Finding Harmony in Disharmony

Tags

Afterlife, Creator, Gratitude, Grief, Grieving, Harmony, letting go, Prayers, Thoughts

I have a friend who’s looking at major life change.
Actually all my friends are looking at major life changes right now.
It feels like a time of massive global transition – in part forced on us by coronavirus – though perhaps she was just a symptom of a larger disease? That of humanity failing to recognize its limitations, its impacts, and what it needs do next to move forward in a good way?

My friend and I spoke of readiness.
We spoke of grief and letting go.
I remembered… Grieving is an expression of gratitude.

• Gratitude for what is being let go.
• Gratitude for what all we’re letting go of has done to make us who we are.
• Realizing that even as we let go – of the many things we let go of throughout this life – we’re still us.
  It’s still me – the spiritual being inside of this body! This body which has produced another spiritual being… inside its own body! And for that, I am ever grateful.

I’m finding more and more today, as much as we ridicule or laugh in frustration at the mention of “thoughts and prayers”… that perhaps that might just be the best thing I can do.

• Is there not energy for good in my thoughts and prayers?
• Is it not true that the thoughts and prayers of others have been a part of what has pulled me along this path even when I felt I couldn’t go on?
• Is it possible that in those moments of greatest despair – when peace suddenly finds a way to me – that it might be because of the thoughts and prayers of others?
• Whether through a chickadee landing in my hand to eat a seed… or an eagle visible in a tree as I pass down the road… or a hawk flying low to snag a bit of dinner… and lucky me as I witness this everyday part of life: eating to sustain ourselves as living beings… are these not answered prayers?

Is it coincidence that these examples coming to mind quickly are all of flyers?
Is that because they are closer to Creator than me?
…because they are high in the sky where so many of us feel Afterlife is… Creator is… Spirit is?
Or is it simply because they live their lives trusting in the universe of ecosystem around them… and in each other… and maybe they even trust in that seed lady who holds out her hand?

Or is this why we think Creator and Afterlife are in the sky? …because we see the freedom of the birds? We see how they rely on the day-to-day universe for their nourishment… for their homes… and for their livelihoods. Are they not the same as us?

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I’m learning… more and more these days… to go with the flow…
to do what is really necessary and trust that what I’m doing is the truly necessary…
to free myself… more and more… of the distractions… meant to disrupt… designed to pull me away from those things that truly are most important.

Breathing clean air
Drinking clean water
Eating nutritious food
[Unspoiled by chemicals… 
or as  unspoiled as any of it can be…
in a time when all of our water contains PFAS?]

And LOVE…
is she not perhaps the most necessary for a happy and healthy life?

It’s like that song from Urban Cowboy… Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places.

“I bless the day I discover… Another Heart… looking for love.” ~ Johnny Lee
[Is this true for us all?]

We’re programmed to be consumers here in America. We seek love in fashion… and decadence… and what we like to call progress. Things that money can buy.
But doesn’t money come from working ourselves to death… in a job that maybe we don’t even like… or don’t even believe in… but do because it pays the bills?
And is money truly what we need to exist? In our natural world, greenbacks are irrelevant. So why are so many giving money and stuff such a focus? It seems we’re addicted to our own destruction.

We’re staring at our own existential crisis and it’s becoming more and more part of the news every day. The United Nations Secretary-General called the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “a litany of broken climate promises” showing the world is “on a fast track to climate disaster.” He succinctly noted where we are right now and what “leadership” is doing – nothing really… but stringing us along. We’ve heard the truth from scientists since the 70s [from the 50s if you were a scientist for ExxonMobil, eh?], yet this “news” has been followed by empty promises from leaders… for decades now. What makes us think that they’re going to change and do the right things that save humanity now?

We don’t really have control over them though.
All we have is control over ourselves… and often times, we don’t even have that.

So this is a year of continuing the journey to simplify life and lighten my load on Mother Earth… as best I can.

