More time and many things -

The time has slipped farther along and there have been many things happen on the way. My garden this season has been abundant, but not so much as to give me all that is needed. I have found that the time commitment needed to raise a sustainable amount of home grown veggies is not yet within my grasp. I will however continue to try. I have several plots of land covered in green and producing a variety of veggies. I hope to be able to  extend the growing season a bit with cold frames and the as yet not rebuilt greenhouse.

The greenhouse is still a series of drawings after the original catastrophe. I still will rebuild something soon however it will be built to withstand both heavy snows  and the high winds we experience here. I will see if I can post construction photos along with more writing when I begin the project.
 I enlarged the chicken enclosure this spring to allow a far bigger flock to wander freely about the lower meadow and have added guinea hens to the chicken flock.... I will wait till spring to see what happens before I add a new crop of hens to the flock and bring egg and poultry production back up to the level before the great coyote massacre... I hope that I will be able to have broody hens by next fall that will produce a good crop of chicks the following spring. The guinea's may also be an abundant resource however they are as yet not in the laying season and it will be early summer next year before they begin to nest.  Right  now  I am focused on this falls harvest and being able to put away some  of this summers plenty for later when it is cold....

Fire wood must be cut, hauled, and stacked and other chores around the place are crying out to  be accomplished.....There is always something to mend or build and never enough time or funding!
  

Once and again

Once again it has been almost a year since I have taken the time to jot down my thoughts here. Very much has changed and much is still remaining the same .....

New work and longer commute time has me spending less time on building my subsistence farming and gardening endeavor. I lost the green house and as yet have not rebuilt it. I have a plan for later in the spring when the weather is better and the wind has subsided. I have been investigating the possibility of building an aquaponic system in the new green house but I am still uncertain about the upkeep and several of the fine points of breeding and sustaining a reasonable population of fish, or what species to even begin with. There are several choices and many ways to design and operate an aquaponic system.

The wheat is in and I have the onion and garlic starts all set. I am thinking about building a vineyard on the upper garden area perhaps if I can find a cultivar that can stand the cold and will still produce under some of the drought conditions we have been experiencing.

perhaps I will have some more time to write down my thoughts more often this year......

We'll see!!

So you must have a government ID to vote eh?
How about - you have to have your Government Issued Number tattooed on your arm! or perhaps those RF ID chips in dogs and cats are now required at birth!

There are many Constitutional issues with these types of restrictions on voting and there have been many assaults on the 1964 voter-rights act but the bottom line is that Supreme Court has yet to hear or decide on several state wide mandates of this type - so far the high court has upheld the law as it has stood since the mid 1960's - we will see!

Hasn’t it been the Governments job to verify, and validate the electorate not the other way around? I signed the voter role and can verify my signature and that is not enough? Humm, seems like fear and suspicion is running rampant in the Land of the Free!

I wonder as the "right leaning" continues how far back up the trail we will go in destroying civil liberty and reducing the people's power to have voice in governance.

At some point the reality that, governance can become tyranny easily, which the framers of the US Constitution well knew, will become the reality -

how much the people will be able to reconstitute fair and impartial governance, when the populace realizes the score, may be vastly more limited by the growing technological might of a continually more and more Orwellian government bent upon keeping power, assimilating all, and suppressing derision, for the economic welfare of a wealthy elite who supplant the vote with dollars.....

That is a far greater fear, for me, then somebody voting out of turn!

well the winter destroyed the feeble attempt to maintain the green house. A heavy snow and hurricane force wind collapsed the reinforced pvc structure. now it is planting time again and the wind has not cooperated even in the least. 

Plans are to buy a tubing bender and create a more rigid hoop structure from galvanized steel tubing this season. Having had the experience from last season and knowing the expectations we will have for fresh veggies I would like to make the replacement a good bit larger then the 10x20 foot print of the first attempt but I will have to find a reasonable resource for covering materials and perhaps use some of the pre-fab devices to fasten the covering and allow ventilation etc so I have a great deal of planning and preparation to do before I build hoop house II.

 I acquired an inexpensive incubator and have had great success hatching our new chicken crew. There were two hatching cycles which resulted in 16 chicks. Plenty of young chickens and hopefully some of them will be laying blue and green eggs if the genetics prove correct and the Amerucana roosters have done their job. I do not know what I will call the cross breeding that I have but it will be interesting to see what these chicks look like when they are older.

I will be improving the hen house and making the chicken yard much larger this year. I would like to be able to house at least a dozen laying hens and perhaps a few more which means improving the hen house a bit adding perching area and mostly enlarging the yard. I think going up to 50x50 will be good but I still am worried about the marauding pack of coyotes. the fencing will need to be very high and will likely need a hot wire around the top. more planning and prep!

We will see how much I am able to accomplish this season!

Passover - family - spring - reflection - renewal
All are the moment that is right now and will begin this next years trials and tribulations. having given the last years over to memories and lessons - as we swing again around the sun..


I posted this elsewhere and though it apropos 

The Greenhouse

Wow, I have not had the time to write in quite awhile.
There have been too many things to write about and many experiences have passed but for now beside the ever circular political debates and the ever present social arguments . It is again time to plan and prepare for spring.

