From the 2013 archive- dogs

Last year, we tried livestock guardian dogs.

We had Pax less than 24 hours when she ran away.
To lure her back, her previous owners brought her brother, Obi.
We decided to keep him, too.

Until 3 days later, when we realized the fencing options we were counting on weren't going to work.
And we took them back to their previous home.

As Tim says, "We doubled down when we should have folded."
I need practice following Kenny Roger's advice in farming and in life.

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
Know when to run
You never count your money
When you're sittin' at the table
There'll be time enough for countin'
When the dealin's done

  "The Gambler", Kenny Rogers

Hugels 2: The Revision Continues

Our initial hugels from a year and a half ago

were too tall and too steep-

more like ramparts at Fort Snelling

than the gentle slope needed

to keep dirt and mulch angled towards the sun.

An overly enthusiastic rookie mistake.

Neither pretty nor effective, 

we knew we needed to make a second draft.

Tim began pulling logs off the top creating a discard pile.

While un-hugeling...

dis-hugelifying...

de-hugelification...

While taking them apart is a lot easier than constructing hugels,

it's still very slow and labor intensive. 

And because of my hand surgeries, I was unable to assist.

Then Kifah suggested we try hugeling Somali-style, 
by burning some logs the way her dad taught her.

So she came over and got us started.

We lit fires within the wall of logs

and over hours and hours

it burned deep.

The Prow before burn

 

Interestingly, the steepest places with the worst erosion problems seemed to burn the most effectively, 

traveling through the spaces between logs 

where we could never get dirt.

Notice the red glowing coals and white ash 

deep in the photos above and below.

The Prow on fire

Over the next two weeks, Tim hauled dirt, 

 The Prow now

filling gaps and covering char

 on the much shorter, less slopey second draft hugels.

 Yesterday, Anjali, Mark, Kiley, and I weeded

  

and the kids mulched.

My farm hands even found some volunteer lettuce-

an early yummy treat.

As Tim has pointed out, 

if we keep revising our hugels over and over 

we'll lose one of the big advantages of permaculture, 

namely that one doesn't have to fuss and redo 

everything every year.

You know- permanent agriculture.

I can already tell that Draft 2 is an improvement

over our first draft.

 Let's hope it's good enough.

Goats- who's taking who for a walk?

From the photo archives in late April:

 

No animals or children were harmed in the making of this blog.

My Muse of Gratitude

How could I finish my roll call of Muses without paying respect to Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of The Little House on the Prairie books?

The kids and I listened to all her books on CD in the van the first winter we lived here and we were all changed and inspired.  Listening to their experience of The Long Winter while driving through cold and snow all bundled up ourselves was particularly memorable.  

This morning what stands out is her family's gratitude for chickens and trees- any chickens or trees at all.  They hadn't had chickens in years and their neighbor shared chicks which made her Ma feel so happy and abundant- eggs!  In South Dakota, there was one tree within driving distance, the only tree they'd seen in miles and miles.  So they went and harvested some sprouts and planted them around their house as a wind break and enjoyed their shade for years to come.  

They were so grateful for any chickens and any trees.

They were so happy with so little because there were some after having none.

I have so much to be grateful for.  
I hope I can be as happy with so much.

My Muse for living with compassion

My friend Sheila put me on to my latest Muse- Roger A. MacDonald, MD.  He was a very rural country doctor in the North Woods of Minnesota from 1948-1980 and he wrote some great stories about his experiences which I recently read during my icing-and-propping days after surgery.  I've read A Country Doctor's Casebook and A Country Doctor's Chronicle and have his third book on reserve at the library. 

Here's his website. 

 


He has a heart for people, especially for 'characters' whose one-of-a-kind lives can be disorienting, irritating, and compelling.  He tells about a kid who slugged him after a shot, about a man who assured him that his dog didn't have rabies because none of the other people the dog had bitten had gotten sick, about a child beaten to death, and about an incest victim who dies of complications- all with dignity and compassion and humor.  

I laughed.  I cried.  I was inspired.

My Muses for hard times

I have had many Muses for Hard Times including hundreds of my adult English as a Second Language students from around the world who came here as refugees, asylees, and immigrants.  The stories they shared of their experiences of famine, war, genocide, disaster, dehydration, disease, and loss inform me to this day. 


One moment in 2000 stands out.  I was working at Turck, an amazing manufacturing company in Plymouth, training their immigrant employees in the English that they needed to do their jobs.  As is my tradition every November I teach, I was telling them the First Thanksgiving story- how the pilgrims came as religious refugees, how more than half died, how Squanto saved their lives by teaching them to survive, how they celebrated harvest with thanksgiving, and how my husband wouldn't be here if his ancestor, William Bradford, hadn't been taught.  Mid-powerpoint, after the pilgrims have landed in the New World in late fall with no housing and no food stores with winter on the way, I turned from my slide show and asked the students what kinds of problems the pilgrims are going to have.  A man in the back originally from Africa answers soberly, "Sanitation issues.  Water supply.  Hygiene."  I had never once thought of any of those things and the look on his face when he said it haunts me.  Other dear students answered from experience- food and heat and clothing and diseases spreading and children dying.  I clicked to the next slide, a tombstone-like memorial listing the names of the half who died that first winter.  This is how my people began in this land, too, and not so very long ago, either.


 

All of these folks are my Muses for hard times.

On a less serious note, Ruth England of Man, Woman, Wild is another of my Muses for Hard Times.  She and her survival expert husband spend several days with minimal supplies in various locations.  Watching her transformation from pretty soccer mom into someone willing to eat bugs is memorable.  Granted, she's being paid to entertain us, and granted, she's a really good sport to begin with to take on this challenge, but still, there's a core of truth about what desperate people will do in there, too.  

 

Whenever I start whining to myself about liking Zone 5 peaches better than the Zone 3 apricots we can grow or wishing that romaine was as hardy as purslane or feeling odd because other people won't try some strange thing I've grown myself or criticizing myself when my corn cobs are only 4 inches long or lamenting 'having to' plant asparagus when I don't even like asparagus- I picture Ruth and say, "Well, two days into hard times, anything previously cultivated as edible is going to be better than bugs.  Way better than bugs."  

And I go back to trying.

From the Archives: 4H Helping Hands Fundraiser 2013

From the email archives, April 2013:

Fellow 4Hers,

It is with great pleasure that I am writing to say that thanks to all of you, the work days were a complete success.  We had 45 people attend over the two Saturdays and everyone worked very, very hard moving 18 tons of dirt over steep, snowy terrain. 

We exceeded all our most ambitious hopes and ended when we ran out of dirt.

Congratulations to Almelund Allstars on winning the pizza party for the most volunteers! 

Shout-outs go to Gwen S who arrived first and kept the rest of us hopping trying to keep up with her and to Christi and Nathaniel P who worked both days.

As new farmers, we are so very grateful to 4H for all we've learned, for all the help we've received, and for the warm welcome you've extended to novices.

You all will be invited back once there is something to harvest and you will always be remembered fondly for your neighborliness.

I am happy to be sending in a check to Chisago County 4H for the full amount of the fundraiser plus a bonus in gratitude.

We are deeply honored to be a part of the 4H family,

The Reisdorfs- Tim, Amy, Anjali, and Mark