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).
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