Been building, not blogging

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

"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?

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

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

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

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!

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.