Reality Check

Here's Natasha surveying The Back Forty (Feet), sitting near the 360 degree swivel table Steve made to put the solar oven on...

Some things have not gone well on our little homestead recently. First, all of our poor bees died over the winter. We don't know if it was because they had mites, or if there wasn't enough sun behind that bee enclosure, or because there weren't enough consecutive warm days this winter for them to get outside to eliminate, or because the hive got too moist inside. Most likely, it was a combination of all of these things. It's not CCD, that's for sure. Lots of people here lost their bees over the hard winter, including our next door neighbor. And it wasn't that they didn't have enough honey. We had not touched their honey, as they wouldn't have had enough if we did. Now we have about a dozen huge jars of it; Steve spent a very sticky Monday in late March with a rented extractor, and then probably another four hours scraping off and cleaning the foundation sheets, (where they build up the comb for their brood), for the new bees, who are doing well. The new spot for the hive is sunnier, behind a beautiful woven willow gate and chicken wire fence that Steve made to keep the cats from getting too close. The willow branches are from our small willow tree that was so heavily damaged by the December blizzard that it had to be taken down; it had to go anyway, so we could put something that will fruit in, but we were still sad to lose it.










Then we discovered that the peach tree has curly blight. Its first year of blossoming, and so beautiful, but it's not well. The treatment, apparently, is to remove lots of blossoms (more than one would usually) so it doesn't use up all its energy fruiting, make sure to give it seaweed extract as fertilizer and water it if there isn't much rain, then treat it organically with copper next spring.

The back yard, frankly, is a mess---on any trip across the yard, you stumble on clods of bare dirt, scraps of wood, fabric, or metal lying about, or holes that the chickens have scratched up for dust-bathing, or half-rotted sheets of cardboard lain down to help curb the invasive ornamentals. It's easy to catch an ankle in a twist of baling twine or a length of cut raspberry cane or multiflora rose that hasn't yet made it to the compost or stick pile yet. I want it to all look nice and tidy, but am realizing that it's hard to do that and still take care of the earth properly. Practicing permaculture is a SLOW process, so we have to wait and make mistakes.

At least the chickens are all happy and healthy, and the bush cherry is blooming beautifully and looks good. We should have cherries this year. I forgot to get a photo of it, as it's in the front, unlike most of our projects. Steve innoculated more shiitake mushroom logs yesterday. The first set, which might not fruit again, were innoculated in the spring of 2007, and we never got around to posting to show how it was done. He bought spores through the mail, and then drilled holes in oak logs that he got from a big old oak that came down on our friend Glenn's land. (Oak is best because the shiitakes prefer it and it holds its bark longer, so it stays moist longer.) The spores get pushed into the holes with the innoculator tool, and then he seals the hole with melted paraffin. Turns out you can use beeswax, too, and we have lots of that, so he'll use it next time. You'll notice he set up shop in the shade; that's so the open holes don't dry out too much while he's working.

Permaculture Art: Arborsculpture

Okay, earthsip is supposed to be an ad-free blog, and this posting is KIND of an ad, but if the means are the ends... Being a reader of the Celtic Tree Oracle (aka Ogham), I (Marina) have a particular affinity for trees, and maybe that's why I find arborsculpture so appealing. Arborsculpture is also permaculture in action, an ancient art form now enjoying a resurgence. Arborsculptor Richard Reames shapes the trunks of young, flexible saplings so that they grow into chairs, fences, gazebos, garden borders, benches, tables, trellises, or earth art. Some of the trees are left in the ground, to continue as living artwork or furniture, like the kitty perch, above, and some are cut after being grown into the shape that's needed, like this chair:
While some of these creations are very elaborate, and take decades to grow, you can also do something simpler. I couldn't find a good enough photo, but I particularly like the living table and chairs grown of willow, and still rooted in the ground. (And no, they apparently don't grow too big to continue using them as furniture.) As Reames says, "Everyone with sun and a container of soil can grow trees into the shapes of their desires." Arborsculpture is sustainable, cheap, unique, and beautiful, as well as an example of several permaculture principles---the First Principle of Conservation, since the use of energy would be minimal and you would use only what you need. It also illustrates the Second Principle, Stacking Functions, getting many yields (outputs) from one element (thing) in your system, because as long as the tree is growing in the earth, it can provide shade, shelter wildlife, be the building material itself, be a wind break, fertilize the soil, prevent erosion, raise the water table, and sequester CO2. Depending on your available time and skills, it could also be an example of the Third Principle, Appropriate Scale, where what we design is on a human scale and can be done with the available time, skills, and money that you have. And practicing arborsculpture will certainly help anyone learn the patience necessary to figuring out what your particular spot on earth needs. As Reames says, "The entry price to practicing this art is to check your speed at the garden gate and enter the slow motion world of tree time."

To learn more about arborsculpture and Reames' techniques, or to sign up for one of his classes, or purchase his most recent book, "Arborsculpture- Solutions for a Small Planet," check out his website or his blog His website includes a fascinating, well-done video on the history of arborsculpture, as well as instructions on how to grow a living chair and a living fence.

