Category Archives: permaculture

Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Wheel, permaculture

Senescence

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60  bar rises 30.07  2mph N  dew-point 59  sunrise 7:06  set 7:00  Autumn

Waning Crescent of the Harvest Moon  rise 5:12  set 6:05

Today and tomorrow will be full gardening days.  There are bulbs to plant: daffodils, hyacinths, snow drops, many tulips and garlic.  Sprinkler heads need coaxing.  Mulch sits over at the Anoka County Landfill.  Some of it has to come here in the trailer.

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While documenting the orchard installation, I also took some shots of the vegetable garden in late September.  This photograph has our heirloom Cherokee Purple tomatoes in their senescence.  The asiatic lilies with the tall tan stems of wilted leaves look much the same in terms of their life cycle, but in fact are different.

As annuals, the Cherokee Purples put all their effort into fruit, then the plant dies.  As a result, we have had a bumper crop of tomatoes, all raised from four seeds planted in April of this year under the lights of the hydroponic system.  Continue reading Senescence →

permaculture

Orchard Installation Day 3

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Plants in position.  This is a fruit tree with a guild of plants that will support it.  Guilds are a permaculture concept that I will explain later.

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Paula Westmoreland, a principal in Ecological Gardens, at Day 3 start.

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More trees and guilds with Christa in the background.

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Lindsay Rebhan (kneeling) is another principal in Ecological Gardens.  Sean (back to photo), Reid (red hat) and Sara complete the crew that worked today and most of yesterday.

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Kona and Emma inspect what the strangers have done to their yard.

At this point almost all the plants are in.  Remaining work involves putting down mulch, seeding clover and deciding on work we need to do yet this fall to get ready for the next push in the spring.  I’m watering the whole thing now and wrestling with uncooperative sprinkler heads.  Another learning opportunity.

permaculture

Permaculture Side Quests

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63  bar falls 30.15  0mph NNE dew-point 60   sunrise 7:04  set 7:04

Waning Crescent of the Harvest Moon  rise 2:44   set  5:23

orchard-installationwheel300.jpgWhat a guy night and day.  Last night I relieved Kate after the trailer blew its tire.  The truck and the speeding vehicles on 10 kept me company until the night driver from Pomps (would I make this up?) showed up to tell me I needed not only a new tire, but a new wheel, too.  A Jungian would ask (and I am one, so I will) if this uniformed man with a third eye, a battery powered lamp, came out of the night as a psychopomp, ready to carry me into another realm.

He did.  After he left, I went home for five hours of sleep, then up again to find a tire and wheel.  It was easier, but not straight forward.  The folks who made the trailer went out of business a year ago (natch) and the new folks no longer stocked this tire.  But, “Northern Tool or Discount Tire might have it.”  Northern Tool, “We have every trailer tire, but that one.”  (again, natch)  At Discount Tire I discovered why, “Oh, that’s an automobile tire, not a trailer tire.”  Soooo.  “Yes, we have it.  But Continue reading Permaculture Side Quests →

Faith and Spirituality, permaculture

Oh, Man.

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Today I have had many opportunities to learn about melding with the movement of the universe.  I missed the first lesson when the dumptruck driver put the load of compost in the middle of the truck gate.  I could have accepted it and began to work around it, but it made me mad.

When the site prep guy broke the irrigation main, I knew I had failed to figure the irrigation stuff out before hand, so I accepted my responsibility and felt calm.

Seemed like I had it down.  Then, Kate called at 10:10 PM tonight.  “I blew a tire on the trailer.”  Oh.  Well, another opportunity to flow with the movement of the universe.  After a call to a specialty tire service–not cheap–, the guy came, an hour + after I initiated contact.  “Hmmm.  The wheels no good.”  This at 11:45 PM.  Swell.

What could I do?  You can’t get a wheel at 11:45 pm.  So, I called the Sheriff’s office.  They’re closed.  I had to call 911.  The Sheriff’s message told me to call them.  I reported the trailer as not going to get fixed until the morning.  Kicked it off the trailer hitch and drove home.

Where I am now.  Hungry.  Gonna have something to eat, then go to bed.

permaculture

A Clear Week Ahead

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65  bar rises 30.02  omph NW  dew-point 64  sunrise 7:03  set 7:07

Last Quarter Harvest Moon  rise 12:10  set  4:24

Pouring rain.  Thunder and lightning.  Good for the crops, but if it lasts into tomorrow, not so good for site prep.  That’s what’s on deck.  Guy with bobcat moving earth, creating berms, leveling.  That sort of thing.

The weather forecasts look ok, still some chance of thunderstorm on Thursday morning.  20%  Good odds.

Finished all the candidate research this morning.  Sierra club political committee tomorrow night.  Might be the last meeting until after the election.  From this point forward it will be retail political work, tactics not strategy.

I have no tours until a week from Friday.  That one is an On Dragon’s Wings tour for an esl group.  They have asked us to use modified language.  Not sure what that means.  Guess we’ll find out.

We’re ready to do this.

Our Land and Home, permaculture

Before Site Prep: The Orchard

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66  bar steady 30.00  0mph WNW dew-point 65  sunrise 7:02  set 7:07  Autumn

Last Quarter of the Harvest Moon  rise 12:10  set 4:34

orchard-before-2008planfromhouse500.jpg   Orchard schematic from same orientation as photograph below.  The large circles are trees,  the smaller crenallated figures are shrubs and the small circles are perennial plants.

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The kitchen bay window is at my back as I took this photograph on the same orientation as the plan.  This looks west.

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This  is the opposite orientation from the photograph above, looking east from the access road toward the house.

Garden, permaculture

A Splitting Morning

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63  bar rises 30.11  2mph NW  dew-point 54  sunrise 6:58  set 7:13  Lughnasa

Waning Gibbous Harvest Moon  rise 9:58  set 1:37

A crisp morning, tending toward a warm afternoon.  Great for outdoor work.  Have to split logs so I can use the chipper on them Monday.  Then, plant bulbs and move hemerocallis.  Plenty outside labor for the crew here at Vineland Place.

Check in later.

Faith and Spirituality, Myth and Story, permaculture

Angels in the Dark

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70  bar falls 29.98  0mph S dew-point 58  sunrise 6:57  set 7:17

Waning Gibbous Harvest Moon rise  8:32  set 11:01

On Thursday nights I watch Supernatural on the CW.  My lifelong fascination with gothic tales, especially ones involving demons makes this irresistible to me, even more so than Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which I also enjoy.  I mention it here because it took a very interesting twist tonight.  An angel appeared.  This is not at all like touched by an angel, this is more like grabbed by an angel.  Anyhow, the entry into the program of the divine element in the supernatural separates Supernatural from everything that’s gone before on TV.  At least as far I can recall.  Should be interesting.

When I went out on the deck tonight, the smell of the dead trees was everywhere.  It’s not an unpleasant smell.  Sort of a green tobacco drying odor.  When it hit my nose though, I rethought my earlier comments.  About not missing the trees.   It feels important to me to do a ritual on Saturday, before we chip them.  They lived with us and we with them for 14 years.  They never asked anything of us and in return offered shade, their presence.  Their passing should not go unnoticed.