I was very happy to have been able to spend a couple days recently
with one of my best friends on his new farm. Being a country boy at heart I was
simply overjoyed to be able to connect with the land again. My friend John is
getting his farm established and right now has quite a good assortment of
livestock, from pigs and ducks to rabbits and gorgeous highland cows.
While I was there I helped to build a couple more pig pens
and pulled fence posts from a field to re-purpose them in the pens. I also
milked a goat he has and drank some milk right out of the pale, something I
haven’t done since I was a kid. It was great!
There were also a couple farm kittens there that were
extremely cute. One is black and the other is grey. They are polydactyl cats
with 6+ toes on each front foot. I played with them as much as I could and also
was able to get some video of them playing around. I love cats!
All in all it was an amazing visit and I look forward to
going back to help out again. I hope to have some land of my own one day. I definitely
did not want to come home to the rat race of Huntsville after being there.
I have been fascinated by mushrooms for years! How they appear
out of seemingly nowhere, how delicate and sublimely beautiful. They embody the
whimsical nature of fantasy, and yet in many cases cause people to steer clear
for fear of poisoning. They are brief in their existence and so have generated
a sense of mystery to use humans who eat certain varieties for both culinary and
vision inducing purposes.
Oh how I love mushrooms! I have been photographing them over
the last few years. It is like a grand treasure hunt for the smallest of
wonders. I often find them in the strangest and most remote places on my treks
through the forest. Under rotting logs, inside old trees, high up on a rock
face, everywhere you can imagine!
Each new find causes an inspiration in me that brings new
drawings to life. Ideas of little worlds and whole civilizations that live in
the shroomy forest grow in my mind until they find a way out into the world
through words or art. I have created a whole world with a race called the Wee’Ones,
a tiny species of ‘people’ that are intimately connected to the mushrooms of
the forest. They embody the jovial side of human nature that seeks to come out
in the most awkward and inopportune times. They are pranksters and poets and architects
of grand structures of small stature. Indeed I do spend quite some time in my
mind walking through the simple dwelling and vaulted cathedrals of the small
mushrooms of the forest.
As it turns out, there are many people who are drawn to this
strange flora. It seems that humans are deeply connected to this mystical plant
and are drawn to it in many different ways. Either through food or art or
games, sometimes stories; there is always a way in which we can enjoy
mushrooms.
In the last year I have started to use a wood lath and
quickly found myself drawn to making mushrooms on it. These little wooden sculptures
caused quite a stir among some of my friends and I was urged to continue to
explore making mushrooms on the lathe. One slow work day I was sitting at with
my ideas sketch book and was drawing out different shapes when an idea came,
why could I not make an incense burner that was also a mushroom? Needless to
say, I was smitten with some kind of mushroom frenzy until I finally got a
design that I liked. I went off to the lathe and created a bunch of different
incense burners. I tested different styles and configurations and am continuing
to refine them slowly.
I took the first two I had made down to some friends working
the local new age store, lit up some incense
and watched them both smile from ear to ear. After thirty minutes of talk and
watching the smoke curl up and around the mushroom caps I walked out of there with
a handful of money and short two mushrooms.
As is usually the case with me, I got excited about this and
went out to buy all the supplies I would need to streamline the whole process.
I made ten more mushrooms on the lathe and then…I found something else to get
excited about! OK, so this is not new for me but it is very funny that I now
have ten mushroom incense burners sitting all over the place. I do hope to get
back up to the shop and make some more, maybe sell them to local shops, or even
put them on eBay.
My mushroom Mania comes and goes from time to time but it is
always there in the background. Whether I’m drawing, photographing,
researching, or growing them they are always there in the back of my mind,
inviting me to engage in another fantasy that could take me, well, anywhere!
Last year was the first year of the Donation Garden Project
that I started in order to grow food for some local charities, the Table food
Bank, and Chrysalis Women’s Shelter. The last two summers have taught me a lot
about organizing community and volunteer events, long term volunteer management
as well as opening me up to a variety of new gardening challenges.
