Musings from Snowy Hollow

Eggs!!

2011-12-19T10:45:00.002-05:00

At long last, the chickens have begun to earn their keep. About 8 days ago, our Buff Orpington announced her accomplishment with a big "bgaawwwk!" Since then a couple others have started to lay, and yesterday, they finally started using the nest box! Thanks girls!

Free food this fall!

2011-10-28T15:17:00.004-04:00

Five pints of autumn olive berry jam from the bushes around the garden. Yum!

Apples from under the neighbor's tree. Will they last until I find a cider press?

About 2/3 bushel of English walnuts from another neighbor's tree. We'll dry them and nibble all winter long!
Get to know your neighbors and their plants! Make friends and trade stuff and skills. Begin the weave the fabric that will make this world a lot more fun.

Sugar Shack update

2011-09-23T07:42:00.009-04:00

Back in January, I left you with a picture of four posts and a roof, finished in a brief thaw. By the time we tapped in March, the shack had FEMA-style sides made with tarps.

We had a barrel-style stove, and burned mostly cut-up pallets. It did well, boiling over 550 gallons of sap. The pan only holds 18 gallons, so there were lots of late nights.

Since then I've been making some improvements, like recycled redwood siding:

The door and frame were left behind by the previous owner. Thanks!

The best shot of all - it's done!

Wood storage is on the back side, in the shade. The top panel with the window tilts out to let out steam when we're boiling. Can't wait to make syrup in style next year!

Chicken update (or whole story)

2011-09-17T13:40:00.004-04:00

So I couldn't stay away all that long. Too much to say I guess, and a few things to show off.

Come sit for a spell, dear reader, and I shall relate a tale of innocence and innocence lost, of a despicable act of murder, and of resilience. This is the story of our first adventure with raising chickens.

My tale begins in April of this year, when I put the finishing touches on our hen house and the fencing for an outdoor run,

We were invited to adopt two mature hens from a colleague in town, who had too many hens for his space. So with giddy innocence, we took in Elizabeth and Annabelle, who promptly started giving us eggs.

Our spring day-old chick order arrived on April 28^th, so in a couple weeks we also had six more tiny and adorable lives to care for. All went fine until the first week of June, when Annabelle, the lovely Buff Orpington died for no apparent reason. She had even laid an egg a few hours before. The remaining hen, a Barred Plymouth Rock, seemed lonely, so I hatched a plan to put the chicks, now 6 weeks old, in a pen adjacent to hers. I even rigged a little door so the younger birds could mingle and meet their elder, who frankly wasn’t all that nice to them. On a Monday morning, about June 12^th or so, LR found a scene of ghastly mayhem and mass murder. Four of the six pullets were dead, and a fifth was mortally wounded. Only one chick had been eaten. She also found evidence the identified the attacker in the form of a big pile of raccoon shit. The family was distraught, and I spent the morning cleaning up the mess. One of the hardest things I’ve had to do was bury my 6-year-old’s favorite chicken.

In the meantime, we had ordered 25 chicks to raise as broilers. I quickly changed to order to replace the lost layers, and those chicks arrived at the end of June. Be advised that 25 chicks in brooders in July REALLY stink up the garage in a hurry! Our flocks now consist of 1 Buff Orpington, 4 Black Austrolorps, 2 Rhode Island Reds and a Silver-Laced Wyandotte for layers, and 18 Rhode Island Reds as meat birds.

I elected to get RIRs for meat on reports that they taste really good, and on comments by Carol Deppe in The Resilient Gardener the chickens don’t acquire a really beneficial fatty acid profile (more omega-3 fatty acids) until they are past the 8-week butchering age for Cornish cross broilers. I plan to butcher them sometime in October. Until then, they are doing fertility duty in the expanded Zone 2 garden (it’s a permaculture thing). Eat, grow and poop, that’s all I ask. Next year we’ll have some better soil to plant in.

The garden is surrounded by four-foot wire fence and a strand of electric wire to prevent invasion and more murder by Evil Raccoons or marauding coyotes. Note the welcome presence of an autumn olive next to the pen! The girls go nuts for the berries.

Just today, the 18 RIRs got to run around in a fenced-off section of the garden so they can poop-n-scratch. They'll stay that way, with the tractor as an overnight shelter, until The End.

Check back in October for the Egg Watch and more adventures!

Adios Blogosphere?

2011-03-31T11:53:00.002-04:00

So it's been 3 months since my last post. We have 5 rabbits now, and chickens very soon. The sap is flowing generously so I don't spend much time in the house. As an austerity measure, we canceled the internet connection at home. I probably shouldn't do blog posts at work, and I barely have time to eat lunch anyway. For the forseeable future, this is the last post from Snowy Hollow. Know that all is well and very busy. I leave you with these to-dos:

get out of debt before the economic house of cards crumbles (may you have better luck than me)

get to know your neighbors, even if they don't think like you do (reverse the Googlization of the world!)

get a good pair of boots and a good bike

take a permaculture class and REALLY study it

get chickens

So long, and stop by if you're ever in the neighborhood!

Sugar Shack Phase One

2011-01-01T23:17:00.007-05:00

Here it is so far! No driving 20 miles to the family's sugar bush to boil our sap this year. Two years in a row I've messed up my back doing that. Even better, this shack is downhill from just about all our maples. Did you know sap (mostly water) weighs about 8 pounds per gallon? I'm finally getting smart!

I took advantage of a break in the weather to finish the roof today. The taller posts on the south side are from a maple that was cut last summer. This year, we'll have a tarp-sided lean-to, but I have a lead on barn siding to be added sometime this year. There's also a framed steel door to be added. The things people leave behind when they move out!
By now you know it all has to fit into a permaculture-style scheme around here. Each element of the design should serve more than one function. So, in addition to boiling sap in early spring, the shack will also be a small greenhouse. I have some windows to frame in on the south side. Just picture an outward-slanting glass wall on the bottom two-thirds of the south wall. The top third needs to open to let the steam out. I figure I can get it warm enough in March and April to start some spring greens, and maybe start some peppers by late April.

If we ever have enough of anything to sell, I'll add a canopy and table on the west side for a little market stand. Oh wait; if I do that then the guv'ment inspector people will want to call us a farm. Y'all just stop by and leave something in trade instead!

In a mixture of Anishinabeg and Hebrew traditions, we'll boil sap under a "roof that leaks starlight" this year. Call it our "Sap Sukkah"! I'll have to plug all those holes when things warm up. The beauty of scrounged sheet metal.

In other permaculture principles, I saved some of our wood from an uncertain future. The County road crew was trimming trees since there wasn't any snow to plow, so I asked them to leave the branches from our trees and the neighbor's. They also left me about 5 yards of wood chips! Now I just have to get it outta the driveway!

Twas a good Yule!

2010-12-27T15:23:00.007-05:00

We hope yours was too. As you can see, we got a new camera!

I built this playhouse for the girls last summer out of scrounged or salvaged wood, used windows and some "boughten" lumber. Don't look too closely; I'm a biologist, not a builder.

We hosted a Solstice / Advent Spiral gathering for our homeschool group. I'm not sure how it worked 'cause I was off replacing a tire that developed a leak after hitting a gargantuan pothole.

Our favorite family gift was Wildcraft, a cooperative herbal foraging game from the nice folks at learningherbs.com. It's great fun for a wintry day, beautifully decorated, and really nice because the game ends when everybody makes it back to Grandma's house!

Now my mind turns to garden design and seed catalogs. But first I need to get a roof on the sugar shack so we can boil sap here!

The virtues of Elaeagnus umbellata

2010-12-07T19:06:00.004-05:00

Much to the chagrin of the native plant lovers, I've had a conversion since we move in here at Snowy Hollow. I've come to appreciate Elaeagnus umbellata, know far and wide as autumn olive, the fast-growing invasive, thorny shrub that forms dense stands if left to its own devices. Years ago, I knew it as host to fruit-eating birds in fall and early winter. My first Bohemian Waxwings and Pine Grosbeaks were found in autmn olive thickets. As a kid, we planted one in the yard in northwestern Pennsylvania. Somewhere along the road, I bought into the "evil invader" line.

So, when I found a few on this land, I thought about taking them out. Then I started looking at them through the eyes of the ecosystem. I learned they fix nitrogen, a most valuable trait in restoring worn out and devastated soils. They can also act as a nurse plant for young trees, shading them lightly, protecting them, and providing extra nitrogen as they get started. And if that's not enough, the berries have 17 times the lycopene content of tomatoes! Autumn olive may be seen as invasive in some eyes, but I hold it to be an ecosystem healer and a free health food! We made a few pints of autumn olive berry jam this fall.