We’ve built a home that is far more sustainable than any home we’ve ever lived in… though it too could be improved. It still relies on electricity, which for now… for us, still comes from the burning of fossil fuel.
And much of our food still comes from a process heavily laden with fossil fuel use; much of what we eat arrives in containers made of fossil fuel by-products.

As such, my goal this year is to spend a day every week at the organic farm working for food as I did in pre-Covid days.

I miss the feel of the small seedling as I place her into the soil… tucking her into a bed of beautiful black Earth… Earth full of life itself. I miss adding that first drink of precious sacred water she will have as she begins life in her new homeplace. And as she works to grow – living her full life – I will continue to add water and protect her from invaders: The weeds… simply doing their job of living… breaking up the soil – as has been their duty over millennia. The same soil that I pack down to give my seedling friend a new place to start… the weeds quickly come in to loosen.

Can I thank each of these weeds as I pull them this summer?
Can I thank them for their lives as I push them aside… killing them to maintain a place… where this life that will bring me life, can have her space?

I will allow them their short life and then their death will return them to the soil again… creating food as they incorporate into our ecosystem: the system of life-and-death is never-ending.

We live within these same natural laws as humans… though we like to pretend that we do not.
As long as we continue to ignore the natural natural law we will continue to destroy the life on this planet that sustains us.
It is only when we recognize ourselves as small cogs in the ecosystem of life that we will know our true place and begin to live in harmony with the rest of life… on which we all depend. 

Merry Garden Farm’s Beautiful Beets 8/21/18

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Happy Earth Day!!

Tags

Camp Wapo, MN350, MN350 Action, Rec Lab

This Earth Day is a bit bittersweet as we face an ever-present danger of losing our planet due to global inaction on the climate crisis but as we see increasing numbers of people recognizing the issue and acknowledging the science. Globally, millions are marching, writing legislators, or even turning valves to work to stop the growing crisis. For these I am grateful. Yet the misleading smear campaign of the fossil fuel industry continues.

This made me think about what I have been doing for our Earth and perhaps more crucial, to plan for personally succeeding in this changing world. Most recently, Dan and I helped a team prepare the high tunnel we began building last year (which was quickly interrupted by a snowfall one month earlier than last fall) at Merry Gardens Farm. We pulled posts up that were too low, pounded posts in that were too high, put in the posts and beam on the north end that will frame the doorway, put in the posts on the south end, and got everything level. This week will bring the framing work around the perimeter and the top truss framing, and THEN we can cover it and fill it with food plants. I am excited about this project because with changing and more erratic weather, this high tunnel will give us better control over temperature, moisture and pests. I fear that the future gardens will all be housed in this kind of framework. For a good fictional dystopian novel on these ideas, I recommend Michael Perry’s The Scavengers.

While I missed Water Action Day this year, I have continued my work for MN350 with pipeline resistance by helping with an article for Make MN magazine and I look forward to seeing the final piece, my first magazine work. Following our 2019 Goals work, I created a tracking sheet for the work being done by the organization which I believe will help track our progress and hopefully keep us motivated and on target. As of today, I have 380 hours in for MN350 in 2019. It feels good to be part of a team so dedicated to climate justice. After fighting the pipeline on my own since 2014, I feel much better informed and engaged with the work. If you would like to donate to support me in this very important work, please do so by clicking here.

I continue to write LTEs, most recently on EV (electric vehicle) charging station installation in Greater MN and the Bagley Town Hall last week – that should appear in this week’s Farmers Independent. (It will be on the blog soon.) Little did I know I was sitting right next to the Editor of the paper at that meeting! I’ve been writing for him for a few years now but haven’t really ever talked with him face-to-face. I have put on the To Do list: Meet with Tom Burford! He is really good to me in that he pretty much publishes everything I send, even though I believe he is in disagreement with most everything I write! 🙂

We have not done much around the homestead yet as the water continues to linger. We still even have a bit of snow in the forest though most has melted with a heavy rain early the other morning. I am hopeful that Dan will be hauling some poop from the neighbors horse fields to nourish our garden beds while I am gone next week at Rec Lab. I was able to dump the one poop bucket I had from the other neighbor’s cows on the rhubarb closest to the Harn, always the first bed to be ready – well, if you don’t include the tomato and grape area on the south side of the garage just outside the front door. While this location doesn’t get quite as much sun, it still has a nice microclimate. The grapes already appear to be growing! And, as this is just outside the door, it has gotten plenty of nitrogen and phos over the last winter.

