Very cool PBS show from Vermont

Permaculture show from Vermont:









Make sure to check out the other parts of each episode on youtube...

micro maple

Yo, I'm tapping a Box Elder tree (Acer negundo, a species of maple) in my front yard. All maples are tappable for sap, it's just the sugar maple that has the most sugar in its sap.

This is a part of my ongoing micro-urban permaculture experiment. It certainly is exciting.

Well, the days are above freezing and the nights are almost freezing, so I figure it is the perfect time to tap. I didn't have the right bit (7/16) but I had a 3/8 bit so I wiggled it around a bit in the hole to get the extra 16th of an inch. I drilled 2" into the tree, and it is about 10" in diameter. Then I squirted the hole out with tap water and bashed the tap in. I fashioned a pail out of an old gallon jug hung it on the tap. The sap was running wildly already, and I got pretty excited about doing this on a larger scale.

maple trees: the next corn

Yesterday the SO and I drove up to Mora to attend a maple syruping workshop. We were tired from the previous week of activities, and so when we got to Mora our brains stopped working and we got lost. I couldn't seem to remember which school the workshop was at, and no townspeople knew anything about their own town, it seemed. Finally though, we got directions to the middle school and zipped off to try to find it. At this point it was 10:30 and I though the workshop had started out at 10 so I was a bit consternated, because we had driven so far only to miss a fair chunk of the program.

When we got there the parking lot was pretty full and it turned out that a Rural Living Expo thing was going on, and it actually was pretty cool, with workshops on Native Plants and organic gardening and stuff like that. I thought the entry fee was going to be $15 for each of us but it was $8 for our household in total. Plus the maple syruping workshop started at 11 so we were perfectly on time. We perused and gathered various pamphlets and info and then went to the workshop.

The speaker was funny and very into maple trees. He was an older guy and we both really liked his whole presentation. At the end he made some maple candy which was delicious. We're planning on tapping 20 odd trees or so up at the folks land as well as any trees we can find in Minneapolis that are accessible. It doesn't make any sense not to, as it is an easy process that only requires a minimum of effort on our part, and the maple tree pumps out sap for free. We are going to try to make maple and birch beer as well. I might put the order for supplies in today, as the syruping season may start in a couple of weeks.

Then we traveled up to Sandstone and picked up some terrible food at the supermarket and scarfed that down. We went to Geoff's place and talked a bit with him and the kids about the workshop, and then we went over to the sledding hill and enjoyed speeding down the hill and screwing up our backbones.

After that we were lucky enough to enjoy a sauna with the folks at their friends (now our friends as well) Tom & Steph's place. That was very nice and hot. Afterwards they fed us some good food and we hung out in their funky and relaxing home drinking beers. Before we left we purchased some delicious eggs from them.

What a pleasant day, even though I was totally exhausted by the week.

addendum: Okay, maybe I wasn't totally exhausted, but I was tired enough, not only from the week, but from the whole goddamn winter.

native flora and fauna

Last Saturday I went to a conference on native flora and fauna called Through the Eyes of Nature:The Birds' View of Landscaping

It was pretty interesting. I could sum it up in a few sentences. Basically it's all about providing the basics of food and shelter in as many ways as possible to attract the most species of fauna as possible.

1. Native plants don't need as much maintenance as exotics. They are genetically programmed to thrive on tough conditions.
2. Native fauna enjoy living and eating in pockets of native plantings.
3. Birds in particular like a variety of native plants, from the tall oaks, to the medium birch, to the low juneberry, to the small bearberry. Most birds like trees under 15 feet tall or so.
4. You can attract twice as much species of bird if you add a water feature to your landscaping, twice more then that if your water feature flows or drips in some ways.
5. Dead trees and brush (snags) provide sanctuary and food to birds.

A lot of this repeats many of the lessons I've learned form Forest Gardening and Permaculture principles.

Landscape architecture is extremely important for overyielding polycultures. Perennial polyculture patches of native species of various heights and structure fill various niches that are necessary to provide food and shelter for the most amount of fauna species as possible.

didactic reduction

Man, I wish I could be less didactic. I don't think I know more then most, it just sounds like I do. But anyway, I wrote this here:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/discuss/342/P120/

It’s raining outside and I have the day off of work, so I felt like perusing this forum, otherwise I would probably not do so. I read Janisse Ray’s article awhile ago, so I only remember the gist of the piece. After reading this entire comment section it was clear to me that these comment sections always seem to start so sweetly, with people’s general reactions to the articles, and then degenerate into extremely long missives from those with way too much time on their hands. It is disheartening.

