D Acres Blog

Sauerkraut

2012-02-02T16:33:00.000-08:00

It’s February and we have twenty-nine gallons of sauerkraut remaining in the root cellar. Red and green are the dominant colors, but flavors run the gamut: some straight up ‘kraut, some savory with caraway and dill, some hot on the tongue with our own peppers, even some innovative kim chi of our own creation.

And yet spices aside, we’re ultimately talking twenty-nine gallons of fermented cabbage. But really, it tastes, well…awesome. It’s good right out of the bucket, also cooked down in a skillet, or mixed with our winter staples of pork, potatoes, and squash. It shows up for breakfast (please, it’s great with eggs), lunch, and dinner. It’s so good that we’re offering sauerkraut as part of our multi-farm winter CSA, and rationing ourselves the rest at a rate of one gallon per week.

In the words of one farm resident, “I just can’t get enough lacto-bacilli!” Certainly not the average conversation starter, but there you have a sampling of our sentiments for sauerkraut. It’s good and good for you.

A celebration of sauerkraut is also a celebration of seasonality. As I write this, temperatures for the night are descending below zero. Not the habitat for fresh greens and vegetables. Yet thanks to the root cellar – our natural refrigerator dug below ground, with a dirt floor – w have maintained a supply of storage crops: potatoes, carrots, beets, and turnips top the list. Fresh cabbage, our closest approximate to fresh greens, lasted in fine form until the end of December. We have successfully stored cabbage until February in prior years, though a portion is lost due to an ungraceful aging curve in this hearty brassica.

This is where the story returns to sauerkraut. Cabbage is given a longer shelf life in the form of sauerkraut. Shredded and mixed with salt, cabbage will produce a brine of its own. Packed in a jar and stored in a cool locale, cabbage will then safely and successfully ferment itself into sauerkraut. Healthy and advantageous bacteria will easily preserve cabbage-turned-sauerkraut for many months. In this manner, our hundreds of cabbage heads (Mammoth Red Rock, Melissa Savoy, Frigga Savoy, Fun Jen to name a handful of varieties) are living their second life sliced, diced, spiced, and tightly packed in five gallon buckets about the cellar.

Thus we are left to enjoy the proverbial fruits of our summer labor. Sauerkraut is a winter delicacy, a food prized in this time when fresh greens are out of season. It is another flavor to treat the palate and add variety to the winter diet. It is a celebration of simple food storage techniques and preservation methods, and a delicious ode to the rich reality of eating with the seasons.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

The Year of Local Economy

2012-01-25T06:16:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of people out there who are starting to question the current economic system that is based upon constant growth and limitless consumption of finite natural resources while concentrating wealth into fewer and fewer hands.

Since last September, protests have sprung up all over the world that express a clear and unifying message – the system is not working. The economy is rigged to benefit those at the very top and the political system has become so corrupt that it is nearly impossible to imagine meaningful change coming from standard political channels.

The results that we have seen in recent years - governments spending trillions of dollars to bail out financial institutions that continue to fight any kind of significant financial regulation or social assistance to people who have lost their homes through foreclosure, tax breaks for the wealthiest while cutting back on basic social services, increasing exploitation of finite natural resources in the name of short term profits - are the natural outcome of a larger problem: the control that corporations have over the political and global economic system and the unrelenting focus on unsustainable economic growth.

Economic growth in the current system is neither desirable nor possible over the long term. Our future cannot always be bigger. Beyond a certain limit, economic growth becomes detrimental to human well being an to the to environment. In fact, economic activity is increasingly devoted to fixing the problems of economic growth. We are spending more time, effort and money to fix crumbling infrastructure, to clean up pollution and to deal with the social problems of always striving for more. We are running faster and faster to stay in the same place. The current system is, in a very technical sense, unsustainable and to survive on this planet, we need to develop new ways of organizing economic life based upon ecological sustainability and social justice.

One of the most basic ways of working toward this goal is to develop alternative institutions that provides for people’s basic needs within appropriate ecological constraints and allows people to contribute their skills in a way that strengthens human community.

This has always been central to the mission of D Acres and in 2012, we are looking to expand it with our theme this year which is “The Year of Local Economy”. Our goal is to add to the growing efforts of people around the world to build an alternative economy based on real relationships, shared values, systemic cooperation and a belief in human community.

We believe that one of the most important elements of building an alternative economy is to locate maximum economic power at the local level – communities should, to the greatest extent possible, be self-reliant and self-governing. To this end, whatever is produced locally should be consumed locally. As residents give priority to locally produced goods and services, a strong economic foundation is built that can meet most basic human needs while at the same time, reducing wasteful, environmentally destructive transportation. Of course, some goods and services cannot be produced locally and some trading between communities should take place. But it should be minimal and when done, should reflect the same principles of fairness and mutual responsibility that characterize economic relationships within a tight-knit community.

This is the kind of economic growth that is sustainable over the long term - growth in terms of human connections and community resources instead of money. Economic activity should be principally dedicated to meeting peoples’ basic needs and should not dominate every facet of society. It is an economy of slowing down – of not always to striving for more, of valuing simplicity over excess, of moving away from the idea that the more material items you have, the better your life will be. As Gandhi said, “A certain degree of physical comfort is necessary but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help; therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them, seems to be a delusion and a trap. The satisfaction of one's physical needs must come at a certain point to a dead stop before it degenerates into physical decadence. [We] will have to remodel [our] outlook if we are not to perish under the weight of the comforts to which we are becoming slaves."

This vision of an alternative economy is intended to stand in direct contrast to the centralized, mechanized, industrial modes of production that typify the global economy, where people and nature have no value beyond their monetary value, where everything is for sale but there is a total lack of information about the human and ecological cost of production.

In many ways, this is the philosophy that we put into practice on our own farm. We focus on work we can do with out hands and do not use mechanized equipment on the farm because we would lose the intrinsic material, ecological and spiritual benefits that come with relying solely on our own labor power.

We focus on our own productive capacity – we do not buy what we can produce ourselves and we only sell products after our own basic needs have been met. When we do buy products, we do our best to ensure that the products were not the result of human and ecological degradation elsewhere. When we sell products, we do so to our friends and neighbors, all of whom can come to our farm and have the security of knowing where their purchase comes from.

But as stated above, we are dedicating this year to expanding out efforts to build a local economy that is grounded in a basic sense of justice, fairness and environmental stewardship. To this end, we will launch or expand three programs that are dedicated to strengthen the local economy.

First, in the beginning of February, we will begin a 10-week multi-farm Winter Community Supported Agriculture project or CSA. CSAs operates like a magazine subscription for food. Members pay for all of the food up front and then receive a box of food every week.

CSA are one of the most popular ways that people have found to put the idea of building a local economy – shortening the distance between producers and consumers, building real connections between the two and making local economic activity benefit the local community into practice. CSAs allows producers to capture a larger share of the profits, keeps money circulating within the community, gives consumers a say over the kind and quality of food the community produces, the way land is used, the way the local landscape is preserved and the conditions under which the food they consume is produced.

Those who support CSAs don’t so much “buy” food from particular farms as become members of those farms. CSAs provide more than just food but is a way for people to become connected to the ecological and human community that farms the land around them.

D Acres’ Winter CSA will begin on February 1st and go through April 4th. Details of the program are available by emailing dacres.permaculturefarm@gmail.com or calling 786-2366.

Second, D Acres will be launching a community exchange or mutual credit system. The goal of this program is to create a system whereby local residents can exchange goods and services without using standard currency. It addresses three fundamental problems inherent with this currency: a) its always scarce, b) it comes into the community from outside and c) it easily leaks out of the community and often ends up in the hands of those who already have enormous amounts of it.

A mutual credit system gets around these problems by setting up a system where a group of people can exchange goods and services between themselves for credits and debits within the system. People can trade a wide variety of goods and services such as bread or organic vegetables, bricklaying, house painting, babysitting, etc earning credits for sales and taking on debits for purchases. Debits and credits are entered into a database and which is available to all participants. In communities where this system has worked well in the United States and around the world, participants strive to contribute as much as they take.

Such community exchanges are another way that allows communities to take control of their own economic activity. Today, every community in this country has an enormous number of skilled people – carpenters, potters, builders, weavers, farmers, teachers, musicians, artists – who cannot find work. Community exchanges create an environment where people can find each other and access the skills and resources of others in exchange for their own without using a conventional currency that drains too quickly from the community.

We will be holding an initial discussion and planning meeting on February 25th at 12pm. More information about the program is available on our website.

Third, D Acres is collaborating with Stacey Lucas and Artistic Roots to produce the 6th edition of the Local Goods Guide this spring. The guide serves as a resource for residents of the Pemi-Baker and Upper Valley region of New Hampshire to access local food, wares, and businesses within their community, and as a means for encouraging a revitalization of the local economy and promoting the artistic and agrarian abundance of our locale.

The 2012 Guide will include an expanded list of categories including agricultural products (local sources of wood, hay, fiber, nursery stock) and handmade goods shops, in addition to a comprehensive listing of farms, artists, crafters, galleries, and studios in central New Hampshire. We will begin distributing 12,000 copies of the Guide to over 200 venues on Memorial Day weekend. For further information on listing or advertising within the guide, contact Katie Cristiano at 786-2366 or at info@dacres.org.

-- Scott

Permaculture 2012

2012-01-20T04:19:00.000-08:00

This morning, twenty eager and curious attendees of a NOFA-NH Permaculture Meet-up arrived here at D Acres. I had farm-fresh sausage, eggs, and home-fries cooked up, plus fixin’s from our shelves of preserved goods and our own herbal tea to top it off. Folks were eating breakfast, then taking a tour of the farm. The momentum that brought these folks together and the common theme that threaded through their conversation was: Permaculture.

Permaculture has been defined in many ways. Entire tomes have been written to discuss permaculture applications, permaculture theory, and permaculture goals. The succinct definition that we use here is as follows:

Permaculture is a holistic, integrative design for a sustainable future.

Permaculture is many things. It’s about building resilience, it’s about cultivating self-sufficiency, it’s about common sense and stacking functions; permaculture is about conserving resources with future generations in mind, minimizing one’s footprint, and strengthening community; it’s about food production that works with nature, not against her.

Here at D Acres, the application of permaculture principles can be seen in all corners of our farm and homestead. Permaculture is reflected in our natural & earthen building styles, our mixed-species garden beds, our incorporation of animals in the agricultural system, and our development of diverse perennial food forests. The list could go on and on.

In fact, we invite you to join us for a closer study of permaculture principles and praxis…with our third annual Permaculture Design Certification course. Titled “Permaculture Through the Seasons,” this is a unique class that meets one weekend per month for seven months. This enables participants to gain an understanding of permaculture applications through different seasons and across a broader spectrum of time than most permaculture courses provide for. The course layout caters to a diversity of students: homeowners, family gardeners, designers, landscapers, builders, etc. Regardless of your goals and interests, permaculture can enhance the way in which you shape your lifestyle and engage with the natural world around you.

2012’s “Permaculture Through the Seasons” course is instructed by Steve Whitman & Josh Trought, with featured presenters Dave Jacke, Dave Wichland, and Keith Morris. The course is based at D Acres Farm in Dorchester, NH; tuition includes overnight accommodations and farm-fresh organic meals for each weekend session. Register now! Space is limited for this popular offering, early bird discounts apply before March 1st. Course begins April 2012. Contact D Acres for registration information or further questions.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

In Support of Sweaters

2012-01-05T04:18:00.000-08:00

The butter was hard. Not frozen, but certainly not spread-able. With close attention, it was possible to collect some shavings by scraping with a sharp knife. This could then be carefully balanced over a slice of bread.

The reason, though, was not that we had just pulled the butter from the root cellar nor that we had frozen it for storage. No, the reason was simply that the room stood at 48 degrees. If you were to take an extended observation of the kitchen, you would see that the cooking oil, sitting beside the window, was more solid than liquid. The woodstove was cold, and the granite countertop chilled your hands to touch it.

Granted, the above may be a slightly extreme example. We don’t often let the indoor temperature drop into the 40s here at D Acres…we prefer a balmy 50-55 degrees. With a sweater or an extra hat, that’s downright comfortable. And it is winter, after all. What are sweaters for, but to wear them when it’s cold?

We heat with wood here at the farm, both with woodstoves and a wood-fired boiler. The latter is how we heat our water, as well as space through the use of a radiant heat system on both the first and second floors of the community building.

Wood heat of course, entails work. More specifically, it entails work that is much more personal and therefore tangible than, for example, propane heat. As the weather allows throughout the year, we are in the woods with chainsaws and our team of oxen. Trees are felled, logs are hauled, and wood is cross-cut. The mauls are then taken out and the cordwood split for storing and drying. All told, each cord of wood represents a significant number of human hours.

Engaging in the work rapidly impresses upon us the worth of our wood. How do we assess the time, energy, sweat, and care that are part and parcel of our logging efforts? How do we value such an essential natural resource? It is abundant, but not endless.

Still, I admit that I am on the harsher end of the spectrum. Stoic consumption of hot water and the layering of multiple hats strike my young fancy more than burning wood every day. I like winter because it is not summer; a season of cold is part of the annual yin-and-yang, ebb-and-flow of temperatures across the year.

My point, though, is not to advocate a minimalist regime for all. I simply want to spread an appreciation of sweaters, of layers, of hats in winter. Each works just as well indoors as out. Consider from whence your heat is sourced, and how best to value, conserve, and utilize the energy that winter heat implies.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Currency in Community

2012-01-02T10:37:00.001-08:00

The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Every year at D Acres a theme is chosen to serve as a focal point for our major projects, and, if you've been following any of our recent propaganda, you probably realize that the theme for 2012 is "The Local Economy: Currency in Community." In this blog posting I'd like to say something more about the subtitle, since, as I hope you will soon agree, those three words contain much worth thinking about.

To start out with, the phrase "Currency in Community" intentionally has an air of paradox about it. As the Occupiers of Wall Street and Everywhere are constantly reminding us, the single-minded pursuit of currency erodes community. It does this in a number of ways -- I'll mention only three. First for the sake of maximizing profits businesses routinely outsource jobs from communities that depend on them, to temporary and ever shifting free trade zones around the world, wherever the most easily exploited workers happen to be. The result is race to the bottom in which workers are pitted against one another in their vain struggle to preserve jobs and the communities that depend on them. The pursuit of currency likewise leads to corporations dodging their responsibility for paying the costs of pollution and the other "externalities" their activities impose on communities. Instead of cleaning up the messes they make in their quest for profits corporations destroy the commons -- rivers, clean air, topsoil, etc., on which every community depends. And, finally, and most glaringly perhaps, the pursuit of cash leads to the wholesale destruction of communities by subjecting housing to whatever high risk bets all of the very smart people on Wall Street have dreamed up this week. So banks and mortgage brokers, we have learned recently, made more and more sketchy loans for overpriced houses to people who couldn't afford them, often in fraudulent ways, and then repackaged and sold those loans as if they were risk free investments, all while placing large bets on the failure of those same loans. Lots of cash in the form of bonuses and fees was collected but countless communities were destroyed in the process.

Given all of this it might seem strange that we have chosen "Currency in Community" as the subtitle for our next year's efforts. However, before I say more about this clash between currency and community as currency now operates, I should mention that there are two other meanings of the phrase which are relevant and less fraught with conflict. First, "Currency in Community" is intended to capture the turn to community that is taking place as currency in the usual sense lurches from crisis to crisis leaving us all with less of it to spend. Whether we realize it or not, as times get tough, we all turn to community to provide the network of social supports it has, until quite recently, always provided. So "Currency in Community" points to our focus on community building in a way that puts financial transactions on the back burner and highlights the development of personal relationships based on trust and mutual aid rather than just the calculation of individual advantage. Secondly, since currency in the usual sense of cold hard cash still has an important role to play in our economic interactions with each other, "Currency in Community" is intended to highlight a number of efforts we'll be making at D Acres to reconnect currency with our local community. These efforts will include attempts to connect farmers to more local customers to keep currency within the community as well as a much more ambitious attempt to introduce a community-based alternative currency. I've bitten off a lot here, so it's time to start chewing.

The examples I used above to describe how the pursuit of currency undermines communities bring up an obvious question -- what is it that leads to this result? The usual answer to this question puts the blame on greed -- the greed of the fabled 1% who, for whatever anti-social reasons motivate them, simply cannot ever get enough money. It is not money itself, but the skewed values of those who control so much of it that is source of our current problems with currency. This may be part of the explanation, but I think it misses the fact that there is something about money, or more specifically, the way it is created in our society, that should bear much more of the blame. This may sound strange, talking about the creation of money, since it is commonly assumed that a certain amount of money is just out there in the world to be made or lost by individuals and businesses depending on their abilities, the ways the rule of the game work in their favor or against them and on a certain amount of luck. This assumption, however, turns out to be false, since money is continually being created and destroyed in a process, which as Galbraith points out, is so simple that the mind is repelled. We usually think of money as originating as a way of facilitating trade, as something issued by governments to overcome the awkwardness and inefficiencies involved in more primitive forms of trade like barter. Nothing could be further than the truth. Money is in fact almost never issued by governments. It is instead created every day out of thin air by banks. Banks create money every time they issue a loan, and that money vanishes once again as soon as the loan is repaid. That is not the way we look at money normally, but it is nevertheless true. Banks take in deposits from some customers and loan much more than they have on deposit to other customers who promise to pay these loans back with interest. Everybody knows this -- it is known as the fractional reserve banking system in which banks are allowed to loan out more money than they actually have in their vaults, keeping only a small percentage of their depositors money on reserve in case some of those depositors want it back. Now the vast majority of the money out there in the world today, whether it is the cash in everyone's pockets, the balances in their savings and checking accounts, or the money they collect at work every week, originated as a loan that is on its way to being paid back.

Money in our current economic system is thus issued as credit, it then circulates for a while and finally gets paid back and vanishes once again into the thin air it was created from. There are two important points here that I want to emphasize about this process. First, if all of the loans out there that have been issued were to get paid back at once without any new loans being issued, or what amounts to the same thing, if all of the borrowers out there were to default on their loans at once, the vast majority of money in circulation would vanish and there would be little cash around to facilitate economic activity. This is what happened in the Great Depression and it is threatening to happen again, triggered this time around by the European debt crisis which itself is the latest result of the bursting of the housing bubble. So economic activity in general depends on the circulation of enough money in the system and this depends on sufficient numbers of people, businesses and governments taking out loans and paying them back. The second point that needs to be highlighted here has to do with the interest banks charge for the money they lend into existence. The charging of interest on the loans that create money in the first place means that there can never be enough economic activity taking place -- instead tomorrow needs to have more economic activity producing more things of value than today. The money in circulation in the world economy as a whole thus comes with a bet attached to it -- a bet that there will be more things of value to support more economic activity tomorrow. If things don't turn out this way, loans don't get paid back, credit contracts, money vanishes. When money only exists as a result of having been loaned into existence at interest, the economy as a whole can only ever either grow or collapse, it cannot stay the same size.

This is why governments around the world are so fixated on the idea of economic growth. It is not because growth is always a good thing and pursuing growth is what people all really want. It is because if we don't have growth we have recessions and depressions in which everyone suffers. It is conventional wisdom at this point in time that economic growth is nothing but a good thing, so the fact that our monetary system requires it may not seem like any problem at all. As advocates of global "free-trade" policies like to put it, the rising tide lifts all boats -- more economic activity means more things of more value are out there for more people to get more of. Now not only does this assume that human beings are always better off with more money, more possessions and more shopping, more fundamentally it assumes that the economy can in fact grow forever. Again, conventional wisdom, can't see why not. In theory we can grow the economy forever by finding substitutes for whatever we run out of -- the market price of oil going up will spur the search for alternatives or allow us to extract the more expensive tar sands or shale oil that were unprofitable ten years ago; or it can grow as a result of our inventing new services to be paid for with cash -- professional child care, landscaping, elective cosmetic surgery are only three of the myriad new services that have appeared in my lifetime; or it can grow as new markets are created in or forced upon communities that previously didn't have very developed economies or use very much money -- a pattern which is well documented in all of its brutality in Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine. In practice, however, there may very well be real limits to how large an economy can grow. There is a finite amount of solar energy reaching the planet, a finite amount of fossil fuels, of moving air and flowing water for generating electricity, but without ever increasing energy supplies economic activity cannot continue to expand. This makes sense since doing more things would seem to require using more energy. Likewise, there is a limited amount of arable crop land, a finite number of fish in the oceans, a limited amount of space to put our wastes, a limited area on which to build new houses and a limited amount of material with which to build them. There also may be limits to how much we may want the economy to grow, limits in other words to how many human relationships we want to be brought into the economic sphere -- would you be willing to pay for sexual services from your spouse or charge your own children for the parenting services they utilized in being raised by you?

The point of all of this so far is simple if a little surprising. Economic expansion is a requirement of the current monetary system even though the collective pursuit of ever more money often has negative effects on communities. It is not that there are a few people out there whose individual greed drives the world's economic engines to the frantic pursuit of more. Instead the logic of our economic system has built into it a perpetual demand for more money being brought into the system and so encourages and rewards those who pursue more regardless of the human costs of doing so.

To come back to the practical reality of the present, we seem to be now witnessing the slowing and reversal of the largest credit, monetary and economic expansion in all of human history. This means that, like it or not, we will continue to have less money available to us going forward. As we all find ourselves with less to spend in the formal economy we will all have to return to community. And I think there is plenty of evidence that this is happening right now. Witness the growth of community gardens, couch surfing, clothing swaps, co-housing arrangements, ride sharing, food banks, potlucks, knitting circles, home-schooling networks, not to mention college graduates moving back in with their parents rather than to another part of the country for a job. Not all of this is for the better, of course, but it certainly represents a shift from a world in which each new generation was expected to earn more, buy a bigger house and a fancier car than the previous generation could because each generation was richer in cash than the previous. But many people are also discovering that downsizing (be it voluntary or involuntary), simplifying, slowing down, getting more involved in community affairs are more valuable than always speeding up in the manic pursuit of more and more cash. And this value is something impossible to measure in terms of mere cash. Resilient communities require less currency in circulation than the fragmented non-community of the marketplace and they make our lives far richer.

Of course, cash is not entirely a bad thing, and I am not advocating or celebrating the evaporation of currency since in a world dependent on the money economy the sudden disappearance of currency leads to a great deal of hardship and suffering. This brings me to the final point I'd like to discuss, the possibility that there might be different ways of issuing and using currency that might not force us into the losing game of trying to expand economic activity forever on a finite planet. It just so happens that many people have been experimenting with what can be called community based currencies. Such alternative or complementary currencies are intended to serve some of the essential functions of debt-based currencies while avoiding their dilemma of either growth or collapse.

Since I don't want to tax the reader's attention too much more, and since I'd like to get this out there as soon as I can, I'll save further expansion on this idea for another time. For now I'll just mention that there are many different kinds of alternative currencies, things like time banks, community exchanges, and local currencies issued by towns or cities. What they all have in common are the fact that they are tied more or less closely to a particular place or region and that the amount of money in circulation is not dependent on the whole system forever expanding. Instead it is tied directly to the value of what is being exchanged.

I'll talk more about a particular type of local currency called a "Community Exchange" in a future blog posting. For now imagine a system that works like so: I have something I'd like to sell, but don't have a buyer yet, so I post my item and how much I want for it on a list where the people in my community can see it. If someone is interested they purchase it from me, if not, maybe I lower my price until I attract a buyer, or maybe I am willing to bargain with a potential customer. Where does the money come from to purchase what I am selling? It comes from within the system itself -- if the sale goes through my account is credited, the buyer's account is debited. The credit on my account allows me to purchase something from someone else. The debit on the buyer's account will have to be cleared at some point by that person selling something to someone else. In a sense by making a purchase the buyer is taking out a loan, making a promise to bring something to market later to clear his or her debit. One difference between this system and our currency monetary system is that the "money" it relies on is not issued by banks as loans for interest. Instead it is issued within the system and so the amount of money in circulation is exactly equal to the amount of value of all of the things being exchanged. We "earn" and "spend" this money directly with each other without relying on banks to issue loans first to get the whole game going. The debits that buyers accrue do have to be paid back at some point, but since there is no interest, the system as a whole does not need to expand forever. What, you might be wondering, prevents someone from taking advantage of this system and purchasing things without offering anything for sale? There are numerous ways of accomplishing this, including establishing credit limits and making each individual participant's current balance public knowledge. But ultimately, a system of trading that uses money, our current system as well as any alternative system, relies on trust. Part of the appeal of a locally based community currency is that it is explicitly tied to an existing community, a particular place where people can get to know each other if they do not already know each other and where trust can develop and flourish. Community based currencies, like the one I have been describing are based not on a bet that the future will always be richer in monetary terms but on the hope that the future will consist of richer community ties and that currency will enhance and not undermine community.

That's all for now, Happy New Year!

~George Matthews

What's in your wheelbarrow?

2011-12-22T04:25:00.001-08:00

It’s December. It is certainly the time of year for snow. But first, there are just a few more things to wrap up. It’s a proverbial slippery slope, certainly, for the list of last-minute tasks could be nearly endless. But yesterday’s work was non-negotiable.

I spent the early morning hours making space in our Clivus composting toilet. In other words, I was wheeling partially composted humanure out of the basement tank and into our humanure pile atop the upper field. You see, the toilets in our community building are not quite the standard plumbing. Rather than employing the customary waste of water for a net loss of available nutrients, we have installed a composting toilet system. A large tank is housed in our basement where human waste collects in a “direct deposit” system. Wood shavings are added with each use, and no water is squandered with a flush. Rather, a pump diverts liquids into a separate tank (which we drain and disseminate amongst our numerous compost piles). The solids/woodchips mix, meanwhile, sits in the tank where it is turned on a weekly basis to assist the active composting process.

All told, we have a sophisticated outhouse inside our home. And it works.

As the material within the tank composts, we extract it via shovel and wheelbarrow. A more substantial humanure pile is located in our upper field, the site of the final composting stages. Before winter – well, before the snow arrives – a partial emptying of the tank must be undertaken to ensure sufficient space within the reservoir for the coming months. Once snow has accumulated, moving humanure to another location becomes much more challenging. With the approach of winter seeming more imminent, the task at hand was gaining urgency.

Within the Clivus tank, material becomes well-compacted. Removing partially composted humanure requires a fair amount of shoveling, knocking, & raking material free of itself. Doing this, however, was merely a warm-up for the long walk that followed. Each wheelbarrow load had to be pushed through a few inches of new snow, on top of wet, slushy ground, past the North Orchard, down the road, behind the Red House, along the Medicine Trail, up the hill to the Upper, across the wettest field we have, until, at the wood line, I arrived at our humanure pile. Here each wheelbarrow load was shoveled out. The return trip was significantly easier, downhill with no cargo.

It is in this wood line pile that the humanure will finish composting. We are in no rush, and let it sit for months at a time between turnings. When soil is finally rendered, we will merely spread it about these upper fields. Used for periodic oxen grazing, our pastures are of poor quality. With time, this intermittent application will boost fertility.

After eleven loads, I cleaned my tools and returned the wheelbarrow to its parking space in the barn eaves. Vital nutrients were successfully sequestered for future application, and we’ll have space to accommodate everyone’s indoor bathroom needs for the coming months. The cycle will continue.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

winter's coming...

2011-12-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

A Day Under Plastic

2011-12-08T15:18:00.000-08:00

After a quiet night and deep sleep, I woke to snow on the corners of the Silo’s northern windows. Stomping out a path as I completed my morning chores, the thrill of early season snowflakes complemented the otherwise simple tasks at hand. Looking ahead to the days’ work, the to-do list was considerably altered thanks to the blanket of fresh snow. Dirt was suddenly inaccessible.

Except in one place: D Acres’ upper hoop house.

I’d been saving the weeding and mulching of these beds for just such an occasion. The plastic covering proffered dry, unfrozen soil, and housed plenty of weeds to pull. I loaded a collection of garden tools into the lightest wheelbarrow we have and began the uphill slog. The snow was heavy. Wet. Dense. I pulled the wheelbarrow behind me, sweating as I crested the hill to the upper fields.

Using my foot as a shovel, I freed the door and slithered inside. While it was certainly a grey day under the falling snowflakes, the interior of the hoop house was thoroughly immersed in shadow. The early snow must have slid from the plastic during the night, piling up along the building’s sides while the more recent snow continued to accumulate on the plastic covering. The faint suggestion of sunlight in the morning sky did little to penetrate the hoop house’s interior.

Furthermore, the once jungle-like verdure had been replaced with the skeletons of eggplants and tomato vines. A few clover flowers and a handful of late-season greens were the only vibrancy amongst beds of dead annuals and dying weeds. Still, it was dry and unfrozen. Garden fork in hand, I set about the task.

Which entailed a variety of jobs. First, tomato and eggplant plants – belonging to the nightshade family - were pulled from the ground, bundled up, and carried to a pit in the woods. Nightshades are toxic in quantity, thus we avoid feeding them to the animals. These plants are also prone to harboring diseases. Fear of the consequences keeps us from adding the foliage to compost piles. If the compost failed to reach adequately high temperatures, we could be facing a problematic situation.

Once the foliage was disposed up, the stakes and twine supporting the tomatoes was removed from the beds, and the task of weeding began.

In my mind, though, this was simply the backdrop, the setting of the stage for the real work to come. What happens next year? And the year after that? And on and on. It is a process that demands imagination for the future and creativity in the pursuit of abundance. The duty at hand is to design for the coming seasons, to plan for improved soil health, and to fill the hoop house once again with color, flavor, diversity, and fertility. With acuity and diligence, each season will be more productive and vigorous than it has been prior.

Thus today’s weeding is the foundation for plans that will be concocted during the depths of winter. And winter’s designs will lead to many meals to come.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Living with the Dirt

2011-12-01T13:39:00.000-08:00

The farm. That’s how I’ve been referring to it anyway. To the majority of my acquaintances, there is no way to live outside the walls of a city apartment or suburban home. Dirt is considered dirty, food comes from lit aisles lined with tile, and a tent is not a home, but something you put up once a summer for two days while sitting around a campfire. Well, I’ve been living in a tent for five months and as my stay at D Acres nears its end there is a lot to reflect upon.

Life in a tent has been rewarding—night after night spent in the woods, with only a thin layer of polyethylene separating me from the outside, hearing what nature has to offer. Temperatures permeate the small enclosure leaving only my sleeping bag to protect me from the cold. There are no walls of two-by-fours and sheetrock filled with insulation to keep me warm. No central air. No plumbing. I do not mind it, however. It’s life before electricity. Without so many commodities I learn to live outside of the everyday box. I feel a strong connection to the place I sleep.

The projects undertaken have been educational. Taking knowledge discovered in the classroom and applying it to a real world problem is invigorating. Going beyond formulas and derivations stimulates parts of my brain that don’t usually get such attention during the school year. Learning applicable skills, such as welding and metal fabrication, has given me opportunities outside of a computer and a desk.
Living and working in the same environment is also a different experience.

It is commonplace for an individual to have their “home” and their “workplace.” A separation exists. Conflicts at home could be forgotten at work and vice versa. It takes a sense of community to be able to make progress through such difficulties. I am very lucky to have experienced such a community. As compared to working for a large company, making a product that will pass to the hands of someone merely labeled “consumer”, I shake the hands of the people I design for. I know the people that my work impacts.

D Acres has been a wonderful experience. It has exceeded my expectations as an internship through its people, projects, and lifestyle. And although my life after the farm may not be a rural one, the lessons and know-how from living with the dirt will not be forgotten.

-Joey Kile

On Becoming a Teamster

2011-11-27T07:56:00.000-08:00

"And so we plough along, as the fly said to the ox."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is strange the turns life sometimes takes. One year ago, I never would have imagined that I would become an apprentice teamster in the original sense of the word -- an ox team driver. And yet here I am learning how to work with a fine team of Jerseys who go by the names of August and Henri.

When I first got to D Acres a little more than six months ago I was completely intimidated by the oxen. As a city boy I have always been more comfortable riding the New York subway at 3 AM than being close to large animals. Horses made me nervous, let alone oxen. And these two large Jersey oxen who stood there silently watching me with their enormous brown eyes and long curved horns as I walked from my cabin in the woods past their house to the community building every day, well they just freaked me out. When I was first offered the chance to participate in the mysterious chore of "mucking out," I wasn't sure I could handle it. Katie, Matt and Dustin were the only interns properly trained to do the chore of daily morning and evening ox care and Dustin was going to be leaving, so a backup person was needed. I reluctantly agreed. I had already done some work with the oxen in the field over the summer, running chains during logging operations, and that had gone surprisingly well. They didn't stomp on my feet, gore me with their horns or even squash me in between the two of them as I retrieved the chain hanging from the big steel ring in the middle of their yoke and connected it up to another chain that I had looped around a log to be dragged out of the woods. Slowly I got comfortable enough with them to brush the flies off of their flanks that they couldn't reach with their long tails. I got the sense that they respected my efforts as I worked alongside of them dragging the heavy chains into the new pig pasture we were logging, as I struggled to heave the logs onto the wood pile we were building and as I freed logs that got stuck on stumps or roots. The strange set of commands that Beth issued as she drove them were mystifying and enchanting. Little did I know that I'd start to learn what "ha Henri!" and "gee August!" really meant and how to use them to communicate with these powerful but still gentle beasts. I am getting ahead of the story though.

