of about 22 degrees at sunrise and sunset before the morning or evening fire is built.

My guess is that in the colder part of winter when nights regularly dip to 20 or less and highs only in the lower 30s that I'll be burning my morning and evening fires longer with more logs but I'm hoping that each fire will still be fewer than 10 logs. Based on what I've seen thus far I don't think it is unrealistic to estimate that I'll burn about 40-50% less wood than last year. I wish I'd thought to keep track last year with no blocks so that I could compare by numbers rather than memory of numbers. I routinely heated myself out of the cabin. It would warm very quickly but also cool fairly quickly, especially at night. Each day I'd try to get the fire up then let it go to very low coals and re-ignite. At night I'd try to keep the fire going till bed at midnight when I'd stock it up as much as I could without getting it too hot to sleep. If I failed to wake up at 2 or 3 am to get it going again I regularly woke to 40 degrees, sometimes less on really cold nights. Constantly up and down.

Regardless of how much wood I save I know for certain that the less extreme temperatures and warmer mornings will greatly increase my comfort level as well as the time I spend tending the fire. Well worth the $52 spent on concrete blocks! This is not even close to an original idea. There are many variations on the concept. Masonry stoves, cob.... the important thing is to have as much thermal mass around your stove as you can afford and safely place on the floor. If I had planned better I would have built this section of floor much stronger and would have 40 or 50 blocks rather than 24. In that case I'd often be able to get by with just one fire a day, burning it a bit hotter and longer and coasting for longer. The more mass the better the moderating of temps. The greenest choice would be a cob covered rocket stove. If I'd known of those when we started I probably would have gone that route.

Update: Last night got cold! Outside temp at 7am was 18 which I consider the first real test. Inside the bricks and water were still quite warm and it was 62 in the cabin. The fire did go late though as I got in late. Fire from 10pm with a big bed of coals at 1am, 7 logs burned. I'm VERY happy with this. I know from last year that a fire ending at 1am, with 18 degrees outside would have meant a morning just above 40 with NO residual heat from the stove. On a typical night though I'll probably start my evening fire 2-3 hours earlier which will likely mean that the fire dies down at 11pm and the morning temp will be closer to 58ish. Still, a fantastic improvement!

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Dumbed Down and Out

2009-11-27T18:02:00.001-06:00

I was getting caught up on a couple of my regular web reads and came across this comment by voxpop to a recent blog post by Jim Kunstler.

...I would like to believe that Americans, when pushed to their limits, would rise up en mass against the corporate greed that holds them in check. But it seems this would have happened before now.

When I survey the rape of the American psyche that transpired over the past nine years, I wonder: have We, the People, become the victims of domestic violence? Just as a battered wife stays in her place, does not question her husband, does not try to protect herself or flee the abusive situation, have we become so accustomed to the abuse of our perceived authority figures that we are unable to entertain notions of standing up for ourselves? We must remember that we pay the salaries of the people who abuse us. We can choose to cut off our financial support, thus rendering the batterers impotent. But this sort of revolution is even harder to imagine than the sort with arms. The people who would most benefit from a revolution are too busy feeding their families to start one. Those who can afford to fight don't care enough about the cause to do so. They are comfortable and complacent - as long as they have their numbing substances of choice on hand.

I have become disheartened. 'What then must we do?'

I disagree with the idea that this is a problem which has developed over the past nine years but I agree with the general idea. I think we've gotten ourselves into a cultural, behavioral rut so deep that we have no idea how to get out. We're terrified of what it might mean for our comfortable but degraded lives. Our political system was stolen several decades ago and has since been controlled by corporate capitalism. Whether the party in control is Democrat or Republican is irrelevant, the two party facade is just a distraction, a news-network soap opera.

Sadly, we've become twisted perversions of the citizenry we one were striving to be. We've allow ourselves to be remade into hyper consumers obsessed with the latest gadgets and the lives of celebrities or ranking of sports teams. We traded away meaningful lives lived in the context of community, seeking our to develop our better selves. Instead of helping one another develop to our fullest potential we accepted a bribe of cheap thrills and trinkets from China.

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Taking of Life

2009-11-19T08:47:00.001-06:00

Deer hunting is in full swing these days. Last weekend my brother and uncle both shot deer. The taking of life is something I've been thinking about lately. A month ago I wrote about the two dogs I had to kill. I've thought about them off and on since that day and last weekend went to see their decaying bodies where I put them under a couple of trees. They are returning to nature and in that I find a bit of comfort. Nothing in nature is wasted. I don't have a problem with death. It is inevitable and beautiful in its own way. We all return.

I suppose what I have a problem with is the unnecessary taking of life. When we butchered three of the roosters back in September I was okay with that because it really needed to be done. I've been catching and eating fish out of the lake over the past year and I'm okay with that because I know there are GOBS of fish in the lake. Harvesting fish and chickens when necessary for management I can deal with. Harvesting deer I can deal with because I know there are lots of them and they are an excellent source of local protein. I've been thinking that I might hunt a few rabbits or squirrels this winter because there are lots of them here. LOTS. I'm not sure I'll do it though it fits into my plan of more local protein via very select harvesting of a variety of animals.

I have a block in my brain. I imagine a deer, rabbit, or squirrel going about its business of living. I imagine in vivid detail that rabbit in all it's fuzzy adorableness and then I imagine its life coming to a sudden and violent end not by owl or fox but by a bullet. I know, rationally that death is a part of nature and as I said above, I embrace that cycle of life. Nature is organisms consuming one another, the constant movement of energy through consumption and digestion. I also know that local protein from a rabbit or squirrel is a healthy way for me to obtain protein. The alternative is to continue importing it from offsite in the form of a variety of beans, rice and other vegetable sources. I'm fairly certain that the most ecologically sustainable protein would be the local meat especially when it is actually on site.

I think I know that the most natural, energy efficient way for me to sustain my body is to strive for local food which means gardening and hunting. Because vegetable protein is so easily available at the grocery store I've allowed myself to view hunting as optional, unnecessary. I don't NEED to hunt to survive. But the truth is that if I don't make an effort to get food by hunting (and gardening) I'll continue relying on imported energy from the grocery store which means thousands of food miles from who knows where. Of course, there is the looming economic depression which IS coming regardless of any can kicking by the Obama folks. Of course here is also peak oil and crazy weather, both of which will impact food production in the short and long terms. My point is that right now conditions permit that I can think and debate this with myself but the time may not be far off where I am forced to hunt by disruptions in the food supply. And I do believe that day is coming, sooner rather than later.

A part of my problem is a constant sense of guilt. I've gotten into the pattern of trying to offset what I deem to be the "bad" behavior of other people. Whether it is climate change or industrial agriculture's method of meat production, the more I see others around me showing a lack of concern the more determined I am. The result is that I am very sensitive to the possibility that I might drive a car unnecessarily which is a direct response to seeing so many others show no care at all in their use of oil or coal. Quite honestly, I went through a couple years of pretty intense depression. I was so frustrated, angry, sad at my perception that most people don't care about the impact of their lives that I wanted to end my own. I just shut down. Stopped going out in public. Stopped visiting family. Not only did I not want to get in a car but I often did not even want to eat. I wanted to crawl into the crook of big tree and fade away. When I moved to the cabin I had not planned on connecting to people again. I figured I'd find what little happiness I could alone in a garden and little cabin by the lake.

Back to my point, I think my reluctance to eat meat is a direct response to living in a country/culture where eating meat is just an accepted part of life. Most people I've ever known don't really care about the welfare of the animals they eat and any kind of cruelty those animals may have endured before being butchered is simply a non-issue to them. You can see where this is going. My response has been to develop a very deep emotional connection to the animals around me. Whether it is a tufted titmouse, canada goose, white-tail deer, swallowtail butterfly or any of the critters around me, I respect their existence. How can I not? I'm struggling to reconcile this respect for the individuals with my understanding that in a healthy, natural ecosystem some animals eat other animals. Humans are animals after all. We are a part of it all. True as that is it is also true that we've allowed ourselves to become completely disconnected from what sustains us and with this alienation comes a dangerous ability to disrespect. I think we've forgotten that we are, in fact, animals and that we share this planet with many other species. We are just one. We like to think that we're special because of our "intelligence" and yet I see what we've done with it and I can do is shake my head.

We humans, in our grand intelligence, have made war upon one another and upon the planet our way of life. Given this context I've made a habit of trying very hard to do no harm. I know that I've failed, I've done plenty of harm. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't try. In any case, I've been thinking about what it means for me to survive and whether or not I'll start hunting.

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Recycled kitchen table and other projects

2009-11-09T09:30:00.001-06:00

When I first moved into the cabin in May of 2008 I was loaned/given a little kitchen table which, while very functional, didn't really fit. It was in great shape, like new really, but was an 80's style particle board deal that just didn't feel right. I finally got around to making the table that I thought would fit better and I'm pretty happy with it. It is very simple, made of weathered wood from free pallets we picked up this past spring. The old wood and cedar branch legs are a much better fit for the cabin. I had enough wood left over to build a rustic end cabinet between the door and sink as well as a few wall shelves. I've still got a few details to finish but they are mostly done and very functional. I've still got gobs of wood left so I'm thinking about how I might put it to use.

I've always been fond of weathered wood and the more I really look at it the more I appreciate it. The texture and color of it seems so much more natural to me as it so closely matches the coloring and texture of the outer bark of most trees. While I like the warmer red tones of new, untreated wood these are not the colors you see when you look out at trees in the forest. You only see these colors when you cut into a tree.