The donation Garden Project originally wasn’t meant to be at
all. I had intended to create a rooftop gardening initiative in Huntsville which
got downsized to a living wall project when I realized that the resources
simply were not there to commit to such a large project as rooftop gardening.
Thenafter some time the vertical
gardening idea collapsed under the weight of permits, bylaws and again, money.
It was around this time that I saw an article in the local
paper that was announcing the first meeting of what would become the Huntsville
environment group, and later on, Transition Town Huntsville Muskoka. At the
meeting I put both my proposals out for the rooftop and vertical gardening
projects. They were both well received and there was even talk about fund
raising for various ‘green’ projects, these included.
It became readily apparent that any funds that were to come
would come at a much later time and so I switched yet again to focus on a more
mainstream gardening method, and the Donation Garden Project was born. The
environment group volunteered their time and labor to help with the creation of
the first gardens. In total we had four gardens tended sporadically by six to
ten people on and off throughout the summer. I was overseeing three of the
gardens and so I spent my time going to each and making sure that they were
kept up.
By the end of the harvest that year (2011) we had collected
and donated just over one thousand pounds of food to the local charities. What
put us over that mark was an apple picking day that we organized to pick apples
from a local untended orchard in Huntsville. Nearly two hundred and fifty
pounds of apples were collected and donated.
This year saw a change in the structure of the project with
all but one of the garden being taken in other charitable directions. The
garden that remains this year is being tended by my mother and myself and has
been truly spectacular in both the way it has been tended and how little labour
and resources it has required.
We have grown squash, tomatoes, broccoli and potatoes this
year, which is one third of the variety that was planted last year. Refining
our selection of the plants allowed us to specialize in how each one was
planted. Where last year the planting was chaotic and haphazard, this summer
the planting was quite orderly with great consideration for the plants
individual needs.
I focused on making the garden both low maintenance and
water efficient. As it would only be the two of us tending the garden it was necessary
to make sure we were not overwhelmed by the work as last year there was five
people tending to it. The building site that the garden is located on also does
not have any accessible water, so all the water must be carried in from our
homes. We ended up only having to bring
in ten gallons of water per week in the beginning and one every one to two
weeks as the garden took hold. We also only spent about an hour a week at the
garden tending, with most of that dedicated to trimming the grass around the
plot!
Forty broccolis were planted ten per row and four rows.
Straw was placed around them lightly to help keep the moisture in the soil. The
plants grew very well and very fast until a friendly neighborhood groundhog got
hungry and over the course of a week ate it all down to the ground. Surprisingly
they did make a comeback and have produced a meager helping of greens. Some was
harvested but it came so sporadic that most of the small amount went to seed,
which the local bees have loved!
The squash was initially planted alongside a chain-link
fence and were being trained up it. After some concerns for the fence by the
homeowner they were removed from the fence and have since flourished in the
ground beside it. There are Hubbard and spaghetti squash planted with about 20
squash growing on the vines at the moment.
The 78 tomato plants were planted using a technique I saw on the
internet that was used by farmers in Africa to combat the frequent lack of rain
there. It involves creating wide, deep, earthen berms around where the plants
are to be placed. Then after they have been planted the crater created by the
berm is covered with biomass, which in this case was straw. This allowed any
rainfall to channel down to the stalk of the plant and the straw helped to keep
the moisture in and prevent excessive evaporation out of the soil. Here is a
drawing of how it is done.
In the beginning of the summer after the tomatoes were
planted we were watering each plant about a cup of water every other day. That was
reduced to about a cup of water per week per plant. This was sufficient even
during a six week heat spell and drought that hit in June-July. The plants are
carrying so much fruit that we have had to re-stake every plant, including the
bush tomatoes. It has been quite the experience with them so far!