The ox chore, the mysterious "mucking out" is really not that difficult as it turns out. The oxen spend nights in a small barn called the Ox Hovel and every morning someone leads them out to their pasture, shovels out their poop and soiled bedding and tosses it up onto the compost heap outside, piles the dry bedding that remains on the side to allow the floor to dry and walks around their pasture collecting the previous day's turds with a pitchfork. Then in the evening their bedding is spread back out on the floor, new woodchips are added to the rear of their stall to supplement the hay that makes up the bulk of their bedding, a new bale of hay is opened and arranged in the front of the stall with a cup of grain added for a snack along with whatever apples onions and squash we have collected from the supermarket's out of date food on the town run, their water bucket is emptied, cleaned and replenished with fresh water, they are let back in and they are clipped in to leads running from the front of the stall to their collars. It all sounds fairly straightforward, except for the fact that you need to be right next to them to lead them out in the morning and then clip them in at night, in a very confined space, not to mention the fact that they weigh more than half a ton, have large sharp horns and don't always want to do what you want them to do. A little deep breathing and a sense of humor is required. In spite of my initial hesitation though, I soon got more comfortable being up close to them, until, that is, August took to swiping at me with his large curled horns rather than let me lead him out of the barn one morning. It turns out that he wasn't really trying to hurt me, it's just that he didn't want to be rushed since he prefers to scratch his neck on the door frame on the way out. Now, I realize that if I grab a long skinny stick and tap him on the flank, he moves out of the barn a bit quicker. I tend not to rush him though, but instead scratch his neck on the other side.

Before I get to the next phase of my training, I should say a few words about what exactly an ox is, especially since I had no real idea until recently and some of my readers may be similarly clueless. Well an ox is just a (usually) castrated bull trained to work, most often in a team of two. And any breed of cow can be used for work from the Texas Longhorn to the huge Italian Chianina to familiar Holsteins and Jerseys to the feisty Devons and diminutive Dexters. They are amazingly smart and agile, something I had not known about cattle -- not surprising given the reputation of cows as dumb, herd-oriented animals incapable of thinking for themselves. Oxen were traditionally used in New England as draft animals since they can handle the harsh winters here far better than horses and are less picky eaters. They move fairly slowly, but are more powerful than horses so they are well suited for plowing heavy soils, and for pulling logs out of the woods. We use them here for the latter chore since we are trying to avoid the use of fossil fuel powered machinery as much as possible even though we need wood for fuel and building and we need land cleared for farming. They also do a great job converting hay into the compost we use to rebuild our impaired soils.

A few weeks ago when Beth asked me if I wanted to learn how to walk the oxen, once again, with some trepidation, I said, "Sure," although the idea of it made me quite nervous. Walking the oxen requires fitting each with a simple halter and leading them out of their barn into the wide world one at a time where they are tied to a fifty five gallon drum filled with concrete and then fitted with a heavy wooden yoke after which they are walked around the farm in tandem in search of fresh grass. There are far more things that can go wrong. The first part of my training was a test walk with Beth, who showed Matt and I what to do and gave us each a go at driving. Except for the fact that August, who is the lefthand ox of the team, the one the teamster walks next to and whose halter he or she holds on to, insisted on running me into boulders, bushes and apple trees as I attempted to tell the two of them where I wanted them to go, everything went pretty well. They sort of listened, but also made it clear that negotiations would be needed if we were going to be working together. I survived that and another training walk and then was assured that I was ready for a solo walk and it was duly scheduled in.

Due to an early season snowfall, my first solo walk with them was delayed by a week or so, but eventually I got to take them out. Even though Henri almost ran away as I led him out of the barn it went surprisingly well. I have continued to walk them on a regular basis and am feeling less and less nervous about walking them as I start to get a sense of the range of their various moods and learn their quirks and how to avoid having them run me through brambles, fences or rocks. It's been slow but steady progress for me as I work on building trust with them and learn how to guide them around to the best bits of grass left over from a productive growing season. It takes about an hour or so of walking them around until they are full of grass, clover and the few remaining apple drops and ready to head back home. During this time I have to remain alert and ready to get out of their way to avoid getting stepped on, or in their way to prevent them from ransacking the remaining vegetation in our gardens. But I also get plenty of time to watch them eat -- they are quite efficient at mowing the grass with their long tongues flicking out of their mouths and drawing bunches of grass in to their waiting teeth -- and ruminate myself on how they perceive the world, what they think of me, and the relations between me as a human and the animals us humans domesticated millenia ago. That topic is a huge one -- wildness and domestication in humans and other animals -- which I am still mulling over so it will have to wait for another time. But it is much on my mind every time August or Henri or both of them together lift their powerful heads up and lurch into action dragging me along as they seek out a tasty apple or sniff the wind for the smell of sweet grass. For now I assuage whatever guilt feelings I have about my occupying a position of dominance, whacking them across the nose with a stick to get them to back up (this doesn't really hurt them I am told since they are far tougher beasts than we), and leading them around by reminding myself what a good life they have here. Most of their days are spent hanging out and eating or snoozing under a tree, and they are well fed and cared for and seem not to mind the work we have them do. Like good card-carrying union members they are also familiar with the tactic of the sit-down strike, as in, when they are done working, they just stop and no amount of goading will make them do more. We relent and let them rest or lead them back home to their pasture.

Soon the snows will set in and their diet will shift entirely to hay and so they won't be walked as often. I'll continue to work with them as our logging operations move into a new area being cleared for more garden space, but I'll be back to running chains, rather than driving them in the more complex pulling operations required. I am looking forward to being out in the snow covered woods squeezing in between them to hook up loads and scratching their noses occasionally, appreciative of the hard work they do for us and their putting up with our demands.

~George Matthews

2011-11-25T13:18:00.000-08:00

always on the lookout for more mulch...

Colossal Chestnuts and another Pecan

2011-11-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

There’s been some aggressive weeding of late. I found the tell-tale sign the other evening: come the end of the day, I went about my dutiful effort of hair brushing only to have the exercise yield a brush full of twigs and accompanying detritus.

Mind you, projects for the week have focused on “perennial triage.” That is to say, freeing trees and shrubs from encroaching weeds, invading vines, and the ever-dominant wild raspberry. Thorns, thickets, prickers, and spines require a careful approach, while bedstraw, vetch, grasses, wild strawberry, and rogue ferns necessitate an all-or-nothing tenacity. Somehow the dirt dirties more than just my hands.

The goal is multifarious. These perennial plantings are easily pushed down the priority list throughout the growing season, so taking the time to clear around them now, as the season winds to a close, is essential if they are to be given a stronger start come springtime. After weeding around each tree, a mulch or sheet mulch is applied for fertility and weed suppression.

Our sheet mulching method here at D Acres incorporates two primary materials. First is cardboard collected from area establishments, a means of up-cycling biodegradable material otherwise destined for a landfill. Second is a woody byproduct. Often woodchips are used, a resource we have readily available from our logging efforts. At the moment, I am making use of sawdust donated by a neighbor. Piled in a less than ideal spot, my goal has been to work through the material as quickly as possible. Another week of sheet mulching should easily accomplish the task. Of these two materials, cardboard is utilized for weed suppression, while the placement of organic matter serves to hold the cardboard in place while simultaneously providing a rich nutrient package that will slowly be released and returned to the soil.

We have found this to be a highly effective process. Effectiveness, of course, is predicated on knowing the location of the pertinent plantings to be cared for. It seems that each year I discover another tree that has previously eluded my observation. This year it was finding a pecan in our ox hovel hedgerow, a lilac bush in our upper field, a fourth roadside beach plum buried beneath goldenrod and sensitive ferns, a fourth sea buckthorn acting as a trellis for somehow-still-lush bedstraw, and a chestnut with the simple tag of “Colossal.”

“Colossal” could also describe the remarkable diversity and strength of our edible landscape. While the work of weeding and mulching will provide these perennial plantings with a power start next season, this work is also in preparation for a more distant future. These trees are tended to now with the hope of production for future decades and future generations. Perennials represent remarkable caloric potential, but time, patience, and persistence are required if that hope is to become a reality. This week has been about weeding for the future, for all of our futures.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Occupy Wall Street in Theory and Practice

2011-11-16T03:22:00.000-08:00

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

~Yogi Berra

It's been a while since a crew from D Acres went to participate in and check out what was happening in Liberty Square, home base of Occupy Wall Street. It was a pretty inspiring experience and I've been meaning to write about it, but wrapping up the growing season, preparations for winter, and the first snows of the season have gotten in the way. But now that things have taken a dramatic turn, with the protesters having been evicted from Zuccotti Park, it's time to act. After much reflection on what's been going on down there, here's my take on it.

In theory of course, Occupy Wall Street has set itself an impossible task -- bring about a revolution of some unspecified type with unspecified goals by camping out in the symbolic epicenter of global capitalist finance and refusing to leave until everything has changed. This is absurd from a number of angles: the combined brute force of the NYPD with all the backups they need from the National Guard, not to mention the Department of Homeland Security, can easily be used to disperse and/or arrest all of the protesters -- a band of a few hundred disaffected youth with a couple of grannies for peace and old school anarchists along for the ride; besides, Wall Street is itself mostly of symbolic value, since most financial business is carried out online and many traders telecommute, so camping out there will only inconvenience the locals in an increasingly residential area of lower Manhattan; and besides, most of us are implicated in Wall Street's shenanigans through pension funds, the financing schemes of local and municipal governments, the mortgage racket, and more; and besides all of this, there is no visible leadership or set of coherent official demands being made by the occupiers. In theory, this is completely the wrong way to go about affecting any change in the real world and responding to the ongoing worldwide financial crisis. Honestly, when I went down to Wall Street during the third week of the protest, I wasn't expecting much.

Maybe I've spent too much time thinking about theory to realize that these reasons why this protest has to fail might be irrelevant. In theory, theory and practice are equivalent -- theory maps out what real options are available in situations like this and in an age of global commerce and finance a few protesters on the street are irrelevant to the workings of the system. It will grind on according to its own inner logic with all of the weight of the hefty institutions behind it, like the governments of the world's most powerful nations, not to mention large corporations and the organizations that represent their interests such as trade groups, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and so on. Theoretically, this protest was the same as every other protest that has taken place since the end of the Cold War -- some loud voices expressing opinions about the evils of capitalism, with some also mentioning environmental issues and political corruption, ending with a return to business as usual for those protesting and those inconvenienced by the protests immediately afterwards.

In practice, however, things have turned out a little differently. In practice there are the famous "people's mic" communication system, a kitchen serving free, donated food during most hours of the day and night to whoever stands in line, the people's library in one corner of the park, many teach-ins, seminars, and open discussions about theory and practice, a sanitation crew, a recycling center, a grey water system to handle dish water, a crew of trained medics looking after the health of the occupiers and visitors, a group of programmers and computer savvy people working to upload terabytes of video footage to the web, a security contingent helping to defuse potential conflicts within the group and between the occupiers, the police and the public, a direct action group organizing regular marches around the city. In short, in practice, a leaderless group of strangers got together and built a working small model of an alternative way of organizing society all without leaders and without a preconceived plan. This was what impressed me the most, and it clearly impressed many of the passersby and reporters with whom I talked. And, I think, this is what resonated with those dissatisfied with business as usual everywhere in the world who started occupying everywhere. In practice the contours of a different way of living are becoming visible even as representatives of business as usual in the banks and their governmental supporting institutions futilely attempt to revive the way of life that the protesters reject.

Now what does the practical side of Occupy Wall Street have to teach in terms of theory? Most of all it teaches us that the model of human interaction championed by Wall Street itself -- that we are all basically self-interested individuals who only interact with one another if it furthers our personal goals -- is far too limited. In fact, as anthropologists have been pointing out for years (most compellingly in recent years by David Graeber, whose phenomenal book "Debt: the first 5000 years" I've been reading lately), the mode of interaction that takes place in the market, where we temporarily get together for the sake of each pursuing his or her own self-interest is only one of many modes of interaction that humans engage in all the time. Of course this should be obvious, but it is too often overlooked in a world in which progress and the pursuit of happiness have become synonymous with interactions mediated by money. Instead of taking care of our neighbors kids, we pay for child care; instead of teaching each other we take on massive amounts of debt to pay for education; instead of producing and sharing our own food we pay for meals; instead of talking to each other about our difficulties we pay psychologists to lend us an ear. This is partly responsible for what economic growth there has been in the last 30 years or so -- growth that was paid for with the largest lending and borrowing spree in the history of money and has ended up with most of us tied to jobs we hate but that we keep just to maintain a supply of money. But, as the occupiers clearly demonstrated, a group of people could come together for a common, if still somewhat vague, purpose and help each other out without expecting anything in return nor requiring much money to thrive in one of the world's more expensive cities. Solidarity, a sense that we are all in it together, can be just as much a product of tough times as fighting to keep what you consider yours. While the people of Wall Street continue to award themselves huge bonuses at the expense of whoever has less financial power, the people at Occupy Wall Street support each other and build community.

This compelling protest movement also teaches us that we should be open to and welcoming of new and previously unimaginable alternatives as we confront an uncertain and potentially troubling future. Let's not be blinded by our theories of social organization. Watch carefully how things are really working there and start doing it on your own. Organize, do it yourself, practice consensus decision making, live without cash as much as possible, trade with your neighbors, help each other out.

Long live Occupy Wall Street!

~George Matthews

Lunging for Leaves

2011-11-10T16:21:00.000-08:00

The leaves have dropped from our largest heartnut tree. Behind the cob greenhouse, overlooking the top duck pond, the heartnut stands prominent in any easterly view from D Acres’ kitchen. Just the other morning, once the sun crested the trees and the shadows diminished, it was like a seeing an old friend in new clothing: it warranted a second take.

See, the leaves fall seemingly at once, like a bed losing its blanket or a dog shaking snow from its back. With the heartnut, there is no slow denouement of a season, no gradual turn from summer’s vitality to autumn’s beauty to November’s starkness. Rather, it is a clear and concise statement, an act of assurance: now is the moment, today is the change.

And so it was this year. Overnight, in fact, it happened. Just a few days prior, the butternuts performed the same act of decisiveness.

Now the heartnut and butternut leaves join the kaleidoscope of bold and colorful maple, birch, beech, ash and the occasional oak leaves covering the ground. A natural mulch, rich and multihued, the leaves will serve to protect the soil. Slowly decomposing back to soil and enriching the woods floor or garden edges where they fall, they are exemplars that lead us in our work to build soil fertility.

While leaves across the property are left intact, in situ, for this very reason, leaves along our roadside are a different matter. Fated to clog ditches & drainages, linger in culverts, and be tossed by ambitious snowplows, we sequester these leaves for higher purposes.

We start by hitching up the trailer and tossing in rakes and all available hands. Leaf raking is an all-day affair here, sometimes multiple days. Up and down the roadside we march, raking piles large enough to fulfill everyone’s inner child. But it’s not time for jumping just yet. One overflowing armful at a time, we pile the leaves into the trailer. Someone earns the enviable job of stomping down the growing heap, while those remaining squat, lunge, gather, and heave the piles into the trailer. A tremendous quantity can be packed within the slightly askew wooden sides.

From here the leaves are deposited into caged piles strategically close to our various garden zones. Leaves will be used as part of our fall mulch, mixed with straw to create a powerful nutrient package. Not only will this protect the garden beds through the coming seasons, this leaf mulch will also contribute to the ongoing process of increased soil fertility through the continual application of organic matter.

Most of the leaves gathered, however, are not destined for immediate use. Rather, the hustle of a couple of days will come to fruition after a year of patience. Let sit for twelve months, these leaves will be partially composted by next fall season, when they will once again be spread about, applied to garden beds across the farm.

Mirroring the process of humus creation within a woodland ecosystem, the input of leaves to our garden system is an essential means of building soil fertility. You, too, can do this: leaves do not belong in plastic bags, nor the back of trash truck, nor a backyard fire pit. Money may not fall from trees, but good soil can be found beneath them. Is that not more valuable?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Occupy Together

2011-10-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

“If someone asked me what I stand for…”

One of our interns turned to me in the midst of planting garlic.

“Well, I stand for me. For us. For our way of living.” He chuckled making his point, gesturing at the young apples, pears, and elderberries, the cover crop sprouting out of this summer’s potato beds, the pigs at the edge of the stone wall, the deep soil into which we were plunging cloves of garlic.

“How could someone argue against this?!”

We returned to our own thoughts, mired in the 95th out of the 150 total pounds of garlic we were planting. It was a simple, methodical task of sinking a short stick into the ground, submerging a garlic clove into the newly made nest, and blanketing it with more soil. As other crops near the end of their season, garlic is just beginning.

So while consumed in this act of starting something new as the lushness of summer dies back, we were also engaged in conversation of something new.

Wall Street.

Okay, Wall Street itself is old. The Occupation of Wall Street, however? NEW. Fresh. The beginning of a new momentum, a new season, a new solidarity. A new opportunity to say: wait, stop, no. Reality is clear – we are tied within an economic system that allows the top 1% to become richer & richer, with more power, protection, and privacy than other individuals. What about our 99%? Why should we tolerate greed and corruption? What about you? What about me? What about my sister? What about your brother? What about the children? In a system so broken with fraud and so fraught with inequalities, from where is hope to spring?

From the people. From saying enough is enough.

And it’s spreading. What started on September 17 in NYC has spread to Boston, San Francisco, DC, Philadelphia, Burlington, Baltimore, Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, and 1,528 other cities across the nation. Occupy Manchester (NH) and Occupy Concord (NH) began October 15. Occupy Plymouth is ongoing: stand with your neighbors on the Plymouth Common. There is a place for your voice. Get inspired: www.occupytogether.org

A D Acres resident, having spent some time at the Wall Street Occupation in early October, dons the following message on the back of her sweatshirt: Sow Seeds, Not Greed.

Surely each of us will have our own reason, our own perspective, our own purpose for wanting reform. Perhaps our reasoning is not yours. Probably, ours can align with yours.

Here at D Acres we stand for an alternate economy. An economy of community, of local goods, of handshakes and of shared meals. Our work continues to build networks of local farmers, community groups, and area residents, while simultaneously modeling and educating on viable subsistence farming practices. We employ a barter system when possible, and offer meals and education to the community for a nominal sliding-scale donation. Money is never required. We believe that the needs of our community must be – and can be – met within our community by our community members. The localization of our regional economy is the basis for economic justice and community empowerment. We’re doing it here at D Acres. Please join us.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

A Resting Place for Potatoes

2011-10-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

I have fingerlings under the sheets.

Hundreds of pounds, in fact, under many sheets and a few cardboard boxes. Fingerling potatoes, that is, which are currently drying and curing in a corner of the basement. Protected from the light, these fresh tubers lay underneath, well, old sheets and some fabric scraps. There are also some Kennebecs, Katahdins, and other baking potatoes under cardboard boxes, a small quantity of russets, and striking Purple Vikings and Purple Suns underneath the local updates of some expired newspapers.

This is our practiced, practical praxis for readying our freshly harvested ‘taters for winter storage. In the past couple of weeks we have forked, dug, shook, searched, prodded, nudged (aggressively), burrowed, mined, and quarried approximately 2500 pounds of potatoes from our newest field. All by hand, of course. It is a formidable quantity, an autumnal treasure hunt of many days and numerous work hours for a bounty that will feed us through the winter months.

In order to last late into the spring, these potatoes will be stored in our root cellar amongst cool temperatures and high humidity. First, though, they must be dried and their skins cured. Moist and damaged tubers are a set-up for rot, and a careless oversight can ruin a whole passel of work.

So we have potatoes lining the basement, potatoes cobbling the floor of the barn, potatoes filling the barn loft, and potatoes spread about the old tractor room. Wall to wall it’s a tight fit, but somehow just the right amount of space has been found.

Shielding these tubers from light is especially important – some time in the sun turns potatoes green in color and toxic to eat. A tragedy to avoid, most certainly. Even those stored in the dark corners of the barn are carefully covered …cardboard, newspaper, and sheets are all breathable materials that assist the drying process while thoroughly protecting the potatoes.

Shrouded in such simple sunblock, our potato harvest sits for two to three weeks. We’re not interested in rushing the process, and the wet weather isn’t suggesting otherwise. By next week, though, we’ll be in the thick of it. Sorting potatoes by type (broadly categorized as white baking potatoes, purples, reds, and fingerlings), we’ll also pull aside the small ones and any damaged ones that were overlooked in the initial triage. These get eaten first, as they are the least likely to keep well.

Everything else, the proverbial cream of the crop, is gently tumbled into our mouse-proof bins in the root cellar and labeled accordingly. There they will sit, 2500 pounds of delectable feasts and delicious dinners in the raw. We’ll eat hundreds of pounds of ‘taters through the winter months; we’ll sell them to friends, visitors, market-shoppers, and restaurants; we’ll share them at community food events and potlucks. If anything is left in spring, we’ll have seed potatoes ready to plant.

So there are grand plans for our many ‘taters. For the moment though, they are tucked in beneath retired bed sheets and curing on cardboard. The next phase of their journey from field to meal is about to begin.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Special Projects

2011-10-12T05:20:00.000-07:00

Drifting from the buzzing metropolitan area of Boston to the woods of New Hampshire does not happen in one step, not for me anyway. As a mechanical engineering student at Northeastern University, I have been attempting to find that specific niche in an otherwise unspecific major. Mechanical engineering covers anything from aeronautics to solar power to prosthetic limbs. Luckily for me, I was able to spend time in a lab, at a desk, and now at a farm through Northeastern’s co-op program. The drastically different environments that I have been exposed to allow me to better understand what it is and what it isn’t that I want to do with my degree.

During my stay at D Acres I have been focusing on “Special Projects.” These deviate slightly from the day-to-day activities usually seen on the farm. The first special project was an anaerobic digester. It differs from compost in that it works without oxygen. The breakdown of oxen and pig manure in a water environment releases methane gas that can then be used for cooking or heating purposes. The project specifications can be found at www.dacres.org. The research involved was fairly intensive. A number of different designs exist and it was difficult to find one that was suitable to the New Hampshire climate. The final design was a combination of a few, but on a much smaller scale. The small scale gas production will only be suitable for demonstration purposes. I felt the design was fairly successful and saw methane production within the first week. After that week, however, the temperatures cooled and gas production decreased. To fix this, compost was piled around the digester which has been successful in raising the temperatures so far.

The remainder of my stay has focused on bicycle power. This subject has been studied by many different people in many different places around the globe. Having an avid interest in bicycles I was very excited to tackle a bicycle-powered project. That was 4 weeks ago. Since then, I have built a power take-off for an apple crusher, a direct-driven washing machine, and finally a portable power station. Each bicycle set up is a different approach to the same thing—bicycle power. The documentation is available at www.dacres.org. The power take-off combined with the portable frame (sections of an old bed frame bolted to the rear wheel of the bicycle to raise it off the ground) of the power station leaves the bicycle fully intact and allows the user to ride to where it is needed and then hooked up to the machine it is going to run. Practically anything that is belt-driven can be run by one of the setups. The portable power station with flywheel is great for keeping machines running smoothly.

All of the projects have had points that were challenging, frustrating, and rewarding. The most challenging aspect is the availability of resources and machining equipment. At previous internships I worked in shops backed by multi-million dollar companies. Fabricating only required an order to be placed for all the parts needed with very few cost restrictions. Everything at D Acres has been built with parts available on site. Some parts have been found in the resource pile, others in the eaves of the barn, and most of the time parts are pulled from beneath piles of other parts. Although it is challenging to locate parts needed for projects, making use of old parts is a great practice. It keeps my brain constantly forming alterations to a previous design—making the design work for the parts available. The philosophy yields minimal cost and negligible waste. No gas is wasted in the shipping of parts and parts that had no function become productive pieces of the D Acres community.

The most rewarding part of my stay has been being able to see people actively use the equipment. Members of the community really enjoy being able to crush apples by pedaling bicycles, children and adults alike. It also eases the workload of people at farm. Crushing apples used to take at least twice as long when doing by hand and required exerting much more physical effort. Now, a five-gallon bucket of apples takes less than three minutes to crush.

In coming weeks I will be pursuing powering items in the kitchen and solar-powered cookers. The food processor is used on a regular basis and being able to figure out how to power it without electricity would be a large achievement. Having more efficient cookers, such as a parabolic oven, would reduce cooking times in the sunnier months. Research and design is still necessary at this juncture, but I look forward to the challenges ahead.

-Joey Kile

There's a Baker amongst us

2011-09-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

If you step out back on a late Friday afternoon, it is the hearty smell of wood smoke and fresh bread that wafts past your willing nose. The magic potion that is flour, water, and wild yeast is again unfolding. A weekly task – treat - that is relished by those of us living here at D Acres.

Homemade bread, it seems, is a member of that indefinable category shared with handwritten letters and quilts patched one stitch at a time: symbols of simplicity, beauty, fine workmanship, and nourishment. Good bread is good; great bread can feed and satisfy something well beyond an appetite alone.

I’m going to be bold for a moment and suggest that here at D Acres we entered that latter category of great bread. You see, we have a Baker amongst us. Scott arrived in May, and with a humble and simple expression of interest in baking bread, quickly took on the weekly task of stocking our pantry shelves with enough gluten goodness to fuel us through each week of work. It became clear rather quickly that we had quite the delicious situation on our hands. Now each week he’s performing some new test…currently it’s baguettes. We’re being teased with musings on croissants.

We’re so convinced that this bread is what everyone, everyone needs that we’re beginning a Bread CSA this fall. And it’s not too late to sign-up!

Here’s how the bread share program works. All bread is made using organic flour, natural fermentation, and is baked in D Acres’ wood-fired cob oven. Members pay up front for ten loaves of bread and receive them, one loaf per week, beginning October 13 and ending December 15. The cost of each share is $65 (you’re welcome to purchase more than one share…). The pick-up dates & location are yet to be finalized, but will be in downtown Plymouth for your convenience. Let us know if you have a preference!

Just to convince you further, here are the loaf options you’ll have to choose from throughout the season: French Country Bread, Whole Wheat Bread, Rye Bread, Semolina Bread, Multi-Grain Bread, and Baguettes.

Seriously. Whether you need to step up your peanut-butter-and-jelly experience, are raising the bar on family dinner, or simply ready for really good bread to hit New Hampshire…well, this is it.

Get in touch with us today to reserve your spot! 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org. Just think, next month you could be reading this with a piece of D Acres toast in your hand…local food with your local news.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Join our Bread CSA!

2011-09-27T16:08:00.000-07:00

Most people are intimidated by the prospect of baking bread from scratch. I know I was. Like many, I learned much of what I know in the kitchen from my mother who, owing to a combination of lack of patience and one failed bread baking experiment when I was quite young, left bread production up to the local bakery or whomever it is that makes bread for grocery stores.

Earlier this year, however, finding myself without gainful employment for the first time in many years and with an unnerving amount of leisure time, I decided to cloister myself away in my tiny Brooklyn apartment and teach myself the art of artisanal bread baking.

After a few days in the library scribbling down copious notes and a few unsuccessful attempts at the very simple task of dissolving yeast in water, I was able to produce what appeared to be a loaf of bread.
Its outward appearance filled me with a sense of accomplishment and it was only when I cut it in half that I discovered that I still had a ways to go. While it was certainly more chewable and moist than a hockey puck, it was more or less the bread equivalent of the birthday present your daughter, son, niece or nephew gives you that is made out of construction paper, glue, glitter and pine cones – its nice and homemade and clearly a lot of work went into it but the quality of the thing leaves something to be desired.

Not to be deterred, I continued to turn these prairie sod-like loaves out, foisting them upon unfortunate friends with the confidence that, like driving without a map, if you just did it long enough, you would eventually get where you need to go. (Yes, I sometimes find it difficult to locate willing passengers.)

Then I had a bit of good fortune – last Christmas Eve I wandered into a bookstore with my sister and father and happened upon a giant coffee table sized book entitled Tartine Bread with what can only be described as the perfect loaf of bread on the front cover. It was dark brown and glistening – almost black with tiny air bubbles all throughout the crust and a white crumb underneath the looked…well, perfect. It was both a feat of bread baking and of photography. I purchased the book on the spot.

Happily, the book did, in fact, live up to its cover. The baking technique it suggests uses no industrial yeast at all opting instead for a wild fermentation process whereby water and flour are mixed together and left for three or four days to harness airborne yeast and become the “starter” for a loaf of bread.

When I first experimented with this method, I was a bit worried that assiduously monitoring a bowl of bacterial spores in my kitchen might have negative consequences for my social life but the possibility of achieving something close to the loaf on that front cover was too much to resist.

Now, I should say, for those of you with bread baking aspirations, that this bread baking technique requires not only three to four days of fermentation but the bread baking process itself takes about nine hours. The good news (or bad news depending on your personality type) is that the vast majority of this time is spent waiting, checking, gently poking, evaluating and trying to come up with something to do in the 30 minutes before you have to get back to the kitchen to re-check the loaf. But if you are interested in tackling a Russian novel or a graduate degree, this kind of bread baking might be a perfect part-time job for you.

As for me, I was, if recall, in the throws of unemployment and the throws of winter so I had…ahem, nothing but time. It made things a little easier.

But I will say this with all humility – following this book’s instructions resulted in, by far, the best bread I have ever tasted anywhere. I take no credit for this beyond being able to read and follow instructions. But it really was a miraculous thing.

The first time I took a loaf out of the oven, I just stared at it for about 5 minutes not quite believing that I had been responsible for creating this thing. It looked and smelled absolutely amazing. I immediately bundled up and jumped onto the subway to share this creation with my sister and her kids who lived a few blocks away.
After a few minutes, the subway car smelled like the best bakery I’d ever walked into and it is no easy task to make New York City subway cars smell anything other than dreadful.

Upon arrival at my sister’s house, we cut the loaf in half and dug in.
Suffice to say that everyone was very pleased and the non-bread elements of dinner were left untouched.

Following that first loaf, I spent every second or third day baking a different kind of bread – wheat bread, pumpkin seed and rosemary bread, olive bread with hazlenuts, walnut bread, raisin and cardamom bread etc. Each one was better than the last. The only problem was that I began to produce much more bread than my friends and family
could possibly consume. Had I stayed in New York, this could have
become a serious problem. Happily in April, I packed my things and moved to D Acres.

Upon arrival at this community, I quickly came to realize that most of the professional skills that I had acquired over the course of my working life were of very little use here – which absolutely delighted me. But this newly acquired bread-baking skill? Now there was a transferrable skill…sort of.

Baking 30 loaves of bread at once is a different universe entirely from baking two. My first experience at D Acres bread baking saw the employment of just about every single bowl and dish-cloth in the house – numbering in the hundreds, I think. And being unfamiliar with the general kitchen layout and having a tendency to forget a needed spoon or spatula or something resulted in having to rummage through the kitchen drawers with dough caked fingers which, in turn, left a residue that I believe had to be removed with a blow torch and sandpaper. Sigh.

But I am pleased to report that despite a few challenges here and there, reviews of the final product have been incredibly positive - so much so that we have started to sell the bread at the Plymouth farmers market and are starting a bread CSA in the fall. I would like to report that I’ve gotten cleaner and more contained in the kitchen…I would like to report that but just last week I received a inquiry as to just how did I get flour on the CEILING?! So I am still learning to bake in such a way that does not leave the kitchen looking as though it should be cleaned with a fire-hose.

But for those of you who are looking for (deep breath) organic, locally produced, artisanal, wood-fired, whole grain, naturally fermented bread, baked lovingly in a dedicated although somewhat er…free spirited way, let me know. Our bread CSA begins October 8th.
Here is the email: dacres.permaculturefarm@gmail.com

~Scott

Recent Fun on the Farm...

2011-09-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

A Tuesday with Marx

2011-09-15T18:27:00.000-07:00

Theater and farming. Each employs a different stage, certainly, and each offers a day’s work comprised of disparate details. And yet I would contend that here upon the hill they are not always so separate. Theater can present a poignant commentary, a provoking portrayal of life’s themes and society’s recurring triumphs & travails. Theater elicits questions, raises doubts, and proffers new perspectives; it reaffirms our humanity. It is a statement come alive.

Farming, too, is a statement. In another form, we here at D Acres are also offering social commentary. Our farming acts grounded in subsistence agriculture and local economics are our philosophies writ through the sweat, dirt, and the beauty of a home-grown meal.

Granted, farming is not as entertaining to watch unless, perhaps, you have a lifetime to dedicate to the intricacies of one’s land. Which I strongly encourage. But that is not the point I wish to make herein.

Theater, is the point.

In particular, a theatrical performance this coming Tuesday, September 20 of Marx in Soho. Sponsored by D Acres is conjunction with Plymouth State University’s Early Childhood Studies Program and PSU’s History Department, the performance will be at Boyd Hall 144 (PSU Campus) at 7pm – free and open to all!

Written by the renowned historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, Marx in Soho is a passionate, funny and moving defense of Karl Marx’s life and political ideas. The play is an excellent introduction to Marx’s person, his family, his analysis of society, and his passion for radical change. The show also uses current news and events to show how his ideas still resonate, and to demand active and engaged citizenry. Zinn’s dialogue doesn’t preach, rather it is full of mischievous humor as Marx confronts institutionalized education, America’s rich ruling class, corporate mergers, prisons, the media, and more during the course of the play.