The last big project for my cabin will be a covered porch which I hope to get to in the spring. I've still got a few bits of trim that I never put up that I am going to take care of very soon. Eventually I would like to cover the vinyl flooring with some sort of wood flooring but for that I'll wait till I find something I can salvage and re-use.

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Adding Thermal Mass for the Wood Stove

2009-10-16T10:49:00.001-05:00

I've added 30 concrete blocks around my wood burning stove to add thermal mass for heat storage. Once I've decided on the exact configuration and gotten all the blocks in that I want I'll probably cover it with cob or mortar on some rocks. Does cob adhere well on top of concrete? My only concern with such a covering would be access to the stove should I need to do any maintenance. Still thinking on that. I can report that after burning a couple fires this thermal mass makes all the difference. Granted it has mostly been in the 40s I'm seeing a big difference. I can burn a 3-5 log fire once a day at these temps and the mass stores and releases the heat till the next day. NICE.

My guess is that when we dip into real winter temps I'll be able to burn a morning and evening fire, each 4-6 logs and coast the rest of the time. If that works out it would be a reduction of about 70% from last year! Not only that but the burn time is short and hot which means much more efficient. No more throttling down the burn to control the temp and lengthen the burn time all of which means more pollution. Much less smoke and much less work chopping wood! Not only that but I'll wake up in the morning to a cabin it 60 or 65 degrees rather than 40 or 45 as was the case many mornings last winter.

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I Shot Two Dogs

2009-10-16T10:37:00.001-05:00

This was initially written as an article for the Madison County Crier but we ended up printing it as a letter to the editor. This is the ugly side of homesteading with chickens and other animals.

The title for this article says it all. I won’t be talking at about permaculture this week but, rather, the issue of keeping animals safe from other animals and what that sometimes means. In my 40 years on this planet I’ve tried to live a life of respect. For me that means being respectful of life in a general way. The taking of a life should never be done without good reason and absolute necessity. For example, while most people I know think nothing of squishing a spider in their home I’ll catch them and put them outside first. If they are no threat to me I see no reason to end their existence. Another example, I was a vegetarian from 1989 till 2003 and I’ve only eaten fish on a few occasions since 2003. Since living at my homestead I decided that I would begin eating a small amount of local meat, specifically fish from our lake and the occasional problem rooster from our flock of chickens. Last week I also ate a small serving of deer which my brother hunted last year from this land. I’m mentioning all this to make the point that I’ve thought about my diet a great deal and have tried to be respectful of other living things with which I share this planet. My decision to include small amounts of meat in my diet is based upon the understanding that in terms of climate change and energy consumption it makes more sense to eat local meat than it does to rely on vegetable sources of protein that are shipped in from hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Now, about these dogs. On this little homestead I keep chickens, guineas, a goose, a cat and a dog. These are animals that I take care of on a daily basis and I take the responsibility seriously. I feed and water them and keep their housing clean, comfortable and safe from predators. In return they provide me with eggs, manure, and good company. I’ve dreaded the day that free ranging dogs would show up at our place and hoped that when the time came I’d be here to deal with it. Previous to my keeping the chickens we’d had dogs show up but I ran them off with lots of yelling and stick banging. They’d often be back the next day and I’d repeat the process but I was not too worried as my dog stays inside unless I’m out with her. Since getting the birds this past spring I’ve heard many dogs, sometimes nearby but luckily enough they stayed clear of our place. It was not until the past couple weeks that a couple of beagles started coming into the homestead. This week I returned from a morning in town to find the dogs in front of my cabin. The chickens were still in their securely fenced area and I rounded the two dogs up and took them to our gate almost a mile away. I waited a bit and when the dogs did not show I let the critters out. Of course it was not long after that they did show up and were chasing one of the animals. I jumped between them and caught the female and tied her up to a tree. I caught the male a couple minutes later and I tied him up as well.

I spent the following day trying to find someone to take the dogs. After phone calls to two shelters, a vet and a variety of friends and family I had found no one able to take them. Today I loaded the .22 and went out to shoot them. My stomach churned as I put the scope to my eye and the crosshairs on the head of the female. I pulled the trigger and it was finished. Moments later the male was also dead. Killing any animal is difficult for me. Killing a dog was gut wrenching.

What else could I do? I cannot possibly afford to take on another dog, certainly not two. My experience with free range dogs is that they come back over and over. Releasing these two would have likely been a trade for the life of one or more of my animals within a day or two. I fully expect that I will have to do this again. And again. And again. Is there an alternative? Please, if there is I’d like to know about it. I do not want to ever shoot another dog. Ever. That said I have a right and responsibility to defend the animals in my care. One suggestion I’ve received is to take them somewhere else and drop them off but how is that a solution? Then they’ve just become someone else’s problem.

What I cannot grasp is that so many people purposely let their dogs roam the countryside. Americans claim to value freedom but I fear that too many have forgotten that the other side of that coin is responsibility. I wonder if anyone can explain to me how anyone who keeps dogs but lets them run free day after day knowing that they are off to others’ properties is in any way behaving responsibly. My guess is that the people that do this simply don’t care what their dogs are doing. I cannot express how deeply I resent being put into a situation where I have to make this kind of decision and take this kind of action.

These two dogs will never go home and I wonder will they be missed? It disgusts me that I had to take life for no reason other than human stupidity. When we butchered three of our roosters I was okay with that because we needed to do it and I knew that they would be providing healthy meals to our family. There was purpose in it and the meat would be eaten. Whether by training or instinct, these two dogs were simply doing what many dogs do when allowed to run and are guilty of nothing other than being dogs. Quite frankly, people that intentionally let their dogs run loose should not only not be allowed to keep animals they should also be fined or be incarcerated. Letting dogs run loose not only puts them at risk at being run over but also leads to the loss of wildlife and livestock. To put it simply it is criminal behavior and it should not be tolerated.

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Chickens, Deer, Ecology, Homesteading, Living Simply, Self Reliance

Sunrise

2009-10-07T10:50:00.001-05:00

We had a really nice moonset and sunrise the other day. The moon was full and very bright which woke me up as it was shining through my front windows and into my face. While I did get a few shots of the moon that were not too bad it was the sunrise images that turned out the best.

Fertility in progress...

2009-09-21T17:25:00.001-05:00

This has been my first summer garden with chickens and those that have followed along know the various issues I've had ranging from the size of the flock being too large as well as issues with free ranging chickens doing a bit too much damage to seedlings. Throughout this summer I've been experimenting, observing and thinking. Things improved greatly when we cut the flock size down from 25 to 15, the latter being much closer to my original plan. As of a month or so ago I started free ranging the smaller flock with just a bit of fencing to encourage them to stay in one area for most of the day. By evening the range down to the rest of the garden and other areas but by now the original forage area has had time to recover and I've also planted white and red clover which is growing nicely. With the expanded forage area they do less damage wherever they are and the positive benefit of the work they do tilling and turning is more of a positive then a negative.

This photo of Irene's detailing protection from chickens using a grill made from chestnuts branches is a perfect example of one improvised method for adapting to free range chickens and funnily enough I started doing something similar using sticks poked into the ground and big chunks of bark that I gather after splitting wood for winter heating. My food forest looks... how shall I put it? More interesting? Below you'll see a recent image of the food forest with yarrow, self heal and little purple coneflowers planted around the paw paws and june berries. Also three rhubarbs and three comfrey are planted and growing well. Last, clover and various greens planted in the berm are all doing well.

I look around and I see so much organic matter: straw, wood chips, sticks, bark as well as growing fertility such as comfrey, chickory, autumn olives and clover. Then there are the many animal contributions: chickens, guineas, a goose and a deer pooping and scratching and leaving nitrogen rich feathers everywhere. I have little doubt that the fertility of the soil all around the homestead is being greatly increased with all of the new ingredients and activities. Mushrooms and shelf fungi are also sprouting up everywhere which is a good indicator.

I've also started the second block in our humanure composting grid. Each block gets one year's worth of humanure and then sits for an additional 2 years (a total of 3 years) for complete composting. Eventually that compost will be used on the blueberries, juneberries and whatever other fruit bushes and trees we've got. My guess is that we could use it sooner but I'm not in any hurry.

It's been a slow process of fertility building as I never brought in any manure. All of the on site fertility is still in the process of either growing or breaking down from cardboard, newspaper, straw and wood chips. The soil in areas which have had mulch in place since last year are looking greatly improved. As of next spring we will have something like 35 comfrey plants going into their second year which means they'll be producing quite a bit of fertility.

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Loretta

2009-09-19T08:51:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure how to say this. I think I'm in love with a goose. Is that strange?

I kid. Really though, she is quite a sweet goose and I am very fond of her. She started hanging out here in early August and has been here every day since. I started calling her Loretta the second or third day she was here. It somehow seemed to fit. She leaves every night to sleep somewhere else, not sure where but she flies off towards the lake and I lose sight of her so my guess is she's fairly close by. I don't know where geese prefer to sleep. In any case, she is here most of the day and the little darling has stolen my heart. She follows me around when I'm out doing chores. When I bend over towards her and say her name she smiles. I kid you not. Well, not exactly a smile but she opens her mouth sticks out her tongue and squeeks. And no, this is definitely not the defensive hiss that geese use when threatened. This is something else and it is entirely adorable. She also has decided that I am edible and will nibble on my legs, ankles, toes, etc which tickles unless she get's carried away and starts pulling hair or a grabs a bit too hard on a toe or two.

