Going Down with Books

SUBHEAD: It is getting clearer as to how the complex and poisonous system we are riding will fail. 

By Juan Wilson on 4 March 2020 for Island Breath -
(https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/03/going-down-with-books.html)


Image above: View from a full wall home library. It's a start. From (https://images.app.goo.gl/634TXyX3moM2Fcvt5).

Don't count on a last minute reprieve, a bailout, or escape from our current condition. The impending failure of the system we depend on is an on-going process has been accelerated now by a worldwide virus pandemic.

We have become blind to our total dependence on "The System" (or "The Grid") that we see no alternative reality.

As we have discovered the "System" requires massive inputs of resources ans energy and, as a result, huge outputs of waste and pollution.  It also requires that we have no scalable substitutions or alternatives to this dependency but turning to total collapse.

There is simply too many of us and too much our stuff and too little of everything else. Kicking and screaming we will be dragged to the consequences.

How blind are we? Is the best we can come up with for our next president is a contest between Trump and Biden?

These are two fossils who either have no clue of the existential challenge we face or are counting on fleeing with the billionaires to the Alps or some inaccessible tropical island.

Three elements of the perfect storm we are sailing into are:

• Loss of individual, family, or group knowledge of fending for one's own. 
• Uncontrolled debt inflation to finance industrialization and economic growth.
• Ravaging of the Earth for settlements, agland, resources, and places to toss garbage.

For the few who get through the breakdown of the delicate networks of interdependent systems providing us shelter, food, water, and energy it will be best you acquire skills in self-maintained off-grid living.

That would include skills growing food and procuring potable water; experience with building and maintaining the home; knowledge of medical care; and an idea of the principals of general science.

At some point in the not so distant future your iPhone will be about useful as a drink coaster for acquiring and storing these, instructions, and techniques in independent living.

Yes, fifty years ago young people were seriously considering getting "Off the Grid" and taking actions to get back to "The Land" and be self-sustainable. The mantra was from our guru Timothy Leary was "Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out!"

They almost made it but traded bluejeans for polyester bell-bottoms and LSD for cocaine.

It's a good idea to keep acid free paper books on the principals of all of these subjects.

Half a century ago this kind of information was widely published and identified in "The Whole Earth Catalog" and can still be found in  "Back to the Land" books and other publications from the Hippy-Trippy1970's.

Fortunately, not all has been forgotten of the knowledge of the earlier Urban Hippie diaspora.
This survival knowledge can still be obtained from bookstores and online.

Having a printed book library of basic techniques is a crucial resource, just as much as a toolshed of wood working, metal working and garden implements.

Vital information can be found in publications like the US Army Survival Field Manuals and tomes with specifics on the knowledge  required for basic survival, and sustained living independently of the sprawl of suburbia, office parks,  malls, hospitals and supermarkets.

Many libraries offers free older hardcover books of fiction and non fiction as they are rotated off their shelves. Many libraries are still getting rid of entire sets of hardcover encyclopedias.

I recommend that you start building a library of crucial information and reference books... but also collect classic reading material for entertainment. Much is available and there won't be any Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime.

Author's note:
One little book (3"x 5" x 3/4")  I would suggest everyone own is "Pocket Ref" by Thomas J. Glover by Sequoia Press. My version is the Third Edition (ISBN 978-1-885071-33-0). It is an encyclopedia of information showing everything from illustrations of a wide variety of rope knots and bends to a listing of all the phone area code numbers by state in North America to the friction loss in pipes of various materials, to the square, cubes, square roots, and cube root of all numbers from 1 to 1,000 to five place accuracy... plus much, much more. You'll be amazed what's in this tiny gem. I got mine at my local Ace Hardware Store.

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Long Term Egg Storage

SUBHEAD: There are a number of techniques for keeping eggs edible for months without refrigeration.

By Brian Kaller on 25 October 2016 for Restoring Mayberry -
(http://restoringmayberry.blogspot.com/2016/10/storing-eggs-for-winter.html)


Image above: A variety of jarred pickled eggs. They can be kept for long periods. From (https://www.reference.com/food/basic-recipe-pickled-eggs-bb99f4e9c9bcce2a).

No matter what else you have in your kitchen, you probably have eggs. Whether you boil or fry them for breakfast, brush them over meat, whisk them into egg-drop soup, bake them into pastries, eggs provide one of the simplest and yet most versatile of foods, prized the world over as a rich source of easy protein.

If you raise your own chickens, moreover, you have a ready source of eggs, as well as fertilizer and comedy relief. Hens convert your leftovers into your next breakfast, keep your garden free of pests and mow your lawn for free.

Other animals can do some of these things, but not many of us have the time, space or will to manage a suburban herd of sheep or swine, or to slaughter them in the garage. Hens, however, require little space or maintenance, and turn any home into a homestead.

They lay eggs seasonally, however, speeding up in summer and slowing in winter. You could give them more indoor light or Vitamin D supplements, but they cost money and interfere with the chickens’ natural cycle – and saving money and being all-natural are two of the most popular reasons for keeping backyard chickens in the first place.

Another way would be to collect the extra eggs in summer and preserve them through the winter. Eggs can be preserved in several ways; one, well-known to pub patrons here, is to pickle them.

A typical recipe involves hard-boiling eggs and removing the shells, and then creating a pickling solution of cider vinegar, small amounts of salt, sugar, herbs and spices. Bring the mixture to the boil, then simmer for five minutes and pour over the eggs – they should keep for at least a few months.

You can also soak the eggs in a solution of sodium silicate, known as isinglass or water-glass. One popular recipe from a century ago recommended dissolving sodium silicate in boiling water, to about the consistency of a syrup (or about 1 part silicate to 3 parts water).

The eggs -- as fresh as possible, and thoroughly clean -- should be immersed in the solution in such manner that every part of each egg is covered with the liquid, then removed and let dry. If the solution is kept near the boiling temperature, the preservative effect was said to be much more certain and to last longer.

Perhaps the best and longest-lasting way, however, is to preserve eggs in limewater. No recipe could be simpler; take fresh raw eggs in the shell, set them gently in a jar, and pour in a simple lukewarm mix of tap water and lime powder. I’ve done this with our eggs, and they lasted for up to a year and remained edible.

“Lime” here means neither the citrus fruit nor the tree, but refers to calcium hydroxide, a white powder derived from limestone. For at least 7,000 years humans burned limestone in kilns to create the dangerous and caustic “quicklime” (Calcium oxide), and hydrated that to create lime powder (calcium hydroxide).

Sumerians and Romans used it as a cement, while farmers mixed it with water to create whitewash, tanners used it to remove hair from hides, gardeners to repel slugs and snails, printers to bleach paper.

Perhaps most importantly, farmers here in Ireland spread lime over their boggy fields to “sweeten” the acid soil and increase crop production as much as four-fold. For hundreds of years until the mid-20th century, lime supported a vast and vital network of village industry in this part of the world-- County Cork alone was said to contain an amazing 23,000 kilns, or one every 80 acres.

In his 1915 monograph “Lime-water for the preservation of eggs,” Frank Shutt describes a series of egg preservation experiments at an experimental farm in Ottawa, which found lime-water to be “superior to all other methods” – how, he didn’t say.

When I first tried to preserve eggs in lime-water, I simply mixed equal parts lime and water – which did no harm, but most of the lime simply settled to the bottom.

It turned out a fraction as much lime would have sufficed – Shutt says that water saturates with lime at 700 parts water to one part lime, but adds that “owing to impurities in commercial lime, it is well to use more than is called for.” In any case, if you use more lime than is necessary to saturate in water, the rest simply condenses out.

Since exposure to air causes more lime to condense over time, some articles recommend keeping the container sealed, either in a Kilner jar or by pouring a layer of oil over the top. I kept mine in an ordinary mayonnaise jar, and they kept fine for a year.

Eggs kept this way do come out with their whites darkened slightly, and with a faint “musty” smell like old clothes. It does not, however, have the unpleasant smell of a rotten egg – believe me, you won’t mistake one for the other.

The difference can perhaps be compared to that of rehydrated milk vs. fresh milk – not inedible, just slightly different than expected. As Shutt puts it, nothing “can entirely arrest that ‘stale’ flavour common in all but strictly fresh laid eggs.”

I’m not aware of an upper limit on how long eggs could be kept this way – I kept mine a year, with no ill effects beyond the stale smell – but I would not recommend going longer than several months to be on the safe side. Several months, however, still allows the homesteader to continue harvesting eggs through the winter.

Shutt recommends keeping the water at a cool temperature – 40-45 degrees Fahrenheit, or five degrees Centigrade, to help the preservation.

That’s the temperature of a refrigerator, but a cellar or underground storage container would probably be fine. I kept mine at room temperature during an Irish year, where the temperature ranges from freezing (32F, 0C) in winter to lukewarm (75F, 25C) in summer, with no ill effects.

Some old texts say to boil the lime-water, dissolving as much of the lime as you can and letting it cool before immersing the eggs; that might be slightly preferable simply to maximise the amount of lime dissolved or to sterilise the water, but I tried it both ways and noticed no difference in quality.