The performance is a one-hour, one-man show performed by Bob Weick. D Acres has hosted Weick twice previously to fine reviews and enthusiastic attendance. He has spent the last six years traveling throughout the country performing the show for colleges, universities, community groups, and civic organizations, having taken the stage over 200 times. Check out the show's website for more information and reviews: www.ironagetheatre.org/marx.html

I hope you are able to join us for this special performance! The intersection of farming ideals, theatrics, and social philosophies: Tuesday, September 20, 7pm at Boyd Hall 144. A Q&A with the actor will follow the performance. Marx is back!

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Looking Ahead

2011-09-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

During the growing season, seeding salad greens is a weekly task. A mix of greens is a staple of our meal so long as the ground is free of snow: it is presumed that boxes of salad will crowd our fridge, that seed packets will accompany us about the work day, and that the simple act of seeding new blocks of Merlot, Tango, Lollo di Vino, Dark Lollo Rossa, & Revolution lettuces will be an automatic task consuming a portion of our time each week. For such a simple process, the rewards are tasty, healthful, and colorful.

Last week, however, saw a significant change in events.

Last week, you see, we began to seed into coldframes. Coldframes are a simple piece of garden technology. A wooden box with a pane of glass or sheet of plastic covering its top, angled into the sun, a coldframe works like a mini-greenhouse. It creates a microclimate that offers protection to fragile plants like, in this case, lettuce.

Now, sure, the nights are cooling off, but the summer heat is still hanging on to its banker’s hours. We’re not approaching frost weather quite yet. So for now, our coldframes are sitting wide open, the seeds not requiring additional heat beyond what the August sun continues to offer. But in planting these tiny lettuce seeds now, we’re looking ahead to when these greens will reach our plates. I can write with fair certainty that the leaves will have changed, “cool” will be replaced by “cold” in our daily descriptors, and frost will be upon us. Lettuce is no Herculean food – none of the above appeals to such plants in the least.

So with the use of coldframes, we can protect such plants and thereby extend our growing season. It’s a wonderful treat to have the flavors of summer linger into the autumnal months and, equally exciting, coldframes offer a simple, easy, do-it-yourself opportunity for you to do the same.

Salvage an old glass door at the dump, or make use of that old plastic sheeting in your garage. Building a coldframe doesn’t require fancy materials; nothing beyond the above, some wood, and screws to put it all together.

Keep it basic. And light. Because coldframes are useful for more than just fall lettuce, and once you build one (or two, or more), you’ll find you’ll want to move it around season to season, for a host of different garden purposes. For example, come this time of year, you’ll also want to think of fall broccoli plants…or perhaps you’ve got some top-notch swiss chard you’ll want to protect come the first frost. (Not to mention how essential coldframes are for getting an early start in the garden come springtime.)

Don’t wait, jump onto this project while it’s fresh in your mind. A little work now will earn you garden dividends for seasons to come. And your palate will reap the rewards in just a couple of months time.

~Beth
as published by North Country News

Living on one's own terms

2011-08-29T17:19:00.000-07:00

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

-Groucho Marx

a land ethics changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it.

-Aldo Leopold

I've always identified myself as a Marxist, a Groucho Marxist that is, since I've always resisted joining clubs, especially those that wanted me to join them. It must be somehow built in to my character because long before I'd even heard of Groucho Marx, let alone was capable of thinking about the idea of living on my own terms, I refused to join the Cub Scouts because they wanted me to pledge allegiance to God, Country and Community. That, I thought, had little to do with learning how to tie knots, whittle and build campfires, and everything to do with submitting to rules that were made up by adults without asking me for my input. I was a difficult child, I guess. Over the years I have figured out how to rationalize and defend my resistance to joining clubs that wanted me as a member -- it is because living on my own terms, living autonomously, is simply incompatible with submitting to the arbitrary authority of others, especially those who claim to know what is really right for me. If I am autonomous, this literally means that I am a law unto myself, guided by my best lights, of course and respectful of all other autonomous agents out there. It was thus a short step from identifying myself as a Groucho Marxist to becoming the grouchy anarchist I've been accused of being.

Lately, however, and this brings me to the real subject of this blog entry, I've begun to rethink my commitment to the ideas of Groucho Marx. Living here at D Acres has made me start to question my assumption that living on my own terms is best done alone, detached from other people and from the complex web of interconnections that Aldo Leopold calls the land-community. In fact, it's starting to seem that the opposite is true, that, ironically, it is only by embracing community that it is really possible to live autonomously.

Where to begin? How about with the potatoes that we are beginning to harvest. There have been other blog postings by my comrades here on the potato crop so I won't go into too much detail about what we have been doing. The basic idea is that we clear a patch of forest, with the help of the oxen, then turn it over to the pigs who then spend a year or so rooting up the remaining vegetation. After we move the pigs out we use lots of people power to first lay out beds along the contours of the land, working around the remaining stumps; then we loosen and aerate the compacted soil with a broadfork, plant potatoes on the surface and cover them with enormous amounts of compost and hay. Over the course of the growing season we hand pick potato bugs daily in half of the field. Twice this summer we hilled up the plants with still more enormous amounts of compost and mulch hay. This year we planted about 1500 row feet of potatoes and expect to harvest somewhere between two and three thousand pounds of mature potato tubers. We'll store as many of these potatoes as possible in the root cellar for eating over the long New England winter when the gardens are covered in snow. What we don't eat ourselves we will cook for visitors at our regular food events or for overnight hostel guests, or sell to local restaurants.

So what do potatoes have to do with community, and its strange connection with living on one's own terms? Well, somewhat surprisingly, they have quite a bit to do with these more abstract topics and in a few different ways. Most obviously, they are a delicious and nutritious part of the meals we share with each other and with people who live nearby or visit us from further away. To live on one's own terms, first you have to eat. And living on one's own terms in this age of mass produced, heavily processed food of distant and often unknown origin, as more people are beginning to see, requires bringing food production back home. That to my mind is the point of the growing local food movement -- more autonomous eating: less dependence on global supply chains; less reliance on ethically objectionable practices like the use of virtual slave labor in the fields of Florida and California and Chile and China; less use of toxins with unknown and dubious effects on our bodies and the planet; less undemocratically won, heavily subsidized profits to giant agribusiness corporations; less hidden brutality towards the animals we eat; more healthy and tasty fresh food on the plate. Every year there are more local farmer's markets, more people buy seeds and plant gardens, more people preserve and store their own food for the time of year when the gardens and fields around them lay dormant. That's a club I am more than willing to join.

The way we approach food fosters both community building and living on one's own terms in a more immediate way, since here at D Acres we share many meals as well as the responsibility of cooking for each other and our guests. We share our midday and evening meals during the week which gives all of a welcome bit of time to socialize during an otherwise busy work week. Every day during the week one person prepares lunch, mostly from leftovers, and two people collaborate on dinner. Since there are currently ten of us living here, this means that for most of the week we get to enjoy together delicious meals prepared by our landmates and our mealtime responsibilities just involve helping out with the dishes. It sure beats having to do it all yourself, or fall back on industrially mass produced convenience food bought at a store with cash. So here community means independence and living on one's own terms.

Back to the potatoes -- growing them as we do, without reliance on fossil fuels for tilling the soil, or applying fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides (all made from natural gas, coal or petroleum), requires nothing but the coordinated efforts of the whole crew. Community once again. We all contribute our labor power to bring in loads of compost, fill buckets, run them out into the field, dump them on the seed potatoes or plants, pick bugs, add more compost and hay as needed and eventually harvest, clean, store and cook the fruits of our labor. To make things as efficient as possible nobody is wedded to any one role, and all of us switch out with each other throughout the days when we are doing a potato planting or hilling marathon. If someone's back is giving out from bending over the plants with full buckets of compost, they can "rest" with a round of shoveling. If there is a bottleneck in the system, like too many full buckets waiting to be run into the field, one of the bucket fillers will run some buckets out to those depositing the compost where it is needed. We all work hard, but also recognize our different levels of physical ability and conditioning. All of this requires enormous amounts of trust and commitment to a common cause. And these are based on our recognition that we are all doing this for the sake of living on our own terms. Groucho, and so many other people who have lived in the modern world of competitive, capitalist individualism, overlook how collective accomplishment bridges the gap between living on one's own terms and doing things with and for other people. The payoff for all and for each is in the promise of the best french fries imaginable, but it is also in the huge sense of accomplishment that comes from seeing the potato crop flourish in an area that was very recently rocky forest land without much in the way of food for us on offer. All of us recognize that we could not have done it alone.

Under the surface of the soil, making all of this possible, is another kind of community that until recently, I didn't pay much attention to. Although I've known for a while that good organic farming practices are based on the principle that one should feed the soil and not the plants, it was never quite clear to me what this meant in practical terms. It turns out that the soil in which we grow food is an amazingly complex and finely tuned biological community. Leopold's land-community extends beneath the surface in ways that scientists and farmers are only now really learning to appreciate. Conventional agriculture treats soil like an inert place in which to put plants while they grow, supplying them with externally generated "inputs" to insure that they get the nutrients they need and that they are not eaten by pests or out-competed by weeds. This is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in that it is precisely by treating the soil this way, by the application of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides and pesticides, as well as by driving heavy machinery back and forth over farmland that the soil becomes an inert, dead medium and thus plants require these inputs to survive. Before the conventional farmer showed up there were almost unbelievably many organisms living in the soil working in conjunction with plants to serve the needs of each and all. To quote from a book I've been reading lately,

an acre of good garden soil contains several pounds of small mammals; 133 pounds of protozoa; 900 pounds each of earthworms, arthropods and algae; 2000 pounds of bacteria; and 2400 pounds of fungi.

-Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, revised edition, 2010, Timber Press

Our potato field is roughly an acre in size and with any luck will yield between two and three thousand pounds of potatoes. That almost equals the combined total of bugs and worms living in the soil, not counting other organisms too small to be seen by the naked eye which would more than quadruple the sheer mass of living things that call this field home. All of these organisms are not just lumped in the soil together like so many bags of fertilizer. Instead, they are organized in a complex set of relationships that, like our work crews, make the whole much more than the sum of its parts.

Consider first just the worms. 900 pounds of earthworms translates into roughly a million of them tirelessly but gently mixing the soil, creating tunnels lined with their nutrient rich castings for easy penetration of plant roots, shredding decaying organic matter thus making it more available to the microorganisms that break it down and recycle essential nutrients for plants and each other. Tilling the soil not only kills countless worms outright, but more crucially destroys all of the work they have done in creating their network of nutrient rich tunnels. Applying chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides disrupts the delicate chemical balances on which they depend for survival and flourishing, let alone outright poisoning them. Leopold was right in his characterization of the conventional modern approach to the land as involving the attempt to conquer it and force it in to submission. And the worms are just the beginning of the collateral damage.

To see how far the conquest of the soil extends under conventional practices consider what is going on in the quarter inch of soil surrounding a plant's roots. Plants secrete sugary liquids, exudates, from their roots which are used as food by certain kinds of bacteria and fungi. These microorganisms contain in their cellular structures many nutrients that the plants themselves need, but can't get on their own. Consequently the microorganisms feed on the sugars secreted by the plants and then in turn die or are eaten and digested by larger organisms like protozoa and nematodes (tiny round worms living in the soil). As a result the nutrients needed by the plant become available at just the rate that the plant can absorb them. In a finely tuned ecosystem like this there is no waste as materials circulate through the system driven by the energy of the sun that is captured by the leaves of the plants. As in any ecological system, this tiny community surrounding the plant's roots depends for its healthy functioning on a proper balance among its diverse components. Too many, or the wrong type of bacteria and fungi, a shortage of protozoa, or not enough root hairs secreting exudates, and the whole system gets out of whack; the plant's health then declines leaving it vulnerable to attack from pests that normally wouldn't do much damage. All of the "additives" applied by conventional agriculture, as well as the standard practices of turning and tilling the soil and driving tractors back and forth across fields to plant, cultivate and harvest disrupt this tiny ecosystem in subtle and not so subtle ways. Conventional agriculture attempts to conquer the soil community and make it work faster and more efficiently. But by destroying the complex ecosystems of the soil it ultimately undermines itself and forces farmers to apply more and more chemical inputs to make up for the declining health of the soil community. The application of externally generated inputs becomes a life support system for a barely surviving fragment of a complex community destroyed by the application of those inputs. Farming like that is certainly not living on one's own terms, however good it may be for the chemical industry.

Now we certainly have to disrupt things in order to convert one ecosystem to another, to take forests with their intact communities of soil organisms and turn them into annual garden beds and perennial planting zones. But we do this in a way that minimizes impact and works with the ecosystems of the soil. The key is of course compost, a living fertilizer and soil builder which comes pre-loaded with bacteria, fungi, protozoa and of course lots of earthworms. Applying plenty of compost to the soil encourages the spread of the organisms needed to sustain the plants we grow. It is not at all the same as applying water soluble chemical fertilizers to directly feed otherwise crippled plants. Instead it is a way of helping the plants we grow for food to live on their own terms by building the kind of community they need to thrive. Appreciating this is the first step in retiring from the role of conqueror and assuming the more modest roles of plain member and citizen of the community. Time to eat some fries with the great people who I live and work with here.

~~ George Matthews ~~

High Tunnel Transformation

2011-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Last fall here at D Acres we received funding to construct a 30’ x 72’ high tunnel greenhouse. A site in the upper field was selected and prepared. Before the snow came the greenhouse was assembled. It sat dormant for the winter awaiting the warming spring sun. When I arrived here in February the ground inside was exceptionally bare, sandy, and compacted from heavy equipment. The first task was to stake out the beds and stick to walking on designated paths. There were five beds that stretched the length of the greenhouse, each about four and a half feet wide and four small beds that filled in along the corners.

On a sunny day in March I took to forking the soil, not to turn it, but just to loosen and aerate. It was a welcome break from the still very cold and snowy weather of March. Despite the several feet of snow staring in at me from outside of the plastic wall of the greenhouse, it was rather balmy and near seventy degrees inside. I top dressed the soil with some pro-start organic fertilizer and then smoothed out the soil with a garden fork to prepare for seeding. A cover crop was selected, a mix of oats, rye, and buckwheat. Clover was seeded into the paths.

The next concern was to ensure an adequate supply of water to the plants. The garden in the upper field area was already being supplied water from a nearby stream via a pump, a one thousand gallon storage tank, several thousand feet of drip line tubing, and the ever reliable force of gravity. I was able to tie the greenhouse into that existing system. I laid out three drip lines down each of the long beds, and later added in small loops to service the corners. In the course of a day I had everything plumbed together and ready for water. The greenhouse irrigation was splint into two zones, so that either one half of the greenhouse could be water at a time or both if so desired.

There was a concern that filling the storage tank in March and April could be a risky move. If there was stretch of very cold days, water freezing inside the tank could very well damage it. The solution was to pump from a stream that was closer, but only a temporary one of spring. As I write this later in August, there is no water to be seen moving there. I hooked the pump directly to an overhead high-pressure sprinkler to water in the cover crop. Once the weather stayed warmer the pump was relocated to fill the bulk tank at the top of the field, returning to gravity power.

With seeds in the ground and water soaking the soil, all we had to do was wait. The cover crops sprouted and grew to fill the high tunnel with a lush array of green by the end of May.

At the start of June, the tomatoes and eggplants were rapidly outgrowing their four-inch pots. It was time for them to be moved into the ground. The pressure was on us to make space for them. The cover crop had to go. There was stretch of particularity hot and sunny days where we tried to overheat and kill off the cover crop by keeping the greenhouse closed up during the day and ceasing to water. The complete polar opposite result was had; the cover crops flourished having a week of very high heat and humidity. A lesson learned. The next approach was to get out the always-reliable hand scythe. The cover was cut to the ground and laid down in place as a green manure. It will decompose to feed the soil and future vegetables with the energy it had taken in from the sun during the spring. A layer of finished horse manure compost was added on top to assure that any weeds or cover crop still left growing would be kept down. A final layer of straw was added on top of the compost.

We were now ready to transplant in. Two beds were filled with eggplant and three with tomatoes. Some of the tomatoes were reaching up towards four feet tall out of their four-inch pots. Using a posthole digger, the tomatoes were buried nearly to their tops, leaving roughly six inches exposed. This was to ensure a strong root system, as the buried portion of the plant will shoot out roots.

It only took a few weeks for the plants to reach a height that required trellising to support their upwards growth. Bailing twine was strung horizontally the length of the greenhouse above each row of tomatoes. Individual strands were attached and they descended downwards to reach each rapidly growing tomato plant. As the plants grew they were wrapped around the twine. Pruning the tomatoes became a regular part of the schedule. Sucker growth had to be removed to keep the plants growing vertically as a single vine.

It is mid-August now. The eggplants are filling out and some of the tomatoes are near eight feet tall. The first ripe eggplant was harvested about a week ago and first tomato yesterday. It’s a great feeling to have seen through the transformation of some relatively unattractive bare sandy ground into a juicy ripe tomato. Satisfaction is the taste on my tongue.

2011-08-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

Rain dance, please

2011-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

“Uh-oh, you got a cold?” she asked.

I stuffed the rag of a handkerchief pack into my back pocket and shook my head with a chuckle.

“Nah, just too much dirt in my nose.”

By which I mean to say: it’s dusty out here. Proboscises aside, it’s an unnerving feeling, to stick one’s hand into the earth, and be greeted with a puff of powder.

Here at D Acres, we think of ourselves as growing soil as much as we are growing food. Our dirt is alive. It offers the fertility and nutrients that create lush and abundant food crops. Yet of late, our soil has been lacking a touch of its vivacious nature, its spongy quality, its soft, dark composition, its pungent earthy aroma. Rather our dirt, quite simply, is thirsty. Parched. Arid. Dry, dry, dry.

At least up here on the hill, the sun has been hitting us hot this summer, and the rain clouds rarely live up to the portends of moisture in their dark underbellies.

The absence of precipitation, surely, is the best means of understanding its fundamental importance. Water is Life. And it is a simple antidote to droopy leaves, wilty plants, yellowed bushes, and desiccated berries. So we’ve been busy maximizing the efficiency of two aspects of our work: water sequestration, and water delivery. Thanks to our ponds, gutters, and holding tanks - coupled with pumps and hoses, pipes and tubes - beauty and bounty dominate the property.

Indeed, a fair portion of our time has been dedicated to irrigation. We are lucky to have our ponds, and wise to have our rain barrels. It may not rain often, but when it does, most every available roof has a gutter hung at its edge and a barrel, tank, or can on the corner. These efforts have made quite the difference – our dinner plates are the evidence.

Nevertheless, it’s a tenuous line. Despite the water we have caught from the sky and lifted from our ponds, the soil continues to be dusty. I’ll admit, we’ve tried reverse psychology on the weather gods: refusing to wear rain jackets even when the occasional shower does become a downpour; watering plants intensely as prospective clouds gather on the horizon; yes, even the impromptu rain dance jig has been attempted. Writing this, in fact, has conveniently coincided with an afternoon thunderstorm.

Plants are remarkable in their tenacity for living, and their ability to pull through a scarcity of resources. We are certainly grateful for the plenitude of abundance that continues to flourish on these acres. Yet in our gratitude we are also humble, willing to Work for Life. And this summer, that means Working for Water.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Farm Day 2011!

2011-08-04T17:56:00.001-07:00

It’s that time of year…D Acres 14th Annual Farm Day Celebration is just around the corner! We welcome you to join us for good food and good times on Saturday, August 13th. This isn’t just any ‘ole gathering here at the homestead: this is the event of the summer. A bountiful season is well underway and we’re excited to share the fruits (& vegetables) of our labor with you. Rain or shine – we’ve got our circus tent up and a pig roast waiting for you!

Farm Day routinely brings over 200 people to the farm, and we expect to well exceed that number here in 2011. Festivities begin at 4pm, with a farm tour, face-painting, kids weaving activities, and a variety of local organizations showcasing their efforts. And that’s just to get things started! Our famous pig roast dinner will kick off at 6pm, accompanied by a variety of home-grown and local delectables – potluck desserts are always welcome!

This year’s entertainment will be brought to you by the Sugar River Band. Music will begin during the dinner hour, then we’ll clear the tables and have a good old fashioned barn dance at 7:30pm. Don’t miss this one!

In addition to music and food, Farm Day is a great time to test your luck at prize winning
while supporting the farm. We will be raffling items donated by local businesses and community members – all proceeds will support the ongoing educational programming at D Acres. Prizes include a night’s stay at Indian Head Resort, boat rental vouchers, a geneology search, children’s books, artisanal goods by local artists, and a Mary Kay products.

Save the Date! Saturday, August 13, 4pm; dinner begins at 6pm. A $10 suggested donation will be greatly appreciated. Proceeds generated from this event will be used to fund educational programs and operational expenses for the farm. We hope to see you and your family at Farm Day 2011!

We are grateful to Venture Print and to Malone, Dirubbo, & Company, CPA for their generous sponsorship of Farm Day, as well as to the following individuals and establishments for contributions to the raffle: Diana Burdette, Nancy Conklin, Encore Bookstore, Indian Head Resort, Malone, Dirubbo, & Company C\PA, NH Audubon, Ronda Kilanowski, Danni Simon, Bev Walker, & Gary Walker.

See you then!

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Siege of the Scapes

2011-07-21T19:09:00.000-07:00

Garlic Scapes. I’m not sure you quite understand me if I say we have a lot. A LOT. It is indeed quite the surfeit of scapes, a superfluity of flavor that now dominates our mealtimes.

Are you familiar with this adventuring curlicue of the renowned garlic plant? The scape is the strong yet tender shoot rising from a garlic plant, destined to become a flower. By cutting the scape before the flower can bud, the plant’s energy is redirected towards growing a large and healthy garlic bulb. The scapes, meanwhile, proffer a subtle garlic taste a month or two before the bulbs are to be harvested. What a treat!

Here at D Acres, however, the problem of abundance is upon us. You’ll reliably find garlic scapes in ‘bout every dish for the next month. From pizza toppings to stir-frys and sautées, from eggs, quiches, & frittatas to fritters & vegetable cakes; from salad dressing & pesto to marinades and so much more, culinary creativity is in high demand come this time of year.

Try as we might, our gullets can’t quite absorb such a glut of the good stuff. We therefore have our means of distributing such quantity through the cooler months. Garlic scape pesto is made by the gallon, while pickled garlic scapes have commandeered a whole section of basement real estate. Garlic scape puree now dominates a corner of the freezer, while brined and fermented recipes are being sought as I write this.

Also as I write this, scapes are being moved from field to fridge. Ours can only hold so much, though, and so I do propose: that we move them into your fridge. Yes, we need to move our succulent scapes. We need ya’ll to be curious. We need you to see that these are the very best things that you’ve been missing all along. You see, we hear this all the time, at dinners here or food fairs out and about:

“Can I buy this?”
“Do you sell this?”
“How much can I offer you?” and on and on.

So now the opportunity has arrived. D Acres Prized Pesto is available for sale here at the farm; Pickled Garlic Scapes can now be purchased here at D Acres as well as through Local Foods Plymouth (www.localfoodsplymouth.org) - this is what you are waiting for. Really.

Need one more taste test to convince yourself? Join us this Thursday, July 21 for pickled garlic scapes, pesto, and fresh bread at the Plymouth Farmer’s Market 3-6pm. If that snuck up on you too quick, swing by downtown Plymouth next Thursday, July 28 at one of two locations: first, look for us in front of Peppercorn Natural Foods 1-3pm, then find us at the Farmer’s Market once again 3-6pm. This is sampling that you don’t want to miss!

We will also continue to sell fresh scapes (need I mention kale, collards, and chard?) until their season has passed. Check out our website for our pickling recipe, or pop on in to visit – you, too, can preserve some flavor for the coming months. Enjoy! We’d love to hear your garlic scape favorites.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Driving Dirt Uphill: In Partial Praise of Fossil Fuels

2011-07-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

"A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself." Thomas Jefferson

So reads the sticker on the rear bumper of one of the farm trucks, not the one, unfortunately, that I am driving to town on the Saturday town run. I'm headed into town in the Ford pickup as part of a thrice weekly ritual. Every Monday, Thursday and Saturday someone gets to escape from the usual farm work and drive to town to collect the mail from the post office in Rumney, and then continuing on to Plymouth, to run errands, and most importantly, to collect ingredients for our perpetual project of soil rebuilding in the form of waste food and cardboard. This is precious organic matter we add to the compromised soils up here in the hills to help rebuild the complex ecosystem of a healthy soil.

The original rich forest soils were washed downhill and out to sea long ago, as a result of a couple of hundred years of poor management practices. Did the first white settlers here realize that they were in effect mining the immense wealth under their feet when they clear cut the forests, tilled the cleared ground, farmed the fields to exhaustion and then brought in sheep to finish off the last of the vegetation? At this point it is impossible to tell, but the legacy of these practices is all too evident in the thin, sandy soils dotted with large chunks of exposed granite covering these hills. In the years that have passed since the sheep pastures were abandoned, the land has slowly been recolonized by forests and new soil is beginning to accumulate as the exposed rock weathers and organic matter in the form of dead leaves, decaying plant matter and the occasional deposit of moose droppings or coyote scat pile up. Natural soil rebuilding happens very slowly, however, in the range of inches of precious, life-sustaining topsoil per decade at best. So if farming is to be feasible here without dependence on artificial fertilizers, we have little choice but to rebuild the soil by carrying tons of organic matter back up hill. We'd like to avoid the use of artificial fertilizers, and not just because "organic farm" sounds so sexy.

Yes, organic farming is often looked at as a niche market, a trendy idea for many mainstream Americans, but there are some pretty good reasons to adopt organic practices, like building soil rather than applying fertilizers. Conventional agriculture makes liberal use of artificial fertilizers, and treats the soil as little more than a place to put plants which are kept alive by the application of fertilizers (not to mention herbicides and pesticides) a practice fraught with problems. Even if the standard issue ammonium nitrate fertilizer does provide plants with needed nutrients in the short term, its use has far reaching negative effects both before and after it is used. Since it is water soluble and easily washed away, it tends to be over-applied with the excess not absorbed by plant roots entering streams, rivers, lakes and eventually the ocean. In all of which places it leads to the process of "eutrophication" -- the sudden flush of excess nutrients in a body of water following a storm causes algae to grow rapidily and then just as quickly to die off once the nutrients are depleted. As the dead algae rots, the water in which it has temporarily thrived is stripped of oxygen and all aquatic life suffocates. As a result of the use of artificial fertilizers throughout the immense Mississippi River basin, to take the most dramatic example of this problem, a dead zone devoid of aquatic life about the size of Texas appears in the Gulf of Mexico every year during the growing season and only partially recovers every winter. This is a pretty serious problem and one that organic farming practices don't create. Good on us organic farmers!

But even before it is sprayed onto fields, artificial fertilizer indirectly causes another form of damage to watersheds all over the country. This is because the primary feedstock for the production of ammonium nitrate fertilizer is natural gas, and natural gas is increasingly being extracted from shale deposits through a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." After the initial well bore is drilled into a bed of shale, it is pumped with high pressure chemical soups designed to fracture the "tight" shale rock containing natural gas, allowing the gas to bubble upwards to be collected at the surface. Unfortunately, fracturing the rock also allows both toxic fracking fluid and natural gas to enter water wells and to poison springs. We watched a film last week here at D Acres called "Gasland" which has some pretty stunning footage of people lighting their formerly drinkable tap water on fire. Everyone laughed, but it was still pretty depressing to see how damaging our efforts to scrape up the last natural gas under our soils can be.

Even if we just ignore these problems with using and producing artificial fertilizers, spraying them onto fields does nothing to restore the health of depleted soils. It only serves as a temporary solution to the problem of exhausted soils. Sometimes, like when I am digging a hole and hit rocks two inches under the surface of the soil, it is hard to imagine that the natural prairie and forest soils of North America were among the richest ecosystems on the planet. They have all but disappeared as a result of the last two centuries of careless use and abuse. If we have any hope of living in greater balance with such ecosystems on which all life depends and without relying entirely on a tightening supply of fossil fuels, we'll have to rebuild the soil fertility that previous generations have unknowingly squandered.

So we drive tons of waste food uphill, along with cardboard for sheet mulching, as well as mountains of horse manure, barrels of bird and rabbit poop and truckloads of hay from local farms. The waste food is fed to the pigs, who seem to love it when they get buckets of old cafeteria food dumped onto their heads. Nobody intends to dump it on their heads, but they just won't get out of the way, especially when cheese sauce is involved. The oxen prefer less sloppy meals, so they get old corn, squash and apples along with their hay. We use ungodly amounts of cardboard to suppress weeds on the edges of garden beds, where it slowly rots into the soil and keeps the weeds at bay for a little while at least. The manure we truck up here is mixed with soiled animal bedding in our compost piles and then applied directed to garden beds. It is hard work loading and unloading all of this material from the farm trucks, turning manure piles with a manure fork, stacking bales of hay into storage areas and carrying five gallon bucket loads of compost over rock walls into the fields where we grow crops. But it is worth every sore muscle and drop of sweat since we are rebuilding the soil's capacity to sustain the lives of worms, insects, fungi, microorganisms, and as a result, the plants and animals we eat. Healthy soils cycle nutrients effectively from plants to animals and fungi and back again thus enabling plants to effectively capture the solar energy that drives the entire system. We are using fossil fuels to rebuild our soils with the goal of freeing ourselves gradually from their use. Conventional farms, on the other hand use fossil fuels as a replacement for the lost functions of healthy soil in a never ending battle against the ill effects of their own poor soil management. And it is kind of fun loading the trucks with as much hay as possible -- so far the farm record is 128 bales on the Ford pickup and its trailer.

So, in spite of our use of hand tools for many jobs that fossil fuel powered machines might do for us, we still do admire these potent sources of energy. And they are pretty astounding substances when you think about where they came from. We sometimes forget that coal, oil and natural gas are essentially super-concentrated solar energy, millions of years worth of energy from the sun stored up in plant matter that was trapped under swamps and slow cooked in the earth's crust over many more millions of years. It is also astounding to think that we have spent just about half of these millions of years of solar energy savings over the last 250 years or so. No wonder modern life moves so quickly compared to the lives humans lived ever since we emerged from caves or trees or wherever we came from. The half of the fossil fuel legacy that is left, such as shale gas, deep water oil and the tar sands of places like Alberta, Canada is increasingly difficult, expensive and environmentally destructive to recover. So we may as well use what is left in projects like rebuilding the capacity of the land we live on to make effective use once again of the slower and steadier rhythms of the rising and setting sun as the seasons slowly roll by. Time to unload what other people call waste and feed it to the soil. Do the people who are giving us all of this good stuff for free really know its value? Shhh, don't tell them.

== George Matthews ==

Sweating for Spuds

2011-07-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

It was, of course, one of those hot and sunny days when you can’t unstick your clothes from your skin, and when clods of dirt turn to mud pies on your sweaty legs. Corners of shade were a treat worth hustling to get to, and jugs of water didn’t stay full for long. The bugs, in moderate and not-quite-vicious abundance, set the pace. Head down, with legs walking, arms lugging, and hands mounding compost all as rapidly as possible, the bugs couldn’t distract the focus.

Potatoes were earning my full attention this particular Thursday in June.

Here at D Acres, you see, potatoes are an integral component of our forest-to-garden conversion process. The work alluded to above, is the hilling of our special spuds. This happens once a month during the summer until the harvest is upon us. And let me tell you – the more hands the better.

This year we planted 295 pounds of potatoes; the task of hilling is not a quick one. With Josh, Regina, and I, plus our powerhouse of seven interns, it was a day and a half affair. Even promises of an end-of-the-day, oh-so-sweet, what-could-be-more-refreshing swimming hole trip couldn’t make it happen any faster. It’s a physical task, and there is no appropriate preparation for eight hours of carrying, emptying, and re-filling five gallon buckets other than buckling down and doing it. But we’ve made it through spring training, so to speak; our July hilling should be all the easier…

In my own mind, trudging between rows of green leaves and paths of clover, history offered a helpful perspective. Access to this particular pasture is limited, surrounded by a stone wall of yore. It is - wonderfully and inconveniently - in a fine state, necessitating the hauling of each compost-laden bucket up, and over, and down the sturdy stack of rocks: the compost could only be driven so close to one side, the potatoes only so close to the wall’s inner edge. So each bucket covered a path of history, a testament to the work that had once created this pasture, a reminder that it’s interim as forest and it’s present return to field is just one more cycle of history.

As we contribute our farming acts to this unfolding chain of land use, potatoes provide an agricultural re-initiation for the field. Potatoes, and their preference for growing in dirt mounds, make them an excellent first crop. To hill them, we shovel truckloads of home-grown compost into five gallon buckets, then mound this (and large quantities of mulch hay) around our blossoming plants. This process, while increasing the productivity of the potatoes simultaneously creates raised beds along the contours of the field. By the end of the season, we are rich in organic matter just where we need it most.

Step by step, plant by plant, bucket by bucket, we are returning richness to the soil. Each addition crosses the stone wall, a stoic witness to much change, and an ode, perhaps, to what once was and what may be once again.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Trimming the Yard

2011-06-24T04:35:00.000-07:00

Today was my day to take out the lawn mower. Sort of. Here at D Acres, our team of oxen - Henri & August – takes the place of large machinery. No pedals, gears, nor spinning blades, just a goad, plenty of practice, and time-earned respect.