One day during her first week here I was in the outhouse doing my business and up she came. She can't step up so she did this funny little hop up the two stairs and proceeded to come into the outhouse and then sit on my foot. Literally sat down on my foot and remained there. It was all I could do to not burst out laughing.

I have no idea where Loretta came from or how long she'll stay but I hope she stays around for a good long while. With characters like her around the smiles come easily.

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Homesteading, Living Simply

Basil, Basil, Basil

2009-09-19T08:50:00.001-05:00

Ah yes, lots of basil these days. I planted several varities including thai, lemon and cinnamon as well as the standard genovese. I've got a bit drying but mostly I've been making gobs of pesto. Mostly I've eaten it as I make it but I've frozen a bit too. Still have lots more to blend up for winter meals. I absolutely love this stuff. Not only are the plants absolutely beautiful with their abundant, lush leaves but they grow so easily.

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Food, Food Production, Gardening, Herbs, Homesteading, Living Simply, Permaculture, Pesto, Self Reliance

Welcoming natives and critters into our garden

2009-09-09T18:12:00.001-05:00

This is the sixth article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In my last article I discussed the benefits of using natural forest ecosystems as models for no-till, sheet mulched gardens. This time around I’d like to extend on the idea of learning from nature to help us understand the beneficial roles of native plants and critters in our garden. The critters I’m most interested in seeing in my garden are small and usually very colorful. Birds, lizards, frogs, spiders, and insects are a part of almost any ecosystem in the Midwest and they are welcome in my permaculture garden anytime.

My guess is that some of you might be shaking your heads at the thought of inviting insects into your garden. Today’s gardeners and farmers have been taught that insects are an enemy of any effort to grow food crops and a huge industry has made a great profit from that way of thinking. Over the years corporations such as Monsanto have been very happy to sell gardeners a stew of chemical insecticides intended to eliminate any kind of insect life in the garden or around the home.

Permaculture approaches gardening very differently. In fact, from the perspective of permaculture the annual vegetable garden is just one part of a much larger integrated site design which also preserves and recovers natural biodiversity. In such an ecological landscape annual food crops such as tomatoes, squash, and corn are likely to be interplanted with native perennial wildflowers such as Purple Coneflower, Butterfly Milkweed, Bee Balm, Yarrow, Goldenrod, and Spiderwort. By creating a design using native perennials we ensure a steady supply of food for beneficial insects which perform many duties in the ecosystem including the fullest possible pollination of our crops. Yet another function of many of these native plants is as medicine for us. Purple Coneflower is perhaps one of the better known medicinals, its leaves and roots can be harvested for tea and tinctures for stimulating the immune system.

It is true that insects harmful to our crops do show up but in a well developed, healthy ecosystem the treatment for those insects is, of course, other insects. While ladybugs are perhaps the most well known predator of insects such as aphids there are a great many more beneficial predators that are likely to call our gardens and food forests home. Parasitic insects such as flies and small wasps such as braconids lay their eggs inside of other insects which are then eaten by the hatching larvae. As adults these insects consume pollen and nectar.

Yet another member of our community are spiders which act as a valuable control of the insect population and, as it happens, prefer the dark moist environment of a mulched garden. Round out this eco-community with lizards, frogs and toads which will do their part as well. These critters will also benefit from a thickly mulched garden as well as small piles of rocks placed around the garden. Even better, build a small garden pond in or near the garden which will not only provide habitat for the reptiles and amphibians but will provide a space to grow more food crops for you. An example is Broad-leaved Arrowhead, Saggittaria latifolia which provides us with edible tubers which
can be eaten like potatoes and which have a few medicinal uses. Lizard’s Tail is another easy to grow pond plant which has several medicinal uses.

Our feathered friends, wild and domestic, are another part of the surrounding ecosystem as well as our permaculture design. Many of the native perennials which are beneficial to pollinating insects are also suppliers of seed to a fantastic variety of wild birds. In the summer and fall leave your dead coneflowers standing where they are and watch birds such as the American Gold Finch feast on the seed. Not only do the birds benefit from the nutrition but they’ll help spread the seeds around and you’ll start to notice new plants popping up without any help from you.

Chickens and guineas are fantastic consumers of ticks and insects, turning that source of protein into protein for us: eggs. Use a chicken tractor to move them around different areas and they will till the ground with their constant scratching and leave behind manure which increases the fertility of our garden.

Because permaculture designers take a broader view of the “garden” as just one part in a larger system, the variety of multiple yields is much greater. Once a permaculture system is established it should produce more energy than it consumes which is largely the result of taking an approach that recognizes the possible connections between organisms in our system and which seeks to maximize their output to our benefit.

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Bees, Butterflies, Butterfly, Chickens, Food, Food Production, Gardening, Guineas, Homesteading, Insects, Living Simply, Permaculture, Birds, Ecological Landscaping

Not an orchard, a food forest!

2009-09-09T18:11:00.001-05:00

This is the seventh article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In my previous articles I’ve touched on the idea of learning from natural forest ecosystems to aid us in our gardening. I’ve discussed no-till sheet mulching which emulates the thick layer of decaying materials found on the forest floor as well as the benefits of using native plants to foster a healthy population of pollinating insects and other critters. I’ve also discussed the idea of creating guilds of trees and plants which work well together. I’d like to build on these previous articles to discuss the importance of including fruit trees, fruit bushes, and vines as well as perennial vegetables in the design of a food producing system that goes beyond the standard fruit tree orchard.

Before I really delve into the article let me ask a question that’s been nagging at me for quite awhile: why do we not have fruit trees and fruit bushes planted in every yard and park in America? For a very small investment of time and money fruiting trees and bushes will produce a fantastic amount of fresh, tasty and healthy food for many years. I suppose you could say that money really does grow on trees. Now, let’s get to it.

A food forest is not an orchard. The standard fruit orchard is often planted in neat rows of trees of the same species surrounded by a tidy lawn of grass. There are several problems with this scenario. First, fruit trees do better when they do not have to compete with grass lawns. Such lawns do nothing to support the pollination of the fruit trees nor are they much use to other beneficial insects which can help control the populations of insect pests. Even more, the lawn is a waste of growing area which could be producing even more food for us. The orchard is really a model for large scale agriculture which provides easy access for quick maintenance and harvest of one primary crop.

The food forest is a completely different model with a different goal: a healthy forest-modeled ecosystem with a diverse yield. While food forests can be quite large, anyone with at least a small yard can easily create a highly productive food forest that will yield not just fruit but also herbs and salad greens for medicine and food. The food forest starts with one or two fruit or nut trees. If limited space is an issue these can be semi-dwarf or dwarf trees. The area surrounding these trees should be heavily sheet mulched from the start. As you add to your “forest” you can easily poke through the mulch with a spade or shovel.

Imagine the structure of a natural forest. Large canopy trees are surrounded by a lower layer of smaller trees which are in turn surrounded by a layer of lower shrubs which are surrounded by a layer of plants which are often surrounded by ground covers. Interspersed in these layers are vines which often grow up the largest of the trees in search of sunlight. In our food forest we will create these layers and by doing so more efficiently use the vertical space around our fruit trees. We can surround our full size fruit trees with semi-dwarf or dwarf trees and around these we can plant a fantastic variety of berries: currants, gooseberries, blueberries, juneberries, and black elderberries are a few to choose from. The next layer would be comprised of perennial herbs, vegetables, flowers as well as self-seeding annuals: comfrey, fava beans, borage, loveage, good king henry, chives, dill and cilantro. This layer provides us with food and medicine as well as insect habitat which will increase pollination and control of insect pests. The next layer would be the lowest growing plants such as strawberries, nasturtiums, lingonberries, and thyme. The vine layer might include hardy kiwis, grapes, clematis, wisteria, cucumbers, peas and beans.

In designing such a food forest we want to think about the best use of vertical space as well as light and the evolution of our system through time. In the early years of our food forest our fruit trees and bushes are smaller and offer little shade. During this time we can take advantage of the sunlight by planting a variety of large leaf annuals such as squashes which will not only offer us a high yield of vegetables but also provide ground cover. At the end of the growing season the plants can be chopped and dropped for an excellent fall mulch. Four or five years into the system and we’ll begin to see far less sunlight as the system matures and any sun loving annuals will have to be planted along the southern edges.

Of particular note when planning a food forest (or any garden really) is a very special plant: comfrey (which probably deserves an entire article do discuss the many benefits). Easy to grow from seed, after it is established for a couple of years this fast growing perennial will develop a fantastic root system which draws up minerals and nutrients from deep in the soil and accumulates them in its thick, fleshy leaves. Three to four times in a growing season you can chop it down to the ground and use all of those leaves as mulch around your fruit trees. In four to six days they will turn into a goopy brown sludge that delivers all those minerals and nutrients to the top levels of the soil providing a great benefit to your trees, bushes and other plants. You can also dump the comfrey leaves into buckets of water at let them stew for a couple of weeks into a tea which can be strained into a sprayer and used as a foliar spray which can be directly applied to any plants in your garden for a quick boost. The high protein leaves can also be fed in small amounts to chickens though there is some debate about feeding them large amounts over long periods of time as it may be toxic to the liver.

