Sustainability
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June’s last day marks the beginning of my hiatus from farm work. The orchard’s chief apple officer confirmed they need me in the sales barn this year. My manager emailed me back to set a starting date. Apple season is set and I can focus on other things in July. For the first time this… Read more
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With recent moves to reduce the number of government advisory panels, overturn the Obama administration’s clean power plan, and increase the speed with which logging permits are approved in national forests, the Trump administration plows the field of deregulation in a way libertarians and conservatives could previously only dream about. They have gone too far.… Read more
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The garden was muddy making it difficult to plant… so I waited. For exercise I took a walk on the state park trail, 20 minutes out and 20 minutes back… with stops for photos. Although the pace was slow, I could feel the benefit of the walk. It energized me to install the deer fence… Read more
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An innovation I discovered at a political event was an open air composter made from shipping pallets. At Jean and Jix Lloyd-Jones home they had a composter similar to what’s in the image outside their kitchen door leading to the yard. During the last few years I secured some pallets and made one. It works… Read more
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I walked due east from the garden along the utility easement to access a 25-acre stand of woods at the point where deer enter. Deer are a constant presence in the neighborhood, especially during apple season, and I try to live in harmony with them by understanding what they will and won’t eat, and by… Read more
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The rush to use ingredients is upon us and the garden isn’t even fully planted. After watering I made the rounds of six garden plots and harvested radishes, turnips, spring onions, lettuce, broccoli and kale… lots of kale. I had planned to take a big box of kale to a political event in Cedar Rapids… Read more
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We have a problem with climate change. I don’t intend to get alarmist on fair readers with dire predictions of the end of the world as we know it. Even though doomsday stories are quite popular, and climate science is, well science, there is another issue. In our weird, wet spring weather we believe we… Read more
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I ran into a couple of neighbors at the well house while receiving a shipment of chlorine for our water treatment plant. They were checking to see if the dehumidifiers had dried out the well pit after the rain. They had. We got to talking about the wet spring, polar vortex and the weather generally… Read more
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Ideas about how to cook are ubiquitous. Everyone — family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, chefs, dish washers, dieticians and scientists — has something to say about it. Almost everyone cooks. Talk about cooking can be devilishly engaging. Are there things we can do in our kitchen to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis? It’s not… Read more
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