Fact of the matter is that a neighbor’s threat of a real lawn mower (the dandelion has been getting away from us, granted) has imbued the task with urgency. You see, what “lawn” we have here at the farm is kept up, not by gas-powered gadgets, but by hungry oxen and by the careful use of a hand scythe. Allow me to explain myself, please. Each morning, the oxen are walked about the property, trimming the edges of liminal areas, munching the clover, plantain, dandelion, and assorted grasses into temporary submission (these are their favorites of the daily selection, however, they’ll mischievously snatch at apple trees or a paw-paw leaf if you’re not careful…). The sides of paths and walkways, the edges of gardens, the field space we use for tents…each of these grow quickly. The oxen provide a check and balance to the system. Not only do August & Henri keep things looking presentable for us, they glean significant calories from the land. This daily hour-or-two walk provides a lush and reliable source of food for these large work animals during the summer months. For us, it’s about using all the available biomass that presents itself. The sun’s energy and the soil’s nutrients regularly produce a wealth of rogue weeds and persistent grasses. Our temperaments are much better off if we see this cornucopia of growth as free fodder, rather than troublesome invasives attempting to ruin our gardens’ growth.

That being said, there are certainly nooks and crannies on the property into which the oxen can’t reach their sizeable frames. They are also picky, and obstinately turn their broad shoulders on patches of barbed grass and milkweed. The pigs and chickens, though, are not so discerning. Therefore, for these lower-grade weeds and hard to reach places, we make use of a hand scythe.

A hand scythe is an excellent tool for edging. With a sharp, curved blade, a hand scythe is like a weed-whacker specializing in accuracy and precision. Using this tool to cut grass and weeds is part of our daily summertime chores, enabling us to feed significant quantities of biomass to our numerous pigs and many chickens. Not only are we converting the sun’s energy into “free” food, we’re also utilizing it in such a way that accelerates it’s conversion to a nutritive soil additive. As the animals eat through such “weeds,” they are actively transforming this biomass into a nutrient-rich compost. Thanks to this animal-powered conversion, we can then spread such compost back to our garden beds. By cutting these vigorous grasses and weeds, we are encouraging a healthy albeit controlled growth of these plants, ensuring that we will continue to have nutrient-packed fodder for our many animals while also guaranteeing that nothing goes to seed. (While that still leaves us to fight wily against the ever-expanding root system, it does, at least, prevent an all-out re-seeding of this not-to-be-cultivated flora in our garden beds). Farmer’s tactics, if you will.

We are striving, as in most of our endeavors, to employ the resources we have at hand for as many uses as possible in a holistic, cyclical system. Thanks to our animals, we are able to turn less-than-useful lawn space into an integral component of our edible permaculture landscape.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

In Praise of Hand Tools

2011-06-12T09:47:00.000-07:00

The sickle is a tool with a flat inward curving blade a little more than a foot long, sharpened on the inside edge and tapering to a point at the end. The blade is held by a wooden handle about twice as long as your hand is wide. It works well for cutting small clumps of grass or weeds. If you hold onto a clump when cutting, for ease of collection if you are cutting feed for the chickens or pigs, it is a good idea to wear a work glove on the hand that is holding the clump. Otherwise you risk grievous injury, especially if you do as you should and regularly sharpen the blade of your sickle. The sickle does roughly the same duty as the gasoline powered weed whacker -- edging, mowing small areas where the lawn mower (or oxen) can't or won't go, and general cleanup of messy and weedy garden areas. It is mostly familiar as a relic, known more for its iconographic use in that equally old and obsolete political and economic system known as socialism than as the commonplace farming and gardening tool it once was.

The scythe is a much more serious and daunting tool, but is ultimately no more than a large two-handed sickle, with its long curving blade ranging from less than two to almost four feet in length mounted at right angles to the end of a long and often elegantly curved wooden handle. Scythes often have two short and stubby offset hand holds attached to the handle, one roughly halfway between the blade and the end, and the other near the end. In using the scythe to cut tall grass or larger patches of weeds the trick is to sweep the blade smoothly above and parallel to the surface of the ground. This requires more a rotation of the hips than an isolated movement of the arms and shoulders. As with many hand tools its use is difficult at first but becomes far easier with sufficient practice. Solid footwear is recommended since the long and somewhat heavy steel blade, kept well sharpened of course, can do very serious damage to an errant bare or thinly shod foot. It too, like its smaller cousin the sickle, was long ago rendered obsolete by the gasoline or diesel powered blades of machinery ranging in size from the gas lawn mowers and riding mowers of suburbia and the countryside to the giant, GPS directed, air conditioned cab equipped combines which follow the wheat and corn harvest northward every year in the vast open farm country of the Midwestern and Central Plains states.

Why should anyone be interested in these museum pieces except as quaint relics of the hard labor farming practices of days gone by? And why on earth is their use being embraced by more and more small scale and even some commercial farmers, even as many Amish farmers upgrade from horse drawn to gas powered mowers and tractors, albeit usually with steel wheels rather than rubber tires? Why do we use them here at D Acres? The answer is, literally simplicity itself. They are simple tools with few parts to maintain, fix or replace and they require nothing but human power to operate. That is, they are efficient in ways that our familiarity and comfort with power tools obscures from view. Unlike weed whackers and lawn mowers, sickles and scythes don't have ignition assemblies to break, spark plugs to foul, fuel filters or carburetors to clean, blade adapters or cutting cords to wear out and break. And they do not require filling with gasoline, or the gas/oil blend burned by two stroke engines. They do not waste energy in the form of hot exhaust systems, noise, vibration or incompletely combusted fuel which lingers in a gray greasy cloud long after the engine has cooled. Once a certain skill in their use has been acquired, they do not cut what the person wielding them does not want cut and they do not inadvertently kill or injure whatever wildlife may be lurking among the weeds and tall grass. It is easy to ignore all of these inefficiencies of the use of power tools in a world in which cheap and abundant fossil fuels can be taken for granted, a world in which economic and political systems are resilient and responsive enough to allow for the smooth functioning of global supply chains for delivery of parts and fuel, a world in which natural systems are robust enough to serve as reservoirs of biodiversity off of the farm.

But it is becoming increasingly clear that our world may no longer be such a world. Something has been happening in the last few years that has been slowly but surely bringing back the sickle and the scythe in places where they were only known as relics rotting in old barns or as dusted off and over-priced decorative items in antique shops. Likewise with the two-person crosscut saw (AKA, the misery stick), the hand felling axe, the draw knife and many other hand tools of the past. What has been happening is something that most of us simply haven't noticed, even as its effects have become part of our reality. This is partly because we have been, understandably, preoccupied with our daily lives, and partly because it has been too big and slow in onset to qualify as a newsworthy event along the lines of earthquakes, tsunamis or blowouts on offshore oil rigs. What has been happening is that growth in our energy supply has slowed and stopped and we are currently heading into a period of declining available energy, dubbed by at least one recent author as "energy descent." Until fairly recently (some observers claim the year 2005 as the watershed, others 2008, and a few insist that it is still to come) energy supply has increased in response to increased demand and prices remained relatively stable. Of course there were temporary fluctuations due to political revolutions, war, natural disasters and so on, but the overall trend in energy production and use has been upward. Or at least it was upward until it wasn't anymore. And for no immediately apparent reason, even as oil prices soared to record levels in the summer of 2008, sending the global economy into a tail spin from which it has not yet recovered, growth in energy supply has not been able to keep up with increasing demand. The reason for the slowing and then stopping of energy supply growth is simple in the sense that all finite resources exhibit a similar pattern of growth, peak and decline in supply, and complex in that the resources in question are distributed across the globe and their supply is affected by many factors. The large scale trend is apparent, however -- we have entered an age of limits. Not only are we limited by the amount of new energy supply available to the economy and to all of use who depend on it, but we are also limited by the lack of space to put our wastes, solid, liquid and gaseous, by available farm land, by fresh water availability in more and more places, by sufficient "left over" habitat for the survival of many species of plants and animals.

In an age of limits the sickle is back to stay. This is not necessarily a bad thing since using a sickle brings us literally and figuratively closer to the ground beneath our feet on which we depend for sustenance. Crouching down among the weeds, bugs and worms of a healthy soil, methodically working along the edge of a raised garden bed, is one of the best ways to get reintroduced to the place where we live and to learn to appreciate once again the slower rhythms of birth, growth, death, decay on which all life depends.

[- George -]

Working with the Sun

2011-06-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

The days are long, lushness dominates the gaze, weeds are reaching for the sun with vigor, and the black flies have arrived to offer their daily commentary.

Summer has begun.

Here at D Acres, we leap at the chance to utilize the power of the sun during these short but vigorous few months of our northcountry summer.

For one, the sun offers a tremendous opportunity to heat water free of fossil fuels, electric lines, and excessive burning of wood. We recently re-constructed our solar shower, now perched beneath the old apple tree and behind some young asian pear trees. It’s complete with a dressing room and shower stall, hot and cold water taps (in the opposite order, just to be a little different…), and watercress transplanted into the greywater system. The ambience is tremendous, but the simplicity of the science behind the operation is even more tantalizing. With this system upgrade, we now have two batch heaters harnessing the sun’s sunny-ness to be sure we dirty farmers and our cleaner guests can achieve a par excellence for hygiene upon exiting the experience.

The batch heaters, mind you, are comprised of retired refrigerator tanks, black paint, old water heaters, and a pane of glass. Peruse the junk heap and you, too, can solar power your Saturday night bath. To be clear, the black paint covers the inside of the fridge box, creating a heat trap for the sun’s rays. The water heater is set inside, with the appropriate plumbing running to and from the tank. A glass pane over the top seals the deal, and the heat. Curious? Come on over and check it out!

Beyond heating water, we also make extensive use of our solar cookers during these long summer days. While the sun ovens, as they’re called, can function most of the year if the sun is out (well…let’s say March through October for best results), these long, hot days with the sun high in the sky definitely improves their capacity for quick and effective cooking. Again, it is a fairly simple science that can solar power your next meal. You can build it yourself, or purchase a pre-made model. A box lined with reflective material operates as the oven, while a (plexi-)glass cover creates the greenhouse effect for the contraption. More reflective material surrounding the oven’s door helps to trap more of the sun’s heat. The oven box is then set upon an adjustable stake. As the sun rises or sets across the sky, the angle of the box must be modified. A ninety-degree angle, facing into the sun, is ideal. In no time at all you can cook just about anything from beans to bread, and casseroles to chicken soup.

Of course, the sun also heats up our favorite swimming hole. So come on over to check out our latest solar-powered efforts (we have additional hot water projects, greenhouses galore, solar panels, and solar dehydrators, too!), perhaps share a solar-cooked meal, then we’ll point down the road and share another of our joys, a dip in nature’s best pool. Summer may be short, but my oh my it is a verdant and abundant few months.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

The Flavors of Summer

2011-05-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

We have finally finished off our last meal of potatoes, had our final round of baked squash, and are savoring the last of our carrot stick crunches. Salad has replaced sauerkraut, and shiitakes are now flavoring our foraged greens. We are on the cusp of the season of fresh produce. Oh the flavors, the lushness, the beauty of summer! Fleeting and fantastic, these are the months to savor the richness of local products.

Fortunately, our area is rich with local producers. From a plethora of fruits and vegetables, to eggs, dairy, meat, and baked goods, local farmers provide quite an array of goods to our region. And on June 4th, join us to celebrate this remarkable selection at the 2011 Pemi-Baker Local Food Fare. Held at Prospect Hall on the Plymouth State University Campus, 10am-3pm, this community event will be the season’s foremost opportunity to meet area farmers and sample some of their tastiest morsels.

And not only that, the crew at D Acres will be handing out the fifth edition of the Pemi-Baker Local Goods Guide. D Acres began publishing a local food guide in 2007, the beginning steps to cultivating a thriving local food network. Since then, we’ve expanded the guide each year, now totaling 42 farmers. New to 2011, we’ve included 31 local crafters, artisans, and pre-loved/second-hand retail shops. The guide also includes a map pinpointing farms, studios, galleries, and shops listed in the publication, as well as information on summer and winter farmer’s markets throughout the Pemi-Baker region. Stop by the Local Food Fare June 4th to pick-up your free copy!

Why such excitement over local foods? Well, for one, we at D Acres are remarkably interested in food. Everyone needs to eat, and the better the food, the better the health and the well-being of both people and land. Local food specifically increases individuals’ connection to a region and its landscape, while decreasing dependency on national and international systems of production and distribution. Furthermore, strengthening local food networks is a direct means of providing local income to local people, a means of investing our money within our own community. To quote farmer and author Wendell Berry, “without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice.”

So knowing your farmer is vitally important, and not just in the summer. Eating is a year-round endeavor, and so is buying food. Do your part to strengthen our community! Join us June 4, 10am-3pm, at PSU’s Prospect Hall and meet your local farmers (admission $3-10 sliding scale). Pick up your copy of the Local Goods Guide – a sustainable community starts with your next meal.

~Beth
as published by North Country News

Cooking with the Seasons at D Acres

2011-05-23T09:11:00.000-07:00

We are well into Spring time now, but I have many recipes tucked away from the Cooking with Seasons classes being held here at D Acres.

We embarked on a fun potato-stuffed pastry originating from Eastern Europe. Here is a recipe for Piroshkis:

This simple pastry can be filled with anything really. The traditional filling is potatoes, cabbage, onion, egg and cheese, but on a cold night in February we went all out!

For Pastry
Unbleached White Flour or Whole Wheat Pastry, 3 cups
Salt, 1/3 tsp
Butter, 3/4 cup
Ice Water, 1/4 to 3/4 cup

Prepare the pastry by thoroughly mixing the flour and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles course cornmeal. Using a fork and a minimum number of strokes, mix in the ice water until the mixture can be formed into a ball. Chill the dough for 15 minutes. Form into balls and refrigerate for up to one hour.
(Pastry recipe taken from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd)

Our base for the filling was mashed potatoes. We then added various other ingredients to fancy up the piroshkis:
-Sautéed Sauerkraut
-Garlc Scape Puree
-Shredded carrots and beets

Divide each ball of dough into four pieces. Roll each piece into a 6-in. diameter circle. Preheat the oven to 350°. Place 1/2 cup filling in the center of each circle. Brush the edges with an egg wash (one egg beaten with 4 Tbsp of water) and fold over to form a turnover, pressing the edges together with a fork. Place the piroshkis on an oiled baking sheet. Brush the tops with the egg wash. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until lightly browned.

Look forward to more great seasonal recipes from the cooking class! We've been having a lot of fun with nettle this spring.

Eat well,
Regina

Piles of Dirt

2011-05-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

In light of a forecast filled with heavy downpours and dark skies, the weather wasn’t so bad. For each intermittent bout of showers, there were equal hours of warmth and almost-sunshine. The day began with trellis building and pea planting in our upper field, a warm-up before we headed to the bulk of our day’s labor: compost turning.

Now, compost is nature’s process of decomposition. It’s happening all around us. Maintaining compost piles is simply a means of harnessing the nutrients in various “waste” products, then using the natural breakdown of organic matter to our benefit. Compost becomes soil – plant food - that then becomes human food. Turning compost is part and parcel of planning ahead for your next dinner gathering.

So it was to this task that we turned our attention. Here at D Acres we have a handful of disparate compost piles that have accumulated over the fall and winter months. Some are small, needing the addition of more material to successfully become a steaming pile of compost (…rather than lumpy conglomerations of odds-and-ends detritus harboring the last of the snow and ice beneath their loads). Some, however, loom large.

These blue-ribbon piles are full of microbial action. Wisps of steam rising from the piles’ zenith are modest indicators of internal decomposition. If we want to talk science, compost can be understood in terms of two elements: carbon and nitrogen. In layman’s speak, this is the “brown” and the “green.” Regardless of linguistic preferences, a healthy compost pile should offer a robust mix of woody materials (woodchips, straw, old hay, dry grass clippings, woody debris) and fresh matter (food scraps, weeds, manure, fresh grass clippings). In combination with oxygen introduced into the pile through frequent turning, a hot, active microbial environment is fostered, essentially “cooking” the pile’s contents. Decomposition happens fairly rapidly in this manner, providing quality soil for use in the gardens within a season or two.

And this process is essential. Finished compost releases nutrients slowly over time, preventing soil from becoming depleted and helping to ensure plant health. Compost, therefore, is a key component to a healthy garden system.

So back to that looming compost pile. (Are you familiar with our ox hovel? Well, the oxen have had a lot to eat. Check out their heaping, steaming compost mound on your next visit to the farm.) At the time, heaving pitchforkfuls of partially-aged ox manure overhead, the mental mantra isn’t more than a rhythmic scoop-and-pitch-and-scoop-again. With this round of turning completed, though, it sure is satisfying to think of the plants it will grow and the meals it will provide. Just a few more turnings to go between now and then…

And the thing is, this tale could be your story, too. Start a compost pile! Already have one? Build it up, turn it regularly – it will only be to your benefit. With soil on hand, any plant will be more willing to grow.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Like a wheelbarrow through mud

2011-04-28T17:23:00.001-07:00

Mud season, let’s say, is a time of transition. You get the good with the bad. And if snowdrifts give way to daffodils at the temporary expense of dry ground…well, the flowers sure are purty.

Here at D Acres, a long and epic sugaring season is just winding down while the hubbub of the growing season has us trotting from task to task. The greenhouses are finally boasting beds of baby greens, robust seedlings are demanding to be transplanted, orchards and garden edges are expanding with new tree stock, and the care of peas and potatoes is looming as I write these words.

In the midst of recovering our green thumbs, however, is a final week of soot-covered digits. That is to say, more sugaring. The taps have been pulled, but stock-piled sap is demanding a last hurrah of early mornings and smoky hours beside the evaporator. And the real frenzy is in the search for wood. Having burned through all the softwood stacked in and around the sugar shack, the next best option has proven to be bundles of slab wood piled in our lower lot.

So, predictably, last week found us cutting and hauling said wood to where we needed it most. Our relief at not having to carry armfuls over slushy snow waned slightly as our wheelbarrows stalled in muddy tracks. Impromptu drainage trenches diverting water across our path only upped the ante. Swampy suction against our boots was a constant reminder that April showers bring boosted calf muscles as well as May flowers.

I jest, and even as we worked our way through the muddy glop I had to smile. The smell of dirt was pungent and had my senses primed, crocus buds reaching out of the sodden ground to grow into what we know they will become, my memory of trilliums and sensitive ferns coloring the otherwise very brown ground.

With my grip tight around the wheelbarrow’s worn handles, it occurred to me – now granted I was a bit tired, sooty, and yes, preoccupied with the next day’s plan – that somehow this pushing of a wheelbarrow through mud could be a microcosm of so many endeavors that we pursue here at D Acres. Fostering the well-being of our community, holding on the skills & traditions of our past, trying to create a little more joy and tad more beauty…neither good intentions nor high hopes would seem to proffer instant traction any better than a mucky path. But whether it’s the health, strength, vitality, and vibrancy of our community, of our food systems, of our northern forest ecosystem, or simply of our maple syrup production, surely a bit of effort is worth putting into the mix.

So while mud season may not be the favored spell, we can agree that, yes, it’s worth it for what follows? Surely the effort of a moment is reaped exponentially as the energy multiplies into the future. And whether that takes the form of sweet syrup, or blooming daffodils, or a wheelbarrow full of just what you need, or food from a farmer whose hand you can shake, let’s make the extra effort. Push a little harder. Can we afford to lose our traction?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

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Choose your holidays wisely

2011-04-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

April is host to quite the range of federally recognized days, wouldn’t you say? I mean, in what other context do you start off the month with nationally accepted acts of mischievousness, committed in broad daylight and under the noses of co-workers, in-laws, neighbors, and pals? And then merely two weeks later the tables turn, punctuality, precision, and transparency being the order of the day so as to avoid consequences from the chief in-law of them all, Uncle Sam. By the end of the month, whole sectors of the nation are searching for painted eggs and returning to chocolate, meat, favorite TV shows, and preferred smartphone apps as their month of lent comes to a close. Phew.

Tucked into such a formidable list is the comparatively innocuous Earth Day. (Followed shortly thereafter by Arbor Day…on to what percentage of calendars does that one actually make it?) No money is owed, no threats of cotton-ball stuffed chocolates or buckets of water above your doorway color the day’s activities, no-one is dieing nor rising nor fingering ashes to your brow. No, not this day. Just a little compassion is all that is requested, if you can spare the thought and the moment, for the ground we walk on, the water we drink, the air we breathe.

That’s all.

Or is it? For just one day each year – April 22 - blue-green globes and swirling clouds are all the rage. ‘Re-duce, re-use, re-cycle’ is annually rejuvenated as the popular mantra; composting & tree-planting are temporarily accepted as buzzwords bandied about without a second thought. Yet all this gusto and emotion is just for one day? What about the other 364?

Please don’t be taken aback by my questions…I’m just wondering. Air, Water, Dirt…without these elements we would not survive, yet this basic biology is routinely overlooked. So what about trying to sustain the energy and momentum that is drummed up each April 22 and grow a year-round ethic?

The difficulty, it strikes me, is in the scale. Earth Day can quickly become a celebration fraught with global issues and overtones. I mean, how do you reasonably honor an entity with a 24,901.55mile girth without getting a bit, well, big for your britches? There is a certain glamour to international places, events, and environmental tragedies for they are potent in their overwhelming nature and scope. And yet it is difficult to live at this heightened level of global awareness. If we are to act with Earth Day in mind all year round, I think it must exhibited in our local lives. Let the global stage influence and inform us as we pick our way through daily life.

This takes ongoing commitment, yes. But the rewards are many, including the health & well-being of future generations and the survival of life as we know it. Feeling motivated?

So what can you do to let Earth Day live on? Start with your home: turn off lights when not in use, shut down all appliances and technologies at the end of the day, conserve water, turn down the heat (put on an extra sweater), buy the extra sweater at a second-hand shop, note down your patterns of consumption – then work to minimize them, consolidate errands to limit your driving needs…start a compost pile, turn the compost into a garden, keep plants on the windowsill…support local farmers through Local Foods Plymouth (www.localfoodsplymouth.org), check out the 2011 Local Goods Guide (info@dacres.org), patronize Plymouth Shop Local establishments; know what you buy, why you buy it, and where it’s coming from.

Step outside. Know the names of trees as you know the hills by sight, taste our mountain air with a deep breath, relish the seasons. Isn’t it worth preserving?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Sugar and Smoke

2011-04-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

It’s 5:06am. By headlamp & memory I clamber down the ladders of the my silo abode and delicately balance my way atop the trail’s icy crust to the tiny shack at woods edge. I stop by the community building on my way for the following provisions: a stick of butter, a jug of water, and a hatchet.

This means sugaring season.

Once inside the rickety door, I crouch to light the sticks and newspaper awaiting within the belly of our rusty evaporator. Laid in place the night before, the kindling crackles to life quickly. I’m particular about the fire for the stove offers an imperfect system, full of inefficiencies and character. Getting off to a quick, hot start is key and I best be sure my sleepy eyes and groggy hands don’t deter the process.

I start with barely ten gallons of sap atop the stove and have it boiling within fifteen minutes. I use a four-pan system, the back two being warming trays, the front being the intermediate step, and the middle pan – ultimately – being the finishing pan. Using a ladle and a strainer, I’ll move eighty gallons of sap across the stove over the next fifteen hours.

The result will be two gallons of dark, sweet, smoky maple syrup.

Between beginning and end, nonetheless, is a rhythm of constant motion. I maintain that if there’s time to sit, then the process is not progressing sufficiently efficiently. Therefore, it is amongst sweet-smelling steam and smoke that burns the eyes, that a confined dance is choreographed. I strain, transfer, and add sap as, thankfully, these watched pots do boil. The empty buckets gradually stack up: twenty gallons, forty gallons, sixty gallons, eighty. Around this work, I split wood (hence the hatchet), feeding the fire frequently and stockpiling wood for the nightime hours.

In every spare moment, I drink water. I’ll guzzle two to three gallons each boil day (hence the jug). While that minimizes the headache, I still leave the shack desiccated and weary, not to mention the inhaled soot that leaves me sounding like a struggling asthmatic.

The stick of butter, I’d like to clarify, is not some personal endurance trick. Rather, it is the 911 call of sugaring emergencies. At some point, usually first occurring in late morning, the sugar content of the final pan will gain that critical ratio when, over intense heat, it wants to boil over. While still far from finished syrup, care must be taken to not burn this saccharine, over-zealously-bubbling sap water. At this juncture, the simplest act is also the most effective: throw in some butter and ta-da, problem solved. No need to dramatically dampen the fire, no need to cool the pan with cold sap…

Eventually, though, as evening settles around the shack and a few bright stars are visible from the smoky doorway, the end approaches. First, sap ceases to be added to the warming pans; then only two pans are left atop the evaporator; the fire is allowed to die down just a bit; and finally it is the finishing pan alone that garners my consideration. I study it, attentive and focused, waiting. At a crucial moment the bubbles will achieve a distinctive unity and coherence atop the sap-turned-syrup’s surface. They rise up, and it is suddenly quite clear that the day’s alchemy is complete.

Liquid gold, with an indescribable intensity to its fresh flavor, has once again been made.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Problems & Solutions

2011-03-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

Our kitchen manager, Regina, recently pulled off some officious freezer re-organization and the problem has been determined. We aren’t eating in sufficiently aggressive quantities. More specifically, gallon freezer bags of kale and collards persist in tremendous proportions, along with a surfeit of raspberries and a glut of garlic scapes.

At the most recent count, we had eighty (80!) bags of greens remaining – and winter’s almost behind us. 12 bags of frozen raspberries have made it this far, and a whole crate full of garlic scapes continues to commandeer the freezer’s left-hand side.

And that’s not all. Just the other day, pitter-patter down the steps Regina descended, her arms full of long-pie pumpkins. The black and fuzzy blotches were visible from across the room. Her plea echoed the unfortunate state of affairs as the suffering squashes rolled lopsidedly on the counter: “Ai! how can we not have this happen?!”

How long do we have before the fifty or so remaining winter squash and pumpkins meet the same fate? This is our S.O.S. – save our squash! We need to feed more food to more people.

This is, mind you, a first-rate problem to have. We are cultivating more food than ever before here at D Acres, and the next season looks to be all the more productive. With new greenhouse space to extend the growing season, soil that is more fertile and rich with each year, established techniques & methods, and committed staff whose skills & experience improve with the seasons…the prospects are certainly not dire.

We don’t, however, eat more just because we raise more. This is where we need you. Come out to food events! Join us for a potluck! We can turn our stored delights into such a myriad of platters and dishes. Kale is easily tucked into much, no-one quibbles over raspberries, garlic scapes are the jackpot of flavor, and the squash varieties my oh my – delicata, acorn, hubbard, kobucha, red kuri, baby blue, and all manner of pumpkins…the dinner options are stupendous (not to mention all the other vegetables we grow and preserve in less daunting proportions!).

But listen, we need visitors with whom we can share the abundance. Pick the meal that best suits your style: how about wood-fired pizza the first Friday of each month? Or try our farm feast breakfast the first Sunday of every month, all-you-should-eat! Prefer being out in town? Join us at Mark’s Eatery in downtown Plymouth for seasonal soup and live entertainment every third Saturday.

And that’s not all! Join us for our monthly potluck the final Friday of each month, or learn our secrets to the best food around: join us for cooking classes the second Thursday of each month, then stay for dinner!

Our wealth is in our closets, and for this month of March it’s squash, garlic, and kale, along with potatoes and sauerkraut. We prefer sharing to hoarding, so consider this your invite. We’ll look to see you soon.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

What a wild week.

2011-03-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

The ducks have been taking quite the beating this week. On Sunday, Josh noticed that two of them were getting roughed up by the other ducks so they were moved into the g-animal house for their own protection. So we thought. Two days later, one duck was dead and the other was barely clinging on to life. The culprit? A Stoat, otherwise known as an ermine or short-tailed weasel. The wounded duck was killed and prepared for dinner Tuesday night.

We also noticed that the rest of the duck population was in danger. More than one had been attacked though no more had been killed. They were relocated to a more secure chicken coop on Wednesday.

Yesterday was going along like most any day. I was doing some work on the the kiosk, updating it with 2011 information. Just before lunch, I went out to chip the ice away from the door on the sugar shack in preparation for boiling. Although we are still waiting on the sap to really start running. While walking back up to the community building, I could hear some strange noise. As I got closer, I saw Dustin running by and found out that it was the chickens this time that were under attack.

I made my way over to the g-animal house and began to witness the chaos.
There was one chicken inside, a group was huddling next to the door at the top of the ramp, one was under the ramp, a few more were out deep in the snow with the rooster, and one rogue had made it over the fence to the pig area by itself. Dustin, Regina, and I were stationed in various locations trying to figure out the situation. The ermine reappeared and started attacking the chickens even with us present. I watched the ermine chase a chicken into a corner of the fence. I was on the other side. It was very intense to see this little critter attacking a chicken, many times it's own size, literally no more than a foot away from me. I beat on the fencing and got the ermine off the chicken. It ran back and started chasing another one through the snow. As Dustin came around it eluded capture and found a hole down into the foundation of the g-animal house. We had the little bugger seemingly trapped. He would poke his head out, inside and outside of the building, but we were unable to capture or kill it at that time.

We rounded up the scattered and frightened chickens and got them inside and locked down. We had no fatalities, though one had a slight wound on the back of its neck.

We set a live trap inside the greenhouse with some food scraps as bait. Later that evening the ermine was successfully secured inside the trap.
Yesterday we also welcomed 10 new piglets to the farm. It was great timing being just two days after getting the pig house cleared and prepared for the pregnant sow. She gave birth to the first around 5:30pm and the rest came along in the following two hours. The sow and the piglets all seem to be doing well at this time.

My name is Matt. I am a new intern here. I’ve been here just over three weeks now. I’m from Wisconsin and have really been enjoying my stay. The work can be challenging at time but it has been well worth the effort.

Punxsutawney’s Partner

2011-03-05T07:53:00.000-08:00

As I write this, it’s the end of February and I’m preparing for a night nearing zero degrees. Admitting that, it may seem like an oblivious and outrageous statement to say that that springtime is coming.

There are, however, the usual suspects that accompany this annual statement: groundhogs and their shadows, sugar buckets (which also cast shadows), brief thaws and the icy aftermath, the days lengthening by perceptible increments. And here at D Acres, we have another gauge to add to the list.

Duck eggs. Mmm-hmmm.

With our Indian Runners having taken their first swim on our backyard pond this past July, we’ve been looking forward to this particular milestone in our breakfast diet for some months now. It’s a welcome treat, and though our chickens continue as the backbone of our egg production, the duck eggs are a pleasant present for the palate. Large, creamy, and full of flavor, they have sufficiently quenched (at least temporarily) our interest in roast duck meat.

Granted, there has been a bit more sun, a bit more warmth, a bit more daylight, and whether it’s that or just coincidence…well, in some quadratic formula of animal instinct and optimal timing all of the above translates to: eggs.

Excellent.

How many have we had at this point? A dozen or two? Gathering just two eggs a day, we’ve got to wonder if it’s one over-achieving duck leading the pack, or are they each taking turns in a delicate sharing of the task? Perhaps it’s just one wacky bird with cabin fever, jumping the gun on spring and insisting that this cold and blustery end-of –the-month is propitious timing?

Rhetorical questions, merely, that gladly can be set aside as we tend to the practicalities of the situation. Nesting boxes, breeding possibilities, an expanded enclosure; now’s the time to make our plan, for once the snow has gone we must be ready to bound into action.

For the interim, though, it seems that Punxsutawney Phil may have a Dorchester duo when it comes to predicting, or at least denoting, the perpetual changing of the seasons. So despite the ponds still being frozen, and the ducks still paddling their webbed appendages through drifted snow; despite glaciers sliding off the duckhouse roof and bedding freezing to the edges of their suite; despite this evidence to the contrary it would seem that the first inklings of spring have begun.

At least in Duckland.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

From Pig to Pork

2011-02-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

Carefully wrapped in brown paper packages and frozen in the chest freezer of the red barn are beautiful cuts of meat labeled SHOULDER, RIBS, and FRESH BACON. As I look at the parcels of pork and think of the wonderful meals to come of them, I look back to the day of the slaughter, and think of how this meat got here in the first place.
I remember staring through the crack in the door, watching as Beth and Josh wrestled a 200 lb. pig to the ground and slit its throat with a sharpened kitchen knife. The late morning sun beat warm on my back, though the temperature was still cold enough to keep me breathing clouds of steam while I looked on at the scene of the slaughter.
Once the pig had been stuck and ceased its struggle, its front and hind legs were tied to a long pole, and the three of us hefted the weight of the inverted carcass down the path and up the road to the garage, where a gambol hung from a pulley and sat next to a large butcher block. We lay the pig out lengthwise across the table, then hosed it down with hot water and proceeded to scrub the bits of blood and hay and mud from its body, in preparation to skin the animal and remove its organs.
With all the certainty and precision of an experienced surgeon, Beth lifted her sharpened blade and made her first incision down the middle of the pig’s chest and belly, revealing the yellowish white layer of fat just beneath the skin. She tied a piece of twine around the pig’s tail and anus, to protect the meat from being contaminated by any errant fecal spillage which may occur while removing the pig’s intestines and other internal organs. Then the two of us set to work removing the tough skin from the rest of the body, careful not to cut too much of the fat away from the meat. The warmth of the animal's body was enough to keep my bare hands from freezing as I worked, but the chill of the air carried with it a bite that kept me reaching for my gloves whenever I had a chance to warm up.
Eventually, the pig was hung upside down by its rear tendons, hooked into the wrought iron gambol, naked, except for its head and its hooves. Beth made a deeper cut into the abdominal cavity, exposing the vast system of organs beneath the surface. She collected them all neatly and gently into a wheelbarrow, cutting away tissue as she worked, then finally removed the head, hide, and hooves with a meat saw and wheeled them away into the woods to be scavenged by coyotes. The meat remained, suspended and now sawn in half, to spend the night freezing by the light of the moon.
The next day, the pork was cut into smaller pieces and wrapped into the familiar brown paper packages, to be frozen and then eaten over the course of the winter. But that night, we ate fresh liver with some adzuki beans and sautéed cabbage. I have never been much of a fan of liver, but this time, having watched it get cut from the chest cavity of the dead pig’s carcass only hours before, I couldn’t resist. I must say that it was delicious. Thank you, Pig.

