Oven at around 10 a.m.
Oven at around 11:30 a.m.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Llopis oven-building -- Day Two, Part two
Paola, a kind neighbor who's been helping us out on the cob house recently. She's on the oven this week, partly because we really need the help and partly because she's Columbian and can speak easily to the two Spanish oven-builders (Francisco is pictured here.)
Juan, the other builder.
Oh my God, they just keep coming....
Another photo of celosia; I love this plant. It's my first time growing it or even seeing it.
Not the best picture, but this is Orange Prince, almost identical to Zulu Prince except its color.
Gaillardia, or blanket flower. This one also grows at Green Gulch.
Cleome. Still don't know how to pronounce that word. The flowers are pretty cool, and the stems are beautiful, but very thorny -- worse than roses. Not the best cut flower for that reason. Again, it's the first time I've ever grown or even seen this plant. We only have a few of them in the garden, because the seed I had was really old.
Sun chokes, or Jerusalem artichokes. I grew this on the farm in Woodside last year. It's a close relative of the sunflower, and does have pretty flowers. We grew it this year for three reasons: 1) for the flowers, 2) for its tubers, which are quite yummy, and 3) we planted it in a parabola enclosing the top of the garden (which is on a slope), so that cold air would be diverted away from the majority of the garden. The only problem is that the plants only get tall now, and we needed tall, leafy plants in May, when it was pretty cold and frosty.
And more flowers....
A type of Zinnia called "Persian Carpet." There are so many color patterns in this one variety, which makes them a great cut flower. I don't like zinnias much, but I love these.
Bank of sunflowers....
Another color of statice. Statice also make good dried cut flowers, which is important because at some point we will run out of fresh ones and could start selling dried ones to the CSA. We're trying out different flowers, like celosia and marigold, as dried flowers -- cutting, bundling and hanging them, and seeing whether they'll dry well or whether all they're petals fall off.
This is one of the few medicinal herbs we're growing this year: yerba mansa, which normally grows around hot springs, and needs lots of water. The root is used for medicine; don't ask me what it's used for. It's hard for me to remember.
Safflower, on it's way to drying up....
A beautiful butterfly
Dunno what butterfly or moth this is; it's feeding on a type of pincushion flower (scabiosa) called "starflower everlasting," which is great because it has pretty flowers and interesting seed-heads, both of which are good as cut-flowers. You can see both flowers and seed-heads real well in the last photo.
More gaw-jus flora
Some kind of sunflower; my mum liked this variety best. I like it too.
Sweet William, one of my favorites from the Green Gulch garden. Of all the seedlings we planted, this was the only plant that actually flowered, for some weird reason; we have lots of sweet williams growing beautiful, healthy leaves, but this is the only one that sent out stalks. If anyone has an idea why this is so, please comment.
Milkweed; I collected this seed from Tassajara a few years ago. They're not growing well, and I think it's 'cause they're being overwatered.
Zulu Prince, a type of daisy.
Black hollyhock
Some gaw-jus flowers
Giant Princess Asters....
Celosia.....
Milkweed ("Silky Formula Mix")
Statice...
Hollyhocks......
Llopis oven-building -- Day Two
Jo on the job....
Oven after a couple of hours this morning
Oven early this afternoon....
Oven at about 5 pm....
Oven at 5:30 pm........ So hard to pick which pictures, out of the hundred I took today. Hopefully this gives you some idea......
Llopis oven-building -- Day One
Hey y'all,
This happened yesterday, and I only was able to take pix right before dark, so the pictures are a little dim. I only took a few; today I took about 100 photos, in between waiting to mix more concrete or carry more bricks. I'll enclose those shortly. I'm really into this whole process, seeing how it gets built. And the two Spanish guys are great. Anyway, hope you enjoy.....
More garden pix
at
Hey there,
We took these on one of our Wednesday morning flower harvests for the CSA account that we have. Eden's the one lying demurely in the truck; then there's a picture of me & Eden's Aunt Marge, a florist/horticulturalist herself who helped us one Wednesday morning, and gave us some good tips about flower cutting/storage. For instance, it's good to have flowers put in vases with warm water and sugar. And always cut the bottom of the stem at an angle, so that the plant can continue to take up water/nutrients when it's standing in a vase. Another more obscure one is that if you cut milkweed (we have a showy variety called "silky formula mix"), you should singe the bottom of the stem to keep the milky residue from seeping out.
That's it; have a great day....
Hey there,
We took these on one of our Wednesday morning flower harvests for the CSA account that we have. Eden's the one lying demurely in the truck; then there's a picture of me & Eden's Aunt Marge, a florist/horticulturalist herself who helped us one Wednesday morning, and gave us some good tips about flower cutting/storage. For instance, it's good to have flowers put in vases with warm water and sugar. And always cut the bottom of the stem at an angle, so that the plant can continue to take up water/nutrients when it's standing in a vase. Another more obscure one is that if you cut milkweed (we have a showy variety called "silky formula mix"), you should singe the bottom of the stem to keep the milky residue from seeping out.
That's it; have a great day....
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cobbin', Rise Up's Oven, plus pix of Eden and Danny's Flower/Herb Garden
Hey there,
I've included a few pix of the flower garden Eden and I have been cultivating the last several months. I wish I could find the connection between my camera and my laptop, because I'd like to take some closer photos of individual flower and herb patches, to give you a better look. But I'm thankful that my brother Paul was up here and took these pix for me. You can click on them to get a closer look....
....I've done a fair bit of work on the cob structure this week. I patched some holes in the wall with a clay/straw mix; smoothed out some of the uneven strokes of ceiling plaster with a sponge; applied earthen plaster to part of a wall; sifted clay and sand for future plaster use; raked out alot of cob that had accumulated on the floor, then leveled the floor out, dampened and tamped the floor down, added sifted road base to the floor. This coming week I'll be doing a few little things -- sifting the remainder of the clay and sand piles, wiping down the wooden rafters and applying wood finish to them, then taping their edges. The following week James, the teacher who led the cob workshop here in June that built this structure, is coming in with a crew, and they will apply the remainder of the earthen plaster on the inner walls, paint a lime wash plaster on the ceiling, and lastly, they'll put in the cob floor, now that it's all level and everything. I'm hoping I get to be involved with all of that, but I have other projects I need to work on too.
...The other big piece of news is that 2 men from Spain have arrived to install the brick oven in the common building. It's called a Llopis (pronounced "yo-peeth," or "yo-pees" if you're using a Latin American accent), and it's a special oven, costing around $50K, that is wood-fired and will be the oven for Jo & Rosie's bread-baking business. It's pretty awesome, and I will be helping provide the grunt labor for the two technicians, Juan and Francisco, who seem like pretty cool guys. I wish I spoke Spanish. Anyway, I'm hoping I can figure out my camera problem because I'm gonna take pix of the progress of the project, to show y'all.
Finally, it looks like I'm on for a presentation on Full Bloom at the Green Arcade, the new bookstore on Market & Gough that my mom's friend is opening. It looks like I'll be doing it around the 22nd of October. I'll report back when the date is for sure; I'd love to see friends and family there that night, if they can make it.
That's it!
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Pix
Here are a few photos my brother Paul took over Labor Day weekend....
--> Soon to be the cupola of our common building....
--> A perspective on the Common building; This coming weekend, two Spaniards are flying in and beginning work on installing the Spanish wood-fired bread oven that Rise Up Bakery, the artisan bread bakery started by Jo & Rosie, will use. Balers will be driving down from Portland as well to begin building the strawbale walls that cover a third of the building. This is the last time I'll post any photos of the building looking this open.....
--> Distant view of the common building, with our kitchen garden in the foreground. Half of the garden has been appropriated to store lumber needed by the construction crew, so we should have a much bigger food garden next year.....
--> A long view of the common area (the common building is out of view, but on the left side of this picture). The kitchen garden's in the foreground, and left to right are the greenouse, the current common building, and Ryan & Eden's orange strawbale cottage. I'm living downstairs in the main building right now, and we all use the tiny kitchen and living room area. All of that will change when the common building is finished......
--> Looking from the common building at the kitchen garden, with a few posts for construction that still need sanding/finishing.....
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Hey y'all,
-- Good news for me from yesterday: after exactly six months of trial membership here at Full Bloom Farm, I was accepted as an "associate member" for the indefinite future. Basically, I'll be a renter, with say in community issues. It's possible that in the future I could transition into being a full member, which means I'd be a part-owner, with a 30-year mortgage like the six other members of the collective, and with a say in decisions that affect the property. I don't have a reliable way of paying off the loan, and for now I'm quite happy to pay rent, participate in discussions and chores and meals, and work here on the land. So it was a happy day. I feel like I can move on with my life because I know where I'll be for the next little while.
....I've been plastering the new cob structure a bit in the past week, which I'm really enjoying. Basically, you make flour paste by boiling water and adding flour to it; then you add a mixture of sifted clay and sand, and some powdered dye for coloring, and there you have it! A nice smooth plaster. The inside walls are going to be a nice shade of red. The whole building is only 200 square feet; next summer they're gonna build a second 200 sq. foot building next to the current one.