I'd highly recommend trying it; sort of a complex tart flavor that can be balanced with as much sugar as you want, but don't overpower it.

So here's what I've learned from Elaeagnus umbellata: dense growths of any species are a sign that it has traits or abilities that make it well suited for those places, and dense growths of anything don't last long. All ecosystems are trying to build fertility as they go through the process of ecological succession. In the case of autumn olive, it grows well where native ecosystems have been displaced and, very likely, where soils were trashed by efficiency-minded farming practices. It grows well in places that need its healing, nitrogen-fixing skills. If you seek to get rid of it, acknowledge this and replace it with something native that can do the same job. I'd also bet that this plant will put itself out of business as the fertility of the ecosystem improves.

One might come to another anaolgy involving "aliens": they do the jobs that natives (a.k.a. gringoes) can't or won't. Why do we depend on migrant labor to tend and harvest our food? Because we're incapable or too damn lazy! Let's not deport them unless we're prepared to take their places. So instead of annihilating a very helpful plant in the name of botanical purity (one could really make some analogies here!), consider what it does; then make some jam!

The Edge of the Petri Dish

2010-09-13T21:59:00.004-04:00

My friends, I have something to tell you. As you know or can easily imagine, we live in a world with finite resources. And yet, our economy is based on an ideal of continual growth. For that to occur, someone needs to be selling something, and others need to be buying it, always, whether we need it or not. Cheap resources get converted into products. Where do the raw materials for those products come from? Earth; the water and soil of the planet. Everything we eat, breathe, drink and buy is some form of processed sunlight, in combination with soil and water.

As you can imagine, with about 7 billion people on the planet now, we are starting to run out of stuff. In some places, it’s clean water. In others, it’s topsoil. We are reaching the limit of the planet to support us, at least in our extremely consumptive Western lifestyle. Ecologists call this “carrying capacity”. On the graph below, the curvy line shows population over a period of time (the horizontal dimension). Note that the population reaches a certain level and begins to decline. After that it oscillates around a certain number, represented by the horizontal line. That number is the carrying capacity.

If this were a graph of GDP, the upward trends would represent economic growth, and the downward portions would signify recessions. Consider what we’ve been hearing lately: “long, slow recovery”, “double-dip recession”. Seems like recessions hit about every ten to fifteen years, though I may be mistaken. I’m just an ecologist. If we were to graph GDP over the last 200 years, might it look like the graph above?

I didn’t just summon you here for an ecology / economics lesson. By the way, Marston Bates eloquently reminded us they are the same thing. I wanted to share what I’ve been learning since last winter. One of the big resources that will soon limit our potential for growth is oil. Consider for a moment, or a day, how many things in our lives rely on fossil fuels, especially oil. Now the bad news: there is a growing body of evidence that global production of oil is at or near its peak, and will begin to decline in the next few years. We have every expectation that demand will not decline, however, and when demand begins to exceed supply, prices go crazy. Read this again carefully: we’re not about to run out of oil; we’re about to run out of cheap oil. Case in point: the summer of 2008. There are many others if one wishes to dig them up. Yes, we seem to be up against the edge of the Petri dish.

Before you panic, I’d like you to do one or more of several things: visit http://www.transitionculture.org/ and watch the movie “In Transition”, or better yet, read The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins. I found section one to be very helpful in explaining the combined threats of Peak Oil and climate change. Section two is an essential reminder that dealing with what we are facing involves a grieving process and recovering from addiction (to oil). The second helpful thing I’ve found is The Archdruid Report, a blog by John Michael Greer. His wisdom and wit are delightful and thought-provoking. A third helpful thing is to attend one or both of the speakers in Traverse City this month.

Another very helpful and hopeful way to deal with the idea of economic, social and environmental upheaval is to remember the ancient wisdom about the healing and nutritive values of plants. Most of our pharmaceuticals are, in some way, derived from oil. They all rely on cheap oil for manufacturing and transportation. One of the solutions or inevitable outcomes seen by those peering into crystal oil drums is that production of just about everything will become much more decentralized, even hyper-local. Enter the beauty of knowing how to use a few herbs.

In my yard, I have plants that will nourish me (dandelion and burdock), treat wounds (yarrow), stabilize blood pressure (dandelion and garlic), reduce the pain of insect stings and bites (plantain), help one’s body use iron well, thus treating anemia (dock), reduce fevers (catnip), help treat colds and flu (elderflower and Echinacea), and many more I’m just beginning to learn. If we can’t get our prescribed pharmaceuticals, let’s go walking in the woods and fields. Those of us who know a few or some of these plants are in a position to help others. We might become the village herbal healers.

There’s a great deal to digest in the news that oil supplies will soon get precarious, or downright undependable. Take your time; go through the stages of panic and grief. After all, we may need to grieve the loss of a culture (also known as suburban sprawl). Talk about this with trusted friends, but they’ll probably look at you like you’re crazy. Get to know your neighbors, too. You might even share a favorite herbal tea with them. Friends, our actions now will determine whether we smack hard up against the wall of resource limitations, or whether we slow gently to a stop on our current path, and have time to steer a course toward a more balanced future.

(Previously published for the Herbal Alliance of Northern Michigan.)

Been building, not blogging

2010-09-13T21:55:00.003-04:00

If anyone wonders about the lack of activity on this blog, rest assured I'm still here. I've been working on summer projects, like a playhouse for the human girls, and a hen house for the feathered girls (next year). It helps to get some things done before the snow flies. I'd like to have pictures, but LR dropped the camera in a mug of tea a few weeks ago.
We harvested about 25 pounds of honey last month, too. Thanks, bees!

Profound words

2010-08-08T12:05:00.003-04:00

"Water and dirt are the most important things. Kind of like our mom and dad, and everybody in the whole world are the kids. Except some of the kids are treating them badly. A whole bunch of children are treating them meanly.
"Those plants and rocks and trees are my brothers and sisters. I want to write a book about it when I learn to write."
- words of LD, age 5, as best I could capture it.

How long can you tread water?

2010-08-01T21:46:00.003-04:00

Years ago, Bill Cosby did a comedy routine about Noah and his hypothetical neighbor. Picture Noah, working away on the ark, in suburbia. From memory:

Neighbor: “What’s this?”
Noah: “It’s an ark.”
Neighbor: “What’s it for?”
Noah: “I can’t tell you.”
Neighbor: “Right. Could you get it out of my driveway? I gotta get to work! (Pause) Really, could you give me little hint?”
Noah: “How long can you tread water?”

