Starting the New Year Right!!!

I just got it confirmed, I have started my PDC (Permaculture Designers Course) training. I am starting the new year off right, and with high hopes. It is normally a 72 hour course, but I am doing it online, on my own time since there is always things to do around the property.

Have a happy and healthy New Year all, I am confident we will here.

Could Coos County ever be Sustainable?

Could Coos County ever be sustainable for food and fuel? I am unsure. I do know this much, at current uses of fuel, it takes over 10 calories of oil to get 1 food calorie into the average citizen. That to me is a travesty, and yet this is the world we currently live in.

We cannot keep this up for long, what can you do to help make your family, your neighborhood, your county more sustainable?

For me, it is repair my soil, keep it healthy, & start growing my own food.

Jailed for having a kitchen garden & worse

People please wake up. Between the current NDAA law in congress and people being jailed for having a kitchen garden there is a serious problem in the country.

A teacher in Memphis, TN on his own time, taught inner city youth how to garden, grow food, compost and so on. The teacher nearly lost his home. However this isn't the first time either a tragedy like this has occurred.

... in a similar case in Michigan earlier this summer when a mother of 4 faced a 93 day jail sentence for her garden.

Here is the link to the article.

Between this and the NDAA law, it's beginning to be like Pre-WW2 Germany.

Think about it, you or a loved one could be indefinitely held (against our Bill of Rights btw) against our will in a place like GITMO or worse, without trial, for any reason. That's what the NDAA law is all about. Scary times.

I hope & pray Obama has the courage Truman did when this similar bill was brought up during the McCarthy era.

Still depressed about things I cannot change in my reality, but like the song, "Tub thumping" by the band, "Chumbawumba" I rise.

Yesterday I got a shipment of tires for use as retaining walls and other things. I should be getting more today and next week as well.

In case you didn't know, you can use tires for the following:

• Planters
• Retaining Walls
• Heat traps
• Housing Foundations
• Ponds
• Pond Islands

I am sure there are more uses, but that is what has come to mind on this foggy cold morning. It should be known that like this ad on Craigslist, I am looking for:

• Used Tires with no rims, any size. I can accommodate a great many.
• Rocks and concrete debris. Again, I can accommodate and use a great amount of tonnage.
• Spoiled Straw
• Cardboard, old news paper
• Galvanized steel tubs
• yard waste
• A Wood Cook Stove
• Scions from Rare /heirloom / heritage Apple trees
  

Have a great day everyone, or at least try to. ;)

Taking a few days off...

Too much bad mojo surrounding my life at the moment, taking a few days off from everything. Meanwhile I am contemplating what to do with design of the property with taking into account possible future events to protect the property, my family, and the work we have done here.

I leave you with this informative YouTube video.

Heritage Apple Continued

I got another e-mail this morning about the apple tree. I found out it came from Rhodhiss Community west of Hickory, NC. So, I decided to look up the community and its history, after all this apple tree which is now part of Coquille, OR did like so many others from the East Coast and came all the way to Oregon when many many others that came cross country got tired, bored, or lazy and stopped half-way to the paradise that is Coos County!!

Rhodhiss has a smaller (much) community then even Coquille. As of the 2000 census they had a whopping, Three hundred and Sixty Six people living in the community, however they have one remarkable (at least to me) interesting fact.

The material of the U.S. flag that astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin erected on the first visit to the Moon in 1969 was woven at Burlington Mills in Rhodhiss.

How is that for the history around a little tree that came out west?

Description of the New Heirloom Apple Tree

I was scouring the Internet and came across this information about the new heirloom apple tree that arrived.

(Yellow Horse, Old Fashion Horse, Carolina Horse) - Horse was probably the most popular apple grown for home use in the South. Believed by some to have originated in Nash County, North Carolina in the 1800's, Horse was immensely popular for its many home uses including fresh eating, cooking, drying and cider and vinegar making. The tree is a late bloomer, a prolific producer and an early bearer. Fruit is medium to large, slightly ribbed with thick golden yellow skin. Flesh is firm, yellow, juicy and quite tart until fully ripe. Ripens July to August.

Although there is a metal tag on it labeled, "Chicago," I was told this is a "Horse Apple" variety.

What will it taste like in years to come? Will it be so tasty Morimoto-san or Jamie Oliver will want to show up and taste it? HA! Like I could ever be that lucky. I am lucky Tom Brown gave me such a versatile apple tree. It has a perfect home on the outer edge of the Mandala Vegetable / Chicken garden.

Thanks again Tom, and I look forward to doing business with you.

Heritage Apple Tree arrives in Coquille, OR

1 heirloom apple tree is due to arrive today and take part in the Mandala chicken garden I have going. Thank you Linda Woodrow!! :) The heirloom apple tree variety is called, "Horse Apple."