(But please don't do this with your bicycle! :))

Compassion Begins with Mother Earth

BY STARHAWK


Earth based spirituality covers such a wide spectrum of diverse religions and spiritual traditions, from indigenous traditions to modern NeoPagansim. We share no unified dogma, and no one person carries the authority to speak for all, certainly not me.

But I can say personally that the common thread I find in all our traditions is the deep understanding of interconnectedness. We are one interwoven tapestry of life on this earth, and from that basic insight arises compassion.

Compassion extends beyond love and sympathy for other human beings. Compassion includes compassion for the earth, for all the interrelated and interacting life forms, for the plants, animals, birds, trees, even the microorganisms that sustain life. For if we don't include that broader community in the scope of our compassion, if we continue to destroy the very systems that support our lives, we cannot survive. And we will create the devastation that leads to immense human suffering, loss and death.

Here's a compassion story: In the forest, the roots of trees are linked by a network of mycorrhizal fungi, whose threadlike hyphae interpenetrate the root hairs and extend their reach for water and nutrients. Scientists have traced pathways with radioactive isotopes, and learned that through these webs of fungi, trees feed their young. Moreover, trees growing in the sun will feed trees growing in the shade--even trees of another species. That's compassion!

Here's another: a couple of billions of years ago, life was simple. Just bacteria, simple cells without even a nucleus, floating in primal seas as they had already done for a couple of billion years. But even at that time, life was linked in complex associations. The green things, the ancestors of plants, used sunlight to make food from water and the carbon dioxide that filled the atmosphere. They gave off oxygen, and breathers evolved to make use of it, to burn food and use the energy, giving off carbon dioxide. All of life was linked in one common breath, passing back and forth from green to red.

Photosynthesizers could just lay back and be, basking in the sunlight. But breathers had to work, to go about and find food. They gobbled each other up with gusto.

But one day, as one primal organism chowed down on another, compassion intervened. Instead of dissolving and digesting its meal, the eater let its victim remain whole inside of itself, fusing into a new form of being, the ancestor of the cells in our own bodies and all complex organisms--cells with nuclei, eukaryotes.

Fusion became the rage. The new cells were bigger and could develop in all kinds of interesting ways, developing specialized organelles to do particular jobs, like making energy or propelling the whole thing around. And with their membranes relieved of many metabolic tasks, the new cells were free to combine in new ways, leading to an explosion of multicellular life, and all the strange and interesting things that came after.

And so compassion is embedded in every cell of our bodies. Imagine, then, what beauty and diversity might evolve if we made compassion the foundation of our religions and social structures.

***********************

Starhawk is, in her own words, "the author of many works celebrating the Goddess movement and Earth-based, feminist spirituality. I’m a peace, environmental, and global justice activist and trainer, a permaculture designer and teacher, a Pagan and Witch. To see how it all weaves together, follow the many strands of my web." She is also cofounder of the Reclaiming collective in San Francisco, California (USA), and wrote one of my favorite novels, the compassionate utopian/antiutopian novel of the future, The Fifth Sacred Thing (1993), which manages to see both the worst and the best possibilities for our future and, most importantly, gives us the tools to help us realize how to make the best choice. Her newest book is The Earth Path: Grounding Your Spirit in the Rhythms of Nature. Committed to bringing the techniques and creative power of spirituality to political activism, Starhawk travels internationally teaching magic, the tools of ritual, the skills of activism, and classess in permaculture (both online and off).

The Amazing Poultry Sisters

AKA Sophia and Sara Fezziwig Chicken (L to R). (I gave them the middle name of Fezziwig because they have what look like sideburns, reminiscent of the character Fezziwig in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol.") Here they are in August, at about three and a half months, perching on our back porch railing, hoping for special treats before bedtime. Little blue eggs appear in their nest box every other day or so. (Sophie was the first to lay, back in early November.) What are vegans doing with chickens and eggs?! (You might be wondering.) Even though we don't believe that humans need to eat animal products to be healthy, we have eaten a few eggs from time to time from my (vegetarian) sister-in-law's rescued chickens. When we started getting involved in and learning more about sustainability and permaculture, keeping chickens for eggs became a question for us since eggs are one way of getting protein without wasting alot of resources to do it. We still aren't entirely comfortable with it. But most vegans were vegetarians first, and we do plan to sell some of the eggs. If folks are transitioning from veggie to vegan, or even if they never even go veggie, better that they eat eggs than "meat," and better that they get those eggs from chickens who are treated well in every way, and who will never be slaughtered, whether they are laying or not.




Now that it's winter, Sara and Sophia live in a wonderfully snug coop that Steve built for them, where they can go out into an enclosed space during the day, and peck at their head of cabbage, as well as other morsels (soy okara, rice, tomatoes, plums, any kind of greens, and tempeh are favorites). They can go back up into their loft bedroom any time they want, where they have a heater. The temperature is easily monitored indoors, and if it starts getting too cold out there, we heat up big cans of water (empty olive oil cans) in the oven for them.

