MLT Newsletter
February, 1986
I do hope you have noticed the increasing frequency of bright sunny
days. February may be hesitating before she passes from the scene, but
spring is definitely winking at us from the wings. And February 6
brought two flocks of geese across our sky-heading north.
1986 is a special year for Michigan Land Trustees. We are celebrating
our 10th birthday. The next issue of the Newsletter will be a look back
over those 10 years.
At the January meeting of MLT the present executive committee was
reelected: chairperson, Ken Dahlberg; managing director, Swan Huntoon;
secretary, Mike Phillips; treasurer, Mark Thomas.
The first article is by Trustee, Ruth Agius, a past apprentice at the
School of Homesteading, and a recent graduate of Western Michigan
University.
— Sally Kaufman, Editor
An Apprentice Abroad
- Ruth Agius
This past summer, from May to late August, I was in England and
Scotland to tour and to do a bit o’farmin’. England and
Scotland are about 1 1/2 times the land size of Michigan, but with 6
times the population. As in the U.S., most of the farms use chemical
pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Also, as in the U.S., there is
a loose network of alternative farms. While there I worked on three
farms, two of which were organic. This article will give you a glimpse
of these three farms and how I went about arranging the whole affair. I
hope it will spark some of you into doing a similar trip.
First of all, I had a limited budget ($800 total). I left the U.S. with
less than $500, and planned on staying for four months. I was lucky to
be a student at that time which enabled me to participate in GlEE
(Council on International Educational Exchange). You must be 18 year or
older to exchange your $$ for a work permit from your chosen country
(one that is sponsored by CIEE: Great Britain, France, Germany,
Australia, and New Zealand). These work permits make your entry into
the country very quick and easy since they know you are a legal worker.
Next, a friend wrote to some acquaintances in England who included my
name and request for a farm in their village newsletter. A few weeks
later a family replied and I had secured my first job.
The job was on a 280 acre modern dairy farm located in BEAUTIFUL Devon.
It was by no means organic or alternative in nature, but was a good
example of the more “typical” side of England’s
farming and culture. We milked 90 Friesen cows twice a day in an
efficient ceramic tiled 8 milker parlor laid out in a herring bone
design. The Devon landscape is incredibly hilly (BIG hills), that are
divided by unending ledges. The soil is a brilliant red clay. This farm
was no exception, which made 4-wheel drive tractors necessary, but
driving was still treacherous. Since this was a modern farm, many
activities and values were similar to a “typical” U.S.
farm, such as watching “Dynasty” on the telly. I was glad
when the agreed 7 weeks were past.
While on this farm, however, I came into contact with an alternative
group called WWOOF (Working Weekends On Organic Farms). This group is
set up to exhange the farmer’s room and board for the labor of
the WWOOFer. I first WWOOFed near Cambridge in the area of England
known as the Fennlands. This resembled Michigan, very flat terrain and
open fields (no hedges) and all peat. Here I worked for Will Taylor on
his Karma Farm. He grew flowers, vegetables, herbal hay, and a few
acres of small grains; had a few turkeys and chickens, 1 goat, and 15
cattle that grazed on neighboring land. The flowers and vegies were the
main income for the small holding of 20 acres. Mums, straw flowers, and
many other flowers were started and grown in 4 by 30 foot poly tunnels,
as well as in the open. The flowers were shipped mainly to London and
other large cities in the area. The vegetables were just beginning to
be sold at the local whole foods shops. During the winter, his cattle
stayed in a small barn that had a floating convex floor over a slurry
pit. In the springtime, the slurry was then pumped out with a small gas
powered engine and applied to the raised beds in the tubes and other
places. In passing, he explained why the front steps of the old houses
(centuries old) were 6 feet off the ground. It was due mostly to the
peat being eroded away by the ever present winds and the open soil
(monocultures of flax, onions, and potatoes), as well as being dug for
fuel. Will had planted wind breaks to help that problem. He has started
the farm only three years prior to my visit but in this short time one
could see that conservation, recyling, and long term uses were at the
forefront of his actions.
The last farm I was on was in BONNIE Scotland, or as the locals say
“Scudlan”. Meiklejohns Croft was north of Inverness, where
it is very hilly and rocky. Here, I milked goats and sheep. Yes,
Friesen milking sheep!! From their milk we made a variety of soft and
hard cheeses and yogurt. The De Lima-Hutchisons had been farming for
just one year, but their cheese-making techniques were performed
smoothly everyday. They own 40 acres and have approximately 20 goats
(12 milking) and 40 sheep (9 milking). The other goats are butchered
and sold to neighbors and used for home consumption. The sheep are
shorn by hand (only after running them down on those huge hills!!!) and
their wool is sold. As the animals come in to be milked, they pass
through a footbath (helps reduce foot rot), and are then locked in the
wooden stanctions and washed. They are milked with a two teat, 5
gallon, gas powered milker. The goats took about one minute to milk
while the sheep took longer to wash than to milk, about 30 seconds! But
I have never tasted better milk or yogurt. The goats’ milk was
kept separate during milking, but mixed with the sheeps’ milk for
certain cheeses. The hard cheeses were stored in a special room and
were washed with salt water twice a week. When I was there in late July
and August they had not started selling their cheese, but since then
they tell me that business is going well. They sell their goods in the
large cities nearby and as far south as Edinburgh. Besides having the
animals, they grew. herbal hay and a few acres of small grains.