Some old recipes recommend adding salt to the eggs, but I tried it with and without salt and found that it didn’t make a difference, and neither did Shutt a century ago. Still other 19th-century recipes mixed the lime with salt-peter and even borax, but I would not try those until I had confirmed their safety.

Experiments like this might seem pointless when we have refrigerators, freezers and a convenience store down the road.

Many of us, though, like being able to do things ourselves, with simple ingredients, for a lot less money than processed food at the store would cost. Money and electricity, moreover, are less certain than they used to be; I know many friends who have lost jobs, or whose power now goes out regularly.

Here in Europe we know people whose governments have collapsed or gone bankrupt, or been torn by civil war. These scenarios are not as apocalyptic as most people imagine -- crises are rare, and even in a crisis life goes on – but they happen occasionally, in an emergency our local village would benefit from someone who knows how to do things the old-fashioned way.

See also a website page with several recipes for pickling eggs
(https://www.pinterest.com/Dragonfly9586/pickled-egg-recipes/)

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The Desert Fridge Project

SUBHEAD: How to build a pot-in-pot "Desert Fridge to cool food by 18ºF for extending storage.

By Bibi Farber on 5 March 2009 in Next World TV -
(http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/innovations/desert-fridge.html)


Image above: Still frame pouring sand into pot-in-pot "Desert Fridge Project. From video below.

The Pot in Pot method of keeping food cool in hot climates is even becoming popular among people in the West who wish to reduce their dependency on a big energy sucking refrigerator.

The method is very simple: There are two clay pots, one inside the other. In between fill with is sand. Saturate sand with water and Put food to be cooled in inner pot. Cover pots. As the water evaporates it removes heat from the inner system, thereby leaving it cool.

As needed add more water a few times a day to keep the sand wet.

One major benefit is that the pot-in-pot enables Gambian farmers to retain food for future sale, instead of dumping all the produce that doesn't sell during a given day.

If the farmers have a storage system, it changes everything. No electricity needed!


Video above: How to build a pot-in-pot "Desert Fridge. From (https://youtu.be/92fpnUfRt1A).

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The Anarchist's Shoes

SUBHEAD: Years of reading ads convinced me that a highly "technical" shoes enhanced feet. As if!

By Amanda Kovattana on 12 February 2014 for Amanda Kovattana Blog -
(http://amandakovattana.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-anarchists-shoes.html)


Image above: Detail of painting "Cobbler Studying a Doll's Shoe" by Norman Rockwell, 1921. From (http://ayay.co.uk/background/paintings/norman_rockwell/cobbler-studying-dolls-shoe/).

At Thanksgiving dinner the Anarchist was admiring the black ankle boot moccasins I was wearing with my sarong pants and I announced that I was going to make my own shoes.

"I'd be very interested in how that goes", said the Anarchist who was a self designated non-conformist who had, during a discussion at one of our parties, announced that she was an anarchist. A term that fits well for this story.

Her desire to join me in my shoe odyssey further intrigued me and she told me of her feet woes. How the combination of bunions and toes now curling up over her feet made it increasingly difficult to find footwear to fit. She didn't have good feet to begin with, she explained, but years of forcing them into heels and of being on her feet all day while working at a Hallmark store did them in.

Only then did I realize that she always wore Ugg boots even in summer and now she could only wear the right boot of two pairs of Uggs. I showed her the work of a shoemaker who had blogged about making a pair of shoes for a woman with severely swollen feet.

See (http://simpleshoemaking.wordpress.com/2013/08/26/how-to-make-simple-stitch-down-shoes-for-people-with-swollen-feet/).

This gave us the confidence that we too could solve our shoe problems in the same manner.

I had my own reasons for wanting to make my own shoes. My daily dog walking was wearing out my shoes faster than at any time in my life. The soles of walking shoes did not seem to wear as well as they once did. I was shoe goo-ing them repeatedly (glue used to fix holes in tennis shoes). Then I read an article brought to my attention by a newsfeed I subscribe to called the Village Green Network which usually concerned itself with food and recipes for making something simple like laundry soap.

The article was by a woman who had decided to make her own shoes because most shoes caused her pain on the long hikes she liked to take. She referenced another article that described how shoes compromise the natural gait of the foot. I was shocked and then not at all surprised. So often did a single assumption lead to misinformation never investigated.

Shoes were still built on the same too narrow lasts as they had been for centuries under the belief that feet had to be supported. They were also too heavy, inflexible, reduced surface area of the foot and since they were drawn with a curve rather than on a straight axis forced the foot to an incorrect orientation.

The referenced article (http://www.unshod.org/pfbc/pfrossi2.htm) described how the footbed of shoes have an indentation under the ball of the foot designed into the shoe to make the foot look smaller. Sure enough I checked all my shoes and every one of them had that indentation built into the footbed. This slight dip compromised the natural arch of the foot especially when other areas of the footbed were compressed with wear.

This combination put three important bones out of alignment. The reason arch support was needed turned out to be to raise these bones back into place. The turned up toes of shoes, the lack of flexibility in the sole, the stiffness of the uppers all interfered with the natural ability of the foot to grasp surface area, expand and move the body.

The article also pointed out that you can tell by the wear pattern of your shoes that the natural gait was being compromised. I looked on the bottom of my shoes and sure enough all of them were worn down on the outside edge of the heels and on a spot in the middle of the ball of the foot as described. I thought it was because of my bowed legs causing my shoes not to land properly.

I read the article several times before I could believe that shoes were not helping at all (apart from protecting the foot from pointed rocks) and were more likely reducing the foots flexibility and strength. Feet would be better off in a pair of moccasins the article concluded.

Earlier in the year I had been similarly astounded by an article claiming that the brassiere seriously compromised the ability of the breasts to get rid of toxins and did not in fact keep a woman's breasts from sagging over time, but had compromised the muscle structure of the breasts to take care of this themselves. Given my personal minimalist topography I could happily give up the brassiere, but I could not do without shoes.

Thus I embarked on my shoemaking education and found a book at the library with full color pictures that convinced me of what wonderfully colorful and interesting footwear I could make for myself. This led me to find the author online where I found the aforementioned blog about making shoes for swollen feet. She had also posted an article from the New York Times (http://nymag.com/health/features/46213/) a bit more readable and less technical that said the same thing—shoes were bad for you.

I consulted my chiropractor and he told me about the body's remarkable ability to adapt. How bones that had been badly set would over time correct themselves. So feet would also adapt to shoes. And he himself would not be giving up the support of his hiking boots no matter what the claims of the new minimalist trends in sport shoes.

One could simply train oneself to walk properly he claimed. I in turn told him how I had learned from a masseuse that the Asian squat was not a body position that one could learn in adulthood. That this act of folding the body up and squatting on the heels actually changed the angle of the hip sockets so only those who had practiced this sitting position from childhood could accomplish it so easily in adulthood.

So wouldn't a person who had spent most of their time walking barefoot be similarly suited to unconstructed shoes? He agreed that I had made a convincing hypotheses for my new shoe wearing preferences. And given his theory of adaptation it is likely that others who adopted a barefoot lifestyle could over time strengthen their feet too. My karate class was, after all, filled with newcomers learning to exert their body for peak fighting performance while barefoot.

Shoemaking
I had been a seamstress all my life and I once made jester slippers from wool felting, but I hadn't a clue how to choose leather or what a millimeter in thickness felt like. In order to become acquainted with the medium I ordered a three pound box of leather scraps from e-bay for $30. And what an assortment of cowhide did I receive.

I picked over the fake crocodile in unnatural colors, the fake pink ostrich that came in lime green, red and turquoise, some shiny red metallic gold and copper pieces, floral embossed ones and weird ones that looked like flocked wall paper. I was both repulsed and intrigued and spent an afternoon art date putting together combinations of blue crocodile and lime green ostrich. Most of the scraps came in pieces too small to use so I would have to make a crazy quilt shoe.

I felt more compelled to meet the needs of my Anarchist friend for her need was greater and I still had shoes a plenty. Plus the caveat of making shoes for a "customer" excited me with visions of a new shoe making add-on to my services. Who could resist custom made shoes? Another of my clients also had problems with bunions gradually eliminating all but men's running shoes for her. She said she could have had an operation to correct her feet, but there was no way she would have been able to be off her feet for six weeks.

My Anarchist friend had said the same thing. It occurred to me that the abuse of women's feet in heels and the failure to correct them surgically was probably quite common among women, especially those that took care of others as women so often did.

I watched a video on my shoemakers blog on how to make a last upon which to build a shoe and went to visit the Anarchist with duct tape and homemade play dough in hand. The play dough was for filling the spaces over the toes to make a shoe like shape.

I had her slip on a pair of knee high nylons I had brought with me and she stood on the cardboard soles I had made with a little wall of duct tape around the perimeter. I went to town ripping off pieces of duct tape and wrapping them across her feet attaching them to the side wall.


Image above: Two attempts using duct-tape to create shoe shape to derive leather patterns. From original article.

