Permaculture
In my last post I offered a little introduction to Permaculture. Since then I have been studying the concept quite heavily, learning a ton in the process. Permaculture has quickly become a deep passion of mine. I truly believe it is a vital answer to the question of “how can we sustain ourselves?”.
What is Permaculture exactly? Some say that the word originates from Permanent Agriculture, while others claim it stands for Permanent Culture. I would say it is actually a combination of both. Through a drive to create a sustainable culture, one needs sustainable agriculture. Permaculture is a combination of us, home, land and the earth. Most often it is concepts applied to the production of food in a sustainable method.
Our culture currently has a blind spot as large as our field of vision. By becoming so disconnected from the food system, people have no concept of how fragile it really is. Without being part of the production system we assume that an endless supply of food is magically manifesting and flowing out of a warehouse. It is difficult to see the consequences of the industrial system while standing inside our box of ignorance. If we don’t make the steps to change how things are, we might wake up one morning surprised to hear that there was a nationwide failure in one of our main crops, and there just isn’t enough food for everyone.
Everyone can make a change toward permaculture. Whether you want to grow your own food or not, there are practices that you can put into action around your home. Do you have a large expansive lawn that isn’t being used? Why waste all the resources of water to keep it alive, and gas to keep it trimmed and neat? Now if you want to grow your own food this is a wonderful opportunity to turn your yard into an abundant garden space. If you do not have the desire to grow your own food, a water wise garden (xeriscaping) can be an option that adds beauty and value to your land.
When we change our perspective of what is important in life, we might just find that we will end up living a better quality of life. Instead of putting our value in a piece of paper, what if we put our value in the people. Do we really need a new phone every few months, or a new car each year? Is a 4,000 square foot home really necessary? We do not need to abandon modern creations, but we can change the way we consume and use them.
The videos below are an interview with Bill Mollison, a man that is accredited with being the father of Permaculture. I apologize that the video is split up into 6 parts instead of being able to find a full length version.
What Do You Want To See?
One of the fundamental truths in life is that the Universe provides to you that which you focus your attention on. So if you are focusing on the negative, or what you do not want in life, all the Universe can hear is that topic. If you instead focus your attention on what you want to see happen in the world around you, magically your dreams will start to manifest.
This is still a lesson that is challenging for me at times. When we are trained in society to focus on the negative (look at the news for example), it takes some time to retrain ourselves to live in the realm of what we DO want. I am becoming more and more conscious of this practice, and the longer I am able to hold myself in that place I see more of what I want manifesting around me.
I was once again reminded of this while watching youtube videos about permaculture. When we focus on what is wrong with our food system, and spend time trying to blame mega companies and the government, we are doing nothing more than supporting them with our energy. Instead, we need to make the effort to make changes in our life that reflect what we want to see in this system. If there are enough people demanding wholesome, sustainable, organic foods, that is what the system will produce.
What do you want to see for our future? How about a world in which there is more than enough food for each and every person (and they have open access to it, with no limitations). A world in which disease is a minority rather than a majority, and when someone is sick there is open access to what ever healer is best suited for their situation (physical, mental, energetic, etc). A world in which energy is free and plentiful, so there is no reason to fight over resources. A world in which every one has equal opportunity in everything, and in which we all support each other. A world in which the wealth lies within each individual instead of a piece of paper we call money and worship as a false god.
Ok, now that you are starting to develop your vision of the future, what are the first steps that you can take? These steps will be different for each and every one of us. We are all on our own paths as part of the greater picture.
Two of my greatest passions are nature, and gardening/farming. Now these should be in the same realm, but in the last century the world of farming has turned its focus to dominating and killing nature in the name of production. My ultimate dream is to see people reconnecting with nature, and developing a sustainable world in which we can all live abundant and healthy lives in harmony with the earth that supports us.
