Blogs

4/29
It’s ok – as far as we can tell, nothing got damaged by the 29F frost. The photo above is of one of our Asian pear trees. Our friend, Dan Kelly, who has an apple orchard, assures us that 29 will not hurt the fruit blossoms.
Gigi and I attend a local foods dinner at Truman University in Kirksville – part of the week long Earth Day celebrations organized by students. We both signed up to be discussion leaders at individual small tables. There is a good turnout and a lot of good discussions. It is encouraging to hear thought provoking conversations about eating more locally.
Finally! we do some planting in the field: we plant clover into our wheat crop (planted last fall) to help build the soil. The wheat will be harvested in early July and by then the clover will be about 10” tall and keep growing and put a lot of nitrogen into the soil, as well as feeding various other soil building organisms (eg earthworms). The clover will be incorporated (that is, killed by chisel plowing, discing, etc) into the soil either in the fall or the following spring to feed the next crop – sorghum.
Planting clover: we do it by hand – the way seed has been planted by our ancestors for thousands of years: it feels good to carry on the tradition. Well, we do have a minor variation: I imagine our ancestors flinging seeds on the ground by hand. We use a simple, cheap ($25.) gizmo that consists of a cloth bag with a shoulder strap to carry the seed in, and a spinning wheel to fling out the seed so that it is spread evenly. The seed trickles from the bag onto the wheel which is spun by a hand crank; we walk through the wheat field, cranking the gizmo, and the seed is flung out in a 12’ swath. It takes a lot of walking to plant a one acre field. This year, new member Apple, planted all the clover. The clover seeds wait until the next rain to germinate and begin growing in the wheat fields.

5/2

4/25/08
I knew this would happen – events would happen faster than i can record them. So much is going on now.
The orchard is in full bloom – well, the orchard nearest to our residences: mostly peach, pear, and cherry trees. The “other” orchard, mostly apply trees, is still a day or 2 from flowering. BUT – back to the blooms! They are AWESOME! Imagine 10 peach trees, with varying shades of pink flowers – hundreds(thousands?) of flowers on each tree, 3 pear, a cherry, and a plum tree full of white flowers, 2 red bud trees full of bright red flowers, large areas on the ground with bright blue violets, others with crisp red-purple colored henbit, mixed with a sprinkling of dandelions all around! IT IS SO AMAZING! I can’t capture it on photos. Anyway, the interplay of colors change every day. Time-lapse photography? Videos? They try to mimic REAL LIFE! And i am in the midst of it all. This feels like heaven/nirvana.
IRONY. This is usually one of my busiest time of year: planting time, EXCEPT this year – NOT! I do the field crops at Sandhill (as opposed to the vegetable & garden crops) and i have not even started yet – due to the wet weather/a widespread weather pattern: there has been no field crop planting all across the midwest (normally, the conventional farmers have planted their corn crop by now and are starting on the soybeans). So – am i tearing out my hair? – not being able to plant? No – we are diversified enough so that we can take an abnormal year in stride.

4/26

4/14
Cold. Rainy. Cold. It is being unseasonably cold and lately, very windy.
So what do we do when normally at this time of year, we are being in the garden a lot, but now it’s cold and wet? We plant a few plum trees, a Korean pine nut tree, do some landscaping projects such as transplanting holly hocks, cleaning up perennial flower beds and the herb garden (removing old growth, mulching the paths), finish fruit tree pruning, digging the pathways to make permanent beds, etc.
This is often a difficult time for gardeners & farmers: it’s spring, the snow is all gone and we are eager to get seeds & plants in the ground to start growing! But Mother Nature sometimes has a different schedule: we had days of cold,, wet, windy weather; it does not feel like an encouraging time to put seeds in the ground. What to do? Our “sap” & energy is up – but the weather is not right for planting. We fret, fume, look at the gardening and planting books – again! We try to stay out of the garden & soil – but it’s hard. It puts graying hairs on aging scalps.
Other diversions: dig up some of the garlic that has gone “feral”: garlic on the edge of the garden; we harvest some of it for fresh/green garlic and then forget to harvest the rest of it – so that it gets overcrowded. We eat some fresh and plant some around the fruit trees – hoping that it will discourage pests. Gigi plants more flower seeds in flats – to be transplanted later.