Other considerations in choosing our trees, shrubs and plants might be soil conditions and use of plants which might be invasive. If soil is poor a bit more time might be required as a succession of species can be planted that will help improve the soil for the fruit trees. In addition to comfrey, nitrogen fixing plants such as alfalfa, clover, peas, blue false indigo or shrubs such as siberian pea shrub and autumn olive or tree legumes such as black locust will all improve the soil. When choosing soil improvement species special care should be taken with non-native species which may be invasive such as autumn olive which can quickly get out of control and spread to other properties. Our permaculture homestead has well established and large population of autumn olives and they do produce an abundance of very tasty berries but I will be gradually cutting them back as the majority of them are replaced with less aggressive fruit bushes. Other strategies for soil improvement include heavy mulching and rainwater harvesting with swales.

In the early years of a food forest a bit of care is required, mostly pruning and mulching but this work is made easier by planting mulch materials nearby for quick chop and drop. Once established a food forest is, for the most part, self maintaining thanks to the increasing shade and leaf litter of the trees and bushes that contribute to the mulch layer. All that is required is a bit of pruning, harvesting and cut back of plants of established plants. If left alone the system might become crowded but will still continue to produce an amazing amount of food with absolutely no energy or time input from us.

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Rooted in a place

2009-09-03T09:43:00.001-05:00

Several weeks ago I finally made the short journey down to see Roger's place. I'd met Roger this past fall through Ruth Ann and the Cowboy Coffee. It's funny actually, the first or second time I'd gone into the coffee shop Roger was at the far end with Ruth and Juli and they were dancing and goofing off and it was at that moment that I knew that the coffee shop was going to be my favorite reason to drive into town.

Since then I've had some great conversations with Roger and he occasionally mentioned his farm south of town in the foothills of the Ozarks. It was obvious the very first time he told me some of the story of his family and this farm that this was a connection to the land far deeper than the norm. Of course, really, that's not saying much is it? We live in a time when the norm seems to be constant migration with little to no connection to the land. Family farms and land based living has declined steadily for many decades. The norm today is the suburban subdivision or a place in the city. There are rarely any kind of long term connections formed to these places as they are simply meant for relatively short term occupancy by any one family, often 15 years or less.

Roger and his family have woven a different kind of story which is based on an intimacy with a landscape that is hard to really understand. His family first began living there in the mid 1800s and have been there ever since. Roger grew up there and continues to live in a house he built in the 1980s. The house he grew up in, built around the turn of the last century, is a stone's throw away and is his son's home today.

On the day of our trip my time was a bit limited so I got the "short" tour. I think we were there for maybe 1.5 hours and having seen what I saw in that time I know that it was the short tour. One could easily spend a day there. Or a lifetime. This is no ordinary place. As we walked and drove around Roger narrated with fantastic detail the various stories of the generations of his family.

The farm is deep down in a valley and feels protected, cradled by the hills. It stays cooler down here. The soil is pretty rocky too though there are quite a few areas which have been cultivated over the years.

We started with the beautiful white two story turn of the century home that he grew up in and then slowly moved further into the landscape and as we went the stories he told went further back in time. There are three springs on the property which, over the years, served as the family's primary water source. In fact, the proximity to the springs was a primary reason for the location of the homestead. At one of these I bent down and for the first time in my life cupped my hands to drink the sweet water from a cold, natural spring. It flowed from under a tree into the rocky creek gravel. Fantastic.

From there we worked our way down the creek to the original family house which had been cut into three sections and moved from the original location further back which we also saw towards the end of our tour. This was an old, old house. Roger's grandfather's bedroom was left as it was when he died many years ago and given the state of the house and lack of windows seemed surprisingly intact. Roger told me of another spring that had been directed to the house using a pipe and showed me the buried tub that had been used to keep fish after they had been caught and before being eaten. In the cold flowing creek just outside the house a very nice bit of water cress was growing and I enjoyed several bites. I'm going to have to see if I can get some of that growing here because it was very tasty!!

Something else that Roger was sure to point out were the trees. So many wonderful trees were growing here! There was a nice mix of very old and young trees as well and the diversity of species was really fantastic. I'd imagine that it would be very interesting to explore the evolution of the land here in much greater detail. Roger knows trees and he knows the trees growing on the farm with great intimacy. In fact, he seems to know every inch of the land which brings me to the heart of this post. While I was in awe of the beauty of this landscape I think it was Roger's connection to it that really struck me.

To spend an entire lifetime in one place seems very rare these days. That it is such a beautiful place and one that has served as a home for so many generations of a family only deepens an already profound relationship. I cannot really fathom such intimacy with the land. Those of you that know me or that read this blog you know my current adventure trying to co-create this permaculture homestead. I've barely been here a year and I already feel more at home. This is a place I spent many of my childhood summers and so there is that connection too. But my childhood memories and my knowledge of my ancestors includes several states and cities and many different yards and homes. There is no long term base for our family.

From the old family house we passed the remains of an old wagon worked our way down and through various pastures and to the creek where there were many beautiful pawpaws growing. Roger relayed the story of the all-day trip to pick-up the wagon from Farmington which, like another story about his grandfather walking to Mine La Motte (20+ miles each way), really gives perspective to life without the combustion engine. It also serves as a reminder of what the automobile has done to change our relationship to the natural world around us. You don't see many details, smell any honeysuckle, or hear the song of birds when you travel in an air conditioned bubble at 60 mph.

The creek served as a place to swim, play and get cleaned up and I can't imagine a better place to spend an afternoon. As we crossed the creek on foot to see the steep hillside opposite of the field I was again reminded of the amazing diversity of species in the area. I think if I were to spend much more time there I would begin getting a sense of the patterns and history of the plants and trees but in such a short time it was too much to take in. On the far side of the field away from the creek was a pine covered hill and small pond, an ideal area for blueberries I'd imagine. It was around this time that we circled back and my tour ended.

I look forward to another trip down there when I have more time to take in the details without feeling so overwhelmed. As I come to the end of this post I can't help but feel that I'm missing something. I think when you've had a glimpse of something like this, something special with a history you also leave with questions. History is a story and an old homestead such as this feels like a window or, more accurately, a door that can be stepped through. Having Roger there to tell the history no doubt deepens the appreciation and understanding even as the stories evoke a sense of the unknown. In a strange way it is also a very direct connection to the ongoing flow of history. Roger is a part of it. We all are.

“Time is an enormous, long river and I am standing in it just as you are standing in it. My elders were the tributaries and everything they thought and every struggle they went through and everything they gave their lives to, every song they created and every poem they laid down flows down to me and if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, take the time to reach out I can build that bridge between my world and theirs, I can reach down into that river and take out what I need to get through this world.”
--Utah Phillips from the song Bridges

A day's harvest

2009-08-24T10:46:00.001-05:00

Even with the troubles I've had with this year's garden I'm still pulling in a nice harvest. I planted at least five varieties of all the following: summer squash, tomatoes, peppers, basil as well as several winter squash and melons. Most are producing at least something, some more than others. If I can continue to keep the rabbits out I should have a decent harvest of greens this fall and will be planting a good bit in the greenhouse.

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Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Gardening, Herbs, Homesteading, Living Simply, Permaculture, Self Reliance

Permaculture Workshop Series

2009-08-20T10:39:00.001-05:00

Are you interested in learning the skills needed to live a more self-sufficient and sustainable life? Concerned about the economy, climate change, and peak oil? Ready to get your hands dirty?

Come for an introductory workshop to our permaculture homestead! The workshop will include a discussion of the basics of permaculture to be followed by a tour of our site for a first hand view of how the principles look when implemented. We’ll see and discuss:

Rainwater harvesting with swales and barrels

Recognizing and using all the contributions and yields of animals: chickens, guineas and more

The design and benefits of a greenhouse-chicken coop

Some of the principles of permaculture design that will be discussed:

Integrated Systems

cooperation rather than competition

each element serves many functions

each function supported by many elements

Small scale, self replicating systems

use of local resources

maximum use of minimum resources

Energy Storage

natural storage in water, soil, and trees

storage in buildings and infrastructure

Recycling of Materials

Time and space permitting we may also watch a couple of short videos. Bring a sack lunch. If there is an interest in learning more beyond this introduction we may setup a series of workshops.

When: Saturday, September 12th, 10am-3pm

Location: 6 miles north of Fredericktown, we’ll give you directions when you sign up!

Cost: Free!

If you are interested in learning more or would like to reserve a spot leave a comment or email geekinthegarden at gmail dot com

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Food, Food Forest, Food Production, Forest Gardening, Forests, Permaculture, Self Reliance

Learning from Nature with Sheet Mulching

2009-08-20T10:36:00.001-05:00

This is the fifth article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In my last article I discussed relationships as they exist in garden guilds and in town communities such as Fredericktown. Much of permaculture is about how we design relationships into a site so that things such as plants, animals and buildings work better together and so require less energy input from us. This week I thought I’d focus on a very practical hands on task that, while seeming very simple to us, enables complex natural processes which increase the health and diversity of our garden soil: sheet mulching.

Walk out into any mature Missouri woodland of diverse trees and dig our hands down into the soil and you will find fantastic fertility. At any moment woodland soil is full of organic matter in the process of decay. Fungi and soil microbes are constantly breaking down leaves, sticks and any other “dead” matter that has fallen to the forest floor. According to Jack Kittredge in the Spring 2002 issue of The Natural Farmer:

... it is hard to overestimate the importance of mushrooms in forest life. Their mycelia form a complex forking network of interwoven strands of cells that grow beyond the immediate tree’s root zone, extending, in extreme cases, over many acres. The mycelial content of topsoil in a Pacific Northwestern Douglas Fir forest has been estimated to be as much as 10% of biomass! Each mycelium gives off
enzymes which unlock organic compounds in the surrounding matrix, releasing carbon, nitrogen, and other elements that are then absorbed and concentrated directly into the network.

