Author: bob

Usually I pick a theme and possibly support it with pictures, This post is going to just show pictures with brief descriptions, and maybe a theme will develop

This pond also has some new mulberry trees planted on both sides, and to the left of the water level is a long area partially shaded where a new garden is taking shape. several tomatoes and peppers are planted to start conditioning the soil, but also a blueberry, grape vine, and kiwi have been started to be part of the perennial crops there. Even the top of the dam, which is clay, got a few mounds of topsoil and watermelons are planted there in full sun.

Bill Mollison described a class he was teaching and a stranger who lingered on after the meeting . The stranger said you know what you’ve done, you’ve arranged all the elements of life in good order in a wardrobe or closet.

Bill seemed to like that description about how Permaculture made good order out of all the different elements of life on earth. Others might say it is a toolbox . One may use hundreds of different tools and tricks along the way, and the result hoped for is improvement of our lives and the health of the earth as a whole.

So Permaculture to me is much more than a simple wardrobe, it is also the design that knows when and how to put different elements in the wardrobe together so that they work together in a way that benefits us and life on the planet.

To that end, Permaculture continues to collect those methods and tools that will help the earth continue to sustain us as a species.

It has been some time since any substantial developments and I’d like to talk a little about the psychological side of this work/ fun. Many of these techniques are as yet unfamiliar here in the states, so implementing them is more a question of trust or belief, or possibly just being able to grasp the theory and take it to the level of practice.

No matter how reasonable any theory may sound I still have that element of “show me”. I need to have my hands or attention in it to really understand any new principle, and when it comes to water management there is a great deal of faith involved when investing thousands of dollars in a system, not to mention time and energy, in order to get things started and working.

Even after systems are up and running it can often take years before any visible results are observed. With this in mind I went ahead and hired a forest mulcher to facilitate the next part of my water management system.

For those unfamiliar with clear cuts, around here there is a massive pulp wood industry, that relies on fast growing pines and miscellaneous deciduous trees. For me , unfamiliar with this industry, I thought I would have to start planting trees on a property with nothing but briars everywhere., but here in this climate trees regrow almost immediately, some from seeds or low sprouts, but often from the stumps left behind.

This means several sprouts from each stump and other seeds all competing for light, shooting up fast and tall and thin.So these trees are efficiently harvesting light, sequestering carbon, but producing little in the way of useful lumber or fruit.. Also, removing 20-40 years growth when the trees were cut does not improve the soil quality as much as if the tree had simply fallen and rotted into the ground. So soils around here would not be that good for regular orchards or quality tree systems.

A friend suggested 20 years ago that I should walk around with a sharp machete cutting off extra sprouts to make the remaining trees stronger, At the time I didn’t know about Permaculture, had no extra money to install special dams or swales, and spent all my energy off the land just trying to pay the mortgage.

It is into this tall thin jungle of trees I went on different occasions trying to build ponds and swales with a backhoe. Yes, it can be done, but it is tedious and time consuming. So after surveyors marked my property line, yesterday I had a forest mulcher come through and clear a path about 8 feet wide that outlined the boundary and then followed various contours around the land scape.

Recent windfalls financed this project, and this is the big development.It is quite unusual to see a landscape change so dramatically over the space of a few hours. The boundary line painted by the surveyors now has a sight line hundreds of feet long, and actually seeing the contour paths cleared gives many new insights into the actual “lay of the land”.

Of course keeping my backhoe running through this next phase will actually allow the project to become functional, but overall just having the paths cleared to give the backhoe freer access should make the project move much faster with better results.

One unexpected outcome was the nature of the soil left behind. I expected wood chips, but the mulcher did more than that, it also mixed up the top soil and left behind a rich resource of garden soil that will soon be installed in my gardens and likely create many new ones as well.

It’s like turning a corner, or moving to the next level of productivity, what an exciting time!

Talking with a weekend friend the other day who is starting to contemplate country life full time, she mentioned it had occurred to her in the shower the other day just how nice a hot water shower can be. In fact, she continued, she believed it to be an essential element for survival.

I added to her declaration that the shower needed to be at least under 45 lbs of pressure or I could never be satisfied. But I said this after a summer of almost entirely cold showers with no hot water at all. This was mostly by choice, but the best hot water heater I had during the summer would have also heated the house, which would have just added to the cooling issues of summertime.

When I first came here 18 years ago I had a gas hot water heater in my RV, and that was ok sometimes, but in winter, with freezing pipes; often that hot shower–or any running water at all, was unavailable. Still, even back then I understood how valuable hot water could be, and have spent a fair amount of time over the years making sure I could cover that need.

For several years now I have been heating water with wood. It started with a small Appalachian style coal(wood) burner water heater attached with a thermosiphon to an old water tank. Fire it up and maybe add wood a couple times and then close the pressure relief, turn on the 12 volt pump and shower as long as I wanted.

I also used to play with 2-300 feet of black poly pipe in the sun to avoid lighting fires in summer. Now that I am in this house (I use the term loosely), the ease of that little stove or even the poly pipe in the glass covered box are unavailable. And my aspirations have moved further on.