For those of you who knew Hooch, he has moved on to the old may field to rest by the ceder tree with Sadie. Hooch was a 20+ year old dog who carried a bullet in his hip from a pig farmer who didn't like the way Hooch played with his pigs (he had a thing for bacon until the end). He had lived through heart worm being hit by cars and being imprisoned in three county jails in MO. alone. He has made dog catchers cry and had escaped every fence he was ever put in with the super hero name of the great Hoochini he lives on in our memories as that dog everybody loved. He was Bennies dog that sunnyside adopted and yes he will always be a sunnysider. This dog has been a part of my life for 14 years now and has lived in my room with me since I returned to E-dub and well its a little quieter in my room now without the old dawg snoring unfortunately I miss the snoring and I don't know what to do with my scraps from my meals or his brush or bed and I am sad.

As some may have heard or read we here in southern Mo. are getting a pile of rain! It has backed our lovely little lick creek up into our hay fields and we now have a lake in our yard! some folks are commenting on how its nice having lake front property but mostly we feel a little invaded. We usually have a allot of privacy at East wind, our swimming hole is impossible most of the time to get to by boat or canoe even, but now we have folks in the middle of the night coming up stream in motor boats to explore the lake that has expanded into our leased fields. There is nothing we can do about it we lease this flood plane(doing what its supposed to this year) and we have little or no control over what happens on the water. They (who are they anyway) say it'll be two months before we see any subsiding of the flood we are already assuming our hay from the fields is wasted for the year and our swimming hole is going to be crowded well under water I guess.
Of course we have been in drought conditions for some time and this rain does help and the wildlife over our new lake is quite amazing with Eagles picking fish out of the shallows on the fly but the habitats for animals is very changed and there already is an enormous amount of snakes in the lower garden and we have even noticed deer running in deferent patterns because there old ones are flooded. so as we and the other animals figure out how to manage our lives around these new conditions and we polish up our social skills with the folks that meander up the creek we keep our clothes a little closer and we all hope for a little dry weather.

3/23
Kathe plants lettuce in flats. We like to get lettuce growing as soon as feasible in the spring because it does better in cool weather.
Over the next few weeks, we transform our south garden (the largest one) into permanent raised beds: 1’ apart and each is 3’ wide. We dig/scoop out about 5” of topsoil between the beds making it a path and add it to the bed. Up until this year, we disc the large gardens in the spring to prepare them for planting and again in the fall before planting cover crop for the winter. Tillage destroys earthworms and other soil building critters; so decided to establish permanent beds where we do hand tilling only. Raised beds drain better so that plant roots will not be water logged but they can also dry out more quickly. We mulch the paths between the beds heavily; in fact, we mulch all our plantings to conserve moisture and protect the soil and the critters inside.

3/24
We collect the last of the maple sap and Apple cooks it to syrup. Our combined total is 800 gallons of sap and 80 quarts of syrup; a ratio of 40:1. In labor hours, it takes almost 2 hours per quart.

3/25
Kathe plants sweet (bell) and hot peppers. The bell peppers are for us and the hot peppers are for our consumption as well as to make salsa and hot pepper relish for sale.
Gigi harvests a bed of parsnips (planted a year ago) and then plants that bed and another into parsnips again. Parsnips are a root crop – similar to carrots – and take a whole year to mature. They are especially good at this time of year because it is the first vegetable (other than leafy greens) to be harvested in the spring. My favorite way to eat them is to sauté them in butter – YUM!

3/25-26. I attend the SARE conference; my report:

2008 SARE Conference Report by Stan Hildebrand, Missouri Organic Association (MOA), Vice Pres

As some of you may know East wind is expanding! For those who have been to East Wind throughout the years we have watched this little nut butter business grow.

