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Monday, May 30, 2011

Foraging-----Mushrooms & Asparagus

When May shows up and the end of the "starvation time" ends, wildfoods offer a chance to live again. They are slow in coming and the many foragers of the area wait for the first shoots of asparagus and the precious morels. Ya, ya, we can all go up to the grocery and nab, for a pretty penny, some fresh stuff just flown in from Jerry Brown's bankrupt California. But in my pessimistic thoughts I often wondered what it would be like if that "just-in-time" delivery were not to show up. What would there be if the cupboard were bare and last year's "laid by" jars and frozen goodies had disappeared, consumed some weeks ago?



Well, I know we still have plenty in the freezer and there are still a few jars of green beans, not to mention the Buttercup squash that are still hard and fresh even in May. Here it is just about June and we have eaten asparagus almost daily for two weeks and my strength is gaining. There were a few morels around but I have grown intolerant of them as a past over-indulgence now seems to have made my growing belly unhappy with any more than a few. Still I ate a couple this year and did not hallucinate nor die of gastronomical disruption.

All told, the take was meager this spring and if we had to depend on resupplying out nutritional needs with what is found, it would not be a pretty outlook. But today I did notice pigweed coming in and shortly milkweed shoots will show up.

Then again, if I need food I can always pour my great supply of maple syrup on a bale of hay (or lots of other things), much like a farmer can pour molasses over straw to get the stock to eat it, and I too will have sustenance. It is hard to starve in this country. Boy, that asparagus is good.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Tornado Watch

Today the tornado got so close we had to head to the basement. This is a first for us but not all that uncommon here in Wisconsin. We have already had a number of them this year. Must be the climate change going on or it is just a bad tornado year.





The thing had been on the ground ten miles from here, and it was straight southwest of our home. Not good. Dangerous. We watched the news and the radar as the siren sounded a couple of times. The weather outside was disturbing as the sky became green and dark---not a good sign. Our kids, and grand kid are visiting, so it was a family event. We chatted up the weather and stepped out side to take in the ominous event hoping that nothing would really happen but still excited about the violent weather. The wind was low but the clouds were moving quickly. Still, we could see no turbulence. The lightening was almost constant and in the background we could clearly hear this rumbling that was growing in volume. We were nervous but intrigued. Nature is wild and Mother Nature can be a bitch.


The news finally said it was heading to Amherst straight out and would be there at 6:35. So faithful to all the weathermen, we headed to the musty basement along dragging the dog and, initially, the cat. Turns out the cat didn't like it all that much so we put him back upstairs thinking if we got hit this really old cat would go out in style.


Having never done this before we were forced to consider what we wanted to save in case the entire outfit was blown a way. Well, we grabbed musical instruments, some cash, phones (to call for help), computers and drives with all our pictures and writing. After being down there for only a few seconds I was sent upstairs to fetch our evening drinks. "Get beer and don't forget my Martini."


We were sparred but some one brought up that this my be similar to the rapture, or maybe it was the start of the rapture. That is why the beer was so important, because up in the heavens there was no beer. It was a good exercise and a chance to reflect on what has value.

Permaculture and my Garden


I have been following numerous ideas on organic/sustainable gardening for years and have, in my way, tried to grow good productive gardens using what methods were available to me and reasonable in cost---yes, money is always an issue because food is so cheap in this country. I have seen concepts that appeared affective but cost huge amounts of money due to structure (raised beds), brought in fertilizers and expensive seeds and plants.



At times it has been hard to see some of these pay off, but still one has to respect the efforts. Of late, permaculture has caught on and while I can't say I am up an all the procedures, I am testing a few. We have chickens and they do leave behind nodules of fertilizer filled with nitrates and other goodies. But the thing I noticed is that 3-6 chickens simply do not produce enough manure to enhance more than 10 sq ft. In other words it is hard to scale this manure thing up to a level that is effective. I am beginning to think this is also an issues of other "sustainability" projects. Where do you get enough natural fertilizer to grow the food that feeds the world?


