connections, possibilities, worlds, relationships

I have lived in a few intentional communities as well as cities and small towns. Still I seem to be trying to find my version of this idyllic group of people who can work together sharing values to create a more beautiful, conscious way of life.

Sometimes the visual I have is something like what I experienced on bodywork retreats like therapeutic contact improvisation, or acroyoga. We care for our bodies and have a connection high. Nonverbals are clear and each person is clearly responsible for his/her own outcome.  Other times it is what I have glimpsed with building groups united in a goal to support others basic needs and care for the earth.  I have experienced it watching the TV show Eureka where people take pride in their work and work hard to create new solutions with science and technology. I have experienced glimpses of my ideal community in many ways.

It reminds me of a book I read a very long time ago. I think it was called Pilgrim's Regress. A man glimpses this beautiful island and seeks everywhere for it. Different cities hold different names and themes (like Eat, Pray, Love) that create different experiences. After all the searching, it is found inside. True. But what is it that creates this experience inside of us?
A feeling of safety, security, and purpose for the future? Different settings match up with our internal unconscious programming, or is there more?

Last night I had all of these dreams that all that I work for, have worked for doesn't matter. People keep turning away because we would rather continue feeding our programmed responses. Dream after dream I say something and am ignored as people drift away. Values don't match up? Perhaps I just don't feel heard right now.

Maybe I can go find happiness in the forest, or in meditation, but I want it to be shared.
So I turn inside and I look and I wonder and ask myself, what is good that I want to share?
Connections, interconnections, friendships, family. How do I again come across this perfect match of action, being, connection, purpose, presence, experiencing?

Kentucky, Illinois, Tennessee, New Mexico, Dominica, North Carolina . . .
Nature, education, building, food, health, play, technology . . .

As the vision changes conflict occurs as a new path is decided. I pull away to build my heart back up with things that are good, gentle. Then to dive back in, to new connections, new purpose, new direction.

Staring at my blanket, the light and the dark, the connections, and interweaving, thinking about community and the web of life, possibility

Sometimes I find that I have to stop trying to force my heart and my eyes open and just watch and wait. Surround myself with good things and quiet.  What will come next?

Biochar plaster

I fell in love with earthen plasters during my cob course. It is nice to have a building material that you can wash out on the ground right next to your garden. It is nice to know what is in your home is not toxic to anyone, and the production of it is not creating any toxins elsewhere in the world.

It is nice to be able to source materials locally, to dig up my materials from the ground. This is much more affordable as well.

I have worked with clay based plasters and lime based plasters, and recently was introduced to biochar plaster. At the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in TN, Albert is the biochar man. I have to admit a little skepticism when first introduced to the concept of biochar, but there are so many people who report amazing results that I am sold. 

Recently the permaculture apprentices at the Ecovillage Training Center applied some clay based biochar plaster in The Prancing Poet (event space).  Albert mentioned that the biochar blocks electromagnetic radiation such as those that come from computers, microwaves etc. I was curious so I looked around and found a very interesting article on biochar plaster. 

Biochar as Building Material for Optimal Indoor Climate

by Hans-Peter Schmidt

The article mentions that biochar plaster is being used to restore old wine cellars. It regulates humidity for the wine, helps stabilize the temperature, and filters the air. 

I had yet to complete a final plaster coat on the cob bench around our woodburning stove, so I decided to do my own experiment.

I chose to use a 50/50 lime and masonry sand mix. with at least 20% biochar. The biochar was beautiful when wet, bluish-black. As lime plaster does, the biochar mix still smoothed into a nice finish after burnishing, looking almost like stone. 

I did have to baby the plaster a bit because humidity was low in the cold air, and I wanted to keep the cob at an ideal temperature for lime plaster curing so that I did not get large cracks (the last lime plaster I did was in ideal humidity and temperature and did not require water spritzing regularly as this mix did).

The plaster turned out great. I head to leave and come back to the Ecovillage Training Center, so I asked my husband to continue to spritz it for a week and keep an eye on it, then slowly decrease frequency of spritzing while it cured the our cold temperature with the stove running. I am very curious of the effect of the humidity regulating biochar on the lime plaster, but would need to try the plaster in different conditions to know that the change was related to the biochar in particular. 

I hear it is doing great and am looking forward to further biochar plaster on the walls. I will be keeping an eye on summer humidity in our home. I am looking forward to some changes in this!

Next time: More fibers, try a natural tint, do this plaster when it is warmer out!

Food Forest in Quad Cities is started! - one tree at a time

In January of this year, about 40 people from around the Quad Cities and the outlying areas gathered together at the Eastern Davenport Library to share a common vision. Food security and food and nature education were high on the list. The organizers had a vision of a public Food Forest where anyone could harvest naturally grown local food in a safe environment.

Food forests are perennial systems that consist of fruit and nut bearing trees, along with understory perennial and annual plants, such as blueberries and wild raspberries. When completed, the food forest would be free and open to the public, where all would be welcome to come learn about native plants and pick local pesticide-free food.

