Barrel hoop #4

Barrel Hoop MicroFarm

85f, sunny

The book  

"Carrots Love Tomatoes: Secrets of Companion Planting for Successful Gardening" by Louise Riotte",

 is a source we are really appreciating right now.  We checked it out from the library, but, we will be buying a copy for ourselves.  It is one that we will refer back to often.  Learning what plants like to grow with others and which help to prevent pest for others can remove a lot of frustration.

Here is a thought:

Every step removed from the "hunter-gatherer" life style is a step further toward asking something of the rest of the natural world that it does not do easily, or without protest.  Agriculture can be practiced in a manner that works with the larger systems of nature, instead of against it, but it is still largely not in balance with the other life forms on the planet.  Agriculture is, in a way, the great gift, that allows us to live these very distinctly human lives.  It gives us power to be mobile and at the top of the food chain.  It has been oft said that with power comes responsibility.

Logic would show us that there is no real separation of man from the natural world.  We are a part of the natural world.  Everyone of us is invested in ecology, environmentalism, preserving nature.  Preserving nature is in fact preserving ourselves. 


I am currently finishing up the book "Brining it to the Table" by Wendell Berry.  The book has 4 sections, Farming, Farmers, Farms and Food.  The really nice thing that one can notice within the section on food is that present in all of the essays is the theme of appreciation, thanks.  In so many of the writings of late there is much said of reasons for what we should by and eat and methods for growing food, but little is said about the attitude with which we might harvest and eat our food.

"An Attitude of Gratitude!"

Barrel Hoop #3

Barrel Hoop MicroFarm

"All things are connected: the context of everything is everything else."-- Wendell Berry, "Bringing it to the table"

71'f (85f high) sunny

This farm is a work in progress, and will hopefully stay a work in progress for the entire time it exists.  It is the hope that we will be able to get almost all of our food from it.  The goal is to bring as little, of anything, onto the place, and to take out less than that.  Energy will hopefully all be from renewable, sustainable, reasonable, and clean sources.  The goal is to live in and of this local environment, and to be a benefit to it, while benefiting from it.

I am thinking of creating a stock pond, for fish.  In keeping with the scale of the place, it will really be a macro, outdoor aquarium.  The neighbors down the road actually have a pond, complete with turtles, fish, ducks and more.  They also have many times more land.  Their pond, as will be ours if fed naturally from the rain and run off.  I need to learn more about aeration, and avoidance of mosquitoes.  I wonder if they would become raccoon food? 

It seems that somewhere in the middle of the 20th century in this country, and subsequently in others, we left behind our understanding of our binding relationship to the rest of creation.  A view that had seen us thru all of time before that time was given up in exchange for an exploitation of and an attempt to subjugate that which we are connected to.  Some have never forgotten this connection and still live by methods and philosophies that support and celebrate it.  The Amish farmers are an example.  Small mixed use farms still survive.

A blood donor can only take so much from his body before the money gained from the sale of the blood is of less benefit to his over all health than the blood itself.

Current Industrial Agricultural practices are extractive and over all, and with time, have shown to be costly to the health of our land.  No nation can remain strong without healthy land that can grow food.

Barrel hoop #2

Barrel Hoop MicroFarm

5/25/11

82 degrees f, sunny

Today I got some corn seedlings in the ground in the uppermost terrace bed.  They are in amongst the returning sunchokes.  The soil is has some small stones in it but the top 12 inches is a very nice mix.  This corn was started from seed on May 12th, and has grown to be about 4 inch seedlings in those 13 days.  I made a stew of water and dehydrated cow manure to put on each seedling and then watered them.

This is the low tunnel that I made last fall.  Today it got up to 120f before I got the doors open to ventilate it.  I don't think any plants got cooked.  This low tunnel is made from some scrap wood, on the ends and the middle framing is a steel tube from an instant garage that belonged to my neighbor.  A tree came down on it when his truck was in it and I helped him get it out.  The truck was protected by the frame and did not suffer.  I got to keep the tree for fire wood and the frame for this purpose.  The plastic is light weight and last about a season and a half before it starts to fall apart from UV rays.  I will take the plastic off after Memorial day and leave the frame in place for next winter.  I will consider buying covering plastic that is available for this purpose.  I think it would last longer.  Less waste.  Next to the low tunnel is a ground row cover with squash and potatoes underneath.  Behind that, above the rock wall is the asparagus/strawberry rows.