So next week I take a much needed break from all the activism and focus solely (I hope!) on crafting. The 2019 Northland Recreation Laboratory brings together people from all over the region to learn and share skills. This will be (I think) our 85th year and my last year on the Board, for which I am very grateful. It has been a rich experience but not a painless one. But, no pain, no gain, eh? I have really grown a lot through my work but it’s been a struggle for much of it. It will be nice to simply enjoy lab this year as my responsibility is only to assure the setting up and execution of the Art Show at the end of the week. That is one of my favorite parts, seeing everyone’s amazing creativity and celebrating the “failures” that turn out pretty good anyway. The beauty and skill we see is truly remarkable.

The people are what really make Rec Lab special. This year we will be missing one of the people I loved most – Roxanne Weeks. I will head to the Cities from Camp Wapogasset Thursday to pick up Dorothy as Roxanne was her usual ride. It will be a fun trip though also bittersweet. It is never easy losing a friend and especially not when that person has been such an amazing example and support to you. I will carry her spirit with me this week as I navigate the tough spots. I will try to remember that she, as always, has my back.

See you in a couple weeks!!! Happy Spring!!

Gardening Fun

Tags

DIY, Helping others

I have been having lots of fun playing in the dirt… some for the Harn Homestead and lots more volunteering to help others.

After such a slow coming spring, I worried that our gardens would not have enough time to finish.  But, as Char assures me, even if you don’t plant until July 4^th, the garden WILL make it (apparently one year they had a really late planting but still had a good harvest).  And it now feels like mid-summer with all the HOT weather.  Sometimes I’m amazed it’s just barely June!  We just never really got much of a Spring…  But things are growing, and fast!

Part of the process is cleaning up the past year’s growth.  Connie and I have recently spent time at our 89-year-old neighbor’s place working on cleaning up gardens.  And then we spent some time at Farm by the Lake, a local venue for shows, weddings, readings, and overnights.  Their garden beds were in need of cleanup and, because they do so much to bring culture to our little rural community, we were glad to help with a bit of gardening.  The property, on Lake Lomond in Bagley, was gifted by Bagley native Richard C. Davids, a naturalist, author, editor and teacher who wanted Farm By The Lake to provide a space where “we can find renewal with the land, with another, and with God.”  I’ve attended music shows, storytelling events, a writing workshop, and their annual craft fair, which also features lots of musicians.  It’s a lovely space currently being cared for by friends Dawn and Marty.

Before:

 

After:

 

You see, in the last photo, Connie “inspecting” my work, finding it acceptable. 😀

As a member of Shevlin Garden Club, Connie and I also recently did a Sunflower planting event where we helped children plant seeds at the Clearwater County History Center (CCHC).  From their website:

The museum is located in the former Shevlin School, a two-story brick structure built in 1911. The school closed in 1991 and the historical society “History Center” opened in 1996. The grounds also include several historic buildings: the first log school built in the county in the late 1880s, a school built in 1936 by the local WPA crew, the Ebro Depot (a small transportable depot- the size of a box car), and The Halvorson cabin (a two story log cabin from 1904). Two additional buildings on site house larger tools, machinery and miscellany. Exhibits are changed on a 12 to 18 month schedule, with different themes and topics covered each year.

We ended up having a wonderful day, even with a cold rainy morning.  The CCHC hosted a dairy event in the morning where kids made butter and ice cream and, just as they finished up their sundaes, the rain let up so we could plant the sunflower seeds!  Connie Nunemaker and Nancy Ames showed the kids how to turn up the soil and then hoe trenches for the seeds.  Then Connie explained spacing and the kids planted all five rows.  The outside rows feature Teddy Bear Sunflowers, a shorter variety, while the inside row is Sunburst, a very tall sunflower variety.  In between, we planted Ruby Moon and Autumn Beauty sunflowers, some of which present with red coloring.