Lately I have been studying the sustainable art of permaculture. Permaculture could very well be one of the biggest steps we take to healing our earth and ourselves. Producing food through the Permaculture method not only creates a sustainable model for the earth, but it also produces an amazing quantity and quality of food. It really is quite funny, because turning to this method is simply returning to the wisdom of our ancestors.
I am including a few videos that I found very inspiring and informative. Anyone that has land, any size of land, can take the steps toward growing some or all of their own food. Whether you have a postage stamp sized yard, or acres of land, you can develop your own sustainable landscape. You don’t know where to start? How about a fruit tree? And then a fruit bush? And then a few herbs? Before you know it you will be a master gardener! And if you don’t want to be a gardener/farmer? Then support the small farmers locally that have a passion for working with the earth.
What will our future look like? What do you want to see? I see a beautiful world, in which we respect ourselves, each other and our beloved earth.
Summer Slipping Away
Where did this summer go? It truly melted away on me.
So what have I been doing with my summer?
It doesn’t feel like a whole lot actually.
Primarily I have been working, and often I am so tired from my morning of running around the restaurant, I feel like doing little else.
And so many afternoons are simply spent relaxing around home, and sometimes even napping.
When I do keep my energy up for the day, we make it out into nature for hikes.
And while there have been a lot less hikes this summer than usual, they have all been equally stunning!
These photos are from our hike to Cutthroat Pass.
We took the Cutthroat Lake trail up, and arrived at the Pacific Crest Trail at the pass.
It is fun to re-visit the Pacific Crest Trail any time we can.
These moments in nature have been very healing for my soul, and a wonderful workout for my body.
So often I wish I could just sit in one spot for days and absorb all the beauty that surrounds me in these areas.
And my garden has been keeping me busy these days.
As you can see in comparison to my earlier photo, the garden has filled in a Lot!
It is amazing how much food can be produced from such a small amount of land.
I have to admit I am not keeping up with my garden as much as I would like,
but I am managing to harvest and preserve a lot of what is coming out of it.
And eating some amazing fresh meals from it all also.
The other night I made a spectacular roasted tomato and basil soup.
The freshness of all the ingredients, and then the intense flavor of roasting was amazing!
I have also been enjoying canning.
I have a great abundance of jams, along with a few other canned items.
Now as our cooler evenings roll around, and the plants in my garden and nature mature,
I am reminded that summer is coming to a close already.
While I wish I had more of it to enjoy, I value the memories I did make this season.
I hope you all had a most magical summer, and were able to experience some of natures wonder!
Finding My Nature in Nature
I love how patiently the blog sits here waiting for me to be inspired.
The truth is I have been visiting my blog on a weekly basis, sometimes more,
but I simply have not been inspired to post anything.
Even when the desire to sit down and do a post overcame me,
I still could not get inspired as to what to share.
Until today.
So what have I been doing with my time?
Working, and enjoying nature!
Four to Five days a week my day starts at 6 am driving up to Sun Mountain Lodge.
I serve breakfast in a dinning room with one of the most beautiful views one could have
working in a restaurant.
Often being finished at about noon, I have the rest of the day to absorb nature in
one way or another.
So with this time we have been enjoying some beautiful local hikes.
We are blessed with a trail that starts practically right across the street from us.
It climbs up the hillside to a ledge that rewards the hiker with a
spectacular view up and down the valley.
It is a truly magical place to enjoy the beauty of our neighborhood.
The rocky outcroppings up there have been covered with Lewisia this last month.
These flowers never cease to take my breath away.
They are little souls that seem to be glowing from within.
I am so often reminded of the beauty that the Methow Valley embraces.
I truly feel blessed to live in such a beautiful corner of the world.
One of the reasons I love living in the Methow Valley is the abundance of
trails to explore.
One can scarcely drive anywhere around here without seeing a trail head sign.
Going up the Robinson Creek trail afforded me this opportunity to work more on my
fear of crossing logs over creeks.
I do just fine balancing on a log that is on land, but all that rushing water beneath me
gives me horrible vertigo, and I always feel as if I am going to plummet off the log.