It's 38 degrees outside right now -- can you believe it? Apparently there's ice on the windshields outside right now. I walked down to the flower garden with Ryan last night, and we noticed that
some of the winter squash we're growing down there had frost damage on their leaves. Coming from the Bay Area, where you can pretty much grow things year-round, it's shocking to me that the first frost is gonna come sometime this month (and the last frost is often in June).
....A friend of my mom's, who worked with her at Cody's Books in Berkeley, has started a new bookstore in San Francisco (it's called "The Green Arcade," on Market St. at Gough) that's dedicated to books exploring issues of environmental sustainability. I went with her to see the new store, and got to talking with Patrick, my mom's friend, who asked me if I would be interested in doing a presentation on Full Bloom at the bookstore. So I'm hoping that I can come down to the Bay in mid-October to do this presentation. That's pretty exciting. I'm gonna try and figure out how to use Powerpoint software, as well as find the little piece of equipment that transfers digital photos from my camera to the computer. Then I have to come up with the presentation, and a reading list that Patrick can order for his store to accompany the presentation. I'll let you know if this actually happens, and when -- it would be great to have friends there.
I'll end here with one of my favorite poems, by Charles Bukowski, which I'm gonna read at my men's group tonight; hope you enjoy:
THERE'S A BLUEBIRD IN MY HEART
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
....Enjoy your day......
-- Good news for me from yesterday: after exactly six months of trial membership here at Full Bloom Farm, I was accepted as an "associate member" for the indefinite future. Basically, I'll be a renter, with say in community issues. It's possible that in the future I could transition into being a full member, which means I'd be a part-owner, with a 30-year mortgage like the six other members of the collective, and with a say in decisions that affect the property. I don't have a reliable way of paying off the loan, and for now I'm quite happy to pay rent, participate in discussions and chores and meals, and work here on the land. So it was a happy day. I feel like I can move on with my life because I know where I'll be for the next little while.
....I've been plastering the new cob structure a bit in the past week, which I'm really enjoying. Basically, you make flour paste by boiling water and adding flour to it; then you add a mixture of sifted clay and sand, and some powdered dye for coloring, and there you have it! A nice smooth plaster. The inside walls are going to be a nice shade of red. The whole building is only 200 square feet; next summer they're gonna build a second 200 sq. foot building next to the current one.
It's 38 degrees outside right now -- can you believe it? Apparently there's ice on the windshields outside right now. I walked down to the flower garden with Ryan last night, and we noticed that
some of the winter squash we're growing down there had frost damage on their leaves. Coming from the Bay Area, where you can pretty much grow things year-round, it's shocking to me that the first frost is gonna come sometime this month (and the last frost is often in June).
....A friend of my mom's, who worked with her at Cody's Books in Berkeley, has started a new bookstore in San Francisco (it's called "The Green Arcade," on Market St. at Gough) that's dedicated to books exploring issues of environmental sustainability. I went with her to see the new store, and got to talking with Patrick, my mom's friend, who asked me if I would be interested in doing a presentation on Full Bloom at the bookstore. So I'm hoping that I can come down to the Bay in mid-October to do this presentation. That's pretty exciting. I'm gonna try and figure out how to use Powerpoint software, as well as find the little piece of equipment that transfers digital photos from my camera to the computer. Then I have to come up with the presentation, and a reading list that Patrick can order for his store to accompany the presentation. I'll let you know if this actually happens, and when -- it would be great to have friends there.
I'll end here with one of my favorite poems, by Charles Bukowski, which I'm gonna read at my men's group tonight; hope you enjoy:
THERE'S A BLUEBIRD IN MY HEART
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
....Enjoy your day......
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Flowers, Chicks
hey there,
-- Not much to report this time around. I just spent 3 hours harvesting and arranging flowers, which is a lot less time then Eden and I normally spend. Normally we harvest way too many flowers, then bring them back to the porch of the main house, arrange them into bouquets and then clean up the porch afterwards. This time we went out to the flower garden, harvested and made bouquets down there, and had no extra flowers, plus no clean-up time. And it was fun to harvest not in bulk (a half-bucket of asters, a bucket of sunflowers, etc.), but just to walk around picking a bouquet's worth of flowers, tying them up, then going back out again to get the next bouquet.
....I'm most of the way thru painting wood finish onto the barn. The finish is to protect the wood from UV rays, plus preserve the color of the wood. I had started by climbing up this really long ladder, to get the top of the barn, which is about 20 feet high or so, then climbing down, moving the ladder five or six feet, then climbing up to paint. Then we got an extension for our paint roller, and since then it's been pretty quick. I've been saving this one side of the barn because the mother hen was with her chicks in that area and I didn't want to disturb them, but the mother and 4 of the 5 chicks were killed a couple of nights ago, so I will be able to finish the barn now, albeit with a heavy heart. We were all very sad about it. Matt had tried to get the hen and chicks into the coop, but to no avail, and so it was probably just a matter of time before a predator ate them, since they were outside. There's one chick left, with no mother, and we've put it in an extra sink we have, in the barn, with straw, food and water. I think we're gonna get a heat lamp as well. Hopefully it'll make it, but it's pretty sad -- I don't think it's gonna get the love it needs, since we're all pretty busy.
......That's it for now.....
-- Not much to report this time around. I just spent 3 hours harvesting and arranging flowers, which is a lot less time then Eden and I normally spend. Normally we harvest way too many flowers, then bring them back to the porch of the main house, arrange them into bouquets and then clean up the porch afterwards. This time we went out to the flower garden, harvested and made bouquets down there, and had no extra flowers, plus no clean-up time. And it was fun to harvest not in bulk (a half-bucket of asters, a bucket of sunflowers, etc.), but just to walk around picking a bouquet's worth of flowers, tying them up, then going back out again to get the next bouquet.
....I'm most of the way thru painting wood finish onto the barn. The finish is to protect the wood from UV rays, plus preserve the color of the wood. I had started by climbing up this really long ladder, to get the top of the barn, which is about 20 feet high or so, then climbing down, moving the ladder five or six feet, then climbing up to paint. Then we got an extension for our paint roller, and since then it's been pretty quick. I've been saving this one side of the barn because the mother hen was with her chicks in that area and I didn't want to disturb them, but the mother and 4 of the 5 chicks were killed a couple of nights ago, so I will be able to finish the barn now, albeit with a heavy heart. We were all very sad about it. Matt had tried to get the hen and chicks into the coop, but to no avail, and so it was probably just a matter of time before a predator ate them, since they were outside. There's one chick left, with no mother, and we've put it in an extra sink we have, in the barn, with straw, food and water. I think we're gonna get a heat lamp as well. Hopefully it'll make it, but it's pretty sad -- I don't think it's gonna get the love it needs, since we're all pretty busy.
......That's it for now.....
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Chicken existenz
.....Spent the morning, as I've been doing every Wednesday now for awhile, harvesting and arranging flowers with Eden for the local CSA. So many gorgeous ones, including a couple of flowers that just became ready this week -- tithonia (Mexican Sunflower) and giant princess asters. We harvested a bunch of sunflowers this week, more than usual.
I've decided to start sleeping out of doors more. I'm gonna sleep near the flower/herb garden so that if I'm up for it, I can spend a little time working in there when I wake up each morning. Sukey, my cat, has accompanied me out there and slept with me. One trouble I've been having is how hard the ground is, and how unused to sleeping on hard surfaces I am. I've been reading a book on health/nutrition, however, and the author recounts how she had read that sleeping on hard surfaces is much healthier, and that she herself only got out of the habit of sleeping on cushy beds thru a month-long backpacking trip she took in the Cascades, where she slept on the ground each night. Now she feels uncomfortable on soft beds and totally at home on hard surfaces. She said it took her about a week of the backpacking trip to get used to it. So I want to try it and see how I feel. It's a good litmus test to see if living in a wigwam would be good for me. Not that I couldn't sleep on a soft futon or something inside a wigwam, but the living outdoors part would be very similar.
One of our chickens hatched some of her eggs -- an anomaly here, since we normally eat all the eggs. It's been wonderful seeing her, with five or six little chicks scuttling around after her. Today I was applying wood finish to the barn and saw one of the chicks lying motionless near me, far away from the mother. Eden and I spent time looking for the mom, and couldn't find her, so I kept the chick near me while I painted. The chick was mostly still, although it followed me somewhat as I made my way down the side of the barn, peeping. Very sweet. It was distressing to see this chick looking so forlorn though, so I tried feeding it, and found out from Matt where the mother was nesting with her chicks, which is behind the barn. Also I noticed that the chick had a wound on her bottom. She wasn't getting around like the other chicks do. Anyway, Eden then tried tending to her wouund, bathing it in warm water and feeding it a bit. But it didn't seem to be working. So Ryan killed it, to put it out of it's misery, and since the mother was not taking any interest in it. It was very sad, and Ryan didn't want to talk when I asked him how he had killed the chick. We've been watching the old animated version of Charlotte's Web, which is a great movie, and somehow I kept thinking of it as I thought about the chick, because it's all about saving a runt pig that the farmer doesn't value. Matt got upset about the wounded chick and wondered if we should be taking care of chickens at all, since we don't know really how to care for them; the mother and her chicks are outside of the coop at night -- prime prey for animals in the area, and Matt couldn't corner the mother and children in order to move them to the coop. He felt like alot of other farmers with experience would know what to do, and that we shouldn't bother raising them if we can't deal with situations like these. It's a natural way to react to a situation like this.