Over the holidays I received a new, and hopefully productive, present. A High Tunnel greenhouse! It's not the grand and immense size of the ones at some of the farms and CSA's I have visited, but according to some of the articles I have regarding high tunnel growing it will be very useful. It could produce the bulk of vegetables for this household if managed properly. We will see how successful this project can become!  It has completely taken over the garden and required me to level out some extra area so that I could build it on the present garden plot near the cisterns and where the soil has been amended and is rich. I Now have to finish securing the structure and reinforce the frame. The high winds we have are likely to be too much for it and I want to insure the work I put in will not blow away. The 80 mph winds we had did break things once already and now I will have to see just how sturdy I am able to make it. If the original frame won't take the torture I will be building something much more sturdy to put the covering on very shortly.......... I have been preparing soil and constructing raised beds on the inside in preparation for the first set of cold weather plantings depending on weather in late February. My plan so far will be to successively plant different veggies throughout the spring, summer, and fall and until we get the long hard freeze of winter again.

My neighbor has a very large High Tunnel and has an amazing rotating 9 to 10 month garden in it.... 

My daughter ran across an amazing purchase of spring bulbs, daffodils, tulips, crocus, hyacinth, and more...
My garage floor is now piled high with hundreds of bulbs. The kitchen counters are covered with trays forcing several colors of hyacinth and paper-whites. and there are jars and trays of others upstairs near the great windows drinking the sunlight. The plan is to scatter them through out the front yard (which is my wife's wildflower garden). I can't wait to see hundreds of flowering bulbs early in the spring and then the wild flowers through the summer and fall again. I hope my daughters vision of spring bulbs scattered throughout the yard is a complete success it will be beautiful.

On another farming front - My flock of hens was attacked by coyotes again, further reducing the population to the point that I must bring in more chicks this spring. I have had several raids by the pack of coyotes that lives up on the mountain behind us over the years but nothing like this fall and winter. I fear the amount of food has dwindled and that has pushed the pack to hunt my birds. I have noticed while cutting wood and riding the trails up on the mountain that there have been fewer cottontails and jackrabbits. I also have seen fewer great horned owls this year. So I guess the coyotes are forced to raid my hen house out of desperation. Still, the pack has grown and even with a few well placed shots there are at least six members that I have seen on raiding parties. I will be investing in more fencing when the ground thaws and seeing if I can run an electric wire around the perimeter and along the top of the fencing. They seem to like to climb on the wire roof of the chicken yard and cave it in to get at the birds! Smart!

Before railing against foreigners I think we all must look carefully at each of our own families’ travels across the planet and stop seeing differences and start seeing brothers and sisters.  Depending on which sides of my family history I look at I am either 3^rd or 4^th generation on this continent. There are many whose families came here before mine. Does that make me a foreigner to this place? I think so, in the sense of nationalistic boundaries. However I don’t think of myself as anything more than a human being  and this planet  is where humanity originates so far as I can tell, therefore none of us are foreigners, are we?   But more importantly what difference does it make? Yes there have been injustices. Yes there have been many things people have done to each other under many flags and under many beliefs that are based upon perceptions of difference and ignorance that have caused divisions. We as a planet are no longer ignorant unless we want to be or are made so by others. Information is available unless we are deprived the ability to find it and learn. Hate and fear are born of ignorance and compassion comes with understanding.  Everybody is different in some way, when people move from one place to another for economic or political reasons they tend to do it when they are in dire need to do so... Others are wanting for reasons of circumstance or misfortune what place is it of ours to judge our brethren?

Mark 14:7 “For you have the poor with you always, and whenever you will you may do them good: but me you have not always.” Matthew 26:11” For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good; by feeding them when hungry, clothing them when naked, and supplying them with the necessaries of life. ..“

We have the understanding that there will always be a need to lend help to some portion of our population and that it is something moral, necessary, and humane. Weather it is a function of government depends on your view of the term “welfare”.  As a rule government holds several keys to maintaining civil society, those being, to provide for general health, safety, and welfare of the society over which it governs. It is well known that the welfare of a society reaches to every member so to ignore the poorest in society (which also in many human societies is the most numerous group) would be done at risk of insurrection. Here in this country the amount in dollars given to keep the peace among the destitute is far less than the amount needed to rebuild a nation. It is also a minute amount as compared to the cost of policing the entire world,which we seem to be intent on as some righteous or upstanding gesture. We should consider our morality closely when we offer the world charity to help in times of need, billions of dollars, and yet many of our children are hungry at school. Is it any wonder that the rest of the world cringes when we as a nation send our Billions in aid abroad with a benevolent smile while our armies stand ready to sweep in and “keep the peace”  with trillions in arms to back them up?

After all - with family (both our direct family and our globally extended family) 

 ” If we fail to look after others when they need help, who will look after us?” ― Siddhārtha Gautama

shouldn't we look after others without threats, without malice or disrespect?    

 This is indeed the land of opportunity and as a species we have taken every opportunity we could. Now look carefully at where we are and what the future looks like for our brothers and sisters. I think we are blinded by chauvinism of a perception that the “American way of life” is somehow eternal.  The admonition of Siddhartha Gautama that “nothing is forever except change” should be paid some great attention by those people who are not willing to see that they live in a world of change.  We also live in a world where we are constantly moving to survive. We have been migrating across our big blue marble for as long as humanity's existence.

