Mark Shepard's Perrenial Agriculture

I had a great time last week at the Acres USA conference in Louisville, KY. One of my favorite speakers was Mark Shepard (http://www.forestag.com/) and his new book "Restoration Agriculture" was made available during the conference. His basic idea is to use perrenial agriculture (nuts) for our staple foods and oils to replace grains, growing them using Yeoman's keyline design methods with swales to distribute and hold rainwater in the soil. Since it takes 10-15 years to get good crops from some of these nut trees, he also has a transition plan to raise annual crops and animals in the alleys between rows of trees. It was very enlightening.

GM Foods

I watched an interesting and scary film online this last weekend, Genetic Roulette (http://geneticroulettemovie.com) and I'm even more convinced that there is hope!  Well worth watching.

Back to Eden Orchard

We got our first delivery of wood chips today for our orchard, for free from a local tree trimming company that contracts with our electric company to keep elecrical lines clear of branches.  The basic idea is to mulch 4 inches deep with wood chips to keep in moisture and promote healthy soil.  Very exciting stuff.  Check out http://www.backtoedenfilm.com for details.  I'm not sure which part I love more: promoting better, healthier fruit in the orchard, or the idea of not having to mow :)  A year from now, I'll post again about whether or not the mulching we do this year makes a difference in yield and health of the trees.

They Huffed and They Puffed

We finished stacking the straw bales for the exterior walls of our house today.  The straw bales raising was one of the easiest parts of the house - we finished in just two Saturdays, with help from 3 friends at a time. The roofers also finished installing the roof last week, a standing seam metal roof.

DIY Rabbit Butchering Station

We started our own rabbitry this year, trying to find a more sustainable way of providing meat for our family and keep it legal, since we live in the city and by law aren't allowed to have livestock or poultry.

There are some really cool tools out there for butchering rabbits. I was on the lookout for some because the first two rabbits that I dressed took over an hour each, and I was hoping it would take far less time. The tools that I've found are:

• The Rabbit Wringer (http://www.therabbitwringer.com/)
• The Rabbit Wringer Butchering/Processing Station (http://www.therabbitwringer.com/)
• Never Without 1 dressing knife (http://www.neverwithout1.com/home/knife_msrp)

Unfortunately, we're trying to finish building our house and money is tight, so I built one myself. I got the idea for using a 55 gallon plastic drum cut in two by reading an article somewhere (Mother Earth News?) and I added the wringer after watching a You Tube video by prepper "Survival Doc" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXAhzfqhMNE&feature=plcp). I built this into the same unit with the parachute cords to hang the rabbit while I'm dressing it.

I used scrap 2x4 that was too warped to use on my house, some scrap cut-offs of 1x6 that I ripped down the center for the wringer, and some parachute cord. This project took me about an hour to build, including the design time. In case you aren't the design-type, here are the parts I used:

• (2) 2x4s cut at 62" for uprights
• (1) 2x4 cut at 26" for the vertical piece at the top
• (2) 2x4s cut at 11" to hold the 1x3s
• (2) 1x3s (or a 1x6 ripped through the center) 22.5" long
• (1) 55 gallon plastic barrel, cut half way through at 12" from the bottom, then cut vertically on both sides, then cut the rest of the way through horizontally at 12" down from the top (this will make two butchering stations if you want them, as long as you have the bungs for the top). I found mine used on craigslist for $7.
• (4) bolts with nuts, 3" long to bolt the uprights to the barrel.
• (4) wood screws, 3" long to fasten the top 2x4 to the uprights
• (2) wood screws, 1.5" long to hang the parachute cord from
• (2) pieces parachute cord 16" long (I found mine for $2.99 at a local camping store)

With the scraps that I had lying around, I spent about $10 on this butchering station.

To replace the "Never Without 1" knife, I just used a curved hook blade in my utility knife. These blades cost me $0.50 each at Harbor Freight.