And that's it. Just checkin' in.....
I've decided to start sleeping out of doors more. I'm gonna sleep near the flower/herb garden so that if I'm up for it, I can spend a little time working in there when I wake up each morning. Sukey, my cat, has accompanied me out there and slept with me. One trouble I've been having is how hard the ground is, and how unused to sleeping on hard surfaces I am. I've been reading a book on health/nutrition, however, and the author recounts how she had read that sleeping on hard surfaces is much healthier, and that she herself only got out of the habit of sleeping on cushy beds thru a month-long backpacking trip she took in the Cascades, where she slept on the ground each night. Now she feels uncomfortable on soft beds and totally at home on hard surfaces. She said it took her about a week of the backpacking trip to get used to it. So I want to try it and see how I feel. It's a good litmus test to see if living in a wigwam would be good for me. Not that I couldn't sleep on a soft futon or something inside a wigwam, but the living outdoors part would be very similar.
One of our chickens hatched some of her eggs -- an anomaly here, since we normally eat all the eggs. It's been wonderful seeing her, with five or six little chicks scuttling around after her. Today I was applying wood finish to the barn and saw one of the chicks lying motionless near me, far away from the mother. Eden and I spent time looking for the mom, and couldn't find her, so I kept the chick near me while I painted. The chick was mostly still, although it followed me somewhat as I made my way down the side of the barn, peeping. Very sweet. It was distressing to see this chick looking so forlorn though, so I tried feeding it, and found out from Matt where the mother was nesting with her chicks, which is behind the barn. Also I noticed that the chick had a wound on her bottom. She wasn't getting around like the other chicks do. Anyway, Eden then tried tending to her wouund, bathing it in warm water and feeding it a bit. But it didn't seem to be working. So Ryan killed it, to put it out of it's misery, and since the mother was not taking any interest in it. It was very sad, and Ryan didn't want to talk when I asked him how he had killed the chick. We've been watching the old animated version of Charlotte's Web, which is a great movie, and somehow I kept thinking of it as I thought about the chick, because it's all about saving a runt pig that the farmer doesn't value. Matt got upset about the wounded chick and wondered if we should be taking care of chickens at all, since we don't know really how to care for them; the mother and her chicks are outside of the coop at night -- prime prey for animals in the area, and Matt couldn't corner the mother and children in order to move them to the coop. He felt like alot of other farmers with experience would know what to do, and that we shouldn't bother raising them if we can't deal with situations like these. It's a natural way to react to a situation like this.
And that's it. Just checkin' in.....
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wigwammin' it
It was "only" 104 degrees today, after yesterday's 107. I spent the hottest part of both of those days outside, albeit in the shade -- yesterday, in the cob house doing plastering, and today helping Matt fill sandbags which we then used in the irrigation ditch. What's happening is that we are piping water from Yale Creek down a mile-long ditch that winds its way behind the farm fields, past our new irrigation pond and dumping out finally at our "old" pond (excavated last year). Anyway, this morning, while Matt was using the backhoe to excavate the last bit of trench near the old pond, I did some shovel work, leveling the trench and removing excess dirt. Then Matt and I added seven lengths of the 8" black corrugated irrigation pipe, bringing it all the way to the pond. After lunch, we went over to the compost/materials yard, filled up some sandbags, and then headed to the place in the trench where the pipe ends, carrying these heavy-ass sandbags over our shoulders for about 500 feet, which felt like forever because of the weight and the unevenness of the path. Anyway, once there, Matt placed the sandbags around the end of the pipe so that the water would be diverted into the pipe, not go around it. Then we drove over to where the trench meets Yale Creek. We carried more sandbags, and put them right in the creek, creating a funnel that diverts about half of the creek water into the pipe. We are waiting till next year to put pipe along the entire length of the creek, because we might be able to get a $10,000 grant to buy the rest of the pipe (we had to spend around $20K for the pipe we did buy, which covers most of the length of the ditch)
Our diverting the creek's water is the source of some contention with other local farmers, who also depend on Yale creek for their irrigation needs. We got a call the other day from a farmer named Judd who was having a hard time irrigating his fields, and wondered if we had been using some creek water (we hadn't). The fact that we are using pipe instead of letting the water flow straight in the ditch is saving tons of water -- apparently last year we used Yale Creek, but at a certain point in the day, the combination of leaks in the ditch (gopher holes, etc.) and evaporation from the heat made it so that the creek water never made it to the pond. Anyway, we have water rights to the land, but we have to be wise about conserving water, out of respect for our neighbors.
.....We have set up a date, August 26th, to talk about my future here once my six-month trial period is over (at the end of this month). So that's good; now that I have a date, I can collect my thoughts around my desires and needs for living at Full Bloom. To that end, I had a conversation with John Di Fruscia, a wonderful man who is the general contractor for the common building, as well as being deeply versed in wilderness survival/living skills. I've been thinking about what kind of structure I would want to live in, and Jo had mentioned a conversation he'd had with John about wigwams, which cost almost nothing in materials and are the most sustainable of buildings.
So I had a chance to get into the subject with John this afternoon, and I was completely enthralled. A wigwam is generally a circular structure, with flexible saplings set in the ground and being tied together at the top with rope (the only non-local material is the rope). The walls can be made of various materials, but we talked about weaving cattails together. There's an opening at the top of the ceiling, the very center, where the smoke from the fire (which is also in the center of the building), goes out. There's some kind of covering over that hole that allows the smoke to leave but keeps out snow/rain. ]The whole building is very low to the ground, for better insulation -- the only place one could stand up straight is in the very center, but since there's a fire pit there, there really is no place to stand up. However, since the building is only for spending nights in there, that didn't matter to the indigenous folks, who spent most of their daytime hours outside. Anyway, the opening to the wigwam is a crawl space a few feet high, insulated with animal skins or blankets, and you crawl through a short tunnel, through another set of skins/blankets, and then you're in the main building. It's small too -- probably 12 feet in diameter, something like that. There's no bathroom, and it's not a place you can store food except for a few things in glass jars, since the wigwam can be accessed by critters. The majority of time I would spend in there would be tending the fire, sleeping, and reading/writing.
It was an interesting discussion, because John brought up all kinds of things that I needed to think about, all relating to my having to make a shift in living standards in order to live in a wigwam:
On the plus side, if I really don't wanna hack it, or I fall in love with a person who doesn't want to live this way, I can build something else for myself that's more appropriate. And it will allow me to try out this lifestyle of living in nature.
We talked about alot of other things: hybrid wigwams that are taller, could incorporate electricity/bathrooms/etc.; where to best place a wigwam (east-facing edge of a forest, on a slight mound), materials you could use to build it; how to heat up rocks so that they radiate heat and keep the wigwam warm all night, etc. And we got into a short discussion about living the way of nature -- learning survival skills, hunting, tracking, etc. This is the direction I feel myself being pulled; John talked about living in a way where you are just living with the pulse of the natural world, responding naturally and intuitively to situations as they come up, and living a life full of deep respect and humility before creation. It was a wonderful, inspiring discussion. I asked him to start teaching me some of these skills, and he said he wanted to organize a day-long or weekend workshop for the entire full bloom community to learn the basics of how to start a fire from scratch, finding food, etc. He felt it was best to take a course like that and then spend a long time -- a year maybe -- honing the basic skills through practice before learning more advanced skills.
I came out of it feeling like I'd found someone who could help me transition into a different way of relating to the world, and it felt very satisfying.
....Well, I'm starting to poop out now, and I want to watch a film, so I'll end here. Comments are welcome!
Our diverting the creek's water is the source of some contention with other local farmers, who also depend on Yale creek for their irrigation needs. We got a call the other day from a farmer named Judd who was having a hard time irrigating his fields, and wondered if we had been using some creek water (we hadn't). The fact that we are using pipe instead of letting the water flow straight in the ditch is saving tons of water -- apparently last year we used Yale Creek, but at a certain point in the day, the combination of leaks in the ditch (gopher holes, etc.) and evaporation from the heat made it so that the creek water never made it to the pond. Anyway, we have water rights to the land, but we have to be wise about conserving water, out of respect for our neighbors.
.....We have set up a date, August 26th, to talk about my future here once my six-month trial period is over (at the end of this month). So that's good; now that I have a date, I can collect my thoughts around my desires and needs for living at Full Bloom. To that end, I had a conversation with John Di Fruscia, a wonderful man who is the general contractor for the common building, as well as being deeply versed in wilderness survival/living skills. I've been thinking about what kind of structure I would want to live in, and Jo had mentioned a conversation he'd had with John about wigwams, which cost almost nothing in materials and are the most sustainable of buildings.