After I was done I carefully cut the duct tape boots off down the top of the foot. The results looked like a pair of boots left behind by the Tin Man after a thorough beating.

Instead of flattening out my duct tape pieces to make patterns for a last as instructed, I decided to skip that step and just drape the leather over the duct tape forms themselves. I cut up an old black t-shirt to make a prototype. The Anarchist loved the pixie shape I had devised to accommodate the unusual shape of her feet.

My challenge was to make the shoe for the more normal foot look the same as this high profile one. It would not be possible to make them identical, but I could mimic the same shape and hold the foot with a hidden piece inside the shoe.

I had brought my bag of leather scraps so she could choose what kind of leather she wanted her shoes made from. She admired how soft and flexible some of the pieces. As they were to be her first pair, were and chose black which would go with most of her outfits and hats for she was a snappy dresser.

She then showed me the pair of shoes she had had custom made by a professional shoemaker. They hurt her feet she said and cost $500. They were so stiff and ugly they made me angry. There was no flex to the sole at all. Whoever constructed these shoes had decided that her feet were too crippled to be of any use and had made what was essentially the foot part of a wooden leg.

I ordered more leather from e-bay—remnants from upholstered leather sofa making. And I made adjustments to my t-shirt mock up until we were satisfied with the fit. Then I took apart my model and used the pieces as a pattern to cut the shoe parts out of the black leather.


Image above: Two attempts using duct-tape to create shoe shape to derive leather patterns. From original article.

Next I had to learn how to sew leather together with the prescribed synthetic sinew. I bought myself the proper needles, a stitching awl, sinew and some non toxic cement. I could use my sewing machine to make holes in the leather that could then be enlarged by the stitching awl; the hand sewing went much easier once I made the holes large enough.

Hunting down material for the soles would be a challenge since this was a material only available to professional shoe makers in bulk rolls. My shoemaker blogger suggested going to Home Depot to look for rubber floor tiles used in workout rooms and garages; they were made from recycled automobile tires. The pack of 6 tiles I found would be enough for 12 pairs of shoes, but they were the right thickness. I was very pleased that they were a recycled product.

The insoles were also challenging because my customer's feet were of such a shape that no conventional insole from the drug store would work.

So in the end I used some square sheets of rubber I had on hand that came as knee pads inside gardening pants. I covered these thick pieces with scrap upholstery material I had gotten from FabMo a non profit that collected samples discarded by interior design stores. For shoe laces I decided to use gross grain ribbon from the fabric store was in order. These ribbon ties along with the pointed pixie toes made the shoes look magical.


Image above: Two attempts using duct-tape to create shoe shape to derive leather patterns. From original article.

I had the Anarchist try them on. The problematic right foot was a bit loose in the toe. She got her canes out and took a test drive walking fast into her room and back. The pointed soles on one foot would catch a little as she picked up her feet so I took them home and cut and sewed the toes into a rounded shape.

Now they fit better and were easier to walk in. She also commented that they were very comfortable and the soles offered plenty of arch support. That's funny I thought, I didn't build any arch support into the footbed. But the thickness of the insoles afforded enough cushion to feel like it and protected her protruding bones from the hard floor. She was pleased with the that they looked dressy too.

Stepping off the Grid
Such off the grid journeys, I realized, usually started with a revealing piece of information. Shampoo I found out made your hair grease up which led to hair washing every other day when I really didn't need to wash my hair more than once a week if I used baking soda and an apple cider rinse as was done a century ago. Not to mention that some of the ingredients in shampoo were toxic.

When I started reading up on what caused my blood sugar to spike I learned that our food supply was compromised by the misinformation of the medical institution creating a world wide aversion to saturated fat. The processed food industry then capitalized on cheap ingredients some of which the body was unable to digest. But as long as a package said low-fat or vegetarian any frankenfood would sell as a health food.

My interest in electric cars taught me that automobiles could be built much simpler and lighter if it weren't for the demands of long distance travel and the crash test at freeway speeds. Crash test regulations kept other alternatives off the market even if you never intended to drive on the freeway, but at a much slower speed appropriate to neighborhoods.

Housing was also controlled by regulations not necessarily for safety but to keep keeping them large. Too large to afford. I had believed that these first world regulations created a superior society, but I now see that it is more about upholding a standard of living.

One that would continue to feed the profit margins of industrialized products made with machinery so large it required huge amounts of capital so only mega corporations could compete. Not to mention creating a society where shoes, cars and houses had become status items under designer label brands.

These designs were so conventionally limited that there were only minute differences between brands and models creating a sea of choices that really offered no choice at all. Anyone wanting a different concept altogether was out of luck. Likewise anyone with abnormally wide feet or feet already ruined by fashion trends had no shoes at all.

I too had been taken. Years of reading advertisements specifying the technical improvements of shoes in the sports industry had convinced me that a highly "technical" shoe corrected or at least enhanced the performance of feet.

Now I saw that industrially made shoes were coddling feet with padding while undermining their natural ability to function. (Plus the overseas sweatshops with their underpaid labor and toxic work environments to produce these shoes always irked me.)

Others had also realized how the emperor had no clothes given all of the above revelations being passed around and I was aware that a movement was afoot. More and more people were interested in old ways of doing things—cooking from scratch, finding ways to live in tiny homes, getting kids to school in Dutch cargo bicycles, investigating ayervedic medicine, massage, yoga and other ancient techniques of living healthily.

But despite all this re-skilling as it has come to be known, not too many people had taken up shoemaking. In fact leather work as a hobby seemed to have fallen out of favor along with macrame plant hangers. I had found only the one out of print book in my library system.

Even on the internet very little information was being offered. Those who had had taken up shoemaking were mostly moms and grandmothers looking for healthy shoes for children that would allow the foot to develop naturally. Shoes for adults were likely more subject to fashion demands and fitting into conventional work settings.

It was also a skill that pushed beyond most people's ability requiring sharp tools, a bit of strength to push needles through leather and thick rubber and an imaginative design sense plus an ability to visualize three dimensionally. Just the sort of skill set I had been cultivating since childhood.

And the potential for recycling and making unique fashion items would entertain me for some time. What better way to upset the paradigm than to make one's own shoes? A village cobbler could help turn a community away from exclusive designer brands to unique one-of-kind efforts in a locally made product.

It is the Year of the Horse an kick ass time to manifest new ideas. And the horse is the only animal on the horoscope to wear shoes!

May ye all be well shod.

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How to cope with total failure

SUBHEAD: Certainly not every attempt at self-reliance ends brilliantly, but each experiment leads somewhere.

By Brian Kaller on 16 November 2013 for Restoring Mayberry -
(http://restoringmayberry.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/how-to-cope-with-total-failure.html)


Image above: Author's somewhat successful wine experiments. From ().

Self-sufficiency writers have multiplied into a cottage industry, filling whole wings of the bookstore with tips on how to garden, cook, preserve food, learn traditional crafts and build community. Such sales imply an encouraging demand; millions of people really do want to learn this. I fear that many such books, however, inadvertently discourage readers with a passing interest and a full schedule.

Take, for example, cookbooks.

A few decades ago a bookstore might carry a few cookbooks that everyone used; now they take up vast areas of shelf space, and whole television channels are devoted solely to cooking shows, yet people eat more fast food and pre-packaged food than ever.

The two trends are not necessarily contradictions; cookbooks are consumer products, and must distinguish themselves from their competitors by having twists, gimmicks, by getting more exotic and ambitious, and showing page after page of sculptures, science experiments and food porn that few of us could reasonably reproduce in our own kitchens, and driving the amateur away from getting started. My meals, by contrast, last a few minutes from garden to pan, and while they won’t win any awards, they don’t have to: they’re healthy, quick, free and I like them.

Most of all, though, most self-sufficiency books don’t prepare the reader for failure. Try learning how to do things at home – make jam and cheese, weave a basket, build a shed or keep chickens – and you fall on your face many times before succeeding, and after succeeding you’ll probably fail a few more times. Many failures, though, can still become something else, if you’re creative.

Take, for example, the wine from our parsnips almost two years ago. All my flower wines have turned out well – elderflower, meadowsweet, cowslip and dandelion. But these were my first vegetable wines, and when I uncorked them a year later, they tasted awful. Another year has not improved them, so Plan B has been to turn them into vinegar.

I purchased some unpasteurised vinegar from a special store in Dublin – which should still have the vinegar-creating bacteria in it -- and am mixing them together and letting them set. They’re well on their way to becoming something strange-smelling, and if it’s not vinegar, I’ve run out of plans.

Failure Number Two was the home-made cheese. All the books that claim that cheese-making is dead simple are, it turns out, correct; getting the right kind of cheese turned out to be the difficult part. My first batch of attempted cheddar became a very nice Parmesan, while the next turned into a reasonably good feta.