These days, I feel a lot like Noah may have felt, knowing what was to come and how it would affect people. Since last December, I’ve been attending a book study group/bunch of concerned people that has been reading Rob Hopkins’ The Transition Handbook. In it, Hopkins reviews the evidence for the twin impending threats of climate change and peak oil, and the evidence is pretty damn compelling. I have read it, and I accept the evidence as sound. This is not the same as “I believe”; it’s a case of “I have a pretty good idea (borrowed from the movie “Dogma”).
If you’d like to read the arguments for yourself, read Hopkins’ book and The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler. Review the past several months of weekly posts at The Archdruid Report. Don’t take my word for it, but start reading soon. The bottom line on climate change is we’re in for warmer, probably drier times in the short term, with droughts, mere water shortages, probable crop failures and other disruptions to the food supply, and certainly thousands, if not millions, of climate refugees.
As far as Peak Oil, we may have passed the time when worldwide oil production has begun to decline, while demand continues to increase. According to Kunstler, we are probably in for a period of uneven supply, and wildly fluctuating prices. The $140 per barrel oil of 2008 will seem like kid stuff. Oil supplies will not run out for a few more decades, but oil and shortly after, natural gas, are going to become more and more scarce. Some have said we have as little as two years.
Imagine how Noah must have felt, knowing that something completely disruptive to our culture is coming. I wonder how he looked at his neighbors, what he felt. If it was "you're gonna get what's coming to you, decadent slothful sinners", then I can empathize. Our way of life is based on cheap energy, particularly oil. We've been pretty lousy inhabitants of Planet Earth, rather like the spoiled "entitled" brats who trash hotel rooms. I also care about people, and hate to see suffering. I guess I would settle on "it's time to face the music", but I'm an oil-sinner too.
How do you carry around a secret like this? I would tell everyone I meet, but I (and others) risk being called Chicken Little or Boy Crying “Wolf”. We’ve had a taste of the economic chaos that lies ahead: corporations failing right and left, huge banks failing, government acting as fast as it can to do too little too late, or worse, something totally counterproductive. Hopkins offers two chapters on how we might deal with our grief for the loss of a way of life. For those who might pray for salvation, either technological or spiritual, I offer what I have learned from the Archdruid: “No one’s coming, Harry” (from Harry Potter #3). No one is going to bail us out of it this time.
So how does one bring up the notion of Energy Descent, coming down off our addiction to oil? I do believe, for the planet’s sake, it’s a good thing. But how will I get to work in the winter? Will I have a job? Will it matter? Will the bank holding my mortgage fail, and I can just squat here? How will we meet our needs for food, water, health and heat? And the big one, will people pull together as they do after disasters, or will they freak out and retreat behind parapets and portcullises (those pointy iron things that drop down in front of castle gates)? I really think we need to start talking, first with trusted friends, then with family, then with those in our communities.
Here’s my plan, and I have one big advantage over Noah: I’m not sworn to keep this a secret. I’ll get to know my neighbors, and find out what skills or goods we can provide for one another. I’ll get serious about saving seed and growing my own food, or seeing that it’s supplied from within a few miles. I’m already growing some plants for medicine, and I’ll expand this. After the chickens start laying well, I’ll offer eggs for trade. I know how to build good compost, so I’ll help them make good soil. I could even offer rides to town. Maybe then I'll mention that energy prices are going to shoot up like crazy in the next few years. Let's weave the fabric before we really need it!
We might make it if we keep the old adage in mind (if I might amend it): “Steal a man’s fish and you eat for a day, steal his nets and you eat till the nets wear out. Ask him to teach you to fish, and you both eat.” It’s not about treading water this time; it’s about learning to swim, and learning to swim together.

Repurposing and herbs

2010-06-26T06:40:00.007-04:00

We're just past the Summer Solstice, and the harvests and gathering has begun. With regular showers and thunderstorms, the gardens and woods look like a jungle. We've been harvesting some herbs to dry lately, and I was motivated to finish a project I've been thinking about for awhile. When we moved in here 2 years ago, I found a crib in pieces in the pole barn, and I saved the mattress frame with a drying rack in mind.

I suspended the rack from the rafters of the barn. The herbs are bundled and hung inside paper grocery bags. Small things like flowers could be laid on top of the rack, then covered to keep the dust off.

The bags are labeled, of course, because the herbs won't look the same when they've dried.

When it's done, we heave away and raise the rack up to the rafter, where it's nice and warm. The oregano's a bit long so it hangs out of the bag.

The view from underneath. We have oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, sage, mint, chamomile and lemon balm for now. More later to be sure.

Enterprises

2010-05-30T13:39:00.007-04:00

Welcome to Snowy Hollow's fresh home-grown garden veggies! LR is dipping her toes in the waters of small business. Today's offering is leeks for a dollar a bunch. What a great home schooling opportunity!

Our other new undertaking is raising blue oyster mushrooms (no rock band references please!). A friend had a large maple come down across her road, and another friend had some leftover spawn. Manna from heaven!

Step 1: spread spawn over surface of green log

Step 2: stack on another log and spread more spawn

Step 3: Wrap the whole thing in plastic to keep out other kinds of fungi. Now go do something else for a year while the fungus eats the wood.

Spring at Snowy Hollow

2010-05-30T13:11:00.013-04:00

Look who's coming to dinner! If he only knew how close he was to the table ....

Crabapple

One frame of the girls busy tending brood, packing in pollen.

One of the bees on an Evergreen Hardy White onion; seed-saving step one.

It's been warm and dry, and things are rapidly turning into summer. The spinach and pac choi will be bolting any day, but the turnips are coming on strong! I transplanted the tomatoes and planted cukes and borage near them on the south side of the house to capture some additional heat (permaculture!). The only thing left is the basil. Then we start the fall garden in soil blocks in late June.

Meet the ducks!

2010-04-23T20:25:00.009-04:00

The pond in our backyard is as big as a good-sized bedroom when it's full. Most of the summer it's about half that size, and 2 summers ago it dried up completely, much to the dismay of the toad tadpoles. We're about a mile from the nearest lake. Still, we have a pair of mallards. They've been with us 3 springs now, never nesting, and they leave for the night.

The girls dubbed them Chris (short for Christmas-head) and Suzie. They're getting quite used to all the playing and commotion.

Weedy thoughts

2010-04-17T22:20:00.003-04:00

As one of the human occupants of this place, I am trying to listen and heal the land from past abuses. We host one of the last remnants of forest for which Elmwood Township was named, or it was here until previous owners cut the “valuable timber”. The aerial shot on Google Earth shows a beautiful intact canopy. The timber was “thinned from above” as they say, meaning they took all the big trees and left barked-up smaller ones to sway in the wind. How do I save what’s left of that jewel, and ask the land to feed me, too? What do I do with the front yard, or the hill to the south?
As I learn more about plants and permaculture, this question becomes quite complicated. I’m getting a re-education about “weeds”. I’ve had to reconsider my attitude toward many plants in the light of new evidence. When we moved here, I saw sumac as an aggressive root-suckering plant, and autumn olive as a thorny invasive pest. Burdock was something to be given a wide berth, especially when wearing a wool sweater. Now I know sumac provides a refreshing beverage, stabilizes soil, and provides food for honeybees at a time when few other plants are blooming. Autumn olive is a nitrogen-fixing shrub, hosting microorganisms that pump nitrogen into the ecosystem. Its berries are popular with wildlife, and a related species is used as food for humans. Burdock is simply a medicinal, edible wonder plant; see its virtues as described by Susan Weed.
Native, invasive, naturalized, pest: all categories of species we like to use. The native plant proponents would have us go back to a pre-Columbian flora. Any more recent arrivals are treated as pathogens – pull them, spray them, just get rid of them. Are they pathogens? Is baby’s breath an infection of ecosystems along the Lake Michigan shoreline? In our bodies, pathogens move in when our immune systems are weakened. Numerous cultures can teach us that sickness is not inevitable, as American medicine seems to believe. Healthy ecosystems are resilient, and resistant to minor changes, so population explosions of a single species must be a sign of something wrong. What is out of balance in these ecosystems that allows one species to become so dominant? Joe Jenkins has an interesting view of humans as pathogens in his book, Balance Point.
I’m convinced that plants simply live where they can, or are needed. If they can fulfill a role (a.k.a. fill a niche) in an ecosystem, they do. If a non-pre-Columbian plant species get established, it may be because the existing ecosystem has changed significantly. Yes, spotted knapweed can dominate a landscape, and Phragmites can take over wetlands. But knapweed has a deep taproot and can bring minerals back up to a starved topsoil. It will eventually decline as soil organic matter builds up. It is also one our biggest sources of nectar and pollen in late summer, making a honey harvest possible. It has taken over the old farms around here because the soils won’t support much else but lichens. It’s soil-building starting from square 1 ½. Phragmites thrives along shorelines and wetlands with high levels of nitrates. It is actually cleaning up the excess nutrients before they can cause a destructive algae bloom. Now, where are those nitrates coming from?
Permaculture designers and gardeners use properties of various plants to imitate a naturally-occurring ecosystem. There are nutrient accumulators that bring up nutrients with long tap roots, ground covers that hold soil, nurse plants that protect young perennials, shrubs and trees, insectary plants that attract beneficial insects, and the well-known nitrogen fixers. So there are reasons to keep burdock, lamb’s quarters, autumn olive, clover, yarrow, Queen Anne’s Lace, and many others, even stinging nettle. Perhaps we should not be so quick to judge, or slap on a label like “weed” or “invasive pest”. Perhaps these plants are trying to tell us that these ecosystems are in need of serious help! Yet we insist on shooting the messenger again, or in this case, pulling it up by the roots. It’s been said that a weed is just a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered. If that’s the case, there are few if any weeds.
So where does that leave me in my new education? Native vs. non-native has a much diluted meaning. Goldenrod is a valued friend, and knapweed stays where it can for now; the bees love them both. Sumac has a home on the steep hill in the powerline right-of-way crossing the property, and autumn olive is to be left alone to accumulate nitrogen in those nearly-bare areas. Many others are welcomed for their food or medicinal value, or for just plain beauty, like the thousands of Dutchman’s breeches blooming in the woods right now. Who am I to say what stays or goes? The land knows what she needs, and the plants are her way of healing herself. To paraphrase John Burroughs (I think), when you pull up one plant, you find it hitched to everything else, including yourself. Now, what happens if you pull hard on your own shoelaces?