Some paleoanthropologists have suggested that the early ancestors of North Americas first peoples  may have been responsible for a more rapid extinction of many species of large game (paleomegafauna) when they were beginning to expand into the new world many thousands of years ago.  People have been changing the planet like other life has changed it before us and will change it after we go. To say our existence does not change the planet is put simply – ignorant. We as a species are not that much different today from the first peoples of the major land masses in the northern hemisphere as we migrated from the southern hemisphere of this planet after the glaciers began to recede.  We gobble up resources and destroy the cycles of life to suit our desires. This is and has been and may be both a wildly successful survival strategy, and our inevitable down fall. The more successful we become, the more rapid the resource consumption. Sooner or later there must be a limit unless we discover an escape hatch to the stars and there we find more resources to consume to feed our continued growth…

Have we changed the planet?  – I think the evidence is clear indeed we have.  Good, bad, indifferent? We have yet to tell, because in the time span of the planet we are nothing more than a recent blemish on the surface of a very slowly changing system. Weather we have made a scratch in the skin of the environment that will heal in time or we have punctured an artery and it will cause our inevitable demise is still a future we must wait to see. Either way we are all children of the same mother and are fighting as siblings do. But we must at some point grow up to see that the squabbling is about nothing and the real task of living on our little rock is to do it well with some small amount of comfort and security.  Together we can have that comfort and security through compassion and understanding. Fighting and separation by economic or other types of warfare simply provide discord and distress that further alienate and segregate the peoples of the planet, the siblings of us all. Mohandas Gandhi use a simple idea of personal industry to help raise the standard of living in India and that idea of personal industry is at work around the globe. But industry no matter how small takes investment. Investment by both the society and the individual is critical to starting a self sustaining human enterprise no matter the size.  

 The few bucks we spend on helping those who need it in our own nation are so minute as compared to the amounts spent on other things I wonder if those people who are opposed to the expense are simply angry and mean spirited because they have been treated badly, dealt a bad hand, or have never wondered where the next meal is going to come from. Perhaps they are just sociopathic fascists with no conscience. It makes me wonder what leader they would follow when the global distribution chains we have built are broken again and the world becomes a very uncomfortable place. We all will migrate to food and resources and struggle to simply survive as immigrants and foreigners in what may become more than a hostile political landscape………

So many things to get done

So many things to get done and so little time to bring all the pieces together for another seasons end. Seeds and potato starts, more vines, and a hope for this last years plantings to survive through the winter. A new hoop house, and a larger cold frame await the plants which will be sprouting soon for the colder season. The bulbs are planted and the weather is switching from summer to fall from day to day. The house and the barn need the annual painting and oiling to preserve them through another swing around the seasons and there is upkeep and tidying out in the meadow, and the animal yard still needs to be done. The vehicles all need attention and there is always other handiwork which seems to pile up regardless the amount of attention payed to accomplishing it.
An old friend who visited recently commented on how he was amazed by what I have accomplished and how much he wished he could get more done. It felt good to have praise for the things that are done but what of those I have yet to do? The yet undone seems to become larger and the bits I am able to accomplish seem to shrink......
 I have always kept in mind that in order to make any journey or accomplish anything I must keep focus, taking each bit in turn, and no matter what move forward as best I am able. The focus part has been the most difficult for my entire life. I am reminding myself constantly as my mind flashes between a myriad of projects to do, and partly done, to focus on the most attainable, to organize the resources for those which are partly accomplished and to plan for those which continually are presented by the wear and tear of life.

Reflection

It has been a long time since I have had the time to sit down and write - The children have all changed their positions in life and I have watched as another season has entered and exited.

 I have recently returned from my almost annual pilgrimage to the wilderness for a respite and recovery from the maddening world we have created for ourselves. I have returned from my journey with a new perspective on my season and am beginning to understand that the most important gift I have to give is passing on as much of the skills and craft and lore that I have gathered  over my life. Not that I won't continue to gather more, but passing on what I have learned to insure the knowledge and craft is not lost. Insuring that the skills and nuance of true craft are there to peak the interest and captivate the desire for learning and provide for the skills and understanding the future may need to remember. Just how to teach the skills and craft I have accumulated is going to be a challenge......Getting interest generated is difficult with all the distractions we have.

I was reflecting on great books and how they provided for getting along in our world, and provide a code which, if followed, provides a reasonable amount of sanity dealing with each other in our societies. There are other books and electronic resources which provide recipes for concocting all manner of things, or building any device or structure you may wish, but the true transfer of skill and craftsmanship seems no longer a necessity for making a livelihood. It is lost as a structured part of the educational process. Mastery is now a personal thing rather then a trade learned by apprenticeship. I do not mean to discount the trades and apprenticeships which still exist, there are still many but far fewer than were part of our societies even three generations ago. Some of the skills and craft I know of from my family's past are gone.....or at least they no longer require hand craftsmanship, machines have the replaced the skills and we no longer toil at those things.
But is that better? What have we lost? Have we traded away things of great value? What have we gained?

Wonder

Once upon a time there was a world where school kids practiced hiding from atomic bombs by ducking under school desks, where milk was delivered on the front doorstep in glass bottles that were returned and refilled, where there were suspicions and rumors of sneak attacks and global destruction. When the neighbors had bomb shelters in the back yard. When even the most learned said things like "I don't know the weapons with which we will fight world war 3, but world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones."

I grew up in those times I remember Ike and the military industrial complex,  and Khruschchev pounding his shoe, I remember sputnik, and the bay of pigs, the fear and the joy of youth and the wonder of an amazing future, JFK, John Glenn, LBJ, Birmingham on fire, MLK at the national mall, the Beatles and comic book super heroes. Where there was motivation and competition, where there was learning, discussion and dissent. Where there was a time of enlightenment and first discovery. I remember fear and awe at my personal discovery that we, mankind, could fly to the moon and back, and in the span it took for the trip, we could destroy the entirety of civilization.