Modern agriculture, as it has grown from small family farms to massive acreage industrial farms, has taken an approach which relies on fossil fuel-based chemicals for fertilization and the removal of “pests”. It is an approach which has decimated the natural fertility of complex soil ecosystems. Even small scale vegetable gardening is most often accomplished with tilling which greatly disrupts the natural microbial layers found in the soil. Opening up the bare soil to the direct sun and wind is not only destructive but is an open invitation to weeds and the need for more work or the use of chemicals.

The no-till method of gardening using heavy layers to form a thick sheet mulch creating conditions very similar to a forest floor: carbon rich, shaded, cool and moist. Pull back a section of sheet mulch which has set for six months or more and you will find a great abundance of earthworms, far more than were there before the mulch. A close examination of the newspaper or cardboard will also reveal many patches of intricate white threads, the mycelium of soil fungi which have been busy breaking down the carbon. The soil is so thoroughly tilled by the earthworms and the crumb structure improved that you will usually be able to easily push your fingers deep into the ground with little effort.

Now, let’s get down to the how-to. Sheet mulching is incredibly easy but may require a bit of planning to save or collect the materials needed. You’ll need lots of newspaper, cardboard, or both. Nothing with waxy coatings and bright colors such as many of the advertisement sections of the paper. We want basic newsprint and basic brown cardboard. Ask around the businesses in town and they are often glad to have someone take it away. The amount needed is determined by the size of garden space. The other ingredient is something like straw, leaves or wood chip mulch. Straw works very well because it will last a full year, won’t blow around and looks pretty nice. Wood chip mulch also works well but cedar and pine may increase the acidity of the soil avoid those woods as well as anything which is treated. Leaves tend to blow around and don’t look as nice. If you have lots of leaves use them but top off with straw or wood mulch for a tidier appearance. Aged manure or compost can also be used and will speed the process up a bit but are not essential ingredients.

Step one is to water the area to be mulched. I often plan to do it the day after a rain. Basically, the ground just needs a good watering as you might do if you were watering a garden or lawn. If you have compost or manure spread it over the area to be mulched in a layer three inches or less. Next comes the cardboard or newspaper which should be laid down so that it overlaps a couple inches on each side. Don’t spread too thin. If using newspaper open it at the fold then lay it down. If the layer is too thin it will break down more quickly and may not last a full year which is the goal. Follow the cardboard/newspaper layer with straw, leaves, or wood chip mulch which should be laid down in a layer of about three inches. Give this layer a light watering. Done.

Laying the mulch should be done in spring, summer or fall. I think spring or early summer is best. You can mulch directly over hard compacted grass without mowing or any other preparation but this area won’t be ready for planting right away. In areas which have been mulched for at least 4 to 5 months the soil is often improved enough to plant in fairly easily. This spring I’ve been working in a bed which was mulch last summer and the soil is greatly improved. The cardboard is very well rotted and can be easily pushed through with a small hand shovel for putting in plants and seed potatoes. For direct planting of seeds I can easily clear away a row or area with hoe or hand shovel.

When we sheet mulch not only are we using “waste” materials such as newspaper and cardboard, we will find that the need to water and weed are greatly reduced. Not only are we more efficiently using resources and saving ourselves time but we are greatly improving the stability and health of our soil.

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Permaculture and critters

2009-08-20T10:33:00.001-05:00

Something I've been noticing and thinking about recently is the natural movement and roles of critters in our evolving permaculture landscape. The homestead is starting to feel a bit like an ecosystem. By that I mean that after being here more than a year I'm starting to feel more at home. I've had time to settle in, observe, think, and participate. As I slowly design and work the site I continue to learn not just about the energy flows such as water, wind and sun but also the energy and work of the critters as they do their thing.

The chickens have been here for four or so months and now that I'm down to 15 in the main flock they are much more manageable. Three more (fairly aggressive roosters) are currently in a chicken tractor and will remain until we butcher them. The main flock is released to mostly free range from noon till sunset. I have a few strategically placed fences that don't enclose them but encourage them to stay in certain areas and out of others. By 5 or 6 pm they have moved beyond my barriers and can be found anywhere and everywhere. Once the main chicken run has had time to recover I'll put them in there 3-4 days a week. But I prefer to have them integrated. I want integration. I like to look out and see them taking a drink from the little water garden. The squash they tend to get into also happens to be free of squash bugs whereas the other patch has had gobs of squash bugs. It's a balance.

As I've commented before the guineas are my favorite. While I may not get many eggs from them they are constantly on bug patrol and while doing so they leave their manure but NEVER disrupt mulch or my plants. If it works out that I can keep track of their eggs then that will be a great bonus.

We've also got a Canadian Goose that has been visiting most of the day for the past week or so. She's made herself right at home with the chickens and seems to enjoy hanging out by the water garden and around my cabin. Fine by me! She eats alot of grass and when she's not eating she's preening herself which means she's leaving little feathers here and there as well as a bit of manure. As with all of the above, she belongs here. She fits. She does her work and leaves behind her nitrogen rich soil amendments. It's got me thinking about the possibilities of keeping ducks or geese. Will need to investigate that a bit further.

Last but not least is Petunia who has gotten her freedom this week. She comes and goes as she pleases and is being weaned off of the bottle this and next week. It has only been a couple days but she seems comfortable as she cautiously explores the area a few hours at a time. Before long she'll be spending more time away than here and eventually I expect that her visits will become the exception to the rule. Having raised her I feel pretty confident that I can take care of a goat or two and will be doing a good bit of further research on that. One thing I want to get started on a year in advance of any goat keeping would be planning proper goat forage. As with the chickens it makes more sense to grow the food on site rather than spend money and waste energy importing it from feed stores. Actually, that's something I'll need to work on for the chickens as well. I've got a list of things I want to get planted, mostly perennials that should help out. We've also got gobs of honey locust trees so I'll be harvesting those seed pods soon and will be feeding that as a supplement over the winter.

The more I think about it the more I realize that what I'm doing here is trying to create a natural forage system for all of us that live on the site. I suppose that's the whole point isn't it? To create a perennial system that feels and functions like a natural ecosystem. Such a system, once "established," does not require gardening so much as harvesting which means less input of time, energy and money.

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The Biomass of the Tree

2009-08-15T11:23:00.005-05:00

I've been slowly working my way through Bill Mollison's Permaculture Designer's Manual and really, it is an amazing book. Lots to take in so I'm taking my time and really relishing it. From Chapter 6:

A tree is, broadly speaking, many biomass zones. These are the stem and crown (the visible tree), the detritus and humus (the tree at the soil surface boundary) and the roots and root associates (the underground tree).

Like all living things, a tree has shed its weight many times over to earth and air, and has built much of the soil it stands in. Not only the crown, but also the roots, die and shed their wastes to earth. The living tree stands in a zone of decomposition, much of it transferred, reborn, transported, or reincarnated into grasses, bacteria, fungus, insect life, birds, and mammals.

Many of these tree-lives "belong with" the tree, and still function as part of it. When a blue jay, currawong, or squirrel buries an acorn (and usually recovers only 80% as a result of divine forgetfulness), it acts as the agent of the oak. When the squirrel or wallaby digs up the columella of the fungal tree root associates, guided to these by a garlic-like smell, they swallow the spores, activate them enzymatically, and deposit them again to invest the roots of another tree or sapling with its energy translator.

The root fungi intercede with water, soil, and atmosphere to manufacture cell nutrients for the tree, while myriad insects carry out summer pruning, decompose the surplus leaves and activate essential soil bacteria for the tree to use for nutrient flow. The rain of insect faeces may be crucial to forest and prairie health.

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Thinking about food forest design

2009-08-15T11:23:00.003-05:00

Okay, I'm fairly certain that I've become obsessed with this. I suppose I should not be surprised... what kind of geek asks for pear trees for his thirteenth birthday? This kind of geek. Anyway, I've been observing, thinking, and reading alot. I really need to get my hands on Jacke and Toensmeier's books. At the moment I've been taking inventory and transplanting a variety of things which we have on site. I've mostly focused on the area around my cabin, planting yarrow, self-heal, oregano, chives, comfrey and coneflowers at various places around the juneberries and pawpaws. My thoughts are to have a nice mix of food, accumulators, and medicinals in there. Still to propagate and plant (probably next year) would be bee balm, lemon balm, golden seal, good king henry, strawberry, thyme and sage are just a few on the list.

We've got gobs and gobs of Yarrow, self-heal and lots of other medicinals and nutrient accumulators growing around here. I try to mow as little as possible which allows a nice mix to grow up in the field/orchard south of the garden. I spend a good deal of time walking around with my Peterson field guide to medicinal plants and herbs taking inventory. One recent discovery, Small-Flowered Agrimony, seems like a candidate for harvesting and transplanting. If not I at least know I have it and have added it to the database.

I continue to be amazed at the useful food and medicinal plants growing all around me. Another is Lady's Thumb or Heart's ease which grows 10 feet outside my front door in and amongst all the other "weeds". What a ridiculous word. Sad that so many useful plants get labeled a weed because we fail to take the time to learn their names and uses and role in the ecosystem.