Failure Number Three was my compost jelly from last weekend. Compost jelly uses fruit parts we might throw away, as well as this season’s surplus of fruit that might rot on the ground, and lets us preserve the vitamins through the winter, longer than fruit would last. I took the fallen apples from the ground, as well as bowls of berries off the hedgerow and whatever rinds we were going to throw away. The flesh of the apples I pickled, so they will keep without refrigeration for the next several months.

The rest of the fruit parts were boiled for 45 minutes or so, and then strained. I put the right amount of sugar into the strained liquid, and boiled it for the right amount of time to turn it into jelly. Nothing happened. Instead of turning into a nice spreadable consistency, it stayed basically fruit juice. I boiled it for twice as long, then twice as long again, and nothing – pure juice.

Finally, I consulted a friend, who came up with a Plan B. “Boil it for an hour straight,” she said. I did so, and when I had poured the results into a jar, it hardened into … candy. Almost as hard as a lemon drop, only in one giant jar-shaped block. Inside a jar.

Plan C was pouring boiling water over it and chipping away at it, until it dissolved in liquid again … back to being juice. After much heating and stirring, I finally got the concoction to the right jelly consistency. The good news is that such difficult experiments often taste brilliant in the end, perhaps because you’re so relieved to finally be done.

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Growing fruit in a nuthouse

SUBHEAD: Designing our orchards for economic collapse and climate-destabilization.

By Dan Allen on 4 November 2013 for Resilience.org-
(http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-04/growing-fruit-in-a-nuthouse-designing-our-orchards-for-economic-collapse-and-climate-destabilization)


Image above: A Medium sized oarchard farm with a variety of species. From original article.

“Historians who look back on these strange years of suspended consequence will marvel at how this empire of grift kept its [economic] wheels turning after its engine died. …You can be sure there will be a snapback from all this drift and anomie, and when it comes, the snap will be savage. …Then gird your loins for the new age of consequence.” – James Kunstler

“The garden lives by the immortal Wheel
That turns in place, year after year, to heal
It whole. Unlike our economic pyre
That draws from ancient rock a fossil fire,
An anti-life of radiance and fume
That burns as power and remains as doom,
The garden delves no deeper than its roots
And lifts no higher than its leaves and fruit.”
Wendell Berry (in Leavings, 2010)

“I see a million hills green with crop-yielding trees and a million neat farm homes snuggled in the hills.  These beautiful tree farms hold the hills from Boston to Austin to DesMoines.  The hills of my vision have farming that fits them and replaces the poor pasture, the gullies, and the abandoned lands that characterize today so large a part of these hills.” -- J. Russell Smith (in Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, 1950)

SUMMARY: 
As the industrial economy collapses and the earth’s climate destabilizes, we are entering the Age of Consequence.  Agriculture as we have known it will no longer be a given.  We will need to lean heavily on perennial crops such as fruit and nut trees.  But how can we increase the chances of getting a living baseline yield from these orchards?  Plant standard-sized trees in a diverse mixed species orchard, with a high level of genetic diversity within each species.  Only a true partnership with the land has a shot at getting us through the coming economic and climatic maelstrom. 

I.  THE IMPERATIVE OF ECOLOGICAL AGRICULTURE
Friends and neighbors, we have sinned. Oh, have we sinned!!

And so having sinned, our bloated and disintegrating human caravan now careens headlong into the Age of Consequence.

And in this coming Age of Consequence, certain activities that we have pretended to be optional will reveal themselves as emphatically not optional. One of these activities is the way we obtain our food.

Let me explain:

Taking the long view as a species, we certainly should seek to end the destructive spiral of annual agriculture. It’s an ecocidal program with a 10,000 year history of abject ecological and social ruin. It unavoidably diminishes the land and local human communities over time, and has been the germ of ultimate collapse for any civilization that has practiced it. If you’d like details, see David Montgomery’s Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations (2012).

And taking the somewhat-shorter long-view, we certainly should seek to end the war-like assaults on the biosphere by the industrial versions of both annual and perennial agriculture. With their entropic floods of fossil energy, both versions of industrial agriculture have a 70-year track record of utter devastation at a pace and scale orders of magnitude greater than ever witnessed in the already-sordid history of human agriculture. If you’d like details, see Andrew Kimbrell’s (ed.) Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture (2002).

But looking even a short distance into the future, we find that we simply cannot go on as we have. The economic and climatic maelstroms bearing down on us will likely overwhelm any attempts to coerce food from the land in the same ham-handed, ecologically-ignorant ways as our earth-tilling and oil-swilling predecessors. We flat out will not be able to perpetrate the industrial versions of either annual or perennial agriculture – and perhaps even any form of annual agriculture.

Indeed, obtaining food in both the short and long term futures promises to be a damn tricky proposition. And thus will we need help. And that help, if it comes at all, must come from the land. If we are to have any chance of survival, we will need to intertwine our lives and cultures once again with the land. We will need to live an agriculture that ‘behaves’ – that sails with the complex ecological currents of our climatically-buffeted, economically-turbulent future.

For while the path of ecological agriculture has always been the wise one, as a species fighting for survival in a world spiraling to ruin, the luxury of choosing the wrong option has expired. We must reform way we grow food. We must fashion a more resilient agriculture within the limitations of the climatic, economic, energetic, social, and ecological maelstroms bearing down on us.

…Or else.
II. MIXED ORCHARDS IN THE AGE OF CONSEQUENCE

“In the year 1860…we were confronted with the worst drought that was ever known in Kansas.  It continued about eighteen months.  The Neosho river dried up…[and] no farm products had been raised in the country.  Settlers were in a starving condition.  A good many people left the country.  …Providentially there was one of the greatest pawpaw and nut crops ever known to the Neosho bottoms.  ….[A] great many of the settlers subsisted on pecan nuts and pawpaws.” – James A. Little (in The Pawpaw, 1905)

I have written previously on the sorts of changes we must make in our agriculture to address the mounting challenges of the not-too-distant future. For details, see the two-part essay at http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-11/when-agriculture-stops-working-a-guide-to-growing-food-in-the-age-of-climate-destabilization-and-civilization-collapse.

In a nutshell, agriculture, as we have practiced it, will no longer be a given. Due to accelerating economic collapse and mounting climate destabilization, we will fairly shortly need to change the way we get our food. We’ll need an agriculture (1) conducted at a finer scale, where attention to detail and place-based differences replaces industrial uniformity, (2) where human labor and ecological knowledge replace fossil-fuel-powered technology, and (3) where polycultures of perennial vegetation replace the annual monocultures of today.

In this essay I just want to get a little more specific about a key element of this more resilient form of agriculture – the mixed-species fruit and nut orchard.

I think such specificity is important because (1) the people planting these orchards will need some guidance, as many will be returning, pale and bleary-eyed, from the magical realm of cyberspace, (2) these orchards need to be planted now in order to be productive when we will need them, and (3) the ready availability of diverse fruit and nut genetics (via long-distance travel and mail service) will likely collapse along with the industrial economy in short order.

I’ll start by (1) addressing the coming climatic and economic predicaments most limiting to these orchards, then (2) detail the key characteristics needed to address these limitations, and finally, (3) give an example of a representative orchard suitable to central NJ, where I live.

III.  COMING CLIMATE-DESTABILIZATION PROBLEMS IN THE ORCHARD

“The word drought doesn’t really capture what’s happening in Texas. …Instead of rain, spring brought nearly half a million acres of wildfires.” – NPR report (quoted in How Bad is the Texas Drought? “In Austin, They are Praying for a Hurricane”)

So what sorts of problems will the planet’s accelerating climatic destabilization bring to our fruit and nut orchards in the US?  Oh boy!  Lots and lots of problems!

See the chart below for an outline of the most significant climate-related limitations for the orchards of the future.  And think of the following climatic limitations in two ways: (1) as reasons why the current industrial orchard systems will fail in the coming years, and (2) as unavoidable limitations that a more resilient post-industrial orchard system should be designed to address.

Figure 1:  Limitations faced by US orchards under climate destabilization.

IV.  COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE PROBLEMS IN THE ORCHARD

“The biggest bubble we now face is one of confidence. …In the ability of the [current economic] system to carry on as it has been and to recover further from here. If that bursts – when that bursts – there will be a colossal rush for the exits that will make the liquidity crunch of 2008 look like a cuddle party.” – Chris Martenson (http://www.peakprosperity.com/insider/83348/cuff-tarnishing-american-exceptionalism)

And what sorts of problems will the accelerating US and global economic collapse bring to US orchards?  Oh boy!  Lots and lots of problems!

See the chart below for an outline of the most significant economic-related limitations for the orchards of the future.  And again, think of the following limitations in two ways:

1. Reasons why the current industrial orchard systems will fail in the coming years, and 
2. Unavoidable limitations that a more resilient post-industrial orchard system should be designed to address. 

 

Figure 2:  Limitations faced by US orchards under economic collapse.

V.  KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ORCHARDS WE NEED TO PLANT

“Trees are Salvation.” – E.F. Schumacher

Ok.  So we’ve discussed our prime directive for these orchards: partnership with the land.  And we’ve discussed the climatic and economic limitations such orchards will face.  …So now, what exactly do we do?  What should we plant?  How should we configure the plants?  How should we manage them?  How do we get started?  When should we get started?