The grand hypocrisy of it that is humanity - I had a naive hope that the world would awake one day and the contradictions and strife would lift. I dreamed that there would be a super hero, a Bodhisattva, a Saint, or even a benevolent arrival from space to unify the globe and bring on mundi pacem.... so I wait ... no folk tale finish, no novel awakening, yet!,
 Just the progression of growing world commerce, Mc Donalds, Disney, Exxon-Mobil, Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical, the information age, and a new awakening of national independence movements across the globe. Perhaps global financial interdependence, and instantaneous personal global communications are bringing about a new transformation of humanity. What will it look like when global corporations are the defacto ruling global force? When no one can hide from the scrutiny of automatic surveillance and consumer tracking and identity verification. Will the similarity and homogenization that global commerce are causing erase the differences and awaken a world consciousness or will the haves and have nots battle for the last scraps of this worlds resources, or could there be worse evil than the imaginings of George Orwell or HG Wells?

I wonder at what the next chapter of the book looks like and each day an new page is revealed!

 

Independence

Everyone knows what independence is or do we? I have been thinking for a very long time about somehow creating a way to survive comfortably with out need of the grocery store or the gas station, a way to be more self reliant. Somehow the initial investment is always beyond my means... I think I know why, subsidies! I am now aware of why independence is so expensive. Not in terms of nations or communities but personal independence, or self sufficiency. Each of us subsidizes the continuation of our dependance.

It is easy to exploit others to get the raw materials and finished products in trade for those things others see from you that they hold as valuable. The inequality of the relationship builds dependance and promotes the continuance of the inequality. This unequal relationship works to greater advantage when starvation and squalor are the conditions experienced by the exploited. The exploited look to the privileged and see some glorious future promised by hard work but never achieve much more than subsistence. I see a deep moral problem with the idea that we want to "spend less to get more" from our fellows.......slavery is alive and well in the 21st century.

Are the international corporations the emperors of the new age?

What if having our basic needs for food, shelter, and medicine, were the minimum expected compensation for our labors, and some moderate level of comfort beyond that was all we were to expect from our contributions beyond our needs to our community? Would this stifle development or destroy our competitive nature? What if morally society frowned on extravagant excesses, mass greed, and misuse or abuse of resources?
What if to achieve that moderate level of comfort we were able to trade a share of our works in an open trading system where barter and worth were gauged by others needs not others greed? Is the American middle class the gauge for a moderate level of comfort on a global scale?
Would the idea of self reliance be more achievable, or a necessity? How about applying this concept to a community? Would a society based on an equitable negotiated trade model be possible after global capitalism, or are we really simply greedy and self serving by nature? Is our consumer society inevitably going to have greed, sloth, and deceit as the pinnacle of the capitalist ideal? Could there be a repeat of the dark ages where the global consumer economy we are dependent upon falters?
 
 I was once told about societies that had a taboo against "gathering to ones self in excess", and others who gained status by the ability to give away more than others as a practice....
There has to be some method to balance needs, personal comfort, and social position.......
No one has found the ideological path to utopia as far as I can tell....but the questions are still intriguing.

 How can society today, change behavior enough to achieve more local economic stability and independence?

We live on a big blue marble and as far as I can tell what we have here is all that there is unless we figure out how to travel the stars.. So how can we continue to grow - grow populations -grow economies - grow production, at some point we run out of planet! We run out of resources or we run out of room.....any way you look at it humanity has a limit on our growth either some time in our future or more quickly than any of us would imagine. Why do we ignore it?

 For a shorter term, more attainable personal goal -
 What little steps could I take to become more self reliant and less dependent.......?
 A garden.
 A horse,
 A field of grass,
A hammer and a saw,
Knowledge of gardening, animal husbandry, construction techniques, logic, common sense, and an ability to learn and adapt.....

Is that enough? oh I forgot - a big bag of $100.00 bills!


 But why are we not doing these things? What changed that we have run to the shelter of "modern living" inside the shell of society, technology, and metropolis? Most people today never learn to sew on a button how could they tailor a suit of clothes? Could you tan an animal hide, or build a barn, or train a horse, how about ride on one..... or find food plants or know medicinal plants? Have you ever gone out to hunt game animals....How about plucking a chicken? Or dressing a squirrel? There are a lot of modern hunters out there but do they prepare the kill or take it to the butcher shop? Most would do the latter I would bet.....
 I find it sad that if the present delivery systems were to fail to deliver the goods to the supermarket that so many people would suffer and if the calamity lasted for too long that suffering would turn to things far worse.

Survival is a learned skill of necessity, Subsistence is a way to meet bare needs, Self sufficiency is a level beyond bare subsistence where comfort and some leisure are attainable by design, through knowledge and technique. Oh and of course hard work! As in Aesop's fable about the ant and the grasshopper, there is little time to waste and everyone must look to the future.       

 It would be a true community service to work to insure that we maintain a level of understanding in our community and our homes that would allow for self sufficiency. By setting up a series of programs, clinics, demonstrations and workshops to promote the knowledge and practice which will help support a home independence movement. By changing attitudes at home perhaps the ideal can grow to the community and then the idea of independence can grow into a re-invigoration of the meaning and importance of true Independence for the Nation!

Silly season again!

