HALLO ;-)
Hope you all had good christmas!
wish you all the best for 2009!
I will see two farm in the next week for placement...
x
Tuesday 30 December 2008
Saturday 20 December 2008
Biochar - BD509?
Biochar was apparently a hot topic at the Soil Association get together last month. Have a look at their website - very interesting.
Also, here's a fellow agricultural blogger worth the occasional look.
Also, here's a fellow agricultural blogger worth the occasional look.
Monday 8 December 2008
Car Parks to Veg Plots - The Demise of Detroit
Rob Hopkins talked about peak oil making car parks redundant and suggested digging them up to grow food. The collapse in debt financing may bring it about much quicker, in the US proximity to urban farms are even being muted to help raise the value of your house.
Thursday 27 November 2008
More GM Propoganda
"Last year celebrity pig farmer Jimmy Doherty kept 1000 organically reared pigs, while this year apparently he's raised barely 200. But if Jimmy's farm is on the skids, the same cannot be said of his career as a media celeb. Watch him give the softlense, pin-up-sort-of-educated 'balanced' GM hype on BBC Horizons.
At the end of last month, a glittering star-studded ceremony in London saw Jimmy crowned "National Farmers' Union (NFU) Farming Champion", thanks to his recent TV series: Jimmy Doherty's Farming Heroes. The same series also got cited a couple of weeks later when the star of Jimmy's Farm, picked up an Honorary Doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University.
If, at times, the series seemed to resemble a paid advertisement for the National Farmers Union, there was good reason. Farmers Weekly quoted an NFU spokesperson as saying "mainstream TV ads cost millions of pounds and there is no way we are going to do that," but, "One approach the union has been taking is to work with TV and radio researchers and producers to feed into the production process. An example where this worked well is Jimmy Doherty's Farming Heroes."
The vested interests are trying to 'run' the debate.
At the end of last month, a glittering star-studded ceremony in London saw Jimmy crowned "National Farmers' Union (NFU) Farming Champion", thanks to his recent TV series: Jimmy Doherty's Farming Heroes. The same series also got cited a couple of weeks later when the star of Jimmy's Farm, picked up an Honorary Doctorate from Anglia Ruskin University.
If, at times, the series seemed to resemble a paid advertisement for the National Farmers Union, there was good reason. Farmers Weekly quoted an NFU spokesperson as saying "mainstream TV ads cost millions of pounds and there is no way we are going to do that," but, "One approach the union has been taking is to work with TV and radio researchers and producers to feed into the production process. An example where this worked well is Jimmy Doherty's Farming Heroes."
The vested interests are trying to 'run' the debate.
Wednesday 26 November 2008
$ Addiction
Adam - this one's especially for you. Not BD specific but the ongoing collapse of the global monetary system is unlikely to leave any of us unaffected.
Tuesday 18 November 2008
Petition to ensure encouragement of renewable energy
In the current economic crisis, the government is considering massive funding to protect jobs, our industry and economy. This is a golden opportunity to support technologies, and activity, that will help save our planet – particularly around energy use – moving towards a “zero carbon Britain”. It is vital that funding is targeted on areas which will actually help the quality of our lives – and to sustain our global environment – rather than just trying to keep up consumption.
Germany shows what could be achieved - having created 250,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector. In the UK, we have created a mere 2 to 3 thousand – even though we are pioneering research in some of the technologies – e.g. wave power, and we have industrial skills that could be readily applied (e.g. aerospace to wind power)
This is a golden opportunity to make Britain a world leader in renewable technologies, ensuring our future prosperity, as well as the future of our planet.
If you would like to support the petition, click on the link above!
Arjen
Germany shows what could be achieved - having created 250,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector. In the UK, we have created a mere 2 to 3 thousand – even though we are pioneering research in some of the technologies – e.g. wave power, and we have industrial skills that could be readily applied (e.g. aerospace to wind power)
This is a golden opportunity to make Britain a world leader in renewable technologies, ensuring our future prosperity, as well as the future of our planet.
If you would like to support the petition, click on the link above!
Arjen
Friday 31 October 2008
Sunday 26 October 2008
spaced
inspired by my reading of the remote viewer (us psychic spying programme) ingo swann's book Penetration: The Question Of Extraterrestrial And Human Telepathy, (review/pdf download), and in preparation for the astronomy course, i have been furthering my knowledge of lunar and other space anomalies; thought that some of you might be interested:
if you don't read anything else of these links, read this one. anecdotal, but supporting evidence may be found, especially in the above publication:
The NASA Moon Photos
addresses 'fake moon landing' claims
does the moon have atmosphere?
crater chains
square craters
moon images (from the site of john lear - son of bill lear, inventor of the lear jet, who was also doing research in the field of antigravity - a lot of interesting things there)
*
as a bonus,
life on mars
-adam
if you don't read anything else of these links, read this one. anecdotal, but supporting evidence may be found, especially in the above publication:
The NASA Moon Photos
addresses 'fake moon landing' claims
does the moon have atmosphere?
crater chains
square craters
moon images (from the site of john lear - son of bill lear, inventor of the lear jet, who was also doing research in the field of antigravity - a lot of interesting things there)
*
as a bonus,
life on mars
-adam
Tuesday 21 October 2008
Sunday 12 October 2008
Horn Silica to the Rescue
Open letter to US presidential candidates in this weeks NY Times magazine about food (link above). I liked this quote in particular:
"There are many moving parts to the new food agenda I’m urging you to adopt, but the core idea could not be simpler: we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine."
"There are many moving parts to the new food agenda I’m urging you to adopt, but the core idea could not be simpler: we need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine."
Tuesday 30 September 2008
Michaelmas 2008
New pictures have been added to the web album - click on the link at the right for the latest pictures of Michaelmas at the college.
Sunday 28 September 2008
soaking grains / antinutrients
Whole Grains
This information on Traditional Whole Grains comes, with permission, from “Nourishing Traditions”, by Sally Fallon, Revised Second Edition, New Trends Publishing, 2001, p 452-454.
“The simple practice of soaking cracked or rolled cereal grains overnight will vastly improve their nutritional benefits.”
The well-meaning advice of many nutritionist to consume whole grains as ancestors did and not refined flours and polished rice, is misleading and often harmful in its consequences, for while our ancestors ate whole grains, they did not consume them as presented in our modern cookbooks in the form of quick-rise breads, granolas and other hastily prepared casseroles and concoctions. Our ancestors, and virtually all pre-industrialized peoples soaked or fermented their grains before making them into porridge, breads, cakes and casseroles. A quick review of grain recipes from around the world will prove our point. In India rice and lentils are fermented for at least two days before they are prepared as idli and dosas. In Africa the natives soak coarsely ground corn overnight before adding it to soups and stews, and they ferment corn or millet for several days to produce a porridge called ogi. A similar dish made from oats was traditional among the Welsh. In some Oriental and Latin American countries rice receives a long fermentation before it is prepared. Ethiopians make their distinctive injera bread by fermenting a grain called teff for several days. Mexican corn cakes, called pozol, are fermented for several days and for as long as two weeks in banana leaves. Before the introduction of commercial brewers yeast, Europeans made slow-rise breads from fermented starters; in America the pioneers were known for their sourdough breads, pancakes and biscuits, and throughout Europe grains were soaked overnight, and for a long as several days, in water or soured milk before they were cooked and serve as porridge or gruel. (Many of our senior citizens may remember that in earlier times the instructions on the oatmeal box called for an overnight soaking).
This is not the place to speculate on that mysterious instructive spirit that taught our ancestors to soak and ferment their grains before eating them, the important thing to realize is that these practices accord very well with what modern science has discovered about grains. All grains contain phytic acid (an organic acid in which phosphorous is bound) in the outer layer or bran. Untreated phytic acid can combine with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron especially zinc in the intestinal track and block their absorption. This is why a diet high in unfermented whole grains may led to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss. The modern misguided practice of consuming large amounts of unprocessed bran often improves colon transit time at first but may lead to irritable bowel syndrome and, in the long term, many other adverse effects. Soaking allows enzyme, lactobacilli and other helpful organisms to break down and neutralize phytic acid. As little as seven hours of soaking in warm acidulated water will neutralize a large portion of phytic acid in grains. The simple practice of soaking cracked or rolled cereal grains overnight will vastly improve their nutritional benefits.
Soaking in warm water also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors, present in all seeds, and encourages the production of numerous beneficial enzymes. The action of these enzymes also increases the amounts of many vitamins, especially B vitamins.
“A diet high in unfermented whole grains may led to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss.”
Scientists have learned that the proteins in grains, especially gluten, are very difficult to digest. A diet high in unfermented whole grains, particularly high-gluten grains like wheat, puts an enormous strain on the whole digestive mechanism. When this mechanism breaks down with age or overuse, the results take the form of allergies, celiac disease, mental illness, chronic indigestion and candida albicans overgrowth. Recent research links gluten intolerance with multiple sclerosis. During the process of soaking and fermenting, gluten and other difficult-to-digest proteins are partially broken down into simpler components that are more readily available for absorption.
. . . . . . . .
Grains fall into two general categories. Those containing gluten, such as oats, rye, barley and especially wheat, should not be consumed unless they have been soaked or fermented; buckwheat, rice and millet do not contain gluten and are, on the whole, more easily digested. Whole rice and whole millet contain lower amounts of phytates than other grains so it is not absolutely necessary to soak them. However, they should be gently steamed for at least two hours in a high-mineral gelatinous broth. This will neutralize some of the phytates they do contain and provide additional minerals to compensate for those that are still bound; while the gelatin in the broth will greatly facilitate digestion. We do not recommend the pressure cooker for grains because it cooks them too quickly.
. . . . . . . .
Our readers will notice that our recipes for breakfast cereals are all porridges that have been soaked overnight before they are cooked. If you buy grains that have been rolled or cracked, they should be in packages and not taken form bins, where they have a tendency to go rancid. Even better, buy organic or biodynamic whole grains and roll or crack them yourself using a roller or a grain grinder (See sources.) You may also add a little ground flax seed to start your day with a ration of omega 3 fatty acids. (Flax seed is low in phytic acid and does not require soaking if it is eaten in small amounts.) These porridges marry very well with butter or cream, whose fat-soluble activators provide the necessary catalyst for mineral absorption. Those with milk allergies can usually tolerate a little cream on their breakfast cereal or can eat them with butter –a delicious combination. We do not recommend soy milk, which contains many antinutrients.
Nor we do recommend granola, a popular “health” food made from grains subjected only to dry heat and, therefore, extremely indigestible. Granola, like all processed breakfast cereals, should have no place on our cupboards shelves. Boxed breakfast cereals are made by the extrusion process, in which little flakes and shapes are formed at high temperatures and pressures. Extrusion processing destroys many nutrients in grains, causes fragile oils to become rancid and renders certain proteins toxic. For a new generation of hardy children, we must return to the breakfast cereals of our ancestors –soaked gruels and porridges.
Another link: Weston A. Price Foundation
This information on Traditional Whole Grains comes, with permission, from “Nourishing Traditions”, by Sally Fallon, Revised Second Edition, New Trends Publishing, 2001, p 452-454.
“The simple practice of soaking cracked or rolled cereal grains overnight will vastly improve their nutritional benefits.”
The well-meaning advice of many nutritionist to consume whole grains as ancestors did and not refined flours and polished rice, is misleading and often harmful in its consequences, for while our ancestors ate whole grains, they did not consume them as presented in our modern cookbooks in the form of quick-rise breads, granolas and other hastily prepared casseroles and concoctions. Our ancestors, and virtually all pre-industrialized peoples soaked or fermented their grains before making them into porridge, breads, cakes and casseroles. A quick review of grain recipes from around the world will prove our point. In India rice and lentils are fermented for at least two days before they are prepared as idli and dosas. In Africa the natives soak coarsely ground corn overnight before adding it to soups and stews, and they ferment corn or millet for several days to produce a porridge called ogi. A similar dish made from oats was traditional among the Welsh. In some Oriental and Latin American countries rice receives a long fermentation before it is prepared. Ethiopians make their distinctive injera bread by fermenting a grain called teff for several days. Mexican corn cakes, called pozol, are fermented for several days and for as long as two weeks in banana leaves. Before the introduction of commercial brewers yeast, Europeans made slow-rise breads from fermented starters; in America the pioneers were known for their sourdough breads, pancakes and biscuits, and throughout Europe grains were soaked overnight, and for a long as several days, in water or soured milk before they were cooked and serve as porridge or gruel. (Many of our senior citizens may remember that in earlier times the instructions on the oatmeal box called for an overnight soaking).
This is not the place to speculate on that mysterious instructive spirit that taught our ancestors to soak and ferment their grains before eating them, the important thing to realize is that these practices accord very well with what modern science has discovered about grains. All grains contain phytic acid (an organic acid in which phosphorous is bound) in the outer layer or bran. Untreated phytic acid can combine with calcium, magnesium, copper, iron especially zinc in the intestinal track and block their absorption. This is why a diet high in unfermented whole grains may led to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss. The modern misguided practice of consuming large amounts of unprocessed bran often improves colon transit time at first but may lead to irritable bowel syndrome and, in the long term, many other adverse effects. Soaking allows enzyme, lactobacilli and other helpful organisms to break down and neutralize phytic acid. As little as seven hours of soaking in warm acidulated water will neutralize a large portion of phytic acid in grains. The simple practice of soaking cracked or rolled cereal grains overnight will vastly improve their nutritional benefits.
Soaking in warm water also neutralizes enzyme inhibitors, present in all seeds, and encourages the production of numerous beneficial enzymes. The action of these enzymes also increases the amounts of many vitamins, especially B vitamins.
“A diet high in unfermented whole grains may led to serious mineral deficiencies and bone loss.”
Scientists have learned that the proteins in grains, especially gluten, are very difficult to digest. A diet high in unfermented whole grains, particularly high-gluten grains like wheat, puts an enormous strain on the whole digestive mechanism. When this mechanism breaks down with age or overuse, the results take the form of allergies, celiac disease, mental illness, chronic indigestion and candida albicans overgrowth. Recent research links gluten intolerance with multiple sclerosis. During the process of soaking and fermenting, gluten and other difficult-to-digest proteins are partially broken down into simpler components that are more readily available for absorption.
. . . . . . . .
