{"id":7209,"date":"2010-07-23T08:58:19","date_gmt":"2010-07-23T14:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=7209"},"modified":"2010-07-23T09:04:46","modified_gmt":"2010-07-23T15:04:46","slug":"seeing-what-we-really-have-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=7209","title":{"rendered":"Seeing What We Really Have Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Grandchildren Moon<\/p>\n

We are well past midsummer here in the northern latitudes.\u00a0 The garden’\"dicentra09\"s peak bearing season will commence although we have already had blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, garlic, lettuce, greens, onions, parsnips, beets and sugar snap peas.\u00a0 Ahead of us are tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes, more greens, onions, beets, lettuce, butternut squash, leeks, wild grapes and carrots plus the odd apple.\u00a0\u00a0 Our orchard has a ways to go before it matures.\u00a0 And I have a ways to go before I can care for the fruit trees in the manner to which they need to become accustomed.<\/p>\n

All of which opens up the purpose of this little experiment in permaculture and the tending of perennial flowers and plants.\u00a0 A long while back I bought three quarter-long horticulture classes from the University of Guelph in London, Ontario.\u00a0 It took me a while to complete it, maybe a year all told.\u00a0 The course helped me integrate and deepen what I’d learned by trial and error as I cared for the daffodils, tulips, day-lilies, hosta, croci, roses, trees and shrubs that then constituted our gardens.<\/p>\n

In its salad days (ha, ha) the notion involved a root-cellar and the possibility of at least making it part way off the food grid.\u00a0 Fewer trips to the grocery store, healthier food, old fashioned preservation.\u00a0 A mix of back-to-the-land and exurban living on our own little hectare.\u00a0 Last year the notion began to include bee-keeping.\u00a0 Now called Artemis Hives.<\/p>\n

As the reality of the size of our raised beds, the likely peak production of the fruits and vegetables possible has become clear to me, I have a more modest though not substantially different goal.\u00a0 We will eat meals with fresh produce and fruits during the producing part of the growing season.\u00a0 We will preserve in various ways honey,\u00a0 grapes, apples, pears, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic, squash, beets, greens and parsnips.\u00a0 These we will eat during the fallow days that begin as the garden goes into senescence in late August and early September and last through the first lettuce and peas of the next growing season.\u00a0 We will supplement these with greens grown hydroponically and use the hydroponics to start seeds and create transplants for 2011.<\/p>\n

None of this will remove us in any major way from the store bought food chain.\u00a0 We will not solve or resolve much of our carbon footprint.\u00a0 But some.\u00a0 More than most perhaps, but far too little to claim even a modest victory.\u00a0 So, should we give up?<\/p>\n

Not at all.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Well, there is a richer, deeper lesson here than living wholly off our own land.\u00a0 That lesson, taught again, day by day and week by week, and again, lies in the rhythm of the plants, the bees, the land and the weather.\u00a0 An old joke from the 50’s asked, “What do you call people who practice the rhythm method?” (Catholics at the time)\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 “Parents.”\u00a0 The permaculture and perennial flowers here at Seven Oaks is a rhythm method.\u00a0 What do you call folks who practice this rhythm method?\u00a0 Pagans.<\/p>\n

Ours is a life that flows in time with the seasonal music of the 45th latitude, the soil on our land, the particularities of the plants we grow, the energy of the bee colonies that work alongside us, the various animal nations that call this place home.\u00a0 This is the profound lesson of this place.\u00a0 Seven Oaks is a temple to the movement of heaven and the bees of Artemis Hives are its priestesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Grandchildren Moon We are well past midsummer here in the northern latitudes.\u00a0 The garden’s peak bearing season will commence although we have already had blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, currants, garlic, lettuce, greens, onions, parsnips, beets and sugar snap peas.\u00a0 Ahead of us are tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes, more greens, onions, beets, lettuce, butternut squash, … Continue reading Seeing What We Really Have Here<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,87,17,9,358,13,336],"tags":[2632,268],"class_list":["post-7209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith-and-spirituality","category-garden","category-great-wheel","category-great-work","category-hydroponics","category-our-land","category-permaculture","tag-fruits","tag-vegetables"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7214,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions\/7214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}