The new swale has been mulched on the sides and the berm planted with comfrey and a mix of greens and radishes. Soon I'll be putting a big patch of rhubarb in it thanks to a gift from my uncle Joe and aunt Sue.

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Thoughts on the garden

2009-08-15T11:23:00.001-05:00

This year's garden, the second year in this location, has been a bit of a disappointment. On a positive note there is the soil improvement. While soil building does not happen over night especially when high nitrogen manures are not added, I'm definitely seeing improvement thanks to the cardboard and straw. There's no doubt that the earthworm population has greatly increased as has the overall abundance of fungi and microbial life. Now that I'll be adding in a bit more nitrogen thanks to the chickens and lots of comfrey that starting to establish well I should be able to give it a bit of a boost next year.

The downside of this years garden has been the actual harvest. I started off with a huge mistake which was fencing that was not rabbit proof. The little shits spent the spring eating my greens and onion tops. So, no real onion harvest to speak of and the greens eventually came on to provide an okay crop. I've since gotten the fence to about 90% rabbit proofness though they can still get in. Will have to add a bit more of the chicken wire to the last bit of fence that only has up to 12". They can jump over that 12" and through the welded wire though it is pretty obvious that my rabbit visitations are greatly reduced. Lesson learned and next year's production should be much better.

Another problem was the start. We had such a wet spring that I started lots of stuff too late. Squash, melons, cukes, corn and a few others. Those things that did get in were so flooded that they struggled. The sugar peas died and many of the tomatoes barely made it. The potatoes and sweet potatoes have done very little. The cukes, which have looked okay and have had quite a few flowers, have, thus far produced only one fruit. Same spot as last year where they produced gobs. Even with the late start the various squashes have produced... not great but they are producing. More coming from them I'm sure. The melons have fruit though they are slow. The corn was demolished by rabbits and next year will be well fenced. Lots more squash bugs this year, probably due to the greatly increased number of squash plants!

The peppers have fruit on though they were late to the game. Probably due to the late start and very cool July?

Pests such as tomato hornworm and flea beetles have been a huge problem. The flea beetles turned the eggplants leaves into a network of holes and something else finished them off, not sure what. The hornworms have been all over the tomatoes since early July and have decimated them. Even so I've gotten quite a few tomatoes but not enough to can which is a shame because I had well over 60 plants out there. I certainly got my money's worth in terms of the $8 spent on the five varieties of heirloom seed but probably only 10 or 20% of the crop I would have had without the hornworms. I've also had a bit of blight or bacterial wilt, not sure which.

The four varieties of basil have been fantastic and the zinnias and cosmos filled out pretty well. I'm going to have to plant lots more color and scent next year to better camouflage the tomatoes. This year I used the fence as a trellis and am thinking that was a part of the hornworm problem. If I use the fence again next year I'll be certain to have plenty of flowers along the outer side of the fence which is the plan regardless. I'm transplanting lots of sweet coneflower that is coming up everywhere to the outside of the fence and will be transplanting purple coneflower as well. The gaps will be filled in my basil, zinnia and cosmos. I'd like to have twice the flowers next year.

So, yeah, not the best year for the kitchen garden. I feel pretty confident though that the soil improvements will start to show and of course the rabbit proof fencing will make a huge difference next year. Really though, the garden is too big for one person. My keyhole beds by the cabin are enough to feed me, at least in terms of leafy greens and probably even peppers and tomatoes. Will try a few things differently next year. Looking forward to the fall garden and trying out the greenhouse for a bit of season extension and winter greens. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are thick and green, so far untouched by hornworms though also not producing many blooms or fruit. Not sure why? Wondering if those free windows have some sort of uv glaze that is inhibiting fruit production? Will be curious to see how the greens do in there.

Living and learning...

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Communities and Guilds

2009-08-11T08:29:00.001-05:00

This is the fourth article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In my last article I discussed the importance of connections between the structures,organisms, and landscape in a design that captures energy flow such as rainwater formore efficient use. I also applied that kind of observation and design principle to ourtown to show that energy and resources which are currently thrown away or not capturedat all can be used to our immediate benefit.

This time around I thought we might explore another aspect of this thinking with adiscussion of building guilds on our site and community in our town. We’ll start with theidea of a guild. According to the New Oxford American Dictionary one definition of guildis “an association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal” which appliesvery well if you think of our town or most towns. In the context of a permaculture site aguild is an assembly of plants which are, in a variety of ways, mutually beneficial. In sucha guild we might combine medicinal and cooking herbs, pollinator attracting flowers, a foodcrop, and soil building plants. Such a guild will not only be beneficial to the plants but also toour needs for food and medicine. Let’s have a look at an example which I’m using at my ownsite.

Unlike many gardens which are rows upon rows of annual vegetables and occasionallyplanted with a border of flowers, my site is modeled after the surrounding natural ecosystem. Ihave fruit trees planted in guild arrangements which include annual food crops layered into thesun facing sides of each group. Each guild is centered on a fruit tree such as apple, plum, peach,pear, or paw paw. Around the trees from the trunk to several feet out, are a mix of nasturtiums,chives, garlic chives, fava beans, bee balm, yarrow, and comfrey.

Just outside this ring which is formed by the drip line of the branches are a mix of gooseberries,red currant, and black currant fruit bushes. The south facing side is planted with sundemanding annuals such as squash. This guild requires little to no watering thanks to the thicklayer of cardboard and straw mulch.

In these fruit tree centered guilds plants, arranged to take best advantage of vertical spaceunder the trees perform a variety of functions and maximize the collection of sunlight. Theyattract a diversity of pollinating insects including predatory wasps that will aid in the controlof insects that can damage our plants. The fava beans will add nitrogen to the soil and thecomfrey provides fantastic, nutrient rich leaves that can be used as mulch material at thebase of the fruit trees or anywhere in the garden. Each circular guild connects to the next and,taken all together, form a larger “food forest.”

Villages, towns, and cities might also be viewed as a series of connecting and overlappingcommunities. As with our permaculture site, beneficial relationships between people ina town are the foundation of those communities. Just as any ecosystem’s health is based uponits diversity, our community’s health and stability are increased by the variety of personalities,characteristics, and skills our people. We all have something to offer which makes the wholework better and a part of the process of living in a community is developing connections andrelationships so that our offering fits in.

But something seems to have gone wrong in recent years and the health of our communitiesand the relationships that bind them together seems to be rapidly failing. After World War IIAmerica engaged in a steady and very rapid build out of suburbia, a living arrangement not basedon community relationships and local economics. In many towns and cities the familiar relationshipsof the local gave way to anonymous shopping experiences in sprawling malls and hugebig-box stores. As real community faded away the “Friends” on television were pushed into ourliving rooms to fill the void.

I’d like to propose that an important part of the solution to our many social and economic problems isthat we get back to the basics of family and community relationships. By becoming more aware of theserelationships and potential relationships we can nurture and expand them so that they are more usefulto us as individuals as well as the over-all community. Like the bees in my food forest, the people ofour town wake up everyday and get to the business of living. We have a variety of social and economicinstitutions and networks that we use to organize the work that we do, ranging from family to schools to small businesses to local and regional government. Building and maintaining a healthy community, like a garden, takes a great commitment and willingness to share our time and energy.

It is not an understatement to suggest that it is in the context of community that we can live our livesto their fullest potential. It is in our community that we might become better people by learning andteaching one another. Our relationships help define who we are and who we might become. The beautyof community is that, at its best, it is a place in which we co-create one another. It’s not difficult to come to the conclusion that it is the quality of our community and the relationships we have within it that largely determine the quality of life we will live.

Worth reading...

2009-08-10T10:46:00.001-05:00

It's been awhile since I pointed folks to any of my favorite blogs and when I came across this quote over at the Automatic Earth I thought I'd remedy that. First, from this post at the above mentioned site:

Joe Bageant has something to add to that picture:

Speaking of motives, there are those who worry about an American
authoritarian police state one day rounding folks up, shuffling them off to
geographically remote camps, such as the Department of Homeland
Security's scattered FEMA Camps. But physical geography isn't the only
geography. There is geography of the mind too, where another kind of
hellish internment may be conducted.

One without razor wire or sirens but surely as confining and in its own
way, as soul chilling as any concentration camp. One with plenty to eat
and filled with distractions and diversions enough to drown out the
alarms and sirens that go off inside free men at the scent of
tyranny. If a round up of Americans is real, then it began years ago. And as far as I can tell, everyone went peacefully, each one alone, like
children, whose greatest concern on that day when the gates were closed,
was the absence of Ranch flavored Pringles.

As someone who has spent most of the past 18 years outside of the american mainstream I can say that Bageant nailed that perfectly. Chomsky called it the manufacturing of consent in his analysis of the media which has served over the past 60 years or so as the primary tool used to control the public. In any case, do check the Automatic Earth for a fantastic daily post which offers what I think is the best take on the current economic collapse. The format of each post usually consists of a page of introductory thoughts based on a huge buffet of stories which follow. I never have the time to read those so I read the intro and skim the headlines below and then skim the comments.

Next on the list would be Sharon Astyk. While she often offers her take are various aspects of our current economic and environmental predicaments, most of her writing is geared towards helping folks actually prepare for a different kind of life. In particular she offers folks the detailed, practical information for becoming more self reliant in terms of growing, preparing and storing food as well as taking care of other necessities of daily life. She ranges from thoughts on medicine to raising kids to what food to grow and where to get the seeds. She's a very inspirational read with fantastic posts on the importance of family and community and the general need to be connected as we work through this mess.