Good questions, all.  Below are perhaps the beginnings to some of the possible answers.
But before I make these suggestions, let me offer this qualification:  I make no claims to be an uber-orchardist.  I started planting my several hundred fruit and nut trees 15 years ago, and have watched them carefully.  I have some ideas on what sorts of things have worked and what have not worked for my trees.  I plant more every year; I learn more every year; I make adjustments every year.

I’ve also read some damn good books to supplement my experience (J. Russell Smith, Mark Shepard, Wes Jackson, Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, Aldo Leopold, as well as a good bit of the extensive permaculture and ecology literature).  I am also a Ph.D. chemist with a fairly sound understanding of the physical, biological, and earth sciences.

So, qualifications aside, here are my humble suggestions for (dun-dun-duuuuuuun) The Orcharrrrrrrds of Tomorrowwwwww!!

1. STANDARD-SIZED (NON-DWARF) TREES:
Plant larger, standard-sized fruit & nut trees – not the grafted dwarf or semi-dwarf versions.

Why? To address wind, drought, deluge, nutrients, evacuations, & theft. Explanation: While the standard-sized trees take longer to reach maturity, the larger root systems of the standard-sized trees

1. provide for more stability in fierce winds,
2. explore a deeper and wider region of the soil profile to reach more soil nutrients,
3. have better access to scarce soil water during droughts,
4. and hold the soil better during soil-gouging deluges with both their extensive roots and drop-slowing canopies.

In addition, if you need to abandon a standard-tree orchard for a few years, the trees will be mostly fine when you return. Try the same thing with a dwarf orchard and most of the trees will be dead or toppled when you return. And it’s also a heck of a lot harder to steal a large amount of fruit and nuts from a standard-sized orchard in a single night – try it sometime.

2. TREE DIVERSITY ACROSS FAMILIES, GENERA, & SPECIES:  
Plant a diverse mix of tree families, genera, and species in the orchard.

Why? To address drought, wetness, heat, cold, frost, pests, nutrients, labor, theft, & evacuations. Explanation: The planting of a truly mixed-species orchard (e.g., apples, chestnuts, persimmon, pecans, peaches, hickories, pawpaws, etc., etc.) seems, at first blush, like it would introduce a host of logistical problems. But when divorced from the industrial model, these ‘problems’ actually become crucial advantages.

Different species have different tolerances to the more unpredictable and more intense weather extremes we can expect – drought, prolonged wetness, late frosts, intense summer heat, and intense winter cold. Thus, a diverse mix of species will increase the odds that a fair percentage of the orchard will produce a yield every single year. And it’s this reliability of a baseline annual yield from the orchard that will become much more important to our survival in the trying years ahead than some narrowly-maximized total yield.

Losses due to pests will also be ameliorated due to (1) the improbability of many tree species suffering pest outbreaks in the same year, and (2) the inability of pest densities to rise too high due to the lower density of any one tree species, and (3) an additional checking of pest densities due to a richer, more diverse orchard ecosystem that can provide habitat to predators of those pests.

The necessity of both nutrient and irrigation inputs would also be lessened since the wide variety of root architecture and patterns of nutrient uptake of the different species will (1) lessen competition between orchard trees, and (2) allow a more efficient use of both existing and added soil nutrients. By the same token, severe droughts will be less problematic as competition for soil moisture is decreased, and the presence of some very-deep-rooted trees will lessen the chances of a total crop failure.

Furthermore, a truly mixed-species orchard greatly eases the labor requirements of the orchard. The maintenance and harvest windows will be spread out more thinly over many months, rather than having them concentrated in a few brutally-difficult, nail-biting weeks. This ‘spreading out’ of labor requirements will allow a family or small community to tend a much larger acreage than if the orchard consisted of just a few species.

Energy and material requirements for processing and storage are also lessened when the pulses of harvested produce are smaller in magnitude. This will allow such operations to be handled by small-scale contemporary solar, wind, or hydro energy sources, as well as a much-reduced (and more easily maintained) processing infrastructure.

Tree diversity also lessens the risk of catastrophic losses due to theft, since there won’t be too much available to steal at any given time. Temporary evacuations are also less problematic since the long harvest window lessens the chances of losing the entire harvest due to absence.



3. GENETIC DIVERSITY WITHIN EACH SPECIES:  
Plant a diverse mix of varieties of each tree species within the orchard, including trees grown from seed, rather than just a few high-yielding grafted cultivars.

Why? To address drought, winds, heat, cold, frost, labor, & theft. Explanation: While resisting the temptation to plant only the handful of highest-yielding cultivars of every species will result in a lower maximum yield – that’s not the yield we’re aiming for! Again, we need to increase the chances of a reliable baseline yield from the orchard in the face of a host of unpredictable climatic and economic troubles. And planting a large variety of both grafted cultivars and seedling trees will help accomplish this in several ways:

Large genetic differences between different varieties of the same species can provide a range of genetic ‘talents’ that can greatly reduce the probability of complete crop failure in any given year. These genetic differences include (1) a range of drought, wetness, heat, cold, and wind tolerances, (2) widely varying pollination windows, which are quite vulnerable to wacky weather and are often the crucial factor in yield on a given year, and (3) differing vulnerability to a given pest outbreak.

Different varieties can also spread out the harvest window, resulting in (1) an easing of the labor, energy, and infrastructure requirements, (2) reduced likelihood of large loss due to theft, and (3) a reduced probability of missing the smaller harvest window due to a forced absence from the farm. Anybody who has at least two apple trees knows they ripen at different times – sometimes by months!

We can no longer count on industrial petrochemicals and fossil energy to protect our genetically-narrow (and thus pitifully-vulnerable) orchards from the rest of the biosphere. We need orchards that can take care of themselves, and we need to allow them the genetic diversity to figure it out. We need to stop telling the trees exactly what to do – we’re no damn good at it! We need to let them tell us what they need, and then work with them to make sure they get it. If they need seedling-tree genetic diversity to survive the coming climatic shit-storms, then we should let them explore it and just facilitate the process. Free the trees, dammit!

Note: See (1) J. Russell Smith’s Tree Crops, (2) Mark Shepard’s Restoration Agriculture, (3) Samuel Thayer’s Nature’s Garden, and (4) the wonderful Oikos Tree Crops website (http://www.oikostreecrops.com/) for more details on breeding, wild cultivars, and genetic diversity.

4. MODEST FARM-SIZED SCALE:  
Manage each orchard on a modest farm-sized scale.

Why? To address drought, deluge, pests, nutrients, theft, labor, and storage. Explanation: The industrial orchard ‘economies of scale’ were intended to maximize abstract monetary profits by reducing infrastructure and labor costs and increasing volume -- while also scandalously ignoring a host of very real and very substantial energetic, environmental, and social costs. But in the post-industrial era, we will no longer care about such narrowly-defined ‘profits’, and we will no longer be able to ignore these long-ignored costs. In short, we will find that a return to a much more modest orchard scale will be as unavoidable as it is beneficial and enjoyable.

How does a post-industrial family water 1000 acres of newly-planted seedlings by hand during a punishing early-summer drought? Answer: They can’t. But they can – with much effort – water, say, 15 acres of new seedlings. The same small-is-easier principle applies to orchard maintenance, harvest, processing, and storage: In the absence of fossil energy, we will need to run these orchards on mostly human labor at traditional, farm-sized, human scales. One family (or small community) can accomplish an awful lot with just their own bodies and a little supplemental draft/solar/wind/hydro power – but the hitches are that (1) there is a limit to what that one family (or community) can accomplish in a year, and (2) the work must be spread out over a sufficiently long window so as not to overload the people and their energy sources. Quickly ramping up production by seasonal importation of labor and labor-saving machinery will no longer be an option. Maintenance of people-sized orchard scales will be our only choice.

Furthermore, an overriding concern for these post-industrial, ecosystem-partnered orchards will be the maintenance of ecosystem health and sufficiently closed nutrient cycles. Such place-based concerns need to be addressed quite differently on each farm, requiring ever-present, knowledgeable eyes – what Wes Jackson calls a high “eyes to acres” ratio. For example, if there’s a gully starting to open up at some stream-head, someone needs to (1) be there to notice it, (2) care that it’s happening, and (3) have the time and knowledge to fix it.

We can no longer afford to manage any given 50 acres all the same. (But could we ever? We really just pretended to be able to afford it!) Only small family & community managed farms will allow such careful caretaking of the land – as well as the resulting higher probabilities that the land will take care of us.



5. CUSTOMIZED ACCOMPANIMENTS: 
Include other biological elements to complement the trees.

Why? To both generate a living yield while the orchard is maturing and increase total baseline yield of the mature orchard. Explanation: The orchard can and should be so much more than just the trees. There are two main reasons for this – one having to do with the early stages of orchard development and one having to do with the mature orchard.