Well the earth has moved to a new position on its annual swing around the sun and it is again time in my neighborhood for the odd dance of politics and rhetoric that can be called "silly season". Lucky I have the distraction of figuring out this years garden and all the other preparations for planting to keep me from being too silly with the rest of the crowd! I do not know why some people think that they can fool every one else and get away with the deceit. If any attention was paid to the teachings of our ancestors, or practical experience, or common sense, there might be a realization for these people that devious plotting and fabrications are always found out. It seems that the way politics works though, is through the unearthing of deceit and accusations of impropriety. That politics is debated on personal attacks, and vilification through sound bites, not on a discussion of real hardcore issues and decisions is an unfortunate travesty. The lack of focus on resolving issues and the constant resurrection of divisive and inflammatory topics distracts us all and does nothing to address the realities of our present and continuing situation. But I guess avoiding answering honestly and perhaps delivering bad news makes you look better as a candidate? I'd rather discuss the reality of the situation and work toward solutions that are reasonable and achievable rather than create a sensation. By application of simple honesty and clear conscience silly season might be avoided all together..... Ah but then there is always somebody who thinks they can game the system and get away with something devious......isn't there?!

Ok so Ive been busy and had an interesting chat with the great beyond...

After the adventure we had in late spring, I found myself moving through the challenges of getting young adults ready for another year of education and with that all the arrangements for University along with the indecision and tribulations that follow. Soon autumn was here and the kids were settled and I thought I could be again back at writing about how my experiment with feeding my family from the gardens and the plantings I had made and discussing the successes and failures....... Then things took a turn..... I nicked my chin while shaving. Not an uncommon thing no real trauma or trouble..... or so I thought!
I went to work and came home that evening all was well - a nice quiet evening I remember my nicked chin being itchy...... I woke Saturday morning with a small bump and though little of it until the evening when I looked in the mirror and discovered I was swollen - By next morning the lump had grown to nearly golf ball size - I made an appointment at the Doctors for Monday....

Well The Clinic took a look and said it was an abscess and that it had to be drained. They tried but no luck... They sent me home with a bottle of antibiotics and told me to come back in two days and they would try again to drain the lump. I could not get an appointment so I had to wait an extra day - by then the lump had again doubled and was now the size of a grapefruit.... The clinic could not get the thing to drain and again sent me away.... I called My RN-wife and went to see the Doc she works with, He took one look and had it drained and packed it ASAP..... for the next several days I took the antibiotics and visited the Doctor daily. On the third day I was told you are going to the ER NOW! I spent the next 4 days on IV antibiotics in an attempt to kill the antibiotic resistant infection I contracted..... they were about to cut into my neck because the infection was threatening my carotid artery when the abscess finally drained...whew! they finally sent me home to rest with a prescription for double the dose of antibiotics as before...... three days later I spiked a fever of 103 and was back in the ER again more IV antibiotics and more high dose antibiotics........ Thankfully I am now Okay, at least for the moment. I have been told that I could have a relapse at any time and that I need to be watchful for at least the next two years!....
I have a lot of questions about the grand experiment we have begun with antibiotics and the creation of bacteria that we cannot kill any more..... When will we begin to understand that simple physics principal of equal but opposite reactions? Feeding ourselves and our food animals antibiotics and attempting to control nature without attention to the consequences..... now we have bugs that eat flesh and cause infections that are nearly uncontrollable causing complications all over the place..... Modern science? or misuse? either way we now have to somehow fix the problem before it fixes us!!

A few days in paradise -

It's been a long time since I have taken the time to write down my thoughts. I have had very bad luck with the local creatures. The drought has them very hungry and the squirrels and other small creatures dined heartily on my plantings wiping out even the oats! Only onion and garlic seem to not be on the menu.....

For the past 6 or 7 years we (the kids and I) have had an annual backpack trip into the wilderness. Almost every year we pack up and drive to the trail head and hike in to find snow or rain or other impediments to a otherwise beautiful experience. This year we waited until the snow season was over. With a dry forecast for what has been months we thought we would have a fantastic time. We set out on a 6 day trip. The first day was a hard hike to the top of Santa Fe Baldy, at 12,632 feet the views and the wildflowers were spectacular. We spent the night at the lake below the peak and set off the next day for another lake a little farther north where I know the fishing is good. We had almost reached the saddle along the ridge where we were to descend to the lake when my son turned to snap a photo and saw smoke rising in the distance. We knew it could be a bad sign. We made our way down to the lake and looking back in the direction of the smoke saw that the fire was growing. The smoke was however traveling far to the south of us and it did not seem to be growing too terribly fast. We had a wonderful afternoon and evening, fishing and lounging about our camp at the lake.

I rose early to great the sunrise and the skies were clear there was no plume of smoke in the direction of the fire from the day before and with the air traffic we had heard we thought the fire had been contained. We spent the day fishing and enjoying the beauty of the wilderness.

Everything changed at about 4:00 in the afternoon..... First the wind began to gather strength. Then I noticed the column of smoke rising high in the air. The wind shifted and the smoke began to filter over the ridge above the lake. In less then 20 minutes the sky was black and orange. We packed in great haste and hit the trail down the mountain in the opposite direction we had come, and away from the approaching fire. The forest was very silent, the smoke muting everything except for the far off sound almost like a jumbo jet at high altitude, but constant and not drifting off into the distance like the sound normally would......

We tied bandanas and t-shirts around our faces and hiked fast as the dark orange brown smoke engulfed the forest and blacked out the sun. Breathing was difficult and seeing the trail was difficult through the eye burning haze. We were hiking at almost a run with our full packs, heavy, not even halfway through our supplies. We managed to escape down to less smoke filled air as we descended rapidly toward the valley. Twelve miles down hill in 4 hours, we arrived at the trail head miles away from our truck, exhausted, with all and everyone safe. The other people we marched out with, who were camped in the area by the lake, were kind and gave us a ride out and back to civilization..........nearly 9 hours after the smoke loomed overhead and began to descend on us, we were home safe.