If Alexander the Great grew a garden...

2011-02-18T06:14:00.000-08:00

Each time the calendar pages roll back and a new month is upon us, we find ourselves in a cyclical flurry of flyering efforts here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Sustainability Center. Hitting the streets, if you will, to reach the masses, spread the word, and, well, simply let folks know what’s happening here on the farm over the course of each month.

Just a few weeks ago we were so engaged. Upon asking permission to hang a flyer in one of our less-frequently-visited venues, our man on the mission was told no. The justification being that everyone in the business was already sustainable; the explanation being that everyone had gardens and chickens.

Excellent. Our work appears to be done.

Perhaps. Overlooking the formidable scope of such a statement, it does seem to raise the question: What does “sustainable” mean? Is it just gardens & chickens? I suppose all I can do is offer my own definition. And yes, my conception of sustainability includes gardens, hens, and even roosters that crow when the sun is hours from rising. But to me, sustainability is also about a regional economy, and diverse & local food production. It is about health, it is about education, it is about local resources and functional art. It is about community relationships of mutual support.

Please understand, this is my own definition and nothing more than that. Tell me, what would yours include?

I think for me, it really comes down to local networks…and within that I would specify food and economics. So here at D Acres, for example, we’re in the midst of compiling our fifth edition of the Pemi-Baker Local Goods Guide. Showcasing area farmers, artists, and second-hand retailers, thousands of copies of the Guide are published each year and released to the public on Memorial Day. Distributed throughout the seasons to residents and visitors alike, the Guide connects local producers to local consumers. We are actively looking for new listings to include in the 2011 edition, as well as local businesses to advertise in the Guide: please give us a call if that’s you! 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org.

There are local connections and community systems all around us – “us” being D Acres, yes, but also being the inhabitants of the Pemi-Baker region. Local Foods Plymouth, for example, is an online farmer’s market connecting Plymouth-area farmers to all of us who need to eat: www.localfoodsplymouth.org. Or, meet Eddie at Plymouth’s Café Monte Alto who recently entered the “local” niche of the beverage market – along with Six Burner Bistro & Mark’s Eatery. Having added D Acres herbal tea blend to Café Monte Alto’s menu offerings is a heartening commitment to the local foods movement – locally-grown, organic, herbal tea is something you can’t get at Dunkin’Donuts or MickeyD’s. Swing by the café and show your support - order some D Acres herbal tea today!

Now, this is going to seem tangential, but hold in there. We recently made a new acquaintance here at the farm whose military past pops up from time to time. One exchange in particular fixated on Alexander the Great’s successes in strategy and tactics. Trying to understand the mindset of a man who voluntarily chose to cross the Alps with a horde of elephants is a bit much. Despite History 101’s fixation on this fact, however, the man’s success, apparently, came down to? His Macedonian Cavalry. Naturally.

Well, here at D Acres, here in Dorchester, here in the Pemi-Baker Valley, our community is our Macedonian Cavalry. We may all have a different perception of sustainability, but if we are to progress beyond an unsustainable system to one of cooperation, collaboration, local support, and mutual benefit…if we are to achieve a regional economy, a distinctive regional culture, a vibrant local food system…well, then we must look to our neighbors as our most valuable assets. For it is our neighbors with whom we will learn with and share in new ways of doing things – or perhaps of old ways of doing things; it is our neighbors with whom we will grow, support and maintain a local economy.

So whether you want gardens or chickens, (or elephants); whether you want to buy local tea at the Café, or eggs from a nearby farm, or art from the town around the corner: join us. Join us in a community bounded and bonded by strong handshakes and mutual support. Join us in making the very many definitions of sustainability a reality.

~Beth
as published in the North Country News

Nimbys and the Northern Pass

2011-01-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

The Northern Pass controversy is the latest New Hampshire distraction from the real issue of America’s addiction to energy consumption. I recently received an unsolicited email that stated the proposed power lines would “dramatically affect our way of life.” Instead of being accountable for our own actions we are blaming the providers of the energy. From my backyard, I look at the immense power lines that run south into Plymouth everyday and consider the electricity running through the lines every time I flip a switch. I am not an advocate of further power line construction. But the reality is we in New Hampshire are using more electricity every year not less. This perpetual growth in consumption is the problem. And the real drama is that our way of life will be affected by climatic change and the end of cheap oil.

Take, for example, the snow-sports resort industry. Well to do environmentalists routinely use the excuse of outdoor recreation to be chair-lifted up a mountain so they can point skis downhill and allow gravity to pull them back down to the valley on artificial snow and groomed slopes. These resorts are horrendous eyesores powered by distant oil fields, as well as nuclear and coal-powered electrical generation plants. In the name of sport we are wasting energy. Some folks will even get in an airplane to fly west in a self-absorbed quest for ideal conditions. Instead of choosing readily available exercise on cross-country skis, resort skiers receive instant gratification and adrenaline rushes from fossil fuel consumption.

So when folks get angry and complain about property values (notice the number of real estate agents and second homeowners involved as opponents of the project) I ask you to take a look in the mirror because we are all to blame. The problem is US. U.S. Because we are unwilling to compromise our “way of life” we engage in distant wars, shop at box stores full of Chinese products and get our food from Chile and California. Instead of taking responsibility for our consumption problem, we are choosing to blame others who are just responding in the traditional American way by supplying to the demand. It is similar to a drug user blaming the dealer.

If power lines are capable of producing “ dramatic affects on our way of life,” imagine the impact of global climatic change. The future of humanity is chosen by the decisions we make today and the power lines are just another distraction from what the focus clearly should be: a reduction of energy consumption. If we (NH citizens) don’t want additional energy from Canada, then we need to invest in solar panels and wind generators. To reduce our dependence on imported energy we should become active members of solution oriented local organizations such as Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative and D Acres. Without taking positive steps to reduce our energy consumption, we will only have ourselves to blame for the serious ramifications. So instead of using your personal time and energy to protest, take steps to seek renewable energy alternatives and reduce your electric energy consumption.

Josh Trought is a citizen of Dorchester, New Hampshire and Director at D Acres of New Hampshire.

Outside and In

2011-01-28T06:05:00.001-08:00

Well, the thermometer said -22º at dawn, as if the impulse for an extra hat and thicker gloves wasn’t clue enough. It was cold. I kept my little legs moving fast as I went about the morning chores, but that didn’t quite warm my fingertips nor hold the wind at bay.

Upon being let out, the oxen ran and jumped with grace and power as the biting wind hit their hides. It was a fine sight to watch, but clearly they were less than amused. Over their cold feast of hay, they admonished me with glances from their big brown eyes. I promised to bring them back in once they had finished. The ducks, meanwhile, huddled up together as they tried to swim atop snow. The chickens, in a rare stroke of brilliance, refused to go out while the pigs hunkered down within their blanket- and carpet-lined fortresses. This is the first winter for these piglets – certainly Mama hadn’t explained the capricious whims of Jack Frost.

My boots crunched and squeaked over the cold, cold snow in a hurried gait towards the front door, these sound effects being the only ones to soak through my three hats and two scarves. The effect bordered on cartoonish, assisted by my gloves that, snow-covered from morning chores, had frozen into claw form while still upon my nipped hands.

Once inside, the fire quickly mellowed the sting imbedded in my cheeks and nose. The men were boasting of the advantage of beards; skeptical, it seemed to me that an icy scarf was more easily removed. Offering quite the contrast, our collection of houseplants looked out from upon the windowsills, reaching for the sun, oblivious to the cold just a pane away. While the banana plant looked weary, the begonia maintained its brilliant reddish leaves. The aloe, of course, was as indestructible as ever.

On this day, more so than others thus far this season, the time for indoor and outdoor work was well distinguished here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & SustainAbility Center. A desire for movement and fresh air was wisely tamed by the harsh chill in the air: cabin fever isn’t that feverish.

Wintertime, in general, is used for planning, for organizing, for administrating, for maintaining, and for crafting here at D Acres. In particular, we take these cold and snowy months to review and revise our guiding documents. For example, our Organization Manual. Covering history, policy, and philosophy, the manual is continually evolving with the organization. Our most recent session fixated on our description of Realities. Our agrarian reality, more specifically. We wanted to acknowledge the perceived sacrifices of small-scale farming and simple living, assert the many rewards of such a lifestyle, and reiterate the hope, beauty, and inspiration behind our philosophy.

Imagine the above morn. It was indeed cold. Bitter. Piercing. Raw. The sun, for all its brightness, was not warm. The wind whipped, needled, lashed. We bundled up against it and bent into the wind, for there were still animals to tend and roofs to shovel.

One could say - and we’ve heard it – what an awful thing, uncomfortable and rugged to trudge through such inclement adventures. And yes, it does sting a bit when you’re not ready for it. It is, however, intensely beautiful. The snowscape, I mean…but also the life in which we are immersed. Crisp, bright, vivid, vibrant, intense, radiant, brisk…Comfort is a challenge and, once obtained, a victory and a thrill. A simple sensation of aliveness pervades all. Cold, which can muffle liveliness so quick, imbues each breath with potency as well. Our reality is as compelling as the conditions that define it.

Putting words to the intuition of an instant, perhaps. Otherwise known as: “Jeez it’s cold, but what a darn good story it’ll make.” So with an extra sweater upon our shoulders, and sometimes two, we want to tell you what a very colorful reality this farming life provides.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

SustainAbility your way

2011-01-15T04:19:00.000-08:00

I think there was mention of a zip line…from our back porch to a pond-side landing beside our lower hoop house. Modifications for a cannonball dismount may have been pondered. Yes, indeed. And this was in fact an academic situation.

Granted, not quite your average school-desks-in-a-row, raise-your-hand, and memorize-the-answer sort of academics. No, I’m referring to a planning & design activity integrated into D Acres’ Permaculture Design Course offered last year.

You see, permaculture can be many things. This includes verbose definitions the length of this column and beyond….but here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Sustainability Center we’ve narrowed it down to the following:

Holistic, integrative, design & implementation for a sustainable future.

Bingo, bango, sounds pretty good, eh? What I’m getting at, though, is the ability to stack functions while designing gardens, buildings, landscapes, and beyond with a multiplicity of functions in mind. The zip line plan from above got some laughs, and may sit a step or two down the priority list, but it’s a fun example of thinking outside the box. Sure, it provides travel. With the ease of architect paper, it was designed as a power source as well, had a clothesline component, and a bucket carrying function.

Granted, I prefer to get down to something more practical. Let’s talk of an apple tree as food, as shade, as windbreak, as artisan wood, as smokehouse flavor, and its leaves as natural mulch come autumn. Or how about pigs as stump-removers, brush-clearers, ground-turners, soil-fertilizers, compost-builders, and, thank goodness, as bacon-providers.

The understanding and application of permaculture is refined over the course of a lifetime. But you can begin here and now with D Acres 2nd Permaculture Through the Seasons certification course. It’s a unique opportunity, offered one weekend a month from April to November (excepting June). A range of topics are covered: permaculture ethics & principles, the design process, food & energy security, natural systems & biodiversity, site analysis & assessment, backyard gardening & sustainable agriculture, natural building & appropriate technology, sustainable forestry & creating food forests, animals in a permaculture system, solar greenhouse design, village design & local economies. Students then apply the principles and praxis studied to a design project of their own.

Taking place on the D Acres grounds over the course of spring, summer, and fall, participants are exposed to the seasonal farm perspective and the variety of monthly considerations therein. With fourteen years of permaculture in practice, the trials, errors and successes inherent to the property are abundant. In addition, students enjoy D Acres lodging accommodations and farm-fresh meals each weekend the course meets. While D Acres staff, workshops, and community events are integrated into the course, it is instructors Steve Whitman and Keith Morris who lead participants through the seven weekends of studies while including guest presenters, off-site tours, and attendance at the 2011 Permaculture Convergence.

More information can be found on the D Acres website at www.dacres.org or by giving us a ring at 603-786-2366. Still looking for something more? We’ve also created a D Acres permaculture film - check it out via our website, or join us on tour: Feb 11 @ Red River Theater in Concord, NH; Feb 15 @ Plymouth’s Flying Monkey Theater; March 3 @ Vermont Institute for Natural Sciences in Quechee, VT.

This is your chance. Don’t wait: early bird registration due Feb.15, registrations close March 15. In the words of one 2010 graduate, “I could not have hoped for a better permaculture education. Thanks a million!!”

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Reflections before Renewal

2011-01-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

Over the last six weeks, as a winter intern here at D Acres, I enjoyed a welcome respite from the bells and whistles, hustle and bustle, and general stresses that, for me, have become synonymous with the approach of the holiday season. To be sure, the December days came and went with their usual frequency, the numbers of the calendar still ceaselessly ticked toward the end of another year, and yet…without television or radio as constant reminders of how many hours and minutes of shopping remained until Christmas, I was totally oblivious. Instead, I was falling into a rhythm of rising with the sun, doing morning chores, and setting to work on other projects that needed completion before darkness once again closed in at the end of the day.

When the time came, I was grateful for the opportunity to travel home to spend the holiday with my family, although I did find that when I woke up on Christmas Day, I was missing my morning chores. It may sound crazy, but they can be a great way to wake up. The weight of the water I carry to the animals warms me to the core, the taste of crisp morning air is indescribably sweet, and if I can catch them at the right moment, the first rays of the rising sun will paint the White Mountains purple. It is these experiences that kindle the fire that burns in my belly.

I dig this routine. Maybe it’s because it’s still so new, and I know that there will come a day when my internship will end. But after nearly a month and a half of living here, I have to say that my learning has only just begun. Each day brings new questions and insights, new problems, new solutions. My mistakes are my greatest teachers, and I am often reflecting upon the words of Samuel Becket: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Whether working with the team of oxen, the wood chipper, or a hammer and nails, for me, it seems to be the challenges that make the practice worthwhile. And it is the small daily celebrations that happen here: the hot meals prepared with farm fresh ingredients, the lunchtime laughter, or the spontaneous live fiddle music at a Farm Feast Breakfast, that bring joy and merriment to the experience.

There are bigger celebrations here, too, and they happen more than just once a year. In fact, there are several of them, and they happen every month. Please come! Check out the events calendar, and join in the festivities. We look forward to connecting with you in this year of Renewal and Renewables. Happy New Year!

-Dustin

Some soup to warm you

2010-12-30T13:47:00.001-08:00

It seems to me that soup is fighting some serious misconceptions. Misgivings. Misunderstandings. If we get down to it, soup is certainly the maligned portion of the dinner options.

Just because someone, somewhere, thought that a bunch of water with too much salt and flaccid noodles stuffed into a tin can could be slapped with the label Soup…well, that’s no reason to let soup fall off the charts of edible delights. Neither should drab images and unfounded suppositions of weak broths or watery ladles deter you from the vigor and veracity of gustatory sensations brewing within a proper cup of soup.

Do I have your attention?

Soup is delightful. Also warming. It can be hearty, or subtle, sweet or savory, robust, flavorful, colorful, and succulent. Soup can be meat, or vegetables, or greens, or beans (or last week’s leftovers). Soup can be creamy or chunky, pureed or choc-full. Soup can be many things.

All of which fall into the category of: good eats. Not just that, but here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead, we think our soup is some of the best around. Ingredients are always from the farm and vary with the seasons, be it red-cored carrots, purple cabbage, or creamy potatoes from the winter root cellar; spicy garlic, tiger-eye beans, or varieties of squash harvested in the fall; hardy greens and numerous herbs from the gardens or the greenhouses; heirloom tomatoes, fiery peppers, or even refreshing cucumbers (yes, that was a particularly delectable dish) as the summer heat peaks. The list goes on and on. Regardless of where it stops, our soups are full of flavor, the product of lifetimes. Rich soil, strong compost, attentive care, and regular tending compose the essence of our recipes. We’re farmers: our workdays are centered on the needs and cycles of edible foods. Sub-par meals would not be worth this sort of dedication, I assure you.

Therefore, with all humility and modesty I would rate our soup du jour as par excellence and beyond. And starting this month, D Acres Third-Saturday-of-every-Month Seasonal Soup Night will be moving to Downtown Plymouth. Join us each month on the common at Mark’s Café, Club, & Eatery (formerly Junkyard Dawgs) for farm-fresh, as-local-as-it-comes, all-natural, organic, permaculture, free-range soup. We take soup seriously, and want you to, too.

Not just that, but we’ll entertain you with live music as well. For our opening event, enjoy the guitar and vocals of Martin Decato. Come early and stay late! Soup is available beginning at 6pm, music begins at 7pm. There will be a $3-10 sliding scale door fee.

Save the date and see you on the common. Farm-fresh soup. Live music. A taste of the farm right in Downtown Plymouth. What are you waiting for?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Hola amigos!

2010-12-21T17:19:00.001-08:00

Decimos acá en México, que "más vale tarde que nunca"...finalmente les escribo a punto del equinoccio de invierno. Me he tardado tanto porque han sido meses intensos, desde mi estancia en Dacres y de mi regreso, siempre es una gran experiencia para mi ir a visitarlos a New Hampshire, se crea un "antes y despues de Dacres" cada año que he ido. Este último año fue de grandes enseñanzas, mi verano compartido con todos ustedes, los animales, las plantas y los arboles de la granja. Mi llegada fue casi en el nacimiento de una camada de cerditos y mi ida fue otro nuevo nacimiento de otra camada y la entrada del equinoccio de otoño, entonces fue todo un periodo importante en mi vida, estar allá siempre abre mis oidos, mi vista y todos mis sentidos un poco más cada vez, cada hierva arrancada es un ruido menos arrancado para que crezca lo nutritivo, y eso lo aprendo allá como proceso interno y externo que se puede ver en los jardines y en mi corazón. El trabajo y mis manos en la tierra me conectan con lo más sagrado y es asi como puedo empezar a escuchar de nuevo cada vez. Esta vez también fue confrontante, me pregunté tantas cosas, sobre mi, sobre mi entorno, mi país y que puedo yo hacer para contribuir en algo a su sanación, Dacres me enseña que siempre se parte de la tierra, de nuestra relación con ella, y en definitiva compruebo cada vez más que definitivamente "Food is Revolution". Hay muchas cosas por hacer, pero también es importante partir de uno mismo y de mi relación con el que está frente a mí trabajando, no se puede construir una revolución si no hay primero una revolución interna en cada uno, que me haga respetar y reconocer al que está frente a mí en el aquí y en el ahora, porque te puedes dar cuenta que finalmente el que esta enfrente esta reflejando algo de ti mismo, algo que hay que aprender, de nada vale una revolución estando solo, porque estamos en este mundo y estamos conectados entre nosotros y con la tierra, en la medida en que empecemos a entender cada vez más eso, entonces crearemos cambio, crearemos mundos nuevos, juntos. Nadie es más, o ménos que nadie. Todos estamos en esto, estamos en lo mismo, en la búsqueda.
Solo puedo agradecer, agradecer mucho a Dacres y a todos los que lo han conformado a lo largo de los años y a los que lo conforman cada vez, en esta utopía de crear un nuevo mundo, nueva vida, cada vez, cada equiniccio, cada estación, en cada hierva, en cada semilla. GRACIAS.
Nos veremos de nuevo, esta vez espero tener el coraje de vivir el frío. Pero nos veremos las caras otra vez.
Susana

Alliteration, anyone?

2010-12-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

I spent much of my young life detesting the study of grammer. Similar sentiments pervaded my lessons in linguistic finesse as well as rules of literary tools. I had always like to read, figured I knew how to talk, and shouldn’t that be enough?

The same stands today. Except that I did go through all those classes and courses, and couldn’t forcibly shake such information out the other side. Which brings me to alliteration, and almost…almost…an appreciation of it. I mean, it does sound fluid. It does lend a certain rhythm to written word. And I am about to use it – all year long.

Renewal & Renewables. Here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead, it’s not just about reduce, reuse, recycle: we’re adding renew to the list as well. As we prepare to welcome 2011 and embark on our fourteenth year, we’ve chosen ‘The Year of Renewal & Renewables’ to be our guiding theme.

These words connote some alliterative companions - rebirth, rejuvenate, renovate. Indeed, Renewal and Renewables connotes many things for us here at D Acres. For one, renewal alludes to the commitment, inspiration, and dedication of the current staff to D Acres’ ongoing, multifaceted efforts for SustainAbility, as well as the strength and stability in the organization’s core.

More tangibly, Renewables suggest our 2011 focus on energy generation and consumption. As the coming year unfolds, we will be installing additional solar panels on our community building, as well as additional tube collectors for solar hot water. Both of these installations will significantly increase our ability to draw power from the sun, decrease our use of fossil fuels, and enhance our ability to educate, demonstrate, and inform our many visitors, members, and friends regarding the potential of renewable energy sources. We will also comprehensively replace wasteful lighting fixtures in the community building, as well as construct an icehouse. The former is a simple endeavor to improve efficiency, while the latter is a considerable reconfiguration of our refrigeration methodology. An icehouse built off the northeast corner of our main building will further reduce our need for power-driven refrigeration while further diversifying the models of sustainable energy solutions that we can offer here at D Acres.

Now, granted, there are plenty of new projects in the works for the new year, and that is a source of excitement and a focus for our gumption. But much will remain the same. Steady. Reliable. We’re counting on the camaraderie and friendship of our many neighbors and friends, just as you expect to see the same core of folks upon entering our door. Our monthly Pizza Nights, Farm Feast Breakfasts, potlucks, volunteer days, and open mic events will continue. Our Seasonal Soup Nites will be just as scrumptious in a whole new venue: Mark’s Café, Club, & Eatery in Plymouth, NH (currently Junkyard Dogs), complete with musical entertainment. Our full calendar of workshops, classes, gatherings, and special events will continue as always – we’ll have an official calendar available shortly after 2011 arrives.

All these talks of plans and projects-to-be, though, has me thinking of the importance of people more than ever. Whether we’re talking about the work of farming, or of cooking for events, or of planning presentations, workshops, and community celebrations… it’s the participation, enthusiasm, attendance, and engagement of each you – yes, YOU – who make it worthwhile. Join us. Come to a potluck, listen to some music, tell us what you know, ask us what we do. Bring a friend, or a child, or an elder - we are engaged in the collaboration of the generations and the creation of a resilient community culture. However that speaks to you, find a place here. We all have much to share.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

And for each his own pail

2010-12-03T18:50:00.000-08:00

If you have a bucket, you have a place to put things. If you have a place to put things, you have a means of carrying, moving, storing, consolidating, growing, containing, hoisting, and dumping things.

Buckets are terribly useful contraptions.

That said, here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead, we just may have a few too many of a good thing.

Buckets for water, buckets for weeds, buckets for dirt and for compost and for sand; buckets for woodchips, buckets for veggie oil, buckets for coal, for construction scraps, and for gravel; buckets for maple sap, buckets for carrots, buckets for cabbage heads, chard stems, and chicken feed; buckets for basketballs, buckets for drums, buckets for stools and tools and fuels …oh my.

Our storage of buckets bespeaks a natural triage. There are the buckets that we wash each day and return to area restaurants, the barrels that satiate our piglets’ lust for leftovers. Then there are the buckets around the house, barn, and outbuildings that wear the stains of use, some carried about frequently while most are simply accumulating, waiting, biding time. And finally, there’s the pile not quite out of sight, but which we try to keep out of mind: the buckets bearing such quantities of gunk, smeg, and dirtiness that they are no longer pleasant or possible to use.

This third pile was where I found myself one recent morning. Out of mind no longer. Snow was coming, ice was already accounted for, and plans for winter logging meant the stash was to be ignored no more. So I sorted through the wet leaves, the algae-funk, and the blocks of ice. A trip to the dump was soon to depart.

D Acres, I can announce, is now free of well-aged gloppity-glop and schloppity-schlop, at least as stored in forgotten, five-gallon vessels.

The second part of the project, naturally, was storing all the useable, but over-abundant, buckets in an accessible spot. Check. So now the grand announcement: we’d like to spread the wealth of the bucket brigade. Yes, that comes with a lid.

It may seem silly, but surely you could use a bucket. Give a call, drop on by. Take one, take two, take a whole stack or even more! For the avant garde among you, we can even offer square buckets, short buckets, and one- & two-gallon buckets. That’s right.

Grow a tomato, potato, or maybe some kale. Pot up a flower. Keep that leak from soaking the carpet. Collect your kitchen scraps or store some sand in the bed of your truck. You can continue the list from there.

What do you need today?

~Beth
as published in NorthCountry News

A Moment to Pause....

2010-11-28T16:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a whirlwind three months. In late August, I arrived at D Acres Organic Farm to begin an internship program. As I started out, I knew that my anticipatory excitement had been dead on, that I would be able to remain excited throughout my time here. With so much to learn and so many things going on as the Autumn harvest season approached, my head swam with new information and new methods and responsibilities to attend to. Each day brought a new interest, each day brought a new challenge.

And as I pack up my things this late November night, preparing to head southward for at least the duration of the winter, I reflect upon all the things I've gained from this experience. A few more notable aspects come to mind...

Firstly, I have a newfound appreciation for the virtues of silence, of solitary time. Miles out from real civilization, tucked in the woods on a hillside with a babbling stream below, I have the lack of interference necessary to really be with my thoughts. It sounds silly, but this very act has stirred a new appreciation in me of the act itself.

Working on a diversified farm was most certainly a novel experience for me. Learning to perform all my new duties while taking in still more information presented an initial challenge greater than expected. I expected to encounter challenges in adapting to daily life, and surely I did. Undoubtedly, this new type of multitasking has helped make me into a more focused and harder worker.

Living in community was also a novel experience. I've had all kinds of living situations: dorms, rented houses, apartments...and room/housemates every stripe. Certainly, responsibilities exist for each of those arrangements...but rarely are you sharing more than a roof and the occasional incidental meal. Here at D Acres, my "roommates" are also my co-workers. We eat almost every meal together. This extreme level of immersion and one-on-one contact was wonderful, and unlike any other experience. Your "roommates" see things in you which you cannot, and vice versa. This is unavoidable, spending most of every day working in close contact. Quickly, whether involved in farm-work or daily chores, I found myself thinking ahead to make positive my efforts wouldn't counteract or hinder the work of another. Living in community has forced me to learn new things about myself, in addition to becoming more objective and considerate of the feelings and needs of others, as well as the larger community.

Already I know that the things I got from this experience far outweigh the things I was required to give: I have a new set of skills, insights, and appreciations. And most importantly, I know surely that these things will continue to spiral out into my life and the larger world. As I prepare to hit the books for the winter, I doubt very seriously that my involvement with D Acres is "finished".

-Dave

Tea Time

2010-11-19T07:42:00.000-08:00

“Is that soup?”

“No…it’s tea, real tea.”

This particular exchange occurred with a hot mug full of foliage in my hand and a bombilla straw poised on my lips: the former being my tea of choice, the latter my means for consuming liquid, not greens. I also had a flummoxed visitor scratching his head over the scene.

See, here at D Acres Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead, when we talk tea, we’re talking home-grown herbs that we’ve tended, harvested, dried, and blended by hand. During the warmer months, we simply walk out the back door and select our share of lemon balm, mint, nettle, calendula…the possibilities are numerous. We also spend hours each week through the summer and early fall drying and storing all manner of herbs. Although the gardens are less than lush this time of year, our shelves and cabinets are over-stocked with a plethora of aromatic bunches.

The next step, then, is to put ‘em in a pot, steep ‘em in water, and voilá – you’ve got the best tea going. Say I’m biased if you must, but think on it. These herbs are tended with care and perspicacity, from the soil in which each plant is grown to the conditions in which each leaf is dried. Tea, for us, is akin to our daily medicine, a means of promoting health and wellbeing in our day-to-day routines.

And we want to share that with you! Granted, a cup of tea is offered to most anyone who passes through the farm and that’s still the case, but we’re going one step further. After a decade of taste-testing our favorite concoctions, we’ve developed Summer 2010, D Acres’ original organic tea blend. It contains nettle, raspberry leaf, mint, lemon balm, holy basil, echinacea, calendula, rose petal, and lavender. Just two teaspoons in your favorite mug makes for a delicious brew.

New this month, Summer 2010 is available at a variety of Main Street establishments in Plymouth, as well as the Common Café in Rumney. Stop by and ask for a cup; we appreciate your support of our local economy. We’re also selling the blend here at the farm and online (www.localfoodsplymouth.org) if you’d prefer brewing it yourself.

Drinking a glass of tea calls many thoughts to mind: bucolic images, satiated sensations, well-tended garden plots, perfumed pantries, and invigorating warmth. For us here at D Acres, Summer 2010 is quite literally the story of a season, produced with the work of many hands. It is a reflection of our soil’s vigor, the health of our birds and bees, the result of attention and conscientiousness, a means of health and comfort throughout the passing months.

What would you add to that list? Give our tea a try; let us know what you think. We want you, too, to be part of this season’s unfolding chapter. Tea-time, anyone?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

I Can See Saturn From Here

2010-11-09T16:34:00.000-08:00

Evenings (and days) are getting much colder, much quicker here at D Acres Organic Farm.
Day lengths are minutes shorter by morning and night, each and every day. I've been noticing this for weeks now, but with the turning back of the clocks this weekend, and the realization that I can now estimate my 7am rising time both by the instantaneous cold as my fire dies and by the absence of sunlight in my graying part of the woods, it seems final. This winter thing is irreversible at this point.

Soon, we will no longer be able to work the gardens, orchards, and fields. The very last of our tomatoes ripen under newspapers, out of reach of the light, in our basement. They are a welcome addition to our diet and a warm reminder of summer, but they pale in comparison to the fruits of July, with all their sunny juiciness. Kale is running short, and Swiss Chard even shorter. Each day brings us closer to the mountain of multicolored potatoes that will make up a very large part of our winter eats. As the seasons change, our diets change with our habits as well.

I enjoy my privacy and solitude in my treehouse, Sanctu. A nice rushing mountain stream about 200ft. below me, the swaying birches overhead, and chirps of the ever-fewer birds about remind me almost constantly of what I don't miss about the "real" world. I have no electricity and no amenities back there in the woods, but also I have almost nothing to bother my thoughts. As the last of the major leaves drop around me, I am half tempted to thoroughly lament the passing of the summer and autumn...I am a bona fide sun-lover...but I resist and find meditation and solace in the beautiful transience displayed all around me.

And in the last part of my evening, as I open my door for a bracing breath of fresh nighttime air, I can notice a spot in the arching trees overhead that was most certainly clothed in green a month ago. Now bare, it shines a thin but true stream of what seems to be starlight almost right on my toes. Being not even an amateur astronomer, I do my research and find out that it is indeed Saturn. Whatever interesting is happening in the "real" world on this Friday night, I can afford to miss it. I can see Saturn from here.

-Dave

A mascot for home-grown carrots

2010-11-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

“Why do you keep your carrots in the dirt?”

Shoulders back, quizzical look on their faces, my little cousins demanded answers on a recent trip to my parents’ gardens down home. They were aghast at the hairy roots, and the preposterous nature of vegetable storage. Who would take carrots out of a bag and stick them in the ground? Clearly everyone must know that’s what a refrigerator is for. Their superior chuckles hinted at their dubious interior monologues.

It took some explaining, but the concept of seeds, and sprouts, then big vegetables growing in the ground was conveyed. The words at least were understood, even if the sanity of such a process was still in question.

I was reminded of this exchange this past week. Three of our regular visitors to D Acres Permaculture Farm & Educational Homestead, all under the height of three feet and the age of five, found me planting out nursery stock. They had the same perplexed look, the same authoritarian stance upon demanding:

“Why are your hands dirty?”

“Well, why are your hands clean?” I responded. Yup, that stumped ‘em.

Their escort kindly explained that I was helping the plants to grow, taking grapes, groundnut, rose rogosa, lilac, and willow out of pots and planting them into the soil. I nodded in agreement. Did they want to help me finish? It’s like making mudpies for adults, I prodded.

Nope, no, definitely not.

Ok, fair enough. They had a date with apple juice and coloring books; I simply had shovels and mud to offer. I certainly don’t begrudge them their fine affairs – but how will they know from whence their fruit drinks came?