A sweet, sweet day

2010-04-11T22:03:00.011-04:00

Maple syrup season wrapped up a couple weeks ago, but we're still settling and canning. We put up another gallon and a half today. There's still another 2 gallons-ish waiting to be canned, so we'll end up with close to last year's total. Considering we added 12 more buckets, it comes out to be a mediocre year. Why should we be different than anyone else? Still, thanks to the trees.

Our last sap collection didn't add up to enough to boil for syrup, so I boiled the 4 gallons down to two, and pitched in a red wine yeast. It's bubbling merrily along.

It was a bittersweet day, too. Zelda's hive came through the winter very weak, and when I checked today, there were literally a half dozen bees flying around the entrance. When I opened the hive, there was nobody home. They had built comb at a crazy angle relative to the frames in one hive body; guess they didn't really know how to do it without foundation to guide them. Rebuilding those frames has been in the plan, so I brought it down to the garage and we had our first honey harvest today! The girls were just giddy with excitement over all that honey. We cut the comb out of the frames at first, but as things began to fall apart, we all dove in with our hands. Six very sticky hands. LR washed her hands in the pond so we could open a door and get in the house!

I tried a mashed-comb extraction technique I found on the web, which involved putting mashed comb in jars and filtering out the honey, ...

Trouble is, since honey is a bit viscous, the jars vapor-locked within seconds, and when I tipped them to allow air to move upward they leaked.

Version two features a paint straining bag suspended from a freshly-cut tripod. By morning, things should be well-filtered.

Our first honey harvest - nearly a quart of raw, golden elixir. There's a bunch more to be filtered, too. If a tablespoon is the life's work of 12 bees, then this quart is very hard-earned!

Parsnip follow-up

2010-04-03T20:43:00.004-04:00

Given current practices in the farmer-foodie blogosphere, I feel obliged to tell you what I did with the parsnips. Call this soup what you will, perhaps a potato parsnip puree:

Slice half an onion, more or less, or chop up a bunch of spring leeks.
Peel and slice 3-4 good size potatoes, or whatever's left in the root cellar.
Scrub and/or peel the straightest parsnips of the scrawny lot you just dug up so you have at least 2 cups, and slice.
One could add a stalk of celery, but I didn't.
Sautee the onion in your oil of choice in a soup pot until nearly transluscent, then add potatoes and celery, and a cup or so of water so they don't stick.
When the potatoes are about half cooked, add 2 cups (or more) of vegetable stock, and the parsnips.
Cover and simmer until potatoes and parsnips are cooked, then puree (easiest with a stick blender).
While the potatoes are cooking, fry 6 strips of bacon until crisp. Break these up in bits and add to the soup just before serving.
Add a quart or so of water to increase the volume. We have some dairy sensitivities, but one could add a cup or two of Shetler's whole milk to make the soup rich and creamy.
Sprinkle in generous amounts of your favorite herbs. I used oregano, parsley and dill (no marjoram left). Now's the time to add the bacon.
Warm gently for several minutes and serve with a sprig of freshly picked parsley, and perhaps a chunk of good sourdough bread for dipping.

Eat slowly, with gratitude, and dream of spring greens, sunny days, and soft warm rains.

The Spiral of Gardening

2010-03-27T20:46:00.003-04:00

The joys of spring include the leftover garden bits from the previous year. Now's the time to dig parsnips, so that's what LD and I did today. She's holding up one of the better ones. Quite a few thought they were turnips, then went all uddery - 4 or 5 taproots heading in different directions. They looked like a root veggie being run by a committee! Pretty hairy, too. How does one radicle, emerging from a seed, with one meristem, split into so many? It's not that hard; it's called Follow-The-Leader. Divide, elongate, specialize, got it?

This year, I'll need to do something close to double-digging their bed, and beefing up the fertility. Oh, and some more water would be good. Susan Weed's book Healing Wise mentions a burdock tea for parsnips. The kids like them, so I'll try anything to get a good batch.

This warm weather has me thinking hard about planting peas. Sure, many folks have already done that, but up here the end of March often brings a nasty snowstorm. This year we may be over 60 degrees! A double-lamb March. A couple days ago, I sowed Asian greens and arugula in the cold frame. Peas and turnips are the next things on the calendar. Somebody talk me down from the composter bin before I jump!

Sugarin'!

2010-03-19T20:00:00.005-04:00

It's officially spring, or at least late winter. On March 3rd, I sowed 4 flats of alliums in the greenhouse (at work, sshhh!), and on March 4th, I tapped 31 of our sugar maples. In a week, we had collected almost 90 gallons of sap; a slow start. The next week, we got 26. Then the night temperatures stayed above freezing thanks to unseasonably warm weather, the flow just about stopped. I sowed tomatoes in soil blocks tonight (at home this time), and the temps have been falling. Things are looking good for the next few days, and the moon is waxing for another week, so I'm hoping for a good run. Meanwhile, the garlic, rhubarb and daffodils are poking their heads up.

The sled is made from found lumber and some old skis.

This time of year is a strange mix of activities. Planting, waiting, planning, watching, gathering & boiling. Wonderful rituals, and good honest work. It feels so good to be outside every day, especially hauling buckets of sap. Last year, we collected over 300 gallons and drove every drop to the family sugar shack 25 miles away. Lots of work, but we brought home over 7 gallons of syrup. We just made it, too; I opened the last pint two days ago!

Thanks, maples, for a sweet gift.

A REALLY HOT Investment Idea!

2010-02-16T20:01:00.004-05:00

In light of recent economic turmoil, with government bailouts and banks "too big to fail", we can see more plainly that greedy bankers and investors are using our money to gamble. They're not taking our cash to the casino, rather they're betting our retirement and pension contributions on the stock market and shady mortgage deals. Of course they're trying to bet on "sure winners" so they, I mean we, get the largest possible return. Here in the state hit worst by the collapse of the auto industry, I'm not pretending there will be much of a retirement fund when I get there. I won't be putting cash in jars and buryin' it in the backyard, but my savings will end up in the ground.

Then we add another great folly of our time: biomass fuels. Recently, we discovered that when you burn food for fuel, the food, corn in this case, becomes a commodity. Well, OK, corn already was. Our American appetite for motor fuel almost took the corn tortilla out of Mexican culture. Our local power company is in favor of a biomass conversion plant, where who-knows-what would be burned to heat water to make electricity.

In another column, soil fertility has been declining for years. That corn probably wasn't worth eating anyway, so poor was its mineral content. Thanks to the Haber process, we have a handy way to make nitrogen fertilizer out of, guess what ... natural gas. Thus, our soil fertility program is tied to the price of fossil fuels, and subject to international disputes (see Russia vs. the rest of Europe). While nitrogen fertilizer gets more and more expensive, we mine the mineral apatite as a phosphorus source. While you're waiting for Peak Oil, keep an eye out for Peak Apatite!
I have another idea. Listen carefully 'cause I'm only gonna say this once, "Invest in the soil!"I repeat, "INVEST IN THE SOIL!"

Here in northern Michigan, one does not need to look far to find a farm that would have benefitted from the advice of Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, the founders of permaculture, instead of the advice of John Deere, the inventor of the moldboard plow. It all comes back to those teeming millions of bacteria in the soil. When soil is disturbed (plowed, disced, rototilled), the foods for the bacteria get homogenized. It's like a dirt smoothie, and they can get all they need very easily. They grow like crazy, and as they grow, they consume organic matter. When the forests up here were logged and the land sold to immigrant with dreams of farms, the plows mixed the soil and the bacteria ate that precious 2-3 inches of topsoil. The potatoes yielded less and less, and the immigrants left for town, my ancestors among them. Nature has been trying to repair the loss ever since, with spotted knapweed and autumn olive, among other remedies.

Let's learn from history. We are living in an exciting wave of new agriculture: small farms, local markets, caring people. Those of us with gardens are right there with them. We are going to succeed in an era of high energy costs by our willingness to work at it. I offer one basic principle that farmers in India and China have been using for thousands of years: compost, compost, compost.