So I had a chance to get into the subject with John this afternoon, and I was completely enthralled. A wigwam is generally a circular structure, with flexible saplings set in the ground and being tied together at the top with rope (the only non-local material is the rope). The walls can be made of various materials, but we talked about weaving cattails together. There's an opening at the top of the ceiling, the very center, where the smoke from the fire (which is also in the center of the building), goes out. There's some kind of covering over that hole that allows the smoke to leave but keeps out snow/rain. ]The whole building is very low to the ground, for better insulation -- the only place one could stand up straight is in the very center, but since there's a fire pit there, there really is no place to stand up. However, since the building is only for spending nights in there, that didn't matter to the indigenous folks, who spent most of their daytime hours outside. Anyway, the opening to the wigwam is a crawl space a few feet high, insulated with animal skins or blankets, and you crawl through a short tunnel, through another set of skins/blankets, and then you're in the main building. It's small too -- probably 12 feet in diameter, something like that. There's no bathroom, and it's not a place you can store food except for a few things in glass jars, since the wigwam can be accessed by critters. The majority of time I would spend in there would be tending the fire, sleeping, and reading/writing.
It was an interesting discussion, because John brought up all kinds of things that I needed to think about, all relating to my having to make a shift in living standards in order to live in a wigwam:
- The wigwam is a living, breathing structure, not built to keep out nature as much as it is to keep off snow/rain and retain heat. It does all of those things extremely well and efficiently, but it is a totally different living experience, because I wouldn't feel the separation between the inside and outside so much. I would be in nature, and given that I have spent my whole life in conventional, modern western housing, it could be quite a shock.
- The traditional wigwam wouldn't have electricity or running water, or a bathroom. That means I'd have to read by firelight/kerosene, eat most of my food in the communal buildings, and poop/pee either outside (at least a hundred feet from the wigwam) or in the communal buildings (which would be pretty far away).
- The lowness of the building, which provides insulation, means that I wouldn't be able to stand up, and it would basically force me to be in it only for sleeping times or times to read/write/reflect. Another huge change in lifestyle -- I'd probably be spending a lot more time outside.
- The best-built wigwams last 10-15 years; being that this would be my first one, it would probably last 4-5 years.
- John asked me if I wanted to be in a romantic relationship, and pointed out that very few partners would be interested in living this "off the grid".
On the plus side, if I really don't wanna hack it, or I fall in love with a person who doesn't want to live this way, I can build something else for myself that's more appropriate. And it will allow me to try out this lifestyle of living in nature.
We talked about alot of other things: hybrid wigwams that are taller, could incorporate electricity/bathrooms/etc.; where to best place a wigwam (east-facing edge of a forest, on a slight mound), materials you could use to build it; how to heat up rocks so that they radiate heat and keep the wigwam warm all night, etc. And we got into a short discussion about living the way of nature -- learning survival skills, hunting, tracking, etc. This is the direction I feel myself being pulled; John talked about living in a way where you are just living with the pulse of the natural world, responding naturally and intuitively to situations as they come up, and living a life full of deep respect and humility before creation. It was a wonderful, inspiring discussion. I asked him to start teaching me some of these skills, and he said he wanted to organize a day-long or weekend workshop for the entire full bloom community to learn the basics of how to start a fire from scratch, finding food, etc. He felt it was best to take a course like that and then spend a long time -- a year maybe -- honing the basic skills through practice before learning more advanced skills.
I came out of it feeling like I'd found someone who could help me transition into a different way of relating to the world, and it felt very satisfying.
....Well, I'm starting to poop out now, and I want to watch a film, so I'll end here. Comments are welcome!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Cobbage and Weedage
A little bloggage on a Tuesday morning.....
-- Spent yesterday afternoon applying plaster to our new cob structure. Cob is an amalgam of clay, sand and straw. The first coat of plaster is clay that's been sifted more finely, along with chopped straw. The last coat of plaster will be sifted clay and sand, which will have a really nice, smooth finish. I'm not sure what color they're gonna choose for the structure. Anyway, I spent four hours up on a ladder slapping this muddy plaster onto the tops of the outside walls, then smoothing it out. It was fun playing with mud.
This morning I was up early pulling star thistle. There are so many invasive exotics that are growing around, and we are really trying to get control of this particular one, this year. We came thru and weed-whacked star thistle in a huge section of the the property a month or so ago, then came back and weed-whacked it again, and now we are pulling small sections of star thistle. We are technically not supposed to weed-whack anymore because of the danger of fire -- same goes for chainsaw work.
OK, that's it for now.....
-- Spent yesterday afternoon applying plaster to our new cob structure. Cob is an amalgam of clay, sand and straw. The first coat of plaster is clay that's been sifted more finely, along with chopped straw. The last coat of plaster will be sifted clay and sand, which will have a really nice, smooth finish. I'm not sure what color they're gonna choose for the structure. Anyway, I spent four hours up on a ladder slapping this muddy plaster onto the tops of the outside walls, then smoothing it out. It was fun playing with mud.
This morning I was up early pulling star thistle. There are so many invasive exotics that are growing around, and we are really trying to get control of this particular one, this year. We came thru and weed-whacked star thistle in a huge section of the the property a month or so ago, then came back and weed-whacked it again, and now we are pulling small sections of star thistle. We are technically not supposed to weed-whack anymore because of the danger of fire -- same goes for chainsaw work.
OK, that's it for now.....
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Many updates
Hello again,
-- Apologies for the long gap in writing. I'm going to start writing shorter entries more often, see how that goes.
Since I last wrote, many things have happened:
1) -- The flowers that Eden and I planted for the local CSA are going absolutely crazy. We started with a few flowers in mid-July, and since the end of July have had way more than we could ever use -- coreopsis, bee phacelia, zinnias, sunflowers, bachelor buttons, safflower, corn cockles, love in a mist, amaranth, pincushion flowers, snapdragons, clarkia, hollyhocks, cleome, salpiglossis, zulu and orange prince (colorful daisies), milkweed, and more that I can't remember right now.
....a sad corollary of this news is that it's looking like I will not being doing a growing operation with Eden next year. She's got a lot on her plate, and doing an herb/flower growing biz is not high on her priority list. It still may happen, but I'm not banking on it. So now I am contemplating whether or not I would take on growing herbs next year -- if I'm still here. It seems a real shame not to continue cultivating the 1/4-acre that she and I started this year, and so I am leaning towards farming at least part of it, and maybe adding a small plot in a shady spot closer to the house, so that I could get experience growing both shade- and sun-loving herbs. I'd really rather not do this alone, but I also like growing plants, and have been toying with the idea of just growing a lot herbs, whether or not they turn any kind of profit. At least the community would benefit, and perhaps I could bring some of the harvested herbs to various herbal practioners, herb companies, etc., and see if there's an interest in my "product" for 2010.
2) I had my three-month check-in a couple of weeks ago. It was late in coming -- i'd been here 4 1/2 months by then -- but it was helpful nonetheless. I'm here on a six-month trial, and so we met to talk about how it's been going. It felt pretty positive. I got to express both what was hard and what was good about living here, and everyone in the community also got to express what was good and hard about living with me. We should be meeting at the end of August/beginning of September, to decide whether I will be staying on indefinitely. I believe that I would like to stay on as an "associate member", which means that I would essentially be a renter with an equal say in community matters -- I just wouldn't be able to vote on decisions affecting the property, since I wouldn't be part of the collective that owns it. That would be fine by me at this point -- I don't have the cash to put towards a down payment. Currently each person is paying for a $120,000 share in the land, and is paying off Ryan in the form of a 30-year, low-interest fixed-rate loan, with a 10% down payment right away -- very similar to the process of buying a house, I believe. Anyway, I would like to have an equal say in all decisions, but as it is not realistic for me to consider ownership, I'm fine with remaining here as a renter and community member.
... my main concern is making a living, and I still have to work that out for myself here. I'm hoping that working at Full Bloom -- thru helping out on the organic farm, doing childcare, doing restoration work and other property improvements on the land, and potentially helping out with the commercial baking that will be going full-throttle next year, that I can support myself. But I need to have a longer discussion with people, both individually and as a collective, before I can get a solid answer to that proposal. I really don't wanna work offsite, and the pay is not great, nor are there many jobs, so I'm really hoping I can work out an arrangement onsite. And potentially in the future I may find my calling. Or I could remain a guy who does lots of part-time jobs in interesting fields.
3) A few other quick things:
-- And that's it! Next time I'll be briefer and quicker between entries. Goodnight to all, and to all a Good Night!
-- Apologies for the long gap in writing. I'm going to start writing shorter entries more often, see how that goes.
Since I last wrote, many things have happened:
1) -- The flowers that Eden and I planted for the local CSA are going absolutely crazy. We started with a few flowers in mid-July, and since the end of July have had way more than we could ever use -- coreopsis, bee phacelia, zinnias, sunflowers, bachelor buttons, safflower, corn cockles, love in a mist, amaranth, pincushion flowers, snapdragons, clarkia, hollyhocks, cleome, salpiglossis, zulu and orange prince (colorful daisies), milkweed, and more that I can't remember right now.
....a sad corollary of this news is that it's looking like I will not being doing a growing operation with Eden next year. She's got a lot on her plate, and doing an herb/flower growing biz is not high on her priority list. It still may happen, but I'm not banking on it. So now I am contemplating whether or not I would take on growing herbs next year -- if I'm still here. It seems a real shame not to continue cultivating the 1/4-acre that she and I started this year, and so I am leaning towards farming at least part of it, and maybe adding a small plot in a shady spot closer to the house, so that I could get experience growing both shade- and sun-loving herbs. I'd really rather not do this alone, but I also like growing plants, and have been toying with the idea of just growing a lot herbs, whether or not they turn any kind of profit. At least the community would benefit, and perhaps I could bring some of the harvested herbs to various herbal practioners, herb companies, etc., and see if there's an interest in my "product" for 2010.