So far I have managed to always stick to the log, but the feeling is never a pleasant one,
and often overtakes me with varying levels of fear.
I went back and forth several times, a feat that was made easier by the comfort of having a log
on each side of the log that I was traversing.
With time, practice and allowing I find these types of fears melting away.
Each fear that I overcome brings more peace to my being in each moment.
Nature is such an amazing teacher.
Through the last 9 years, all the time that I have spent outside,
she has reflected back to me everything that I am.
If I fear something, inevitably I will walk around the corner and there nature will be
with my next lesson.
There are many afternoons that I come home from work,
and make my way out into the garden.
This is a shared garden space, so my space is the long raised bed that you can see in both photos,
and another slender patch along the fence line that my tomatoes are growing in.
I love the process of a garden.
There is something so satisfying about watching a plant grow from a seed that you tucked into the soil.
And then to be able to harvest a bounty from those plants.
What an amazing feeling! Not to mention a treat for the taste buds!
I can hardly wait until everything fills in more, and the whole garden bed looks lush and vibrant.
It is within these little moments that I feel the most connected with Everything.
Often my inner stories melt away, and I find myself captivated in awe with the beauty and
wonder that surrounds me.
There is something so deeply satisfying to be out enjoying the dirt in one way or another.
Last night I was laying in the hammock, enjoying a few moments of relaxing,
when I hear a flutter right next to my head.
I looked over to see a junco with a mouthfull of bugs and worms.
It gave me a quick glance and then dissapeared into the little bush.
A chorus of little voices immediately followed.
Of course I had to go get a look at her little brood. What sweet little chicks they are!
I wagged my finger at them, and gave a little cluck.
I was rewarded with a song of excitement and four little gaping red holes.
How do you enjoy nature?
Changing the Picture
As our ground is blanketed in a lush layer of pure white snow, my mind drifts to days spent in the garden. My day dreams bring images of generations of people working their land. Human, Animal, Seed, Ground. The simple equation to spring forth life, a cornucopia of abundance. And then my mind is wrenched to our current industrial model of raising food for an ever expanding population. Now the equation is not so simple.
Human, Seed, More Ground, Chemical, Machine, Copious amounts of water. This still might not seem too complex at first glance. The complexity comes from the compound effect this equation has. As we spread across the land, plowing under more and more land we reduce all types of native life that help to keep a balance. As we pour more and more chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc.) into the ground we kill off the life of the soil. This makes the land infertile, so we have to pour more fertilizers on, and more, and more. As the soil structure dies there is no longer life to hold moisture in the ground, and so more water has to be poured into the soil just to keep the plants alive. And then when there is too much water, say through a summer deluge, the ground can not absorb and hold the water, so erosion starts on a massive scale. This then snatches up all the chemicals that have been sprayed on the field and pulls them directly into our water sources.
I am reminded of a documentary on biodynamic farming that I watched. In it they visit a field that has been subjected to decades of chemical amendments. The plowed field looked like it was turning dirt into rocks. The dirt was rolled up into large stone sized pieces, hard as rock. When they broke apart the soil (with great effort) it crumbled to dust in their hands. Clear signs that the soil was dead. Now how can we expect food to grow well in such a sub straight? Then they visited a field that had been managed with biodynamic farming for several years. The soil was rich, soft and alive. There was no effort in plowing the land, because the blade slide through the dirt. The plants flourished in the nutrient rich soil, fed by the life that the ground held. Pesticides were not needed, because the plants were healthier, stronger. The recovery on the later field had only taken a matter of a few years to be completely healed from a former life of chemical dependence.
Many will readily tell you the biodynamic practices are simply not practical in industrial farming, and I agree with them whole heartedly. My question is why keep industrial farming? In a few short decades we have lost sight that every farm used to be a small farm. And amazingly we raised all the food that the country needed. I don’t believe the answer is to find the next best chemical that will thwart the latest mutated problem that has been fostered by the industrial model, but to rethink how we raise our food.