At this point we are expanding our building for a third line that will be a production line for our jars and 5# tubs. The reason we are expanding has to do with the equipment we use: lidder-capers, labelers, jar bander's. These pieces of equipment hate being moved - and we move them a lot! The third line will all but eliminate the need to move these heavy boehemouths that ain't supposed to move around.

hold on a sec let me step back in time for a minute. When I moved to E-dub in 93 Nut butters was not the most popular job but for some reason (maybe not as social as hammocks or to noisy or oh yea its a factory job) but I always liked it so I became a roaster helper and worked at least once a week making some butter

As some of you may know East wind is expanding! For those who have been to East Wind throughout the years we have watched this little nut butter business grow. At this point we are expanding our building for a third line that will be a production line for our jars and 5# tubs the reason we are expanding has to do with the equipment we use lidder capers, labelers, jar bander's these pieces of equipment hate being moved and we move them allot. The third line will all but eliminate the need to move these heavy boehemouths that ain't supposed to move around.

I am reposting this story from "The Leaves," the Twin Oak's newsletter. Enjoy!

...forty years and counting
by Valerie, aka Ultra-Violet Waterfall

Anniversary this year brought over one hundred ex-members and friends to help us celebrate this milestone. We kicked off the weekend with a live-music contra dance in the backyard of Kaweah. With Kathryn calling, and music from the Okara Mountain Jig Riggers (Ezra, Kassia, Trout and Madog, and Sky on mandolin, fiddle, guitar, bass and drums), we danced well into the evening.

The reporter from the Richmond newspaper who was covering Anniversary even joined in a for dance or two, and the weekend edition of the paper featured several Oakers in mid-twirl. Once we were tired out, Kele and Caroline treated us to a performance of middle Eastern bellydancing, complete with exotic outfits and exotic fiddling. Saturday morning arrived with a classic Ira/Velma brunch, and many people lingered and chatted, reminiscing, telling stories, recounting bygone controversies, scandals and gossip, and also catching up on the current events of everyones’ lives.

People who wanted some grounding were welcome at Anton/Vinnie’s guided meditation. Anyone who wanted a more visceral reminder of the good old days could pay a visit to TCLR, where a huge table of archival photos and a slide-show helped jog peoples’ memories. Ex-members could also sign the newly unveiled 40th Anniversary Quilt displayed on the wall.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me living at Twin Oaks these days is the Turnover.

Tomorrow my good friends Aubee and Rie leave to hike the Appalachian Trail. I will miss them sorely. My friendship with Aubee has been invaluable here at Twin Oaks.

I will miss her and Rie.

It is hard watching so many friends come and go. It is true that I have had an easier time connecting with more people in community, and that these connections have felt deeper and more real then most of my friendships before I joined the movement. But it also so much harder to have so many people I like leave.

Tomorrow a few of us are going to drive them to town and have Thai food in Charlottesville before we drop them off at the train station.

I worry that I am becoming less open to new people and more reclusive the longer I live here. It is so emotionally taxing having so many wonderful people leave that it is hard for me to feel safe opening up to new people.

Aubee really knows who I am, and knows my strengths and weaknesses almost as well as I do, yet she accepts me as I am none the less.. It is really hard to lose a friend like that. I do hope they come back to live at Twin Oaks after the trail.

3/19
This bit is not agricultural but is too significant to omit. We had a Peace Vigil today in Memphis MO, our county seat of about 2000. I’ve been here 28 years and can’t remember anything like this in our county before. I became inspired to do some kind of action by United for Peace & Justice. They organized actions all across the country to commemorate 5 years of the US war in Iraq. I talked to Renay about it and she was excited about it. We approached folx at dancing rabbit and redearth, and many there were enthusiastic. Our vigil consisted of about 20 of us holding peace and anti war signs on the courthouse square facing traffic from 4 to 6 pm. We had 2 veterans come up to us and tell us how misguided we were, a few others expressed support, and many waved from their vehicles. We had put up flyers inviting people to join us but only Chelsi, Renay’s good school friend, did. It felt good to call peoples’ attention to the devastating effects of an ongoing war – it is so easy to not think about it.

3/17
Michael & Gigi transfer flats of young seedlings to the greenhouse. WAHOO! This is one of the main reasons we built the green house: a place to raise seedlings for transplanting into the garden. Until now we had the seedling trays in Karma – one of our residences because it has very large south facing windows. As the seedlings grow, we often take them outside during the day so that they have more sun and then we bring them back in for the night – either because of possible stormy or cold weather. The flats are quite heavy and shlepping them in & out daily is not anyone’s favorite activity. Having them in the greenhouse would eliminate that chore. (Another other main reason for the green house is to have hardy greens in beds for winter and early spring eating.

