Anne apRoberts
Summer Has Been Good
Summer Has Been Good

Summer Has Been Good

We have been really busy with summer work, especially the gardens and the greenhouse. We are learning more and more about growing food and relating to the plant kingdom.

We make our own soil for the greenhouse beds from horse manure, ashes, red worms, old hay and compost. It takes about 3-6 months, depending on the season, to have the soil ready to use. It is such a delight to lift up the tarp and find beautiful soil, organic and rich with nutrients.

Mr. Vole has been our challenge for many years and this year we decided to line the beds with wire mess. Good bye Mr. Vole! It really works and it is the only thing we have found that really works. What a difference it makes to our crops.

Our lemon cucumbers reached the ceiling of the greenhouse with 10 plants in a 10 X 4 raised bed. We tied them up as they grew and they are still putting out lots of cucumbers. The bees and bugs love all the blossoms. When you walk in the greenhouse you hear a symphony of buzzing.

We created a 'squash teepee' for our winter squash plants. It is about 15 feet wide and 15 feet high. By August it was 3/4 filled with hanging squash plants. All the bees a buzz'in in and out.  The equines didn't touch any of it because they don't like the squash. We harvested most of the squash and several are still growing in the teepee. Next year we are going to add a bean teepee... and hope the equines don't like beans.

 

 

 

Coming Home to Rainbows

We were recently having a discussion on sustainability and what were the basic elements that would create sustainability.  One person thought that our technological advancement would be a major element by freeing people from mundane work.  Another agreed because we could have clean, adequate housing with all the utilities in place and that would free us up more to create a sustainable world. When asked, “Now that you don’t have to grow your food or produce your housing or work for your utilities, what would you do with your time?”  One person said they would have the time to create more ways to make the world sustainable. The other said they would travel and talk to people and teach sustainable living.  Another person said, ‘What about your relationship to the land? Another responded with, ‘You could go and visit forests and parks and then come back to your clean and safe place to live.  You would have the best of both worlds. Granted these responses do not represent a wide range of thought but I think they speak for many people. For me the question is, ‘Is technology sustainable in any form?’ We know that many of the older forms of power and transportation lay a heavy burden on the earth.  What about the newer forms of energy like solar and wind and water power?  The materials needed to build the factories and the technologies are creating pollution and using up resources.  How long do these technologies last and how do we get rid of the old ones? Are we caught in a cycle of do we pollute to create and pollute to recycle? I think we are advancing in our evolution. I think we are going ahead in the right direction into an understanding of ourselves and each other and what it will take to manage this world sustainably. The appropriate answers as to exactly how to make the next leap may not be visible yet. I think that there are other questions we need to ask, like; what would the great mother want? How would the creatures like our lifestyles? How does the land itself feel about the ways we farm and live? How well will the people fare as they become more and more removed from the land and the animals? Were we given paradise to turn it into a concrete techno reality that lets us go places faster and bypass manual work so we can use our brains without our bodies? Where we given paradise to relegate the beauty and abundance of this world into parks and historical museums? I don’t think we are to abandon technology. I don’t think we are to abandon our relationship with the natural order of this world either.  The answer can’t lie in bigger, better, faster. The answer has to embrace the gift of paradise we were given to LIVE IN. Put the people back on the land and create technology that does not destroy the land or the people. We have to restore paradise and learn to live in it not outside it, not cover it with concrete and buildings that don’t even allow fresh air to breathe and that turn people’s lives into robotic functions that make them sick and unhappy.

We can make this transition. We are meant to make this transition, but we will only be able to make it if we stay focused on the source of lives, the earth.