Thankfully, the ordeal is now another tale to tell to children and grand children. Another trial in the wilderness to add to the many, many others I and my backpacking companions have from a nearly lifetime of wilderness experiences.


It worries me if the number of people and groups of people who had signed the trail logs are all safe. I did contact the Forest Service and asked if everyone on the log was accounted for and was told yes..... I do not know how they could truly account for everyone but I certainly hope no one was caught in the smoke or fire.

The fire that still rages through the area where we were has for my lifetime and perhaps even my grand children's lifetime changed the beauty of the forest where I and my companions had so many adventures. It will be many years before the tall forest reclaims the areas charred by this fire, or the many other areas charred by fires that are raging throughout the west this season. I fear that the many fires and the kind of total forest devastation will continue. It need not be total devastation by the crown fires which kill all the trees and undergrowth and even become so hot they burn the soil. The forest management strategy needs to change. From the look of some areas of the forest we have attempted to suppress the forest fires too long. There are areas where there are more standing dead and dried out trees than live ones. Areas where the drought has weakened the trees and beetles have ravaged them. We have attempted to control so much when we perhaps truly need to step back and allow some of the violent change that moves the planet. We need to allow the natural cycles that help to create a healthy environment. We also need to protect our selves and try to protect our homes and families but the forest has been saved for too long. The fuel has been stacking up for a hundred years and it will go up in flames, flames which will become more and more difficult to restrain if the management practices we presently use in our wilderness areas are not modified.

Time seems to have passed too quickly and Spring planting is here

Time has slipped away again and I have not been as attentive to posting the activities of the spring as I would have liked.....

To catch up a bit - The new area for grain is ready for tilling and the manure has been spread over most of it. More hauling and spreading - then the tiller for a day or two....... The hops root starts have finally arrived and are now in the ground. Both the hops and the berry bush starts are planted but I'm still awaiting for some signs of growth. The vines are not showing any activity with the exception of the clematis on the front porch post. The willow is covered with catkins and the cherry is just beginning to have leaf buds open.

The garden is cleared and is ready for planting. It would be nice to have the wind cooperate in order to burn the piles of leaf refuse, weeds,corn stalks and raking that has been piling up. Only if I could mulch it! but it's way too dry and even if I mix it with manure from the animals I would need to water it and cover it with tarps to get any avtivity enough to mulch it, and barrel mulching is too small a scale for the quantity I have. I wish I could just char it and turn the carbon into the soil instead of reducing it to ash... Hummm something to see about perhaps...

I'm hoping this next week to get many things done and many things planted. I'm needing a larger place to start more plants in flats. The present glass panel lean-to is going to have to be moved and rebuilt double the size with another 4 glass panels in the next few days. The block I need to make a base to support the additional glass panels I have, will need to be brought out to the garden and set. I need to begin sprouting as soon as possible. But it's been so windy!

The spring winds have been roaring through and with gusts in excess of 50mph! I was told some gusts in the area were over 70mph..... The amount of wind erosion to the animal pen has been substantial. The roof on the house, barn, and chicken coop seem to have all withstood the gale over the last three days without any issues
As a result of the erosion I have been, and will be, hauling in a great deal of gravel to hopefully create a base that will not end up in Texas when the winds are howling again. Now if we could get a nice calm day or two or three and perhaps a gentle soaking rain over a day or two I think the growing season would be off to a great start.

Time to prepare for another spring

I have as usual been busy gathering together the information I need to begin to make an attempt at further self sufficiency. With spring and warmer days still a while off, I am gathering books and asking questions and plotting the new garden(s) and considering when and how to sprout and cold frame the first of this years plantings.....But planting and rotations and sprouting times are not the most of the long winter nights thoughts............

I have also been spending a great deal of time considering some of the implications of the industrial education system (I favor the term "industrial" as a better descriptor than "public") and considering our present educational dilemma of decreasing graduation rates, a perceived lowering of the level of the content and a reduction in quality (as anecdotal evidence from educators), and our ever slipping rankings as compared to other nations of the world. I have looked back at what the educational landscape was like just before the country began the astronomical rise to a pinnacle of education that has perhaps never been achieved before. There is a definite continued educational ranking decrease of our country beginning in the late 1960's and continuing till today as we are now ranked far down on the lists  http://www.geographic.org/country_ranks/educational_score_performance_country_ranks_2009_oecd.html  world wide on the quality of our education as a nation. I  still see some interesting possibilities in the way and the timing we have been using for the last hundred years or so to educate our children.

We began with a type of system very natural to the ways of life that I assume people had in a closer more tribal setting by educating all ages and levels in the same room at the same time. This has an effect on the youngest, and the oldest, that rises the levels of the younger, and bolsters the lessons taught to the older by having the younger kids ask questions and utilize the older children to tutor and assist answering questions about lessons well beyond where they would be in a "modern" school setting. The effect of raising the level of education through teaching the higher level along with the lower I believe will raise the interest of advanced students and will bring the less advanced along if the older peer group is coached and given the task of assisting the younger and less advanced students. There is also another lesson in this approach I think needed and missed in today's school environment  - compassion - Encouraging a culture of helping to bring others along and assistance when needed, can teach compassion and understanding and encourage social consciousness. These ideas seem entirely missing in today's educational system. I will need to look further into any studies which support these ideas and see if there would be a way to employ some of this thought in our present system and help in raising the standards while heping all kids to move forward at a pace which meets their individual needs.