3/18
Michael & Gigi note that the seedlings in the green house are much greener – after the first day. It indicates that they are getting full spectrum sunlight – one of the touted characteristics of the hi tech material we used for the roof and the upper part of walls of the green house; it appears that it was a good choice.

3/20
Equinox. Some years we have a gathering or party of some kind to mark the occasion – but not this year. We had a big bonfire with neighboring folx 2 days ago, a peace vigil in town the next day and we are having our annual community retreat now (we have meetings for 5 days). All of us go for a landwalk together – most of it through woods. It is a glorious day: balmy, breezy, full of “spring”.
Apple is moved to take the plastic off the walls of our screened in porch (to keep winter winds & snow out) and we begin eating some of our meals out here again.

Feb 2-3, 08. we tap the maple trees.

It feels like the beginning of the agricultural year – even though it is still the dead of winter. These years, I usually do it on weekends so that Renay (11) is not at school. She enjoys it which makes it more fun for me too. Sat was a lovely day and we tapped about half of them – but renay was at a school function. We did the other half on Sunday after lunch. Usually, we go with a tractor and wagon, but this time, we went in our “new” 4 wheel drive pickup – to one of our maple yards, about ¼ mi from our yard.

Click Here to read about how we make our Maple Syrup

Just as we (Renay, Oliver (a visitor) & me) are heading out, it begins to snow. By the time we are tapping, it is coming down faster than I have ever seen it here in mizzourah. Huge fluffy snowflakes that immediately blanket everything; we lay down the hammer or drill and a minute later, we can’t find it! It becomes comical – we are trying to work quickly so we don’t lose stuff, but the snow just keeps falling faster. One of the real joys in this process is to watch Renay sucking on the tubes immediately after she attaches it to the tap: she kneels by the tree and sucks on this long tube attached to a tree! Primal nursing.

Renay is trying to capture the tapping process on our digital camera: it’s challenging becuz the heavy snowfall makes it all appear dark & cloudy. Our gloves get wet and then our hands are cold. By the time we finish (an hour later), there are several inches of snow covering everything. Awesome! We keep being amazed by the amount of snow that is falling. It feels dramatic to finish in this kind of weather.

Now we wait for the sap to drip from the maple trees into our buckets. And wait. And wait. 5 days later we gather the sap – only 40 gallons of sap (it takes about 40 gal of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup). The next 2 weeks are bitterly cold – no sap flow.

How we make Maple Syrup at Sandhill Farm

Tapping. Note: we tap soft (silver) maple trees – since that is what we have on our land; most of the commercial maple syrup on the market comes from hard maple trees in Canada and northern US. We have planted hard maple trees – but they are very slow growing; our 20 year old trees will probably take another 10 years before we can tap them.
How do you find maple trees? One way is to look up at the canopy – the maple trees have swollen reddish buds – after awhile, the eye picks them out readily (by now, I know where all the trees on our land are). Then you inspect the trunk of the tree to find the scars from previous years’ tapping – new taps should be about 4” away from old ones; also, we prefer to tap the south sides of trees because when the sun shines, it warms that side of the tree and makes it flow more. We have been tapping some of our trees for 20 years so they are pockmarked by grown over old holes and it is a challenge to find the right spot. When we do, we drill a 5/16” hole 2-3” deep with an electric cordless drill (we used to use a brace & bit – but the cordless is faster/easier). Another person hammers in a plastic tap (we buy them from maple sugaring supply places. Then attach a plastic tube to the tap and the other end into a bucket on the ground.

How many taps? The rule of thumb is that a tree needs to be at least 12” in diameter (at chest height) to be tapped. A tree that is more than 20” can have 2 taps and over 28”, 3 taps. We run the tubes from one tree into the same bucket – usually, a 5 gal bucket. We do not put more than 3 taps in a tree.

Renay sucking maple sap from a tree.

Do you dream?