The problems of our industrial farming method have been coming to light more each year. More people are realizing that they no longer want to support a system that abuses and poisons the plants and animals that we eat. But the government is on the side of industrial farming, often passing laws that boost the big boys, and slowly kill the small farmer.
Now I want to paint a new picture. A farmer stands at the edge of a field holding a picture in front of her, taken from the exact vantage point she is now occupying. In the picture, hundreds of acres of barren, dead fields stretch as far as the eye can see. The moment the picture was taken, a gust of wind whips up a cloud of dust, a sure sign that there is no life left in the soil to hold it together. The ground is cracked, and tired looking. The only sign of green in the whole picture is a smattering of mutant weeds that have become pesticide resistant through the over use of chemicals. She moves her gaze from the picture to the land in front of her. Now, just five years later, the land in front of her is a lush oasis of life. Long gone is the dead, worn out soil. Plants grow vibrantly, healthy and strong. Where was once a vast mega field, that had been planting in a mono crop, now lies divided fields. Thick strips of native plants accentuating the edges of the field, providing habitat for native pollinators, and beneficial insects (ones that kill off pests that eat your crops). The fields now hold a variety of plants, offering a great abundance. Herbs and flowers are planted throughout the vegetable fields as companion plants, plants that deter pests, and attract beneficial insects, including pollinators. The crops thrive, providing a greater abundance of variety and quality than the field produced in its mono crop.
She builds the health of the soil through adding rich compost that she creates from the natural materials that come from her farm. Instead of supplementing the industrial farms, the government now supplements farms that raise food using true organic practices. This farm completes a full circle on its own. In addition to growing vegetables, she grows feed crops for her own animals. The cows then provide her with fertilizer (to add to the compost piles), milk and meat. Her chickens provide her with eggs, meat, fertilizer and pest control (as they are free range). In addition to attracting native pollinators, she has a couple bee hives that help to pollinate her crops and provide her with honey. Her neighbor raises sheep for wool, milk and meat. Another neighbor raises turkeys, and ducks. And another raises goats for milk (which they also make cheese, and yogurt out of), and meat. Not only do each of these farmers make money selling their crops of all kinds, they trade with each other for what they need. If someone took a picture of this farm, it would look very similar to farms that were predominant across our country as recently as 70 years ago.
Sometimes progress is to admit that something is not working for us any more, no matter how advanced we believe it is. We are at a time when we have just about all resources available to us, and vast knowledge to educate ourselves from. There is a resurgence in small farms that are making a shift in how they raise our food. The only problem is that the industrial farms continue to pour more chemicals into the toxic cocktail that is the majority of our crops. The difference that the small farmers are making is only making a minor dent in the big picture. The support of the government will eventually go where the demand is. If we increase the demand for good food that came from healthy land, eventually the industrial farms will slowly decline. The land that they poisoned will be rehabilitated. Lovingly nurtured and supplemented with time and compost, it will come back to life. In a few years as the chemicals are released from the land, organic crops will once again flourish. Can you see it?
A different perspective on Gardening
I have been reading a book recently called “All new square foot gardening” by Mel Bartholomew. This is a wonderfully innovative method for raised bed gardening.
When I lived in Winthrop I had a nice sized vegetable garden that provided us with some fresh veggies. I really loved being able to grow our own food, but I was really not sold on the whole row gardening method. Each spring you till the whole garden, then you make over half of it into paths. Since these paths are rich fertile dirt like the rest of the garden, and they are getting watered they grow weeds like mad! I got sick of weeding the paths, it was enough work keeping up with the plant beds themselves. I tried different methods of keeping the paths weed free, which worked ok, but not great. The other problem I ran into is that my paths moved location in the garden each year, which is horrible for the soil. Because you pack it down tight walking on it all year, and then it never completely fluffs up when you till it next year, so if you want to grow a crop on that spot the next year the roots cant go as deep as they would like to.