Grains fall into two general categories. Those containing gluten, such as oats, rye, barley and especially wheat, should not be consumed unless they have been soaked or fermented; buckwheat, rice and millet do not contain gluten and are, on the whole, more easily digested. Whole rice and whole millet contain lower amounts of phytates than other grains so it is not absolutely necessary to soak them. However, they should be gently steamed for at least two hours in a high-mineral gelatinous broth. This will neutralize some of the phytates they do contain and provide additional minerals to compensate for those that are still bound; while the gelatin in the broth will greatly facilitate digestion. We do not recommend the pressure cooker for grains because it cooks them too quickly.
. . . . . . . .
Our readers will notice that our recipes for breakfast cereals are all porridges that have been soaked overnight before they are cooked. If you buy grains that have been rolled or cracked, they should be in packages and not taken form bins, where they have a tendency to go rancid. Even better, buy organic or biodynamic whole grains and roll or crack them yourself using a roller or a grain grinder (See sources.) You may also add a little ground flax seed to start your day with a ration of omega 3 fatty acids. (Flax seed is low in phytic acid and does not require soaking if it is eaten in small amounts.) These porridges marry very well with butter or cream, whose fat-soluble activators provide the necessary catalyst for mineral absorption. Those with milk allergies can usually tolerate a little cream on their breakfast cereal or can eat them with butter –a delicious combination. We do not recommend soy milk, which contains many antinutrients.
Nor we do recommend granola, a popular “health” food made from grains subjected only to dry heat and, therefore, extremely indigestible. Granola, like all processed breakfast cereals, should have no place on our cupboards shelves. Boxed breakfast cereals are made by the extrusion process, in which little flakes and shapes are formed at high temperatures and pressures. Extrusion processing destroys many nutrients in grains, causes fragile oils to become rancid and renders certain proteins toxic. For a new generation of hardy children, we must return to the breakfast cereals of our ancestors –soaked gruels and porridges.
Another link: Weston A. Price Foundation
Thursday 25 September 2008
minimal tillage research review
Saturday 20 September 2008
Rudolf Steiner mp3s!
Send yourself to sleep to the sounds of the Agriculture course! The bees lecture is there too...
also Celtic Legends here.
also Celtic Legends here.
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Horse weekend is happening!!!
Just a few days, then we'll all start again. The Working Horse Weekend is happening, - if we find enough cars to get us there! Here is the program:
The Working Horse
At Gables Farm 3rd – 5th October
Program
Friday 3rd Oct :
1pm lunch in Forest Shelter with Ruskin Mill students and tutors, meeting Stuart Cragg and Kai Lange
2pm – 3.30pm working with a team of horses with S or K
3.30 – 4.00pm break
4.00 – 5.oopm power point presentation: ‘Horse Work in
Ruskin Mill’ and ‘Horse Machinery’
in the Forest Shelter by Stuart
5.00 - ‘Camp preparation’
Saturday 4th Oct :
9am- 1pm introduction into harness and single horse work in two
groups with S & K
11am break
1 pm lunch
2 – 4pm work with tem of horses with Stuart
4 pm break
4.30 – 5pm horse machinery in RM
Sunday 5th Oct:
9.30am ‘history of breeds and horse work; feeding; housing;
benefit and future of horses; ‘its’ place in the biodynamic
organism’
11am break
11.30 – 1pm more horse work !? with S & K
1pm lunch and review
2pm leaving
See you later this week!!
Arjen
The Working Horse
At Gables Farm 3rd – 5th October
Program
Friday 3rd Oct :
1pm lunch in Forest Shelter with Ruskin Mill students and tutors, meeting Stuart Cragg and Kai Lange
2pm – 3.30pm working with a team of horses with S or K
3.30 – 4.00pm break
4.00 – 5.oopm power point presentation: ‘Horse Work in
Ruskin Mill’ and ‘Horse Machinery’
in the Forest Shelter by Stuart
5.00 - ‘Camp preparation’
Saturday 4th Oct :
9am- 1pm introduction into harness and single horse work in two
groups with S & K
11am break
1 pm lunch
2 – 4pm work with tem of horses with Stuart
4 pm break
4.30 – 5pm horse machinery in RM
Sunday 5th Oct:
9.30am ‘history of breeds and horse work; feeding; housing;
benefit and future of horses; ‘its’ place in the biodynamic
organism’
11am break
11.30 – 1pm more horse work !? with S & K
1pm lunch and review
2pm leaving
See you later this week!!
Arjen
Monday 18 August 2008
oats and barly
Harvested all of the grains today with the help of some neighbors and their equipment. a 1940's crank start tractor and a 1930's cutter and bailer (i forget what its called). beautiful machines. really nice guys, they also have a steam engine thresher! i will be gone for the threshing in September but hope to go over and take some pictures of it before i go. after loading it all (4 acrs) into a big buggy we broke for lunch the clouds rolled in and thunder boomed over head. we all through down our lunches and ran back out to the field and got all of the grain into barns before the rains hit. wheew. something magic about grain. especally seeing it in the golden sun, then the growing dark black and purple clouds of the thunder storms green light. so magic. fun day.
i also went to a permaculture work shop on orcas island this weekend. it was so inspiring. beautiful land, solar energy ran the whole farm. amazing philosophy permaculture, the only things missing is livestock. i guess thats why im biodynamic. love that milking cow.
hope everyone is well.
erin
i also went to a permaculture work shop on orcas island this weekend. it was so inspiring. beautiful land, solar energy ran the whole farm. amazing philosophy permaculture, the only things missing is livestock. i guess thats why im biodynamic. love that milking cow.
hope everyone is well.
erin
Saturday 16 August 2008
Working horses weekend
Hi everyone,
I am trying hard to organise a weekend at Ruskin Mill to learn and experience working with horses. It has to be a weekend (they can't do weekdays), and the sooner after we come back, the better. So please pencil in 3-5 Oct in your diary as the preliminary date for working with horses! No guarantee, but I'm doing my best.
Arjen
I am trying hard to organise a weekend at Ruskin Mill to learn and experience working with horses. It has to be a weekend (they can't do weekdays), and the sooner after we come back, the better. So please pencil in 3-5 Oct in your diary as the preliminary date for working with horses! No guarantee, but I'm doing my best.
Arjen
Friday 15 August 2008
YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
;-D Got my driving licence (class T) for the Tractor today!!!!!!!!
and tomorrow I'm off for one week holiday....
have a nice time working everyone.
We had the combiners on the farm some eeks ago and started to harvest potatoes for storrage Yesterday.
two days ago it was raining 43ml in 24h more than ever bevore this somer and today they say it should be 50ml!
...so, nothing with harvesting...
michaela
and tomorrow I'm off for one week holiday....
have a nice time working everyone.
We had the combiners on the farm some eeks ago and started to harvest potatoes for storrage Yesterday.
two days ago it was raining 43ml in 24h more than ever bevore this somer and today they say it should be 50ml!
...so, nothing with harvesting...
michaela
Thursday 14 August 2008
Katharina can milk
I went on one of my student-on-placement inspections last week, up in Scotland to see if Katharina is still in Loch Arthur and to see what she learned... And yes! Katharina was busy milking when we were there, all on her own without any farmer in sight: that is a Distinction!!! She was also harvesting broccoli and generally having a good time. The Johan van Wallenburg who was on your timetable pulled out last minute and I have been out there recruiting guest teachers all the way up in the Scottish highlands. I found some guys wanting to teach bagpiping and haggis-cooking but after a long search and a battle with the Loch Ness monster I found a biodynamic farmer deep down where it rains one-and-a-half metres a year who was willing to come to the South to teach animal husbandry: Charlie Wannop. He will be accompanied in spring by another Scotsman Timothy Brink who will also teach dairy farming. Timothy is currently the director of the Demeter Certification. Ramon and me climbed mount Screel and after that we got so soaked that we drove back to England fast and quick.
Bonkers
EU fishing quotas. Watch this (short) film. Who seriously votes for a policy that allows this sort of nonsense? Your MEP probably.
I'm back from holiday (a week's walking in the wet Yorkshire dales) and looking forward to some harvesting. Combines were out all over the country. Although it has been pouring with rain here most of the day, I am currently staring at a beautiful waxing gibbous moon.
Tablehurst should also have had their new minimum tillage machine thing whatsit delivered whilst I was lazing in the North England sunshine (huh?). Should be fun. Lots of head scratching, spanners, emails to suppliers etc initially, no doubt, but hopefully improved soil structure, less compaction and lower fuel bills to follow.
And finally, here's a little something for those who need an antiGM update.
I'm back from holiday (a week's walking in the wet Yorkshire dales) and looking forward to some harvesting. Combines were out all over the country. Although it has been pouring with rain here most of the day, I am currently staring at a beautiful waxing gibbous moon.
Tablehurst should also have had their new minimum tillage machine thing whatsit delivered whilst I was lazing in the North England sunshine (huh?). Should be fun. Lots of head scratching, spanners, emails to suppliers etc initially, no doubt, but hopefully improved soil structure, less compaction and lower fuel bills to follow.
And finally, here's a little something for those who need an antiGM update.
Saturday 26 July 2008
and you thought you were a farmer huh?
Ha! now i know what it means to farm. to live, walk and dream your daily routine, your future plans and fantasy's, and your worst living nightmares.
sorry its been so long, i think of you all often and wish i could tell you all of the things that have happened, good and bad in my life on this farm in the last month.
short of it:
workshop- 40 people for 3 days on the farm. feeding 40 people (plus all the livestock) and keeping everyone watered during the hottest weekend of the year, learning, lectures, great conversation, networking with bio-community of the northwest....... exciting until......
mad cow- 2yr old bitch of a heifer gored the woman i work for twice then trampled her, not 3 feet from my horrified and helpless eyes. and the workshop must go on, people arrive not even an hour latter. the bad cow at this point in isolation in an upper Field, she proceeds to jump 4 fences and walk very near to innocent workshops twice, and scare the shit out of me completely.
slaughter- killing some of my animals i had come to be good friends with
haying- crazy fun, then the allergy's hit and my head felt like a football for a week, and im still blowing massive amounts of snot out my nose 3 weeks latter.
Farm sitting- last week my bosses had to leave for 5 days. leaving the farm in my care and responsibility. the very morning they left i woke to cows screaming all over the property and knew something was wrong. our 2000lb bull had literally squished a brood cow and in his exhaustion and her injured state the yearling males proceeded to jump her, trample her and injure her badly. i couldn't get one of them off of her at one point, had to run and get help. i fenced her off to no avail, the yearling males would run straight through electric fencing, must be all those hormones in the air. then had to move the whole herd to another pasture. this past week i have learned how to keep a down cow alive. homemade bloat cures, hip shifting massaging and stretching her legs. hauling five gallon buckets of watter and lettuce to her twice a day.
i haven't thought of anything other than keeping that cow alive for days. the boss man has returned and i can let go a little. trying to stay sane amid the insanities of the natural world. the brutality and rawness of it all is a little too much for me in my exhausted state.
oh, i also got chased by hungry big pigs, smart animals. they knew where i was running to and even going through a building to escape out the other side to go and get help they were waiting for me at the other dore. i was trapped. thank god for telephones.
extensive rambling. sorry.
hope some of it makes since. im so tired i feel like i could just die. but happy.
i am proud that i have risen to the challenges physically and mentally of the highest standards i have ever encountered, set upon me by my boss. and as tired as i may be i still sit down at sunset (if im lucky)knowing i worked as hard as i could. knowing that i did the best job that i could. and think how great my life is and how lucky i am to be learning more than i ever thought possible in one of the most beautiful places i have ever lived.
love you all and hope to have time this weekend to work on the assessment and read all of the posted blogs i have missed.
peace and farming, its what makes the world go round.
keep fighting the good fight.
erin
sorry its been so long, i think of you all often and wish i could tell you all of the things that have happened, good and bad in my life on this farm in the last month.
short of it:
workshop- 40 people for 3 days on the farm. feeding 40 people (plus all the livestock) and keeping everyone watered during the hottest weekend of the year, learning, lectures, great conversation, networking with bio-community of the northwest....... exciting until......
mad cow- 2yr old bitch of a heifer gored the woman i work for twice then trampled her, not 3 feet from my horrified and helpless eyes. and the workshop must go on, people arrive not even an hour latter. the bad cow at this point in isolation in an upper Field, she proceeds to jump 4 fences and walk very near to innocent workshops twice, and scare the shit out of me completely.
slaughter- killing some of my animals i had come to be good friends with
haying- crazy fun, then the allergy's hit and my head felt like a football for a week, and im still blowing massive amounts of snot out my nose 3 weeks latter.
Farm sitting- last week my bosses had to leave for 5 days. leaving the farm in my care and responsibility. the very morning they left i woke to cows screaming all over the property and knew something was wrong. our 2000lb bull had literally squished a brood cow and in his exhaustion and her injured state the yearling males proceeded to jump her, trample her and injure her badly. i couldn't get one of them off of her at one point, had to run and get help. i fenced her off to no avail, the yearling males would run straight through electric fencing, must be all those hormones in the air. then had to move the whole herd to another pasture. this past week i have learned how to keep a down cow alive. homemade bloat cures, hip shifting massaging and stretching her legs. hauling five gallon buckets of watter and lettuce to her twice a day.
i haven't thought of anything other than keeping that cow alive for days. the boss man has returned and i can let go a little. trying to stay sane amid the insanities of the natural world. the brutality and rawness of it all is a little too much for me in my exhausted state.
oh, i also got chased by hungry big pigs, smart animals. they knew where i was running to and even going through a building to escape out the other side to go and get help they were waiting for me at the other dore. i was trapped. thank god for telephones.
extensive rambling. sorry.
hope some of it makes since. im so tired i feel like i could just die. but happy.
i am proud that i have risen to the challenges physically and mentally of the highest standards i have ever encountered, set upon me by my boss. and as tired as i may be i still sit down at sunset (if im lucky)knowing i worked as hard as i could. knowing that i did the best job that i could. and think how great my life is and how lucky i am to be learning more than i ever thought possible in one of the most beautiful places i have ever lived.
love you all and hope to have time this weekend to work on the assessment and read all of the posted blogs i have missed.
peace and farming, its what makes the world go round.
keep fighting the good fight.
erin
Thursday 24 July 2008
Ode to the strimmer
I love strimmers aka brushcutters. I bought my first strimmer when I had my market garden in Germany - a demo model Husqvarna: until then I had always associated the brand Husqvarna with sewing machines but the dealer convinced me that it was one of the best brands and this one was special with anti vibration handle so you wouldn't get the numb fingers syndrome which in the end leads to loss of sense of temperature. I loved it, I strimmed many an acre on my market garden in Germany and used it as a weeding machine, harvester and composter all-in-one. My Husqvarna lasted 3 years: until I had some volunteers working on the farm who didn't know that a strimmer has a 2-stroke engine and needs a petrol-oil mixture. So they filled it with straight petrol and the engine seized up: end of my lovely Husqvarna. That was in Holland and I went off to the mechanics (Ramon came along) and we had a choice between a cheap yellow one and a more expensive red one. Ramon wanted the yellow one but I decided on the red one because that was a Honda 4-stroke machine which meant there couldn't ever be a mistake any more in not mixing the oil in because it uses straight petrol. Sadly I sold the business soon afterwards and the Honda strimmer with it. At Emerson I bought a Husqvarna second hand: stupid. Never ever buy a second hand strimmer! If a strimmer is good the owner will use it until it dies, if a strimmer is bad or starts to have problems you sell it on eBay. The Husqvarna had some service on and off but has been composting for the last couple of years in the lorry body. In Brasil we bought a second hand Stihl - and of course Cabaclo got the mixture wrong and off I went in our Volkswagen beatle (lovely but hugely inpractical without a boot - strimmer peeping out through the window while I was making my way to the nearest Stihl repair shop) to get a new cylinder. Back in the UK I thought I had a clever idea and I bought the cheapest strimmer they had in the Homebase and took out the 3 year extended warrenty: I thought that would give as a sort of monthly subscription on new strimmers whenever the thing would die. And so it went: that year we went three times to Homebase for a new strimmer, but unfortunately we were obviously not the only ones whose strimmer died whenever we tried to use it for more than 5 minutes so they were out of stock most of the time. We still have the last specimen lying composting in the lorrybody next to the Husqvarna...