5/26/11

85f sunny with passing clouds, HUMID!

Today only got a few plants in.  In the terraces I put in about 7 Dondo squash amongst the sweet potato plants.  They are all under a ground cover which I hope will help to prevent the root borers from putting their young in the dirt.

The Terrace garden

Last year I put a chicken wire fence around the main plot.  It not only helped to keep the critters at bay but kind of made it look a bit nicer to us.  In the picture below two firewood cribs can be seen and behind the truck is the 30x12x 15h boat barn built from recycled materials.

Main Plot 50x15 fenced

Wineberry grows wild here and could take over everywhere.  We do have a blueberry and a rasberry on this hill as well.  Now that they are leafed they hide the low tunnel that is behind them.

Wineberry Hill

I think this weekend will be the right time to get the chiminea out and next to the bench for some evening cooking!

Growth

Slogan about Gross National Happiness in Thimphu's School of Traditional Arts. Photo by Italian writer Mario Biondi, September 2010, taken without permission from Wikipedia.

It has been said that one can have "To much of a good thing".  We want our children to grow from little babies to adults.  We want to increase our knowledge and understanding of our world.  We go from making what we earn with an after school job to what we earn in our careers.  Growth can be perceived as good.  We also become Obese.  We become dependent on advancing technology.  We base our economies, personal and national, on concepts of infinite growth.  When a bubble grows to large it bursts.

Why do we hold it so high in our society, to grow with out a goal to be achieved by that growth?  Our nations economy is a very good, bad example of this concept.  Maybe it is that we have just lost sight of what should be the real goal, securing the tools needed to allow each citizen to create a good life.  Measures of GDP are simplistic and don't reflect the true quality of life for the majority of citizens or the geophysical entity that is our country.  What good is it to be the richest nation in the world but can't and don't feed your people from your own land, your own labor?  The largest military in the world is now needed to pacify other peoples instead of creating security from our ability to be self supporting.  That same enormous amount of resource that supports our military could, I suppose, support a network of small local agriculture, and business that could provide for all who are taxed for it, AND, create a system of support for other countries and people to find ways of doing the same, and probably have money left over to keep some kind of military going because the reality of life necessitates such.

Growth is good to achieve a goal,  and then it should give way to maintenance and reason, gratitude and peace.

Their is social pressure to have an ever increasing income, or at least, to make as much money as one can.  But to what ends?  I read that studies were done that pointed out that after people made ENOUGH money to provide the basics of a good life, that having MORE money did not really make their lives happier, or less stressful.  You can read many accounts of people who have won a lottery and then not have a life of ease and happiness that you'd expect to be the result.

I have heard it said, "I want it better for my kids than I had it."  I found this to be a idea that I easily agreed with at first, but now it seems a bit strange.  I guess defining "better" would have to be done first.  Most often in our society the definition is linked to a financial or material meaning.  I find that definition lacking.  How bad did those people have it that say this?  I can see the side of those coming from histories of severe repression or violence.  But those things can and do exist for people of all income classes.  If you have lived a decent lifestyle, especially in this country, and been able to raise a family, afford the basic needs of life, food, and shelter then you've had more than most of the human beings on the planet have.

I was not born into privilege.  The people living next door to me as a child had no electricity and bought their water from my family and filled up their pales with it each day.  I do not wish more for my children than to know the richness of life, love and health of mind and body.  All the rest is the experience that makes life interesting, an education that can only be got in living, and that is steeped in truth's that the university can not teach as well, if at all.

I wish my children to have lives as rich.  Growth, the idea that I would must give them more than what I grew up with doesn't allow for true gratitude for the life I have been able to experience.  It might say that I am dissatisfied with who I am, or embarrassed by my place in life, and that I wish them to have better.  this is not the case.  I want for them to have good lives, as I have had a good life.

For every challenge in my life that I can think of, I have survived and received something.


In exchange for growing up in a family that didn't have a lot of money I learned how to work and earn money when needed.  I learned that I didn't know I was poor until the world told me so, meaning, I did not want for food, shelter, love.  I learned that my identity comes from within, not from a corporate logo or a fashion trend.  I got time with my family instead of things to occupy my time.