It seems that in the stereotypical struggle to make children like carrot sticks or think apples slices are fun, we’ve forgotten the rest of the story all together. Maybe we wouldn’t have to wrap fruit roll-ups with jokes, or fruit loops with comic characters if kids could share in their own story with their own food. If they could taste a carrot they planted, weeded, and pulled themselves, a carrot that was juicy in its tender freshness and sweetened with cold temperatures…a carrot that was slightly wacky in size and not quite reproducible in shape. Surely these things, too, would produce a gloating giggle.

So I for one would rally for carrots being their own mascot, and apples their very own cheerleaders. Perhaps the query to consider is then, if I may kindly paraphrase and parody the tykes:

Why aren't your carrots in the dirt?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Talking it out

2010-11-02T17:17:00.000-07:00

“How do you know what to do each day?” (That one is fairly common.)

“Ok, but who’s in charge?” (Give me a dollar every time that’s asked and I’d be the richest farmer around)

Folks seem to be pleading with me to hear that there is one boss, or to-do list handed down from powers above, or that specialized duties fit a single category easily defined and quickly learned. But, like so much else about D Acres Farm & Educational Homestead…reality just isn’t that predictable nor that narrow, nor that simply explained.

At least at first. My wager, though, is that our system of consensus decision-making, sharing responsibility, maintaining accountability, and developing skills…well, it asks the individual to flourish while also strengthening community.

The process of consensus and collaboration can present its challenges, yes. There are always varying levels of experience, knowledge, and age to balance, and personality strengths & weakness must be considered. While the “buck stops here” is applied to everyone, each individual is given the skills and the support to fulfill that responsibility. As opposed to a more hierarchical power structure, consensus cultivates teamwork, clear communication, cooperative processes, mutual respect, tolerance, and diversity.

So here at D Acres, that means we sit together each Monday afternoon, and work through our plans…for all the details we need to cover. From who’s feeding the pigs, to who’s doing the laundry, from who’s weeding the kale to who’s splitting the wood, we talk it out until we’re all on the same page. This is how I know what to do each day, and why it’s not a simple answer to ‘who’s in charge.’ We work together, plan together, learn from each other, and hold each other accountable. It’s a proverbial two-way street, for sure.

But this is just scratching the surface. Far more explicative tomes have been penned on consensus and group processes. If you’re interested, however - be it for personal use or for a specific organization you are part of – here’s what I recommend:

Check out Cultivating Collaborative Processes: Tools for Cooperative Decision Making, a training session we are hosting Saturday, November 13. This day-long workshop will be led by professional facilitator and certified mediator Irene Garvey. Attendees will spend the day cultivating skills for productive and effective meetings that are fun, fair, and value diversity. The workshop, running 9am-4:30pm, is looking to educate participants in ways to transcend the typical meeting structure (i.e. Robert’s Rule of Order). Whether you are a part of a service group, an organization’s board of directors, a community volunteer, or a project committee, there are skills and tools pertinent to your circumstances.

Productive communication and effective decision-making takes practice, I’ll vouch for that. And it takes time. So begin the process now. Contact D Acres with further inquiries or for registration information: 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

From a friend, member, and frequenter of D Acres

2010-11-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

Thank you so very, VERY much for the wonderful dinner last Sunday. And thanks for all the work you do to make our world a better place to live. And last but not least, thanks for the soup you gave us to take home. We had it for lunch on Monday and it was sooooo good...

P.S. I’m so happy you are using real napkins and not paper ones, just like I do in our house.

Dispatches from Raking the Crapper

2010-10-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

"There's water in there?"
"It's okay, you can go."
"I think I'll just go number one."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few months ago a friend of mine that lives at O.U.R. Ecovillage in British Columbia went with her three-year-old daughter to the city. After a while her daughter had to "go number two" and my friend took her into a restaurant bathroom. At the Ecovillage, as at D-Acres, drinking glasses hold drinking water and toilets do not. The little girl was perplexed by the water in the restaurant toilet because she did not understand where her poop would go: understandably, few of us do. She ultimately compromised and was willing to pee, just to test the waters.
Some guests of mine here at D-Acres were similarly perplexed by the Clivus Multrum composting toilet. We request that guests refrain from peeing in this toilet as much as possible. It disrupts the composting process and can make the humanure putrid smelling and soupier than anyone wants to deal with. Aside from memories from the farms of aunts and uncles long ago, they were experienced exclusively with the municipal sewage system and the flushing toilets that creep up like more mouths to feed at the ends of pipes in each home. A similar dialogue ensued beween my guests and me as the one between my friend and her three-year-old daughter:
"Try not to pee in the toilets because..."
"Well then where do we pee?"
"The land is yours."
"I'm not sure I can do that..." One replied.
A flushing toilet or the land that is the toilet of every living creature can be a source of discomfort and confusion or of comfort and pleasure. Age is not so much a matter as experience. Everyone is forced to see their true reflection, not in a mirror, but in the glop that was yesterday's dinner; and no Narcissus will emerge from that vision. There is instead, humbleness to be found in assuming responsibility for one's fecal matter. Gradually, approximately at the rate the poo piles, a recognition of oneself, a life history from meal to meal and those meals' return to the earth is ingested, digested, and nourishes an understanding that the self does not begin or end in the body, but interfaces continously with the world and can nourish it as much as it nourishes us.
What I have found is that phenomena that are unfamiliar seem unhygenic and threatening. The impulse is as valuable as it can be pervasive. For most of my life, the toilet bowl was my only relationship to a daily product of my body. My idea of feces was pervaded with that threat of the unfamiliar. My friend's little daughter was not naive to be fearful of defecating into a vortex of potable water. She has the wisdom intact to be threatened not by unfamiliarity from inexperience, but with something she could never become familiar with - the endless network of pipes and mechanisms that daily carry parts of us away to some remote accountability.
The litte lever mechanism connected to a chain in the back of a porcelain bowl that I have struggled with in exasperated efforts to keep toilets flushing is symptomatic of a struggle much deeper within myself and in all who share this experience. The struggle is the story of the work for money to afford a porcelain bowl, a septic system, taxes for municipal sewage... It is the rupture with reality that occurs with when we flush. Like the distrustful hilarity that ensues at a magician's sleight of hand, it is hard to trust that that poop went to a better place for us or anyone else, that it was not some sort of trick.
Soil makes all. Poop makes soil...not just cow poop and horse poop, but human poop as well. And when I rake the fecal mountain in the "digester" chamber in the basement here, it is clear that we make a lot of soil. The world we encounter - friends, neighbors, food, wine, laughter - are all articulations of poop. Enjoyment of life throughout a lifetime is also an articulation of poop so long as it is allowed to nourish the earth where it began its journey. So, don't shit where you eat. This is true. But, don't shit too far from where you eat.

- Robby Mellinger: Intern

Stardust to Garden-Dust

2010-10-07T17:30:00.000-07:00

As the tasks of the day are completed and nighttime settles around D Acres Farm & Educational Homestead, I usually find myself with a satiated stomach, dirt-stained calluses, and not-quite-clean jeans, climbing my way to the silo loft I call home. Sometimes I pause to feel the wind or to hear the peepers, the birds, or the sleepy snores of piglets as the season dictates. Often I take a glance at the stars, or note the clouds that hide them.

The other night, though, was no casual glance at the Big Dipper, no perfunctory nod to Cassiopeia. No, not quite.

Instead, I lucked upon a proper tour of the night sky. Which is to say I saw ring nebulas and other galaxies, double stars and the moons of Jupiter, southbound geese and maidens chained to rocks. Okay, that last duo took some advanced skills at connect the dots…nevertheless, the whole affair was impressive and fascinating. Talk about long distance vision.

It made me think of a quote by farmer and activist Wendell Berry that goes as follows:
“Here as well as any place I can look out my window and see the world. There are lights that arrive here from deep in the universe. A man can be provincial only by being blind and deaf to his province.”

Berry has eloquence on his side, for sure. But in my simple walk through the North Orchard, past the pond, under the rose, and up-up-up to the windows of the silo…the stardust in the sky and the garden-dust in my pockets don’t seem so disparate.

There is, of course, the science of elements and minerals and galactic dust, the right ratios of which allow us to be as we are, alive, in this galaxy on this Earth that houses us. And there is, too, a philosopher’s wonder, the juxtaposition of life’s small details unfolding under stars so very many light years away.

I suppose I lean more to the latter simply because the awe of metaphysics comes more naturally to me than the equations of physics.

But whether you consider yourself a scientist or a romantic, or are stuck somewhere in between, there are still innumerable dusty stars, and countless grains of dusty soil. We each have to make our own sense of that, I suppose. It strikes me as a reminder of our human humility and smallness, but also of the vastness of Life. There is grandeur in a night sky that seems to diminish the details of our worries, and a patience in galactic timescales that suggests our hurriedness inconsequential.

Mere musings, yes. There still remains the challenge of relating farming to stellar mythologies. Yet as the constellations visible in the sky transform while the seasons come and go, so, too, changes the dirt, or the leaves, or the snow, or the mud I must brush off myself while glancing up past the rose, and ascending to the silo. While Orion wields his sword across the sky by night, I wield my garden fork, or rake, or shovel, or pruners by day. And together, these acts tell a story intimately tied to place. This place.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Rafters of garlic and puppets

2010-09-24T09:26:00.001-07:00

Another summer has quickly passed at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead in a blur of expanded gardens, prolific vegetables, pond construction, twelve new piglets, nine young ducklings, a community river clean-up event, a host of camp groups and community volunteers, a Local Food Guide Launch, Beehive Collective presentation, and continuation of our Permaculture through the Seasons course.

With autmun upon us, we are quickly bringing our colorful harvest – a bounty of potatoes, squash, carrots, beets, turnips, and cabbage – into our root cellar. The last treats of summer – tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, apples, grapes – are preserved on shelves, while our array of brassicas are testing themselves against the dropping temperatures. The tasks of weeding, mulching, and sheet mulching are filling our days as we race against ourselves to finish before the snow flies.

The top floor of our barn, used to dry herbs during the hottest months, is emptying out as the cool weather and short days descend. It is a unique place, filled with antique farming tools, larger-than-life papier mache puppets, second-hand skis, dishware, & old clothes. And, for much of August and September, garlic.

Yes, garlic. Tied in bunches with baling twine, strands upon strands of garlic heads were hung in three tiers across the top-floor room. The highest strands required an 8’ladder, the bottom willing knees and lots of crawling. Warm days and the passage of time dried it well, and the dedication of many hands over many hours have accounted for the roots being trimmed, the stalks cut off, and the heads sorted by size and quality.

This season’s cloves passed through the hands of a summer leadership camp group, a high school service class, international travelers, local volunteers, and of course, your usual D Acres folks. Our garlic heads have heard talk of the next school dance, plans for dinner, hopes for a nap, demands for lunch, Guatemalan massacres, Angolan politics, city trends, art museums, post-colonial religiosity, and plenty more to fill in the spectrum. World peace has yet to be achieved, and the meaning of everything is not quite answered once and for all…but then again, we do have next year’s garlic to figure out the big questions.

In the meantime, we have scores upon scores of pounds of garlic on our hands: some for planting, some for eatin’, some for selling. By Columbus Day we’ll have planted clove after clove into the ground in preparation for early spring growth. Through the winter, though, it will be our task to eat, share, and sell the rest of this year’s bounty. Which is significant. To buy ourselves some time, we’ll store it in sacks hidden in the dark corners of bedroom closets – warding off vampires is an accidental attribute to our indoor accommodations. Garlic is a natural flavoring, aeoli is a favorite spread; mashed cloves serve as a poultice and garlic tea as a remedy for whatever ails us. Garlic with your eggs, garlic with your greens, garlic with your squash, garlic with your potatoes, garlic with your soup, garlic with your pizza, garlic with your meat, garlic with your bread, garlic garlic garlic.

Please, come on over and lend us a hand…or more appropriately, your appetite.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

The Humbling Hum

2010-09-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

It has been roughly three and a half weeks since my arrival here at D Acres Organic Farm and Educational Homestead... and it's been quite a ride. The duties of farm life are nonstop and never-ending; predictable and at once unpredictable. The amount of learning that takes place every minute of every day in every mind is staggering. The whiz of thirty different simultaneous projects- water, harvest, preserve, can, prune, mulch, clean, dehydrate, plant - is enough to make one's head spin; yet as you begin to settle into life here at D Acres, it begins to form a cohesive hum in your mind.

Which, considering the necessary amount of work to feed and sustain ourselves here, is also a humbling element. Your connection from your work to your plate to your body and soul and then back again is palpable; so much so that at times it seems hard to fathom that elsewhere in the world, people are lunching on Big Mac's and whatever else I don't miss about the "real" world. Every time we share a meal here, I appreciate more about just what it takes to feed us human creatures. The REAL amount of work: not finding time on a weeknight to grocery-shop...then going home and preparing a meal. Feed/Water/Clean (daily, early) of pigs/chickens/ducks...quickly exposes one to the harsh realities of our foodstuffs, and the care and cognizance necessary to maintain such as a viable system for now and for future.

How many people can say that they went to bed last night tired, sweaty, and sore from exactly the labors that would feed them in the morning? As I emptied my pockets last night, I found a baby potato and a couple of mashed grapes. Sure, there is money to be had, glitz to be glimmered, and fast life to be lived out there in the "real" world. But if going to bed dirty and sore is wrong, I'm not sure I want to be right. The tangible connection between hands and contented belly is too valuable.

Woods to Waterfowl

2010-09-11T05:36:00.000-07:00

It’s been a quick transition, really. A few weeks with the sights and sounds of heavy equipment gracing the D Acres grounds in early summer and voilá, what was once a wooded swamp has given way to some oversized puddles. On which shall I comment first – the sudden presence of bodies of water here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead, or the unique experience of pulling weeds by hand while an excavator overhauled our landscape with the flick of a joystick?

It’s fair to say that the excavator is already a footnote in the summer’s stock of memories, while the ponds and aquatic niches we are creating are just beginning to take root. With our brand-new watering holes we are beginning to capture available water to a much greater extent. We are also cultivating a sweet cannonball spot.

It’s been a process of seeding in rye, alfalfa, and clover, watching the water level gradually rise, welcoming the increased sunshine on that zone of the property, and growing accustomed to the changed path of sound. (Though we will pretend not to hear it, the ring of the telephone can now reach us in the lower garden.) The homestead’s acoustics have also been revamped, with the bullfrogs, peepers, and crickets blasting their cacophonous symphony from their all-natural amphitheater. We have VIP seating whether we want it our not.

Nine ducks arrived in July: their house was built in an evening, their fence cobbled together from bedsprings and scraps of fencing the following afternoon. They took well to the water, their inaugural swim filled with full-on dives, head bobs, and wing flaps. (They have this back-scratching maneuver that is particularly entertaining.) Nine piglets – the numbers being mere coincidence – are the most recent addition, again with a fixed-up suite and re-used fencing. Next year’s bacon is growing fast while rooting and fertilizing oh so effectively. They are the consummate garden bed preparers.

So these are the most visible signs of the area’s transition. But there’s more. We hold the next steps in our heads, ready to bring each to fruition as the seasons allow. Irrigation (and fire suppression), graywater filtration, cultivated aquaculture, terraced gardens & orchards, hydropower, wind power, swimming spots & backyard skating….

For now, though, these earthen swimming pools have seen their first summer come and go. We’re watching the clover grow, wondering when we’ll share our first duck-egg breakfast, and hoping the pigs don’t best our fencing system. It’s a cool autumn wind that ripples across the young vegetation, and there are already fall colors reflecting on the water’s surface…proof, at least, that the ponds are not too murky. And aesthetics, I should mention, still count for something. All seems right, when, farm-fresh tea in hand, you can stand on the bank, witness the enthusiastic antics of the ducks, nod in agreement with the bull-frog, and watch the clouds blow over your own reflection.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

A Day of Repose

2010-08-29T11:20:00.000-07:00

As I write this it is Sunday, in fact a rainy Sunday afternoon here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead, and we are quietly tidying the house and recovering ourselves after a weekend of cob building, food events, and meals with hostel guests.

In this case the weather is forcing a rest day, but our arms don’t have to be twisted too hard. There are indoor tasks to attend to, letters to write, and books to read. I won’t hide that the latter two can reliably lead to a rare nap.

Thinking ahead to the work with which we’ll occupy ourselves for the next week or two, my mind flits over the standard list of weeding, harvesting, and preserving. Animal care, construction, and forestry are also near the top; community events, workshops, and hostel management are part and parcel of our chief endeavors as well.

While the former consume our weekdays, the latter three fill our weekends. Pleasant weather ensures a crowd and holidays rapidly inflate attendance. And in no time at all the next holiday weekend will be upon us, the one which signals so many things: the end of summer and the beginning of autumn, a return to school, apple season, fall foliage, the approaching cold, the coming frost…I am thinking, of course, of Labor Day.

There is a none-too-short history behind this national day-off, one told in the annals of struggle & striving and worker agitation. It is a history worth knowing, even if textbooks don’t give it more than a cordial sentence. My interest herein, however, lies more with labor today. My labor, your labor, our labor. Think of it. So very many hundreds of millions of us across fifty states know with barely a second thought that Labor Day is synonymous with vacation, or at least with overtime pay…that the banks are closed and the postman not making his rounds. But what of our labor? How are we engaged each day, and from what exactly are we briefly released?

It’s sort of funny, isn’t it, that one day-off is supposed to satiate us for a year of labor in a system that, well, may not have our best interest at its core? Do you know what I mean? It’s a matter of perspective surely, but it would seem that it is all too easy to end up working for money’s sake, in order to maintain the basics of a comfortable living. Yet we the people are – at times – left with so little control over the factors determining the terms of said comfort.

Okay, so this is getting into some themes that far outstrip the 500-word quota…lucky for you. So I’ll head back to the more comfortable topic of, what else, farming at D Acres.

I’ve found myself saying in different instances, that one of the beauties of working the land is how energy cycles through the process. Plants grow with the energy of the sun and the energy we each put into them. Come harvest time, we reap that energy back, the vigor and nutrients contained within the plant restoring our bodies and fueling our health and well-being. From one to the other, and back again. A sustainable cycle is predicated on self-maintenance.

Which means my personal labor day is to be found more reliably in wintertime, or as a welcome surprise when chores are quickly finished after a busy weekend, or as an occasional adventure through the woods and into the mountains. Ultimately, though, it is my labor that sustains and nourishes me to an extent far greater than that of a labor holiday. What are the terms of your labor day?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Scenes from an Intern

2010-08-23T15:57:00.000-07:00

5:30 a.m., the alarm clock in my tree house starts to beep, faster and faster until the snooze is hit, something I’ll do every 10 minutes for the next hour. I roll over and pier out the screen to the right, the sun is just rising over the eastern forest across the oxen field, spraying the horizon above the tree line with a deep earth-toned orange. My mind begins to fill with thoughts of animal chores and blueberry pancakes. During the next hour the early morning sun rises into the sky spreading its warmth over the gardens and fields that surround the age-old farm. I crawl out of bed and begin my daily walk to the outhouse; my feet and lower legs begin to soak with that good old mountain dew, reminding me of the times spent on my grandfather’s farm in West Virginia. The day continues to unravel as weeds are pulled, plants are harvested, and seeds are covered with earth, and I, gazing at the White Mountains to the North, begin to sweat under the sun.

It’s a fairly unconventional lifestyle, sleeping in a tree house by night and working on a wood-fired hot tub by day, all things I find inspiring and well worth the effort. Yet, it’s the forest that really settles the mind, with its large quantities of Hemlock, Spruce, and Maple that appear amongst the nearly 200 acres of forest. They are a remarkable feature of this land, the Hemlock by far giving the most to the wooded hills’ calming and tranquil notes with its dark green shade and lofty branches. The stream that flows from the hills on the Western side of Streeter Mountain provides and ideal ground for these trees. Yet the Hemlock grows in abundance everywhere, as well as Maples, Pines, and White Birches, as there are many a beaver damn and small pools of spring water that feed and nourish these beautiful trees. A day will come though, that we may call upon the dark grains of a Black Cherry or the abstract boards of a wavy Birch to help expand and maintain the land of which has become so crucial to the livelihood of us, the stewards of the land of Dorchester.

What does a fruit tree mean to you?

2010-08-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

This afternoon sweat had my shirt sticking uncomfortably to my back, dirt staining my legs as I shook it free from the roots of weeds. Myself and a visiting resident from Mexico were working closely in our upper pasture, pulling sorrel, quack grass, and clover from amongst a row of collards, kale, and kohlrabi. We were exchanging perspectives and experiences on food, farming, and class inequality…naturally. She mentioned some time spent amongst a community with a great diversity of fruit trees, yet they subsisted on beans and tortillas. Only the children, she said, bothered to climb the trees to nab some fruit. No one else bothered, they didn’t think it worthwhile to eat and were no longer accustomed to picking their own food.

From there, she went on to describe food conglomerates, and their total control. There were no possibilities aside from international corporations – and they dominated throughout the country. If you want milk, there’s only one option; if you want water, there’s only one option. Water is un-potable from the sink, wells are no good; you have to buy it, and “local” water is a rare commodity.

People have no control, she emphasized, but also no information. They don’t know, don’t understand what is happening.

But here, here in America, here in New Hampshire, here in the Northcountry, we do have information and so we can understand that our local food economy is under assault. For the moment, we do have water that is still potable. We do have choices in the milk we drink, or the meat we cook. We have apple trees that we can relish. We mustn’t take these options for granted.

Originally, this piece was about our weekly harvests here at D Acres. No English major, I purported to create some idyllic scenes involving dew, morning sun, and lush gardens. I maintain that such an image is, nonetheless, fairly close to accurate, and that the variety of produce we reap is a beauty not to be overlooked. We still trot out with our wooden baskets under our arms; we still celebrate a plentiful harvest. From purple string beans, to pink chard; from the deep green of zucchini to the passionate red of jalenpeños; from the crispness of apples to the run-down-your-chin juiciness of plums, harvest days are a sensory treat.

I’ll still mention our Harvest & Preservation workshop, to be held here at D Acres 10am-12noon on Saturday, August 28…

…but this is urgent, folks! We must once again make these skills mundane, common. It is not enough to think that canning applesauce, or pickling garlic scapes, or making raspberry preserves is hip, or quaint, idyllically domestic, or bucolically self-sufficient.

This is about preserving not just our food. Within our relationship to our food, is housed our relationship to local flavor and local culture. Our ability to eat within our region is synonymous with a robust local economy, and a vibrant community. Knowing where, when, and how your food is grown and arrives on your plate is part and parcel of knowing your neighbors. There is no time to wait.

Not to mention that if you wait too long, raspberry season will have passed by, and the apples will rot. And they’re just too good to pass up.

~Beth
as published in North Country News

And then there were ten

2010-07-30T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday began in quite a planned, expected, and orderly fashion. We each woke up in our respective abodes, completed our morning chores, came together promptly at 8am for the weekly garden meeting, then headed to the potato pasture. Potato beetles – and their removal from our potato plants - were the only plans for the next couple of hours.

It was a hot sun shining down on us at D Acres Farm, and the sounds of pigs rooting, hawks calling, flies buzzing, & the local apiaries twittering their own news pulled our minds away from the sweat vigorously rolling off our foreheads. Slowly, though, as the minutes passed, there was one other sound that finally garnered the full attention of our frontal lobes.

“No way!”
“No, it couldn’t be!”
“Really?!”
“How is that possible?”
“She’s a miracle momma!”

To the best of my memory, each of these statements was uttered with various exclamations of incredulity over the course of the next thirty seconds. When that ceased, all we were left with was the looming question: “what do we do now?”

One of our sows had piglets. Ten of them. In the field, and sooner than we were expecting. She had herself intelligently positioned in the bottom corner, a little nest dug into the ground. Even while nursing she was on the lookout, surveying, alert, ready to be on defense. Unnecessarily, perhaps, as our boar seemed to know to leave well enough alone, and the other sow found the day’s assortment of mud and roots intriguing enough; danger wasn’t imminent. There was merely one dead one; the other ten piglets were very much alive. Nine were big and strong, with a tenth runt that immediately won us over with an underdog’s charm.

Our new momma’s hardest work was done. Ours was just beginning. Our prior litter – less than two months old at this point - currently occupied our pig-house suite. Where were we to put them? Like all firstborns they were thrust from the spotlight to the sidelines in a matter of moments. For ours, this meant the bottom half of our greenhouse/animal house/chicken coop cob structure. To get them there meant catching them. And winning.

Now, the last time I wrestled a pig I ended up riding it inadvertently as the pernicious oinker did 0-60 out of its cage with an alacrity unexpected of the average porker. Granted, our two-months-old piglets were smaller than the contestants of that virgin pig tussle, but smaller also means a lower center of gravity and a cuteness that inserts hesitation into a forceful grapple. No excuses, though: success was had and we returned to the field for Stage Two.

The big pigs were distracted with, what else, food, while the momma sow was led inside the pig house with, of course, food. The little piglets were then scooped up lickety-split and spirited away in cardboard boxes to re-join their mother inside. Done.

A week later, the older piglets are now settled into Pigland, out of our greenhouse-animal house and into a home of their own with field space to run and root. The new piglets have doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size.

There’s only one problem: the littlest of little guys is hitting the bottle…not too successfully. Which is to say that we’ve begun bottle-feeding the runt of the litter. He gets picked on something awful, and his joints & muscles don’t want to work quite right. At this point we’ve all held him too close, have all pushed his siblings off when they crowd him out or bite his tail…we have to try and help him along, just for a short while.

We’ll see. Life, death, the fermentation of compost, the creation of our next garden space, and the slow growth of winter’s bacon. It’s all right here, a step outside our back door. Remarkable, isn’t it?

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Berries in the sun

2010-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

“Wow, this thicket is just bursting with fruit,” she gushed, “do you do anything special?”

Pails hanging by baling twine off my back, I was intentionally tangling myself into our most prolific of raspberry patches along with one of our stalwart volunteers and friends of the farm. Unbeknownst to us, we had three hours of berry-picking ahead of us before we would make it out the other side.

I described our process of pruning and weeding to her. Work, certainly, but less than that required for an annual garden bed. Which is the very idea we’re going for here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead: the development of perennial gardens, and an edible forest landscape. This means berries, yes, but also fruits, nuts, herbals, and medicinals. With time, we’ll glean an increasing number of calories from the land (not to mention medicine, wood, micro-climates, and niche ecosystems) with a decreasing quantity of manual input required each year.

Raspberries are just one example of this, but quite the plentiful model for the moment. Raspberries, and now blueberries, currants, and gooseberries as well, are rapidly coloring our various patches, bushes, thickets, corners, beds, and roadsides. Before too long it will be the cherries, chokecherries, and elderberries of the fall.

Deep reds, blushed pinks, dark blues, dusky blacks, and vibrant green leaves; the splendor of sustenance and the colors of abundance are a sort of art in themselves. A farmer’s beauty (perhaps that’s all it is) built right into the sweat and bugs of a day’s work. I take a moment to swat at some rouge flies and tuck a few stray hairs behind my ear. My hands, and now my shoulder and my ear, are stained – not with dirt (for once), but with the juice of overripe raspberries. A few handfuls land so sweet and tart on the tongue, an excellent treat…

…but a couple of hours and four gallons later, there is the decent conundrum of what to do with such surfeit. Even with the farm’s collection of apprentices, visitors, and overnight guests that’s a hefty bunch of raspberries to plow through.

So, we keep some for eating…and freeze the rest to enjoy in less bountiful months. By this point, though, we already have eleven gallons of raspberries stored up, not to mention a few gallons worth of blueberries. There’s only so much freezer-space we can allot for berries (bacon, of course, deserves it’s rightful portion). So the next step is upon us: making preserves. That’ll be another story for another week, surely.

In the meantime, we’re busy filling our pails. It’s an every-other-day-or-so endeavor, and we welcome help! If you want to proffer a hand for some manual labors, please give us a ring. Right now! 603-786-2366.

Yes, you can eat a few as you go along, but no-one will believe that you simply couldn’t find any berries if there’s an empty pail at the end of the day…

~Beth
as published in North Country News

A Day for the River

2010-07-02T10:19:00.000-07:00

It’s summertime, which means fresh air and summer sun beckoning us out of doors. Well, granted, here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead we’re outside most of the time anyhow. There’s no growing peas in the office, and weeds haven’t sprouted (yet) inside the garage. But even us farmers want to get outside for something besides quack-grass and potato beetles from time to time. And we’d like you to join us!

Perhaps you haven’t already heard the news: July 10th (I hope you haven’t picked up your newspaper a day too late…) is Baker River Appreciation Day! D Acres, in collaboration with the Calm Post Café, PAREI, and the USFS will be hosting outdoor events 9am-3:30pm, and a community gathering at Rumney’s Calm Post Café 4-9pm.

Those of us from the farm will be coordinating a paddle and clean-up of the Baker River, beginning at 10am. We will depart from the Rumney Rest Area along Rt. 25 and head to the Rumney Main St. Bridge. Paddlers – in their own boats – will collect trash and debris, then enjoy a complimentary lunch prepared by the Calm Post Café and D Acres. Shuttles will be provided for volunteers. For more information, please contact D Acres at 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org.

If the water’s not your forte, however, you have other options. 9am-12pm will be a volunteer trail work session at Rumney Rocks with Ryan Harvey of the United States Forest Service (USFS). Volunteers will engage in a variety of trail maintenance tasks, then join the paddlers for lunch by the Main St. Bridge. Space is limited, so please register now! Contact Ryan Harvey at 603-536-6129, rjharvey@fs.fed.us, or D Acres as listed above. Meet at the Rumney Rocks parking lot.

For folks interested in other beautification efforts, there will also be a road clean-up within the Rumney Village 10:30am-12:30pm. All participants should meet at the Rumney Library.

And that’s not all. Beginning at 1:30pm, Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative (PAREI) will be leading a bike tour of farms and solar homes 1:30-3:30pm. There will be three different routes that bikers can choose from based on experience and difficulty. The bike ride, which will begin at the Rumney Library, is a fundraiser for Local Foods Plymouth; pre-registration is $20 per person. For more information, please contact Melissa Greenawalt-Yelle at localfoodsplymouth@gmail.com.

Now I have to say this, so read carefully. Please be aware that all physical activities contain inherent risk. Participants’ personal safety is their personal responsibility. Please bring proper safety gear such as life preserving vests for aquatic activity and helmets for bike riding. Let care and prudence reign, please.

Ok, now for the real punch line. This series of July 10th events will culminate with a community gathering at the Calm Post Café in Rumney. The event begins at 4pm and will feature local, farm-fresh dinner, local bands, local artisans & organizations, and aquatic education. Volunteers with the morning river clean-up and trail maintenance will receive complimentary dinner. All other attendees can purchase dinner – provided by the Calm Post Café – for $10/plate. Beginning at 4:30pm, local bands will provide entertainment: Blue Ribbon All-Stars, The Cable Guys, Black Bear Moon, and The Crunchy Western Boys. PSU professor Kerry Yurewicz will lead aquatic educational activities, local blacksmiths Joe Vachon and Steve Ash will demonstrate their art with fire and steel, and Mo the Clown will provide clever entertainment for all ages. All attendees will receive a complimentary ticket to our door prize raffle. Drawing will be at 8pm for a large handmade bowl turned by Rumney’s Ripple Pottery. Got it? You don’t want to miss this.

With much gratitude, I want to thank our sponsors: Baker River Watershed Association, Biederman’s Deli, Calm Post Café, Davis Conservation Foundation, Off the Hanger, PAREI, Peppercorn Natural Food Store, Plain Jane’s Diner, Rand’s Hardware, Rhino Bikes, Ripple Pottery, Samahas, and Shaneware Pottery. Please show your appreciation by supporting these local establishments!

So be sure to join us for a day of summer fun on Saturday, July 10th! Trail work at 9am, river clean-up at 10am, road clean-up at 10:30am, bike tour at 1:30pm, community gathering with dinner and music at 4pm at the Calm Post Café. Don’t miss out! Contact D Acres at 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org with further questions. We look forward to seeing you along the Baker!

~Beth
as published in North Country News

Burning for Clay

2010-06-18T14:49:00.000-07:00

“Look, we got you something - authentic riverbank clay!”

“Oh, authentic, huh?”

“Well, you know…” Because I sure didn’t. Here I was, talking with our new artist-in-residence at D Acres, potter Ethan Hamby, and clearly in way over my head. Terms like bisque and cones, fast-fire and Japanese-style were routinely peppering his sentences. I was doing my best to keep up, but nothing was particularly reminiscent of kale, compost, or oxen.

Though the process may be a tad baffling, it’s plain to see that he has skill. Not just talent, but expertise. A touch of the hand and a turn of the imagination – voilá, he can create some remarkable pieces out of clay. And with those sentences, I’ve nearly expended what I can say regarding ceramics. So let Ethan do himself justice…better yet come on out to the farm and meet him in person. Stop in for a workshop, or swing by his Red Barn Studio to check out his work. You won’t be disappointed.

---

It has been a dream of mine since my early teens to live with a community active in pursuing work that makes the world a better place. I have created my life as a potter to work directly with the earth and learn skills of self-sufficiency, trying to connect with nature and be conscious of my consumption of its resources. It was challenging, though, to maintain gardens while involved in intense pottery production and weekend craft shows. So I have come to D Acres, a small experiment in living sustainably, where the foundation is laid for eating well, inspiration and authentic expression.