Firstly, in advocating for a perennial-based agriculture we’re asking farmers to plant tree crops that don’t start generating any measurable yield for 10 to 20 years! What are they supposed to do in the meantime? Watch trees grow? …Well, yes, actually -- but there are a bunch of other transitional additions to a developing orchard that can generate food and income while the trees are growing.

A few of these transitional options include:

1. Growing hay and/or grazing sheep, cows, and laying hens amongst the growing trees, 
2. Alley-cropping strips of annual crops in the rows between the trees, 
3. Establishing relatively quick-yielding fruit and nut bushes (hazelnut, gooseberry, etc.) in and between the tree rows, and 
4. Including timber trees to be thinned out or coppiced as the fruit and nut trees mature. See Mark Shepard’s wonderful Restoration Agriculture for a demonstration of farm-scale applications of these techniques.

The second reason to include these other elements in the orchard is to take advantage of the phenomenon of ‘overyielding’ – where additional elements in the mature orchard decrease the yield of each individual crop, but generate a higher overall yield. For example, planting rows of hazelnut and gooseberry bushes in the tree rows will result in slightly lower yields of tree fruit and nuts, but a higher yield of all fruit and nuts from the orchard. This boost in yield results from both a more efficient use of the soil profile, and a more efficient gathering of sunlight energy in the multi-layered physical structure.

And while we need more than just trees in these orchards, each farm will be different. Because what that ‘more’ is depends on both the people and the land: What else do you want on the farm? What will work on the land? What does the land need? ...So go ahead, ask.

6. START NOW!!!: 
We need to start planting these orchards right away – and then keep planting!

Why? Economic collapse and climate destabilization are accelerating. Explanation: We need to get our hands on as much tree diversity as possible, as soon as possible – including both a wide variety of species and rich diversity within species. Once the economy unravels sufficiently, fossil fuels and the easy transport they provide will become scarce for the average American. Access to mail-ordered trees from other states will become problematic. Even contact between different growers in the same county will likely become difficult.

So we need to get whatever tree-crop genetics we can, while we can – because that’s what we’ll have to work with as the climate unravels. And as the climate unravels, only a robust diversity will be able to provide us with the crucial steady baseline yield we’ll need to survive.

Now, I realize that my suggestions here are not the ones most experienced orchardists are making right now. But most experienced orchardists don’t have an eye on the rapidly crumbling industrial economy and all the luxuries we are soon to lose. And most experienced orchardists, while certainly noticing something amiss with the climate already, are not tuned into the alarming extent of climatic destabilization we are now expected to see. And that’s why most experienced orchardists are still married to the doomed orcharding paradigms of maximized yield, monoculture, and/or industrial biocides.

But I don’t imagine it will stay that way. Those ways simply won’t work much longer. There are big dark things looming on the biophysical horizon and I suspect it won’t be too long before my suggestions become actual requirements. And then, a true partnership with the land to grow our food will no longer be an ‘inefficient and idealistic’ choice – it’ll be a damn necessity.

VI.  ONE EXAMPLE OF A RESILIENT ORCHARD FOR CENTRAL NEW JERSEY

“I have altogether something like a hundred varieties of walnuts, hickories, pecans, persimmons, pawpaws, and honey locust on test on my rocky hillside, and I find that I am having an amount of fun that is…perfectly unreasonable” – J. Russell Smith (in Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, 1950)

OK, so we’ve gone over the types of climatic and economic limitations our post-industrial orchards will face, and we’ve discussed some design guidelines that may help to address these limitations.  But what exactly would such an orchard look like?

A quick search of the permaculture literature can give you a bunch of mature, mixed orchard or forest-farm examples.  Here are a few of them:

• Mark Shepard’s Wisconsin Farm (http://www.forestag.com/bio.html)
• Ken Asmus’ Michigan farm (http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/permaculture-farm-oikos-tree-crops-zw0z11zsto.aspx?PageId=1#axzz2j8ApzobV)
• Sepp Holzer’s Austrian farm (http://www.resilience.org/resource-detail/1527704-kramerterhof-a-tour-of-sepp-holzer-s) 

Unfortunately, the design guidelines I outlined above didn’t pop into my head, fully-formed, fifteen years ago when I started planting trees.  Thus I don’t have a nice fifteen year old example, designed by the above suggestions, to show you.  My plantings are scattered all over the place – wherever I have found room.
But in the spirit of the general guidelines above, I’ll just sketch out a sample acre of the kind of resilient, mixed species orchard that I’ll be planting in central NJ – not as a template for what you should do on your farm, but to just flesh out some of the stuff I’ve been talking about.  So here it is:

• Nuts I know can work on my farm without fossil fuels: (1) Chinese chestnut, (2) black walnut, (3) shagbark hickory, (4) northern-hardy pecan, (5) American hazelnut, (6) red oak, and (7) honey locust. 

• Fruits I know can work on my farm without fossil fuels: (1) apple, (2) pear, (3) peach, (4) sour cherry, (5) persimmon, (6) pawpaw, (7) apricot, (8) asian pear, and (9) mulberry.

• Information on these tree-crop species:  If you’re interested or skeptical about these trees as food crops, see (1) J. Russell Smith’s Tree Crops, (2) Mark Shepard’s Restoration Agriculture, (3) Samuel Thayer’s Nature’s Garden, and (4) the wonderful Oikos Tree Crops website (http://www.oikostreecrops.com/) for information on these and a bunch of other possible tree crop species. 

• …And I’m still looking for more trees:  I’m also in the process of testing other possibilities: hybrid hazelnuts, asian persimmon, Japanese walnut, hybrid plum, Persian walnut, and others – all of which have a chance to making it to the ‘big leagues’ (lists above) if they work out.  In addition, blight-resistant American chestnuts from the ACF breeding program are set to be released to the public in the next few years, so I’ll likely be adding them too, if all goes as planned. 

• Tree spacing:  For simplicity, I’ll use 33’x33’ spacing here – which would require future thinning for some larger species (e.g., oak, pecan), and multiple trees together for some smaller species (e.g., pawpaw, hazelnut).  But 33’ is a good one-size-fits all spacing to use here – mostly since it fits nicely in the 1-acre grid below.  There are, of course, many spacing and inter-planting schemes possible (e.g., see Shepard’s Restoration Agriculture) – each orchard can literally become a work of art.

Figure 3:  One possible multi-species tree-crop planting in Central NJ.
Each square is 33’x33’.  The whole grid is one acre (200’x200’).  Key characteristics: deep perennial roots, family/genus diversity, and diversity within each species.  Goal: Super-resilient, low-input baseline yield of food, rather than high-input, maximized yield.  Spacing and species can vary widely from farm to farm (or even within a farm), but the general principles will likely become more and more crucial for agriculture across the US as the economy collapses and the climate destabilizes.



VII. GOOD WORK IN THE AGE OF CONSEQUENCE

“All of us have been fighting a battle that on average we are losing, and I doubt that there is any use in reviewing the statistical proofs.  The point – the only interesting point – is that we have not quit.  …We have not quit because we are not hopeless.  …I am not looking for reasons to give up.  I am looking for reasons to keep on.”  -- Wendell Berry (in Fatal Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture)

Now bite your lower lip and listen to this: As a 10,000-year-old agricultural civilization, we have behaved dreadfully, even homicidally. As the fierce, 200-year-old industrial variant of that civilization, we have behaved abominably, even suicidally. The damage has been staggering, the losses incalculable. And as the land has suffered, so have we -- despite the delusional bromides we sing to ourselves. But in the coming decades and centuries, we will reap the full consequences of our past behavior. And these consequences will undoubtedly be severe. They will quite possibly be terminal.

The fact that the above paragraph is unpleasant doesn’t mean we can make it go away by collective denial.

But the fact that the above paragraph is true doesn’t mean I am absolved from trying my damndest to make things right.

So I will try to make things right. Which is why I do the work I do with trees, and which is why I speak and write about how we might go about fashioning a resilient agriculture that doesn’t destroy the land.

It is, I feel, good work.

And by doing this good work, it is my hope that you too will do good work; that you too will work to make things right.

And that perhaps we actually will make things right – perhaps truly right, but perhaps only a little bit right, and perhaps only for a short time.

But in any case, it will be the best that we can do.

And it just feels like the right thing to do.

So I will do it. So we will do it. So we must do it. Now.

…Good luck.

Now get outside and talk to the land.

.

Kiawe Bean Tea

SUBHEAD: Kiawe beans pods are not just food for livestock, but can be brewed to make a delicious tea.

By Mercy Ritte on 28 October 2013 for the Molokai Dispatch -
(http://themolokaidispatch.com/kiawe-beans-pods-not-just-food-for-livestock/)


Image above: Kiawe beans photo by Catherine Cluett. From original article.

As you know, our kiawe trees produce an abundance of bean pods every year. Not only is it a nutritious food source for livestock, but also for people.

In its native lands, dried kiawe bean pods ground into meal or flour is considered a staple food. It is very delicious and adds a sweet nutty taste to breads, pancakes, muffins, cakes and cookies. It is also gluten free, GMO free, highly nutritious, diabetic friendly and can be used to make syrup, jelly, tea, milk, and wine.