Why do we do it?

First it’s nice to know we’re helping plants look their best by removing tall grasses and old growth.  Maybe it’s something to do with my apparently-increasingly-more-prevalent-each-year-OCD, but I am liking more order than chaos.  [Perhaps to combat the ‘chaos’ of not being able to control my aging??]  I like seeing the plants without all the grass encroachment.  And while I admit I do NOT have much issue pulling out grasses, I still struggle with the cultural idea of the ugliness of dandelions!  They are much harder to pull…

Another benefit we can bring is to relocate some of the bird-dropped seeds to more appropriate places and this allow more space and better proliferation in new locations.  Connie collected a spruce and a couple little pines to relocate.  Would they be fine without us?  Well, surely they would all duke out a co-existence.  But in a few years, that large oak growing among the flowers might bust through the concrete barrier poured years ago to contain the bed. We have one of these to relocate too – but that will be another day.

We are hopeful to help Dawn as she works to bring the flower beds back to what Richard Davids intended at Farm by the Lake.  It will be a multi-year project but will be fun to watch as things transform.   It will be extra fun and a bit easier if we can find more community support for the project. So far, Dan has committed himself and I’ll be recruiting soon!

Plus it feels good to be with the plant nation! They are lovely and if you listen close, you might hear them saying hello.  And, did you know?  Dirt has some kind of Prozac-type effect on people?  It apparently has some kind of component that makes us feel happy.  It’s just anecdotal for me so far but there might be something to it!  [And I much prefer the natural way to the idea of popping pills.  Who knows what else those might be doing!?!]

And speaking of anecdotal, it seems that the friends I have that talk with their plants, giving them love and attention, really seem to have better luck with abundance and growth.  I believe these plant beings hear us and appreciate us when we help and love them.  As such, I’ve been talking to the Sungold and Grapes just outside our front door every day. And I head out to see the Raspberries several times a week to tell them how big they are getting!  Hopefully they will soon be joined by the squash, beans, argula, beets, peppers and such that I seeded last week.

 

And of course there is the satisfaction of seeing the final result. The Sunflower event at the CCHC included a Sunflower growth chart where several kids marked their heights.  It will be fun at the end of the summer to see how the sunflowers surpass the kids in annual growth!

 

Plus, helping to clean up a couple of my neighbor’s flower beds resulted in a delicious lunch!  Can’t beat that!

 

Gardening is the gift that keeps on giving.  Seeing the plants thrive, enjoying the beautiful flowers, watching pollinators enjoy the food, and harvesting the veggies throughout the season.  I’m looking forward to great rewards for all my garden work.

My First Year at the Harn

Tags

DIY, Freedom, sustainability, Time

I’ve just had an anniversary – well, a couple, come to think of it.  On the 13^th, I celebrated my 24^th anniversary of becoming a mom.  Can’t believe our boy is all grown up now…  I’m also celebrating my first anniversary of moving to the Harn.  It’s been a year since I made the transition and I still think moving to the woods in November 2016 was a fantastic idea.  While I initially made the move on my own, it’s been nice for the last seven months to have Dan here with me on this adventure.  [Oh, he got me a lovely foot massage unit for the anniversary and we’re now enjoying relaxing with that after a long day of work outside.  I think he’s wanting to keep his “frontier woman” happy.]

I’ve told people that we’re giving it 3-5 years to see what we think and so far, it’s good.  There were several things I wondered if I could handle in making the transition to the woods but all the things I had concerns about have ended up being either non-issues,  aren’t as bad as I’d expected them to be, or are things I’ve really come to enjoy.  I still say it’s lovely, even in below zero weather, to sit on the porch and have a poo while a woodpecker sits not 5 feet from me, pecking on the suet.  Even if there is no woodpecker, to sit in the middle of the woods is far superior to the sterile porcelain environment that many of us find to be commonplace.

So… what have we learned?