2) I had my three-month check-in a couple of weeks ago. It was late in coming -- i'd been here 4 1/2 months by then -- but it was helpful nonetheless. I'm here on a six-month trial, and so we met to talk about how it's been going. It felt pretty positive. I got to express both what was hard and what was good about living here, and everyone in the community also got to express what was good and hard about living with me. We should be meeting at the end of August/beginning of September, to decide whether I will be staying on indefinitely. I believe that I would like to stay on as an "associate member", which means that I would essentially be a renter with an equal say in community matters -- I just wouldn't be able to vote on decisions affecting the property, since I wouldn't be part of the collective that owns it. That would be fine by me at this point -- I don't have the cash to put towards a down payment. Currently each person is paying for a $120,000 share in the land, and is paying off Ryan in the form of a 30-year, low-interest fixed-rate loan, with a 10% down payment right away -- very similar to the process of buying a house, I believe. Anyway, I would like to have an equal say in all decisions, but as it is not realistic for me to consider ownership, I'm fine with remaining here as a renter and community member.
... my main concern is making a living, and I still have to work that out for myself here. I'm hoping that working at Full Bloom -- thru helping out on the organic farm, doing childcare, doing restoration work and other property improvements on the land, and potentially helping out with the commercial baking that will be going full-throttle next year, that I can support myself. But I need to have a longer discussion with people, both individually and as a collective, before I can get a solid answer to that proposal. I really don't wanna work offsite, and the pay is not great, nor are there many jobs, so I'm really hoping I can work out an arrangement onsite. And potentially in the future I may find my calling. Or I could remain a guy who does lots of part-time jobs in interesting fields.
3) A few other quick things:
- We now have gobs and gobs of strawberries coming off the farm.
- Ryan and Eden have started a raw-food diet, coming off of a 5-day liquid fast that the three of us did, and I am going to join them, starting tomorrow. I've been struggling with depression for many years now, and I want to see how eating healthy affects that. I'm hoping to do a 10-day fast this fall as well, as well as some colonics.
- The vertical posts and the rafters for the common building are all in place now, and last week the carpenters began putting on the tongue-and-groove decking for the roof. It looks really beautiful.
- The cobbers came and went, and in their wake there is now a 200-square foot cob structure, which probably needs a few more weeks of labor until it is ready. Pretty sweet!
- I turned 38 on Friday, the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008, at a few minutes before 8 a.m. Happy Birthday to me!
- Went down to Berkeley in late July to celebrate my 20th high school reunion. It was great to see so many folks, some of whom I've known since preschool or grade school, and catch up with them.
-- And that's it! Next time I'll be briefer and quicker between entries. Goodnight to all, and to all a Good Night!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Herbs, ponds and such
Hallo again,
I really wish I could be writing here more often; so much goes on in between entries. The fencing around the 30 acres of irrigatable land is all done -- about a mile of it, stretching up and down hills, along the road, etc.
The cob-building workshop has officially begun -- six interns and James, the teacher, arrived Sunday and have put in several days already, building the foundation of the cob structure -- a 200 sq. foot place. They've also been dragging downed pine trees out of the forest and prepping them as poles to use for the frame of the roof. They seem like a great bunch; we call them, affectionately, "the cobbers". We're gonna be having a dinner with them every Friday for the six weeks that they're here.
Just about all of the flowers and herbs that Eden and I sowed in the greenhouse are out in the the front field now, and are growing well, albeit very slowly. We had planned to have flower arrangements ready for customers of the Siskiyou Coop, a local CSA, by early July, but the combination of the cold weather and the late transplanting has made that a pipe dream. Our optimistic hope now is that we can have bunches of flowers for sale by the end of July. It's been pretty dispiriting actually, and hard especially on Eden, who was never completely behind the flower part of the business to begin with. Neither of us have had the proper time to devote to the project, and it has suffered from that lack of time/care. We talked Sunday night and agreed to just do what we can this summer, hoping that we'll be able to have something to offer both the CSA and a couple of other flower vendors that are interested in our wares.
The encouraging part is that we do have some herbs planted -- echinacea, yerba mansa, yarrow, skullcap and a few others -- which are perennials, meaning that they don't need to be resown and can produce year after year. And the plot we've cultivated should be easier to work next year because we've broken up the sod that was there. Still, Eden's lukewarm about the possibility of doing this next year, in light of the many projects she's interested in. We've agreed to meet briefly once a week throughout the summer to bandy about various ideas for growing herbs/flowers, and see if we can come to some kind of resolution about whether or not we will try for next year. I'd like to know either way by the end of August, which is when my six-month trial period here is over. If we're not going to do that, I need to figure out some other career direction. If we DO decide to continue on working together, then we need to put together a carefully considered plan of action that will leave us in good shape come next spring, with a carefully articulated business plan, and soil that has been cared for and prepped, so that we can slip our greenhouse plants into the ground much earlier.
Some ideas we've talked about:
-- growing herbs directly for herbalists, to stock their apothecaries. We both like this option -- it fosters direct connections with herbalists, who can depend on local sources for their herbs, and supports the local economy.
-- growing and drying herbs for tea. Another cool idea. Not sure how we're gonna create the space to dry the kind of quantity we need.
-- wildcrafting. I'm very jazzed about this possibility, as it involves loads of time in the wild and on people's land, foraging for medicinal herbs. It's a great way to get to know the people and the land around here.
-- flowers. Some kind of smaller version of what we're doing now. I don't imagine Eden's gonna be too keen on it, since it was so hard to do this year. But I love working with flowers. It's possible that we could focus on mostly perennial cut flowers over annuals, which reduces the workload alot.
-- flower essences. I haven't talked to her about this one, but it just occurred to me while I was out working our plot, because I've been taking a flower essence recently. The main flower essences are produced by Bach, a company based in England, so it would be great to provide a local source for them, from an environmentally sustainable point of view; plus it would allow me to continue to work with flowers, which I really enjoy.
-- wildcrafted, value-added products -- mead, wine, salves, shampoos, etc. Another idea I love.
.........In other newz.....the new pond is finished and filling as I write; hopefully it will be mostly full by the time we have our solstice party this friday. It was really cool to watch Rourke doing the earth work -- moving dirt around, compacting it so that it will hold 3-400,000 gallons of water. Yesterday Jo and I dug holes for posts that were set in so that we can build a dock for diving off of and lounging on. It's a really sweet spot for a pond, with ample parts shade and sun. I can't wait to start fishing for food as well.
......we're now in the process of laying pipe down in a mile-long ditch that runs from our first pond around much of the property, thru the farm, and up into the woods, where it ends up in Yale creek. Rourke has been working on scraping the bottom of the ditch with a machine, and Matt has started connecting pieces of 8" pipe which will run the length of it. We're hoping to get a grant to cover some of the costs of the piping, but we will still have to pay for most of it, so we are buying something like $8,000 worth of this black plastic pipe. I'm gonna help Matt connect the pipe tomorrow, as well as helping him plant several rows of broccoli on the farm.
....we'll have massive amounts of strawberries from the farm in a few weeks. I love strawberries, so I'm already drooling at the prospect.
.....and that's it for now. I'll try to write sooner, next time.
I really wish I could be writing here more often; so much goes on in between entries. The fencing around the 30 acres of irrigatable land is all done -- about a mile of it, stretching up and down hills, along the road, etc.
The cob-building workshop has officially begun -- six interns and James, the teacher, arrived Sunday and have put in several days already, building the foundation of the cob structure -- a 200 sq. foot place. They've also been dragging downed pine trees out of the forest and prepping them as poles to use for the frame of the roof. They seem like a great bunch; we call them, affectionately, "the cobbers". We're gonna be having a dinner with them every Friday for the six weeks that they're here.
Just about all of the flowers and herbs that Eden and I sowed in the greenhouse are out in the the front field now, and are growing well, albeit very slowly. We had planned to have flower arrangements ready for customers of the Siskiyou Coop, a local CSA, by early July, but the combination of the cold weather and the late transplanting has made that a pipe dream. Our optimistic hope now is that we can have bunches of flowers for sale by the end of July. It's been pretty dispiriting actually, and hard especially on Eden, who was never completely behind the flower part of the business to begin with. Neither of us have had the proper time to devote to the project, and it has suffered from that lack of time/care. We talked Sunday night and agreed to just do what we can this summer, hoping that we'll be able to have something to offer both the CSA and a couple of other flower vendors that are interested in our wares.
The encouraging part is that we do have some herbs planted -- echinacea, yerba mansa, yarrow, skullcap and a few others -- which are perennials, meaning that they don't need to be resown and can produce year after year. And the plot we've cultivated should be easier to work next year because we've broken up the sod that was there. Still, Eden's lukewarm about the possibility of doing this next year, in light of the many projects she's interested in. We've agreed to meet briefly once a week throughout the summer to bandy about various ideas for growing herbs/flowers, and see if we can come to some kind of resolution about whether or not we will try for next year. I'd like to know either way by the end of August, which is when my six-month trial period here is over. If we're not going to do that, I need to figure out some other career direction. If we DO decide to continue on working together, then we need to put together a carefully considered plan of action that will leave us in good shape come next spring, with a carefully articulated business plan, and soil that has been cared for and prepped, so that we can slip our greenhouse plants into the ground much earlier.