I as an outsider parent looking in, with memories of my time in school, seem to think there may even be a more simple way to begin to achieve a higher standard and promote a better educational ethic with parents and children. Coaching. Not coaching at school but at home. I think that all kids should be read to as infants and that a "reading at bedtime" image needs a "Norman Rockwell", "American as apple pie" campaign. New parents need to be encouraged to read to and with their kids early and often. If books are needed there should be an effort to promote our libraries and if needed perhaps at birth books could be offered as a birth gift to the new parents.

I know if our children are read to the next thing they want to do is to read the book themselves. Wanting to learn to read could be encouraged at an earlier age so that when a child reaches grade school there is no need to teach the fundamentals of reading. By this simple change in culture our entire educational system may move forward several grades in reading. There has been a great deal of emphasis placed on early childhood education. However the follow through with kids in day care centers has been abysmal. We somehow need to fascinate our three, four and five year old's and spark that desire to read, count, and explore - to do what we human beings do with our minds - explore and question, learn and discover.

Another thought is to raise the grade level by teaching the second grade curricula in first grade etc. Simply sliding the "already in place" standards and moving the process one year earlier. This could be done on an experimental basis easily to see if ther is any merit to the idea and as I know there is much done to assess students ability and some remedial work done to begin each new school year so to introduce slightly more advanced material could be done as a grade k-6 experiment... But perhaps this has been attempted too....

I'm aghast at the level of education we are promoting (and paying dearly for) which does not even begin to adequately prepare children for post secondary schooling. Especially when the minimum job requirements for an income adequate to comfortably support a family call out a need for a college degree. A High School Diploma alone is not enough to make a living as our workforce becomes more and more technology focused. A Degree "two year", or "four year" has become a necessity, and this necessity is moving toward the need for a Masters or Phd. as our workforce changes and becomes more and more technological.

Although I find the idea that we are in a global competition for economic development and that the world economy will grow indefinitely is bunk. We still must have an educated population in order to understand issues and avoid the propaganda pitfalls which will be part of a voting people governing a republic. Without education and a body of understanding there is an ever present danger that the wolves will be herding sheep!

The days get longer now.......

We are past mid winter. The Menorah is put away. Trees of the ancient mid winter rite exhorting the return of spring are still in great rooms everywhere across the land. Though the memory of why an evergreen is brought into the house is muddled in other dogma. The feeding frenzy at the Mall is soon to gain a new level as the season of want drives shoppers in an excuse for activity, driven by the cold, shortness of days, and a desire for "things" mixed with the satisfied feeling one gets when giving to another, stirred by a pervasive saturation of advertising propaganda...... Ah yes the holidays - although I find it crass to suggest that there is little of anything holy left in the mid winter madness in today's insanely consumer driven 'modern'  world ......

To remember what compassion is, to recall the struggles that allow us the comfort and survival against the cold. To remember the miracle of rebirth and renewal that mid winter promises.
To rejoice in the knowledge we have again made it through half the struggle of the season of winter......
To understand the ancient rhythm of the seasons and celebrate the promise of a new spring   

So much seems forgotten .....

       

Snow Cold And comfort

There is a feeling that although fleeting we all should have the experience of. That is the feeling of comfort having set aside all the toils and troubles of the world knowing that at least for the moment the wood is stacked, the pantry is full, all the family is safe and well, warm and snug asleep, home for a holiday, and all the little things that cause stress in our lives have been put to rest for the moment. So rare and precious are the moments like this I reflect on what if and find great compassion for people who have fewer moments of comfort than I.

 Today there is an obvious disconnect between the social nature of humanity and the present society built upon consumerism and capitalism. There is an emphasis on the individual, on personal gain through the status of possessions, and the gathering of wealth, which has us focusing most of our time on working to gain rather than on working on nurturing and husbandry of our children or our planet. This lack of attention to the most important of things is caused by a disconnect from our world, and each other, by an industrial environment that in the name of comfort and convenience allows us to isolate ourselves. Our isolation allows us ignore that which we are no longer daily exposed to. This disconnect with each other and our world has us focused on things which in the long term have us lacking any focus what we as a species relied upon to get us where we are.This disconnect if not repaired could destroy humanity utterly through our ignorance.We need to once again bring into our lives the emotion and connectedness that fosters and and promotes the humanity we enshrine in our teachings and writings purporting wisdom.

The social nature of humanity has been changing due to our ever present desire to control our environment.
Unfortunately the resulting disregard for our fellows and our world has had an obvious impact in every aspect of our exsistance. Some of the qualities of humanity that we have elevated and prize as virtuous and righteous, are in dire short supply. Compassion, Tolerance, Civility, and a willingness to listen and understand are among these qualities.

Compassion, understanding, and tolerance does not exclude ones self from personal turmoil, nor does it necessarily promote a Utopian world of peace and prosperity. The embrace of our variety and vibrancy, our difference and similarity, will no doubt, foster a better world but disagreement and conflict has also been something human. The civility to listen and attempt an understanding is the missing ingredient. The most important issue though is what our children become. By paying close attention, by being involved, and by taking time to hold and comfort as well as to personally educate our children we promote the thoughts, understanding, and compassion that will make humanity's next face in our world. Education is not about Reading Writing an Arithmetic alone. We cannot forget that to be human is to remember our past and tell our stories and share our experiences. To be human is to belong to our family group, our tribe, our nation, and our world. What would ignorance of our world and the others on the planet we share promote? Will the next generation ignore civility and social interaction except through electronic avatars?  Do we no longer teach our children to listen to the stories told by our elders and to think for themselves and ask politely to understan?. We desperately need to teach each other how to be the social beings we have forgotten we are.

