Daily Archives: May 13, 2009

Travel

Ancientrails Rides The Rails

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Beltane                     Waning Flower Moon

Ancientrails will hit the road on Friday.  I’m not sure about wireless connections while I’m on the train, though I’m guessing they exist in the First Class lounges where I’ll wait between trains.  At any rate, I may be down for a day or two, but I’ll start posting for sure in Hilton Head on Sunday.

It’s strange, doing so much earth connected work: planting, moving daylilies, tending bees then getting on a train and riding away from it all for 18 days.   Travel during the growing season has definite windows and I’m just touching one, the average day of the last frost in our area, May 15th.  That’s this Friday.  That means I’ve planted a tiny bit ahead of the average date, but the overall weather pattern looked favorable.

I do have other planting that needs to get done, but I can’t do it until our number of available beds increases with the work of Ecological Gardens that can not happen until May 26th and May 27th.  I’ll be back shortly after that, so I’m not missing much.

We’re hiring some neighborhood help with weeding.  That’s the primary challenge while we’re gone, not letting the weeds get ahead of the vegetables.

Travel is a part of my Self, a way I work on who I am and what I mean.  It’s been that way for so long that I can’t recall which came first, travel or working on who I am.  It may be that the journey toward Selfhood never ends, or it may end with definite suddenness at death, but in either case it lasts a lifetime at least.  We need all the tools available to us.

Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Garden, Great Work, permaculture

Bee-ing

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Beltane                      Waning Flower Moon

Tomorrow morning Mark Nordeen and I will zip up our white bee suits, put on Wellies and gloves, secure the veiled bonnet that makes us look like prim Victorian ladies headed for a stroll in Hyde Park circa 1880 and do the third check on the bee hive.

When I checked it a week ago, I saw capped cells and a lot of activity.  As I’ve watched scouts come and go over the last week, I’ve noticed that between 1/4 and 1/3 of them return with pollen on their hind legs.  This is a key transition, meaning they will be able to make their own food, wax and propolis.

As each new piece has become a part of our overall property, the gestalt increases.  It grows in size, has grown in size, from the first decisions about boulder walls and perennial flowers, through bulb planting, hosta and ferns, the multiplication and division of iris, day lilies, true lilies, hosta, bug bane, ligularia, dicentra.  When Kate began to grow vegetables, the gestalt pushed out some more.

Hiring Ecological Gardens and putting in the orchard last fall has pushed the boundaries of the whole further out, while integrating it more.  The bees have added an animal component, a lively and complex bee-ing.

Growing vegetable plants from seed under lights, then planting them outside adds another layer.  The work that Ecological Gardens plans for May 26 and May 27 will enrich it yet again.

The feeling is hard to express, but wonderful.  Mabye the bee hive is a good analogy.  It feels to me like the whole property has become an interdependent whole, with the land working for us and us working for the land.  I’m not talking about just food production.  The beauty of the flowers, the grace of the ferns, the broad green presence of the hosta are part of it, too.  Each part feeds into and amplifies the other.  The bees enhance the fruit trees, the vegetables and the flowers; in turn they provide pollen to the hive.  We care for the whole and harvest food, aesthetic pleasure and a sense of connectedness.

Garden, Great Work, Hydroponics, permaculture

Plants I’ve Known From Seeds.

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Beltane                       Waning Flower Moon

The peas and turnips and beets and new onions are up and wriggling toward the sky.  I planted all of the hydroponic plants today with the exception of the cucumbers.  They go in tomorrow.

This was satisfying, putting in plants I grew myself from heirloom seeds.  The next satisfaction will come as they grow, another when we harvest, but the best will be when I replant them next year grown from seed I harvest this year.

I already have garlic growing from bulbs I planted two years ago.  Once the new beds are in we will plant the beans, all of which are from last year’s beans.

Good to get all this done before I leave for Hilton Head.

Now it’s in to MIA to pick up  the Sin and Salvation catalogue for the Pre-Raphaelite show I will tour through the remainder of the summer.