Some ideas we've talked about:
-- growing herbs directly for herbalists, to stock their apothecaries. We both like this option -- it fosters direct connections with herbalists, who can depend on local sources for their herbs, and supports the local economy.
-- growing and drying herbs for tea. Another cool idea. Not sure how we're gonna create the space to dry the kind of quantity we need.
-- wildcrafting. I'm very jazzed about this possibility, as it involves loads of time in the wild and on people's land, foraging for medicinal herbs. It's a great way to get to know the people and the land around here.
-- flowers. Some kind of smaller version of what we're doing now. I don't imagine Eden's gonna be too keen on it, since it was so hard to do this year. But I love working with flowers. It's possible that we could focus on mostly perennial cut flowers over annuals, which reduces the workload alot.
-- flower essences. I haven't talked to her about this one, but it just occurred to me while I was out working our plot, because I've been taking a flower essence recently. The main flower essences are produced by Bach, a company based in England, so it would be great to provide a local source for them, from an environmentally sustainable point of view; plus it would allow me to continue to work with flowers, which I really enjoy.
-- wildcrafted, value-added products -- mead, wine, salves, shampoos, etc. Another idea I love.
.........In other newz.....the new pond is finished and filling as I write; hopefully it will be mostly full by the time we have our solstice party this friday. It was really cool to watch Rourke doing the earth work -- moving dirt around, compacting it so that it will hold 3-400,000 gallons of water. Yesterday Jo and I dug holes for posts that were set in so that we can build a dock for diving off of and lounging on. It's a really sweet spot for a pond, with ample parts shade and sun. I can't wait to start fishing for food as well.
......we're now in the process of laying pipe down in a mile-long ditch that runs from our first pond around much of the property, thru the farm, and up into the woods, where it ends up in Yale creek. Rourke has been working on scraping the bottom of the ditch with a machine, and Matt has started connecting pieces of 8" pipe which will run the length of it. We're hoping to get a grant to cover some of the costs of the piping, but we will still have to pay for most of it, so we are buying something like $8,000 worth of this black plastic pipe. I'm gonna help Matt connect the pipe tomorrow, as well as helping him plant several rows of broccoli on the farm.
....we'll have massive amounts of strawberries from the farm in a few weeks. I love strawberries, so I'm already drooling at the prospect.
.....and that's it for now. I'll try to write sooner, next time.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
....Lots of projects going on at the same time, to wit:
1) Rourke, a friend and tractor guy, scalped an area yesterday in preparation for digging our second irrigation pond. For the next three days that will be happening; I'll report back once I've been involved in that one.
2) Electrical conduit needs to be laid from the barn all the way up a steep hill, up to the site of the cob house the interns are building. Matt dug out a deep trench that goes probably 500 feet or so, and I shoveled the loose dirt out of it yesterday. We're looking to hire someone to lay the conduit.
3) The common building. John, our general contractor, is working with Matty, a neighbor of ours who's also a carpenter, on the building. I believe at this point they've got all of the upright beams -- 18' and 22' poles that're 12" in diameter -- secured, and they're starting to put brackets on top of them so that they can start laying on the beams that will support the rafters. This weekend I helped sand and apply wood finish to a few of those beams. There are tons of beams left to sand and finish.
Ok, I'm off to babysit Jo and Rosie's daughter Ocean. More later.....
1) Rourke, a friend and tractor guy, scalped an area yesterday in preparation for digging our second irrigation pond. For the next three days that will be happening; I'll report back once I've been involved in that one.
2) Electrical conduit needs to be laid from the barn all the way up a steep hill, up to the site of the cob house the interns are building. Matt dug out a deep trench that goes probably 500 feet or so, and I shoveled the loose dirt out of it yesterday. We're looking to hire someone to lay the conduit.
3) The common building. John, our general contractor, is working with Matty, a neighbor of ours who's also a carpenter, on the building. I believe at this point they've got all of the upright beams -- 18' and 22' poles that're 12" in diameter -- secured, and they're starting to put brackets on top of them so that they can start laying on the beams that will support the rafters. This weekend I helped sand and apply wood finish to a few of those beams. There are tons of beams left to sand and finish.
Ok, I'm off to babysit Jo and Rosie's daughter Ocean. More later.....
Monday, May 26, 2008
...Hey there. Life continues apace here; today I did a bunch of top-wire along the deer-fence, which is SOOOO close to being finished. Eden and I are pretty close to transplanting all of our flower starts; we've given up on making garden beds and are just transplanting straight into the ground for the rest of the season, as we just don't have time. We're also due to meet and talk about our project together, both all the little tasks we have going now and our future for next year. Growing flowers has been great for us, as a way of focusing and motivating ourselves. But the main thing we're interested in is in growing/wildcrafting medicinal herbs. There are so many forms it could take, and we just have to sit down and pick a few directions to start with.
As the fossil fuel economy falls apart, and people aren't going to be able to afford or otherwise have access to pharmaceutical medicine, what are the really useful plants to offer to folks? Some herbs have been overly wildcrafted (harvested from the wild), to the point where the plants are now endangered. So we definitely have interest in growing those, as well as growing herbs that suit our climate. And then there's the whole wildcrafting side of things, which I'm probably the most interested in. I'd like to learn how to identify and harvest both herbs and edible plants, and I've really been enjoying going on walks around the land, taking in the different plants. The wildflowers are all out now, and it's pretty gorgeous.
I spent some time at a party at Trillium Farm nearby here, and met a guy who makes wildcrafted wines with his partner. The idea of making things -- wines, ciders, tinctures, salves, etc. -- with the plants that grow around here is exciting. The byproduct of that work is that I would get a much more intimate view of the place I live in -- not just the land I live on, but many of the neighboring places around here. I'd get to know which plants are where, and when they flower; and I'd get to be out in beauty alot. The Siskiyou mountain range that I'm in is the most ecologically diverse mountain range in the country, so there's lots to explore.
....It's been raining part of almost every day for a week now, after blistering heat. The weather's been warming up though, and today was great -- overcast, but very comforting for working. I've had my clothes out on the line for days now, waiting for the wet period to be over, and I finally went to check them out, only to find out they were totally dry.
....I received a wonderful book of haiku written by a friend from Zen Center, and I've taken to bringing along a little bit of paper and a pen around with me, in case the muse strikes me, but so far I've completely forgotten about it.
That's the newz. Please comment if you'd like.
Peace, Danny
As the fossil fuel economy falls apart, and people aren't going to be able to afford or otherwise have access to pharmaceutical medicine, what are the really useful plants to offer to folks? Some herbs have been overly wildcrafted (harvested from the wild), to the point where the plants are now endangered. So we definitely have interest in growing those, as well as growing herbs that suit our climate. And then there's the whole wildcrafting side of things, which I'm probably the most interested in. I'd like to learn how to identify and harvest both herbs and edible plants, and I've really been enjoying going on walks around the land, taking in the different plants. The wildflowers are all out now, and it's pretty gorgeous.
I spent some time at a party at Trillium Farm nearby here, and met a guy who makes wildcrafted wines with his partner. The idea of making things -- wines, ciders, tinctures, salves, etc. -- with the plants that grow around here is exciting. The byproduct of that work is that I would get a much more intimate view of the place I live in -- not just the land I live on, but many of the neighboring places around here. I'd get to know which plants are where, and when they flower; and I'd get to be out in beauty alot. The Siskiyou mountain range that I'm in is the most ecologically diverse mountain range in the country, so there's lots to explore.
....It's been raining part of almost every day for a week now, after blistering heat. The weather's been warming up though, and today was great -- overcast, but very comforting for working. I've had my clothes out on the line for days now, waiting for the wet period to be over, and I finally went to check them out, only to find out they were totally dry.
....I received a wonderful book of haiku written by a friend from Zen Center, and I've taken to bringing along a little bit of paper and a pen around with me, in case the muse strikes me, but so far I've completely forgotten about it.
That's the newz. Please comment if you'd like.
Peace, Danny
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Hello again,
Another full day; Eden and I have been trying to create more beds in our garden plot and put our flower/herb transplants in there, starting at six-thirty in the morning and going till nine or nine-thirty (it's getting light at five now). This morning we transplanted yarrow, sweet peas and marigolds; on Tuesday we put zulu prince, orange prince (both daisy-type flowers), black-eyed susans and one other one I can't remember. Tomorrow morning we'll be putting statice and some others in. In the meantime our seeds have come up and are starting to grow -- daisies, clarkia, poppies, safflower, bee phacelia. Sunchoke tubers we planted have also started to come up, and all the starts we previously transplanted are doing great. We've planted about 11 beds of plants so far, and there are many more flats of transplants to plant out. It feels never-ending, and we haven't even started weeding in there yet. When I'm not out there, I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of work that has to be done. When we're doing it though, it feels great. I'd like to be doing more work on this project, but I'm constrained by the paid work I'm doing, plus all the household responsibilities, plus I just started dating a great gal in the area, plus, plus, plus.