At one point in America the US had an "Horse Apple" variant in nearly every county of the South, and East Coast. However times have changed for the worse with food over the last 100 years so I, and others are dedicated to bringing back healthy food.

Think about it, America alone used to have over 5000 varieties of apples, and in the Supermarkets you now see MAYBE 5 if you are lucky.

This is just one of the ways I am fighting back for healths sake.

I would like to thank Tom Brown of North Carolina for supplying me with this heritage breed of American apple tree. If you would like to see what Tom Brown is offering in terms of Heritage apple trees, visit him here at his website.

Eclipse!

If you don't know and you are reading this, well, GET OUTSIDE if you are close to the coast. There is an impossible celestial event occurring. While the moon is going into eclipse RIGHT NOW, we will also be able to see the sun rise!

Get outside and view an event that is impossible, and amazing! For more details, go here.

A Christmas Example of Permaculture

This morning I awoke in tremendous pain & I wondered to myself laying next to my wife what the local tribes from here to Ketchikan, AK would do for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), aka the Winter Blues or simply depression. Since I know longer live in a tropical climate, I am removed from the foods I know help with depression such as the king of all fruits, Pineapple.

As I wandered amuck in a daze as I do every morning I thought of the Native Alaskans I have met in my past & what they would have to do at this time of the year. When I remembered my friend in Juneau just told me she had 50" of snow last month, followed by several days in the upper 40's. & I got to work with making the morning fire. It's still below freezing at the time of writing this blog, feeling the blues myself, and then I read about someone giving away FREE Christmas dinners.

I became humbled by the owner of Monkey Business Food to Go's of Charleston, OR words,

"I think Christmas to a lot of people is a depressing time. Like when you have children, you never have enough. You think "I wish I could do more. I wish I could do more." So you are depresses. It's my solution to depression. There's nothing like looking at somebody and smiling and say, "Merry Christmas" and give them a hot meal.

Monkey Business will be giving away Christmas Dinners for the community again this year. Last year they shocked the Coos County community by doing it all themselves, this year they got support of Coquille Indian Tribe, and numerous private and corporate donations.

The whole article can be found here. What a wonderful example of a community coming together like they used to. It's an example of people working together, it's an example of Permaculture community values, it's an example of the holiday spirit.

This will keep me going till the Eclipse tomorrow morning.

Want to make your own chicken food and fertilizer?

Want to make your own chicken food and fertilizer?

I take no credit for this idea, I am just passing it on to you. The following link will take you to a Permaculture Research Institute article on how to make a simple bird feeder, chicken food maker, compost maker, and compost tea maker easily! Sounds too good to be true? It isn't, it's just some good old fashioned American ingenuity.

Happy Gardening.

Disaster turns to Providence

Well, this morning I was told the trees aren't available. That blows, however the nursery owner is sending me a special present which I will report on when it gets here.

On the flip side I started scrambling for what to do in order to have the trees for my Pacific Northwest Linda Woodrow type mandala garden.

Isn't that a mouthful? Need to work on the name of that, anyway, I wound up going to Fedco Trees and downloaded the catalog. After negotiating with my CFO (wife) we are going to save and purchase the "Small Yard Edible Landscape Collection"

Having an edible landscape is only 1 part of Permaculture, and it is the part most people focus on. Perhaps rightly so since good, healthy food is so important to survival.

In this collection, Fedco will be sending me:

2 dwarf apple trees
3 blueberries
1 table grape
2 dwarf pie cherry trees
3 honeyberries (Lonicera caerula) - insectiary plants, and edible fruits
2 elderberry - insectiary, bird attracting, wild life attracting, edible fruits
2 large hipped rose - insectiary, bird attracting, edible, high vitamins & bioflavonoids

This should all arrive in Spring, and should plant 1/10th of an acre. I would get one of the other 2 collections, but proper design of the property must be done first!

ACK! The trees are gone!

Well, very VERY sadly I will not be getting those heritage apple trees at this time from my supplier, he does not have them anymore! /cry

On the flip side, I am determined to get healthy food here to the farm, I am just gonna try harder I guess.

Maybe Fedco can help.

Rare Apple Trees Coming to Coquille Soon

Attempting to buy heritage / rare apples at the moment. I picked 2 varieties, and the owner picks 2 rare ones as well. Not a bad deal for money off per tree. Anyway, these are the descriptions of the 2 I picked.

Bushy Top---medium to large, round and slightly pointed, green with red stripes, slightly dry, tart, ripe September. Some of the top branches tend to grow vertically. This is the same type tree as the former largest apple tree in the eastern USA, the Handy Apple Tree (Bushy Top), which produced 110 bushels of apples one year..

Junaluska---medium to large, round to slightly flattened, dull yellow with streaks of russet, some occasional red blush, yellow flesh, ripe October. A historic apple associated with the famous Cherokee, Chief Junaluska.

I wonder what the owner of the nursery will pick?