Are you occasionally dirty?

Then this task is for you!

The FEC's e-newsletter, Dirt and Dreams, needs your talent.

-poetry
-humor
-gossip
-interesting experiences
-short stories
-artwork and photos of all kinds

Share your life's experince, good times, hard times, and strange times, by sending it to dirtanddreams@gmail.com

Abe, Acorn
Dirt and Dreams Editor
dirtanddreams@gmail.com

Do you dream?

Are you occasionally dirty?

Then this task is for you!

The FEC's e-newsletter, Dirt and Dreams, needs your talent.

-poetry
-humor
-gossip
-interesting experiences
-short stories
-artwork and photos of all kinds

Share your life's experince, good times, hard times, and strange times, by sending it to dirtanddreams@gmail.com

Abe, Acorn
Dirt and Dreams Editor
dirtanddreams@gmail.com

News of the Oaks

Jun 07 – Jan 08

By Ezra with assistance from Mala and Gordon

Well, it's been a while since the last News of the Oaks came out, right around the time of our 40th anniversary, and we're pleased to report that the intervening eight months have been (generally speaking), a time of relative peace, stability, and prosperity.

Despite a relatively high turn-over rate, and the departure of several long-term members, population has remained in the eighties. Among the old-timers to strike out on their own this fall were Alder, Amy, Jack, Inge, and Indigo. Jake, who we all hoped might come rushing home, is still living in Savannah with George, and writes that he doesn't even miss Twin Oaks anymore.

On the other hand, this fall has seen the return of the oldest old-timer of them all-- Kat Kinkade! At the end of 2007 Kat returned as a full-time member, after 7 years of living in Mineral, and moved back into Nashoba (see interview with Kat in this issue).

While our adult population remains stable, our child population has continued to fall, and is now at its lowest point in many years: 7 full-time kids, two half-time kids, and one kid on sabbatical. Although the child population has been shrinking, our young folks themselves have continued to grow, and thanks in part to a new child labor policy, are becoming more integrated into the community than in the past. Rowan, now 11, has thrown himself into his duties as chef, and has been helping with meals in ZK kitchen every week. Kids have also been tutoring at Reading Window, helping with road maintenance, and primarying younger kids.

(read more by clicking on title of this article)

Laird has written in his blog about the upcoming FEC Assembly and the PEACH discussion that is scheduled to take place.

PEACH is one of the benefits of FEC membership. It is a program of self-insurance to cover catastrophic health care costs.

While this operates under the auspices of the Federation, the governing bodies for FEC and PEACH are distinct. The Federation is governed by delegates from each member community, and PEACH is governed by a body comprised of one representative of each participating community. This person is called a MELBA (Member Expected to Look after Basic Affairs). Any correlation between delegates and MELBAs is coincidental, and delegates have no authority over PEACH.

Here is a link to the article:
http://communityandconsensus.blogspot.com/2008/02/pitfalls-of-proposals-...

Things to do, that might be delgated out:

Systems and Structures turned into ascii text or XML

All old content put into a standard format

Old content revised, catagorised and uploaded

Digital Photos gathered for Photo Gallery

I will think of more soon....

So this is the first day with Drupal running. Drupal is the software platform that this site runs on.

It will be fun figuring out how to do all the stuff I hope to do with this site.

There will be many kinds of users on this site. There will be

Non-Authenticated Users
-> Can read all non-internal files

Authenticated Users
Drupal
Non-FEC A-Users
(non FEC members)
-> Can post blogs and send messages
-> Can post in non-external forums
-> Can read all non-internal files

FEC Member Individual A-Users
(Individuals who are members of FEC communities)
-> Can read Internal and non-internal documents
-> Can read and post in all member forums
-> Can post blogs and send messages

FEC Community A-Users
(usernames for people within an FEC community
to access internal data without having an
individual account)
-> Can read Internal and non-internal documents

FEC Delegate A-Users
-> Can read and edit all documents
-> Can read and edit FEC-internal documants
-> Can read and post in all member forums
-> Can read and post in all FEC-internal forums
-> Can post blogs and send messages

plus super users and such as needed.

So thats the plan, let's see how it works!