So - but now... I bought a Stihl.... The Rolls Royce among the strimmers. Expensive, made in Germany by real underground blacksmithing dwarfs, put together by Swiss elves with the knowhow of ancient watch makers - a shining example of excellence. So today I took delivery of my new coveted toy and went on strimming all those annoying nettles around my transplants - harbouring the worst mistake God ever created. The strimmer is my new weapon against people's enemy number one: these slimy, grey-black horrible disgusting little buggers, these all-devouring snotty intestines, these rampant jellyfish bogeys: SLUGS
Sometimes I have dreams of strimming my way through a whole avenue of slugs, their entrails splashing and slushing all about and me as the iron-clad hero saving humanity from this worst plague of all eternity...hmmm I like that vision
Anyway - bottom line: buy a strimmer, and if you do: buy a Stihl.
I'm off to Dartmoor for a few days (strimmer in my rucksack) and I wish you all a happy weekend!
Arjen
So - but now... I bought a Stihl.... The Rolls Royce among the strimmers. Expensive, made in Germany by real underground blacksmithing dwarfs, put together by Swiss elves with the knowhow of ancient watch makers - a shining example of excellence. So today I took delivery of my new coveted toy and went on strimming all those annoying nettles around my transplants - harbouring the worst mistake God ever created. The strimmer is my new weapon against people's enemy number one: these slimy, grey-black horrible disgusting little buggers, these all-devouring snotty intestines, these rampant jellyfish bogeys: SLUGS
Sometimes I have dreams of strimming my way through a whole avenue of slugs, their entrails splashing and slushing all about and me as the iron-clad hero saving humanity from this worst plague of all eternity...hmmm I like that vision
Anyway - bottom line: buy a strimmer, and if you do: buy a Stihl.
I'm off to Dartmoor for a few days (strimmer in my rucksack) and I wish you all a happy weekend!
Arjen
Locaturkeyvore
If it's not chickens, it seems, it's turkeys. The lovely little bundles of tweeting feathers have, till now, been housed just inside the sheep barn next to the farm dining room. They showed a disappointing tendency to attempt to experience reincarnation in the early stages of their journey to Christmas dinner. It was discovered by Raf & Stein that the special (and therefore expensive), turkey starter food we were buying in was too big. The turkeys obviously hadn't read the bag. So each morning we milled turkey food pellets into turkey food powder.
Today was turkey field day. So, scissors in hand, Raf and I set to cutting wings and putting turkeys in crates ready for transportation. New crates. Apparently turkeys can catch some fairly nasty things from chickens so we bought shiny new boxes for the single journey. I guess its not so important when they make the return trip, although I'm sure we'll at least power wash the crates.
Very hot day, but turkeys seemed to like their new home, immediately fnding the (deliberate) hole in the hurriedly constructed holding pen. They stay in the turkey field but penned up in up netting until they are big enough to have outgrown crow food.
Plucking good time to be had by all.
Today was turkey field day. So, scissors in hand, Raf and I set to cutting wings and putting turkeys in crates ready for transportation. New crates. Apparently turkeys can catch some fairly nasty things from chickens so we bought shiny new boxes for the single journey. I guess its not so important when they make the return trip, although I'm sure we'll at least power wash the crates.
Very hot day, but turkeys seemed to like their new home, immediately fnding the (deliberate) hole in the hurriedly constructed holding pen. They stay in the turkey field but penned up in up netting until they are big enough to have outgrown crow food.
Plucking good time to be had by all.
Monday 21 July 2008
chlorine gas
thanks for your email robin... problem with chlorine is that one takes in most breathing it in whilst bathing since it vapourises so easily. it's actually very simple to get rid of chlorine since it vapourises if left to stand in an open container overnight. i'm no expert on plumbing so i have no idea how difficult it might be to do something with a water tank to allow this to occur. below i include an exchange of emails between me, matt and gregg re water. i will write to nik from water research to ask about how to do filtering/dechlorination on a whole house scale. if anyone is willing to offer advice or otherwise get involved in lobbying for this etc . then do let me know, i suppose the more people are on it the more likely it is to happen. equally from experience it can take half an eternity just to get someone to do a simple information gathering exercise, as i learned with steering group so sometimes better to do this oneself.. i suppose this was my main source of frustration.
2008/7/21 Gregg Davis:
Dear Adam;
Through the vision process the commitment was taken to address the food issue primarily through development of the integrated college garden, fundraising soon to begin and adverts for garderners out in the world. This is obviously more a middle term - longer term solution though i think a good one. Short term there hasnt been a specific call for all organic nor do we have funds for this at present. STudent reaction was pretty mixed on willingness to pay more for it. So with regret that will have to wait.
This is first time i am hearing this level of detail on water projects. I certainly dont have any problem with filters going in. Do you have a cost estimate for all houses and what kind of filters - i am pretty conversant with these issues from health point of view.
Longer term i think there is obviusly a great deal that we can and should be doing with a water research center right on our property!
Gregg Davis
2008/7/21 Gregg Davis:
Adam, additionally, the college is becoming more and more subject to UK legislation around Health and safety issues, or lets say the enforcement level is picking up so we'll want to ensure that any remedies we develop are harmonizing with those regs. I dont see an issue there but is something the college ignores at its peril.
----- Original Message -----
From: A Ortaa
To: gdavis@###ne.org
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 3:32 PM
Subject: Water and food
Greetings Gregg,
I have posed to Matt the question of whether anything had moved on with the questions of water and food quality, which I feel are of great importance and should not be neglected any further, the water in particular. This article outlines the effects of chlorine in one's water fairly succinctly:
http://www.netstarter.com.au/Content_Common/pg-chlorine-effects-in-water.seo
Below is our conversation, I have not heard anything more since:
[quote message:]
2008/6/17 A Ortaa:
All hail Matt,
A bit confused about the water question since Nick said that there was enough money in the student initiatives fund for a water filter for the kitchen and tearoom and John Wilkes said that he would be prepared to design a flowform for the tearoom. I told all this to Dave from Foundation who was going to find out more about which filter and talk more with the water folks etc, then get back to Steering Group. I take it this hasn't happened? The chlorine in the water is damn horrible, and this should not be put off any more, since it was clear to me in March that getting one filter was feasible. The short term action should be to put in at least one filter ASAP, I thought we had agreed on that, long term is installing proper filters in the houses, for which of course fundraising will be required.
About the food well no surprise, what you don't know doesn't hurt you say some, but did nothing become of the questionnaire q. asking if people would be prepared to pay more for all organic food? I want to know about this because I need to let the college know if I'm going to take meals next year. Not really sure if I want to continue with SG, since I intend to engage in various extra curricular things. Anyway thanks for replying to my message, perhaps now you wish you hadn't... but it seems crazy to me that people can go on drinking that bad water. Seems people will cease to notice even quite extreme things once they become accustomed to them. It's really not hard, the money is (or at least was) on the table! Speak to Nick again to confirm this, and if you would let me know how things progress.
Best,
A.
2008/6/15 Matt:
Hi Adam,
Sorry for the no reply, we've made some slow progress on the water front - the idea is currently that we will do the fundraising ourselves rather than relying on the college to pay for it, so a small group has been working on checking out the options and we will start a long-term fundraising campaign next year.. As for the food, not much has been done in Steering Group, but there is a VSG plan to bring back the garden in a big way and through that, supply the kitchen with BD veggies etc. Also it's hoped that a BD Nutrition course will be starting in the next couple of years, so that will no doubt be coupled with a greater consciousness of the nutritional value of the food we get in the college.. We'll mention both of these issues to the Management group when we meet them in the next week or two..
Just so you're aware, we've been talking about some changes to the format of SG and we're planning on meeting in the orientation week before term starts to discuss and formalize some of those ideas and plan for the term ahead, so it would be good if you can make it for that..
hope you're well, looking forward to seeing you in September,
take care,
Matt
[/end quote message]
Since the Steering Group was apparently unable to do anything more with this matter in my absence I ask whether you have any plans for improving the situation.
Warm Regards,
Adam
*********
have not yet read that article, but is it not the case that in praising what speculators do for markets necessitates remaining in the paradigm that a globalised market is a good thing?
if you ever find yourself with 90min to spare (yeah right... fortunately it's divided into 10 min sections here's a lecture on codex alimentarius.
2008/7/21 Gregg Davis
Dear Adam;
Through the vision process the commitment was taken to address the food issue primarily through development of the integrated college garden, fundraising soon to begin and adverts for garderners out in the world. This is obviously more a middle term - longer term solution though i think a good one. Short term there hasnt been a specific call for all organic nor do we have funds for this at present. STudent reaction was pretty mixed on willingness to pay more for it. So with regret that will have to wait.
This is first time i am hearing this level of detail on water projects. I certainly dont have any problem with filters going in. Do you have a cost estimate for all houses and what kind of filters - i am pretty conversant with these issues from health point of view.
Longer term i think there is obviusly a great deal that we can and should be doing with a water research center right on our property!
Gregg Davis
2008/7/21 Gregg Davis
Adam, additionally, the college is becoming more and more subject to UK legislation around Health and safety issues, or lets say the enforcement level is picking up so we'll want to ensure that any remedies we develop are harmonizing with those regs. I dont see an issue there but is something the college ignores at its peril.
----- Original Message -----
From: A Ortaa
To: gdavis@###ne.org
Sent: Thursday, July 17, 2008 3:32 PM
Subject: Water and food
Greetings Gregg,
I have posed to Matt the question of whether anything had moved on with the questions of water and food quality, which I feel are of great importance and should not be neglected any further, the water in particular. This article outlines the effects of chlorine in one's water fairly succinctly:
http://www.netstarter.com.au/Content_Common/pg-chlorine-effects-in-water.seo
Below is our conversation, I have not heard anything more since:
[quote message:]
2008/6/17 A Ortaa
All hail Matt,
A bit confused about the water question since Nick said that there was enough money in the student initiatives fund for a water filter for the kitchen and tearoom and John Wilkes said that he would be prepared to design a flowform for the tearoom. I told all this to Dave from Foundation who was going to find out more about which filter and talk more with the water folks etc, then get back to Steering Group. I take it this hasn't happened? The chlorine in the water is damn horrible, and this should not be put off any more, since it was clear to me in March that getting one filter was feasible. The short term action should be to put in at least one filter ASAP, I thought we had agreed on that, long term is installing proper filters in the houses, for which of course fundraising will be required.
About the food well no surprise, what you don't know doesn't hurt you say some, but did nothing become of the questionnaire q. asking if people would be prepared to pay more for all organic food? I want to know about this because I need to let the college know if I'm going to take meals next year. Not really sure if I want to continue with SG, since I intend to engage in various extra curricular things. Anyway thanks for replying to my message, perhaps now you wish you hadn't... but it seems crazy to me that people can go on drinking that bad water. Seems people will cease to notice even quite extreme things once they become accustomed to them. It's really not hard, the money is (or at least was) on the table! Speak to Nick again to confirm this, and if you would let me know how things progress.
Best,
A.
2008/6/15 Matt
Hi Adam,
Sorry for the no reply, we've made some slow progress on the water front - the idea is currently that we will do the fundraising ourselves rather than relying on the college to pay for it, so a small group has been working on checking out the options and we will start a long-term fundraising campaign next year.. As for the food, not much has been done in Steering Group, but there is a VSG plan to bring back the garden in a big way and through that, supply the kitchen with BD veggies etc. Also it's hoped that a BD Nutrition course will be starting in the next couple of years, so that will no doubt be coupled with a greater consciousness of the nutritional value of the food we get in the college.. We'll mention both of these issues to the Management group when we meet them in the next week or two..
Just so you're aware, we've been talking about some changes to the format of SG and we're planning on meeting in the orientation week before term starts to discuss and formalize some of those ideas and plan for the term ahead, so it would be good if you can make it for that..
hope you're well, looking forward to seeing you in September,
take care,
Matt
[/end quote message]
Since the Steering Group was apparently unable to do anything more with this matter in my absence I ask whether you have any plans for improving the situation.
Warm Regards,
Adam
*********
have not yet read that article, but is it not the case that in praising what speculators do for markets necessitates remaining in the paradigm that a globalised market is a good thing?
if you ever find yourself with 90min to spare (yeah right... fortunately it's divided into 10 min sections here's a lecture on codex alimentarius.
Friday 18 July 2008
Risk and Reward
Attached is a recent article from the Economist that gives a short and not totally convincing argument in favour of market speculators. However, it does give some key points regarding their activities. It discusses oil but the ideas are appilicable to soft commodities. Primarily, their involvement and effect is usually over exaggerated and they make a convenient scapegoat (especially where there is policy failure). Secondly, the benefits they provide, namely market liquidity, are usually ignored. The risks taken by speculators ensures price transparency and depth of market for those with something to sell. Without them, markets would tend to be fragmented and illiquid with prices guarded by the dominant buyers and sellers (in our case large landowners or farmers and supermarkets). This would increase profitability for those that can really manipulate markets: governments and cartels.