On Saturday, October 25th, about 100 volunteers and local government representatives took steps to make the vision a reality by planting the first 80 trees, including  pawpaw, persimmon, chestnut, and pecan. After an opening ceremony, Davenport City Arborist, Chris Johnson, demonstrated his method for planting trees. Volunteers planted, watered, mulched and added wire cages to protect the trees from rabbits this winter.

The land for the Food Forest is adjacent to an already established community park and gardens owned by the City of Davenport and will be developed under a no fee agreement between the City of Davenport and the Quad City Food Forest.

For more opportunities and pictures, visit the Quad City Food Forest Facebook Page 
 

The Farm Ecovillage

I first became interested in The Farm Community when I googled "ecovillage training". What I ran across was The Farm Ecovillage Training Center. I was nearby last year for my cob building course and stopped through to visit.

Last October on my brief visit I ran into Jason the Resourcerer.  I shared with him what we are working on at moonCat and my search for more ecofriendly transportation. Mostly this includes biodiesel with the Mercedes Benz 300D and the custom converted Mazda that Bud Wren had made an electric vehicle out of and was sitting in my garage waiting to be fixed up and back on the road again.

Jason said he could help me fix up the Mazda and get it going more efficiently and teach me even more about biofuels. Last April I apprenticed with him in biofuels and helped to support the permaculture apprentice program at the Ecovillage Training Center.

I really enjoyed all of the natural building and permaculture going on and felt there was a lot to learn from the community.  My home-schooled daughter Phoenix stayed with me for the last week and attended The Farm School. She loved it.

Largely on a journey of wanting community, but it not happening quite yet at moonCat, finding a way for Phoenix to thrive with other kids and a school that shares my vision of  what education should be, and an opportunity falling into my lap at the right moment . . . I found myself back at The Farm this September.  Helping at the Ecohostel, Ecovillage Training Center, and Farm School is teaching me many new things that I am excited to bring back to those interested back in Illinois.

Phoenix and I are now traveling back and forth each month between The Farm and moonCat, sharing knowledge, skills, love and much gratitude.  I am also really enjoying Nashville and the great natural building and farm/nature/music network there.

I will be sharing more on the blog about what I am learning and enjoying as we thrive among like minded individuals.

underwear from old Tshirts

Most of our clothing items I buy at the thrift store.  The best finds are usually in the city and we find comfortable, cute, and good quality clothes for just a few dollars. I know the clothing industry contributes a lot of pollution, and where do the discarded clothes go other than to the landfill (ok some really creative places sometimes, but not on the whole yet)? In my opinion it is just smart to get the items I can at the thrift store.

Some clothing items like good shoes, boots, and underwear I usually do not get at thrift stores. Boots, sometimes. Underwear, never.  Leggings, hard to find at a thrift store.  So I found that my last pair of leggings had worn out and Phoenix was outgrowing her underwear . . . aaaaaand I really did not want to go to the department store to buy these things, or to spend a lot of money online buying them from far away companies that specially made what I am looking for.  I thought that maybe instead of cutting up our tattered Tshirts into rags this time I could try to make our underwear from them. I also secretly hoped that I could cut up some of Jerome's college Tshirts and get him some nicer ones if I had a purpose to do so.

Underwear:

Tshirt jersey style material worked best. I made a pattern from an existing pair. This meant cutting at the seams and tracing onto the new material with chalk.  Eventually I traced the cut fabric pattern onto some cardboard form a cereal box and cut it out. The cardboard stays straight and cuts more quickly. I sewed elastic onto the top only and it worked well.

One pair I used non-stretch material for the front and stretch (Tshirt) material for the back. Phoenix thought this was so comfortable she would not let me put elastic on, and they stayed up well.  An overlock machine makes things go so quickly!

Leggings:

I have bought stretch material to experiment, but will soon be switching to bamboo fabric to be more suStainable. I watched a tutorial online that showed me how to cut the center seam, from one ankle, up and back down to the other ankle as one cut.  Then fold the fabric in half so the cut seams form the two edges and use as a simple and quick pattern.  I think I made my first pair with a perfect fit in thirty minutes. Each successive pair was much faster and I'm really looking forward to working with the bamboo.

Dresses:

I find for travel it helps to pack my seven-year-old dresses. This saves space and washes when I have one clothing item to pack instead of two (a top and a bottom).  Pants can be added or not and we're ok.  So recently I have been letting her pick scraps of fabric that she likes and sewing them onto some of her Tshirts to make dresses. She adores this and feels pride in helping create her own clothing, also, my travel packing is simplified.

Pictures and links to come soon!

Feeling blessed to be alive.

to work with sunrise behind me and purple clouds west

What a beginning to fall. I'm loving the change in weather. New tasks, new foods, new colors. Windy. I like the wind. Makes you feel alive when it flies in my face.

Oyster Mushrooms - second flush from store-bought box.

The mushrooms we tried at home worked pretty well. We started this box way back in August when Zoe and Ivy were visiting for the summer, but under non-ideal conditions and with traveling, we didn't get the first fruits until a month later. Not knowing exactly how or when to harvest, I think we cut the first few caps a little early. Then the rest of the fruit started to shrink so we ate it. But so far we've gotten 2 full flushes and a third, extra flush from more holes that I poked in the side that wasn't meant to be opened. Thanks Phoenix for keeping an eye on it for me in Tennessee.