There are so many projects to be done. We saw a deer inside the fence near the herb/flower plot this morning, which is the second one in a week, so we really need to finish stringing up top wire along the huge stretch of fencing that encloses the irrigated portion of the land. Then there's building work, which I'm not so involved with, but I'm going to start working on cutting back blackberries. I started in on some blackberries around a huge old apple tree that's in a gulch (called "Prince Gulch") near the herb/flower plot. I'd been wanting to clear the area around this tree of blackberries and dead wood, and today I put in a couple of hours, mostly sawing off dead limbs. My idea was just to improve the health of the tree (although it's doing pretty well on its own) and improve access to its many delicious apples (which I've never tasted, but I hear they're yummy). Right now it's pretty tangly. Anyway, we have some apple trees closer to the house that didn't have many blooms, so this tangly tree would probably be our main source of apples this year, since it bloomed quite alot this spring.
After lunch I worked with Matt on the farm, rolling out black plastic sheeting to mulch around the beds of strawberries that he's got goin' there. I really hate this because I hate using plastic, but it's pretty standard for commercial strawberry growing. I don't think I'd grow strawberries for this reason; my interest is in learning how to do things sustainably. Basically, we rolled out the sheeting over an entire bed of strawberries, stretched it taut and covered the edges with dirt, then Matt went along and felt with his hand for where the strawberry plants were and made cuts with an exacto knife, and I came along and popped the plants out thru the cuts. Now the whole bed is mulched except the little holes where the strawberries are peeping out. Matt and I had already been weeding the beds pretty thoroughly to get them to the point where he could make accurate cuts with plastic -- although he did mess up a few times here and there and made a cut where there was grass instead of strawberries. I'll be doing some kind of farmwork with him again tomorrow.
That's it for this installment; just trying to keep current here, and keep the flow of writing going. I'll write more soon...
Another full day; Eden and I have been trying to create more beds in our garden plot and put our flower/herb transplants in there, starting at six-thirty in the morning and going till nine or nine-thirty (it's getting light at five now). This morning we transplanted yarrow, sweet peas and marigolds; on Tuesday we put zulu prince, orange prince (both daisy-type flowers), black-eyed susans and one other one I can't remember. Tomorrow morning we'll be putting statice and some others in. In the meantime our seeds have come up and are starting to grow -- daisies, clarkia, poppies, safflower, bee phacelia. Sunchoke tubers we planted have also started to come up, and all the starts we previously transplanted are doing great. We've planted about 11 beds of plants so far, and there are many more flats of transplants to plant out. It feels never-ending, and we haven't even started weeding in there yet. When I'm not out there, I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the amount of work that has to be done. When we're doing it though, it feels great. I'd like to be doing more work on this project, but I'm constrained by the paid work I'm doing, plus all the household responsibilities, plus I just started dating a great gal in the area, plus, plus, plus.
There are so many projects to be done. We saw a deer inside the fence near the herb/flower plot this morning, which is the second one in a week, so we really need to finish stringing up top wire along the huge stretch of fencing that encloses the irrigated portion of the land. Then there's building work, which I'm not so involved with, but I'm going to start working on cutting back blackberries. I started in on some blackberries around a huge old apple tree that's in a gulch (called "Prince Gulch") near the herb/flower plot. I'd been wanting to clear the area around this tree of blackberries and dead wood, and today I put in a couple of hours, mostly sawing off dead limbs. My idea was just to improve the health of the tree (although it's doing pretty well on its own) and improve access to its many delicious apples (which I've never tasted, but I hear they're yummy). Right now it's pretty tangly. Anyway, we have some apple trees closer to the house that didn't have many blooms, so this tangly tree would probably be our main source of apples this year, since it bloomed quite alot this spring.
After lunch I worked with Matt on the farm, rolling out black plastic sheeting to mulch around the beds of strawberries that he's got goin' there. I really hate this because I hate using plastic, but it's pretty standard for commercial strawberry growing. I don't think I'd grow strawberries for this reason; my interest is in learning how to do things sustainably. Basically, we rolled out the sheeting over an entire bed of strawberries, stretched it taut and covered the edges with dirt, then Matt went along and felt with his hand for where the strawberry plants were and made cuts with an exacto knife, and I came along and popped the plants out thru the cuts. Now the whole bed is mulched except the little holes where the strawberries are peeping out. Matt and I had already been weeding the beds pretty thoroughly to get them to the point where he could make accurate cuts with plastic -- although he did mess up a few times here and there and made a cut where there was grass instead of strawberries. I'll be doing some kind of farmwork with him again tomorrow.
That's it for this installment; just trying to keep current here, and keep the flow of writing going. I'll write more soon...
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Veggie oil car fuel
Hello there,
It's six a.m., and I just came back from turning on irrigation in our herb/flower plot. Yesterday Matt finished setting up aluminum piping with overhead sprinklers, which we're gonna use until we have time to get the trenches between the garden beds properly shaped to use for flood irrigation. It's such a relief to have the piping in place for now -- trenching is a lot of work, and there's too much work in general right now to really do that in a timely way. We've got about ten flats of flowers sitting outside, waiting to be transplanted. And more inside the greenhouse that will go in soon.
The weather has changed dramatically, and we are supposed to have record high temperatures in the next few days. It also feels like the days have gotten much longer recently, with it being light enough to work at 5 a.m. now, although five-thirty is maybe a more realistic time to start.
....I've been working on setting up a way to collect and filter used vegetable oil from local restaurants to fuel my car. Last night in Jacksonville I stopped by a new restaurant, "Jazushi," and arranged to pick up their oil, which is very clean to begin with, which is great. The only downside is that they only use about 30 gallons of oil per month, although that could increase if the place gets popular and they have more orders for tempura. I'm doing this with Jen, a friend of Full Bloom who lives in Ashland and also has a car that runs on veggie oil. So it would mean about 15 gallons/month for each of us, which is about 300 miles worth of fuel for my car. Which isn't bad, actually. They have a 55-gallon drum in the back that they dump their used oil into, so now Jen and I have to figure out how transfer the oil into something we can transport back to her house. Probably we would put a bedsheet over the drum behind the restaurant so that the oil gets pre-filtered before we even pick it up.
I've been hearing that most of the restaurants in the area have been asked by various individuals or companies to give them their oil. And that's been reflected in the calls I've been making to places in Ashland and Medford -- almost all of them are spoken for, and only two maybes -- places where I couldn't get ahold of someone who knew whether their restaurant had their veggie oil available. Alot of the restaurants are giving their oil to companies who convert it to biodiesel, and some folks are using it like me, just filtering it and then pumping it into their car as purified veggie oil.
It's six a.m., and I just came back from turning on irrigation in our herb/flower plot. Yesterday Matt finished setting up aluminum piping with overhead sprinklers, which we're gonna use until we have time to get the trenches between the garden beds properly shaped to use for flood irrigation. It's such a relief to have the piping in place for now -- trenching is a lot of work, and there's too much work in general right now to really do that in a timely way. We've got about ten flats of flowers sitting outside, waiting to be transplanted. And more inside the greenhouse that will go in soon.
The weather has changed dramatically, and we are supposed to have record high temperatures in the next few days. It also feels like the days have gotten much longer recently, with it being light enough to work at 5 a.m. now, although five-thirty is maybe a more realistic time to start.
....I've been working on setting up a way to collect and filter used vegetable oil from local restaurants to fuel my car. Last night in Jacksonville I stopped by a new restaurant, "Jazushi," and arranged to pick up their oil, which is very clean to begin with, which is great. The only downside is that they only use about 30 gallons of oil per month, although that could increase if the place gets popular and they have more orders for tempura. I'm doing this with Jen, a friend of Full Bloom who lives in Ashland and also has a car that runs on veggie oil. So it would mean about 15 gallons/month for each of us, which is about 300 miles worth of fuel for my car. Which isn't bad, actually. They have a 55-gallon drum in the back that they dump their used oil into, so now Jen and I have to figure out how transfer the oil into something we can transport back to her house. Probably we would put a bedsheet over the drum behind the restaurant so that the oil gets pre-filtered before we even pick it up.
I've been hearing that most of the restaurants in the area have been asked by various individuals or companies to give them their oil. And that's been reflected in the calls I've been making to places in Ashland and Medford -- almost all of them are spoken for, and only two maybes -- places where I couldn't get ahold of someone who knew whether their restaurant had their veggie oil available. Alot of the restaurants are giving their oil to companies who convert it to biodiesel, and some folks are using it like me, just filtering it and then pumping it into their car as purified veggie oil.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Hey hey, the end of another day.
The community had a "fun day" today at Trillium, which is a wonderful arts and ecology center about a half-hour's drive from Full Bloom. The parents put the kids on their backs, and we went hiking up through their gardens, past beautiful former trout farms and rustic cabins, meandering streams. The poison oak is really starting to leaf out, and there were lots of beautiful flowers -- trilliums for sure, plus bleeding hearts, lilacs, shooting stars, and some others I couldn't identify.