Organic matter in the soil increases water holding capacity, adds mineral ion exchange capacity, and provides homes and food to billions of microrganisms that provide plants with slow-release mineral nutrition in just the right form. Translated, this means, if your soil is rich in organic matter, you don't need to water as often, any nutrients you apply will stay in the soil instead of leaching out with rains, and you probably won't need to apply fertilizer anyway. On the balance sheet, soil organic matter adds up to work you don't have to do!

Here's my great investment idea: on the tiny cultivated fraction of my 6 acres, I'm going to work on building soil organic matter. Household food scraps and garden trimmings go in the compost. The compost will, of course, go on the garden. The worm bin gets shredded paper and junk mail (no shiny inserts of course). The worm castings will be made into high-quality compost tea and potting mix. Leaves, lawn clippings and such get piled in windrows on ground that will someday be garden. Soon, we'll have some cute little furry manure producers (a.k.a bunnies) who will add to the garden soil. After much permaculture reading, I've adopted a greater tolerance for autumn olive, a nitrogen-fixing shrub. I also plan to add more of the soil-building plants listed by Toby Hemenway in Gaia's Garden. If I can swing it, nothing organic will leave this place!

We shouldn't burn biomass for energy if we can help it. Since burning adds yet more CO2 to out beleagured atmosphere, we shouldn't burn ANY plant material, paper, cardboard, etc. that could be used another way. As individual landowners, even small ones, and as communities, we need to invest in the land that might sustain us. I say "might" because we've neglected this savings account for more than 50 years, and we're paying the price. Our land is our best investment. Carefully tended, it will provide riches in the form of good food for years to come.

So start a backyard compost pile or worm composting system. Everything, I mean EVERY thing that will rot needs to go in a compost pile, or be spread lovingly on the land in a sheet mulch. If we produce more compostables than you can use, we need to find a way to get them back to the farms that support us. In an ecosystem, all matter is recycled within the system. So must it be with our communities as well.

It's Almost Time ...

2010-02-08T20:29:00.012-05:00

Groundhog Day, the sun climbing a little higher in the sky, a bit of warmth ... all signs that maple syrup season is not far off. The next wave of days when the temperatures get above freezing should get things started.

We got the buckets out of storage in the pole barn. Next we bleach them and rinse them. Then wewatch the forecasts.

LR and I asked one of the trees, "Is it time yet?" The tree replied, "ARE YOU CRAZY??"
I'm planning to add about 12 more trees to the Sugar Trail, as we call it; we could end up with about 50 gallons of sap per day. We'll be boiling at a friend's shack this year. Next year, I hope to boil here. Anybody know of a small evaporator for real cheap?
Soon, the hours of trudging through snow with heavy buckets, breathing the steam heavy with the scent of syrup, smelling of woodsmoke for days. Soon, drinking the sap as a ritual spring tonic, flushing out the crud of winter like so much dirty snow. Soon ...

Happy Yule!

2009-12-20T23:01:00.006-05:00

On this the longest night of the year, Winter is fully upon us. The garden is buried under the first foot of snow. The bee hives are insulated with several inches of straw , held in place by sections of last year's pea trellis. This will protect them from the winter winds, and the hives have upper entrances for the bees to use when the snow covers the lower one.

To our ancient ancestors in northern Europe (and other times and places), this was the day the Earth Mother gave birth to the Sun Child. He will eventually grow stronger and brighter as the year progresses. This year, we followed a suggestion in Celebrating the Great Mother by Cait Johnson and Maura Shaw, and we built a sacred cave. Their cave calls upon the power of stones, but since we live in northern Michigan, we called upon the power of snow. Our Earth Mother holds her babe, while our totem animals stand at her feet. LD's owl perches on the roof of the cave. She wears the black robe of a crone, tied with red, for motherhood. The glow of the candles holds our eyes and imagination as we watch from the house.

If we can get the kids up, we'll climb the hill with drums and noisemaking devices to wake up the sun. That's a big "if" since they were playing with friends until nearly 10 p.m.!

So on this Longest Night, feel the quiet and the peace. Know that after tomorrow, the days start getting longer again. Rest in the darkness for work will return with the light. We would all do well to stop multi-tasking and just breathe. I raise a glass of homemade hard cider and give thanks to the Earth Mother, to the humans I love, and to the land that gives me sustenance. To all I say "Wassail!"

Yes, it makes a difference

2009-11-16T22:37:00.006-05:00

I sat on a panel of academic "experts" this evening, sharing opinions and thoughts about ways to "green" our fine institution of higher learning. The question came up as to whether or not a single person's efforts to recycle make any difference. Indeed, often it feels like it doesn't. My moment of insight went something like this:

" A single visit to a flower by a single bee may not seem like much, since it only brings back a tiny bit of nectar. But if thousands of bees each visit a few flowers each hour, and if they do that for several hours each day, soon they can make enough honey to ensure the survival of the hive."

So when you feel like it's just not enough, remember that there are LOTS of bees out there working fo the same thing you are. Do what you can, every day, and soon we'll have enough honey to get through whatever lies ahead.

Namaste!
(LR's message to the world on our front walk ...)

Transitioning in coffee shops

2009-11-10T20:53:00.008-05:00

Found this video via another blog and got inspired.

There are people who get it! We're just not satisfied with what the global marketplace wants to sell us. We'd rather see our money stay in the community and help friends and neighbors.

The thing that caught my attention the most about Whidbey Island is the monthly potlucks. Neighbors get together, actually. How many of us do that, even within a community like Bioneers? We see each other at meetings, but when can we just get caught up? I'm thinking we need a way or a place to, how shall I say, gossip! That is, gossip for the greater good! Have you ever been in a local restaurant with a table of local guys (I guess women have too much work to do) who sit around and talk over coffee every day? I know of one such place where the table is occupied from before 7 a.m. till after 9 with a changing parade of regulars. Those guys end up knowing everything that's going on in town.

Yes, Bioneers and social movers, we need a place to sit down over coffee or herbal tea and share what's going on. Had I known about cherry farmers dumping their crops on the ground I would have dropped everything and made buckets of cherry jam! How shall we keep each other informed? I suppose Facebook and Twitter have evolved to fill that role somewhat, but I hold them to be very poor substitutues. So much good stuff comes up in casual conversation. How much trust and relationship can you build posting 140-word tweets? The only tweets I want to hear come from my bird neighbors on spring mornings!

So where shall we meet? Let's keep posting, because few of us are retired or self-employed, or are full-time farmers who "take a break" about 9 a.m., but let's find a way to come together once a month, just for fun, with no agenda. If you can only drop by for a minute, that's fine. The pot of shade-grown, organic, fair-trade coffee is always on!

An early Thanksgiving

2009-11-10T20:18:00.005-05:00

After a cold October, we're getting a few days of nice weather. We have even shut the pellet stove off during the daytime for 3 days now. All those deer in their winter coats must be panting! The bees have been out, too. We've seen several drinking at the pond, and the hive entrances are crowded. There are still a few drones getting the boot. I cut upper entrances for both hives, just a 4-5" wide slot in the edge of the inner cover, overhung by the outer cover. When (not if) the snow gets deep, they'll have a way out.

The garden is basically done except for a few greens in the cold frame. I picked parsley for a lentil & sweet potato casserole the other night. As Thanksgiving approaches, we're contemplating how to celebrate. The usual over-indulgent dinner with family just doesn't have any appeal. We're thinking of trying a 100-mile Thansgiving in the spirit of Michael Pollan's homemade local dinner in Omnivore's Dilemna, eating only things we can get from a 100-mile radius. There goes the sweet potatoes!

In the tradition of Thanskgiving, I'd like to publicly thank some of those who fed us this year. Some of you are good friends, and some are becoming such. We owe you much, farmers, so thanks to you (in no particular order):

John Sullivan for eggs
Jim Moses and Linda Grigg of Forest Meadow farm
Sandy & Bernie Ware for strawberries, potaotes, and many other good things
the kind folks at Second Spring Farm
Laurie Brown for honey, fruit, and tomatoes
Jayne Leatherman-Walker for tomatoes and great vibes
Hochstettlers for peppers
Alan Jones for those fantastic pears
Maple Ridge Farm for grass-fed meat and granola
another local organic farm for cilantro
Shangri-La farm for apples
Ebert March for carrots, squash & beans
Millie Hathaway for rhubarb
Marty & Michelle of Birch Point farm
Good Neighbor Orchard for organic apples that went into some of my finest applesauce

There are many, many others, of course, who provided us with grains, flours, oils, all those things we buy at the conventional grocery. Thanks to you all; we'll help you keep up the good work! It's a joy to hand my hard-earned dollars to someone who has worked even harder for it.