Thursday 17 July 2008
codex alimentarius and other insignificant musings
hello to those reading (arjen, kristof, robin?)
my health is unfortunately rather poor at present, i am seriously considering whether spending another 6 months imbibing and bathing in forest row's heavily chlorinated water is the best thing for me.
nice to hear about your plant communications kristof, this had been my intention in persuing bd, however at the moment constant tiredness largely limits my attention to the required movements for the job i am being asked to perform, whilst in better periods i am able to becomeconscious of these movements and likewise remember breathing. this i think is the foundation of conscious work with plant energies. but it is perhaps the unconscious/passive element, which needs to be combined with conscious 'research', i.e. posing a question, or attuning oneself to a certain frequency. this is something that standard education has given us no tuition in; for we are trained to be passive absorbers of information. likewise nice to hear that you are doing something of that calls upon the use of inspiration. i fear that i cannot say the same about packing vegetables. quite often i feel like i'm working in a factory here; it takes great effort to prevent robotism. i suppose most people don't have this struggle so i should be grateful for the opportunity (gurdjieffian approach). or masochism?
remembering to do energetic diagnoses of plant energies with hands has also been forgotten in the rush of farm life (who'd have thought), though i did manage to do this over the prep barrel, however we have only sprayed about 4 times, apparently too busy to do more (i am quite disillusioned about this supposedly being a biodynamic farm - it seems that the demeter stamp is a requirement of the rent agreement. one worker was even complaining about being made to stir preps.) the times that i did stir i entered into an altered state through the process. regular energetic exercises seem necessary to be able to start to trust one's hands, in my case qi gong/chi gung. sadly my vision is not so great for whatever reason, and visual reading of plant forms is likewise quite important in communicating with them i would say. would be interested to know how you enter into communication kristof... don't be afraid to tell us will you now?
anyway, here some links to keep one going:
Sonic bloom
Flower clock
on the gm resistance front, if you are not familiar with the codex alimentarius, it is perhaps advisable to become so. linked to in the title of this post is an interview with a man named ian crane discussing this agenda, as well as some relevant videos and links. in the light of such things a btec seems rather frivolrous... methinks ensnaring us in a theoretical frame of mind, when it is action that is called for.
one more article about a leaked world bank report on gm and biofuels.
robin i believe you never replied to my request for elucidation of speculation in food after i posted the last batch of articles on this topic.
blessings,
a.
my health is unfortunately rather poor at present, i am seriously considering whether spending another 6 months imbibing and bathing in forest row's heavily chlorinated water is the best thing for me.
nice to hear about your plant communications kristof, this had been my intention in persuing bd, however at the moment constant tiredness largely limits my attention to the required movements for the job i am being asked to perform, whilst in better periods i am able to becomeconscious of these movements and likewise remember breathing. this i think is the foundation of conscious work with plant energies. but it is perhaps the unconscious/passive element, which needs to be combined with conscious 'research', i.e. posing a question, or attuning oneself to a certain frequency. this is something that standard education has given us no tuition in; for we are trained to be passive absorbers of information. likewise nice to hear that you are doing something of that calls upon the use of inspiration. i fear that i cannot say the same about packing vegetables. quite often i feel like i'm working in a factory here; it takes great effort to prevent robotism. i suppose most people don't have this struggle so i should be grateful for the opportunity (gurdjieffian approach). or masochism?
remembering to do energetic diagnoses of plant energies with hands has also been forgotten in the rush of farm life (who'd have thought), though i did manage to do this over the prep barrel, however we have only sprayed about 4 times, apparently too busy to do more (i am quite disillusioned about this supposedly being a biodynamic farm - it seems that the demeter stamp is a requirement of the rent agreement. one worker was even complaining about being made to stir preps.) the times that i did stir i entered into an altered state through the process. regular energetic exercises seem necessary to be able to start to trust one's hands, in my case qi gong/chi gung. sadly my vision is not so great for whatever reason, and visual reading of plant forms is likewise quite important in communicating with them i would say. would be interested to know how you enter into communication kristof... don't be afraid to tell us will you now?
anyway, here some links to keep one going:
Sonic bloom
Flower clock
on the gm resistance front, if you are not familiar with the codex alimentarius, it is perhaps advisable to become so. linked to in the title of this post is an interview with a man named ian crane discussing this agenda, as well as some relevant videos and links. in the light of such things a btec seems rather frivolrous... methinks ensnaring us in a theoretical frame of mind, when it is action that is called for.
one more article about a leaked world bank report on gm and biofuels.
robin i believe you never replied to my request for elucidation of speculation in food after i posted the last batch of articles on this topic.
blessings,
a.
Cherry Grower
ORGANIC GARDENER WANTED
Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, a residential therapeutic community in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, is looking for an Organic Gardener.
The vegetable garden at Cherry Orchards is part of a small farm, including livestock. The one acre garden provides nearly all of our own vegetables and fruit, grown to Soil Association organic standards. This feeds a community of around twenty adults year round.
We are seeking an Organic Gardener to help us in this work. An understanding of organic horticulture is necessary, along with enthusiasm and a willingness to carry on learning. This may suit an individual seeking to build on their existing knowledge and experience in such work, and offers the potential for future development of the position here.
The position is full time; 37.5 hours per week; starting salary £15,600 per annum.
For an informal chat and further information please contact Adam on 0781 7173233
For written details please write to: Adam Hesketh, Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, Canford Lane, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol BS9 3PE , or e-mail: cherryorchards@camphill.org.uk
Closing date for applications 31st August 2008; interviews September 2008.
Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, a residential therapeutic community in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, is looking for an Organic Gardener.
The vegetable garden at Cherry Orchards is part of a small farm, including livestock. The one acre garden provides nearly all of our own vegetables and fruit, grown to Soil Association organic standards. This feeds a community of around twenty adults year round.
We are seeking an Organic Gardener to help us in this work. An understanding of organic horticulture is necessary, along with enthusiasm and a willingness to carry on learning. This may suit an individual seeking to build on their existing knowledge and experience in such work, and offers the potential for future development of the position here.
The position is full time; 37.5 hours per week; starting salary £15,600 per annum.
For an informal chat and further information please contact Adam on 0781 7173233
For written details please write to: Adam Hesketh, Cherry Orchards Camphill Community, Canford Lane, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol BS9 3PE , or e-mail: cherryorchards@camphill.org.uk
Closing date for applications 31st August 2008; interviews September 2008.
Tuesday 15 July 2008
Angelic Organics
Arjen and I both had a similar meeting today. Arjen has floweritis and is obviously affected so forgot to relive this encounter with you all. However, I know that Arjen had a guest weeder in his flower garden today. I know 'cos the guest weeder wandered down to the farm and helped me fix the topper and chase some sheep. Who was the mystery farm hand? Farmer John! THE farmer John, of real dirt fame. So we chewed the cud for a few hours as we yielded wrenches and hammers, discussing BD, IFOAM, anthroposophy, mintill, S&P500, toplinks etc. A most entertaining afternoon.
Course over
Soooo that was the week course - 11 folks from the UK, US, Argentina and Canada for a week course on etheric forces... Always nice but it takes me away from the flowers and I don't think I'll do it again next year. I like the flowers!! Flowers rule!! Give me more flowers!! A flower in the morning, a flower in the evening, all over this world - yeeeheeee
Monday 14 July 2008
Jardineiro full on! (click here for Bernie Krause)
Dear Classmates,
As Planet influences are clearly experienced on the personal life, the educational garden is finally being planted after a lot of preparational soil work and planning.
At the moment I am planting hedges around, beds with kitchen herbs in hexagonical shapes (John Wilks would be proude!), Solonaceaes, Rootvegetables and medicinal herbs.
I will leave some beds to plant with the children of course!
I am reading a book ¨the magic of Findhorn¨for the second time and it gives me a very good view on working with elemental and natural kingdoms. I am more talking to plants then to people at the moment.
Besides that I would like to show you the work of this man Bernie Krause, who works with sound recordings and measurement on health of the natural habitat or ecosystem.
I will invest in a quality portable sound recorder and hope to do my own experiments soon.
I would especially recommend the article from 96 in the magazine, the wild duck!
And besides Robin E. isn´t there anyone doing someting interesting worth sharing???
Big Hug
Kristof
As Planet influences are clearly experienced on the personal life, the educational garden is finally being planted after a lot of preparational soil work and planning.
At the moment I am planting hedges around, beds with kitchen herbs in hexagonical shapes (John Wilks would be proude!), Solonaceaes, Rootvegetables and medicinal herbs.
I will leave some beds to plant with the children of course!
I am reading a book ¨the magic of Findhorn¨for the second time and it gives me a very good view on working with elemental and natural kingdoms. I am more talking to plants then to people at the moment.
Besides that I would like to show you the work of this man Bernie Krause, who works with sound recordings and measurement on health of the natural habitat or ecosystem.
I will invest in a quality portable sound recorder and hope to do my own experiments soon.
I would especially recommend the article from 96 in the magazine, the wild duck!
And besides Robin E. isn´t there anyone doing someting interesting worth sharing???
Big Hug
Kristof
Sunday 13 July 2008
General Motors
I do have something else to do, honest....I heard this earlier:
Genetic engineering. Not really engineering is it? The engineering equivalent of what geneticists do would be to throw lumps of concrete and steel into a river and if someone manages to walk across, call it a bridge.
Time for bed.
Genetic engineering. Not really engineering is it? The engineering equivalent of what geneticists do would be to throw lumps of concrete and steel into a river and if someone manages to walk across, call it a bridge.
Time for bed.
Friday 11 July 2008
Test Card
Topping and test match. Bliss.
All day in the tractor with wonderful views of rolling Sussex countryside creating beautiful patterns whilst listening to England play magnificently at Lords (rare) against the dear South Africans (of which we have a few on the farm). A proper summers day (rain included).
All day in the tractor with wonderful views of rolling Sussex countryside creating beautiful patterns whilst listening to England play magnificently at Lords (rare) against the dear South Africans (of which we have a few on the farm). A proper summers day (rain included).
Thursday 10 July 2008
Manure or Monsanto
Yesterday was all about compost and preparations (in the pouring rain). Today was all about cow sh*t. Remember the 500 we made last September and dug up in March, and how wet it was? It is still wet, so today we took it out of the jar and put it on a board in the sheep barn to dry out (it still smells). We also cut nettles and buried them.
First thing after breakfast we took 2 wheel barrows all the way to the top of the farm, where the cows needed to be moved from, and collected as much cow sh*t as we could. This was then taken back down to (Blue) Peter's garden and deposited in a brick lined pit (here's one I made earlier). This was prepped with compost preps and Hey pre(p)sto, cow pat pit preparation. We covered with wood and will revisit every month or so to stir and add preps.
David instigated this as we do not have enough compost for all the fields. Which seems odd as the farm feels intensive from a livestock perspective so one would expect there to be enough compost. We don't produce all our own feed (buying in field beans [23t last May] and chicken feed). So a few imbalances to the farm organism .
Attached article from FT (click on title) is one of the better written giving the proGM argument. It is still blatantly corporate hype and all the sources are industry sponsored bodies. It gives no conclusive arguments and again, much of it is jam tomorrow (8-10yrs for GM wheat, thank goodness).
And what of herbicides? Check this out from The Observer for a great organic PR exercise by Dow Chemicals.
First thing after breakfast we took 2 wheel barrows all the way to the top of the farm, where the cows needed to be moved from, and collected as much cow sh*t as we could. This was then taken back down to (Blue) Peter's garden and deposited in a brick lined pit (here's one I made earlier). This was prepped with compost preps and Hey pre(p)sto, cow pat pit preparation. We covered with wood and will revisit every month or so to stir and add preps.
David instigated this as we do not have enough compost for all the fields. Which seems odd as the farm feels intensive from a livestock perspective so one would expect there to be enough compost. We don't produce all our own feed (buying in field beans [23t last May] and chicken feed). So a few imbalances to the farm organism .
Attached article from FT (click on title) is one of the better written giving the proGM argument. It is still blatantly corporate hype and all the sources are industry sponsored bodies. It gives no conclusive arguments and again, much of it is jam tomorrow (8-10yrs for GM wheat, thank goodness).
And what of herbicides? Check this out from The Observer for a great organic PR exercise by Dow Chemicals.
Tuesday 8 July 2008
Another day, another chicken
Rain, cool, needed. Chickens, hmmmm.
We have too many chickens. How does that work? Surely there is a well thought out and designed system. Huge investment went into the field, houses and processing unit. Chicken is the in meat; four legs bad, two legs good (to completely misquote Orwell); red meat is 'bad' for you, white meat is 'good' for you; free range chicken is all over the press from J. Oliver to H. Fearnly -Whittingwhatever. And we have too many.
Well, we did. Since Max took over the chickens from Neil and we have recovered from the Feb break-in, the survival rate has shot up and so from 150ish we now have 200ish per week (as we should from a fortnightly 425 day olds delivery). However, Richard is out of here from friday (off to Devon with Melanie to work for a farm selling its meat online), Barry is on holiday until Monday and we just aren't getting the customer numbers in the shop (we still sell out of Sirloin and Fillet pretty quickly though).
Plaw Hatch is not really selling any meat at the moment, certainly none of Tablehursts, due to the lack of a shop manager (Alex has gone and a replacement has yet to be found).
So we had too many chickens. Fortunately, a call to a London butcher saw us lose 30 a week at the right price and, whilst rehanging their sign with the JCB, 12 were sold to The Chequers. Still, with the right marketing and a little more focus we should ideally be able to sell everything through the shop. Work in progress. Also of note, The Foresters now sells only organic food, including Tablehurst sausages. Trebles all round.
We have too many chickens. How does that work? Surely there is a well thought out and designed system. Huge investment went into the field, houses and processing unit. Chicken is the in meat; four legs bad, two legs good (to completely misquote Orwell); red meat is 'bad' for you, white meat is 'good' for you; free range chicken is all over the press from J. Oliver to H. Fearnly -Whittingwhatever. And we have too many.
Well, we did. Since Max took over the chickens from Neil and we have recovered from the Feb break-in, the survival rate has shot up and so from 150ish we now have 200ish per week (as we should from a fortnightly 425 day olds delivery). However, Richard is out of here from friday (off to Devon with Melanie to work for a farm selling its meat online), Barry is on holiday until Monday and we just aren't getting the customer numbers in the shop (we still sell out of Sirloin and Fillet pretty quickly though).
Plaw Hatch is not really selling any meat at the moment, certainly none of Tablehursts, due to the lack of a shop manager (Alex has gone and a replacement has yet to be found).