So I told myself next time I got the chance to settle down in my own space where I could have a garden I was going to do raised beds. That way you aren’t weeding your paths, the dirt for the vegetable beds isn’t getting compacted because the paths move every year. You can build up rich healthy soil in these raised beds if your soil is poor. There are many, many positive points to having a raised bed. And then I found this method. The square foot gardening method takes a 4×4 raised bed and splits it up into square foot sections. You space your seeds in each section based on how many inches apart they are meant to be. This allows you to plant what you need when you need it. Instead of planting a whole row of something so that it matures all at once, you can stager your plantings to have a constant fresh crop. To read more about it you can visit their web site at http://www.squarefootgardening.com/ I wanted to include one of the pictures of what these gardens look like, but I couldnt get it to work. So if you visit their web page you can see all different kinds of set ups.
Today’s Flowers #15
Since we don’t really have many flowers left around here right now, I was going through all my pictures and came across our collection from our 2003 stay on Maui. We lived and worked in a botanical garden for a month. It was filled with all kinds of amazing plants. We had all kinds of fresh fruit on a daily basis, bananas, star fruit, avocados, and tons more. We had beautiful flowers to look at. It was a great experience. This hibiscus shot was taken a couple days before Christmas.
For more great flower shots go to:
Today’s Flowers
Since we don’t have any flowers left in our garden now, I decided to post a picture of a nosegay I made a little over a month ago. It was made from flowers and herbs from my mums garden. It smelled wonderful! Nosegays seem to have shown up in Medieval times, women carried them or wore them in their bodice to mask the unpleasant smells that permeated daily life. Now they are a beautiful little bouquet to enjoy both in sight and smell. I had a little bit of a lemony theme going with Lemon Verbena, and Lemon Thyme. The slight sweet, spicyness of the rose, lavender, and sweet peas went well with the herbs. I wish I could have it on my table right now, bright, cheerful, and aromatic.
To see more beautiful flowers visit
A Rose to gaze upon
Since I am pretty new to the blogging world still, I have been exploring around, and finding all the wonderful things going on in the blog world. I have been enjoying the themed blog entries, so I thought I would partake in one.
This is a picture I took recently in my moms Rose garden. It was a couple of weeks ago on a nice crisp dewey morning. The roses are beautiful, and she has so many amazing different colors. Unfortunatly our weather is turning a little cooler, and the roses are slowing down in their show.
To see other entries visit http://flowersfromtoday.blogspot.com/
Chickens, gardens, and creatures…. oh my
I thought I would write an entry about the “farmer” side of me. I was lucky to grow up on 10 acres, learning the basics of raising your own food. We have not gotten to the point of raising most of our own food, but we have always had a good padding of our own organic home grown food to add to the items we buy from the grocery store.
One thing that we are far from short on is chickens. We have quite the group of little banty chickens, probably growing close to 100 at this point. As I wrote in a previous post, they are completely free range. They wander all over our 10 acres, and keep things cleaned up. No matter where you walk around our yard you always get to see a chicken or two, cleaning up a garden bed, or just on a walk about. We are still having problems with their egg laying, I really don’t know why they aren’t laying in their nest boxes, some times they hide some of their eggs in secret spots, but we have never had this much trouble before. So usually we have quite a supply of eggs through the year, they are so rich and healthy, because the hens have the such a healthy diet. They get to eat greens, bugs and so much more. We don’t eat any of our chickens, but it would be premium organic free range chicken if we did.
Chickens make wonderful pets, because if you have the space for them to be free range they are quite low maintenance. Even if you need to keep them in some type of pen, they don’t take a whole lot of work, just a little more cleaning than the free range set up. If you have a chance to handle your chicks from a couple days old, they can become little companions also. They can be very social animals. Even our chickens who were not handled a whole lot as chicks are very friendly, many of them come up to you if you are close to where they are roaming around. And when its feeding time, you are swarmed. Their personalities crack me up.