I am here to make art from mud in every shape, size, and function. I will make mugs to use for tea brewed with the dried flowers and herbs that grow in D Acres gardens. I will make musical instruments for entertainment by the campfire. The largest work will be a Japanese-style kiln coated in cob (clay, sand, straw) and sculpted into a dragon. Sculptures will begin emerging as if planted in the farmscape. I hope to work with the land and strive to reflect the beauty of Nature’s majesty.

Clay as a vessel for fire is a driving force in my work. I grew up with a wood-stove in my home and every time my mom would light it she would say ”Burn, baby, burn.” At an early age I caught the bug for building fires. When I started making pottery I searched for a way to fire my work without using electricity or gas. One day I took old electric kilns to my backyard, stacked them up on bricks, and built a fire underneath. This first experiment fired to 2000 degrees in two hours. I was stoked to discover that I could get paid to play with fire. Here at D Acres I will be continuing my fiery endeavors, already having built a wood-fired kiln. I will be building a Japanese-style climbing kiln, and re-sculpting a pizza oven. Pizza ovens are really where D acres and I will collaborate to create the best edible art. Clay is shaped by hands; fire, fed with wood; and pizza topped with all the delectable vegetables my fellow farmers have worked so hard to grow.

My love for my work is so strong that I need to share it with others – teaching techniques I have discovered and honed over the years is what I really enjoy. I want people to make things out of clay because it is so much fun to dig into the earth and sculpt it! Making pottery is a meditative process that releases stress and focuses the spirit. Building with cob is an accessible way to construct ovens, sculptures and structures that almost every age can participate in. I will be offering workshops at D Acres this summer to share my passion for these ways of living and creating art.

Making Art and living sustainably are ways for me to enrich my life and the lives of the community around me. My mission is to make as much organic art and share it with as many people as I can. There are many experiments and techniques to discover this summer. I hope you all can come for a workshop, firing or just to visit and talk art.

Remember that “Every child is an artist, the problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up”-Picasso

-as published in the North Country News

Vegetables aren't just for summer

2010-06-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

Our meals these days are reliably accompanied by a salad of sorts – the variety and quantity of its contents continue to increase as these warmer months descend upon us here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead. If there is a season that connotes the flavor of fresh produce, it would be summer, no?

And fortunately, our area is rich with local producers. From a plethora of fruits and vegetables, to eggs, dairy, meat, and baked goods, local farmers provide quite an array of goods to our region. But saying it is not enough. We want to celebrate the diversity of local foods and spread the word. Come find our what we’re talking about at the 2010 Pemi-Baker Local Food Guide Launch. It will be held on the Plymouth Common June 12, 11am-1pm. Pick up the 4th edition of the Local Food Guide, meet local farmers, sample their goods, and enjoy the tunes of local musicians.

D Acres began publishing the Local Food Guide in 2007, the beginning steps to cultivating a thriving local food network. Since then, we’ve expanded the guide each year, now totaling 39 farmers and 23 local advertisers. Thanks to the advertisements of local establishments, a listing in the guide is a free service to area producers. New to 2010, we’ve also included a map pinpointing local farms, as well as information on summer and winter farmer’s markets throughout the Pemi-Baker region.

Why such excitement over a local food guide? Well, for one, we at D Acres are remarkably interested in food. Everyone needs to eat, and the better the food, the better the health and the well-being of both people and land. Local food specifically increases individuals’ connection to a region and its landscape, while decreasing dependency on national and international systems of production and distribution. Furthermore, strengthening local food networks is a direct means of providing local income to local people, a means of keeping our money local and investing in our own community. To quote farmer and author Wendell Berry, “without prosperous local economies, the people have no power and the land no voice.”

So knowing your farmer is vitally important, and not just in the summer. Eating is a year-round endeavor, and so is buying food. The 2010 Guide can help you do it locally. In addition to listing regional farmers and the goods they produce, the Local Food Guide also lists the times and locations of a variety of seasonal markets.

Be a part of a greener picture in our region! Join us June 12, 11am-1pm, on the Plymouth Common to meet your local farmers. Pick up your copy of the Local Food Guide – a sustainable community starts with your next meal.

~Beth
as published in the North Country News

Instigate a Local Food Movement

2010-05-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Our weekends here are getting busier and busier. With the warmer weather, food growing outdoors, the birds singing, and the flowers blooming, the farm is bursting with new life and abundance.

On May 15th, we hosted another Farmer's Gathering. Local farmers were invited to preview the 2010 Pemi-Baker Local Food Guide--check out their listing and all the new additions to this years' Guide. We have added a map for finding farm locations, as well as an information page on Farmer's Markets in the area. It has been exciting to participate in the expansion of this Guide, which in the first edition only four years ago, included only three farms and no advertisements. Today we are bursting at 16 pages and squeezing in 39 farms, and local businesses and services are off-setting the printing costs by purchasing an ad!

The local food movement has reached the Pemi-Baker area! It has been growing steadily, and we at D Acres feel the importance of continuing to instigate this kind of movement. In February, we participated in a screening of the film FRESH at the Flying Monkey Theater in Plymouth. We served fresh chicken soup and a delicious seasonal pumpkin soup, screened the film, and Josh spoke on a panel that included the coordinator for Local Foods Plymouth (an online market), and a county agricultural representative. It was a great turnout, and has inspired many to continue their involvement in making local food more accessible to this area.

And now with the Local Food Guide, anyone can pick up a copy in surrounding towns and find a local source of meat, wool, poultry, veggies, eggs, garlic, baked goods and the list continues. We will be printing over 7,000 copies this year, with 4,700 of those copies being inserted into The Record Enterprise local newspaper.

At D Acres, we are not only interested in eating and feeding good food, we are interested in getting others to see the importance of doing the same. Farmers are not often recognized or supported enough in their efforts to provide. Choosing to have a livlihood that requires one to get her hands in the dirt, or muck out stalls, slaughter animals, harvest, save seeds, run a business, market, and advertise is choosing a hard and rewarding life.

Help to close the economic gap that supports the shipment of nutritionaly deficient food thousands of miles before it reaches your plate. You can support your local farmers by purchasing food directly from the farm or buying at your farmer's market.

Come to the Common in Plymouth on Saturday June 12th and get a taste for local food and community as we launch the 2010 Local Food Guide. We will be celebrating with samples from area farms, music, and speakers (11am-1pm).

We look forward to seeing you there,
Regina

Salad in our Bowls

2010-04-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

There were remnants of slushy snow patches on the ground, but I was standing, sweating, with my sleeves rolled up. I was inside the cob-and-recycled-glass greenhouse at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead lifting sheets of remay from rows of radishes and hardy greens, propping open cold frames, turning flats of transplants to better catch the sun.

And there was water spraying…slightly out of control.

Today was my day to water the greenhouses. It’s a fairly pleasant job, and simple. More than anything it’s a welcome excuse to notice, carefully, how different plants are growing, how quickly various patches of soil are drying out, what needs to be thinned, what is ready for harvesting. Each of our three greenhouses here at D Acres has a slightly different set-up with regard to water. A collection tank off our barn roof gutter offers abundant water and short hauling for our lower hoop house. Buckets and watering cans are our precise distributors. The new kitchen greenhouse requires a hose run from an outdoor spigot though an extra tank, when filled via the hose, accommodates the watering can option as well. Our “g-animal” cob greenhouse is best watered with a hose and watering wand combination.

This is where things can get slightly out of control. It would seem to be a straight-forward process…ok, yes, I can generally keep myself dry. But I’m short, some shelves are tall, and the hose rarely wants to bend in my preferred direction.

For someone who spends a fair amount of time getting dirty, I don’t particularly like getting wet. But it’s a moot point in the end, because I sure do like eating…and this time of year I’m willing to employ the word ‘ecstatic’ with regards to salad greens. Testing my mettle against a hose a few times a week is an exaggerated comeuppance for sure.

The more worthwhile point to be made is: it’s April and we’re stuffing ourselves with salad! Yes, that definitely deserves an exclamation point. Our freezer continues to burst at the seams with bacon, sausage, and the likes, so no-one can justly accuse us of eating like rabbits. But after a season of potatoes, turnips, and squash every day, greens are a delicacy. Some spicy, some sweet, some bitter, some so potently green, others fresh and light to the palatte…forgive me - throw in the word robust and I’ll start to sound like a wine label.

But you get the point. It feels like a power meal of nutrients, all that photosynthesized energy fueling our own muscles, our own efforts. And we’ve been stuffing these delightful leaves down our hungry gullets for a couple of weeks now. So the real story is season extension.

The warmth of the sun, when captured by simple set-ups of glass or plastic, is remarkable – even before it feels like a trustworthy springtime outside. Sure, we arguably have a bigger set-up than the home gardener may want. But don’t use that as your excuse. We also make use of cold frames, simple boxes built with a glass pane top (i.e. old doors or windows), essentially creating a mini greenhouse. These, too, do the trick, reliably producing greens while Jack Frost is still threatening to come ‘round. So think about it. If we’re going to provide for our own food in this northeast climate, we need to do so beyond the months of June, July, and August. Cold frames, indoor starts, greenhouses: these are all ways to do so. Please, drop on by the farm, ask us some questions (try some salad), we’ll even offer you some salvaged doors to build your own cold frame. Just be sure to make use of it, and spread the good and tasty word. Growing your own food is quite doable…and the reward so delightful. That’s right, nod your head; how ‘bout giving it a try yourself?

~Beth
as published in the North Country News

Calluses are our goal

2010-04-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

One of the more frequent comments received from friends and strangers alike note the rough quality of my hands. Our hands, really; the statement stands for all of us here at D Acres. It would seem that the trend is for smoother paws.

A fine ideal, but there are simply too many stacks of wood, beds of weeds and dirt, mounds of compost, heavy buckets, and various other odds & ends to thwart the silkiness of our digits. An opposable thumb is, after a few twists and turns, connected to strong arms and a willing back. So there you have it. Calluses.

It seems to me that there are some notable advantages. For one, sharp edges, hot surfaces, and ill-intentioned splinters have a challenge inflicting damages. Too, a hardened handshake can command some attention, especially in the realms of human-powered endeavors and general ingenuity. The badge of hard work, the certificate of consistency. This, at least, is what I tell myself.

And, here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead, it’s what we tell others as well. This past week we hosted a group of students from Wisconsin (they gave commendable accolades to NH cheese). They spent the majority of their spring vacation at the farm, and four days engaged in fairly intense work. Without much grumbling they persevered through two days of hard rain and soaked socks. In fact, the sunshine that followed may have elicited more complaints due to the threat of sunburn.

A few eight-hour days accomplished a lot. In terms of farm operations, we were able to complete some major projects that we couldn’t have done half as quickly on our own. And with regards to the students, they rapidly learned how to run a wheelbarrow and use a screw gun. They sheet mulched new garden beds, built rock steps, planted peas, stacked wood, transplanted bulbs, pruned berry bushes, fixed fences…the list goes on.

As the time for goodbye neared, we gathered together with the students and talked a bit about the week. What we hoped to have taught was a sense of the work – its difficulty, its variety, it joy; the opportunity to build some calluses was our goal.

“You certainly did that,” one student laughed, “we’re sore.”

Arguably, the sort of soreness that lets you sleep real deep at night. And the sort of soreness, I’d add, that comes from simple hard work, where contentment is engendered by the process itself, not just in the finishing of a task. Perhaps, then, what we’re really working for is to broaden the confluence of hardened handshakes.

So here’s to a handshake economy in all its connotations, including our ability to proudly carry our stories, our lessons, and our experiences in our hands.

~Beth
as published in the North Country News

Keeping Tradition Alive

2010-03-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

Music is a funny thing. We categorize it by station and artist, the instruments we like, the beat we prefer. It provides us with our preferred complaints and our choice head bops; it is our welcome distraction, our conversation, and our background filler as the circumstance dictates. But I suppose that what I’m describing is the music fed to us by radio waves and satellites, wired to our ears and pumped through speakers.

Isn’t there something different about music that is created right in front of us? Sure, the same likes and dislikes insist on stating themselves, and good skill is more pleasant than the lack thereof. But to create music, to experience it before us…well, it makes for a pretty good time. There is a purpose to this thought, and here it comes. What I’ve got in mind is a good ole barn dance.

Some call it contra dancing, some call it traditional folk dancing, some call it New England barn dancing. You know what I mean? Fiddle players flying along with their bows and strings, calling out steps and sequences as the muddled groups before them sort themselves into an organized dance. There are lines, and circles, swing-your-partners and do-si-dos.

And the music is remarkable. Lively and up-tempo, with all the history of this northcountry life seemingly stuffed right in to each tune. The notes burst out and guide the dancers; dancers smile, laugh, (attempt coordination), and encourage the musicians.

Of course, this is all being said for a reason. Saturday, April 10 D Acres and the Cardigan Mountain Arts Association are hosting a family barn dance at the Enfield Community Center. And not just any dance…New Hampshire’s renowned folk artists Dudley & Jacqueline Laufman – the “Two Fiddles” – will be calling the steps.

You don’t want to miss this. Dudley has been calling barn dances for over fifty years, while he and Jacqueline have been touring as “Two Fiddles” since 1986. In 2009 Dudley was awarded the National Heritage Fellowship, our nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts, for his tireless efforts to promote and preserve New England barn dancing.

So consider this evening a must. The event will get started at 5pm with a potluck dinner – please bring a dish to share! Dancing will begin at 7pm. The event is free and open to the public, though donations are certainly welcome. Again, it’s at the Enfield Community Center along Rt.4.

That should be all the details, but please give the farm a call or an email if you have more questions. 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org. Join us in preserving a piece of traditional New England. You’ll get a delectable meal, exquisite music, and some dance moves that just don’t jive with rock-n-roll. Saturday, April10 at the Enfield Community Center, dinner at 5pm, dancing at 7pm. See you then!

~Beth
(as published in the North Country News)

The Journey Continues- History of D Acres

2010-03-19T06:52:00.000-07:00

In general, annual garden productivity of 1999 was limited by the ongoing construction, the gradual growth of gardening area available through no-tillage methods, and the lack of seasoned personnel to work diligently, efficiently, and independently. We accepted a dozen interns that summer as we intensified the recruitment on the local college campuses of Plymouth State and Dartmouth. Micki and I attempted to offer managerial expertise in the garden, woods and building site. Our limited experience hampered our abilities to assert prioritization of tasks and we were impatient with the authority issues that arose within the hierarchy that was forming. A percentage of interns were not prepared for the actual work of the farm and preferred the time spent socializing without accomplishment. The cultural adjustment that can transition idealist US college students into rural subsistence, agriculturalists can be a difficult birth. This scenario would continue to limit our summer productivity in terms of work accomplished throughout the years. While our farming efficiency was low in the initial years, the monumental growth amongst staff and interns was immeasurable in regards to life skills including agriculture, culinary arts, construction and community living.
During the spring the drywall was installed and the painting began. Throughout the summer siding was put up and by winter the tile and wood floors were in place. As the winter approached we began the finish woodworking. Micki left for a farming experience in South Africa. George and Mike from Rumney supplied cabinets and built in railings to highlight the beauty of wood. Davy, his brother and myself hung doors and trimmed the details of a diminishing punch list of tasks at the community building. Although we continued working on the siding and the deck that summer, by May the building was occupied.
Will, Kim and Sage were a local family who expressed an interest in being the first residents of the community building. Along with Josh N and Katie, who had recently moved to the area, we formed a trifecta couple combination with the addition of Sage who was a newborn. The situation evolved so that Katie and Micki worked the garden, Will cut firewood and Josh N worked a full time carpentry job and helped weekends fulfilling his negotiated 26 hour commitment. The summer stewed as we evaluated our futures as couples. Eventually Kim, Will Josh, Sage and Katie moved back with Kim’s mother and sister in Wentworth. Micki and I were left with novice though enthusiastic interns to close down the gardens. The metal deck was accomplished through the efforts of the Dyer family who at the time were residents of Dorchester on the end of Hearse House Rd. Bill Dyer had been a steady enterprising local welder since he had quit the work at Dartmouth College. He had constructed solar dehydrators, chicken tractors and garden carts to our specifications through the initial years. The back deck was necessary as a second floor fire escape and we constructed the project from steel due to the marginal dollar cost compared to a treated lumber wood assembly construction costs.
Late that summer a local man, Steve, presented us with a unique opportunity. He had raised and trained two Jersey cows as an oxen team. These yoked workers are the traditional beasts of burden in New England. Steve had limited space and energy to continue working the team and offered them to us if we promised not to eat them. Seizing this opportunity Jacob, an intern from Connecticut, and I constructed a building for the oxen shelter. Along this time Joy joined us as the cob crusader. Her interest in cob initiated the earthen construction program at the farm.

As the summer petered out I decided to vacate the premises to discover how other ecocommunities were confronting the issues of sustainable community living. That fall of 2001 I enrolled in a two week permaculture immersion class at Gaia Ecovillage in Argentina. My intention was to discover and emulate a system of collaboration that would enable the d Acres project to grow in a positive trajectory. The trip was a realization on many levels. I acknowledge that my expectations to travel to Argentina over 3000 miles for a two week course in SustainAbility were extremely high. My imagination and expectations led me to believe that the ecovillage would be a self sufficient, thriving community.

I have been rewarded in the revelations of this trip as I learned a commonality through this experience. I realized that we were all participants in the journey of discovery geared towards a future of mutualistic sustainability. The movement is a work in progress and internationally we are grasping at the pieces of a complex puzzle.
The ecovillage is an oasis amidst the endless plains of the pampas approximately 100 km from the megalopolis of Buenos Aires. Situated between the culture of gaucho cowboys and millions of acres of GMO soybeans the 60 acre property hosts diversity and sustainability infrastructure in abundance. Silvia and Gustavo are the couple that form the backbone and spearhead the Gaia project. Gustavo is a bearded man similar in appearance to Osama Bin Laden who is the charismatic, dominant authority onsite. Silvia, who is more of the public relations specialist, still exerts leadership and direction for the Gaia voyage. The property was once a dry milk factory and the remaining buildings house dormitories, classrooms, kitchen and garage. Birds of prey swooped between giant eucalyptus trees and the insects sang to the starry skies through the night. The electricity is supplied by windpower and dry toilets process the human waste. There is effective use of cob ovens and solar cookers for food preparation. Local partners raise bees onsite, there is a greywater system and the hot water system is integrated to use solar and wood as the heat source. They host interns from around the world and the two week course in which I was enrolled had participants from seven countries including several from Argentina. The multinational participants joined together for highly anticipated two week course geared towards solving the problems of the world.
By the end of the two weeks mutiny had occurred. Many of the participants were unhappy with the course and the Gaia project. Several had been offended by separate personal interactions with Silvia and Gustavo. The youthful Spanish WWOOFer who was a resident expressed a negative perspective on his time at the farm. The basis of the complaints were complex and multidimensional. I expressed concern about the lack of annual garden production and the limited onsite food production. I also noted the cottage industry presented by the ecovillage was marketing of essential oils such as lavender produced conventionally and repackaged for resale. Ultimately the participants focused on the sanitary kitchen facilities as the qualm that distressed them the most. During a meeting set up to express our gripes, Silvia responded to our hostility about cleanliness by inviting us stay at the farm and maintain the kitchen to our standards. Her resonating response was that if we had a problem with kitchen hygiene we should remain at Gaia and clean. No one chose that option.
Gaia was experiencing what is commonly known in the non-profit and communities movement as founder’s syndrome. The diagnosis of this non medical ailment is found through similar symptoms. The founders are charismatic visionaries with where with all to initiate and lay the groundwork for innovative projects of a personally passionate nature. Founders focus their passion to achieve immense tasks to undertake and persevere the conception of a project. This strength can be the Achilles heel of the organization through unrecognized burnout, personal ownership and attachments, and reluctance to evolve. Founders find it difficult to work with others who have less commitment and passion for the project; Co-workers are unable to devote the time and energy to maintain the pace and intensity of the founders ideal and feel disenfranchised.
While prolonging my stay at Gaia did have appeal to me, I chose another more adventurous option. During the course Alejandra, Silvia’s sister, had arrived to present information about a project to which she was shortly to return. Arcoiris por la Paz (Rainbow Caravan for Peace) is a self described mobile ecovillage that is traveling the Americas since 1996. The project was initiated by members of the Rainbow family who set out from HueHuecoyotyl ecovillage on a mission south to the furthest tip of Tierra del Fuego in an effort to rebuild the bridges between the peoples of the America. The group uses theater, workshops and educational materials to challenge the corporate paradigms and rekindle our relationship to Mother Earth. Alejandra had shown a finely crafted documentary HBO special that sparked my interest in the group. I was intrigued by the how this nomadic group could function with various language and cultures on this intense mission of service.

Alejandra was intent on joining the Caravan by New Years in Ecuador after an Argentina Christmas with her family. I wandered west into the Andes to explore the mountain agricultural scene, do some hiking and seek some solace. Things were brewing in Argentina and I decided to head for the hills. On Dec 22nd as I boarded a bus from several days alone in the mountains I was greeted by an astounding circumstance. The populace of the entire bus was dead quiet listening to the events broadcast via radio from the capital. After weeks financial strife the people had taken to the streets in a vocal and destructive assault on the government and corporate institutions. Frustrations with the International Monetary Funds stipulations and lending practices had driven the people to demand the government overthrow. As a gringo on a bus with concerned, connected citizens we spent the rest of the afternoon dodging the roadblocks of burning tires set in the roadways by enterprising disenfranchised Argentians. When I arrived back in the resort town of El Bariloche, the TV in the hostel portrayed the video footage of the day, including several demonstrators shooting death. The actually footage was compiled in a cutting edge new format reminiscent of MTV News.

I retreated via commercial bus lines to Chile where I met Alejandra on Christmas Day. From that rendezvous we traveled North. Over the next five days we spent over 100 hours in bus. We traveled North through the Atacama dessert the worlds driest region. After a days journey we arrived at the Peruvian border to catch a lowbudget holiday busfull across the border. The busload of peoples carried the tourist lore chickens and goats strapped to the roof and also electric drills and chainsaws. From Arequipa we traveled first class north in bus, as the full moon glowed on the Pacific on my west, boulders tumbled into the road from the Andes on my right. From the lounge on the second floor on the bus I watched the beauty of the ocean and the dismay of a road partially hinged on the edge of mountains still in movement. When we arrived at the border of Ecuador we entered a zone of dispute between the two countries. It is a frontier without decided ownership. The people in the 30 km zone between the countries lived in a surreal Wild West Mad Max Tijuana bizarre.
As we crossed the dunes into Olon I caught my first glimpse of the Rainbow Caravan. A cirus tent and several school buses set ocean side amongst a fishing village resort town along the coast of Ecuador. As we drew closer via foot I encountered the stilt walkers, magicians and clowns of the caravan frolicking. Our first night was the last day of the year and we celebrated the holidays with the fireworks and dancing of the occasion. When I awoke in the sandy tent on the first day of 2002 I anticipated an adventure that I soon received.
The caravanistas were a motley mix of people from the Americas and Europe ranging in age from 8 to over 60. We were rehearsing a theaterical performance with a folkloric theme of peace and love for the mother earth that we were performing in the plazas and schools along the coast. Our numbers swelled to nearly forty as an influx of vagabond street performers joined us from the local surf resort party town Montanita. As we considered our next move, we were approached by an indigenous community called Aguas Blancas, who invited us to reside in their village as a way to exchange ideas and culture.
Aguas Blancas was a village that could be compared to the reservations of indigenous peoples in the US. The land was marginal for agriculture and the people were dealing with weather extremes of flooding and drought produced by the El Nino. Many of the houses had dirt floors and indoor wood cooking arrangements. Alcoholism was prevalent among the adult males. Pigs and goats ranged freely denuding the landscape of vegetation. Equatorial maladies such as worms and skin lesions flourished. The reservation had several archaeological sites that predated Columbus. They had an extremely advanced system of sustainable fruit vegetable production which produced an abundance of fruits such as bananas and papayas. With formal community meetings they were organized to make cooperative decisions and developed sophisticated ventures such as running water for irrigation and household usage as well as a reforestation project.
Our first night we were invited individually to the households and served a fresh chicken soup. It was the first meat I had eaten in over ten years.
In our time at Aguas Blancas we taught informal lessons of English and shared our sustainable skills in dance, yoga, instrument making, gardening and theater. We developed a theaterical performance performed as a procession through the reservation. The procession told the history of the village from the pre Columbus era through the conquest and resettlement of the village. After the culmination of the procession performed by the villagers we moved on to our next destination in the urban environment of Cuenca.
In Cuenca we experienced the urban version of the Caravana. We initially were housed in a refugee for victims of domestic abuse. With thirty plus people sharing a single room and bathroom facilities, the diesel stench and concrete of the environment became a sensory overload. For work, we were primarily focused on repairing the school buses and developing a show for the unveiling of the renovated World Heritage site in the center plaza of the town. After two weeks we shifted the basecamp to an abandoned building besides a school closer to the downtown district. From this camp we were afforded access to the town market where we supplied street performance in exchange for food. After three weeks in Cuenca the caravanistas dissolved through dischord.
The lack of harmony had many factors. Cultural differences between North and South were heightened by the economic differences amongst the many participants. The leadership was split between two partisan factions, one of which was led by Alejandra. Her perspective accentuated the fluidity, art and hippie culture of the caravan and the street people participants. This group were advocates of a decentralized power structure, disassociated from conventional government organizations, accepting of marijuana use and while more frugal also less insistent of individuals contributing financially to the caravana. The other group were stewards from the North with more concern for the benefits of collaboration with local government, more structure and planning of rehearsals and performance, greater emphasis on budgeting and financial sustainability and adherence the zero tolerance of marijuana. These two groups met for a meeting that was explosive and challenging for the bilingual organization. While the meeting served to vent the frustrations the difficulties in agreement remained unresolved and the caravana shrunk by over half its members at this juncture. For me the time had come to return to the North and meet Micki in Seattle for a trip across the country in a 1967 split window Volkswagon van.

As we slowly made our way back east I encountered a culture shock similar to what I experienced upon returning from Spain. The fields of moncultured corn and the corrupt law enforcement officials created an alien atmosphere in my homeland. I was relieved to finally be back at the farm in New Hampshire. Monika is a graphic designer taking a career break and living at the farm with Micki and Joy, who had volunteered to develop a website. We also agreed on a logo design and the utility of branding in this capacity. Both these decisions were crucial components in developing the outreach capacity of the D Acres organization to the general public.

At this point Micki began her studies at Sage Mt Herbal School. Her intuition and experience provided a gateway into the blossoming herbal medicine community of New England. These experiences would provide the opportunities that ultimately freed her from her role at the farm.

Boiling down the sap...

2010-03-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

...for three days

Sweetness in the Air

2010-03-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

The smoke stings my eyes…tears-down-my-cheeks type of sting. My throat burns, nose is dry, eyes hot, and – the telling clue – my hands sticky and black with soot.

Yes, it’s sugaring season.

Which also means a sweet smell to the air, warm days, crackling wood. As I write this, the sun is just rising over Stinson and Carr to begin the day here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead. The fire that I started by candlelight is now roaring, three pans and a warming pot hidden in the evaporating steam.

We began boiling March 8, but the process really started the week before, putting in taps (77 in total) and hanging buckets. We have a small and simple system here at D Acres: everything is done by hand from beginning to end. There are certain inefficiencies, but they are also the endearing qualities of the system, the fodder for rich stories once the sap is boiled and the syrup stored in the root cellar. Our tedious collection system and dubious woodstove also make the point that anyone can do this if you choose to, regardless of your set-up. Really. Some maple trees, taps, buckets, and a woodstove are all you need.

We started collecting sap within four days of tapping out, it was running so fast in this spring heat. Too busy to begin boiling right away, we could barely keep up with collecting buckets before they threatened to overflow. Each of us were out there in turn, carrying buckets of liquid gold as carefully as the slushy snow would let us. Visitors to the farm were forcefully encouraged to lend a hand. Friends, volunteers, even some boy scouts were part of the action. By the time the first boil came around, we had 160 gallons stockpiled. Before the morning was out, the count was up to 185. And still drip-drip-dripping into our smorgasbord of five-gallon buckets.

In our sugar shack, a poster is hung which describes the sap to syrup conversion process as follows: “it takes about 40 gallons of sap quickly boiled down” to make one gallon of syrup. The numbers are right on, and are a testament to what we are willing to do for sugar – more on that in a moment. It’s the adverb in the sentence that gets me. “Quickly,” it says. Well now, just for examples’ sake, yesterday’s tallies are as follows: 5:45am to 9:15pm, roughly 90 gallons of sap boiled to a watery syrup that still needs to be finished indoors on our stove. We’re figuring on 2+ gallons of syrup from that batch, and that’s after 15 hours, 30 minutes and an imposing quantity of wood. Evaporation is not, on our old woodstove to say the least, what one would willingly term quick.

Nevertheless, the time, effort and wood required for this tasty endeavor does signal the value of sweetness. At D Acres, maple trees are our only source of sugar currently (bees and their honey have come and gone over the years). When we speak of eating with the seasons, we’re not just referring to tomatoes in summer and squash for the winter. Sugar, too, is part of the seasonal equation. Maple syrup is something we can only make during these few weeks of the year. When I write “liquid gold” I’m not being terribly dramatic: syrup is something we treasure, and have to make it last the whole year through. Long hours amidst steam and woodsmoke make for a quick lesson in sugar’s value, and provide ample reason to enjoy it sparingly.

Just how sparingly will be determined by the vagaries of local weather. We’ll see what this season has in store for us, and how many gallons we can store on our shelves before the sap sours. Meanwhile, we easily anticipate the sweet treat that awaits us for the next twelve months.

And if you want to carry a bucket or two, just swing on by the farm…

...you'll know where to find me.
~Beth

as published in the North Country News

Blue Skies Above Us

2010-03-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

There's something distinct about the twittering call of a bird in March. I couldn't give it a word if you asked me for it, but you must know what I mean...something fresh that seems to echo off the blue skies and melting snow, something sweet that mirrors the smell in the air, something that silences the curmudgeon in each of us and dares us to deny the spring in our step. That, at least, is what the songs of our avian neighbors suggest to me.

Here at D Acres Farm, I've been rising earlier and earlier as the sun insists on waking the world just a little sooner each day. But I can't complain, for it is the singular call of birds from the cedar tree outside my southern window that are suddenly my daily alarm clock. And these tiny creatures with their maestro vocal cords are just one symptom of spring's apparent arrival.

The sweetest, arguably, being the arrival of sugarin' season. I put our 76 taps in barely a week ago, but my how quickly the sap is flowing! We have 160 gallons stored in drums and buckets around our sugar shack, and more collecting as I write this. Our first boil will be tomorrow...There's more sap than I can evaporate in a single day by far. Still, I'll be going early (hopefully before both the sun and the birds). Who'd have thought that evaporation could entertain one for so many hours?

Swing by the shack if you're in the area, check out the process, taste some of our homegrown sweetness. Company is always welcome to pass the hours.

But that's not all. There's lots getting going here at D Acres this spring, so consider the following as well: Want to get a jump on your edible landscaping and mushroom cultivation? March 20 we're offering an all-day mushroom log inoculation workshop with Dave Wichland - check out the website or give us a call for details. Please pre-register!! Or, perhaps, you're looking for a chance to gather with neighbors, share some grub and good tunes - join us at the Enfield Community Lutheran Church this comming Saturday March 13 for a dinner and concert benefitting Bill Loyens, a local neighbor who recently lost his house to a fire. A good time guarenteed!

We're all a little itchy for spring, yes...but put aside that spring cleaning for a day and join us when you can! Be it for a workshop, event, or just to drop by, we hope to see you at the farm.

All the best to all -
Beth

Dirt, Light, and Water

2010-02-26T11:16:00.000-08:00

Here up on the hill, at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead, I’ve woken up to snow a handful of days this past week or so. Granted, it’s not much, and melts almost as quickly as it falls – Jack Frost, after all, is playing quite the round of hide-and-seek this year. Nevertheless, it is still winter outside.

Inside, however, the excitement of spring has arrived. First it was some dirt under my nails, the aftermath of sifting compost stored from the fall. Then it was a series of sneezes as I shook the dust and dirt from pots and plastic flats. There was the clearing of shelves, the choosing of seeds, the creation of a logbook from a crumpled, water-stained notebook.

And then: planting.

Kale, spinach, chard, arugula, lettuce mix – the process of choosing how much and which varieties was tantalizing and arduous in its possibilities. Here at D Acres we save our own seed when we can, buy seed when we need to. When it came down to it, I had dozens of options before me. Originally thinking of seeding ten flats, I ended up with twelve…and they only exhibit a fraction of the possibilities. Luckily the process will be repeated again and again as the weeks unfold.

Let me say that I’ve been doing this since I was a child, and yet the act of pushing seeds into dirt fills me with a giddy anticipation, a wordless amazement that this process actually works. Will these seeds really grow into an abundant larder? Sea kale, chard, New Zealand spinach…these varieties are easy to grasp, literally, and somehow in their tangible size seem more likely to thrive. But kale seeds? Lettuce? And never mind arugula. These are so small, their minute-ness is overwhelming and yet their potential is inversely grandiose. Calloused, dirty hands must claim delicacy and dexterity for planting these.