It would be easy for me to go on about these experiences, because they
were so good. So, if you would like any additional information please
feel free to write. Here are some other addresses you might have
been waiting for.
GOOD LUCK and CHEERIO!!
Yawning At The Vanguard
— Greg Smith
I haven’t been in my back yard since my garden died of exposure
last October. I’m told the Iroquois dwelt out there some
centuries ago without furnaces. They lived inside deerskin cones and
yodeled to keep warm. Last night I snowshoed out back to scatter a
bunch of sunflower heads for the birds to eat. When the Iroquois
carried their yodeling into the twentieth century, the neighbors
complained about the noise. So the Indians switched over to oil heat
and wisely went extinct, bored with the quiet fumes.
The sunflowers have been stacked out there all day, today, untouched
except by a thin cover of snow. Not a single goddamn bird has sniffed
by, the only sign of curiosity a set of catprints leading up to, and
away from, the pile.
If it weren’t for the tracks that lead away, this could have been
a true story about a cat who, while savoring lots of sunflower seeds,
is ambushed by a pack of sudden wrens, but, ascending like some
jesus-christ-atom-of-helium, escapes to such heights that his predators
are tricked into believing he’s justanother unappetizing dot,
high, high above in the heroic blue. Think of it.
However, the tracks do lead away. Flying cats and carnivorous wrens are
the sort of tidy meeting of opposites a bachelor has in mind, dreaming
of the perfect couple... My sunflowers remain uneaten.
I presume I have gourmet grackles in my backyard. Fasting wrens.
Colorful winged sparrows so bloated they can hardly bend over and touch
their grasps. While people starve in India, I find myself too unflashy
to draw starlings to a free lunch.
Writing this true story about reality has suddenly become about as
straight-forward as cutting wallpaper to fit a collapsing shed.
Nine below zero, snow over his elbows, and your average starving India
Indian would be out there in back, rooting around in the seeds,
thanking Khrishna for reincarnating him up a rung or two, winking him
into American birdhood. I mean, no self- respecting Hindu would be
caught dead starving in my backyard.
And lo, even as I speak, a sparrow flutters in, and my true story about
reality which has begun to stall for lack of birds, is saved,
accelerated, as in the days of yorre, by divine intervention. Without
chorus, without setpiecè, without even the barest tragic
formula, Khrishna conjures forth a hungry Hindu bird for the East, and
the Indians, though not Iroquois, though no longer even American, the
Indians, note, the Indians are back.
Book Reviews
ON BEAUTY AND BOUNTY
— Swan Huntoon
The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping, By Rosalind Creasy. San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1982, 379 pp. $14.95 paperback.
“Every decision we make about food is a vote for the kind of world we want.
— Frances Moore Lappe
In the suburban neighborhood where I grew up, the sound of the
lawnmower and the smell of cut grass was a regular weekend episode
throughout the summer months. Having the greenest, most neatly trimmed
lawn and yard was, and still is, a statement of social status.
Recently, the role of the individual homeowner’s yard has been
recognized by some as crucial to the concept of a sustainable
agriculture. As a landscape designer and consultant, Rosalind Creasy is
fully aware of this role and her book represents an approach to
landscaping which integrates beauty, utility, and productivity; an
approach she calls “landscaping for the twenty-first
century.”
The book is organized into three parts, the first part is the actual
how and why of edible landscaping. Chapter 1, 2, and 3 focus on three
primary aspects. These are: the positive effects of growing your
own food; the environmental concerns involved with food production; and
landscaping as an applied art. These introductory chapters explain the
basics in a simple, direct, and convincing manner. I was particularily
impressed with Creasy’s treatment of environmental issues. She
covers all the bases and stresses the important contribution suburban
gardeners can make to the health of the earth.
In the remaining chapters Creasy details the steps to creating a
landscape suitable to individual needs. The first step is, of course,
planning. This involves analysis of the site, consideration of
functions and limitations, incorporation of environmental elements, and
choosing garden structures and plants. Once these steps are
accomplished a specific design is devised. The book includes many
helpful examples and illustrations for a variety of designs.
