the Tao of Farming

Silence makes my insides bubble. Perhaps I’m levening, perhaps I’m offgasing, perhaps I’m deflating like a balloon…

Silence invites awareness.
Awareness invites acceptance.
Acceptance invites appreciation.
Appreciation invites joy.

Soil is splendid. Moist and dry, smooth and gritty, fluffy and dense… smelling dark and complex but sweet and alive! Stable one minute, loose and crumbling the next, held together, now falling apart. The complex dynamics of soil are astounding! Particles held in various configurations by microbials juices and atomic interactions, constantly transforming in a vast life-cycle between all the life-forms on the planet! Woah… dirt!

Good soil is just squirming with sun-juices. Bubbling with some gases, sucking in others, churning and turning by the hungry bodies of microbes, plants and animals, each drawing on the bounty of nutrients!

Pondering what little we know about soil reminds me of the perfect nature of the system we participate in. All things cycle, all things transform and reform, each form folding seemlessly into another. I consider this, and I think about the common conception that we, as humans, perceiving ourselves as individuals, are some-how able to violate this perfect union. What absurdity, I think. What an ignorant little huff; a personal drama perpetuating discontentment. What an ineffective method for cultivating joy and love while a part of this cosmos. mmMMmmm Mmmm

Soil is delicious.

These days I’m growing,
Sometimes bustling, baking, building,
Sometimes trudging, crawling, napping,
Often smiling, loving, dreaming,
Never crying, lying, scheming;

Working on watching, listening, waiting,
Breathing… breathing… breathing…

Growing tomatoes, corn, and sweet-peas,
growing trust, friendship, and self-awareness,
Pulling weeds, spreading mulch,
Working through my neuroses;

Crawling upwards, into the sun,
Opening pedals, one by one,
Fear ripples through me,
But I continue to blossom, to breathe…

Hello everyone!
It’s your friendly blogger again, checking in with a brief update. Where have I been? What has been going on?

I’ve been spending my time up in the hills of Gill, at Laughing Dog farm. Dan Botkins manages about two acres with permaculture methods, intensive un-tilled heavily-mulched beds growing an incredible bounty of heirloom vegetables. Having run a bountiful CSA for the last six years, this year Dan has canceled the CSA and devoted himself to sharing his farming/plant/permaculture knowledge with all who are interested. Right now there are three interns at Laughing Dog, myself included, and we led a hand with everything from taking care of the goats, to seeding, planting, watering, harvesting, mulching… you name it. I am a part-time intern, because of my obligations here in Greenfield, but I spend every minute I can up in Gill. And I’ve been fixing-up/living in a beautiful tipi! The land is pristine, alive and diverse, and the people are so loving. I will be hard-pressed to pull myself away for a year at school. Right now I’m fascinated by watching the plants grow, picking strawberries and peas, and anticipating a tremendous harvest!

I’ve also been practicing the art of bread-making. I began several weeks ago following the instructions of the Tassajara Bread Book, with a sourdough starter I made from just wheat flour and water. Wild yeast is everywhere! I’ve made a few delicious breads, my favorite of which was the golden-raisin/fennel/anise sourdough. But, BUT, so far the pinnacle of my efforts was this most recent round-loaf I made, for which I followed the instructions of a new friend and fellow-baker, also named Aaron. He spent 7 years perfecting his methods, with a bit of advice from the expert bread-maker, Richard of Berkshire Bakery. The recipe is heavy on water, but there is no kneading, because the microbes do all the work! And the results are incredible! This loaf was made half with white bread-flour and half with whole wheat flour I ground myself by hand; delicious! Beautiful crisp crust, thick, airy, glutenous inside, moist, tender, elastic, goodness! I did not know that I could make bread with such a pleasing constitution and flavor, and so simply too.

The garden here in Greenfield is growing strong, having survived the heat-waves and transplant shock. Corn, beans, peas, okra, melons, onions, turnips, radishes, and more are doing their thing and squirming deep into the soil and hoisting their foliage into the sky.

I’m in Greenfield for the moment, hence the opportunity to write this on Dan’s computer. Bottling up kombucha and brewing a new batch, checking on the garden, and scheming with Dan to get ourselves some raw butter, pronto! What is fresh slice of warm bread without half an inch of smooth fat with which to dress it?!

Ah, and for all of you who wonder about such things, the bike trailer is taking a break for the time being; lately I can carry most of what I need in panniers. However, I’m sure the trailer will serve a noble function in the future.

I’m sending you all love-beams. Anything is possible, beautiful opportunities find us when we are open and unassuming, and love is all you need. Be well! I hope to see you soon.