It is these little seeds that are the receptacles of a gardener’s devotion and trust. Some dirt, some light, some water; throw in some care and attention, and these tiny, green, photosynthesizing stalks of life can thrive. Sure, we witness the aftermath of life’s vivacity all around us, but there is something both daunting and gleeful in bearing witness to the process so intimately, hanging hope and faith – and satiation - on the potential of a minute seed.

The remarkable thing, too, is that anyone can do this. You can do this. Growing food is not the imposing venture it is too often depicted as. Seeds want to grow, life wants to continue; as a gardener you’re just fostering the process along, guiding it in a complementary direction. Give it a try. We’re here to help. (Yes, really, I mean it: give us a ring 603-786-2366 or info@dacres.org)

And all the eloquence aside, people need to eat. And eat well. Food is essential, and relying on California, New Zealand, and the like disconnects us from the history and the narrative of our own wellbeing. Growing kale keeps me healthy, and not just for its freshness and nutrition. Perhaps it is also true that the process of planting, weeding, harvesting, cooking, and preserving any home grown vegetable is a process that continually reinvigorates my sense of aliveness. Amazing, isn’t it, that all that can be bundled into one seed?

Best to all,
Beth

Food for Everyone

2010-02-19T11:44:00.000-08:00

The Winter time is often a time to slow down, reflect, catch up, and do some of the things we don't have the time to do during the growing season. But one thing that doesn't stop or even slow down is eating. If anything, we here in the Northern cold climate find ourselves eating a little bit more. We like to think we're giving ourselves a little extra layer under our long underwear.

This Winter we had the opportunity to enjoy some late crop greens--turnip and spinach. They were planted in the Fall under cold frames and left until well after snowfall to grow. While clearing off the greenhouse from the weight of snow, we did the same for the cold frames. Curious to see how our greens were doing and nervous they might have died after several deep frosts and snow, we investigated. To our delight we were another success story of season extension. We brought spinach inside--enough for several omelets, and fresh eating for over a week.

We went through a warm spell in late January, and remembering a full 40-50 foot row of late crop turnips buried under a couple of feet of snow, I decided to see how they were doing. Finding them and digging them out of the snow and frozen soil proved to be a mini adventure, but they pulled up clean and fresh-looking. After a quick rinse I wanted to try these little experiments. They were sweet and tender, just like new turnips during the late Summer. There are still a few feet left in the ground; I'm curious to see how they last the rest of the Winter. Turnips and parnips fresh out of the ground in Spring will be a nice treat.

Here at D Acres we have plenty still in our storage: Fall turnips, carrots, and beets; plenty of potatoes, garlic, and squash; we managed to pickle, freeze and can quite an abundance as well (cukes, green beans, garlic scapes, horseradish, applesauce, tomato sauce, fruit preserves). So we're still working through our homegrown food and it feels good to eat with the season and the hard work of preservation.

We continue to think about food and the many ways it nourishes us throughout the year. Our connection and attention to how it is grown and "packaged" makes an impact on the health and well-being of our minds and bodies when we choose what to cook up for a meal. I like going upstairs to the bedroom closet and picking out which winter squash will best suit the soup I have planned to make.

In the area of Dorchester and Plymouth--The Pemi-Baker Region--so close to both the mountains, the lakes, and the valleys of New Hampshire, we have the great challenge of using the space we have to grow food. This Saturday (The Third Saturday Soup Night) we will be hosting some of the areas Farmers and Growers. It will be a time for visiting around bowls of soup, networking, and connecting about the season past and the season to come. The importance of supporting one another as we face these growing challenges and think more seriously about what it means to feed the local community. The evening begins at 6pm and all are welcome to attend.

For the fourth year in a row, D Acres will be publishing The Pemi-Baker Local Food Guide. This Guide is a resource for the region to find out WHO is growing WHAT, and WHERE they can purchase these goods.

My hope is that more and more people will find the value in this very simple concept: know your food and where it comes from. When you find yourself even just curious about what it takes to get the tomato to the grocery store in the middle of Winter, you may soon find yourself curious about the value of that tomato and whether it's more worth your dollar to wait until Summer for something better. NH doesn't grow tomatoes in December. I take that back. Some growers have found various ways through hydroponics and heated greenhouses to provide tomotes during other times of the season than just late July and August. But in this instance, you still have a face to that case of tomatoes--someone you can visit with, learn from, and pay a higher percentage of your spending dollar to.

D Acres is trying to bridge the gap between the consumer and the producer; we're trying to close the cycle where a consumer's dollar is split. By keeping more of the dollar within the local economy, everyone benefits.

On February 23rd, D Acres is co-sponsoring a screening of the film FRESH at The Flying Monkey, a newly reopened old movie theater in downtown Plymouth. We will be serving a local dinner at 5:30pm, showing the film at 7:00, and having a panel discussion after the viewing. Josh Trought, executive director of D Acres, Melissa Greewalt-Yelle from Local Foods Plymouth (an on-line local foods market) will be on the panel.

Events like this that spark enthusiasm for community growth and development through awareness and education are vital to our rural towns.

We're cooking up a storm these days--still from our stores and savings. We hope you will join us for any of these upcoming events to taste the value of locally made and produced.

With much warmth,
Regina

p.s. please check out our website www.dacres.org for the most up to date events.

The Talent in These Woods

2010-02-17T12:14:00.000-08:00

As if on cue, they both rose. Hands clapping, feet stepping to the rhythm, heads nodding in time with the beat. A few others followed suit. Across ages, there was the same smile – even on the faces of those who remained sitting – everyone with a lively tap in their heel. Outside, the wind howled as if demanding an encore. Rouge snowflakes were tossed around chaotically, glimpsed in the spotlight of an outdoor light. -3°, -5°, -7°.

It was a night to enjoy a fire. Indeed, the woodstove was kept roaring, as was the oven. Fresh-baked bread emerged first, followed by winter squash stuffed with sausage, potatoes, and turnip greens. The kitchen counter, however, was full with numerous dishes besides those: cabbage salad, baked beans in two varieties, breads, desserts.

The air, too, was full with the sounds of crackling wood and scraping silverware. Better yet, conversation, instruments being tuned, and eventually, music. This night was not just any night here at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead. No this was a triple-header of sorts, a potluck-snowshoe-open mic combination.

The cold temperatures froze enthusiasm for the moonlit walk, but the rest of the evening was all the more robust. With full bellies accomplished, we moved on to music, poetry, and even some acappella. Guitars, of course, dominated, but a saxophone and a much-anticipated fiddle made an appearance as well. And the poems shared were not to be underestimated.

I’ll preface the next paragraph by saying that here at the farm we are busy gearing up for the coming season. This means coordinating events, organizing workshops, lining up interns, ordering seeds, ad infinitum. Through it all we hope for good people to surround us and join with us, but that’s not something that is manifested with a simple statement. A resounding evening with goodwill in the air; friends and neighbors sharing in home-made food, music, and laughter; talking through the ups and downs of the day, and the work with which we each occupy our time. No, we can’t plan for this, but it is what I, at least, relish in particular.

After all, what is rich land, satisfying work, and healthful food if there are not people to share it with? There is a simple beauty in this act of coming together, a comfort found in putting aside the hardships or the struggles to seek the joy of a familiar connection. It is holding an eye from across a room, nodding, knowing we each want to be right here, right now. It is spreading a smile, knowing we each are enjoying the same ambience, in the same place, in the same moment. It is inclining my head, careful to listen, catching the details of another’s recent tales and efforts. These exchanges are reassuring.

I, for one, am already looking forward to this month’s potluck/snowshoe/open mic. Here’s your chance: Friday, February 26, potluck at 6pm, moonlight snowshoe at 7pm, open mic begins at 8pm. Bring a dish to the potluck, snowshoes for the walk (will it really snow again?), instruments or a willing ear to the open mic – yes, all events are free! And let me say: the talent tucked away in these hills is astounding. Come revel in the richness of your neighbors.

The First Two Years of D Acres by Josh

2010-01-25T16:31:00.000-08:00

When we arrived in the White Mountains to embark on the D Acres project, I was 26 years old. The idea was to start a market garden and develop a community supported agricultural model to fund a summer season farm. My level of experience was humble though our plans grandiose. My lack of experience included essential farming skills such as construction, gardening, management, animal husbandry and New England weather.

The crew that arrived in October 1997 was a motley mix of characters with diverse motivations and commitment. Brenna was a San Juan Isle gardener and homesteader looking to experience and design the initiation of a permaculture homestead. Charles was a chef and gardener who had taken the Permaculture design class at the Bullock brothers. Crazy Jimmy was an experienced home builder who had joined the team in the Virgin Islands where we had partnered for rock climbing expeditions and traveled together to Alaska. My sister Dara had basic gardening skills she had gleaned from backyard gardening in North Carolina and the time spent on farm on Orcas.

When we arrived that fall we envisioned transferring the lifestyle and socio-economy of the West coast back to the east. The progressive, affluent islands of Boulder, San Francisco, and Seattle had been fertile grounds for local food aficionados and upwardly mobile, recreationally focused youth. The weather of the west was mild, on Orcas the ground had not frozen for two winters and Boulder was renowned for 300 days of sunshine per year. The typical remaining forest in the Northwest is predominately rapidly growing softwoods that dwarf East Coast forests ravaged by two centuries of human occupation.

The shock of transplanting to the East was intense. We were aliens to the landscape and the society of Appalachia. The conservative culture rejected the threat of a potential commune and the assumption of a hippy lifestyle. We lacked the social support network of idealistic youth who were abundant collaborators in the West. There was intense skepticism of organic food production and potential clients in this rural location were slim. Even more problematic as a practical problem was the weather. Frost free growing is limited to ninety days and ground is frozen from November until April. The icy weather and cool reception were the first inklings of the many obstacles ahead.

Our initial effort was put into preparing soil to plant garlic. The soil was typical of the fertility abyss that exists between Maine and Vermont. We shoveled out the outbuildings that had collected the dust of twenty odd years of disuse. Even as Edith reminded us, we were cognizant of our lack of knowledge, and carefully shifted through the diverse array of broken parts, half finished projects and lawn art that had accumulated at the farm. We quickly learned that when we threw objects away we would likely need them the next day for an unanticipated project. Edith was supportive of family and our agricultural ambitions though our idealism clearly lacked experience. She was quick to offer advice when she felt necessary and the name of the farm resulted from an incident in which she had reprimanded Brenna who reacted by singing “D Acres is the place to be” to the tune of the theme song from television’s “Green Acres”. At least now we had a name.

We fiddled with the Farm-All tractor we had inherited and added a woodstove to the Red Barn. As winter set in, Brenna and Charles returned west and Jimmy headed to Philly for winter work. My sister and I began further renovations to the redbarn making improvements to the living area and the kitchen. As the season moved in with ferocity, Dara, Edith and I settled in for a winter that set the stage for the realities of personal conflict within a working community.
Winter in New Hampshire has never been considered easy. Two adult siblings freezing in a barn, without running water, with an elderly aunt, and isolated from peers is not everyone’s ideal. My sister and I had spent over a year traveling the continent together and Edith had some resentment towards Dara from some childhood slights. In February, tensions escalated and Dara chose to head west to intern at Jerome Ostenkowski’s Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute.
My own desire to be at D Acres drifted at this juncture. The many opportunities that were available had tremendous attraction. Travel was particularly appealing. I imagined offering service as roaming relief worker, doing stints in exotic locales helping people in desperate need. The difficulty of bridging cultures to live in seclusion with my 89 year old aunt was apparent. And I almost moved on from this project.
There were also rationale that led to staying at the farm. The familiar relations I enjoyed with Edith were a strong incentive to remain at D Acres. The history and sense of place encouraged me to invest further. The long term security and stability of the farm system attracted me. Ultimately many compelling reasons emerged to forge ahead at D Acres.
During that first winter was also the arrival of the many characters who would nurture the project for years to come. Louie and his dog Lucielle came from North Carolina where we had been childhood acquaintances. His gardening experiences with the Harrington’s had been similar to mine and his green thumb is strong. We began constructing a structure that was to be the first treehouse. Our intention was to build something off the ground to protect the foundation from ground moisture from rot. We felled some softwood and come alonged it alongside four trees on top of the snow and affixed it to the trees. Between these beams we built a platform and a house in which the roof was also attached to the trees. This design in conjunction with wind produced the effect that led to its name as the Creaker.
As Jimmy and Charles returned plans were implemented for the growing season. We constructed an additional two tree-platforms for tents and proceeded to turn ground for the initial forest garden planting. Our errors were historic. We built outdoors beams for structures using poplar which is particularly susceptible to short life from rot. We turned the soil with the tractor using the plow and then removed the rich sod layer to build swales. Our farmstand on rural rte 118 attracted approximately 5 customers every Saturday that summer if you counted the regulars. We acquired four old scraggly hens from the feed store in Plymouth though our ineptitude in the transfer had resulted in the fifth being freed to the streets of a college town.
We began to adapt to the growing realities of New England. Our perennial focus resorted to traditional crops such as blueberries and apples. To provide for season extension of annuals we began experimentation with hoop houses and cold frames. It was during this period when we made the acquaintance of a local logger named Jay Legg. Jay had moved to the region within the prior ten years and was still considered an outsider or “flatlander” to many locals. He was a wealth of information for our forestry, construction and gardening trials who had weathered the tribulations of being the newcomer in Dorchester.

Through observation we assessed the realities of the situation. Our land base was marginal soil, three times cut and run ragged by sheep in the 1800s. In addition, the damages issued by the last glacial period had left piles of conglomerate stones and sand though little organics and subsequent nutrients. Our clientele for farm products was limited. Frugal locals planted their own and the human scale permaculture to which we gravitated was not scaleable for restaurant and whole sale levels at this juncture. We felt the need to offer the land as a service to the community. There were few opportunities nationally for on site experimentation and education related to sustainable farming and lifestyle. We decided to make tangible plans and implement a service organization that would steward the land while provided service and education to the community.
The 26 hour per week work commitment for D Acres residency which became the standard requirement of residency actually began as 28 based on the Nearing model of 4 hours of bread labor for the community, 4 hours for personnel fulfillment and 4 hours of recreation, community or education per day. During one community meeting the point was argued by an intern that in fact they had been offered 26 hours as the arrangement, in the face of quibbling we adopted a 2 hour reduction as the standard. The commitment has not been set based upon any statistical analysis of human hours necessary for subsistence and extensive community service programs. Rather the number was set arbitrarily based on minimal farming or rural living experience. It is a standard we have accepted to introduce people as a minimal work requirement. Personallly I would consider that a subsistence living with a minimal fossil fuel footprint requires human energy of a minimum of 80 hours per week.
To support these operations I used funds that I had inherited from my grandparents. We also solicited Bill and Betty to help with the purchases that enabled the agricultural and community programs. In general we attempted to control costs with frugality and common sense though we often wasted money from inexperience. Our diet of imported fruit and soy products was expensive.
Our philosophy of food was initially a lacto-vegetarian diet. We chose, due to our limited gardens and food preservation abilities, to purchase canned salsa, tortilla shells, pasta, tofu and other processed foods. We purchased in bulk at the local natural food store. For the first couple years our food self sufficiency was probably about 10 percent of what was consumed.

Our quarters in the red barn felt inadequate to our future plans. The water was supplied by the roadside, mice-infested 12 foot dug well. The floors were uneven and difficult for elderly to access. The red barn would not suit our goals to be public accessible and sanitary, reflective of a positive and plausible alternative to conventional consumerism economics. We began formulating plans for a community building.
The community building planning began around the table amidst the apparent inadequacies of the 1830s barn around a round table. In the stalls of this barn we discussed an ideal building that would serve the onsite operations as well the community functions we hoped to create. The heart of the structure was to be the kitchen with an open concept to reveal and revel in the process of the culinary creations. The functionality of the building included such features as a 5 bay garage, woodshop, three bedrooms, an office and two bathrooms. Features included a root cellar and composting toilets. The energy for the heating system was designed so that a wood gasification boiler provides heat to a radiant and domestic heating system with a 1000 galloon heat exchange tank. There is a room designated for crafting projects such as sewing and painting. Also a bedroom would serve as a library for the books that were accumulating as we researched the various aspects of the project. Plans evolved to include a room eventually known as the yoga room, this space is a large carpeted room utilized for events including films, overnite visitors, reiki, and its namesake.

The Trought family had traditionally celebrated annually with a summer pig roast and 1998 was the first of such NH style events. Farm Day, as it has been known since, generally consists of tours, pig roasting and live music. In the early years it was more of a Trought family event though it has sifted definitively towards a general community celebration. The party was chaotic collection of friends old and new, men in dresses, bonfires and good music, an omen of summers to come.

A family friend, Shelley Pripstein, was invited to draw plans for the community building. We began the foundation under the supervision of Bob Guyotte, an experienced heavy equipment operator and concrete installer. Bob and his crew worked with Jimmy and I to install the septic and to pour concrete for the full basement and garage slab of the community building. Preparations were made, ordering lumber for the spring to begin wood framing. Conflict arose over the building. My sister is concerned with the huge investment of capital. Betty needed reassurance that the community building would be fire safe, insurable, sellable and livable to the standards of a conventional home owner. I was an novice, idealist, builder who did not truly even understand the actual size and scale of the structure that we were undertaking. My construction interest was geared towards earthen materials like adobe and strawbale not the conventional stick frame and drywall we were to undertake. The architect was in Pennsylvania and we had minimal comprehension of construction budgeting and contracting. A local relative, Paul, was recruited to help assuage the contruction woes.

The parameters of a realistic living wage began to be set in dollar amounts by our actual budgets. Our business operations began as an LLC devoted to construction of the community building. Throughout the community building construction we spent approximately $250,00 in materials and subcontractors fees for the construction of the community building. In addition we garnered fees from the Trought family for Dacres construction personnel time that was siphoned into our non profit educational enterprises. The reality of the Trought family generosity in particular Betty’s financial planning and wherewith all enabled the financial actualization of the D Acres operation.

As the summer ended it became clear that Charles would not be returning for the following season. His agricultural endeavors continue to flourish on Orcas Isle. He has served as the catalyst; providing nourishment as the creator of culinary delights, and implementing a design to grow from seed through harvesting the food to serve. As winter approached I found refugee in North Woodstock working part time as a ski instructor, with Kevin Wall who had joined the farming crew that fall.
Kevin and I had attended college briefly in North Carolina where we had partaken in a raucous fraternity society. He arrived as another refugee who would gather his wings, fly, and return to assist the D Acres organization throughout the years. On the day he moved onsite at the farm there was a flood of the stream on our west boundary that destroyed the crossing of Streeter Road and the above ground pool at the Mission house downstream. Our time spent on the slopes and sharing the space in North Woodstock provided variety to the winter blues.
During this period we began recruiting strangers, in earnest, to live and work at the farm. Our first advertisement in the WWOOF catalog is a prescription for disaster or enlightenment, perhaps a combination. The announcement offered idealists interested in peace, love and prosperity a welcome home in Dorchester. In addition to the unrealistic promotional materials, we were not selective in our application process. As icing on the cake, we had signed on an Israel man, as a paid agricultural exchange worker.
The organization with which Arnold from Israel was affiliated was designed as an exchange program for seasoned agricultural worker from “developing” countries to work in the United States. It was our hope that this worker would bring knowledge and work ethic as well as cultural exchange to the farm to serve as a resource and example for the US interns. Unfortunately Arnold did not meet our expectation as an able agriculturalist. His growing experience had been a limited role as an assistant in an obscure scientific experiment during which he recounted daily shifts at the pool. While Arnold failed to meet our presumptuous expectations, we were delighted to be joined by two engaged individuals from near and far, John and Micki. John had just graduated from UMass and was a timely addition to the meet the appetites wet by the legacy of Charles’s culinary creations. Micki came from the Washington state mainland up the Skajit River from the ferry to Orcas. She was twenty-two. Self motivated, she had tested out of high school and had worked in a plant nursery with Mexican immigrants for several years. She had traveled overseas to Europe as well as a stint in a Australia as a National Parks exchange worker. Her experience and connection to plants built upon the initiated garden design. She supplied raw energy and love for the plants and the land that was to be a driving force on the project for years to come.
As spring blossomed, in addition to the above mentioned, Jimmy and I were joined by Dara and her boyfriend Mike. Micah and Mia, friends from Colorado, migrated to the farm.along with Amy a childhood friend of Micah we knew from Orcas, and Matt, a yogi from Massachusetts. This principle cadre provided the crucible for the initial general meetings where recent acquaintances meet to decide the day to day activities of the farm. There were also random friends, short term work traders and unexpected visitors who appeared with increasing regularity as word got out about the farm. The meeting of this group was a productive though chaotic blending of characters that was to begin to occur at the farm annually for years to come.
So as snow melted we gathered to erect the community building only to discover we lacked the immediate housing necessary for our swelled ranks. To resolve the housing crunch and actualize annual vegetable planting April, May and June were devoted to construction of dwellings both human and animal. Chickens, goats and pigs arrived at the farm once again and their housing was the first priority. We sourced milled outs from a local sawmill and began construction of the shelters in the area behind the Red Barn known as the Lower Garden. After the animal structures we proceeded with a focus on personal dwellings, the Kuspa inspired Crow’s Nest, Dara and Mike’s Sanctu and the Skinny Shack were soon outfitted with minihouses on top of treehouse platforms.

As we constructed these personal domiciles and accepted the reality of this intense operation, the day to day conflict amongst people began to boil. Dara felt threatened physically by Jimmy’s personality in face to face meetings and he was forced to leave the property. As we began to move into the construction of the community building conflict arose with my relative Paul whom we had anticipated to be the general contractor of the community building. Paul was a seasoned builder with many projects constructed under his supervision. Despite this, the size and complexity of the project, the geographic distance from his home, and unorthodox ideals of the volunteer construction crew presented irreconcilable differences. Despite the loss of experience, Mike and I resolved to continue construction and framed the first and second floor with the nail gun and heavy lifting assistance of everyone willing and present onsite. At that point Mike and Dara were called unexpectedly though perhaps predictable to live their lives westward due to family circumstance. As this evolved Jay Legg was working with a crew in the woods to restore the erosion impact of the previous logging onsite while instructing the basics of chainsaw operation and earthwork to our impressionable woodsworkers.
As we began the crucial details of roof framing a neighbor named George helped us immensely with ideas and inspiration to proceed closing in the roof and the details of the interior. As the fall approached we had managed to enlist a metal roofing contractor whose bid we received handwritten on notebook paper after he had divulged he was flying permanently to Arizona that winter. Agriculturally we harvested pigs and vegetables with vigorous enthusiasm though productivity of amateurs.

As the windows and roofing were installed work began in earnest on the interior. Davy, whose father was a local home building contractor, joined our crew as we moved inside for the winter. Inside work was devoted to the details of plumbing, electrical, insulation, and heating, dust collection and the stereo system. I served primarily as a general contractor and Johnny on the spot to insure timely completion, control costs and assure the building quality. The heating system involves several elements that are experimental including the gypcrete subfloor that encapsulates the wirsbo tubing on the first floor as well as the wood gasification unit tied to the 1000 galloon heat exchange tank. Micki had migrated to Hawaii for the winter and while I received visitors from time to time it was a solitary existence during the short days with many nights spent working to the wee hours. At this point I repeatedly questioned the judgement of this large physical, mental and financial undertaking. The living conditions and workload was strenuous and the local folk we had hoped to serve did not understand the concept or accept what we had to offer. Luckily, I lacked a realistic assessment of the difficulties and rewards we were yet to encounter and we continued on. Winter recessed and we moved back into the excitement of the growing season.

A Winter's Rhythm

2010-01-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

The sunrise was beautiful this morning at D Acres Organic Farm & Educational Homestead. In the course of a handful of minutes, the gradual brightening of the farm's quiet snow-scape erupted with yellows and pinks on the hills. Then, just as quickly, the colors receded and the day was here. It is an ancient and seemingly eternal story.

The sun, it would seem, is getting restless for the spring...it was just this morning that I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag to the coming light, only to realize it was not even 7am. The darkest days are behind us, for a little while.

Don't get me wrong, though: here at D Acres we're not anticipating spring quite yet. The winter is still chock full of tasks to accomplish. Just this week we finished repainting the interior of our community building, ordered seeds for the coming season, and began logging again with the oxen. The root cellar is still full, and our closets still stacked with squashes and garlic cloves. The freezer, to everyone's delight, appears to keep refilling itself with sausage.

There are quiet weekends though, when you will only find our tracks - cross-country ski grooves and snowshoe imprints - as we take to the woods and bask in some winter beauty. We encourage you all to, too! Our trails are always open to the public, and you're welcome to give us a call if you want to know the current conditions. There are miles of marked trails, and we love when other people enjoy them as well as ourselves.

If you wanted a guided walk, however, here's your chance! FRIDAY, JANUARY 29 we're offering a D Acres Triple Header:

6pm: Potluck - Bring a dish and a friend, FREE!
7pm: Guided Moonlight Snowshoe - also FREE! Please bring your own snowshoes.
8pm: Open Mic - Bring your instruments and songs of choice, or sit back and listen to the talents of your neighbors. FREE!

So that's that, hope to see lots of folks here. And in the meantime, if you need a hand with some shoveling or perhaps (re)stacking of wood, give us a call. We like lending a helping hand.

~Beth

Blacksmithing 101

2010-01-14T18:08:00.000-08:00

I had my first real blacksmithing lesson today. I got Joe V.'s number and gave him a call on Sunday. Joe V. was once the resident blacksmith here at D Acres. I told Joe that I was interning here and that I was interested in learning about blacksmithing. I asked hime if he would come to D Acres and give me a crash course in the smith shop. He gladly agreed and seemed excited for the opportunity to get into the ol' shop with a few willing to learn sets of eyes and ears as an audience.
Now, I've spent a small amount of my time here at D Acres cleaning up and re-organizing the blacksmith shop. Which was in a bit of a disarray having not been used much since the chill of winter set in. As my mind makes some sense of the small clutter, I begin to find all sorts of small trinkets and knives and decorative S-hooks and other random pieces of art. Stopping what I'm doing to take time to examine and appreciatte each piece. Each piece forged right here in this shop. Each with its own story to tell. In a sense, (being somewhat of an artistic metal worker myself) you could say I kinda already knew Joe before I actually met him.
I'm a welder by trade. At least for the past 3 years or so. However, I first started welding about 12 years ago with my buddy Looney who makes extraordinary works of art with recycled scrap from the junk yard. We ended up becoming roommates shortly afterwards, so hanging out in the alley agter work was a daily occurrence. With a mig welder, some acetylene torches and a fresh new load of old exhausty pipes and other precious gems piled every which way into the ford festiva we used for work each day. We would create the most wonderful things. Ahh, those were the days!
Today I was back in that alley. As we all stood in the skin biting cold, huddled around Joes instantly raging forge fire, (which, mind you, puts off ZERO heat unless you are directly above it and inches away) he taught us everything from fire building to forge welding. We watched as he transformed a rusty steel rod into a beautifully hand crafted piece of traditional, functional art for every day use. He showed us how to temper steel and how to use Borax as a flux for forge welding. Each step was explained to us in detail. For each question, a knowledgeable answer. One of the best "classes" I've ever attended.
After a little over 3 hours of trying to see through our own breath, we decided to call it a day. Which was pretty good timing because I couldn't feel my fingers or toes anymore. Nevertheless, it was worth every freezing second. I walked into that shop today as a student. I walked out as a somewhat slightly amatuer blacksmith kinda but not really, yet, and I feel pretty darn good about it! Thanks Joe V.
Tyson...

Laughs and Smiles!

2010-01-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

I'm new here at D Acres, but it doesn't feel that way so much. Apart from not knowing where all the dishes go, it's as though I've been here for years. I kinda fell into place, just by walking through the door. I was warmly welcomed and I very much look forward to living, working and growing here.
As week one comes to an end, I find myself surrounded by family, friends, a list of chores, a stack of books and a pretty sweet spot to rest my head and warm my feet. There is enough room for me to shine in any direction I should happen to choose. When I emerge from the cocoon of my sleeping bag, i'm free to stretch my wings, and also get some help learning to fly.
I believe it would take a very long time for a chap to absorb the vast quantity and quality of knowledge that is in, of and around this place. Not to mention the artistry, the talent, the experience and the down-right dirty, hard work that is the driving force behind the big wooden gears of D Acres.
That atmosphere is easy, the work is hard, and the rewards stretch far beyond my tiny little existence.I look forward to each new day and the laughs and smiles that are sure to accompany it. Cause thats just the way it is around here. Laughs and smiles!
Tyson...

e"D"ith, Delbert, and Pat of Dorchester the family before D Acres

2010-01-04T12:37:00.000-08:00

This is a brief history of the events that led to the formation of D Acres

In 1997 Edith Gray lost her drivers license in an examination at age 89. She had lost her husband and daughter about ten years prior. Her rural New Hampshire independence was threatened because she was dependent on the single passenger transportation system.
In 1948 Edith & Delbert Gray, along with their daughter Patricia moved to Dorchester, New Hampshire. Delbert was bred on a dairy farm in the Northern Kingdom and had worked in the woods to pay for a college degree in accounting. Edith was from the urban coastline of the city New Bedford, though of immigrant parents so used to thrifty, simple living and Pat was a newcomer to rural living.
In the early 1800s Dorchester was an agrarian community focused on wool and forest resources. There were 10 schoolhouses and 7 sawmills. The Eliot family, pioneers of this era built the Red Barn and the Gray House in the 1830s. They are buried in the Cheever Cemetery off Hearse House Road. The land in New Hampshire was scoured by the glacial erosion and melting during the last planetary ice age. The soil is mineral rich though lacking organic material compared to our neighbors in the Upper Connecticut River Valley. The thin soil left by the glaciers was degraded further by the deforestation and over grazing of the early 1800s.
As the west expanded, land in the new territories with its rich prairie soil was inexpensive and abundant. Through tax subsidization for troops and the enlistment of its youth, The Civil War drained the town of its treasury and human capital. The decline of the wool market eliminated sheep as a viable primary commodity for the region. The industrial revolution pulled the people to the urban areas as the mills offered steady wages. By the 1940s there were only 90 residents.
Edith Gray had immigrated from England with her family as a baby to settle in New Bedford Massachusetts before World War I. She left Massachusetts for Hartford where she soon met Delbert Gray. The Gray family succeeded in the densely populated east coast continuing to subscribe to agricultural sustainable practices such as completing home repairs themselves, raising mink and teaching decorative arts.
The writings of M.C Kains including the classic Five Acres and Independence inspired them to seek a rural alternative to the pace afforded in the city.
The Gray family bought the Eliot property in Dorchester as a traveling respite for the visits to Delbert’s family in the Mt. Mansfield area. Advertised in a hunting magazine, the property of 200 acres “more or less” was bought for 900 dollars. When rural electrification arrived in Dorchester in 1948 the dilapidated barn and cape house became the full time accommodations for the family. Edith said she cried of loneliness the first year. Then she got involved in the community serving on various “lady’s” committees plus civic organizations like the School Board, Supervisor of the Checklist, Etc.
Delbert Gray had been a successful accountant in cosmopolitan Connecticut before he returned to the Appalachian hills of his youth. Delbert tried various schemes to subsidize the farm enterprise such as selling insurance.. Del finally became an accountant for the State of NH to subsidize his farm and became very involved in civic organizations like the Plymouth State Fair Committee. He was a Dorchester Town Selectman and Tax Collector. Delbert spent his spare time working in the gardens, and with poultry, oxen, pigs and horses. He built furniture and upgraded his home while maintaining farm structures. Blacksmithing and maple sugaring became two of his favorite hobbies.
Edith began her art career with a class in decorating chairs in 1938. She became accomplished in numerous mediums within the American Decorative traditions including gold leaf, mother of pearl, reverse on glass and velvet painting, sewn and braided fabric and was a member of the League of NH Craftsmen. She taught adult classes all over the north country for the League and ultimately in her backroom studio until just months before she past away.
Patricia Gray followed in her mothers footsteps and was an accomplished artist She graduated from the University of New Hampshire as an Occupational Therapist and moved to Connecticut where she predeceased her parents. Delbert and Edith then decided to pass the property to the son of Edith’s brother, Bill Trought. Bill had been a frequent visitor to the NH farm throughout his youth and with his wife Betty had developed a regular habit of visiting the farm in all seasons with their children to enjoy the beauty and recreational activities found in NH. Both health professionals with advanced degrees they had settles in Greenville, North Carolina. Bill and Betty Trought had considered retirement to the woods of New Hampshire and the gift of the property was one step closer to that reality.
The Trought family had enjoyed consistent visits to Dorchester throughout the seasons for many years. Edith dated her studio by her memories of me in a kiddie pool in the foundation. In his eighties Delbert felt his ability to travel would only deteriorate so a cruise down the Mississippi was organized. Delbert Gray past away in 1987. Following his death, Edith continued the rituals of the seasons at the homestead with assistance from long time neighbors who helped with maintaining the garden and the house. At local gatherings and trips to town she enjoyed the flair of costume jewelry and notoriety of being an elderly eccentric “painter”. The farm outbuildings gathered dust and cobwebs sinking into the landscape. In her late 80s, Edith’s vision and dexterity began to limit her artistic expression and mobility. When she lost her license she had driven through a flashing red light with a license examiner in the front seat.

posted from the DAcres Farm by Josh Trought 1/2010