Unlike wheat that digests within one to two hours, kiawe takes four to six hours to digest, resulting in delay of hunger pangs.

The sweetness in the kiawe bean pod comes from fructose which does not require insuilin to be metabolized and because of its high fiber content, the nutrients are absorbed which also assists in stabilizing blood sugar levels. It also contains protein and minerals such as barium, boron, calcium, chromium, obalt, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, molybdenum, phosphorus, potatssium, sodium, sulfur, and zinc.

We were very fortunate to have Vince Kana`i Dodge and Connie “Tita” Hokoana visit from Waianae and teach a two-day kiawe workshop on Saturday and Sunday, October 19th-20th 2013.

This hands on, sensory workshop was hosted by the MOM hui and was supported by Hawaii SEED and `Ai Pohaku. Those in attendance learned to identify, gather, sort, wash, dry, and grind beans into flour. Using the flour and bean pods we also prepared and enjoyed `ono food and savory tea together.

Personally, my eyes are wide open to the limitless possibilities and uses for kiawe bean pods and the tree itself. In fact, in traditional folklore kiawe is known as a generous tree, giving abundantly of its bean pods for food and drinks, branches for firewood and building material, sweet nectar and blossoms for our bees, leaves and bark for medicine, and sap for dying. It is evident that the benefits of this tree outweigh the disadvantages and because it grows so abundant here it can serve as a valuable, sustainable food source for our Molokai families.

If you would like to learn more, email theMOMhui@gmail.com.

`Ai Pohaku Kiawe Bean Tea Recipe
Ingredients:
Fresh kiawe bean pods
Water
Directions:
Rinse kiawe bean pods if necessary, then fill pot 1/2 way. Add water to pot, until it’s 2/3 full. Bring to a rolling boil, 10-20 minutes then simmer on lowest heat for one hour. Makes beautiful dark brown sweet tea. Very tasty hot or iced!

.

Hillbilly Washing Machines

Higher-Tech Low-Tech

By Juan Wilson on 17 September 2013 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2013/09/hillbilly-washing-machines.html)


Image above: Postcard illustrating the difficulties of a tub wringer compared to a bench wringer. From (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_difficulties_of_a_tub_wringer._The_convenience_of_a_bench_wringer.jpg).

For those with higher ambitions than using a plunger in a five gallon bucket (see below) there are several other manual ways to wash clothes without having to resort to a rock in the river.

One easy way is to embrace the scrub-board, tub and bench ringer contraptions of the 19th century. This worked quite well for large families on hundred acres farms in the middle of "nowhere". My grandmother did clothes that way into the 1950's. I helped her. I recently found a benchringer online that sold for $1,500. Ouch!

Another way today is to convert a 20th century electric washing machine to manual (human) power. A good example is the fairly sophisticated effort in the video below that incorporates a geared bicycle with a flywheel attachment to an 1940's agitator-washer/spin-dryer machine.


Video above: D Acres permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead demonstrate bicycle powered washer/dryer. From (http://youtu.be/1Erg4mg1DDo).


Video above: John & Christy's home made bicycle washing machine. From (http://youtu.be/Fktpd1ymE8A).

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Hillbilly Washing Machine

SUBHEAD: Approaching a Steady State Economy - Washing clothes without electricity.

By Robert Deitz on 17 September 2013 for SteadyState.org -
(http://refashionista.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/diy-hillbilly-washing-machine/)

[IB Publisher's note: This article was pulled off our site at he request of the author. Use link above.]


Image above: Hand washing clothes with a plunger in a tub can actually work. Still from video below.

...We began using only cold water for washing with no adverse results. We forgot about dryer sheets (no need to smell like a chemist’s over-scented interpretation of “spring fresh”), and then we forgot about the dryer entirely...

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Cleaning Clothes

By Robert Deitz on 17 September 2013 for SteadyState.org -
(http://steadystate.org/approaching-a-steady-state-economy-part-2-clean-clothes/)

This is a great method for off-the-grid low-tech clothes washing. 

[IB Publisher's note: This article was pulled off our site at he request of the author. Use link above.]


Video above: Deb Hinter tries out Lehman Mobile Breathing Hand Washing Machine ($18 plus shipping) used in article below. From (http://youtu.be/gv2XEZbACqw).

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An Alternative for the Westside

SUBHEAD: A vision of small, family owned, sustainable farms instead of agro-chemical GMO fields.

By Ned Whitlock on 30 July 2013 for The Garden Island - 
(http://thegardenisland.com/news/opinion/guest/an-alternative-for-the-westside/article_7a2c3e8c-f8de-11e2-b5c6-0019bb2963f4.html
 


Image above: "Ahupuaa" by Beth Marcil. A typical sustaonable section of life and land in Hawaii. From (http://s291.photobucket.com/user/ranga95pie/media/image_ahupuaa.jpg.html).


Imagine driving past Salt Pond toward Waimea and looking toward the mountainous interior of Kauai. Behind sinuous lines of mango tree windbreaks that follow the contour of the land and the edges of gullies and valleys, one can catch glimpses of fields of sweet potatoes, peanuts, ginger, pigeon peas, coconut groves, papaya patches, breadfruit trees and tangelo orchards.

Dotted over the landscape are hundreds of homestead farms of about 20 acres with tidy shaded modest homes surrounded by vegetable gardens. Solar panels on farm equipment sheds glint in the sun.

Down the road, near the idle Gay and Robinson sugar mill, an attractive industrial building with a West Kauai Coop sign hums with activity. In a screened bay, crates of Rapoza mangos are stacked high, awaiting their turn on the sorting line. The next bay has boxes of sweet potatoes, fresh off the washer, being loaded on a truck for today’s barge.

Next door, mounds of green coconuts are being off loaded from farmers’ pickups for the coconut water cannery. At the coop store, plenty tourists are browsing heaps of colorful fruit and vegetables in the open air pavilion.

The sugar cane juice (with lime and ginger) stand has customers and the Fairchild mango sorbet looks popular too. Down the road a bit, coconut husks are drying in the sun next to a small factory processing coco fiber into bales.

Close by is the laminating shop using coco strands as an improvement on carbon fiber to build outrigger canoes and paddleboards.

The parking lot shaded by a solar panel canopy is occupied by plug in electric vehicles.

The dream is rudely interrupted by dust rising near a vivid green corn field bordered by keep out signs. A large spray rig tall enough to straddle mature corn plants, sits idle in the distance, waiting for its nighttime pesticides forays. Vans with corporate logos discharge workers for another day of detasseling or bagging.

Before European contact, Kauaians farmed 20,000 acres of taro living close to their fields, dispersed over the island wherever water resources made it possible. Plantation agriculture depopulated the countryside and concentrated inhabitants into mostly mill towns.

For Kauai to turn a new leaf and create an economy that nurtures the land, creates abundance for the local people, and feeds the island big time, the small landholder/farmer should be enabled to thrive. Intensely planted, closely tended farms coax the best yields from the land.

What if the county bought the conservation/development rights for 10,000 watered acres on the south side from the primary land holders to create 500 farmsteads of about 20 acres each, delineated by the topography? (20 acres is big enough to justify the expense of a tractor, give everybody enough room, yet be family manageable).

These farmsteads would be leased (10-year renewable) with the covenant of soil protection and a strict ban on toxic agriculture; no herbicides, no chemical insecticides, and only organically approved fungicides.

The county or chosen contractors could start the project by hiring prospective farm leasees to plant windbreaks, start coconut groves, etc. Low cost loans would be available for approved farm worker dwellings on each plot.

Young family applicants with Kauai roots and farm work ethic would be given preference as land is offered. Sustainable technical advice of farmer peers and other mentors would be available.

A farm machinery coop could lessen start up costs. Lease fees would be reasonable to the farmer ( $5,000/per year?) and would fund the conservation/development right costs.

Rural development costs of the project (i.e. windbreaks, erosion control) could come from higher taxes on underutilized agricultural lands and a “poison” tax at the point of sale of dangerous pesticide products.

Processing plant infrastructure would be favorably financed and help with coop development available.

Five-hundred diverse intensive farms could employ two to five thousand people within five to 10 years with associated businesses. A conservative gross income of $200,000 per farm (yes, you’ll have to work hard) would mean a hundred million dollars circulating in the local economy.

A thriving, productive, sustainable, non-toxic Westside with independent farmers with access to cooperative facilities, jump started with county assistance, and graced with Robinson family cooperation, is an appealing alternative to the dead end of chemical company agribusiness.

• Ned Whitlock does business as Moloa’a Organica’a, Kilauea.

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Skills for a Post-Peak Future

SUBHEAD: Why wait for the power reserves to run dry? Start now and get a jump on the future.

By Anna Maria Spagna on 30 April 2013 for Animated Knots  -
(http://www.animatedknots.com/)


Image above:Boating knots and animations on how to tie them. Click to see page.