I couldn't afford many things I wanted in my life.  This was formative in much of my path in life.  I never could have planned the richness and experience that I got from that circumstance.  Because of that path I met people I will always hold dear in my heart.  In the end, I still went on to achieve much of what I wanted , and have dreams remaining to inspire me on in the rest of my journey.  This is not, and will not be everybody's experience, but to some degree, I think we are all capable of making our lives truly wonderful.

I want to help my children in pursuit of their dreams and let them live out their lives as they choose to make them.  I have no dreams for my own for them other than being happy and capable of dealing with what comes in a way that will allow them to one day say, "It was a good life".

Not more, but enough.

When you look at the rest of the world you will see that nothing grows infinitely, that in fact, most systems and organisms, great and small, may gain and lose to some degree, but have a greater stability.  The ones that don't usually die out.

My first home was small, the second one is just about the same size, maybe smaller in usable space.  It is enough.  At one point my income swelled to what would be considered really good.  With that growth came an inverse amount of happiness and satisfaction with my life.  Now money is not what brings happiness or peace.  This is a growth that I desire.  I have read that in Bhutan, Gross Domestic Happiness is of greater importance than Gross Domestic Product.

Barrel Hoop #1

Barrel Hoop MicroFarm

Barrel Hoop Micro-Farm or Macro-Garden

This entry and others with the Barrel Hoop title will be a bit of a separate blog running parallel and within "reasonable Path".  "Barrel Hoop Micro Farm" is what I call the place we live.  When clearing the land we found a set of old rusty barrel hoops.  I put them on each of the gates as decor, and then realized that they were our 'logo'.  We are working to make it into as much of a farm as you can have on 8/10ths of an acre of sloped, rocky, clayey, land crawling with deer, chipmunk, squirrels, woodchucks, snakes, black bears and coyotes, to mention some of the wild life that want to share our harvest.
I'd like to use these entries to keep track of the practices and events that occur for us on the "farm". 

Right now the farm is just a plant based experiment, but we are trying to get some chickens going here for eggs.  I am in the process of building a coop from reclaimed wood and trying to decide the best place to situate them.

(78'f, passing clouds, humid)
Today, we finished putting in borders on the downhill side of two long garden beds, in the main plot.  Each bed is about 50 feet long and about 3 feet wide.  They are terraced and have walking paths between them of about 20 inches.  The wood for the borders is cedar decking reclaimed from my neighbors deck.  It has paint on one side and I put that side to the dirt facing uphill so that it might last a little longer.  the stakes that support the cedar are scrap from wooden pallets I get for free from a local lumber yard.

main plot 2010

The borders are to help reduce erosion from the steep slope.  After those were complete I was able to turn over the cover crop  of  Hairy Vetch, yellow peas, and alfalfa, (green manure from Johnny's Seeds Johnny's Selected Seeds – Superior Seeds & Gardening Tools  ) that has been growing there for about a month.  I mixed that in with buckets of compost.  Our soil is full of rocks (Rockland County, NY) and it also has a lot of clay.  It has been a will be a multiple year process to get the soil into really good condition. In a few weeks we can plant in those beds.

This planting will be later that it could have been by about 3 weeks.  I just didn't get it all together when I would like to have.  Other beds are already seeded and have a good amount of growth already.  A pepper plant already has blossoms


Downhill of the to beds I turned over today are about 10 "finger" beds that run uphill and down.  They are smaller, each about 3 by 5 feet.  Today, in the last finger bed, we put in the a few squash seedlings.  that completed the bed for this year.  It is the "3 sisters bed" with corn, pinto beans, and squash.

We also got squash put in a few other places on the farm.  We have to give a lot of thought to where we put all the plants but especially the ones that will vine out over the ground long distances.  Our space is challenging in many respects.

We have already gone thru our Asparagus crop for the season.  We enjoyed about 5 meals with them as appetizer or as a part of the main meal.  They are so sweet that we don't even season them, just steam for about 3 minutes and then eat!  The ones we get from the local farms I prefer to season with a little sea salt, cracked black pepper, and a hit of lemon juice.  Toss the ingredients and then eat!  Now we have the beautiful asparagus ferns to look at while waiting for the strawberries to come in.  They share two terraces with some lettuce and lemon sorrel,  and a few left over garlics and one chard.