We have a small herd of cows at the moment. The cutest one being a miniature bull. He is full grown and he is roughly 3 feet tall at the shoulder, I am not 100% sure on that number, so next time I am out there I will have to get a picture of him, and see how tall he really is. Talk about personality. He can be a bit of a brat some times, as bulls will be, but if you have an apple, he will be your best friend forever. The cows absolutely adore apples. I really eat very little meat, but my parents get one of their cows slaughtered every couple of years and put it up in their freezers. Its high quality beef that we know was raised in an open field (no meat lots here) and we know that there are no antibiotics and other nasty things pumped into them. If you don’t have the room to raise your own cows, and you eat beef on a regular basis, I would strongly suggest buying some from a local farmer that raises their cows free range and none of the antibiotics.
It really saddens me on how most of our food is raised. And I am not limiting that statement to just the animal kingdom of our diet. I think our fruits and vegetables are grown in horrible conditions also. I know it is slightly challenging to do at this point for a lot of people still, but the more that we can buy local, from farmers that are treating their crops with respect (whether that is animals or plants) the healthier we and our planet will be. I am far from accomplishing this goal also, but I try to grow some of my own food, and buy from other locals.
Farmers Markets are a wonderful resource to get local food, and in some cases (like our farmers market www.bellinghamfarmers.org) get some wonderful local crafts and supplies. Its also a wonderful place to make some new friends. We have been going to our market almost every weekend this fall, and it has become more of a social hour than shopping trip. I end up talking to a hand full of people that I have known for a while, and some that I have just met this year. I know most farmers markets are closing up for most areas around this time of the year, but if you are lucky enough to live in an area that has a year round farmers market take advantage of it.
Gardening is another thing that I am passionate about. This summer I was on an adventure, so I didn’t have the chance to do my own garden. But for the last two years before that I had my own vegetable garden when we were living in Winthrop, WA. Its an extremely satisfying experience to watch a plant grow from a seed that you planted in ground that you prepared. And then to go out on a warm summers evening and pick the ingredients for your dinner, its so much fun. Those fresh veggies always taste so good! Gardening is one of those things that almost any one can do, even if you are living in an apartment. You can have a little balcony container garden, or even a couple of plants in pots in your kitchen and living room. For those that are lucky to have a yard of any size, putting in a small or large garden is a fun process. If you have children it’s a great way for them to learn where their food is coming from, and kids always love to play in the dirt. And think of how much healthier it is for everyone! You can even throw in a few flowers here and there, adding beautiful color, and drawing in all those little pollinators.
Well this is really an endless subject and I could go on and on, but that’s a little bit about my farmer side, and how I see the world. If any of this is a passion of yours, and you haven’t done it yet, go for it! There is always a way to follow our dreams, and remember, do what you love!
Late night update
Today was an enjoyable one. Bernie headed out this morning to go to Semiahmoo Spit, and he ended up getting some nice shots today. Keep an eye on his blog for some of those to pop up. There are some fun ones of a grebe eating a fish that does not look like it would fit.
I went to work, and had an enjoyable time out in the sunshine. I did some cutting back in one of the mint beds, and then watered one of the beds while weeding. My mom was in the neighborhood, so she stopped by to see where I have been working. She got an enthusiastic greeting from Christies dogs, and then I gave her the tour.
My new thing in the last couple of days has been playing around with needle felting. I did a couple of little pumpkins the other day, and then started another little project this evening. I will post pictures when I get a little farther. I find it very interesting, and highly entertaining. Christies daughter Jessica does these extremely adorable felted fairies, and witches (for Halloween). Very creative and talented!
I finally got my mint chocolate chip ice cream made. I have been meaning to do it for a couple of weeks now. I used mint from Christies garden, and local cream and milk. It was very yummy. The mint flavor was wonderful. And homemade icecream has so much more flavor, and creamyness.
So, nothing huge happened today, but it was an enjoyable day of simple pleasures. And now I am off to bed to enjoy dream land.