To see animations of tying knots in several categories including Climbing, Fishing, Surgery and Camping, et al click on (http://www.animatedknots.com/)

1. BLACKSMITHING
To learn how to live in a post-petroleum world, recall the pre-petroleum world where blacksmiths made everything: tools, nails, hinges, lamps, hooks, gates, and railings. Wheels, even! With a barrel and some fire, a blacksmith could turn rusted car panels into cookware. Think of all the scrap metal we’ll have when the oil’s all gone.

2. KNOT TYING
Find a shoelace and a copy of The Shipping News. Knots can weave rugs, fashion snowshoes, repair almost anything. A diamond hitch holds a load on a mule or a sled. A bowline to cinch a tarp, a Prusik to climb a tree. While fighting a forest fire, a friend once fixed a shovel with parachute cord, half-hitches, and pine pitch. And when the parachute cord runs out, there’s plenty of sinew. From knot tying, it’s a short hop to basketry.

3. CROSSCUT SAW SHARPENING
Crosscuts are remarkably effective. Not chainsaw fast, not ax slow either. Problem is, since anyone can use one, anyone can ruin one by dragging it through dirt. Good ones haven’t been made for seventy years, so this lost art may be in high demand. Pick up a file, spider set, and how-to manual on eBay for about twenty bucks.

4. GRAFTING
The Homestead Act required settlers to prove-up by planting fruit trees. Nothing symbolized self-sufficiency more. But plant an apple seed and—as anyone who’s read Michael Pollan knows—you get sour apples. To get sizable, recognizable fruit, you graft. Heritage apple guru Tom Burford encourages everyone who knows how to graft to teach five others. My partner started by teaching the kids at the local one-room school. Her advice: bring Band-aids.

5. NAVIGATING BY THE STARS
If the Polynesians could crisscross the Pacific without a GPS, we can too. Read Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki for inspiration and Chet Raymo’s 365 Starry Nights for elucidation. Few of us will build a balsa raft, true, but remember: before planes, trains, and automobiles, travel by water was faster and easier than by land. Less light pollution will certainly help us find our way.

6. HANDWRITING
In seventh grade the nuns forced me to practice cursive for three weeks straight, which seemed pointless and cruel in the Apple II era. But maybe the nuns were on to something. How will we communicate without LED screens? Smoke signals?

7. HOARDING
Once my partner and I tried to install a used cast-iron sink in the bathroom only to find we needed an antique hanger and fixtures to boot. An old-timer neighbor kicked his boot toe into some fir needles in his yard and—voilà!—Restoration Hardware in the duff. Hoarding gets a bad rap when there’s a Home Depot on every corner, but not reducing might actually be the key to recycling and reusing.

8. RIGGING
Mechanical advantage doesn’t require fuel. A pulley or block and tackle magnifies force, so you can lift heavier loads with less effort. No crane or excavator needed. A grip hoist or come-along requires no energy source but your own. You’ll appreciate the addictive magic of this fact when you’ve lifted a thousand-pound footbridge all by your 120-pound self. Believe me.

9. HOUSEGUEST HOSTING
Ask people in the developing world or anyone who travels by foot, and they’ll tell you: if it takes a long time to get somewhere, you’re going to stay a while. So we need to be prepared. Keep clean sheets on hand. Save up on food. And patience.

10. SLEEPING
Early to bed, late to rise, saves on lamp oil and firewood. Plus, sleeping saves energy, mostly your own. It also keeps you healthy. Lack of sleep has been linked to heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, psychiatric disorders, and poor quality of life. Why wait for the power reserves to run dry? Start now and get a jump on the future.

What would you add to this list? Tell us in the comments section, below, and read more Enumeration entries at www.orionmagazine.org/enumeration.

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Growing mushrooms on straw

SUBHEAD: You can grow delicious oyster mushrooms from a plastic bag of straw safely.

By Samuel Alexander on 27 January 2013 for Simplicity Collective -
(http://simplicitycollective.com/grow-your-own-oyster-mushrooms-on-straw)


Image above: Oyster mushrooms growing through a hole in a plastic bag. From original article.

I’ve been experimenting recently with growing my own oyster mushrooms, and as you can see from the photos, I’ve met with some success. I was motivated to explore mushroom cultivation partly because I’m a vegetarian and want to produce my own high-protein alternatives to meat; but I was also interested in using so-called ‘dead space’ to grow food (either inside or down the shady side of the house). Oyster mushrooms tick both these boxes, and they are also ridiculously tasty.

Not only that, oyster mushrooms are extremely expensive when purchased from a supermarket, so it makes sense to grow them yourself. Currently in Melbourne they are going for $34 per kilo.

I’m no mushroom-growing expert, so do your own research, but below I’ve outlined how I’ve successfully grown my own oyster mushrooms on straw. It’s surprisingly easy, although you do need to take appropriate precautions to make sure you are growing the right mushrooms and in a hygienically safe way. Apparently white oyster mushrooms are the easiest variety to grow, which is why I started with them.

What you need:

• Straw (I used pea-straw successfully but I’m told wheat straw is better)
  
• Robust plastic bags, medium or large size (which can be reused)
  
• Oyster mushroom spawn (which I got from CERES in Melbourne and are also available here). You may need to find your local supplier.
  
• Spray bottle and water

My 10-Step Method:

(1) Before you begin, wash your hands and clean all your surfaces well. It’s very important to be hygienic when cultivating mushrooms, as you do not want to grow the wrong types of fungi! Good mushrooms are really good; bad mushrooms are really bad. Fortunately, oysters mushrooms are very distinctive.

(2) Once you’ve got all the materials, the first thing you need to do is pasteurise the straw. From my research online, I discovered that this essentially means heating the straw in water to around 70-75 degrees (Celsius) and holding it at that temperature for around 45-60 minutes. I used a large Fowlers cooking pot. Pasteurisation kills the bad bacteria but leaves the good bacteria. Before you put the straw in the pot, most websites recommend that the straw is cut it up into small pieces around 1 to 3 inches in length. (To be honest, I didn’t cut up my straw, and I still grew mushrooms, but perhaps if I had cut it up my production might have been greater – further experimenting required.)

(3) Once you’ve pasteurised the straw, take it out of the heating pot with tongs and let it sit in a clean tub while it cools down. Be careful as you’re dealing with a lot of hot water and the pot will be heavy. It’s important you don’t put the mushroom spawn into the straw until the straw is at room temperature otherwise you will kill the spawn.

(4) When the straw has cooled down, pack your robust plastic bags with straw quite tightly, and then distribute some of the mushroom spawn throughout the straw. I put about three or four pieces of spawn-covered dowel in each bag, but perhaps one would have been fine (further experimenting required). The straw should not be dripping wet, but it should still be damp from the pasteurisation.

(5) At this stage, sterilise a skewer or a nail (by pouring boiling water over it) and jab holes in the bags every 3 inches or so. This let’s some air in, but not too much.

(6) You now have to find a home for you mushrooms. Keep them out of direct sunlight. They like some indirect light and I am told they like it best at around 15-20 degrees Celsius. (It’s been considerably warmer than that in Melbourne over the last two months, and mine have grown very well, but again perhaps the yields would have been greater had the temperature been cooler). More experimenting required. I kept my bags inside to minimise the risk of contamination.

(7) Now you wait while the mushrooms spawn develops into mycelium and beginning taking over the entire bag. Mycelium looks a bit like white furry cobwebs, and you should start seeing it develop in the first couple of weeks. It’s important that your bags of straw stay moist, but not dripping wet. I found that the water from the pasteurisation was sufficient to keep the straw suitably moist without needing to spray with water.

(8) After a number of weeks (depending on the size of your bags) the mycelium should have spread across the entire bag of straw. It is at this stage (which for me was about 5 weeks later) your mushrooms should start forming. I cut some slightly larger holes in the bag, although I’m not sure this was necessary. The mushrooms will decide that they want to grow out of one or more of the holes you’ve created, and they’ll usually grow in one or two clusters.

(9) Now comes the fun part. The mushrooms essentially double in size every day, so within a week or so you should have good-sized oyster mushrooms. Mist them with water two or three times a day over this period – again, not so they are dripping, just so they are moist. The mushrooms should be harvested while their rims are still curled over a little and pointing downwards. If their rims seem to be turning upward, it’s probably time to harvest.

(10) Harvest and eat. To harvest the mushrooms give them a twist at the base. This ensures that you leave the very bottom of the mushroom still in bag. You want to leave that part in the bag as it is needed for the subsequent flushes of mushrooms. If you keep the mushrooms moist and in suitable conditions, you should get three or four flushes of mushrooms, although I’m told the first and second flushes are the most productive. I’m currently harvesting my second flush. When your bags stop producing, the straw can be used as mulch for the garden. (Alternatively, my understanding is that you can distribute some of your straw into new bags of fresh straw and the growing process begins again).
If there are any mushroom experts out there, do let me know if you have any advice, and if any of you decide to begin cultivating your own mushrooms, do let me know  how you get on. I’m going to keep experimenting in the hope of developing the easiest and most productive methods.
That’s all for now. I’ve got to go cook me some shrooms.
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