You don't, I suspect. Where do we find adequate cattle manure to enrich the fields of Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota. We need to get real. That stuff is all growing out there because of fossil fuel inputs.





However, the other day I went to the local dumping area where folks get rid of all their organic wastes---yard stuff mostly. There in front of us were pies of molding bales of grass hay. Bingo. I felt like we had hit an answer because this would significantly add to my garden's wealth. It did. But then I remembered that this grass had removed nutrients from another piece of land. So while I had gained, another property had lost. I don't think it is ever a win-win.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Lost Fields---A Revolution Watch

Here in Wisconsin many farms and their fields have disappeared into the night. Even in my life, I have seen them go away. As a kid each year in the 50s and 60s (I wasn't a kid the whole time) the farms just failed for lack of success. The fields of corn were always a shabby lot back then with some stalks 3' and others 7'. Maybe they produced 40 bushels/acre, maybe a bit more but it was meager by today's standards. It just wasn't a living. The soil was played out.





A few days ago I walked my brothers place and like always noted the stone fence moving through the huge trees and reflected on the setting wondering why anyone would have made this slopped hill side a field. I knew the farm had been set up in the 1860s and couldn't bring myself to understand how much work had gone into moving these stones to produce a pasture that had minimal value. The scope of the labor was profound.


The farm failed probably 30 years before my brother moved in in the mid 70s. In looking at the site that was once all fields and pasture among the now grand trees, it is hard to imagine "Why" anyone would have done that. It just had no future. Sand, stones, pot holes and swamp. It made no sense but it was a farm and my brother did meet the elderly sisters that at one time ran the place. They related that it was a farm and they did subsist without regrets, not in a world of wealth but still content.


On the way home other fields in the immediate area, the ones that at one time also had the scraggly corn, now produce corn 8' tall with double ears. The word is that even the poorer fields bring in 120 bushels an acre. But it is different. The corn is genetically modified. It is pounded with roundup, fertilized with anhydrous, potash and who knows what else. Oh, maybe sprayed with insecticides. All the goodies are petroleum based and the product of the "Green Revolution".


So what happens when the fossil fuels go away? Where will this revolution go ? Which way is actually the best, the best for man, the best for the planet? It is all a strange story, it would seem.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Snow on Mother's Day

I don't know if this is typical, but I don't remember seeing snow around here in May. Now I will admit it did snow a tiny bit about a week ago, just a flake here and a flake there-----rather like friends. Oh, that is not right. But as of this moment there is still a pile of snow in our backyard about a foot deep and it will be there for probably another 5 days. (This is just a small pile with Ann and Chester guarding it.)



It is there in part because this is where the church piles their parking lot snow in the winter. This year it was probably 8 feet high by early March. The pile is tight up against the hedge and blocked from the sun---which has not been around much lately. It is also covered with a layer of dirt and old grass much like they used to cover ice in ice houses years ago.

I hate to admit it but I still recall a guy coming around selling ice when I was a kid in Sauk City. People still had those "Ice Boxes" instead of refrigerators. That is a bit hard to believe. In my time there were still ice boxes! Interestingly, up until twenty years ago folks used to call refrigerators "Ice Boxes" . Like, "Could you get me a beer out of the ice box." I also remember an old ice house across the lake in Montello over by Robinson's woods and close to Dibble's Point. It was broken down but still there. My old man pointed it out.

Strange how a person's thought can go from a pile of snow in May to and ice house. Just a thought. Rather gives away my age, I guess. Now I have a freezer in the basement that is cooled by power from the sun. Which is the most sustainable, the ice house or the sun-powered freezer? The most practical? The most affordable?

Friday, May 6, 2011

Steelhead Fishing ----and Sustainability, Revolution Watch

I love to fish, that is without question. With gas now a $4/gal a few new questions need to be asked. Let's see. I drove to Sheboygan in an attempt to catch Steelhead, and maybe a Salmon, that would be a tidy 100 miles in a car, the Subaru, the one that gets about 27 miles/gal, thus we are talking almost 8 gallons of petrol or $32 ! As an individual of modest means this 4 hours of driving and 5 hours of fishing appears not to be sustainable.




