“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
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
From a friend, member, and frequenter of D Acres
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.
P.S. I’m so happy you are using real napkins and not paper ones, just like I do in our house.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Dispatches from Raking the Crapper
"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
"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
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Stardust to Garden-Dust
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
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
Friday, September 24, 2010
Rafters of garlic and puppets
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
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
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Humbling Hum
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.
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.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Woods to Waterfowl
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
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
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