Awesome footage of Finger Lakes-based Edible Acres plant nursery and homestead:
@1:44 Cool contrast of the land cover texture at Edible Acres forest garden alongside neighboring sparsely-treed lawn. From sunshine to complex, interdependent and diverse self-regenerating life and succession.
Overview of some low-tech approaches to propagate thousands of trees in modular, portable forms. Young, 1-2 year old trees can be grown this way then transported & transplanted bare-root into the ground, low-cost and resilient.
From a food resiliency standpoint: collecting wild nuts, cleaning and drying them properly, and storing them in-shell with decent airflow in a cool space like a basement – it’s probably one of the highest levels of resiliency for fat and protein that you could store, I think. These hickories should be good for 10 years, I’ve heard for up to 15 years. Chestnuts when they’re dry, more or less indefinitely. Acorns, more or less indefinitely. These Japanese walnuts from 4 years ago…one out of 50 is a dud, the rest taste absolutely beautiful.
from Edible Acres (@4:31 of video below)
@ 5:34 some processing footage
“It feels like a critical base layer to food security, with gardening, wild foraging and hunting as additional layers of benefit.”
Replying to a comment about wild nuts being a most efficient form of hunting & gathering
Food sovereignty, good when times are good and when times are not so good.
An imaginative exercise – what does an ideal food system look like to you? When I envision optimal food systems and resilient, rewarding primary sectors that are grounded and guarded by ecological mutualism, I see trees are a key & core part.
Towering timber trees among their families and cohorts of diverse company, gifting staple crops for current and future generations with numerous co-benefits. Agroforest cows? Shiitake and other medicines? Trees of all types, hazel in the northeast alongside other handy hardy bushes. Alley & edge crops. Wildlife habitat. Connection to place and harmony with neighbors human and nonhuman. Productive conservation & restoration agriculture. Forest gardens. Community food hubs, gathering and processing.
How can we integrate ecological mutualism into our lives, at various scales? Go nuts
Lyrics:
(please think twice – sucka MCs, please think twice
“you’d have to be crazy not to be crazy”, as for me?)
–
If I wasn’t talkin to trees, bugs I’d go crazy
Motherfuckers acting lazy or stacking shady funds nd guns nd
Piles of trash, no joke landfill leakin’ toxic yoke while blokes be blowin’ up motha’s mountains
what the fucks, and the cops?
Damn, I ain’t callin’em
Politicians? I ain’t stallin’em
Tryna get like complex numbers and off this line
New train of thought, new training newly taught
Know the names of those who aught to lead
Brotha I’m talking seas, I’m talkin birds and bees
I’m talkin’ lettin’ shit be and see how I can adjust
Like what the fucks, we gotta control every dial? Every worthwhile mile gotta be styled to our industry?
Fuck’um, styled to who’s liking?
Shuck’um, styled like lightening – in mutual benefit to all with one bad day
So you want beef? I’ll take it rare-ly
Rarely eating it if I don’t know where it grow
Rarely seeing it suffering or not in Hozho
I’m in it to mimic ecosystems, tried and true
Economics out of alignment with the physical? Dismiss’em
Or at least know they’ll dismiss you
Watch out – first principles comin’ through
So when bygones be bygones be strugglin’ to buy some bread
Kids and cats better know, better grow better ways ahead
Plant some trees
Eat some nuts, befriend some bees
What the fucks, what’s our priorities?
What’s the future you want to see?
While some drain they brain to complain or get you in a particular lane
I encourage you to bushwack, look back only for orientation
Trailblaze through the maze of crazed disharmony
Harming me, and you, and the whole zoo of this planet
But I gotta hand it to the motha, like no otha, forests provide
So when you turn on ya heat and engage what ya need to survive
Remember that: grocers hustle, forests grow, fossil fuels tucked in tight on the low
And there’s a time and place for every glow, but while the road gets rough I’m lookin’ for flames stayin’ lit through it all
Resilient – lifeboats ladders and lamps
I’m out, y’all can join me at nuttery camp gettin’ buttery with million year old champs growin above
and with it: peace, peace, peace, One Love
Every time I eat, I give some thought, “I give thanks to the Source, for the present, to mother Earth for all the creatures who enable me to enjoy this food.”
Sometimes it’s complex and inconvenient to know the source. There is always a source.
One beautiful thanksgiving for food I’ve learned of is ‘saying providence’ from indigenous and permaculture communities. At a potluck or any meal, take a moment to speak about and acknowledge with gratitude each ingredient you bring to the table. This has a few benefits obvious and subtle.
–
Sharing providence from my own meal, an egg and cheese sandwich. Years ago growing interest in self-sufficiency, I thought it would be great to have a 100% home-grown peanut butter & jelly sandwich. My perspective’s changed a bit, for one I’m more interested in community-scale sufficiency and ecological mutualism in food. For two, I’ve realized a 100% community-grown egg and cheese sandwich is way more feasible and is plenty good too! Not there yet, but getting closer:
This sandwich is a snow-day lunch I enjoyed with a little help from my friends (afar)! Most of the ingredients have something special to say about’em, and it’s nice to pay each ingredient some attention in any case. I give thanks:
Continue reading →Profound poetry in story telling and in the stories of life’s potential. Fortunate for the finding, sharing to spread good minding.
I dunno who’s more psyched on this grass, Greg Judy or these cows
or these soil organisms. . .
they’re all succeeding together
may the ripple effects be resounding
may one’s diet support good livelihood for all creatures who enable it
I begin giving thanks to the source, to the indigenous people of the land I’m in, and to the indigenous people of the ancestry I’m from.
Lest we forget, forests can provide for all our basic needs as humans. It may not be easy but it is true, and tight knit nutrient cycles remind us of our arboreal foundations.
This guy (Primitive Technology channel on YouTube) and bushcraft have been a huge inspiration for me. Whether that inspiration shapeshifts into homesteading or what, I have it near and dear to my heart.
soil-regenerating pasture growing happy healthy 100%-grassfed animals who have one bad day in becoming proteins and nutritious foods. peace be upon them
that pasture replacing and adjacent to non-organically grown GMO soybeans (>95% U.S. soy) grown with petroleum, fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, and more. how at peace are the creatures involved? peace be upon them
eating meat ain’t necessarily good for the environment, CAFOs are something to carefully critically consider before you source your food from them if you have choice in the matter. silvopasture and holistic grazing though? productive ecological restoration, we got a lot of work to do y’all, let’s make it real! peace be upon you
Love the way a forest floor is rich with roots. On a lawn or garden the roots you find are mostly of the plants proximate to them. In the woods, the soil is a fluff of organic matter and roots with nonspecific sources, almost impenetrable within its tightly woven softness. Roots everywhere, fibrous strands making up for lack of girth with their ubiquity.
I imagine this is akin to wizards (wise peoples): even if there is no apparent shoot (above ground plant), there’s likely a foundation full of fibrous roots. The source of those roots is effectively known yet ineffible: it’s from the trees! Sure, which one? It could hardly be said, and to declare it would neglect the interconnectedness of the root zone.
That said, is the wizard akin to a tree in that sense or to a forest? And how about the wizards woven through the world? An unseen sangha. שׁלום