Time? What is time? The movement of the waves? Oscillations of known electrons? Does a clock measure anything but itself? And on what objective scale can you determine the accuracy of a clock? On the movements of another timepiece? On the sun? The days flick by like the shadows of numbers, and I am but driftwood to this process of degradation and dissolve.

This relativity is unnerving, unwinding, and unresolved within me. What is there to hold? And why is there the overwhelming sensation that I am sinking, in slow motion, to a watery grave? On the outside I dance like a clown, wave my hands, and bare a smile, projecting, desperately, but inside I float, slowly, downward. I’m waiting, in suspense, for the muffled echo as my body hits the sandy bottom, jerks slightly, and settles in the deep… dark… silence. I wait… I feel… I cannot breathe…

I am alone, at last, as always…. and what I would give to forget this.

This afternoon I begin a 3-day Vipassana meditation retreat over in Shelburn Falls. The center is the first to have been established in the United States, and said to be the most impressive. I’m excited. And the center is only 5 miles away from where I am in Greenfield, which should make for a pleasant bike ride… on my new bike! Yes, last night I bought an Iron Horse Cyclone off a woman who’s selling all her posessions to travel the globe via backpack. A rocking upgrade from my shiney Shwinn POS, the Iron Horse has brake/shifters and the little holes for mounting a bike rack (finally! No more zip-tie maddness)! Oh and a little thinger that counts miles and MPH, and silly stuff like that. More than I’d ever need to know, but amusing none the less. And… AND, most importantly the new bike has 21 gears, which will make pulling the trailer much easier on hills. I installed some old clips and took the bike for a little trial run this morning, and it’s wonderful. The handle-bars are closer than on my old bike, making it easier to keep my back straight.

So I’m gone, till the first, and don’t worry about me, I’ll be doing enough of that. Just open your heart chakra and prepare for me to blast love-energy at you like lazer beams from my eyes! Pow pow!

Kefir! …doesn’t really rhyme with anything.

What is kefir? Kefir is milk which has been fermented by a culture not unlike that of kombucha. A symbiotic relationship between a yeast and Lactobacilli digests the lactose and other sugars in the milk and produce a tart, effervescent beverage. The culture forms “grains” which are living clusters of microorganisms which are transfered from batch to batch. My interest in kefir is centered around the benefits of living foods; the microorganism, having predigested the milk, settle themselves in the lining of your intestine walls, offering their services as digesters for a brief, but useful, period. Being somewhat lactose intolerant, I can use all the help I can get! But! There is more! Here is my good friend and fermenting enthusiast, Dan-The-Man from Greenfield, to teach us the art and joys of kefir culturing.

Hello Dan!
[Dan]: Hi Aaron!
Could you give me a little intro?
[Dan]: Ah, sure, Aaron. So, lets see. Kefir IS delicious, i think, it makes a great invigorating morning beverage, a great smoothie addition, pancake batter or all around addition to a baking mix.
How does it taste?
[Dan]: I find it to be a little tangy, sometimes a little bubbly, and creamy, like a drinkable yogurt, thats best when chilled.
Sounds funky. Like, good funky. Like, funkalicious. So what do we have here out on the counter?

[Dan]: There’s a quart of raw milk with kefir grains in a glass jar. If you can’t find raw milk, pasteurized will suffice but ultra-pasteurized just won’t do the trick. We’ve also got a glass bowl with a useful spout and a strainer that sits well on top. And there’s a rubber spatula, a canning funnel, an empty quart sized jar, a spoon, and some finished kefir in a jar.
Where do we begin?

[Dan]: It is very important to stir the kefir periodically throughout the fermenting process which should generally last about 2 days. This is to break up the grains as they tend to clump up at the bottom of the jar. Two or three stirs will probably be enough from start to finish but notice how quickly your fermenting proceeds as various factors affect the rate. Some separation of the milk is ok and can be alleviated by stiring but letting the fermentation go much longer than about a day after this begins to occur can be the cause of some particularly sour batches. And, so what i’m doing in the picture is stirring the kefir one last time before I strain out the grains.

Woah! Look at those little marshmallows. Can you eat them?
[Dan]: Yes! You can, I have, and I probably won’t again. They’re not very conducive to chewing, chewy may not be the right word, more like rubbery. I do want to re-iterate that if you don’t mix the kefir before you strain it, it just won’t strain properly. I made that mistake and had to pour everything back into the jar, re-mix it and then re-strain it.
Hm… rubbery cheesy marshmallows eh?
[Dan]: Mm, pretty much.
I’ll think about it. Might go well with ants.
[Dan]: If anything could…

It looks like you’re pouring the separated grains into the empty quart sized jar, eh? And then adding the finished kefir to your collection? Where do you put your finished kefir?
[Dan]: The refridgerator. It’ll keep for days because of the preserving lactic acid. A handy tip to know if you don’t want to start another batch…you can wash off the grains with water and store them in a jar filled with water in the fridge.