Lastly, the potato plot was designed as a straw bed. I came
across this technique a couple years ago. It is a garden plot that involves
placing newsprint on the grass or earth 4-5 sheets thick. On top of that you
spread 4-5 inches of compost or aged manure. The seed potatoes go on this
layer, and on top of them goes a very thick layer of straw. We added straw
twice in the early summer as it settled and have ended up with a 1 ½ foot thick
layer of straw. After this is done it is a matter of waiting for harvest.
The potato plot is one of the marvels of this garden this
year. It is a large 15x20 foot plot that has never been watered or tended in
any way beyond the initial setup. Harvesting is as simple as pulling the plants
out of the straw and shaking the potatoes off of it! I am looking forward to
this year’s harvest and have several people waiting to see it as well.
All in all it has been a great experience and we are all
looking forward to the harvest!
One of the machines listed in the Global VillageConstruction Set (GVCS) on the Open Source Ecology website is the hammermill/shedder. This machine is to be used to reduce the size of biomass passed
through it. This may be anything from wood scraps left over from construction
to corn stalks left over after harvesting that will be used as cattle feed. It
can also be used to mill grain or shred yard waste. Large hammer mills can be
used to shred entire tree stumps, concrete or rock.
The basic design of a hammer mill uses sets of metal hammer
that spin around an axel. Small units usually operate at high speeds whereas
large units usually operate at low speeds.The axel(s) are placed in a case with an opening to allow material in, and
an opening with a screen over it to allow only materials of sufficiently small
size to exit. The material being fed into the mill is smashed by the spinning
hammers which render it down to a size small enough to pass through the screen
and fall down into a container or onto a conveyer belt or the ground. Some
specialty high speed mills are able to smash minerals and rocks, while the majority
of hammer mills are used on organic materials.
The hammer mill I am designing is small and of fairly common
design. These preliminary drawings have been done so I could better understand
all the parts that make up the mill. Not all of the parts are named correctly as of yet. I need to look over an existing mill schematic to get all the names down right.
I still have to reference existing mills
to find out the average thicknesses and sizes of the steel used. I would like
to mill to be about 1.5-2 feet in diameter and would use an electric motor to
power it.
The interchangeable power source in the GVCS is called a
Power Cube. It is a gas engine coupled to hydraulic pumps that provides power
through pressurized hydraulic fluid. In this respect it is likely that a hammer
mill in the GVCS would have to able to use a hydraulic motor of sorts. For the
time being I am going to move forward with an electric motor, but keeping in
mind the size and shape of a hydraulic motor.
It seems like I always has so many projects on the go that I
do not know where to begin. I tend to start half a dozen things at once and
slowly plod through them, some falling by the wayside to make room for new
things and ideas. I love to think things through and solve problems, as well as
loving to do things with my hands. I enjoy building things and learning new
methods and ways of creating them. To that end I find myself here.
I am going to try to keep track of all of my endeavors,
ideas, schemes, and projects here and will try to stay on top of keeping things
updated. I tend to become obsessed about something very intensely for a while
and then move one, only to return later on and work some more.
Here I will briefly go over some of the stuff I’m working
on.
Community garden initiative – the Donation Garden
Project I started in Huntsville ON, Canada. It is in its second year and
currently has one active garden producing tomatoes, potatoes, broccoli, and
squash. All of the produce grown is donated to a local women’s shelter and
others in the community who need it.
Open source technology – I first learned about the
open source movement in early 2011 and have since become active on the Open Source Ecology forums. On the forums people of varied background and skills
come together to share ideas to create open source hardware that will be used
to create sustainable communities in the future. My ongoing projects that tie
in with OSE forums include a nearly completed solar foundry prototype for use
in melting metals and glass as well as a new hammer mill design project.
Business modeling – I have been working on a
cooperatively owned business model that would allow for equal wage and rights
in a manufacturing or other business environments.
Other ideas – Preliminary brainstorming on a wake
brake system for reducing harmful boat wake, locally sourced ethanol
production, water/wetland restoration designs, street water runoff rafts, and
there are too many others…
All in all there are a bunch of things that I would like to
get done, and so little time to do them in. Lets see where it all goes!