Landscaping for small areas is the topic of Chapter 6,a chapter which,
unfortunately, falls short of its potential. Most suburban yards are
quite small, yet I did not find one example pertaining to the size of
yard one commonly sees in urban/suburban areas. Plant care is the
subject of the final chapter, and it contains sound advice on organic
gardening.
Part Two is “An Encyclopedia of Edibles” and it fully lives
up to its name. Including a summary of all the information necessary
for assessing the usefulness of a particular plant for a specific
design, and covering over 100 plants, this section is essential. Creasy
rounds out the book with a checklist of edible plants and numerous
sources of plants, landscape supplies, and further relevent information.
The Complete Book of Edible Landscape
is a very enjoyable and educational book, easy to read and understand.
I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in making their yard,
and the world, a more beautiful place.
READINGS AND RESOURCES FOR PERMACULTURE
—Jonathan Towne
As stated previously, permaculture seeks to assimilate peopie into the
landscape sustainably and productively. Its subject matter covers a lot
of territory, running the gamut from sociology to engineering to plant
genetics and ecology. By nature permaculture is interdisciplinary, more
concerned with connections, than it is compartmental (which is how
modern society and its specializations are structured). These
connections are better studied through experience and observation since
they can very rarely be studied by a controlled experiment. This
isn’t easy for people to get excited about since we are all
trained to be specialists.
Some books that are available seem to be concerned more with theory, philosophy and promotion. J. Russel Smith’s book, Tree Crops,
is one such. Its optimistic view is: Yes! It’s possible to have
an agriculture based on trees, especially in marginal areas and it can
yield as well as annual cropping does. He didn’t go into any
other components such as an understory, but that can be foregiven since
this book was originally published in 1927. Fukuoka’s book, One Straw Revolution
(reviewed in an earlier issue of this newsletter), makes the point that
nature can yield bountifully with minimal inputs by our understanding
her laws and patterns, such as succession. Forest Farming
concerns itself with broadscale landscape design for the third world,
by focussing on trees and their functions both in a forest and
individually. New Roots for Agriculture,
by Wes Jackson, extends the perennial polyculture idea to prairie areas
where trees do not grow vigorously. This book is a call for a diversion
of research money to develop systems of perennials for grain production.
The two Permaculture books by Bill Mollison seem to tie it all
together. These books are complete with species lists and much
how—to information including structures, broadscale design,
aquaculture, techniques and technologies. These two books are the
textbooks for design courses.
The bibliography includes other books which are useful in understanding permaculture design and implementation.
Altieri, Miguel A. Agroecology, The Scientific Basis of Alternative Agriculture. University of California, 1985.
Creasy, Rosalind. The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping. Sierra Club Books, 1981
Douglas, J.S. and Robert A. deHart. Forest Farming. Watkin, London, 1976
Fisher, Rick and Bill Yanda. The Food and Heat Producing Solar Greenhouse. John Muir Publications, 1976.
Fukuoka, Masanobu. The One Straw Revolution. Rodale Press, 1978
Hall—Beyer, Bart and Jean Richard. Ecological Fruit Production in the North. 1983.
Jackson, Wesley. New Roots for Agriculture. Friends of the Earth, 1980.
Jaynes, Richard. Nut Tree Culture in North America. Northern Nut Growers, Inc., 1979.
Kern, Ken. The Owner—Built Homestead. Owner—built Publications, 1974.
Logsdon, Gene. Organic Orcharding, A Grove of Trees to Live in. Rodale Press, 1981.
(Out of print but worthwhile if you find a copy. All of Logsdon’s books are handy.)
McLarney, Bill. The Freshwater Aquaculture Book. (A new book, publisher unknown, reputed to be the book on small-scale aquaculture.)
Mollison, Bill and David Holmgren. Permaculture One, A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements. Transworld Publisher. 1978.
Mollison, Bill. Permaculture Two. Practical Design for Town and Country. Tagari Publications, 1979.
Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops and Permanent Agriculture. Devin—Adair, New York, 1950.
Other useful books include those on orchards, small fruits, livestock,
soil fertility, and beekeeping. Bibliographies covering these areas are
readily accessible. You can also get good information on potential
crops from books on wild foods.
A future article will cover some periodicals and organizations involved with this “blossoming field”.
On the homestead, winter provides us with a natural chilling system for
the meat we eat year-round. An invocation for the butchering season:
FOR THE HOG KILLING
Let them stand still for the bullet, and stare the
shooter in the eye,
let them die while the sound of the shot is in the
air, let them die as they fall,
let the jugular blood spring hot to the knife, let
its freshet be full,
let this day begin again the change of hogs into
people, not the other way around,
for today we celebrate again our lives’ wedding with
the world,
for by our hunger, by this provisioning, we renew
the bond.