Water

We’ve learned (again) this year that we need to be careful with the water system.  The first flush diverter on the East downspout came apart last week in the frigid cold, in part because we didn’t pull the caps to allow all the water to drain… again, and the result was a huge PVC icicle that fell to the ground. The issue this winter was that we got a first snow and thought it would melt off in a day or two but… it didn’t.  It just kept snowing and staying frigid cold.  So we didn’t get to removing the caps before things got really frozen.  But at least we DID drain the garden cistern and rain barrel system on the south side of the house so they should be OK.  [If you recall, last year our previous garden cistern cracked down the side mid-winter after becoming too full of ice.  Last year it was having such a mild early winter that we kept getting more water accumulation every time we drained the cistern and we should have just emptied it completely every time – like we did this year.]

Gardening and Food

We’ve learned that our forested acreage is REALLY wet.  And that slugs LOVE it.  We built hugle beds (wood and soil piles where the wood acts like 1) a sponge, keeping the garden bed moist, and 2) a compost pile, breaking down over time to provide nutrition to the soil) but found that we really need to build them about three times bigger.  Our beds should be almost like raised beds – 3-4’ high is not too high.  So that will be a project this coming spring.  We have lots of old wood and should be able to build up on the hugle mounds we’ve already got in place.  Though we may have to reconfigure the bee yard a bit for the bigger mounds…

We’ve also worked for friends on their farms and learned a lot about raising veggies and animals.  I will say veggies are easier to wrangle than goats.  We did have a heck of a time with our goat sitting this year but I can now recognize, and cull from the pack, a horny male goat amidst a herd of females.  I also am learning more and more vegetables, though I still struggle with knowing some.  I’ve cooked lots of new dishes as I harvested at the farms and we have an abundance of food in the form of potatoes and squash.

We also did some foraging this year and learned a bit about edible (and non-edible) mushrooms and berries.  We gathered choke cherries and made jelly, and also crabapples (thanks, Diana!) to make preserves and syrup.  The syrup is SO GOOD on pancakes – which we’ve been eating of late with the cold and Dan’s hunting schedule.

Oh, another skill in development!  Dan started hunting on Deer Opener (November 4^th – it’s like a national holiday up here) with a buddy who can carve up a deer leaving almost nothing in the way of meat on the bones.  He’s borrowed a gun and tree stand and is getting a feel for what he thinks.  Last year deer hunting time was unseasonably warm – so warm that hunters worried about their meat spoiling before they could get it into a cooler.  This year, not so much of a problem.  It’s been in the single digits for some of the time he’s spent out there with most days staying under freezing, and often with nasty winds.  No worries about the meat getting too warm, more worries about your fingers and toes staying warm enough to avoid frostbite!  I’m guessing it’s kind of like having a baby though… once you get the deer, all that misery is forgotten.  We’ll see.

I’ve learned a bit more about bees this year too; mostly that they know what they are doing and man should pretty much just leave them alone for best results.  I had one colony die after never really getting started and a second die due to a lost queen that was not replaced in time for winter.  It was a devastating blow to not be able to winter over a colony, but we had quite a harvest of honey. Nonetheless, I still grieve my bees.

And we have a bounty of other stored food in the form of canned green beans, tomatoes, tomato soup, and applesauce.  I’ve got some marinara from Sylvia, some grape jelly from Char, some beet pickles from Jill, and some squash from Connie.  Lots to keep me busy cooking this winter.  I think canning may be one of the best things I’ve learned and I only wish I’d been able to do more.  We have invested in a propane burner and massive pressure canner/cooker for outdoor canning on the porch next year. And we have a few canning jars ready to fill.

Heating: aka Adding Cob to the Rocket Mass Heater

Having the proper mass on your stove is crucial for creating a “mass” heater that radiates to warm the home.  We still have much mass to add to our stove and continue to lose heat through the chimney.  But we added several buckets of cob to the stove this fall  and we’re getting closer to enclosing the final run of exhaust tubing.  Once that is complete, it should allow us to pull more of the heat from the exhaust before it leaves the building.  The goal is to have an exit temperature on our chimney of about 100°F.  This would mean the heat is flowing into our mass where it is stored to radiate out later.  The Rocket Stove is typically burned for just a couple hours a day meaning much of your heating is a result of the mass releasing its heat into your house while you are not burning.