I didn't get the rest of the corn put in.  The seedling sit in their trays in the low tunnel and will eventually be transplanted to the southern most beds, we call the "terraces", to grow next to some sunchokes, and probably some more beans.

Kitchen plot 2010, with low tunnel frames 

I will try to get some more pics up soon.

The Earthy Mind

Being that about 72% of the earth is covered in water, maybe the idea that something is "earthy" should include that element.

Aboard Uncas

Traditionally, while voyaging upon the ocean, the sailor will be sailing 2 boats at once.  The first is the one that rest between him and the deep blue sea.  This is the "real" or tangible, yet frail, vessel that literally supports him.

The second, is a 2 dimensional boat that exists on a chart, or in his mind.  This is the intellectual understanding of where, and when, he exists in the world.  This boat can also be understood to be fixed, and the understanding is more about where and when the world exists around it.  Included in the identity of this little ship, or big ship, or simple raft, is the understanding of it's state of existence.  For instance, "this ship is 27' long it has full sail up and the wind is force 3, the hull is sound and without leaks or other known weakness, the tanks have water and the lockers are full of oatmeal cookies."

These two boats exist at once and are often thought of as one.  To sail successfully and comfortably it might be required that they are though of as the same.

And so it goes with me on my journey.  It was an important realization that the imagined division between my intellectual self and my physical self really was not very satisfying or helpful.  I have come to see that the division between physical and spiritual and intellectual is a limitation, and maybe even a destructive misconception.  I found this to be especially so when it pertained to action.  You must have heard the saying "Walk the Talk",  I think more so I needed to  "Walk the Thought".

I suppose the reasonable path I am on has allot to do with joining together of my "charted course" with the one that surrounds me.  One of the important things to think about when setting out on an ocean voyage is provisioning, sustenance, or food and water.  With out these the trip will not be good or lasting, or it might end up being the last.  So it goes with the rest of my life.  This seems to have been the beginning of my path, getting my supplies in order, my food and where it comes from, how it is attained.  This has become it's own path or at least I find it much more satisfying to give it a very great importance, because, it is of great importance.  Thus, began the steps to growing my own food.

2010 garden patch

People have asked me why I choose to be a vegetarian, "Is it an ethical choice or a health choice?"  In truth it is both, and more.  It is economic and political.  It is pleasurable and educational.  I am sure there are even more reasons, including a rebellious and subversive quality to it.

It is not convenient being a vegetarian in this country.  Right now, it is the energy corporations and the insurance corporations and the pharmaceuticals who have the sway and who are making the big dollars.  Once when the American cowboy was becoming a formative part of our identity in this country, it was the cattle industry.  That influence has never really left.   It is still the driving force in how we in this country seem to define a meal.  "meat makes the meal!"

During one weekend, after reading the book "Diet for a New America" by John Robbins, and seeing a movie about a corporations doing drug experiments on poor African people, and one other book or movie, that I can't quite remember now I am sad to say, I just made a decision to change the way I ate.

There was a health influence.  There was a political influence.  There was also an ethical influence.  Only later did I realize that all these influence really were absolutely connected and even stronger when seen as such.

It is a similar situation with my decision to try to grow as much of my own food as possible, and to use as much of my lawn and property to do it.  This choice cannot be reduced to one simple answer, but it can be expanded to many good reasons.

Today we turned the green manure (peas, vetch, alfalfa) into the soil and mixed in some compost from the local municipal facility in order to build a healthier soil.  That will sit for a few weeks before planting the crop for the season.  It is a little late but it seems that everything on our property happens a few weeks later than the rest of the region.  We live in the woods and have tall trees that limit our sun.  We have to adapt our growing patterns to what this property can support.  It is different from properties a mile away.  Eat local, grow local. 

GILT by association

The title of my blog "A reasonable Path" got it's influence from a book by Ferenc Mate', entitled, "A Reasonable Life".  I found Mate' thru boating.  He has written several beautiful and informative books on fitting out yachts, but for me his best work was the book about living a simple but rich life.  I don't mean to plagiarize his title and I think the emphasis of my writing is not the historic look at ideals, but at the actual attempts, both failed and achieved, at walking a reasonable path in this life.  It is a given that mistakes have and will be made.  It is also a convention that I follow that the pendulum swings both ways.  As such, it is a  given that great triumphs and success will be achieved.