I like writing, though, and reading as well, but obviously the proof is in the pudding. You can say any stupid outrageous intelligent brilliant thing you want, and it just doesn’t matter until an action is taken on behalf of the words you write or the thoughts you think. I think most people inherently know this. So why so much baloney in these forums, comment sections, and listservs? What a waste of energy. And the only way to save the world is to save energy, right?

So my particular response to this article and others like it is one of irritation at the actual smallness of the subject, that we are discussing such ridiculously small problems that can be solved quite easily if anybody actually cared. I’m not saying that people don’t, I’m saying it seems like people don’t. Industrialized people, anyway.

In all actuality, you do not have to drive anywhere or use the internet or buy disposable razor blades from Target or shower every day (I do because I’m a landscaper..:)but we all choose to do one or more stupid things every day because we have been programmed since we were infants to feel like these consumerist actions are what makes us happy, they are what makes us human almost! Good gracious, how could we relax after work without a movie and some popcorn? How could we have a good Christmas without a ham and the newest video game system? Our consumption of junk and apathy towards the earth is what fuels our rampant wasting of many different types of energy. Too me, looking around at our culture, is shocking and amazing. But of course, I can only change myself, so I try to do that in small steps. I don’t succeed all the time, but so what?

Permaculture is one system that will allow human beings to live fully and deliciously on this planet. There are other systems, but there are no technological fixes left when the nonrenewable resources that fuel the machine become too expensive to mine, or runs out. In any case, the small fragment of humanity that makes up the industrialized nations will probably have live like the other three fourths of the world. That’s the real picture of the future, not this desperate clinging of the bourgeoisie to the last vestiges of the middle class suburban lifestyle of comfort and waste.

I’m a country boy living in the big city and I really appreciate both worlds, but the city isn’t sustainable in the long run in my view, at least in the urban centers. But I do not think that a retreat to the country to live a back-to-the-land lifestyle is sustainable either. Basically the city and the country mirror each other, and a million possible permutations exist across the world. I think that as an individual, it is up to me to find and build a community that is sustainable. That is all I can do and any more thought on the subject seems counterproductive and intellectually smug.

There was a particular idea that popped up in this forum, about how the BIG QUESTION was CAN IT SCALE, or something like that. I have gotten that question from any number of intelligent people as a response to my ideas about permaculture and sustainability. I want to say, YES! Of course it can scale. But nobody has tried it, so how the hell do we know for sure? What a ridiculous question, in some ways. Is a small garden less important because it can’t be recreated on giant scale? I honestly don’t even know where people’s heads are at when they ask this question...How has our present system of intensive monocropping been anything but bad? For us and for the earth? We’re fatter and the earth is sicker.

Saying you’re an environmentalist or selling a green or eco product means nothing anymore. The word “organic” has been co-opted and now costs farmers thousands of dollar just to be able to use it. All that counts is every little thing you do. One commentator said that a movement that asks you to consider every action you take wouldn’t attract many people, or something to that effect, but look at Buddhism. It’s pretty popular. And in an case, that is all we can do as humans, otherwise we’re just blindly passing though life into death, ruled by our passions, fears, and ignorance.

Namaste

Permaculture ideas

When I first got into Permaculture last year I was convinced that here, at last, was my calling. Mainly because it seemed to fuse all those disparate interests that I possess into a coherent system and philosophy. My fickle interests wax and wane with the moon but I tend to come back to those things that really make me who I am, like Permaculture and music, meditation and backpacking. A few weeks ago I got sidetracked as usual and started fiddling around with electronics, but such geeky pastimes don't really suit me.

I wanted to put down a few Permaculture links here that I think are interesting and informative:

Midwest Permaculture Our local area Permaculture hub

Plowboy Interview with Bill Mollison

Permaculture Video Part 1 An interesting video with Bill Mollison, in parts on YouTube

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Greening the Desert Another interesting short video from a wacky looking Australian

Edible Forest Gardens The BEST books on gardening with soul

Grow Here Now A little vid I found that was somewhat interesting from the Lama Foundation

Enjoy these resources and I would be glad to talk about any ideas or thoughts you have on any of this.