More I'd like to add but I don't have much time so I'll post this as is and add more later!

Guineas!

2009-08-05T10:17:00.001-05:00

I'm really loving these guineas! Not only are they beautiful birds but they are fantastic in the garden. In the mornings they follow me into the fenced kitchen garden and spend the day in there eating bugs. Unlike our chickens the guineas do no damage to the plants nor do they throw mulch everywhere. They just putter around eating bugs. I'm fairly certain that I'll be adding another five or ten to the flock next summer.

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Rain-filled Swale

2009-08-05T10:15:00.001-05:00

We've just had our first real rain since I put in the swale and it has worked exactly as planned. It filled up to level and then slowly out the end furthest from the cabin. I'm looking forward to putting in more and wish I'd made this more of a priority. I am very curious to see what kind of effect this small swale has on the surrounding soil. Even such a small swale, 15 feet in length and just 8 inches deep counting the berm and 15 inches wide collects a good bit of water!

I'll be putting another swale in 20 or so feet further up the hill which will likely be a bit longer, deeper and wider. Beyond that I have a few thoughts about other potential swale locations in the main garden and orchard areas.

On another water harvesting note, both rain barrels are full so that's another 110 gallons and I've got the six barrels I need to set up the collection system behind the cabin. Now I just need to buy the pvc and plumb it all together.

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Connecting and Cooperating

2009-08-01T15:21:00.001-05:00

This is the third article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In my last article I discussed how permaculture systems are designed to be self-contained ecosystems that use a variety of organisms such as bees and chickens that add value and produce to our gardens. I also related this making our town more self-reliant and efﬁcient by producing more goods with local resources and consuming them here as well. This time around I’d like to talk a bit about the importance of connections and cooperation between the structures of our system as well as the organisms within it make life easier as they increase production. This not only applies to our permaculture gardens but also to our town.

A key principle in creating a permaculture system is the complete capture of all energy that ﬂows through a system. Every single day energy and resources such as sunlight, wind, and moitture animate the earth around us and much of it is used in the natural processes going on around our garden. But a great deal of it is never used at all. Rainwater is a fantastic example of a resource that is often wasted and can even become a problem. Everyone is familiar with the erosion that can lead to gullies and ﬂooding around homes and roads after heavy rains but the problem is not the water. Rather, it is how we have altered the landscape with buildings, pavement, and hardened soil surfaces that lack natural organic matter.

Why not use this rain to our advantage thus turning it into a valuable resource rather than a force that causes property damage that requires money and energy to repair. One of the easiest projects is the collection and storage of rooftop water into rain barrels, cisterns and slow draining garden ponds or swales. In a week- end and for less than $200 a series of 5-10 55 gallon rain barrels can be easily plumbed together with pvc pipe and elevated on a stand to allow for a gravity feed of water to a hose for watering a garden.

Other structures beside the home can also be used to collect rainwater. The design of our combined greenhouse/chicken coop results in several rain barrels that will collect drinking water for the chickens. Even better, rain barrels, placed along the back, interior side of the greenhouse and painted black collect and hold heat in the early spring and late fall to keep the greenhouse warmer. Once the sun goes down the hot water will slowly release heat and keep the plants and chickens warmer late into the night. So not only can we collect and hold water for later productive use, we can collect and store energy from the sun that would have otherwise left our system. We spend less time keeping our chickens sup- plied with fresh water and in the winter we have more produce to eat. Over the course of a single summer such a system will result in several thousands of gallons of water being diverted to constructive use.

We can use these same principles in town to organize projects that will save us energy, time, and money in a similar way. From the perspective of permaculture there is no such thing as waste, there are only resources that we fail to properly utilize. The key is to observe energy and resource ﬂow to identify what is not being used or not being used efﬁciently. The next step is to connect those resources in such a way that they are efﬁciently used on site or in the com- munity.

As an example, think about the trash gener- ated by businesses which then have to pay to haul it away to a dump or recycling center. Any retail business that has goods shipped in for sale likely has lots of cardboard some of which my get recy- cled, some of it thrown away. Why not divert that cardboard to anyone in town that has a vegetable garden? It makes a fantastic mulch when covered with leaves, grass clippings or straw thus saving garden- ers time and water as heavily mulched gardens need practically no weeding and much less watering even as they increase the fertility of the soil.

Another such project might be a composting co-op to take advantage of res- taurant food wastes which could be collected and composted for a community garden or for use by gardeners in their home gardens. Most restaurants have coffee grounds, egg shells, and a variety of vegetable wastes that could be col- lected fairly easily. A rotating stock of plastic buckets, a small bit of land, some hand tools, and a few volunteers or one part time employee would be the main ingredients for such a project.

Our town, like many towns, is full of resources and energy not being used. The above are just two examples that were easy to think of, both of them fairly easy to implement given a bit of communication and cooperation. In fact, it is communication and cooperation which are the key components of any project or larger plan to help make our community function more efﬁciently for the better- ment of us all.

Return to the Local

2009-07-27T09:15:00.001-05:00

This is the second article in an ongoing series that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In a recent article I deﬁned permaculture as permanent agriculture or permanent culture which puts forth a system of designing food producing ecosystems which produce more food but require less energy. Permaculturalsystems, as sustainable systems, are designed to be largely self-contained in that once set up they do not require inputs of energy from outside systems. These concepts of self-reliance or self-contained sustainability are also aspects of our town and the surrounding region.

Let me offer two examples: honey and eggs. On our permaculture homestead we’ll be setting up bee hives as well as a chicken coop. Not only will we beneﬁt from the main products of honey and eggs but we will also see many other beneﬁts from this more complete ecosystem. For example, our bees will increase the pollination of our fruit trees and garden plants resulting in more produce and we’ll have beeswax for making candles. The chickens will increase the productivity of our garden and orchard with their manure as well as their control of insects that might otherwise eat our produce.

We’ll likely have more eggs and honey than we can eat which means we’ll be able to share or sell to family, friends, and neighbors. They beneﬁt from fresher food produced with no chemicals and harvested ripe with no need for preservatives. We all beneﬁt in that local energy and resources are being used for production and consumption within our community. This is opposite of the oil-based global economy which places no importance on keeping production and consumption local. When we go to Wal-Mart or other big box stores for our food not only are we are sending our money out of our community, we are allowing ourselves to become dependent on others for our most basic survival needs.

With every day we increasingly see the dangers of this system. Produce which is harvested before it is fully ripe so that it can be shipped across country before it rots is not as tasty or healthful as produce which is harvested at full ripeness and eaten two hours later. Even worse, food produced by large scale industrial agribusiness is tainted with a variety of chemical pesticides, fertilizers, insecticides, waxes and recently, sometimes bacterial contaminates such as salmonella.

The problem is not just our food production. We hear about banks and businesses which are too large to fail and yet they are failing, bringing the entire global economy into a depression. Such a system is not sustainable and the more energy and money we spend trying to prop it up, the less energy and money we will have to develop our local alternatives which we control directly. It is a problem perpetuated not only by government bailouts but by us as well. We failed to maintain our ability to take care of ourselves and one another in our communities. In the last century we chose a way of life that emphasized good deals on gizmos and hyper consumption which was based on cheaper production in China and elsewhere which meant jobs lost in the U.S. Even worse, this entire global economy is based on cheap fossil fuels, primarily coal and oil. We have likely reached a peak in production of oil and are now realizing that never-ending economic growth is impossible. The ponzi schemes of Wall Street created the illusion of growing wealth throughout the past 20 years but we know now that it was an illusion and it is now collapsing before our eyes.

While we may not have any control of the global economic system we can work to build our local economy which we can control. Everyone reading these words can grow some of their own food. In the summertime we can buy local food at the farmers markets which we can eat fresh and preserve for winter meals. Every single tomato grown and consumed locally adds value to the health and vitality of our community. Taking greater control of our lives and building a more secure, sustainable future starts with me and with you.

Permaculture and Community

2009-07-27T09:14:00.003-05:00

This is the first in an ongoing series of articles that I've written in our town's alternative paper, the Madison County Crier. The series is intended to be an introduction to permaculture, often illustrated by examples taken from our homestead. When possible I've also made it a point to link in to the potential for a permacultural approach to town and community life as well as the prospects for easing our town's transition into this new future we have before us.

In May 2008 I made a decision to take hold of a long held dream and grow it into reality: a permaculture homestead. Now, I suspect that many folk have not heard the term permaculture so I plan to get to that in just a bit. First, let me say that I spent most of my childhood summers visiting my grandparents who lived on a bit of land with a small lake just a few miles north of town. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that some of the best childhood memories are those days of fishing with dad or grandpa. Little did I know that catching and cleaning fish for food would one day be more than just a fun weekend treat, but a part of a deliberate effort to "live off the land."

After graduating high school I went off to college and then moved to Memphis, Tennessee. In those years I was rarely able to visit my grandparents and the lake except the odd summer weekend and holidays. The memories of my adventures in the woods and around the lake remained and the fondness I'd developed for the natural world during those early years had greatly affected my outlook on life. In my years in Memphis I was an avid gardener of organic vegetables and native wildflowers. I helped create a housing cooperative where residents not only grew some of their food but also taught workshops to neighbors who were interested in gardening. We installed wood burning stoves and systems to collect rain water and gray water for use in the garden. We reached into our community and helped to set up a food co-op, bicycle co-op, and media co-op.