Turkey for dinner!

When the ladies came back from Tennessee last time, I cooked up some turkey from the freezer. (Thanks Darrell). This bird was a good size! A breast and a thigh each went into the slow cooker and oven roaster. I tried the typical rosemary, sage, thyme and parsley in the roaster and new spicy Asian-style in the slow cooker with basil, ginger, garlic, onion, and cayenne. Both turned out great, but I especially liked the drippings from the new one!

Silver Maple (Acer saccharninum)

It's got a red stem, but it's not a sugar maple! The sinuses (indents) are deep and the lobes (points) are pretty pronounced. Silver maple! We welcome a million little seedlings as one of the great shade trees in our front yard has reached old age and has started dropping branches. The wood peckers are a sign that there's not much time left and luckily they're not too close to the house. Silver maples also turn yellow in fall while other maples (sugar, red) turn different hues of red. I guess the silvers are like the cottonwoods in that they like the bottom lands, feet a little wet, drop leaves early and turn yellow in fall.

Smiley Building getting a new (used) metal roof

The yellow barn, orange corn crib, or smiley building (so called because there's a smiley drawn on the side) had half metal and half old, rotting shake roof when we came to moonCat. Earlier this year and last year, we patched the Wick building roof that had fiberglass pieces blowing off.  I acquired a bunch of used metal siding from a co-worker a couple years back and it has worked great so far. Krystal, Darrell and I all pitched in for a little roof repair this fall. Here we're half done, but Krystal finished the last 3 or so sheets by herself! Also to our benefit, the existing screw holes lined up well with boards underneath this time, even if some of the old boards did need to be replaced.

While hauling metal around the farm, I stopped to say hi and welcome to this monarch. Not so much loving the thistle, but that's a worry for another day when the butterflies play.

Monarch  (Danaus plexippus) on Thistle - probably Bull Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)

And who should we find when re-doing the roof?! A gray tree frog. Funny story about them. They have two color phases - gray as seen here and green. Sort of like a redneck chameleon. Story: so we heard a raccoon on the roof of the house when we first moved in. Several nights they screeched right outside our window. But we never heard anything on the roof and never saw anything when we went out to investigate. But we did find tree frogs! Turns out they screech like raccoons, or so we think. Ever since we've enjoyed watching them catch bugs on the kitchen window and chill in the gutters and rain barrel. Ask Phoenix some time how she gives them water slide rides.

Gray Tree Frog (Hyla versicolor)

And no, I don't know the Latin for everything off the top of my head :) It's looked up for my education and included here for your pleasure! Cheers and happy fall.

Monmoth Food Forest Tour

This posting is mostly to keep my own notes, but why not share what I learned on a tour of a Food Forest? Enjoy and ask questions!

Gary Fernald started planting trees near Monmoth, IL in 1967. He was inspired by Pecans and they've become his expertise. He found there was a need to establish or re-establish locally verdant groves to nourish and thrill people. So he went looking.

Hazelnuts in the husk

Northern Pecans can be massive trees. Some were found on Adams Island near Clinton, IA. Also along Rock Creek and Pleasant Creek. These areas are closed in the fall (Sept. 15 to Jan) for waterfowl, but Gary was able to get a permit from Army Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife to gather nuts to plant groves elsewhere in order to preserve and breed pecans. He planted groves north of Chestnut Mountain and by Muscatine, just by the lock and dam below the Gorham residence.

Gary has bred many trees and there are even some cultivars named after him for sale from tree catalogs. Two that we saw on our tour were Hark and Lucas.

Japanese Heartnut - this nut can be shelled whole.

More Notes:

The Hican (sp?) A cross between a hickory and pecan can occur naturally. Some pecans bear hickory (shagbark) traits. Not as productive as pecan, but can be more flavourful.

English Walnut

Regarding English Walnuts, they are hard to do. Some produce OK. They are also different (bearing) year to year. English walnuts are easier to crack and will fall out of husk onto ground. Chris Knows a tree that drops nuts onto a sidewalk in the Quad Cities and they just pop out of the shell! I should ask him for a graft...

Chestnut trees with their prickly husks.

Mulberry: Illinois ever-bearing might be one of the best species of mulberry – I need to graft this onto existing trees on the farm!

Pawpaw - unfortunately not ripe in time this year

Grafting: Keep grafts at 80F to “callous” use ~6” of scion (fruiting stock) with buds onto rootstock. Use a sharp knife or bench tool. Bench graft with pencil-sized stock. Bark graft several pencil-sized sticks into side of bark of 3-6” branch, trimmed of growth just above graft. Wrap with just about anything, electrical tape works well. Grafted (any) can produce in 3-5 years (walnut, pecan, etc.) Practice to get good at these techniques and let someone show you that knows what they are doing. Gary may have a workshop coming up! Butternut and English walnut can be grafted onto Black walnut!