So we had too many chickens. Fortunately, a call to a London butcher saw us lose 30 a week at the right price and, whilst rehanging their sign with the JCB, 12 were sold to The Chequers. Still, with the right marketing and a little more focus we should ideally be able to sell everything through the shop. Work in progress. Also of note, The Foresters now sells only organic food, including Tablehurst sausages. Trebles all round.
Sunday 6 July 2008
Tomoko
Dear students in BD agriculture training,
I am considering applying to Emerson Collage Biodynamic Agriculture Program for September 2008 and would very much like to hear current students’ voice on the program and a life in Emerson Collage. I understand that you are busy with your practicum now. If you can spare time with me talking over the phone, via email, or in person, it would be a great help for me in making this big (and expensive) decision. I am now in England and would like to visit Emerson Collage and a few other training centers in the third week of July between July 14th and 18th. If you are happy to provide me your honest feedback of the program, would you send me your contact information and best time to reach you if you do not mind me calling or visiting you?
My email address is:
tomokoku@hawaii.edu
Many thanks and enjoy your practicum,
Tomoko Kurokawa
I am considering applying to Emerson Collage Biodynamic Agriculture Program for September 2008 and would very much like to hear current students’ voice on the program and a life in Emerson Collage. I understand that you are busy with your practicum now. If you can spare time with me talking over the phone, via email, or in person, it would be a great help for me in making this big (and expensive) decision. I am now in England and would like to visit Emerson Collage and a few other training centers in the third week of July between July 14th and 18th. If you are happy to provide me your honest feedback of the program, would you send me your contact information and best time to reach you if you do not mind me calling or visiting you?
My email address is:
tomokoku@hawaii.edu
Many thanks and enjoy your practicum,
Tomoko Kurokawa
Wednesday 2 July 2008
Wheat from the chaff
Head of large agribusiness company, Syngenta, talks honestly about GM reality and prospects and it gets reported! That qualifies as a miracle in the current climate where US Agriculture secretary talks nonsense, UK Agriculture minister talks nonsense and most newspapers/media are reporting GM as a solution rather than giving a balanced analysis (click on title).
There are a few exceptions - the BBC science editor on Newsnight reported recently that Europe relaxing GM regulations will not infact help lower animal feedstock costs. In the year to May 08 the fastest rising price of animal feedstock was Argentine GM soya, +100%, which has full approval for import to EU.
Also, the Daily Mail (of all organs) published a more balanced view recently.
etc.
We have been bailing nonGM grass into silage. Good year for silage, not too much rain, dried quickly in bright sunshine and light breeze, bailed and wrapped in a couple of days. 800 bails so far. Barn dance friday so also unwrapping large round straw bails and making small bails (200) as the rats have chewed through the string of all the small bails made last year.
Barley is ok in some fields but well mown by rabbits, deer and geese in others. Preps are getting sprayed, fields are getting topped, animals have been vaccinated (Plaw Hatch chose not to interestingly). Generally going well. Had to worm the spring lambs and ewes saturday as 2 died from a worm picked up from deer. Clean grazing is tough when carrying the amount of animals we are at the moment and raises a question of intensity. More fencing is part of the solution.
A good spring and early summer so far, bit of rain would be nice especially for Stein's recently planted pear trees, they desperately need water.
There are a few exceptions - the BBC science editor on Newsnight reported recently that Europe relaxing GM regulations will not infact help lower animal feedstock costs. In the year to May 08 the fastest rising price of animal feedstock was Argentine GM soya, +100%, which has full approval for import to EU.
Also, the Daily Mail (of all organs) published a more balanced view recently.
etc.
We have been bailing nonGM grass into silage. Good year for silage, not too much rain, dried quickly in bright sunshine and light breeze, bailed and wrapped in a couple of days. 800 bails so far. Barn dance friday so also unwrapping large round straw bails and making small bails (200) as the rats have chewed through the string of all the small bails made last year.
Barley is ok in some fields but well mown by rabbits, deer and geese in others. Preps are getting sprayed, fields are getting topped, animals have been vaccinated (Plaw Hatch chose not to interestingly). Generally going well. Had to worm the spring lambs and ewes saturday as 2 died from a worm picked up from deer. Clean grazing is tough when carrying the amount of animals we are at the moment and raises a question of intensity. More fencing is part of the solution.
A good spring and early summer so far, bit of rain would be nice especially for Stein's recently planted pear trees, they desperately need water.
Tuesday 1 July 2008
Job at Glencraig
Camphill was established to teach, train and care for those with learning disability and continues to do this after 60 years. From the beginning the intention was to do work not as a “job” in the usual sense, but as a way of life.
The Camphill Community at Glencraig, near Holywood in
Vacancy for Bio-Organic/Biodynamic Farmer
Camphill Community Glencraig urgently requires a trained Bio-Organic/Biodynamic Farmer with enthusiasm to join our community and develop our working farm.
We have a dairy and beef herd, pigs and crops, and willing hands to make farming a social endeavour. Glencraig has been farmed organically and biodynamically for over 50 years and is looking for new and dynamic ways of working into the future.
If you are interested please contact us and come for a visit – we would love to meet you. Families are very welcome. For further information please contact Anja in Co-worker Recruitment and Welfare Group:
Camphill Community Glencraig
4 Seahill road
Craigavad Email: office@glencraig.org.uk
Holywood Telephone: 02890423396
BT18 0DB Fax: 02890428199
Also Vacancy for a Young Farm Worker (Volunteer) Glencraig Farm warmly invites a young person looking for farm work. Little or no experience needed. For further information, please contact us using the details as above.
FOR MORE INFORMATION GO TO www.glencraig.org.uk
Sunday 22 June 2008
Tablehurst 08 in pictures
Rather than send Arjen all my photos I have learnt how to publish them myself (click on title).
Saturday 21 June 2008
They came from outer space
So... I had never heard of this until now. China has been sending seeds into space and then growing them, resulting plants are considerably larger than their earthbound brothers and sisters, and in some cases say the Chinese state scientists, higher in nutritional quality. Not necessarily something to be freaking out about as some doubtless will. Perhaps this was how the ancient astronaut Zarathustra got agriculture rolling, together with the use of potentised preps. Can anyone offer a biodynamic explanation?
Links:
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/2008/05/11/will-giant-vegetables-help-solve-world-food-shortage-98487-20413648/
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Space-Seed-Disaster.htm#seed
P.S. Good to hear that the proposal has been approved. Erin, if you're reading this please send me an email: ormr(at)mail2eris.com
Links:
http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/2008/05/11/will-giant-vegetables-help-solve-world-food-shortage-98487-20413648/
http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Space-Seed-Disaster.htm#seed
P.S. Good to hear that the proposal has been approved. Erin, if you're reading this please send me an email: ormr(at)mail2eris.com
Friday 20 June 2008
GM Watch
Send this article to anyone who is not reading though the lines of the current extensive press campaign by the biotech industry to use the commodity price rise as an argument for the greater use of GM crops (click on title).
Doug Gurian-Sherman, as well as being a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, was formerly the EPA's biotech specialist and an advisor on biotech to the FDA.
Doug Gurian-Sherman, as well as being a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington, was formerly the EPA's biotech specialist and an advisor on biotech to the FDA.
Wednesday 18 June 2008
Couchgrass symphony
Ooo Couchgrass,
I have forked you out
for many days
from dawn till sunset
on my own on the field
As your roots break to easily
You make me dig like a pig
It is a mental exercise not to look
to you being outnumbered and I being alone
with only one fork to pick
Yet, as I find a rithm
of shoots of pain in my back
I smile in the burning sun and now that one day
I might be gone
(fragment of "poems for dying goats")
I have forked you out
for many days
from dawn till sunset
on my own on the field
As your roots break to easily
You make me dig like a pig
It is a mental exercise not to look
to you being outnumbered and I being alone
with only one fork to pick
Yet, as I find a rithm
of shoots of pain in my back
I smile in the burning sun and now that one day
I might be gone
(fragment of "poems for dying goats")
New pictures
I just uploaded new pictures from Robin at Tablehurst, Kristof in Brasil and from my flower garden. Please use the link on the right hand side of the page...
And yes, please do send me more pictures so we all get a flavour of your farm!
Arjen
And yes, please do send me more pictures so we all get a flavour of your farm!
Arjen
All proposals approved
Dear biodynamic students!
Just to let you know that all proposals that the Vision and Strategy Group has been developing have been approved in the meeting on the 1st June. The highlights are:
- extension of the 'Centre for Foundation Studies'
- big campus renovation
- strengthening of the BD department: establishment of the Rachel Carson Centre which includes the fulltime biodynamics course, CPD and short courses in biodynamics, anthroposophical nutrition courses with Wendy cook and the establishment of a college garden with a fulltime employed gardener.
We will move back to the green Carson building and we are in the process of hiring a fulltime gardener. The idea is to provide as much biodynamic college-grown food to the kitchen, possibly including eggs and fruit.
I am working hard at the moment to get the timetable filled with competent guest teachers - there is no prospect for a fulltime permanent colleague for me at the moment but there is someone who could start in 2009. As soon as I have a draft timetable I will email it to you all.
I hope you're all enjoying your placement and please keep posting your blogs here!
All the best
Arjen
Just to let you know that all proposals that the Vision and Strategy Group has been developing have been approved in the meeting on the 1st June. The highlights are:
- extension of the 'Centre for Foundation Studies'
- big campus renovation
- strengthening of the BD department: establishment of the Rachel Carson Centre which includes the fulltime biodynamics course, CPD and short courses in biodynamics, anthroposophical nutrition courses with Wendy cook and the establishment of a college garden with a fulltime employed gardener.
We will move back to the green Carson building and we are in the process of hiring a fulltime gardener. The idea is to provide as much biodynamic college-grown food to the kitchen, possibly including eggs and fruit.
I am working hard at the moment to get the timetable filled with competent guest teachers - there is no prospect for a fulltime permanent colleague for me at the moment but there is someone who could start in 2009. As soon as I have a draft timetable I will email it to you all.
I hope you're all enjoying your placement and please keep posting your blogs here!
All the best
Arjen
Monday 16 June 2008
Strawberry Moon
Hello volks,
What to say... things are growing at an amazing rate (weeds included), we are harvesting lettuce (loads of it), parsley, chives, dill, kohlrabi, broccoli, and yesterday for the first time strawberries! How amazing to have them as the first fresh fruit of the year. Interestingly this coming full moon is known by Algonquin tribes as the strawberry moon (link). These last days we have had our first proper rain since Mayday, (all this time it has been hot and sunny, hot and sunny, hot and sunny...) nonetheless the irrigation remains in operation 24/7. Hayfever is quite a challenge, this next week I think will be the peak time for grass pollen, must remember to keep taking homeopathic tablets. Something will be going down here at Midsummer, not yet quite sure what, can hopefully infuse whatever happens with some pagan spirit, Anthro festivals can be so dull... anyway here are some photos, including our wicker man from the Beltane fire:
Over and out (in the cosmos),
A.
*********
“And now these peoples were pressed by urgent necessity to settle down in one place forever and to eat their bread from a tilled earth! Long they resisted. For it was one of their most fundamental beliefs that free, uncontrolled nature was more than man; and that it was sinful to impose great changes upon the earth. Yet large scale farming—plowing and sowing—was that not the greatest compulsion, the most dire control, men could exert over nature?…When the new nations tilled the soil, they did so with a bad conscience. The thousand customs that surrounded every act of plowing, sowing, harvesting, and baking were spells calculated to ward off the vengeance of the offended spirits of the earth.
“…the Germans considered the tempest the creator and changer of the world. They would have shaken their heads at the civilized, rationalistic explanation of Hippocrates (460-359 B.C.) : ‘Anemos rheuma kai scheuma aeros [wind is a flowing and pouring of air].’ The power that broke forest and rocks; the force that heaved the waves of the North Sea—this could not merely be ‘air’!
“It was necessary to pay close attention to the figures the wind stirred up in the waving fields of grain. The spirits of vegetation, foreseeing that their death was near, were bent on mischief.
“The yellow fields of waving grain—to modern man a symbol of peace—in those times concealed terrors. In the waving of the ears, in the low hissing of the tufts, dwelt offended spirits.…The northern peoples heard ‘riders hunting thru the corn’ or ‘a witch twisting.’ But above all animals seemed to be at home in the grainfield, animals with a cap of invisibility. The effect of their motion could always be felt.…When the wind descended a sharp curve, people said ‘the hares have run thru there.’ And when the ears, pack upon pack, with yellow hind quarters and flanks, pressed panting against the ground, it was said; ‘Now the wolves are running.’
“These grain fields had come from Asia and Africa. Only two or three hundred years before sacred forest had stood in this place, cool and richly watered. The murmur of the twigs had been familiar, not uncanny like this silence of the grain. The forest had always been been the friend of the Teutons; it had been hostile only for the Romans when the Germans slaughtered them in the Teutoburger Forest. The brightness of the noonday sun upon the fields was again the ’corn mother,’ going about her field and searing the Germans' hearts with her fiery breath.
“Shouting, he ran amid the grain, cutting and slaughtering the ears. He had no feeling of this as peaceful work; it was an act of war that he performed when the tufted stalks of rye sank before his blade. Thinner and thinner grew the ranks of his foe, and finally the entire strength of the field fled into the ‘last sheaf.’ The last sheaf was the subject of many rituals—rituals that were a compound of fear and triumph. Among some tribes it was not cut, but ‘taken prisoner,’ placed upon a wagon, dressed in clothes, and the women danced around it, mocking it. Among other tribes it was honored: it was brought to a barn, but not threshed like the others. A traveling stranger must be given it to take along—perhaps this wanderer was odin?—or the sheaf was untied and then strewn over the field to placate the earth.”
~ exerpted from Six Thousand Years of Bread; Its Holy and Unholy History by H.E. Jacob
What to say... things are growing at an amazing rate (weeds included), we are harvesting lettuce (loads of it), parsley, chives, dill, kohlrabi, broccoli, and yesterday for the first time strawberries! How amazing to have them as the first fresh fruit of the year. Interestingly this coming full moon is known by Algonquin tribes as the strawberry moon (link). These last days we have had our first proper rain since Mayday, (all this time it has been hot and sunny, hot and sunny, hot and sunny...) nonetheless the irrigation remains in operation 24/7. Hayfever is quite a challenge, this next week I think will be the peak time for grass pollen, must remember to keep taking homeopathic tablets. Something will be going down here at Midsummer, not yet quite sure what, can hopefully infuse whatever happens with some pagan spirit, Anthro festivals can be so dull... anyway here are some photos, including our wicker man from the Beltane fire:
Over and out (in the cosmos),
A.