Sure if I had endless money, I could just up and go, but considering I actually didn't even catch anything it begins to look suspect. I guess the question is, 'Just how many times can I undertake such an adventure if the gas is expensive compared to wages, or the gas supply becomes constrained---like rationed if supplies are limited?


So while I am being priced out, it would appear that in a energy constrained world this would not be a wise use of oil. Well, I feel bad about it because it doesn't' really seem to be just in a world where many folks in the third world are now not able to buy fuel for cooking due to cost.


Truth is, I don't feel too bad because on the way to Sheboygan I crossed the Wolf River at Freemont and there on a 1/3 mile strip of the river there were at least 20 motor boats working the Walleye sport fishing trade. Now these are not little 12 footers like we used in the 50s but $25, 000 bass boats with 90 hp motors. They all burned fuel at an unmerciful rate, most of it 2 stroke mixture that stink and pollute. I could hardly imagine the cost of fishing for walleyes, and these are mostly working guys, regular folks. How can this go on? Sustainable? I think not. It will be a tough transition---but it will come fellow Jedi. We must be strong.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Sculpture---I do Work once in awhile!

I am always torn. I have this need to work at my sculpture. Oh, it is not totally a spiritual need, even though there is some of that, but mostly I like a little extra cashola so we might live the lavish lifestyle we have become accustomed to. Those who know me, might not use the word"lavish" but in the big world, we all, we Americans, live a lavish life, if you get my drift?


It is both spiritual and material, ya, ya ,ya. Of late, I have been doing a piece I call Tyra named after my maternal grandmother, the one that came from Sweden. I decided to see if I could pull off her face. She was a beautiful woman, so why not give it a go. The photo I have was taken when she was about 17.

This is the start of the project and while I have work to do, I am getting close. The sculpture is tall and skinny, while in fact, she probably was only about 5'3" but thin and very Swedish. She arrived in America at the age of 16 and only went back once late in her life. Sad, in that she had siblings. I believe she was born about 1895 and died unhappy and confused some 85 years later. To us, as children, she was warm and charming. With luck, I can pull this off and make a bit of an artistic remembrance of her.



Work is not too bad if I can just stay focused. Spring just keeps creeping in and tomorrow I have to go fishing.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

First Crop--First Flowers

First of May, (Isn't it a communist day of some sort, at least a socialist day? ) and I, as part of the proletariat, noticed the first onions of the year are ready for consumption. This means that if we had to rely on the garden, here would be the first opportunity to bring in new nutrients, maybe ones that were starting to be depleted in this season of starvation.


These onions don't amount to all that much but they would be fresh and packed with all those good vitamins we had run out of during the winter. Interestingly, we still have some onions left in the refrigerator that were harvested last year and stored in the cold bedroom. So in truth, we are not really in a starvation stage. I was only pretending.




I am just saying, that if we had to provide all of our own food, May first would be the beginning of fresh vegetables. It is also notable we stored enough to get through the winter. However, almost all of the canned foods and the frozen vegetables are gone, so we would be down to onions. We were a bit short of the rest. The garden didn't give us enough carrots and the beets I bought to store, turned out to tasteless losers, which really ticks me off because they are a favorite. Our precious beets rotted in the ground due to excessive moisture. Boy, being a sustainable farmer is tough. I suspect that was a little reminder that man does not control all things.


It is intriguing to pretend we need to provide for ourselves and see if it can be done. While I do think it is possible to come up with adequate vegetables, berries and fruit, providing many real calories is not a possibility. We can't grow grains, but we did grow 18 cups of dried beans, fifty pounds of potatoes. We do not have a dairy animal and we are finding that many calories are a result of the sacred cow. The meat we can find or capture and the freezer is still partially filled. If we didn't have rice, pasta, bread or cereal, those grown beans and potatoes would not only get tiresome but would be gone in a couple of months. The grocery store is still handy and keeps my weight at a plump 210 cute pounds---well, not so cute. American Primitive Man just played on the I Pod.






In addition to the meager onions, we now also have our first flowers, so are spirits are lifted and we know spring is upon is.