Last but not least, I'd like to thank the soil of Snowy Hollow, my own place, for providing us with tomatoes for sauce in spite of the anonymous fungal disease, carrots, tons of raspberries, cabbage, parsley, peas, and especially maple syrup! Rest well, and next year I'll try to give back even more.

To those we elected

2009-11-07T21:16:00.003-05:00

Here's a letter I sent to my elected representatives just after the Climate Change Day of Action. Feel free to paraphrase or copy/paste. I ask that you investigate the issues yourself, so the letter comes from you. It's just important that we the people they actually represent tell them what we think.

Dear _________:(insert name of your representative)

We are approaching critical moments in the debates on three major issues before the U.S. legislature: climate change, health care reform, and food safety. Fortunately, there are actions you can take as an elected representative, that affect two, if not all three issues simultaneously.

Most immediately, world leaders will discuss a new climate change treaty this December. We need to bring atmospheric CO2 levels back down to 350 ppm! Levels above that could lead to irreversible, catastrophic changes for humans and many, many other species. Please visit www.350.org for more information.

Localizing food supplies is a very effective way to reduce carbon emissions. Did you know that it takes approximately 26 ounces of oil to produce a double quarter-pounder with cheese? This product generates 13 pounds of CO2, as much as a typical car generates from driving 13 miles! Local food generates less CO2 since it travels, on average, less than 150 miles, and it is much more nutritious. Local food is produced by small farmers and sold through farmers’ markets and other direct-to-consumer avenues.

By now it must be intuitive that the above-mentioned quarter-pounder is chronic disease waiting to happen. Over the past several decades, what we have saved in paying for food, we have paid in increased health care costs. Some savings! With “nay” votes on H.R. 2749, or The Food Safety Enhancement Act and H. R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act, you can help save America billions on health care. These bills place unbearable regulatory and financial burdens on small farmers who produce the healthiest food, and who are not part of the food safety problem! The recent food-borne disease outbreaks have all originated on factory farms, in feedlot-style livestock operations, or in centralized processing facilities. Several of the farmers who grow my food are very worried about staying in business if these bills pass in their current forms. Please, remove small farmers and direct sales from under the regulatory umbrella! They are some of the folks actually doing some good.

These days, people in Michigan need any advantage they can get. The western side of the Lower Peninsula is second only to California in the diversity of food crops grown. Small farms are one of the few growth areas in Michigan’s economy. Passage of H.R. 2749 and H.R. 875 could snuff out that growth as effectively as a pesticide. If the government will make room, small farmers in Michigan will flourish, bringing with them nutritious local food, fewer CO2 emissions, and better health for all.

In summary, I ask you to:
1. only accept a carbon emissions treaty with levels no higher than 350 ppm,
2. revise the pending food safety legislation to remove regulatory burdens from small farmers and direct sales.

By taking these simple steps, you will be doing a great service for many, many people in Michigan and all over the world.

Bioneer, wrinkly, and proud of it!

2009-11-04T21:10:00.003-05:00

So I was picking out a shirt this morning, and the first two I grabbed were covered with wrinkles. I couldn't bring myself to wear them and reached for one of the wrinkle-proof ones. The new irregularly-pleated look is a result of a concious choice, mostly on the part of my wife since I hardly ever do laundry. Since the Bioneers conference (see below), we've been working even harder to reduce energy consumption, and the latest victim has been the dryer. We heat with a pellet stove, so the drying racks are now regular fixtures in the living room next to the stove. We get the look, feel and energy bill of clothes from the clothesline all winter!

After thinking more about my wrinkly shirts, I can see them as an environmental statement: I care enough about the future of the planet to look like I slept in these clothes! Am I really ready to say that? After all, pressed, neat shirts are just a part of the uniform of professionalism, just a social expectation. I've flauted these before. The hard part is that people judge you in nanoseconds by your appearance, and first impressions are hard to overcome with reasoned arguments. Even if I explain why I'm wearing a wrinkly shirt, in their eyes, I'm still a crackpot slob who doesn't know how to iron!

Perhaps I'll start by wearing the wrinkly ones on days without meetings, or Fridays when there are few people around at work. Perhaps I could throw several shirts in the dryer just long enought to "de-wrinkle" them. Am I caving in? How committed am I? Damn, it's tough being so far ahead of the curve!

We were there!

2009-11-03T09:00:00.007-05:00

The girls made the "350" signs all on their own!

I was only four when Woodstock happened, but it feels all tingly to be a part of something so much bigger than one's self. We were in the "3", buffeted by a cold rainy breeze. "This is weather, not climate" they told us. Still, we were there!

OCTOBER 24, 2009 ... 350!

2009-10-20T09:00:00.002-04:00

OK local couch potatoes, here's your chance to participate in THE social movement of our time. Go to tc350.org to find out the details, but the best estimates are that 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere is safe for the world as we know it. Higher than that and bad things gonna happen! While you're at the website, download 2 really cool tunes from Seth & May!!

Peace and 350!

Met one of the neighbors today

2009-10-19T21:42:00.001-04:00

Ah, fall. The smells of leaves, applesauce cooking, cold north winds, soil on the beets and carrots just dug from the garden; the sounds of chainsaws and rifle shots. As hunting season approaches, I took a few minutes to post our land. It reminded me of that scene in Never Cry Wolf where Farley Mowatt and the wolf try to work out their territorial issues in true wolf fashion. Well, I didn't drink a quart of tea: I used bright orange signs instead.

LR came with me on the back part of the property, and while I prepared to staple a sign to a big basswood on our eastern boundary, she looked up in a maple nearby. "Hey dad, look up there!" On a branch about 15 feet up sat a snoozing porcupine! We watched for a minute while I stapled up the sign, then headed back to the house for the camera.
She was absolutely tickled that she had just seen her first porcupine, and she spotted it! That's my li'l half pint!

The garden has made its transition to fall: some kale still standing, a few collards, the cold frame is out with spinach and more kale, and the garlic is in (followed cabbage in the rotation). Now for blankets of leaves over a sprinkling of rock dusts, soft rock phosphate and a light dose of wood ashes. I put it to bed like I do the children, with a prayer that spring will come and all will be well.

Bioneers!

2009-10-19T20:52:00.001-04:00

Today was a return to "real life" after three days of listening to and hanging with Earth-loving, courageous people who are actually working to make a difference. It was a bit of a letdown, actually. After hearing all the bad things that are happening on this planet, I walked back into the Land of the Clueless. I just want to scream, "WAKE THE @%#$ UP!" I work at an institution of higher learning for crying out loud, and I saw only TWO other members of the staff at the conference. We're getting so close to the Point Where Things Will Get REALLY Bad, that this stuff is more valuable than anything taught in a class. I can't believe some of the things that students are asked to learn, while the few classes that might give an understaning of climate change are "electives". Good God, EVERYONE needs to know this stuff.

The real power of a conference like Bioneers is in bringing together people who strive and struggle, day after day, to get something done, sometimes alone. In one big room, we recharge, exchanging energy until we can go out and work one more day, or one more year. Often, what moves us to cheers and tears is music: thanks to Seth and May and the other amazing Earthworks musicians for their gifts of song.

Some sites I learned about:
http://www.350.org/ - actions regarding climate change worldwide on OCTOBER 24th! GET OUT THERE, or start an action near your home!
http://circleofblue.org/ - water news from around the world
http://www.storyofstuff.com/ - Annie Leonard has even by demonized by Fox News! (She must be doing something right!)
http://www.nrec.org/ - the Neatawanta Center's site, thanks to Bob & Sally or whoever put this together!

The Great Lakes Bioneers in Traverse City had a water-oriented theme, and I came home after the first day with plans to make a shrine around our well head. It's squeezed uncerimoniously between the driveway and the woods, just a few feet upslope from the propane tank. The spot is currently a "weed" patch, with some catnip, motherwort and burdock (all good friends). I don't know what I want it to look like, but I want something to remind us that this hole in the ground is the source of our life, our blood, our energy. The little pump down there brings us something sacred. Winter is bearing down on us, so watch for news and pictures in the spring.