*********
“And now these peoples were pressed by urgent necessity to settle down in one place forever and to eat their bread from a tilled earth! Long they resisted. For it was one of their most fundamental beliefs that free, uncontrolled nature was more than man; and that it was sinful to impose great changes upon the earth. Yet large scale farming—plowing and sowing—was that not the greatest compulsion, the most dire control, men could exert over nature?…When the new nations tilled the soil, they did so with a bad conscience. The thousand customs that surrounded every act of plowing, sowing, harvesting, and baking were spells calculated to ward off the vengeance of the offended spirits of the earth.
“…the Germans considered the tempest the creator and changer of the world. They would have shaken their heads at the civilized, rationalistic explanation of Hippocrates (460-359 B.C.) : ‘Anemos rheuma kai scheuma aeros [wind is a flowing and pouring of air].’ The power that broke forest and rocks; the force that heaved the waves of the North Sea—this could not merely be ‘air’!
“It was necessary to pay close attention to the figures the wind stirred up in the waving fields of grain. The spirits of vegetation, foreseeing that their death was near, were bent on mischief.
“The yellow fields of waving grain—to modern man a symbol of peace—in those times concealed terrors. In the waving of the ears, in the low hissing of the tufts, dwelt offended spirits.…The northern peoples heard ‘riders hunting thru the corn’ or ‘a witch twisting.’ But above all animals seemed to be at home in the grainfield, animals with a cap of invisibility. The effect of their motion could always be felt.…When the wind descended a sharp curve, people said ‘the hares have run thru there.’ And when the ears, pack upon pack, with yellow hind quarters and flanks, pressed panting against the ground, it was said; ‘Now the wolves are running.’
“These grain fields had come from Asia and Africa. Only two or three hundred years before sacred forest had stood in this place, cool and richly watered. The murmur of the twigs had been familiar, not uncanny like this silence of the grain. The forest had always been been the friend of the Teutons; it had been hostile only for the Romans when the Germans slaughtered them in the Teutoburger Forest. The brightness of the noonday sun upon the fields was again the ’corn mother,’ going about her field and searing the Germans' hearts with her fiery breath.
“Shouting, he ran amid the grain, cutting and slaughtering the ears. He had no feeling of this as peaceful work; it was an act of war that he performed when the tufted stalks of rye sank before his blade. Thinner and thinner grew the ranks of his foe, and finally the entire strength of the field fled into the ‘last sheaf.’ The last sheaf was the subject of many rituals—rituals that were a compound of fear and triumph. Among some tribes it was not cut, but ‘taken prisoner,’ placed upon a wagon, dressed in clothes, and the women danced around it, mocking it. Among other tribes it was honored: it was brought to a barn, but not threshed like the others. A traveling stranger must be given it to take along—perhaps this wanderer was odin?—or the sheaf was untied and then strewn over the field to placate the earth.”
~ exerpted from Six Thousand Years of Bread; Its Holy and Unholy History by H.E. Jacob
The Soul of the Farm
Stein & Nor will get married on Saturday, at Brambletye, in the barn (concrete floor laid last week, chestnut panelling the week before). Stein's brother Tom is working at the orchard along with Thomas and Daniel (from Holland). Regine (german agriculture student) and Joanne (from South Africa) have just left after a 6 week stay. Max II (german schoolboy) has just joined us for his 6 week draught. Terry, Clive and Stuart have been enthusiastic mucker outters (which I for one am grateful) and are all currently at their respective homes, making mealtimes very quiet affairs. Peter is taking all three of them to France in September for a week. David has committed to the farm and is very excited that the new minimum tillage system he has been enthusing about, the farm now has on order. Max I has collected 3 swarms and is becoming quite the resident apiarist; lectures for 2nd year BD students perhaps? Richard has taken a job in Devon and so we are looking for a new butcher to work with Barry. Duncan left for Sturts Farm in March and so when Peter finishes the new rooms we should have space for another apprentice. Gaia is 18 next month and is hoping to be allowed back into all the pubs in the village from which she is currently barred. Jors has bought himself a new landrover and is as happy as his pigs in sh*t. It was Raf's birthday today (31) so Steffi put out flowers for breakfast and we broke with our muesli & toast routine to have celebratory croissants. Nor cooked lunch, she takes it turns with Sandia and Lucy. We have started to eat lunch in the garden. Charlotte has yet to get into full swing in the cafe but is making chicken pies and doing a BBQ outside the shop on Saturdays. Gaye stopped by for a couple of weeks in her camper van and will be back for the barn dance. Mark is progressing with the accommodation and vegetables, ably aided by Rainer and Tom. The children, Hannah, Noah, Jacob, Jors & Birik are all really enjoying the sunshine, each other and exploring the mucked out barns.
Last week I visited an arable/suckler herd 1,500 acre farm in Hampshire. £1.5m worth of machinery and 2 men (both divorced). They were very proud of their gross margins but the conversation was short and a bit dull in comparison.
Last week I visited an arable/suckler herd 1,500 acre farm in Hampshire. £1.5m worth of machinery and 2 men (both divorced). They were very proud of their gross margins but the conversation was short and a bit dull in comparison.
Sunday 15 June 2008
If it aint' broken...
Greetings from DHF! I finally broke something last week... We had a weeding gang down from Birmingham, Polish and Indian workers. I spent two days driving the 'lazy' weeder with 9 people on the back... 200m an hour along the carrot beds. The damper ,or 'stay' ..the thing that holds the back window open was broken... so it was propped open with a stick. The stick was fine until I moved it to raise the window and rested it on the draught linkage...so when I raised the machine at the headland the window snapped off ... All was saved by the power cable to the wiper motor which amazingly took the full weight of the window and prevented a potentially nasty scene where the weeding team get showered with broken glass... so its a good story Goatman!
And in other news, I am about to move into a Duchy house nearby.. the student who was living there has left so David offered it to me.. The Firm have a number of properties for their staff
; i went to Freds house last week, an idyllic place up a quiet lane behind Highgrove...
Cottages in this area sell for half a million quid..... if you work for the Duchy it costs about £25 per month! This really got me thinking.....
And in other news, I am about to move into a Duchy house nearby.. the student who was living there has left so David offered it to me.. The Firm have a number of properties for their staff
; i went to Freds house last week, an idyllic place up a quiet lane behind Highgrove...
Cottages in this area sell for half a million quid..... if you work for the Duchy it costs about £25 per month! This really got me thinking.....
Monday 9 June 2008
Saturday 7 June 2008
Goliath fighting the little sister of David
Bon dia a todos,
This week one of the farming families announced they would stop producing. The two farmers worked with their wives and sons on 9 hectares of land. With tears in their eyes they came from the meeting, one angry and the other completely lost.
They did not manage the discipline of working independent, could not follow the contract, but loved their job. When I asked what they would do now they said `working on a tractor for conventional farms.`
Today I have been invited to a industrial pigfarm in the mountains 20 km from the farm I work.
Full of pride they showed me the extremely clean pigs not able to move, full of drugs and boredom. They put all rests of a nearby Nestle factory in their stomac and monitor every thing very closely on a especially made computer program. Caralho !!
This is not a farm, I told to Cristiane who is getting to know a lot about this ART of agriculture, this is a logistic magazine where you buy, put in a little bag and hope the bag takes as much volume as possible or squises out other little bags to stuff no matter what. To sell so you can buy full bags to put in animal bags again.
I remembered reading the lecture from Steiner on the Animal Soul (from the STeiner´s web archive) and felt like crying!
Then I come home and read my favorite website where RobinE posted the article on GM in world and especially Brasil and my stomac turns full size.
I am in the process of creating the educational garden at the sitio. Here we will teach children from which most of parents don´t care about organic or any form of sustainable agriculture how important it is to be connected to the soil and the joy of good produce. Knowing that their garden is all concrete and organic is only for the Rich!
I kind of loose my little sisters enthusiasm and look away full of fear from this money making being that I can not stop from growing...
So if you have some good news, please bring it on!!!!
This week one of the farming families announced they would stop producing. The two farmers worked with their wives and sons on 9 hectares of land. With tears in their eyes they came from the meeting, one angry and the other completely lost.
They did not manage the discipline of working independent, could not follow the contract, but loved their job. When I asked what they would do now they said `working on a tractor for conventional farms.`
Today I have been invited to a industrial pigfarm in the mountains 20 km from the farm I work.
Full of pride they showed me the extremely clean pigs not able to move, full of drugs and boredom. They put all rests of a nearby Nestle factory in their stomac and monitor every thing very closely on a especially made computer program. Caralho !!
This is not a farm, I told to Cristiane who is getting to know a lot about this ART of agriculture, this is a logistic magazine where you buy, put in a little bag and hope the bag takes as much volume as possible or squises out other little bags to stuff no matter what. To sell so you can buy full bags to put in animal bags again.
I remembered reading the lecture from Steiner on the Animal Soul (from the STeiner´s web archive) and felt like crying!
Then I come home and read my favorite website where RobinE posted the article on GM in world and especially Brasil and my stomac turns full size.
I am in the process of creating the educational garden at the sitio. Here we will teach children from which most of parents don´t care about organic or any form of sustainable agriculture how important it is to be connected to the soil and the joy of good produce. Knowing that their garden is all concrete and organic is only for the Rich!
I kind of loose my little sisters enthusiasm and look away full of fear from this money making being that I can not stop from growing...
So if you have some good news, please bring it on!!!!
Friday 6 June 2008
Topsoil vs Biofuel
Good article on the question of where does the humus come from if we burn all the green manure (click on title)? Unsurprisingly it involves Monsanto & BP, and a lot of short sightedness.
Thursday 5 June 2008
Monty Don
Hayfever. Sprayed 5 fields with 501 this morning, cried and sneezed all the way; like driving through a sandstorm of grass pollen. What a drag. I'm definitely more of a 500 man; have lunch, coffee, stir for an hour, lesiurely drive round the farm spraying in the late afternoon sun, after the grass has been grazed & topped.
501; get up at 5am, stir whilst half asleep, rush to filter and fill tank, fix pump, drive like crazy through waist-high flowering grass to ensure sprayed before sun gets too high and burns the silica into the leaf. And, inhale huge quantities of grass pollen allowing face to blow up like a balloon. No, 500 for me.
The Field magazine ran a good article on Biodynamics this month. Based around Heritage Prime but with photos of Nigella Lawason, Elizabeth Hurley (?) and Jody Scheckter.
The new president of the Soil Association is Monty Don. He has a soft spot for BD, having worked a BD garden with a group of recovering drug addicts (see link for book).
501; get up at 5am, stir whilst half asleep, rush to filter and fill tank, fix pump, drive like crazy through waist-high flowering grass to ensure sprayed before sun gets too high and burns the silica into the leaf. And, inhale huge quantities of grass pollen allowing face to blow up like a balloon. No, 500 for me.
The Field magazine ran a good article on Biodynamics this month. Based around Heritage Prime but with photos of Nigella Lawason, Elizabeth Hurley (?) and Jody Scheckter.
The new president of the Soil Association is Monty Don. He has a soft spot for BD, having worked a BD garden with a group of recovering drug addicts (see link for book).
Wednesday 28 May 2008
Crop observation and review sheets
Dear students,
Thanks for your emails and blog posts - it's great to hear from you and how you are doing. I went to see Jefferson at Perry Court Farm a few weeks ago and he seemed to be doing fine as well.
I received the first farmer review sheet back from Alix, full of praise - which reminded me of the fact that you should all try to get your first review session with your farmer, and get the sheet filled in and sent back to me.
The other thing I wanted to remind you of is the crop observation assessment - I hope you'll all have chosen your crops by now that you want to follow through the season, and ideally made some first observations on paper.
This week I am teaching the Foundation Year about biodynamics - a combination of lectures and practical sessions in the garden. We did some weeding, planting, sowing and putting support netting up - the garden starts to look really great. Friday some peonies, snapdragons and sweet peas will go to the flower shop in the village, which has recently changed hands and is now owned by a lady who has a larger flower shop in Lewes. She is very keen on locally grown, organic flowers - so that is great. I reckon most flowers will go to her this year.
The coming weekend is the big meeting with the Trustees where the proposals of the Vision and Strategy Group will be approved (hopefully). That means start of the Rachel Carson Centre with integrated college garden, teaching kitchen, BD training etc. Keep your fingers crossed!
Keep your heads up - and keep posting to the blog!
Arjen
Thanks for your emails and blog posts - it's great to hear from you and how you are doing. I went to see Jefferson at Perry Court Farm a few weeks ago and he seemed to be doing fine as well.
I received the first farmer review sheet back from Alix, full of praise - which reminded me of the fact that you should all try to get your first review session with your farmer, and get the sheet filled in and sent back to me.
The other thing I wanted to remind you of is the crop observation assessment - I hope you'll all have chosen your crops by now that you want to follow through the season, and ideally made some first observations on paper.
This week I am teaching the Foundation Year about biodynamics - a combination of lectures and practical sessions in the garden. We did some weeding, planting, sowing and putting support netting up - the garden starts to look really great. Friday some peonies, snapdragons and sweet peas will go to the flower shop in the village, which has recently changed hands and is now owned by a lady who has a larger flower shop in Lewes. She is very keen on locally grown, organic flowers - so that is great. I reckon most flowers will go to her this year.
The coming weekend is the big meeting with the Trustees where the proposals of the Vision and Strategy Group will be approved (hopefully). That means start of the Rachel Carson Centre with integrated college garden, teaching kitchen, BD training etc. Keep your fingers crossed!
Keep your heads up - and keep posting to the blog!
Arjen
Job in Tuscany
Farmer or "Farm Couple" for Genuine Carbon-Neutral, sustainable, Biodynamic resort in Tuscany.
We are looking for a Farmer or Farming Couple who are versed in biodynamic and sustainable agriculture method to join us on this unique project in Italy. We are renovating 8,000 square metres of buildings and rehabilitating 1,200 acres of field and forest. The project aims to be genuinely carbon neutral and sustainable when it opens in 2011. We have engaged a consultant in Biodynamic method. He is currently salvaging our vines and olives. He will work with our new Farmer[s] to completely redevelop the property to provide the resort's food, biomass and biofuel requirements by 2011. We have 3 hectares of wine, 3,000 olives and circa 100 acres of farmland - the remainder is in forest. We expect to develop food production ranging from wild boar to goat's cheese and from pasta to honey.
The Farmer[s] will become part of the management team developing the whole project. We envision a package that will include accommodation, salary and profit sharing. We are very flexible on this and will tailor the package to the successful candidate[s]. English is essential, knowledge of Italian would be excellent but we will provide appropriate courses as necessary. We are looking for a dedicated individual or couple who will relish the chance to apply sustainable and sympathetic agricultural method within a project which hopes to become a pattern for future living in Europe.