We also realized that having the windows all the way closed and locked down is pretty important too.  Yes, we found the kitchen window was slightly cracked letting in loads of cold air the last few weeks.  Gzeesh!  House is staying much warmer since we remedied that!

With attendance at the Rocket Mass Heater Innovator Jamboree last month (Yes, I’m going to blog about it soon…) I learned much about making cob and earthen plasters from Erica Wisner and Chris “Uncle Mud” McClellan.  I confirmed that cob making is an art, and a pretty forgiving one at that… thus much of what I’ve done to date has been okay.  But I did find that I’m using lots more clay in my mix than needed.  Since clay is the hardest component to secure, the buckets I’ve mixed will be extended with additions of more sand and straw.  I also found that I can add as many rocks as I like to take up space.  We added 4 buckets of cob earlier this fall and, with the new tricks, I’ve added almost as much mass in the last week or two with about one bucket of cob as I did with those four buckets.  That’s a big savings!

Speaking of Savings… Money and Stuff

It’s kind of strange to live without an income – well, I make a bit here and there with Hostel work or writing for the Farmers Independent (the local paper).  This was the aspect I feared most in the whole “retire early, live simply, and be sustainable” plan.  But to not have a steady income and still be able to get groceries, buy gifts for people, eat out occasionally with friends – it’s kind of surreal. The Dogma in this country is all about making money, as much as you can, or you’ll be homeless, destitute, impoverished.  I guess we did a lot of that making as much money as you can for some time but we didn’t buy into the second part of the capitalistic method – spend what you get.  Saving all those years means we have some funds to live on now.

And we make the funds we have go far.  I shop at thrift stores but you wouldn’t believe the deals you can find.  I spent $8 a couple weeks back and got a like-new Hippie top (adorbs), a Columbia fleece jacket (super warm) in great condition, and a new (tag still on them) pair of yoga pants.  My friend Angie got a pair of winter boots (Sorels no less!), two shirts and a pair of pants for her $8.  Can’t beat that.  Plus I have way too many clothes anyway.  I have t-shirts to last me until I die and probably some jeans that need to be donated as they are too big now.

I find up here in the North Woods I pretty much can wear the same clothes all the time.  I mean, there are weeks when I wear the same clothes for days in a row.  Or I’ll wear an outfit and then hang it on my wall rack – that place where clothes go when they aren’t dirty enough for the hamper yet – and wear it again a few days later.  And another key is having lounging clothes and work clothes – that way the work stuff keeps getting dirtier while your indoor stuff stays clean longer.  I do SO MUCH LESS laundry these days – another savings and sustainability factor.  I figure as long as the clothes are not muddy or stinky, they can take another wearing.  [I do change the underwear and socks a bit more frequently than the other clothes…]  Oh, and I’ve discovered the joy of bralessness.  What a freedom.  And I don’t think anyone has even noticed!  [Oh, Danny says he has…]

And we’re finding that you use things to completion as best you can.  As such, I’m tanning the deer hide from the deer shot by our friend Jeff.  I’m also going to tan the smaller hide from the road kill deer we salvaged from the ditch this past weekend for his wife since I find I like the process of de-fleshing so much.  And we’re taking the deer carcasses and using them to feed birds in the yard – have two this year, up from the one last year, and way ahead of last year, getting this one in place a good month before the one I put up last year.  Here’s a video of the process.