Over the weekend, we heard from several amazing elders, from familiar places like California, and unfamiliar ones like the North Sope of Alaska. Our region's own John Bailey challenged us with a very important question for this time in the existence of human civilization: "What kind of ancestor do you wish to be?"

What kind of ancestor do you wish to be?

Summer gleanings

2009-09-02T05:32:00.000-04:00

The night-time temperatures are back in the 40s. I guess summer's over, even though it never seemed to get here. We've been ripped off! The garden greens have done well, but the tomatoes are abundant and green. In the one area of our property that was not logged, the fungi have been amazing. I walk 20 yards and find perhaps ten kinds of mushrooms! Then comes the work of identifying them. Golden way caps, a polypore on an elm stump, a still-unknown bright orange one, and more.

I found several interesting tidbits this summer:

three grass fed beef links:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2006-12-01/News-From-Mother-December-January-2006.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2006-12-01/News-From-Mother-December-January-2006.aspx

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/2007-08-01/5-Reasons-to-Add-Grass-fed-Beef-to-Your-Grocery-List.aspx

an article on the impact of air pollution of the dispersal of floral scents
Want to scare yourself? Check out this search tool for finding out what chemical residues have been found in your food. All the more reason to eat organic or grow yer own!
I also asked the manager (?) of our local feed store about products with a common insecticide that has been linked to Colony Collapse Disorder (imidochloprid). He said since the patent came off, it's showing up in everything. To pull it off the shelves would leave him with virtually no OTC insecticide products. PLEASE be careful what you spray, if you have to spray at all!

That's enough to share for now. As you walk and ponder, pause at the goldenrod and watch for pollinators. Slow down and look for fungi in the moist places of your world. And if you're around my corner of Michigan, I'll see you at BIONEERS in October!

The garden is in, finally!

2009-06-15T20:41:00.000-04:00

Well, it's in for now. I finally got to transplant the basil now that the night temps are out of the low 40s. Let's see, there are about 4 kinds of lettuce, spinach, arugula, mache, swiss chard (2 var.), beets, parsnips, onions (3 var.), leeks, broccoli, cauliflower, savoy cabbage, brussel sprouts, pac choi, bell peppers, slicing canning and cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, fresh and storage carrots, cilantro, parsley and zucchini. And rhubard.

All this is in nine circular keyhole beds about 10 feet in diameter each. Hmm: five squared times pi times nine equals ... (pop), another brain cell explodes. Not too much space, compared to the old rows of plants between great swaths of weed-free dirt.

Oh yeah, there are 2 varieties of strawberries, German chamomile, calendula and teddy bear sunflowers on the slope nearby. And a few culinary and medicinal herbs in a perennial garden. In the words of Dave Mallett, "Someone bless these seeds I sow, till the rain comes tumblin' down."

Summer Rains

2009-06-08T20:02:00.000-04:00

The past month seemed drier than usual, but maybe I was just watching it more closely. Now that the May flowers have faded under the growing canopy of maples, the early summer rains are starting. The pond is almost full again after an inch-plus rain in the last 24 hours. The rain barrels that I hooked up at work are full to overflowing. One hundred gallons in the bank!

My rain harvesting plans are starting to flesh out here at Snowy Hollow, after learning how easy it is to hook up a barrel. We have a barrel on the hill above some transplanted raspberries, rigged up to water the bee garden by gravity-fed soaker hose. I put out another barrel today to catch rain pouring off the roof where two pitches come together. For now, that one will just fill watering cans.

The big issue here is most of the useable space is uphill from the house and pole barn. The barn could catch almost 1000 gallons from an inch of rain, but I need to get it up to where the plants would be. Fishing for ideas like battery-powered sump pumps from RVs, bicycle powered pumps, ... anything but buckets! I'm hoping to host a cistern-building workshop someday that will end with a BIG cistern of ferrocement and fieldstone behind the barn. The garden in the front yard will have it easier; it's downhill. That old septic tank will take care of things there. Like I said, everything is an asset!

The difficult thing about harvesting rainwater in Michigan, I'm realizing, is we get plenty in June, but not much in July and part of August. Could we store enough to get though a month or two? That 100 gallons at work will water a small herb garden thoroughly one time. The barrels drain out in under 2 hours. If it doesn't rain every other week, I'll be out there with a hose. I think the best bet is to catch what rainwater we can, but also make use of gray water to get us through the dry months. It's easy to catch water while the shower warms up. It's easy to divert washing machine water, but we'll need to do something about the soap. One doesn't take up homesteading if one doesn't like challenges!

A man, a chain saw, and the faeries

2009-05-31T21:25:00.000-04:00

Circle round, and I'll tell you a tale. If you are open to the existence of wee folk that we humans cannot usually see, then this is a tale of how not to live with them. If you don't believe in such things, then this is a tale of blundering stubborn oaf and a power tool.

Early last winter, between Samhain and Yule, we were looking forward to cutting our Yule tree (Christmas for ye folke from the Dominant Culture). When we bought this place, we were told the big blue spruce growing very close to the septic tank should come out, since the roots would foul up the workings of the septic system. Being cheap (OK, poor), I suggested that we use the top of the spruce for our Yule decoration. All assented, though I would have hoped for more enthusiasm.

The first Saturday in December has been the Appointed Day for several years, but on that day, we all woke up surly, grumpy and ready to bite off each other's heads. After a morning full of arguments, we decided that perhaps today wasn't the day to cut a tree. End of story? Not quite. Being the stubborn male with the chain saw, I was still game to cut 'er down, especially when the grumpies had faded by mid-afternoon.

I dressed in my warm coveralls and ventured forth in the ass-deep (almost) snow. It really was over my knees, though. The chain saw was, of course, sluggish to start, but aren't they always? Finally, it roared (coughed) to life. I trimmed a few branches, then made my box cut on the side of the trunk away from the house. As I made the back cut, with only inches to go, the saw got pinched by the weight of the tree. As I studied it again, with the added eight of the snow, the tree was leaning back toward the house.

After some futile tugging on a couple branches, I gave up. Time for a mechanical assist. I tied a rope around the trunk as high as I could reach, stretched the other end toward the driveway, then backed the van up toward the rope. Not quite long enough. I fired up the trusty snowblower and cleared a bit more driveway. Just as I finished, the damn thing ran out of gas. For a normal snowblower, this would not be a big deal. But mine has an electric start. Only. The pull rope was missing. I had to drag the damn thing backward all the way to the garage.

By now the wind was howling as if to say, "How dense are you? We told you not to do this!" I had my wife back up the van, and I tied on the rope. With a bit of pull the tree finally fell! Now I had a tree top to cut off and drag through ass-deep snow. I made the cut, looked at our Yule tree lying on its side, and cut off another foot. Then came the dragging, rolling, cursing, and dragging.

The sun was sliding over the western hill as I got the thing to the front porch. After the usual 2 or 3 attempts and fiddling, I got the stand on, and it looked OK. Now the base of this tree was about eight feet wide, but we have a double front door. So with cold bare hands, I took out the center post (removeable) and opened the other door. Soon the snow-covered tree was inside! There it lay while I ate supper, and the snow melted into giant puddles on the entryway floor.

Refreshed and energized, I dragged and lugged the tree monster to the family room, with its cathedral ceiling. With a bit more tweaking and snapping at my wife, I got the thing to stand up. Minutes later, for the first time in my life, the tree fell over. More adjusting, and I tried again. This time it stood up! But the base was way too wide; we couldn't move through the room. With a pruning saw, since we were inside, I took care of the giant lower boughs. Looks great, I thought. Then my wife noticed the fresh cuts were dripping sap onto the carpet. I guess that happens with really fresh trees. Soon, the cuts were bedecked with tufts of cotton. Looked just like snow!

The next moring, we decided to tackle the lights. Yes, I tested all the strings before putting them on the tree, but by the time I was half done, two strings were dead. Not just one like in a normal year! Thank goodness for lights on sale after Thanksgiving.

As long as that tree was in the house, we felt uneasy. There was a general agitation, as if something or someone was not happy. There were strange noises, flashes of movement, and breathes of air on the back of one's neck. As I write this, the lower trunk of the tree still rests where it fell.

Now every good tale has a moral, right? This adventure taught me to heed those instincts! If you feel like you shouldn't do something, don't do it! If something is harder than it needs to be, there may be forces at work against you! Call them faeries, tree spirits, or what you will, they can make life difficult if they want to. Next year, we're going to BUY a tree. A nice, SMALL tree. Let me be the first to wish you a happy Yule!