After 12 years I left Memphis because I wanted to reconnect with my family and, as it turns out, the landscape of my childhood. It is now official that the U.S. has been in a recession for the past year but most folks don't need an official declaration to know that times are getting very difficult. We're even beginning to hear predictions of another great depression. It is times such as these that living in community is most important. I've long felt that community life is the foundation of democracy and liberty. It is in community relationships that we act as citizens to govern ourselves and aid one another.

This brings me back to permaculture. Permaculture, a phrase created by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, means permanent agriculture or permanent culture. It is a system of designing and maintaining food producing ecosystems which are stable and resilient. What makes permaculture different from common small scale gardening is the careful arrangement of diverse groupings of plants using no till methods and heavy mulching so that energy input is greatly reduced even as productivity is increased. More than that, permaculture is not just about food. People also need shelter and energy so permaculture design considers these needs as well. Energy flows such as sunlight and rainwater are harvested by the buildings and the landscape. The efficiency of permaculture designs makes life easier even as it saves us money and reduces our negative impact on the environment.

On our permaculture homestead we are using methods that are sustainable and which produce a surplus beyond our needs so that we can help feed others in the community. Anyone, in town or in country, can use the same principles and techniques of permaculture design to become more self-reliant and, by doing so, increase the food security of our region. Whatever our future may bring, growing some of our own food can only be a good thing.

Living the life...

2009-07-27T09:14:00.001-05:00

The permaculture life that is. Most of my thoughts this past year have been centered on permaculture and how I can use it in my life here. I've read through various permie books and am working through the Designer's Manual now. Next on the list would be the two volume Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier. I've also spent a good many hours watching permie related video and browsing through ooddles of permie websites and many beautiful flickr sets. All of these have been very inspiring and full of useful information. I don't have a PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) and am not sure if I ever will though I certainly would like to. Actually let me come back to this subject in a minute.

I've been acquiring the information and have been working to put to use. I've got a long way to go but I'm pretty happy with what we have done thus far. As I commented in the last post the food forests are steadily coming together though I'm still experimenting, learning and thinking about guild design as well as arrangement around buildings and a variety of permaculture design principles. I suppose that is to be expected as this is, no doubt, a never ending process.

The newest additions arrived this past Wednesday and are all in the ground. Two paw paws and three juneberries right around my cabin to fill in the fairly large sunny spots on the north, east and southwest side of the cabin providing me with food and eventually a good bit of summertime shade. They won't actually shade much of the building itself as it is already mostly shaded, but they will shade the area all around and should provide a good bit of overall cooling. They'll also get the benefit of a small swale system fed by the hill and my rain barrel run-off.

For those that my not be familiar, pawpaws are in the custard apple family and have an oblong yellowish banana flavored fruit with the consistency of custard. I have yet to meet a fruit I don't like and I'm sure I'll love these. Very pretty too. The juneberry is one of the earliest to bloom in the spring and apparently has fantastic fall color. Most importantly these large bushes (one of the two varieties I've got is 12-15 feet tall, the other 8-10 feet) have berries very similar to blueberries. I don't know how much fruit they get but if is as much as a standard blueberry that will make me happy. I did get three more blueberries which will be planted in the blueberry patch in the main food forest and brings us up to 8. Between those and the Juneberries think we've got a good start on that particular flavor of berry!

One other note about this new area of food forest around my cabin. I made a simple a-frame level and have marked off the contour for a swale to collect water from the rain barrel overflow. Right now it is just a single barrel but I now have six barrels and will be picking up the pvc I need to plumb it all together soon. The overflow will go to this swale on the north side of the cabin and will take the water away from the house and slowly down the hill towards the juneberries. I'll also be putting in a swale 10 or so feet higher up on the hill to collect water before it gets to the pawpaws.

Now, back to the PDC. I have mixed feelings about this. Essentially it is a certificate that requires a course of 10-15 days. I thought about doing it 10 or so years ago but didn't. I'm thinking about it again. But I can't quite justify the cost. I have little doubt that I'd learn something in the experience as a good teacher will very likely offer insights that are not always clear in the text. But I don't know that I'd ever actually use the PDC in the sense of charging someone for a consultation or garden design. Maybe I would but that is not my primary interest. My primary interest is in learning for the development of our site as well as to share the information in my community. In my view permaculture is something that may prove essential not only to the survival of our species, but also to our ability to begin undoing the damage we have done. Charging people to help them implement or use permaculture isn't something I'd feel comfortable doing.

Sharon Astyk, one of my favorites, wrote an excellent article regarding permaculture, specifically the presentation of it to the public. There are many pages of responses of folks that are also thinking about how permaculture is shared (or sold) with (to) the public. Until now it has been an "alternative" to what is mainstream, both in terms of content as well as the culture of those practicing and advocating. But if it is to become the new way of designing and organizing our homes and communities there are a few barriers that will likely need to be addressed by the current permie movement.

The question Sharon asks (I'm paraphrasing) is, is permaculture to remain largely in the domain of alternative subcultures? I'm pretty sure that she is speaking of the historical tendency of practitioners seeming to be hippy-punk-green-anarcho leftish, dreadlocked, barefooted, vegans. There are a variety of ways that the folks practicing and advocating permaculture might be perceived as being different from the mainstream and for some that perception of alternative identity might be an impediment to acceptance. Although it does seem silly, or even a bit bizarre, I suppose that in the context of a workshop or class, if one were surrounded by folks that seemed noticeably "different" it might be a barrier.

Another barrier that I would add (not one of Sharon's points but brought up as a point in several of the comments to her article) concerns the high priced PDCs. While I see the value of the PDC to ensure that those specifically selling design services are indeed qualified, I do think anyone should be able to use the word to describe what they are doing if they are not specifically selling their time as permaculture designers. I don't think anyone making a real effort to follow the practices in their personal work or even those coming together to share in larger community projects should hesitate to use the term. I've been writing a series of articles for the Madison County Crier about permaculture and how we are using it at our homestead as a specific example of how the design principles translate in real life application. (Actually I've been meaning to post those here for quite some time and will start today.)

The basic point is that there is a bit of confusion about who and how the word "Permaculture" may be used by those that don't have a PDC but who practice it and would like to share it with others. I suppose what it comes down to is common sense communication. In addition to the above mentioned articles, later this summer or early fall I plan to do a series of workshops for interested local folk. I'll be having them out to our site so that I can discuss, share and illustrate (teach) permaculture using what we've done as an example. I won't be charging anyone nor will I be presenting myself as a "certified" permaculturist. Rather, I'll make a book list available as well as recommended websites. We'll probably watch a few videos and then spend a few hours relating the books to the implementation they can see.

The times we are in require that folks learn and transition to a new reality. Permaculture, whether it is called ecological gardening or forest gardening or whatever is an important part of this transition and should be available to anyone. If I can help spread the word I will.

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Still here... midsummer update

2009-07-16T21:30:00.001-05:00

It's been a month or so since my last post! I've only been on the internet once or twice a week with gobs to read and download during those times. Anyway, hows about a few updates?

Petunia continues to do very well. As you'd expect she's getting bigger everyday and has had a good deal of space to stretch out her legs in the fenced chicken range for three or so weeks. She loves to run and play, especially on the cool days. She gets along swimmingly with her feathered neighbors.

Speaking of feathered neighbors... the chickens have been good and bad. First the bad: too many roosters doing what roosters do. We have five which is far too many for a flock of 23 hens. We've separated three out too a chicken tractor which has quieted the flock tremendously and the hens seem far more relaxed these days. The future eating of these roosters has caused quite a good deal of ruckus with the three children who, unfortunately see them as pets rather than livestock. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem encouraging a relationship with the chickens. I talk to them and watch them everyday. But it is not practical to keep so many roosters. In any case, that has been an issue.

Another issue is the flock size. I'd initially planned for 10 chickens and five guineas and I think that was a good plan. Twenty eight chickens, can cause a great deal of damage when they free range outside of the designated chicken forage (a good sized area of about 25 by 40 feet). We keep the fence closed but there are always 8-10 hens ranging around at any given moment. I can't possibly fence off every plant or planted area and these girls seem to have a nack for finding MY plants. I think the planned flock size of 10 would have worked better because their range would be greener and they would be happier and more likely to stay inside the fence.

The other issue is eggs. When they all start laying we will have too many and not really enough to sell for any kind of profit really. Just enough to take up more time driving in for feed and to deliver eggs. I see it as a coordination nightmare. I'd rather just have 10 hens and enough eggs for me and family. I'd still get the benefit of better compost as well as a flock that could be more easily controlled in the garden. The whole experience certainly has me thinking more about chickens, gardens, "problems," "solutions," and permaculture design.

The garden is okay. No more rabbits which is great but the chickens have taken over there and done a bit of damage. Nothing terrible but damage nonetheless. The basil has been fantastic. I've harvested the garlic which was a pretty good crop. Been eating a good bit of lettuce as it recovers from the bunnies. The eggplants, while surviving, have not looked very good thanks primarily to constant flea beetle attack. The peppers, as always were very slow to get going but those that survived the insects and bunnies are starting to fruit.

The fruit trees are mostly doing well as is the comfrey. I'm pretty happy with the food forests generally. Will be ordering more pawpaw as well as June Berries fairly soon and those will go around the east and north side of my cabin with a few low growing fruits such as blueberry.

The building of Kerry and Greg's cabin is delayed a bit but will probably get started before too long. All in all I'm pretty happy with the way the project is developing.

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