In addition to all of these tools, I also splurged and bought a nice bypass pruner for $25 to cut off the head, feet, and tail.

I used it the first day, and it worked great. Slaughtering and dressing took me around 30 minutes this time, but much of that increased speed is probably due to having more experience.

Heaven on Earth

Take a minute and think about what heaven on earth would be like. Consider what Eden might have been like before the fall of humanity. Can you imagine litter or pollution there? Can you imagine using chemicals to kill bugs and weeds? Can you imagine someone losing their temper and yelling at someone else? Can you imagine low quality, disposable products? Can you imagine landfills? Can you imagine democracies? War? Denominations? Cancer? Genetic modification? I cannot imagine these things existing or occurring in heaven on earth. Instead, the first image that comes to mind is a quiet, gentle approach to living, to humanity, and to all of creation. This posture of heart and mind is exemplified for me in the characters of a few movies and television programs: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Into Great Silence, Star Trek Insurrection, Star Trek The Inner Light, The Mission, and A River Runs Through It. It is this posture of heart and mind that caused St. Francis to gently move the earthworm off the walking path so as to not be crushed, to preach the gospel to the birds, and to tame the wolf of Gubio.

Are you even trying to live in heaven on earth? How difficult it can be to foster or maintain this posture of heart and mind in such a hectic, fast-paced, demanding, hostile, western world! How especially difficult when we don't make the effort to quiet ourselves daily!

Sustainability and Charitable Donations

Is was re-reading some of my journals from 10 years ago when I visited some refugee centers in Johannesburg, and they reminded me of some thoughts that I've had recently about some charitable donations, as well. We are often given a barrage of pleas for financial help for the poor, whether it is local or in another country, financial help that will be spent on food, clothing, medical supplies, and schooling. Often times, over 95% of the donations actually make it to the recipients. What has happened, through, in many cases is that the recipients have come to think of themselves as poor and perpetually in need of donations in order to survive. The problem with this is that it is not a sustainable plan. With some creativity, leadership, and education, I believe that most if not all of these situations can be turned around into short term projects that kick start systems and programs that enable the recipients to provide for themselves. Many of these kick starter projects can be completed in less than 1 year, some might take as long as 5 years. Once these kick starter projects are completed, the recipients have the potential to contribute significantly to the the world and to the kingdom of heaven on earth.

The alternative to this that I propose is to have a set of criteria for these programs and have them audited for following the criteria. The criteria could be something like this:

• limited time (max 5 years) and a dollar cap on donations and NGO presence in the program
• approved plan for how the program will build to self-sufficiency after the donations stop
• production of goods as a community
• education of recipients
• production of communities own food and water filtration strongly encouraged
• environmental friendliness encouraged
• sanitation and housing can expand and be provided by recipients
• follow appropriate technology guidelines, e.g. E.F. Schumacher
• feedback mechanism in place for soliciting and implementing improvements

As an example, let's take a look at the refugee situation in South Africa 10 years ago. Refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and from southern Sudan were streaming into South Africa, and the South African government allowed them to enter and stay. However, the government did not provide any funding to pay for food or shelter for these refugees, which was also appropriate. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) took on the responsibility and many of these NGOs tried to incorporate education into their programs. The programs were not coordinated between NGOs, and each NGO was had staff attempting to raise funds (compete for funds in some cases) from the United States, the United Nations, and from Europe.

Using the alternative methodology proposed above, an NGO could draft plans for new villages of refugees in South Africa, built by the refugees who are fed for the first year with moneys from donations, and who in turn create an extensive organic farm that provides all of the food that the community needs. Each village would take care of its own recycling and composting, creating no landfills. Each village could focus on a particular craft, such as leather work, wood carving, hand-made clothing, or the like, and setup the [low tech] equipment for producing these crafts. The NGO could setup the initial agreements for foreign trade of these crafts to be sold in the host country and in other countries. The NGO could then pull out of the villages within 2 years, after ensuring that leadership is developed from among the refugees and that everything is working well.