Trillium is one of my favorite places so far -- the little meadows, the crystal-clear blue ponds, water running everywhere. There's something so peaceful and quiet about the place. And the couple that own it, Chant and Susannah, are great. Chant is so lively, and his knowledge of the little Applegate area is so deep, including the natural world, indigenous and early white American history, and a long involvement in the environmental activist world to save the area from further logging attempts. Susannah I don't know as much about, but she's been very kind and gracious with me.
After the hike we picnicked at Trillium and then drove home. Then it was back out to the herb/flower plot with Eden to continue the work of creating beds and irrigation ditches. Both of us are feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the work that has to be done there right now. In a few weeks, when the beds are all dug and the starts in the greenhouse are all planted, it will be alot more mellow -- just weeding, watering, then harvestin starting sometime in July. But now we have bed after bed that has to be dug out on contour, in order that the trenches between beds can be relatively level and not slope off too much. That way we can fill each trench full with water, and that water will seep its way into the adjacent beds, watering our flowers and herbs. It's hard because Eden's been gone alot, and I'm trying to work as much as possible on other projects here to make enough dough to support myself, and my work with Eden seems like alot, considering we won't be making much money off it this year. I wish we had started this whole process last fall, but of course I wasn't here then. So it's a big learning experience. We're thinking of taking a couple of full weekdays next week to finish off the planting/trenching job.
....Other than that, things are moving right along. Work at the common building continues to go apace. The foundation is done, and 12"-diameter, 22'-long wooden posts have started to be sanded, grooved and set in place to hold up the roof. So far four posts are up, held in place by brackets set in the foundation. I assume we'll have most of the rest of the posts up by the end of the week.
....We've been losing chickens to a skunk the last week or so. We've already lost some this spring to a coyote, so there's talk of buying some more, but I don't know when. Matt, I believe, is intending to shoot the skunk. The one night he went out to try and kill it though, it didn't show up. The skunk had made a whole in the fencing and killed a few last week.
.... We also finished the main part of the deer fencing last week, which was completed when Matt welded a top piece to the front gate. There's still top wire to do along some sections, but for all intensive purposes we are now deer-proofed! It allowed us to take down some fencing we'd had near the main house to protect some veggies and fruit trees. Also Ryan's planted out a bunch of vegetable starts -- lettuce, cabbage, broccoli. I sowed some flowers earlier and will probably plant them out near the house this week as well. There's a new kitchen garden between the common building and Ryan/Eden's cottage, but unfortunately half of it has been commandeered by the crew working on the common building, to be used to stack the wooden posts used for the stick-framing. So we have half the space we thought we'd have. But it's still alot of space.
Can't think of anything to say now. Bye!
The community had a "fun day" today at Trillium, which is a wonderful arts and ecology center about a half-hour's drive from Full Bloom. The parents put the kids on their backs, and we went hiking up through their gardens, past beautiful former trout farms and rustic cabins, meandering streams. The poison oak is really starting to leaf out, and there were lots of beautiful flowers -- trilliums for sure, plus bleeding hearts, lilacs, shooting stars, and some others I couldn't identify.
Trillium is one of my favorite places so far -- the little meadows, the crystal-clear blue ponds, water running everywhere. There's something so peaceful and quiet about the place. And the couple that own it, Chant and Susannah, are great. Chant is so lively, and his knowledge of the little Applegate area is so deep, including the natural world, indigenous and early white American history, and a long involvement in the environmental activist world to save the area from further logging attempts. Susannah I don't know as much about, but she's been very kind and gracious with me.
After the hike we picnicked at Trillium and then drove home. Then it was back out to the herb/flower plot with Eden to continue the work of creating beds and irrigation ditches. Both of us are feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the work that has to be done there right now. In a few weeks, when the beds are all dug and the starts in the greenhouse are all planted, it will be alot more mellow -- just weeding, watering, then harvestin starting sometime in July. But now we have bed after bed that has to be dug out on contour, in order that the trenches between beds can be relatively level and not slope off too much. That way we can fill each trench full with water, and that water will seep its way into the adjacent beds, watering our flowers and herbs. It's hard because Eden's been gone alot, and I'm trying to work as much as possible on other projects here to make enough dough to support myself, and my work with Eden seems like alot, considering we won't be making much money off it this year. I wish we had started this whole process last fall, but of course I wasn't here then. So it's a big learning experience. We're thinking of taking a couple of full weekdays next week to finish off the planting/trenching job.
....Other than that, things are moving right along. Work at the common building continues to go apace. The foundation is done, and 12"-diameter, 22'-long wooden posts have started to be sanded, grooved and set in place to hold up the roof. So far four posts are up, held in place by brackets set in the foundation. I assume we'll have most of the rest of the posts up by the end of the week.
....We've been losing chickens to a skunk the last week or so. We've already lost some this spring to a coyote, so there's talk of buying some more, but I don't know when. Matt, I believe, is intending to shoot the skunk. The one night he went out to try and kill it though, it didn't show up. The skunk had made a whole in the fencing and killed a few last week.
.... We also finished the main part of the deer fencing last week, which was completed when Matt welded a top piece to the front gate. There's still top wire to do along some sections, but for all intensive purposes we are now deer-proofed! It allowed us to take down some fencing we'd had near the main house to protect some veggies and fruit trees. Also Ryan's planted out a bunch of vegetable starts -- lettuce, cabbage, broccoli. I sowed some flowers earlier and will probably plant them out near the house this week as well. There's a new kitchen garden between the common building and Ryan/Eden's cottage, but unfortunately half of it has been commandeered by the crew working on the common building, to be used to stack the wooden posts used for the stick-framing. So we have half the space we thought we'd have. But it's still alot of space.
Can't think of anything to say now. Bye!
Friday, May 9, 2008
Herbs and Flowers
Hello there,
Not much that's new to report. We've just about finished deer-proofing 30+ acres of land (the whole property is 282 acres). It's an enormous amount of fencing, as well as many gates, and all that remains is to string top wire along several sections; but we are deer-proof enough that we can start planting vegetable and flower starts from the greenhouse.
Eden and I planted our first seeds out of doors, and our first flower/medicinal herb starts, at the end of April. Matt tilled up a quarter-acre for us at the beginning of the property, which is a bit of a walk from the main house. But the soil is great. So far the flowers we've planted: plains coreopsis, various poppies, bee phacelia, clarkia, safflower, sunchokes (which are in the sunflower family), hollyhock, cardoon, daisies. Medicinal herbs: echinacea, yarrow, lavender and California goldenrod (which can also be used as cut flowers), and lovage. We also planted some excess cabbage for the community, so that there'll be lots of sauerkraut goin' on. Mostly we'll sell cut flowers to a local CSA and possibly other venues, and begin to build up a cache of perennial medicinal herbs for the long-term.
Another cool thing we got going there at the herb/flower plot, yesterday, was a hand-dug flood irrigation system, just like people have been doing for thousands of years. It took a lot of work, but basically the paths between the garden beds also function as irrigation trenches. You just turn the water on, irrigate whatever trench you want, and the water soaks the adjacent beds. Capillary action brings the water upwards as well as down. We're still having to water the seeds we sowed out there, but the starts, which already have pretty well-established root systems, get watered from the bottom up, and eventually all the plants can be watered this way. It's still very much a work-in-progress, as, there are places where the water sits too long, and there's more digging to do. And there are many more beds to create, meaning also that there are many more trenches to dig.
OK, that's it for now. I've been postponing journaling here, thinking I didn't have much to say. But I'm back on track now. Have a great day.
Not much that's new to report. We've just about finished deer-proofing 30+ acres of land (the whole property is 282 acres). It's an enormous amount of fencing, as well as many gates, and all that remains is to string top wire along several sections; but we are deer-proof enough that we can start planting vegetable and flower starts from the greenhouse.
Eden and I planted our first seeds out of doors, and our first flower/medicinal herb starts, at the end of April. Matt tilled up a quarter-acre for us at the beginning of the property, which is a bit of a walk from the main house. But the soil is great. So far the flowers we've planted: plains coreopsis, various poppies, bee phacelia, clarkia, safflower, sunchokes (which are in the sunflower family), hollyhock, cardoon, daisies. Medicinal herbs: echinacea, yarrow, lavender and California goldenrod (which can also be used as cut flowers), and lovage. We also planted some excess cabbage for the community, so that there'll be lots of sauerkraut goin' on. Mostly we'll sell cut flowers to a local CSA and possibly other venues, and begin to build up a cache of perennial medicinal herbs for the long-term.
Another cool thing we got going there at the herb/flower plot, yesterday, was a hand-dug flood irrigation system, just like people have been doing for thousands of years. It took a lot of work, but basically the paths between the garden beds also function as irrigation trenches. You just turn the water on, irrigate whatever trench you want, and the water soaks the adjacent beds. Capillary action brings the water upwards as well as down. We're still having to water the seeds we sowed out there, but the starts, which already have pretty well-established root systems, get watered from the bottom up, and eventually all the plants can be watered this way. It's still very much a work-in-progress, as, there are places where the water sits too long, and there's more digging to do. And there are many more beds to create, meaning also that there are many more trenches to dig.
OK, that's it for now. I've been postponing journaling here, thinking I didn't have much to say. But I'm back on track now. Have a great day.
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