To discuss the position, please e-mail contact details to mike.payne2@gmail.com
Sunday 25 May 2008
Hay and much more...
Yesterday we got or second lot of hay in! Was kind of raining but gladly stoped after some minutes...
We were working from 2 to half past 9 in the evenings... nearly everybody was helping.
I'm glad we got it all in yeaterday so we have off today ;-)
Part of the afternoon I was aible to go on the field on my own for ridging the potatoes...
First time that nobody was walking behind me to make the settings... fas fun and I also got to hitch the plough for driving home... Even if I don't have I needed driverlisence (had to pace the road) I was driving this enormous thing home (hope some pictures will follow, its really amaising and everyother day we change implements on the plough...)
Can you all belive that we are allready more than nine weks on our farms? nearly have the time... it went soooo fast (too fast!)
Last week I got to drill a hole field of carrots!
And we spent a lot of time to take docks out of the fields
wish you all a suny sunday and a good time!
We were working from 2 to half past 9 in the evenings... nearly everybody was helping.
I'm glad we got it all in yeaterday so we have off today ;-)
Part of the afternoon I was aible to go on the field on my own for ridging the potatoes...
First time that nobody was walking behind me to make the settings... fas fun and I also got to hitch the plough for driving home... Even if I don't have I needed driverlisence (had to pace the road) I was driving this enormous thing home (hope some pictures will follow, its really amaising and everyother day we change implements on the plough...)
Can you all belive that we are allready more than nine weks on our farms? nearly have the time... it went soooo fast (too fast!)
Last week I got to drill a hole field of carrots!
And we spent a lot of time to take docks out of the fields
wish you all a suny sunday and a good time!
Wednesday 21 May 2008
harder than expected
my fellow intern quit last week. she was going to possibly take over the farm in the future, and because of that, way too many responsibilities and pressures were put upon her and she'd had it. im feeling a little lonely and scared. how am i to do all of the things it took all of my energy plus hers to do, every day?
its only so bad because we got along so famously, worked so well together, had the same strong work ethic, spent every waking moment together and i could really see myself farming with her long term in the future. maby i will some day.
other than that, and multiple other massive issues like communication, definitions of community, gender, cultural and age gaps (that feel somehow like un-crossable chasms), lack of appreciation and a total disregard for respecting humans....... im alright.
really, i love this island and the csa project im working on half the time is so gratifying and challenging. i feel like im really doing it!(market gardening) making real decisions, im really a part of something i can call my own there. its my happy place, and the people im working with on the csa keep me sane. i can talk to them and they to me, we are a support system for each other.
i will keep you posted. send me love and encouragement. i see the situation as a massive life lesson in bridging gaps and intensive communication skills.
hope your spring has sprung, cold and rainy here today, but last week hot and sunny. still waiting for the weather to really shift, and still waiting for fields to dry out enough to till and plant veggies.
love
erin
its only so bad because we got along so famously, worked so well together, had the same strong work ethic, spent every waking moment together and i could really see myself farming with her long term in the future. maby i will some day.
other than that, and multiple other massive issues like communication, definitions of community, gender, cultural and age gaps (that feel somehow like un-crossable chasms), lack of appreciation and a total disregard for respecting humans....... im alright.
really, i love this island and the csa project im working on half the time is so gratifying and challenging. i feel like im really doing it!(market gardening) making real decisions, im really a part of something i can call my own there. its my happy place, and the people im working with on the csa keep me sane. i can talk to them and they to me, we are a support system for each other.
i will keep you posted. send me love and encouragement. i see the situation as a massive life lesson in bridging gaps and intensive communication skills.
hope your spring has sprung, cold and rainy here today, but last week hot and sunny. still waiting for the weather to really shift, and still waiting for fields to dry out enough to till and plant veggies.
love
erin
Tuesday 20 May 2008
Full Moon
Bitten by pig. Squatting in farrowing pen to repair half eaten drinker. Unaware of disquiet causing very pregnant sow. She decides to let me know. Bites my back, I lunge forward in pain, hitting head firmly on wood. Knee connects too rapidly with concrete. Generally painful experience. Topping, now that's fun, nothing to bite you and a very pretty field when you have finished.
Saturday 17 May 2008
Vision and Strategy
Dear Students,
We have just finished our last retreat of the Vision and Strategy Group before the final meeting with the trustees on 31st May (in two weeks time). There has been a process of first tuning into the needs of the society at large, and the anthroposophical movement more specifically; and after that we have been trying to focus on the most urgent and current issues that we feel Emerson College can link to and try to address. One of the proposals appearing is the Rachel Carson Centre: the green bd-building transformed into a centre where the 2-year biodynamic training will be housed, as well as courses in the area of anthroposophical nutrition and cooking. Outside the Carson building it is proposed to (re)establish a biodynamic garden that supplies the college with fresh seasonal biodynamic food (vegetables, fruit, eggs) and where a fulltime employed gardener guides students from all kind of courses in weekly gardening sessions. It is also thought that that garden could feature in the afternoon work rota for the students on the biodynamic training, and that one or two bd-students could do their second-year placement on the college garden. Robin and myself are going to do a fundraise action in order to get money for a real glasshouse which can be attached to the Carson building in permaculture style - providing heat for the building in winter and fresh veg in winter for the kitchen.
There are several other proposals, but this is the one most obviously related to the biodynamic training and in the next two weeks Robin and myself are going to work out the financial side of this proposal and on the 31st May the trustees will decide if they want to go ahead with this proposal. Please send some positive energy to us and if you have any suggestions or ideas please let us know!
Arjen
We have just finished our last retreat of the Vision and Strategy Group before the final meeting with the trustees on 31st May (in two weeks time). There has been a process of first tuning into the needs of the society at large, and the anthroposophical movement more specifically; and after that we have been trying to focus on the most urgent and current issues that we feel Emerson College can link to and try to address. One of the proposals appearing is the Rachel Carson Centre: the green bd-building transformed into a centre where the 2-year biodynamic training will be housed, as well as courses in the area of anthroposophical nutrition and cooking. Outside the Carson building it is proposed to (re)establish a biodynamic garden that supplies the college with fresh seasonal biodynamic food (vegetables, fruit, eggs) and where a fulltime employed gardener guides students from all kind of courses in weekly gardening sessions. It is also thought that that garden could feature in the afternoon work rota for the students on the biodynamic training, and that one or two bd-students could do their second-year placement on the college garden. Robin and myself are going to do a fundraise action in order to get money for a real glasshouse which can be attached to the Carson building in permaculture style - providing heat for the building in winter and fresh veg in winter for the kitchen.
There are several other proposals, but this is the one most obviously related to the biodynamic training and in the next two weeks Robin and myself are going to work out the financial side of this proposal and on the 31st May the trustees will decide if they want to go ahead with this proposal. Please send some positive energy to us and if you have any suggestions or ideas please let us know!
Arjen
Sunday 11 May 2008
Hot and Horse
As the debate on food prices and energy continious around the globe all of us seem to get to the roots of the brew.
As I am covering my head with old sheats and shirts to prevent excess of the healing sun, I stumble behind the horse that pulls the wooden ridge tool over the field. The mountains around give me the feeling I am going back to the nest of production. The farmer on the other side of the hill shouts with his tractor as I clearly prefer to look at the ass of the working stalion. While I am trying to keep my balance and the ridge steady I wonder if this is something I did before.
The absence of the engine taking over almost all senses feels like old glory. Maybe the BD farmer in the Black Forest was ahead of his time when he declared a farm without tractor.
The other two families only work with the machine and when I talked to the Dutch organiser of this Sitio he doubted if this horse-team would be able to keep going.
The next day the horses are lost between the high grasses and there is no tractor to quickly prepare that field.
If we are going to learn how to work with animals again, we need to become specialists and realists. I am not sure yet how to bring these two together.
I have to say that I love the work and my drive to farm only seems to grow!!!
Wish you all very well!!
I got contact with Jefferson and he does not have acces to the internet but has a very good time in Kent on the farm. He gives you all his regards!
As I am covering my head with old sheats and shirts to prevent excess of the healing sun, I stumble behind the horse that pulls the wooden ridge tool over the field. The mountains around give me the feeling I am going back to the nest of production. The farmer on the other side of the hill shouts with his tractor as I clearly prefer to look at the ass of the working stalion. While I am trying to keep my balance and the ridge steady I wonder if this is something I did before.
The absence of the engine taking over almost all senses feels like old glory. Maybe the BD farmer in the Black Forest was ahead of his time when he declared a farm without tractor.
The other two families only work with the machine and when I talked to the Dutch organiser of this Sitio he doubted if this horse-team would be able to keep going.
The next day the horses are lost between the high grasses and there is no tractor to quickly prepare that field.
If we are going to learn how to work with animals again, we need to become specialists and realists. I am not sure yet how to bring these two together.
I have to say that I love the work and my drive to farm only seems to grow!!!
Wish you all very well!!
I got contact with Jefferson and he does not have acces to the internet but has a very good time in Kent on the farm. He gives you all his regards!
The Future's So Bright
A point to note, our governments do not so much allow private individuals to speculate on food and energy, rather they do not prevent the speculation. A fundamental difference and a liberty to which I for one am much attached. After all, it was the freedom to speculate that predominantly gave rise to the discoveries and inventions that then allowed so much energy and food to be produced and consumed. It becomes a circular argument. Not to say the modern day financial system is without its faults (another time) and speculation causes ripples and can puff bubbles, however, very rarely without an underlying momentum that is firmly embedded in the physical market place. This is particularly true with such deep markets as exist in food and energy. Generally, in my experience, it is expediency, petty politics and incompetence that give rise to such distortionary, devastating circumstances.
I would agree with 'Voland' that it is 'irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning' that are the real issues. Disjointed, reactionary government rather than malicious conspiracy. As Tim Lang has often responded when asked what the UK government's stance is; 'food policy?, sadly, we leave it to Tesco'. We have all been speculating and reaping the benefits of 3 decades of soft commodity price deflation (food prices have actually been going down for over 100yrs), the result of many factors. It was inevitable that at some point those deflationary pressures would reverse, particularly given the growth in population and GDP in China and India. What's amazing is that it hasn't happened earlier (oil bottomed in 1998 at $8bbl vs $125 now). Ultimately the brokers speculating are simply an extreme microcosm of the society (race?) in which we all share and, to a greater or lesser extent, are all complicit, that promotes consumption over compassion, more over less but also gives us the freedom to decide where we stand, as individuals, on all these issues.
The sun is out, the seed is drilled and finally the cows are in the field. Friday was a long day, we weighed all the calves, tagged all the cows who were missing a tag (quite a job, tagging a horned Sussex who doesn't want to be in a crush and definitely doesn't want her ear pierced). The grass has come on, we lack clean fields (and fences) so there's a fair amount of daily animal herding but all the barns are empty and mucking out will start next week.
It has been wonderful to watch the farm bloom in the short time I have been here; from the snow blanket of April 6th, to the humid heat just a month later. Lambs, calves, piglets full of joy and boundless energy. A multitude of birds from chickens, geese, phesants (shooting season is closed), guinea fowl (got some cheap day olds), turkeys (soon) to sparrow hawks, herons, cuckoos and cormorants. Deers, badgers, foxes, moles all contribute to the daily cycle and, of course, the bees are now very active. Max got a hive for his birthday and 2 days later he got his first swarm from the bush outside Stein's house. When I am able to stop for a moment, feel comfortable in my exhaustion, to look at the beauty surrounding me and gaze toward the unfurling landscape beyond, I am struck by the magic of it all.
I would agree with 'Voland' that it is 'irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning' that are the real issues. Disjointed, reactionary government rather than malicious conspiracy. As Tim Lang has often responded when asked what the UK government's stance is; 'food policy?, sadly, we leave it to Tesco'. We have all been speculating and reaping the benefits of 3 decades of soft commodity price deflation (food prices have actually been going down for over 100yrs), the result of many factors. It was inevitable that at some point those deflationary pressures would reverse, particularly given the growth in population and GDP in China and India. What's amazing is that it hasn't happened earlier (oil bottomed in 1998 at $8bbl vs $125 now). Ultimately the brokers speculating are simply an extreme microcosm of the society (race?) in which we all share and, to a greater or lesser extent, are all complicit, that promotes consumption over compassion, more over less but also gives us the freedom to decide where we stand, as individuals, on all these issues.
The sun is out, the seed is drilled and finally the cows are in the field. Friday was a long day, we weighed all the calves, tagged all the cows who were missing a tag (quite a job, tagging a horned Sussex who doesn't want to be in a crush and definitely doesn't want her ear pierced). The grass has come on, we lack clean fields (and fences) so there's a fair amount of daily animal herding but all the barns are empty and mucking out will start next week.
It has been wonderful to watch the farm bloom in the short time I have been here; from the snow blanket of April 6th, to the humid heat just a month later. Lambs, calves, piglets full of joy and boundless energy. A multitude of birds from chickens, geese, phesants (shooting season is closed), guinea fowl (got some cheap day olds), turkeys (soon) to sparrow hawks, herons, cuckoos and cormorants. Deers, badgers, foxes, moles all contribute to the daily cycle and, of course, the bees are now very active. Max got a hive for his birthday and 2 days later he got his first swarm from the bush outside Stein's house. When I am able to stop for a moment, feel comfortable in my exhaustion, to look at the beauty surrounding me and gaze toward the unfurling landscape beyond, I am struck by the magic of it all.
Saturday 10 May 2008
Speculations
Hello all, no new post here, pourquoi? Explosions of growth and life force here, much planting, now hoeing every day. Very hot, I thought I came to Sweden so that it owouldn't be so. Going to swim in the river now, but just before here's your fix of doom and gloom. Blessings, A.
Food prices, we have discussed, likewise the contibution of biofuels to the increase of, however is there more to it than that? My attention returned to these matters after reading an article about overpopulation on the Guardian's website, and the comments below it.
Guardian article
Global research
Truthout
Here, a blog commentary (from Manuscripts Don't Burn)
Check out the last one for lots of good links.
Irrelevant diversions as the price of food rockets...
The average UK family is facing a £1700-a-year utility and food bill increase over the past 12 months - that on a £20K gross salary. For most of the population, regardless of what the government says, actual experienced inflation is running at 10-15%.
It's inevitable, we are told. Poor harvests. Overpopulation. Global warming. "The era of cheap food is over." "We all have to tighten our belts and pull together - it'll be like the war again. It's the New Austerity."