The Bee Garden

2009-05-31T20:48:00.001-04:00

Since we got the bees, my older daughter has become one of their biggest fans. She's converting her herb garden to a bee-friendly garden. To date, it's planted with comfrey, lavender, lemon balm, anise hyssop, columbine, bee balm, old-fashioned single hollyhocks, bachelor buttons, Echinacea sp., catnip and borage.

My world-view has changed too. Right now, we're in a blooming gap between cherries and apples, and the almost-open raspberries. No horse-chestnuts in the neighborhood, and bees don;t seem to visit lilacs much. Aren't there some old-fashioned single types? I've located two honeysuckle bushes that I might move, and if I can make time, I might plant a patch of buckwheat.

Lately, my eye drifts to flowering shrubs and trees, looking for the clouds of bees that should be surrounding them. All too often they are untended. No hum greets the ear. Where are the bees? Have all the urban bees fallen victim to CCD as well, or do they suffer from insecticidal attacks by paranoid, "all bugs must die" homeowners?

I'm ready to scream to the world, "Wake up! We need bees!" I've only had bees a couple weeks, but it doesn't seem too complicated to just play host to Apis mellifera. If more folks in town had hives, and if everyone in the "country" had hives, we'd be in much better shape. Witness what happens if there are only a few BIG banks, or a handful of auto companies. Let's not put all our hopes for pollination in a few traveling commercial beekeepers. If one out of every three things we eat comes by way of pollination by bees, then our future is much more impotant than letting someone else worry about it.

I see it happening, though. This year, there is a huge jump in the number of people planting gardens. The Slow Food movement is taking off or well established, depending on where you live. Once people make a few connections, there may be honeybee colonies in many more backyards. In the meantime, I wish more people would put a few bee-friendly plants in with their petunias. We need to provide for these brave ladies! If you're listening, here's what I'd have you do:
1. Stop using insecticides, especially anything with imidocloprid. It's been linked to Colony Collapse Disorder.
2. Plant a bee garden, or add pollen and nectar sources to your existing gardens
3. Identify and preserve "weeds" that are important food sources for bees (goldenrod for example; go to Urban Bee Gardens for a West Coast list, and here for a more general list.
4. Start keeping bees, but do some homework first. The biggest cause of CCD may be the way we're keeping bees!

All I need is a digital camera and some photos, and I'll hit the garden club meeting circuit!

Is it spring yet? Never mind summer.

2009-05-31T20:08:00.000-04:00

Another week of typical confused Michigan weather: days in the 70s, then 50s (same day), and almost 2 inches of rain after a couple very dry weeks. We dodged a frost by 2 degrees last night, and the next few nights could be touchy. Right now, I'm very thankful for living on a slope. Our cold air tends to slide right across the road to the neighbor's. A friend thinks it's going to be a cool spring, good for brassicas and spinach. I guess I can live with that.

The rain brought the pond back up after it had dried to mud. It's only about as big as a bedroom, but last year we had frog and toad cacophonies, I mean choruses, for weeks. So far this year, it's been spring peepers and a couple nights have been warm enough for gray tree frogs. The ducks are happy again. They don't seem interested in nesting, but they love to scarf up seed from under the bird feeders.

The garden is pretty much in; it's still too cold to put out the basil and peppers. We went permaculture this year, following the keyhole garden strategy outlined in Gaia's Garden. While digging one of the circles, my spade hit something hard. (Damn!) After several more hits, we got curious. Turned out to be an old septic tank! That explains the chunks of black plastic pipe I kept digging up. No sign of water, so I'm assuming it's an old tank.

In homesteading, I've come to realize that everything you have is an asset! The lead pellets and blocks and wheel balancing weights I found are actually trade items for a muzzleloader hunter. The old doors covered with lead paint can be sliced up into covers for a cold frame. Maybe I should paint over the lead first. Still working on what to do with the 2 dryers left behind in the pole barn. Any ideas? The motors ought to be good for something.

In keeping with this philosophy, the newly discovered septic tank became an in-ground cistern for collecting rainwater! All I need to do is lift the lid, clean it out, run a couple downspouts into it, drill a hole in the lid and fit it with a hand pump from Lehman's catalog, and we'll be all set to water the garden all through those dry Julys. Add some filters and we could drink it! That all sounds soooo easy.

It's a girl! It's about 18,000 girls!

2009-05-15T20:44:00.000-04:00

I got a call at 6:45 a.m. from the "U.S. Government" according to the caller ID. Hello, Mr. President? It was the local Post Office informing me that our bees were there and could be picked up anytime (with the unspoken tone of "real soon!"). We put a hold on breakfast and drove over to pick up our 2 packages of bees.

Within a couple hours, and with the help of my knowledgeable beekeeping partner (he had a hive several years ago), we installed "our" bees safely in their new homes. Things went smoothly,and I was amazed how easy it was to stand in the middle of a cloud of buzzing insects. Perhaps this was because they were in a state of confusion, not a state of rage. Perhaps it was the veil and bee suit! Our daughter is often in the middle of things, and this was no exception. Dressed in a veil and gloves, she dove right in, brushing bees into the hives, and holding a queen cage at one point.

In the middle of the excitement, a bee landed on my shoulder, and I looked down into those compound eyes. It was one of those beautiful inter-species moments where we somehow connected. It felt like my admiration and adoration was returned in the form of trust. I know I'll do all I can to ensure the health and well-being of the hives, and not out of obligation. Somehow I know I'm gonna love these little ladies!

Mowing, herbs and bees

2009-05-10T21:53:00.000-04:00

I pulled to zero-carbon reel mower out of the barn and cut some grass today. Just like last year, I found myself wrestling with the merits of mowing, which are few, versus the merits of leaving the "weeds" for their useful and enjoyable properties. Once you know a bit about herbalism, it's damned hard to mow a lawn! This year though, I got to it earlier and I didn't have the big thistle to leave for the goldfinches, or the fuzzy leaves of mulleins to leave for the kids to feel.

I did leave two patches of dandelions, however. Heresy! How could I do it? It was sooo easy; I have much more respect for dandelions than for grass. Dandelion greens are great in a spring salad, their blossoms can be made into wine (need to try that!), the dried roots can be used as a coffee substitute. As if that's not enough the tap root pulls nutrients up from deep in the soil. Can grass do all that?? Just say no to Roundup, and say yes to a yard full of sunshine.

As I walked by those patches of dandelions, I checked for any bee activity. True, the high of the the day was maybe 50 degrees, but there were no bees. It's just spooky to see so many flowers blooming right now, and so few bees.

We have 2 hives set up and the bees are due to arrive any day by U.S. Postal Service. Neither rain nor snow, nor buzzing boxes .... Stay tuned!

My daughter and I are going to participate in a bee survey this year, too. We found it at www.greatsunflower.org . Sounds like fun, and we're waiting for our sunflower seeds to arrive. If anyone actually reads this, check it out and participate. The bees need you!

A glimpse into my world

2009-05-06T21:36:00.000-04:00

So here I am, digital world. Just a few clicks for me, but a giant leap away from Amish-kind. In my careful consideration of the impact of technology on life, we'll see how this goes. This blog may disappear if it starts sucking up too much of my time. Still, I am driven by a desire (?) to share thoughts and stuff I find with those who surf late at night and stumble across this site. I am under no illusions that I will hand down great wisdom, but maybe something will be useful to someone.

If you're willing to read my rants and such, so much the better. I'll try to offer something worth reading. As a disclaimer, those with minds like steel traps (i.e. rusted shut) should click the back button right now. We all need to stretch our minds with some intellectual yoga now and then. If you're unwilling to do so, well, you already know everything you need to know.

Snowy Hollow is a small acreage in northwestern lower Michigan, on a north-facing gentle slope, just down from one of the highest spots in the county. We moved here a year ago, almost to the day, with the dream of growing some of our own food and raising our kids where they can get dirty in a good way. Most of the place is wooded, but some of that was thinned heavily and sloppily. Several trees were "barked up" in the logging operation. Our habitats include mature maple, some middle-aged bigtooth aspen, a power line swath, and a bit of grassy front yard.

Our big adventure here is raising a family and nurturing a relationship with this piece of Mother Earth. In so many places, the spirit of the land has been driven into hiding, or it has abandon hope and deserted us. Perhaps, over the course of a lifetime, I can create or restore a place where that spirit would feel welcome. For me, that presence makes the difference between occupying a plce and really living there.