Going with the Flow

I think one of the most fun things about being at the Harn is that we own our time much more than when we were in the rat race.  When committed to a job, it’s hard to stay up until midnight finishing a movie you decided to start at 10 PM.  It’s not an option to sleep in when you have to be at work by a certain time.  It’s hard to join a neighbor on an adventure if you have to factor it into a workday.  Take last Sunday, for instance.  I was working on the blog and writing some letters, taking a call from Mom, when a neighbor texted and asked if we could help him move a wood stove to his basement.  Sure.  We headed over and then came back to get ready to go to the Symphony (using a neighbor’s ticket that otherwise would have gone unused) to see another neighbor play violin.   I know, everyone is free on Sunday, right?  Well, what about the Friday before that when I was able to just head out to visit the neighbors on a whim.  I chatted with Connie and Bill, stopped by to see Ada and chat with her (the 89 year old “Queen of Alida” who lives with her cat Molly in our closest “town”), introduced myself again – it’s been years since we first met – to another neighbor Sandy and met her dog Molly, and then headed down to Char’s for some eggs and a quick visit.  It was a fun couple hours just sharing and laughing with friends.

This past week we were able to take a day to hang with our friends at Split Oak Farms tanning my deer hide, watching a deer get processed for pig feed, cooking a couple meals to share, roasting peppers for a Thanksgiving dish, and watching a movie.  The cat didn’t even seem too peeved that we were gone all day.

And when I get going, like I did on a little sewing project the other day, I can work until I finish it or find something else to distract me and then go back to it later.  I love this going with the flow and enjoying the opportunities as they arise.  Of course, it’s not always like this – sometimes we have to pick between sleeping in and going hunting… And sometimes we commit to one thing and then can’t do another.  And sometimes we have to wash the dishes!  But it is nice not having to give a bunch of hours, drive-time, and energy to a J-O-B.  We’re working for us now.  It may be harder work physically than we ever did in the Rat Race but WE are getting the benefits of all our efforts whether it’s harvesting food, making something for a friend, or chopping wood.  Speaking of which, I better get on that!  And that reminds me of a great Dillon Bustin song about cutting more wood…

Realizing our Genius

Sometimes we see the brilliance of our decisions (mostly the result of happenstance or dumb luck).

For example, this spring we pulled the deadwood that had fallen in the area around the Harn.  We cleared small and large trees and branches in the 50’ area surrounding the Harn and piled them in the east end of the clearing south of the Harn, hoping to process them into firewood during the summer/fall.  [We would rob this pile when burning summer bonfires in our outdoor fire pit – benefit #1.]  Well, with everything else we did, we didn’t get that wood processed.  However, it’s been a nice benefit this winter to be able to go to the pile and gather as much kindling as we need to supplement the larger wood we have prepped in the garage.

We’ve also been happy to find that the pile of trees we made back in 2009 is still usable!  It’s worn wood but very seasoned and good for burning hot fires – and very easy to process compared with the more green / larger stuff we have.  And also full of kindling since it’s all sizes of trees.

In the sequence of events that is our life, we’ve been lucky to meet people who could use our services on their farms.  As such, we’ve been able to secure access to good, wholesome food in exchange for our help.  Good and healthy farms always have an abundance of food to what can be used or sold and lucky for us, we get part of the harvest when we’re willing to be part of the labor in making it happen.

And sometimes it’s little things.  When we run water for washing dishes – it takes a minute for the hot water tank water to get across the Harn to our kitchen sink – rather than letting the water go down the drain, we fill a gallon jug with this water.  This also helps lessen the emptying of the bucket under the kitchen sink drain…  We then use that water to fill the Berkey system we use to filter our drinking water.  No Waste!

I guess the good news is that we are learning.  We are discovering new ways to live here at the Harn that hopefully result in less waste and a more sustainable life.  Since we are a long way from true sustainability and zero waste,  we will keep on with the experiment!  At least for a couple more years…

Local News – Second Glance Farms

Tags

spirituality, sustainability, Women

Note: This article was published in the Farmers Independent last week. My second byline! Front page… below the fold. 😀

Second Glance Farms hosted an open house on Saturday, July 22^nd.  Visitors walked the many gardens, enjoyed the greenhouse that is the heart of the operation, and then gathered for a talk given by Nancy Kuhta. The presentation space, full of beautiful art, depicted Second Glance’s theme of Diversity: art, science, geometry, color, math, and even spirituality.  Everything is connected in this space where each task is done with contemplation and mindfulness to listen to the earth, the seeds, the sun.