Woah! What just happened? You poured raw milk in with the kefir grains? How much? Isn’t that DANGEROUS?!
[Dan]: Its ok, i do this all the time. How much milk will only determine how much time it takes to finish the fermentation. I tend to fill the jar about two thirds of the way, unless i’m running low or just don’t want to make as much. Then, put on the lid loosely and set in an out of the way place at room temperature.
Wasn’t that easy. So how to spread the love? I want to make some.
[Dan]: No problem, man. The kefir grains multiply pretty quick-like so you’re free to take some.

That’s Dan-The-Man, folks. Thanks for taking the time to type this little adventure up with me. You can order kefir grains online, or get a culture from a similarly wacky foodie friend of yours, such as me. Enjoy your creation!
(stay tuned for updates on the Hall Ave. Permaculture Fiasco, aka the Suburban-Wild-Edible-Forest-Gardening-Maddness…-Project.)

Hello beautiful people. Rainy day here in Amherst. Not pouring, but wet enough to make this budding bicycling-enthusiast hesitant to get the show on the road. I have been bicycling around Amherst, with and without my trailer, for the past two days now. My legs hurt! No pain no gain, right? Bicycling with a trailer is a serious work-out, and since I don’t have a touring bicycle, I only have two front gears, which makes hill with the trailer… grueling. I’ve been careful to let my body call the shots, as it adapts to this form of consistent exercise. I just go at my own pace, and take breaks whenever I need them.

I’m going to head up to Greenfield in the next couple days, a 20 mile bike ride with my trailer, which I might spread out over two days. I’m not training for a marathon.

In non-bicycle related news, yesterday I ate ants! Yep, ten or so of them. My friend Marisa has invited me into the wonderful world of entomophagy. I guess these were not the “grape soda” kind; these ones tasted like fresh dirt. We also caught a pair of crickets, but one escaped. He’s sitting in front of me in a little container. Maybe snack? I’m a little nervous.

I’ve also been reading about raising mealworms for eating. A tasty plate of fried larvae anyone? I intend to move from fried mealworms, to one raw one, to handfuls of the little squirming bugs. Just imagine it.

My idealistic side prefers the foraging element of eating local ants, termites, and crickets. It’s hard to get a good handful of ants, and crickets require many calories to catch, perhaps rendering them inefficient as a wild-foraged food source (at least if you are running around in a field with a cup). This all got my mind going on how to improve on the catching methods. The internet has been useless. What comes to my mind, for the case of ant-eating, is an edible bait/trap system. I’m thinking that a one-way honey trap would work well; ants come in, get stuck in honey or can’t escape, and then when you retrieve the trap you can just spread the honey-ant mix on bread! I would need to investigate and perhaps experiment with trap designs in order to prevent the ants from escaping, and other undesirable insects from getting into the trap. Yay! Another project.

Speaking of projects, for a while now I’ve been dreaming about a way to build a bicycle such that it can ride along railroad tracks. It seems like a great idea because then long-distance riders can, illegally, make use of the perfectly smooth and straight rail-lines that run back and forth across the country, without having to deal with car traffic, irregular road surfaces or even, perhaps, air-filled tires. The disadvantages I see are the danger of high-speed trains coming at you on the tracks (a big one!), and the most-likely illegal nature of using railroads (insurance issues for them, cop issues for us). Abandoned rail-lines might be a solution for this issue, but I’m presently unfamiliar with their locations and conditions.

Lastly for this post, I’m planning on giving two presentations to John Gerber’s classes this upcoming school year; one to the Sustainable Agriculture class on Natural Farming, as designed by M. Fukuoka; the second will be for the Sustainable Living class, on the concept, function and intelligent use of seed-balls. Hopefully I will get to direct a workshop with the discussion sections on making seed-balls!

Time to read a book and watch the skies. Much love everyone, especially YOU!

Two weeks in the making, the green machine, named after the three coats of “Hunter Green” enamel, is completed! Road ready, spit shined, and dangerous! This little posting is a dedication to the friendly characters who helped me put this project together. Shout outs go to my grandfather, who generously supplied his time and access to a welder and various indispensible devices and materials; to John, supreme lord and ruler of the Essex dump, for reeling in an array of bicycle wheels and the snazzy orange flag you’ll see in the pictures; and to my parents, who supplied the space, vehicle, and miscellaneous advice to make this project possible. Thank you!

Now the fun part… pictures!

And lastly, I just want you all to see how beautiful a day it was…

Thanks again, to EVERYONE, for facilitating this project. Now it’s up to me to put the finished project to work. I’m in Greenfield, MA presently, and today I will do a few practice runs with the trailer, loaded up with gear. The adventures continue! Much love.