I still am heating water with wood, but now it is a sophisticated rocket stove, and every year there’s a new type to play with. It started with copper coils on a 55 gallon barrel, and now it is a 20 gallon tank inside a brick and clay “bell”, extracting heat from the DSR.

I’m actually quite proud of all the different ways I have played with producing hot water, and the latest toy should be arriving soon, an evacuated tube solar water heater. True to form I will not be following recommended procedures, and perhaps I will waste a little time reinventing the wheel, or perhaps I will find a way to make do with much less than the recommended equipment.

I have already found I can get by with smaller pumps and less energy and still enjoy similar results with many of the much more elaborate and expensive solutions.The new solar project will be a similar process, finding out the extent of it’s capabilities and then making use of them

When I built the house I did anticipate the possible use for radiant water pipes in the floor, although with my limited budget I had no idea how I might generate that much hot water, or even how I might get it through the pipes. Today my budget is less restricted, but continuing in the use of renewable resources puts a whole different spin on things than just buying a new propane hot water heater complete with expensive automatic controllers and pumps.

For the time being the solar collectors I’m playing with are more an experiment than a completed plan, but they do seem to have enough promise to invest in, and then fully explore their potential here.

One of the keys to Permaculture Design is to have several backups for every important system, and since hot water is one of those systems I continue to investigate and establish multiple ways to generate hot water.

This has been a drastic change from last year when it was too wet to do much. This year it has been very dry, and instead of water, dust, dry powdery clay is the issue.

It’s kind of interesting to watch the tendency of the mind to be so centered on the moment and when right in the middle of a situation things can seem so permanent that it’s difficult to remember there can be another condition. When it’s dry for a long time it’s hard to remember the water, and when it’s wet, it’s hard to believe things will ever dry out.

Puts me in the mind of the Arkansas Traveler, and the man with the leaky roof who doesn’t feel need to mend it when it’s dry, and when it’s wet it’s impossible to mend it. The end result is the roof continues to leak.

But here that isn’t the case, I’ve had the backhoe in several places that would be impossible in wetter conditions. I went down to the oldest goldfish pond where I couldn’t begin to go last year at this time. With a firm footing underneath the backhoe can go more places and dig out ponds deeper and wider, with less mess.

Creating deeps in a pond is important for many reasons. It gives fish a place to hide to escape predators, provides protection from cold and heat, and also reduces surface area evaporation in extreme drought, giving the fish that last refuge when everything else has dried up.

Regardless of the purpose of the action, there seems to be a strange relationship between the opposite conditions, and often the solution for one extreme is found when the pendulum swings in the other direction.

When it is too wet it’s easy to see where water has found weaknesses in the design, when it is too dry it is possible to rearrange and correct the design for the next time when water is in abundance.

Close to 100 degrees yesterday, 80 today, and barely 70 tomorrow. This feels more like August than October. Just writing it has me even more amazed at the extremes.

It’s tough to keep the few plants left alive watered and with dwindling reserves and little rain in sight everything must be rationed. The middle dam gave some water to the goldfish pond, the small garden pond donated water to the pepper plants, and the catfish in the upper pond have to do without as I watch their pond recede.

Since dry clay does not compact well, backhoe work is limited to establishing the filtration system for the middle pond, and spreading gravel on the driveways.

Dry weather is a good time to work on the driveways, so scraping the drive on the front side of the creek yielded several loads of pine needles and wood chips for the gardens from the other side of the creek, and then adding gravel helps them become more even and dependable for wet weather that will eventually come.

The one area near the middle dam was a creative event to gather more clay for the middle dam, and the sharp cliff that was left will hopefully establish a micro climate for many of the fig trees that have been living in the green house. It’s time to put together mulch and soil there so they can be replanted for their first unprotected winter, and sand and wood chips with salvaged top soil from the pond sites will be primary soil builders for them. A little compost will help as well to contribute lots of soil organisms.

They will also get a very heavy mulch of leaves once planted and with some luck become a regular fig forest.

This post has now officially become a running commentary on the last several months. With other imperatives in my life aside from these projects in Permaculture my house and gardens have suffered serious neglect, but with luck that will change in the coming week.

The dry spell has definitely broken, and I have been told my ponds are filling up. Looks like I may be waiting another year if I want to do any more digging on the upper pond. In fact, back hoe adventures may be severely limited to smaller projects and times when driving it from one location to the next don’t dig deep ruts in the ground.

Retreating inside or to hand tasks in the garden does have its advantages. Rest and planning are at the top of the list. It would be easy to get bored and start chaffing at the bit, leading to misadventures and more harm than good, so having a variety of projects, both inside and out can be a very good thing.

As the weather gets cooler, I’m reminded that the newest version of the rocket mass heater needs to be built. There’s always inside cleanup, and the roof skeleton definitely needs some more work. Not to mention finally fleshing out this post with the pictures it so desperately needs to continue a complete coverage of ongoing developments.

With that I will close, but pictures will be added soon and maybe this post will actually get published. 🙂