Bullshit.
The elephant in the room is that we have food riots all around the world and looming shortages / starvation because a bunch of brokers are being allowed by supine governments to create a bubble in commodities (ie FOOD) to try and claw back some of the money they lost in the subprime fiasco (after they'd been "allowed" to flog off the backup foodstores we'd set aside to prevent this sort of thing happening).
It's not global warming, it's not overpopulation. Our governments are allowing private individuals to speculate with the global staple food and energy supply. Irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning is the crime, that and the fact that the media are not shouting the truth from the rooftops.
But, hey, this is corporate feudalism - it's cool if people die, as long as the brokers keep making their millions. We can always blame it on global warming and overpopulation! The poor saps will never cotton on till it's too late - then they'll be too hungry to do anything about it.
Buy coffee! Buy rice! Buy wheat! The price is gonna rocket once the people start dropping!
Food prices, we have discussed, likewise the contibution of biofuels to the increase of, however is there more to it than that? My attention returned to these matters after reading an article about overpopulation on the Guardian's website, and the comments below it.
Guardian article
Global research
Truthout
Here, a blog commentary (from Manuscripts Don't Burn)
Check out the last one for lots of good links.
Irrelevant diversions as the price of food rockets...
The average UK family is facing a £1700-a-year utility and food bill increase over the past 12 months - that on a £20K gross salary. For most of the population, regardless of what the government says, actual experienced inflation is running at 10-15%.
It's inevitable, we are told. Poor harvests. Overpopulation. Global warming. "The era of cheap food is over." "We all have to tighten our belts and pull together - it'll be like the war again. It's the New Austerity."
Bullshit.
The elephant in the room is that we have food riots all around the world and looming shortages / starvation because a bunch of brokers are being allowed by supine governments to create a bubble in commodities (ie FOOD) to try and claw back some of the money they lost in the subprime fiasco (after they'd been "allowed" to flog off the backup foodstores we'd set aside to prevent this sort of thing happening).
It's not global warming, it's not overpopulation. Our governments are allowing private individuals to speculate with the global staple food and energy supply. Irresponsible laissez-faire and lack of planning is the crime, that and the fact that the media are not shouting the truth from the rooftops.
But, hey, this is corporate feudalism - it's cool if people die, as long as the brokers keep making their millions. We can always blame it on global warming and overpopulation! The poor saps will never cotton on till it's too late - then they'll be too hungry to do anything about it.
Buy coffee! Buy rice! Buy wheat! The price is gonna rocket once the people start dropping!
Tuesday 29 April 2008
Sumer Is Icumen In
Summer has come in,Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
The seed grows and the meadow blooms
And the wood springs anew,
Sing, Cuckoo!
The ewe bleats after the lamb,
The cow lows after the calf.
The bullock stirs, the buck-goat turns,
Merrily sing, Cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo, well you sing, cuckoo;
Don't you ever stop now,
Sing cuckoo now. Sing, Cuckoo.
Sing Cuckoo. Sing cuckoo now!
So, tomorrow is Beltaine (Celts reckoned days from sundown to sundown), the traditional beginning of summer. Here we'll be having a big bonfire... may the earth be renewed!
transition tramp
I finally get paid tomorrow! This will end a period of poverty that has pissed me off a lot .I have been living on about £3.50 a day for the last month . Ok , so I can have free carrots ,potatoes ,kale and milk but would you be content on that diet ? I also had to stop using my car as I couldn't afford road tax for it,so have had no alternative but to walk to ***** supermarket for supplies. This has raised an ethical dilemma; is it better to drive 10 miles to Stroud ,which is full of shops for greenies , or walk to a supermarket?
Rising fuel prices have got me thinking about the Transition movement and how to respond to this issue in farming. This farm has about 10 tractors most of which are in daily use . I reckon these machines alone are using 3-500 litres a week.... if we were spraying preps as well ,fuel consumption would be even higher. It seems this paradigm of 'industrial' bd/organic is not sustainable.Can a shift to horse and people powered farming be achieved without some kind of crisis that forces the change?
On a lighter note,I recently met one of the humblest residents at DHF, an elderly Irish tramp who lives in a barn up the road.Last time the 'Boss' was here ,he went up to look at the barn as it has recently been renovated.He was apparently concerned for the welfare of this guy and asked one of the staff to give him some bedding... its good to know there is room for a tramp on this farm.
arm.
Rising fuel prices have got me thinking about the Transition movement and how to respond to this issue in farming. This farm has about 10 tractors most of which are in daily use . I reckon these machines alone are using 3-500 litres a week.... if we were spraying preps as well ,fuel consumption would be even higher. It seems this paradigm of 'industrial' bd/organic is not sustainable.Can a shift to horse and people powered farming be achieved without some kind of crisis that forces the change?
On a lighter note,I recently met one of the humblest residents at DHF, an elderly Irish tramp who lives in a barn up the road.Last time the 'Boss' was here ,he went up to look at the barn as it has recently been renovated.He was apparently concerned for the welfare of this guy and asked one of the staff to give him some bedding... its good to know there is room for a tramp on this farm.
arm.
Sunday 27 April 2008
Plastic Passion
That was very touching Katharina, thank you.
Here is an excellent article on the dilemma of plastic packaging:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/823eebc6-1007-11dd-8871-0000779fd2ac.html
Here is an excellent article on the dilemma of plastic packaging:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/823eebc6-1007-11dd-8871-0000779fd2ac.html
Saturday 26 April 2008
foot and mouth 7 years ago
hi everybody,
firstly, it's great to hear from you and how things are going, keep on sharing.
secondly, things are busy but well here, but something i really wanted to share with you already occured two weeks ago (talk about busy).
we have a gathering every sunday, and week before lasts was in memory of all the animals that got "culled", meaning needlessly and cruelly slaughtered, during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.
For this farm here, as for so many others, it was a massively traumatic event in every respect, and basically things have only just more or less caught up again with what there was before that - can't find the right word - that unspeakable thing.
imagine from one day to the next having an empty and deserted farm, where all that is left are a few chickens that only remind you of what the place actually should be like, and all your good breeding stock, completely healthy thriving creatures that weren't any harm to anybody, the animals you've loved and cared for, killed and burnt and wasted.
what we did in memory of them, very fittingly as i found, was that we got together, at least twenty or thirty of us in the afternoon, and stirred and sprayed 500, treating it as a reinforcement and a remembrance of the cycles that are sustained by the land that we sprayed. because in the circle between the soil, the grass, the cows and the manure, all those dead animals are still present in this place, and even after we have lost them needlessly, we are still benefitting from their gifts, and we can use the new animals' manure (and after that sunday, i really looked at the "new" animals with a lot more reverence, thinking what an amazing privilege it is to have them) to express our gratefulness and love to the land off of which we live.
sorry this is such a preachy and soppy post, but that day really meant a lot to me and also deepened my understanding of what we do when we spray 500, or any preparations.
when you look at your animals tomorrow morning, or whenever, think for a second about how lucky you are to work with them.
katharina
firstly, it's great to hear from you and how things are going, keep on sharing.
secondly, things are busy but well here, but something i really wanted to share with you already occured two weeks ago (talk about busy).
we have a gathering every sunday, and week before lasts was in memory of all the animals that got "culled", meaning needlessly and cruelly slaughtered, during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001.
For this farm here, as for so many others, it was a massively traumatic event in every respect, and basically things have only just more or less caught up again with what there was before that - can't find the right word - that unspeakable thing.
imagine from one day to the next having an empty and deserted farm, where all that is left are a few chickens that only remind you of what the place actually should be like, and all your good breeding stock, completely healthy thriving creatures that weren't any harm to anybody, the animals you've loved and cared for, killed and burnt and wasted.
what we did in memory of them, very fittingly as i found, was that we got together, at least twenty or thirty of us in the afternoon, and stirred and sprayed 500, treating it as a reinforcement and a remembrance of the cycles that are sustained by the land that we sprayed. because in the circle between the soil, the grass, the cows and the manure, all those dead animals are still present in this place, and even after we have lost them needlessly, we are still benefitting from their gifts, and we can use the new animals' manure (and after that sunday, i really looked at the "new" animals with a lot more reverence, thinking what an amazing privilege it is to have them) to express our gratefulness and love to the land off of which we live.
sorry this is such a preachy and soppy post, but that day really meant a lot to me and also deepened my understanding of what we do when we spray 500, or any preparations.
when you look at your animals tomorrow morning, or whenever, think for a second about how lucky you are to work with them.
katharina
Thursday 24 April 2008
Hey everybody.
what a month it has been. i feel settled so happy and truly content, but also exhausted and a little nervous about the state of the world. We had snow on 4 different occasions last week, and on april 19 , I woke up to 3 inches on the ground outside my tent. Baby lambs were born that day and the day before, all the cows escaped the fencing due to faulty batteries and a heifer with an attitude problem was running wild on the opposite end of the property. My fellow intern and i spent our weekend freezing in the snow and running after stray cattle, constantly checking on lambs (who are really tough stuff, by the way!). The c.s.a garden has been watter logged and impossible to cultivate. we think we may need to set back the dates for shares. We hope to till by sunday and get the ball really rolling. But in the mean time we have been single digging (hand tilling) which is tiresome but feels good and gives the ladies of the farm a chance to bond over shovels full of heavy dirt and bluegrass music.
Crazy weather and stress aside, i have been most productive! making cheeses, butter, yogurt, creamy things, like ice cream (we are getting 2 gallons of milk per/day from one cow) and other tasty treats as well as bread, dinner for 9 twice a week and some beautiful compost piles that would make Ann Marie proud. Also doing tests on starts with 500 and 501 in the green house, taking notes and doing as much research into BD preps as possible, getting ready for the workshop on BD held here at the end of June, where i will be teaching 12-20 people about BD preps; making and the application of...... EEEKKKKSSSS! im not sure how that will happen, i can hardly talk to 2 people with out blushing, but we will see how it goes, i guess i have to start teaching somewhere.
i feel like i have so much more to tell, but it will have to wait, ive rambled enough already.
*thanks for the link to the bees, we are in a dire situation, and i am afraid my friends, we will be the ones taking agriculture trough the troughs of a massive shift in the enviroment as well as in the concioussness of human kind. Lets show them the way! i encourage all of you to keep up the good hard work, you are appreciated and loved all around the world by the massive flux of young people doing just what we all are right now. Working to understand the earth, her power and gifts, so as to sustain and feed this world. As well as saving the beauty of it for our children.
-how do i post pictures on this thing?
- does anyone have Phils email? im only 2 stops on the ferry away from his island and would love to contact him and take a feild trip to another bd farm
"its all about the love"- henning ( my boss talking about bd preps and loving compost piles and the spaces they are in)
erin
what a month it has been. i feel settled so happy and truly content, but also exhausted and a little nervous about the state of the world. We had snow on 4 different occasions last week, and on april 19 , I woke up to 3 inches on the ground outside my tent. Baby lambs were born that day and the day before, all the cows escaped the fencing due to faulty batteries and a heifer with an attitude problem was running wild on the opposite end of the property. My fellow intern and i spent our weekend freezing in the snow and running after stray cattle, constantly checking on lambs (who are really tough stuff, by the way!). The c.s.a garden has been watter logged and impossible to cultivate. we think we may need to set back the dates for shares. We hope to till by sunday and get the ball really rolling. But in the mean time we have been single digging (hand tilling) which is tiresome but feels good and gives the ladies of the farm a chance to bond over shovels full of heavy dirt and bluegrass music.
Crazy weather and stress aside, i have been most productive! making cheeses, butter, yogurt, creamy things, like ice cream (we are getting 2 gallons of milk per/day from one cow) and other tasty treats as well as bread, dinner for 9 twice a week and some beautiful compost piles that would make Ann Marie proud. Also doing tests on starts with 500 and 501 in the green house, taking notes and doing as much research into BD preps as possible, getting ready for the workshop on BD held here at the end of June, where i will be teaching 12-20 people about BD preps; making and the application of...... EEEKKKKSSSS! im not sure how that will happen, i can hardly talk to 2 people with out blushing, but we will see how it goes, i guess i have to start teaching somewhere.
i feel like i have so much more to tell, but it will have to wait, ive rambled enough already.
*thanks for the link to the bees, we are in a dire situation, and i am afraid my friends, we will be the ones taking agriculture trough the troughs of a massive shift in the enviroment as well as in the concioussness of human kind. Lets show them the way! i encourage all of you to keep up the good hard work, you are appreciated and loved all around the world by the massive flux of young people doing just what we all are right now. Working to understand the earth, her power and gifts, so as to sustain and feed this world. As well as saving the beauty of it for our children.
-how do i post pictures on this thing?
- does anyone have Phils email? im only 2 stops on the ferry away from his island and would love to contact him and take a feild trip to another bd farm
"its all about the love"- henning ( my boss talking about bd preps and loving compost piles and the spaces they are in)
erin
Tuesday 22 April 2008
Serious stuff
Thank you for these hilarious and enthusiastic stories!
Time to give you more from Brasil.
I am on the farm A BOA TERRA for two weeks now. The main task that I have to do here is to create a 4000m educational garden where schoolchildren will come weekly to grow there veg, herbs and fruit. It is a big thing here at the sitio and I am very excited to do this. The first week I had to bring 2 hectares of bush, forest and creeks into a exact map. Now we are planning the whole idea based on books (eco litteracy, Fritjof Capra), experiences ( they already had 14000 children coming on educational sessions on nature and agriculture) and wishes.
So as I am jalous about you guys and girls getting on with the real dirt I feel happy that I can take this important task on me. I could also arrange with the "farmer"more the organiser that I start next week in the veg production. The problem is that they work with 3 teams (families) and they are independent. They rent the land and sell the veg to the farm. So where do I fit in?
The language starts to make sense so I hope it will all get along. The house we are about to live in is painted in our free hours and we still hope to get the bats and birds out without using poison. Our herb garden florishes and I feel it all starts to roll...
And every moring I have to stop somewhere to look at the incredible beauty of nature here!
On the 100 hectares sitio they have 135 types of birds, lots of little rivers and swamps and all the flowers and fruits you wished for.
I saw they use some horses to cultivate so I hope to get going with this one day.
The cows here are used in a reforesting program. They eat the elephant grass short so trees can grow. The trick seems to be to keep the cows in just before they start eating the trees!
Cristiane is enjoying herself with setting up a new education program based on the theory of "the private eye". You might have heard about it.
And honestly, I would love to come and visit every one of you to have a good chat!!!
Ciao
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