Inspiration: An interactive contemplation area celebrating the intersection of Intention and Imagination.

Donnette Rizzo, a librarian from Chicago, spent the last few days at the farm and shared her experience of helping to create an interactive space from willow stems depicting the integration of Intention and Imagination as Inspiration.  This Venn diagram honors both the individual ideas and the confluence of the two, just as Second Glance Farms honors diversity as its key to success. Nancy once gave diversity presentations to Walmart employees but now she and her daughter Jannel are working on a diversity of tasks.

Jannel and Nancy Kuhta display an ear of Blue Eagle Corn and a jar of Rainbow Corn.

You may know the Kuhta’s from past adventures with Nature’s Gardens, which produced bedding plants.  Or perhaps you’ve seen some of their landscaping work.  If you have the new telephone book, the cover shows a flower garden they installed at Bemidji State University.  Or maybe you ran into them at Carlson Greenhouse.  More recently, they have begun to grow their farm, inviting others to share the beauty of their abundant flowers and vegetables.  After first linking to the farm-to-school program with Bagley Public Schools and working with Fireside and U of M at Itasca Park, they are now reaching out to the community at-large.

Nancy has been gardening for forty years, starting with digging in her mother’s garden in Chicago as a child.  Her focus is on protecting heirloom varieties that are nearly extinct.  Her goal is to lead by example and encourage others to replicate her efforts.  Nancy reflects, “We visited a seed bank and realized the importance of the North with the 12-hour day and we said, ‘We’ll help’.” With 1000 tomato plants in 25 varieties, they are going to offer U-pick so that people can experience a variety of heirloom vegetables at reasonable prices.  I tasted several of the lettuces and each was delicious in its own way; the crunchy, the buttery, and my favorite, the peppery arugula.

Jannel and Nancy Kuhta are passionate about seed-saving for endangered varieties like their Blue Eagle Corn.

Lincoln Lettuce, like that harvested at the Lincoln plantation, is available.  Or you can secure some Beauty Way Bean seeds to help bring these beautiful beans back to abundance. But Nancy’s true passion is Corn.  She will share with you in detail about Blue Eagle Corn, often called Peace Corn. It disappeared about the time of the Trail of Tears and in 2010, a group of Pawnee gave a Kansas farmer the last 25 seeds in known existence to plant, as his land was their old homeland.  For the first time in memorable history, that year the Pawnee ate the corn of their heritage.  It is said that when Blue Eagle Corn returns, it will bring peace.

The garden and nature speak to all ages and are wonderful places for the generations to connect.  Kathy Mitchell of Minneapolis expressed her appreciation of how nature has brought her and her father together.  A dedicated Catholic who once saw salvation only through the church, he’s begun to spend more time with trees and has found a connection that brings him closer not only to God, but also to his daughter.  Jannel shared about her experience with a child who explained to her that “the plants like you to sing to them”.  This youngster took Jannel to the Back Forty field so she could sing a song to the watermelons.  Later she let Jannel know she’d introduced the watermelons to the pumpkins.

There is beauty throughout the garden.  Flowers and hand-painted signs designate long rows of tomatoes.

 When asked about the name Second Glance, Nancy notes that the beauty of the farm will cause you to give it a Second Glance.  They are offering local produce, grown naturally, with a variety of tomatoes, squash, herbs and corn.  You can contact Nancy and Jannel at secondglancefarms@gmail.com to arrange a visit.

If you pay a visit to the farm at 19008 Highway 200, you’ll also get a chance to meet Corn Dog, about the most serene animal I’ve ever met. Found nearly dead among the corn in an Oklahoma garden and nursed back to life by Jannel, Corn Dog would not leave the garden area for months after being discovered.  He would greet Jannel every day at the garden gate.  If you see him here at Second Glance, take a moment to say hello and give him a scratch.  He will calmly look you in the eyes, and if you’re smart, you’ll follow his lead and spend some time in the garden.