Time flys by!

It has been over a month since I have had time to sit and compose a few thoughts. November is almost over and the last leaves are being carried off  with the chill winds whipping through the barn stalls. It is the time of year when the mornings are frozen and the afternoons are too warm for a coat. The oiling of the exterior woodwork  has only been perhaps half completed, and other projects at home and at work are in suspended animation.  The largest project I've ever been part of directing has consumed a major portion of my time. I have been setting the stage and educating the major participants for the better part of the last ten years to reach this point and the plans and projects related to the core goals are all reaching toward completion.  I hope this portion of the project will soon reach a plateau and we can back off the constant fire tending needed for this type of major change to continue momentum.

There is a sense of urgency that has not existed before in my work place. Driven by bad times financially, the need to consolidate resources and more cooperatively manage things has become a necessity instead of simply common sense. I find it strange how we ignore the obvious when the ignorance has few consequences personally, politically, or financially. Then when the hurt hits home we are suddenly twice motivated to make the pain go away. Why does it take disaster and catastrophe to motivate an obviously beneficial change?  

Leaves are now beginning to yellow, I set the first fire in the big fireplace to warm the great room last night. It was cold - not yet freezing - but cold enough that the flickering glow and the warmth from the fireplace was very welcome. Soon the chill will drive most evening activity inside. The indoor activities to keep the place up will begin.... I've been asked to repaint and install a wainscot in one of the upstairs bedrooms... I must build the storage cubbyholes for the master closet and there is the annual upkeep on all the wood, and some additional trim and tile that I'd like to see if I could get done... When you build a home of your very own, from scratch, it never ends... The exterior oiling is still progressing, the front porch is almost finished and another gallon of linseed oil is gone. I will soon be taking a break to head out into the woods down by the Gila National Forest to search for an antlered beasty.... I'm still on schedule to finish reoiling the outside wood before Thanksgiving.... still a little time to be thinking of the winter ahead and how to make things more comfortable for the future....

Since I began to plan my home, even before we had selected the location, I had been plotting and planning some way to wrestle myself away from the power and gas companies. Alternative sources for heat and light are very expensive up front to purchase and are not easy to finance reasonably. We invested in extra insulation, efficient windows, and other energy efficient components in our home which have, I'm sure, kept our energy consumption down, but the modern internet connected teen attitude is less than conscientious about energy usage. I keep seeing the costs rise and lament not insisting on a solar installation when I was building. I did however carefully consider the orientation of the roof-line to accommodate a photovoltaic system when I could afford it.....Little did I know the amazing amount of usage three teens can rack up! Despite the astronomical expenses on power and heat we have endured, I still am having difficulty balancing the cost of the systems which would reduce the utility bills to zero vs the monthly bills. I am beginning to think the expense and difficulty to finance alternative energy on any scale is directly related to investment by the banking industry in conventional energy companies. It is not in the interest of the financial industry or the conventional energy companies to undermine their massive investments in infrastructure for the monopolistic power and gas industries by the promotion of energy sources which cut into the revenue source that repays the billions of dollars in notes held to finance the construction, expansion, and upkeep of those investments. I keep being reminded that the purpose of the financial industry is to scrape as much profit for the lenders from exchanging money as is possible. "Money for nothing" like the song, is mostly how it seems, although they call it a service..... I think it is a service to the bankers wallets and little else.

 At a very young age I began drawing out ideas, building things, fixing or making things, designing and trying out changes to see if I could improve them. I continue to learn, design, and build. I hope to have cultivated the same DIY attitude in my children, so to reinforce that sentiment, I have been looking at ways to, over time, and with a little investment at a time, begin to build some reasonable resources that will eventually break the strangle hold the energy companies have on us. As yet I've not found any reasonable or elegant methods to accomplish anything with the "do it a little at a time method" in mind. (there are some interesting developments in solar cell arrays with attached inverters ) I have looked at the falling prices for solar voltaic systems but the up front cost even with government incentives is substantial. There are several very interesting systems for heat - but again the up front cost when borrowing with interest is considered makes the investment look unappetizing. I see the cost of energy escalating in the near future and without something to curb the negative economic effect this will have on household budgets I fear there will be many more people in trouble. I have to some extent offset the cost of gas by burning wood.
I installed several fireplaces in our home, which if needed could heat the place fairly well in the winter, but there aren't enough trees for every household to heat their homes with, and wood smoke contributes to smog in densely populated areas and can lead to health issues. The only answer is some form of energy capture, storage, and redistribution. Geothermal, wind, tidal, or solar are the least objectionable natural energy sources other than burning something. Here at our home the choice is limited to geothermal,wind, or solar. The cost to harness any of them in a substantial way is still, today, too high.......

 If our elected officials would stand behind the rhetoric about the "renewable energy future" and "breaking our dependence on oil" and provide the needed political push to truly make the move financially reasonable........either subsidize alternatives as is done for conventional energy, or remove the subsidies and have the "real" market value for energy drive up costs to make alternatives more appear more affordable.....either way we will be seeing a substantial change I think sooner than later......