Their personalities are so different---Sara is the leader, but Sophia is more outgoing. Where Sara holds back, Sophie rushes in enthusiastically. For months, they were wild for worms, and would rush to wherever Steve was digging in his gardening to look for them. By the time fall came, they were less interested in worms, though, maybe knowing their protein needs had changed? They're very happy girls, and love to be held and scritched around their neck feathers.

Someone else's garbage, our treasures

(by Marina)

People are amazed when they hear that we have paid off our (modest to begin with) mortgage, and they want to know how we did it. The plain answer is dumpster diving. I love dumpster diving. (We also call it "crow shopping," because crows like to check out what's on the curb, too, sometimes along with us.) I never know what I'm going to find, and while I don't always find what I thought I wanted, in the end, I seem to find what I need. And I've found that I end up needing what I find. A nice little circle there, and it's all free and legal. Where we live, the university student population moves once a year, and they throw out a truly astonishing array of things. One person's trash is another person's treasure, they say, but I have to wonder about the thinking behind some of these throwaways. I mean, just because one disc of your eight-disc complete Beethoven string quartets CD set gets broken, does it really make sense to throw away the other seven? And what about Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul's? Some things I've found have told their own stories pretty clearly, like the handmade wooden cat carrier with "Kitty" painted on it, surrounded by flowers, and inside, a St. Jude's medal---the patron saint of lost causes: someone's dearly-loved cat who was lost, one way or another. Then there was the cardboard box containing two military-issue walkie-talkies (still working), some low-caliber ammunition, and an autographed photo of a young guy with very short hair and a name like Brett or Britt or maybe Rhett surrounded by the 1993 (I believe it was) members of the "Texas Bikini Team," whose big smiles were belied by their overly-made up eyes. I guess the Team never called him, like they said they would, so, after trying to contact them by walkie-talkie, he finally gave up and threw away their photo. (At least he got rid of the live ammunition---wasn't THAT upset about it.)

Anyhow, here's a partial list of things we have found in the "trash" in the past 5 years that have been in perfectly good condition: Cookie tins, silverware, blankets, dishes, candles, candleholders, pens and pencils, books, CDs, LP records, cassette tapes, a big recliner, wooden chairs, a cat tree, a cat scratching post cat carriers and litter boxes, aquariums, picture frames, lamps, towels, plants, pots for plants, cooking pots, cast iron frying pans, popcorn tins, microwave ovens and toaster ovens, writing and printing paper, leaf rakes, lawn chairs, insulated coolers, a mini-trampoline, exercise equipment (including a working treadmill), tables, doors, luggage, mops and brooms, reel lawnmowers, laundry racks, clothes (including a like-new North Face winter coat), shoes, bicycles, power tools, hand tools, bicycle tires, videotapes, VCRs, stereo tuners, bicycle parts, purses, CD players, bicycle trailers, dishracks, laundry baskets, notebooks, folders, a desk organizer, unopened reams of business stationary (good for printing out rough drafs), rolls of thick printer's paper as well as gift wrapping paper, sheets still in the package, a bookcase-style headboard, a huge antique chest of drawers, a small chest of drawers missing only one of its handles, spice racks, kitchen cabinets, sofa cushions, couches, futon frames, futons, incense burners, jewelry, framed art prints, charcoal grills, working radios, a beautiful purple and pink handmade and handpainted art supply case decorated with yellow tulips, crayons, canned food, cleaning products and sponges, children's toys, etc., etc.... Some of these things needed minor repairs; most didn't need more than a little wash-up.

And this was without even trying very hard, i.e., we don't go and hang out near dumpsters at big apartment complexes. If you did, you would likely find even more stuff. Whatever we can't use goes to friends, the Salvation Army shelter, Goodwill, St. Vinny's or the food bank. Food can be free, too----we grow our own vegetables and herbs, pick apples off trees that no one else seems to notice on public "wasteland," eat and cook vegetarian. Eating vegetarian really is cheaper if you *cook* and don't just rely on frozen "meat" substitutes. Every year, we make more pesto than we can eat out of wild garlic mustard (which grows everywhere now, it seems); I thought it would be very healthy but taste ghastly, but I was wrong, it was delicious, and a jar makes a nice gift, too. Here's the recipe from Wildman Steve Brill's edible wild foods cookbook, "The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook."

And that's how we paid off our mortgage, essentially, by gauging what it is we "need" by what we find as much as by what we want. I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to settle---on the contrary, I feel like more stuff comes my way than I can ever use, and plenty of it is high quality, too. The only reason we still work (and I work parttime now) is for health insurance, because we can get almost everything else we need from someone else's trash. Here's a great website for more fun and lots of info about "Dumpster Diving for Fun and Profit."

We also belong to a local Timebank, where we can exchange "time dollars" for other people's services, (and even fair-trade chocolate, wild rice and olive oil!), and get to know some nice people---but that's a whole story in itself. And I'm working on how to make personal care products: cheaper, better for the environment, healthier, but I do wonder: how much trouble will it be? Stay tuned...