In my undertaking to walk a certain path I have learned to rely on the "maps" drawn by others who have ventured out before me.  There have been so many, and so often they have drawn beautiful maps and kept informative logs of their journeys.  In my attempts to eat and grow real food and live as a part of this world I have been greatly influenced by the cultures of primitive peoples, especially those who still live simply and as part of the earth.  The writings of Wendell Berry are very thoughtful and prescient, though I believe he might say they are strictly observational.  I have also tried to be mindful of sacred texts from as many different religions as possible.  This has promoted an understanding of the themes common to all religions and to us now.

For me, the two strongest sources of information seem to be the elders and nature.  The elders are those who have lived and risen and fallen and experienced life already.  This is another way of saying history, but has the benefit of becoming personal and taking on a tangible human form.  The other, and the strongest source of education for me seems to be what most of us call "The Natural World".  This too is another way of saying history.  It is a history we as a society have forgotten how to listen to.  This was deliberate in some cases.  The terms nature, or physics, or reality and even the term life, all seem inadequate in addressing this very complex and interconnected event and condition.  It is something that is greater than the sum of its parts, unobservable from our vantage point, mysterious and yet completely accessible to us and inclusive.
A tree can show us our way.  It's own life supports and is supported by other lives.  It is powered by the sun, and reaches toward that obvious source adapting its life to the light available from it.  Its roots are in the earth, from where it came and to where it will return but always in contact with it.  It's strength comes with it's ability to bend with the forces that push against it, it gives in order to get and to remain.  By branching out it acquires character and by aging it's bark becomes beautiful.  Straight and smooth it would just be a stick.
  Any thing I say or think I am sure has been said or thought of before.  By associating with those who have lived before me I can achieve some sort of polish or beauty even, my "gilt".  There have been so many and I will try to mention them not only for your benefit, but so that I will never stop honoring them and being grateful for the maps they have drawn to help me find my own  reasonable path.

In Sedona, Arizona while there for my sister's wedding, I came across a vegetarian restaurant.  On the counter by the cash register was a sticker, like a bumper sticker, that read "Attitude of Gratitude".  I got one and I put it on my motorcycle but I carry that phrase in me and repeat it as often as I can.  I think it informs the way I want to eat, sleep, walk, love, work, and treat other people and all things.  I am even approaching the hard and painful times with the thought that "It is better than to never have been" and "with out the pain I would not know the extent of the joy".  I believe it was in the movie with Anthony Hopkins about the life of the writer C.S. Lewis in which he expresses this beautifully when faced with the death of his wife, Joy Gresham.

If the thought of rapture happening tomorrow frightens you then read some Buddhist text or thought.  If it excites you by all means read the Bible.  If you feel it is all just crazy talk then read the news of what is
going on in the world, (not just sports and entertainment, and this includes US politics) and then look at history.  Once you've done that you might want to read either Buddhist text or the Bible.

As a friend said of his trips down the ICW, "every mile is a mile", every step is a step and the sum of them all is my path.  I shall try to choose each step deliberately and try to be aware of the tracks I leave behind.

Inertia, the end of an affair

It was my little sister who gave the "push".  I woke up this morning to find, not only her email, but a link to her blog.  Now we will have, not dueling, but co-operating blogs about our paths to a better living, home, family, community, country, world, or, at least, paths to some fun and adventure.  Today, will be one of my worst days of the year for energy consumption, as I have to travel into the city to light a event.  This means that I will be burning petrol to get to the job, and it means that tens of thousands of watts of electricity will burn all day and into the night because of what I design.  I am trying to design with less light but there is a limit to how little one can use to light the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world.  Working in the Arts & Entertainment industry has had it's part in the "push" as well.  When one see's, or is part of the wastefulness that takes place in that endeavor, it raises many questions about the benefit to soulful side of the human condition, when it costs so much to the physical side.  Can we really separate the two?  A few years ago I began to feel the need for change in the way I lived.  Now, still in the beginning of that hunt for a more reasonable way, I am so very far from where I began.  Now, I will share some of that strange trip and hopefully some of what is yet to come, what can be seen ahead from where I am now.  Thanks to my little sister, who's path is different but parallel.  It is an amazing age we live in that we can all write and share and possibly even converse, in a way, the globe over.