All Blog Posts (445)

Swale sunflower at dawn:

This post is a series of photos showing the swales and the progression of shaping and cover crop growth over the 3 months since installation (End of June).

There will be 3 consecutive photos of each swale. at 2 weeks,  at 6 weeks and at 3 months.

Swale 1 at 2 weeks:

Swale 1 at 6…

Reblogged from Integral Permaculture.

"Take it from the Lummis (which describes their story in a nutshell) regarding the wisdom of believing promises sworn to by the government, or by the corporations pulling its (purse) strings."

So begins this month's "Just Thinking" column in the Whatcom Watch by my good friend Philip Damon. Phil's column this month, "…

Disturbing news from southeast Africa today, that bodes ill for NW coal schemes exploiting the existing North American rail infrastructure, which alone makes Powder River Basin coal of any economic value.

Any way you look at it, it’s a lose-lose-lose scenario of a race to the environmental and economic bottom for the people of Mozambique, for the people of the Pacific NW, and for the people of the world bearing climate decay.

Exports from one of the poorest countries…

Since finishing the swale installation we have had dry weather. So I have been watering the newly planted covercrops and grass on the swales. I also continued shaping the berms, ditches and spillways.

The following is a series of photos showing the changes. The first photo in each set was taken at 2 weeks after the initial installation. The 2nd photo in each set shows 6 weeks after installation.

Swale 1 at 2 weeks:

Swale 1 at 6…

Reblogged from my Integral Permaculture blog...

I know, it sounds like a subject best left to professional planners, politicians, and policy wonks. But it turns out to be a really important piece that is shaping the character and landscape of Whatcom County. Perhaps more importantly it plays a role in our ability to become more resilient by preserving fertile farmland for the purpose of feeding our…

Reblogged from my Integral Permaculture blog...

A couple of months ago there was a piece in the National Journal that put a spotlight on our humble county, and caught some local attention:…

Planning the 2nd Annual Whatcom SkillShare Faire- a really fabulous TRANSITION WHATCOM event!  We are now recruiting people with skills to share, and volunteers to help make this big event happen...held this year on September 21-22 at Hovander Park in Ferndale. It is great fun, all kinds of cool skillshares, food, amazing music, camping, and more- for the whole family.  Go to www.whatcomskillsharefaire.org to sign up! 

It's been about 2-1/2 weeks since we finished the swale installation at our place.

Since then I have continued to shape the swale ditches, spillways and berms. And planted grass seed in the ditches. I've made the angle of the ditch walls wider so it will be easier to scythe the grass that grows on it later.

A deer got in and ate most of the leaves off the little apple tree that David planted. I hope it can recover.

For one of the spillways I carved a shallow serpentine…

Catechism for a Witch’s Child

When they ask to see your gods

your book of prayers

show them lines

drawn delicately with veins

on the underside of a bird’s wing

tell them you believe

in giant sycamores mottled

and stark against a winter sky

and in nights so frozen

stars crack open spilling

streams of molten ice to earth

and tell them how you drink

a holy wine of honeysuckle

on a…

Cue Johnny Mathis, singing "It's that most wonderful time of the year!"

I'm not talking about Christmas, however.  I'm talking about that time of year when the fresh, local fruits collide.  When you're getting the last of the Strawberries, the first of the Blueberries, and the peak of the raspberries!  I love how nature spaces out the fruit season so wonderfully!

These were picked minutes ago from our small but growing berry plants, including the above, plus red and black…

Initially there was a "problem"...too much water in the landscape. And I wanted to get rid of some of this water so we could expand our growing season on better drained soil. Through this process of designing and creating swales I've changed my perspective and don't see the water as a "problem" to be exported. Brian has taught that it's more a matter of working with the resource in a way that maximizes it's many attributes through gently…

Yesterday we finished constructing the swales. The morning's project included moving gravel, filling and finishing off the sink holes with soil so they were level with the rest of the swale ditch. We got an early start as we knew it would be a hot day. We were joined by Jerry Schuster, Laura Sellens and Keith Marteny. Thanks you guys for lending your strength and lively spirits to the work.  Here's how the morning went:

First Brian and David made "socks" out of landscape fabric to…

Reblogged from my Integral Permaculture site.

Permaculture Principle #5: Use and Value Renewable Resources

“Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-renewable…

First we'd like to thank those who participated last weekend in our swale making event. Thanks to Brian Kerkvliet who taught us and led us every step of the way. He did so with an easy going attitude and a passion for this work that he loves to do as well as a fantastic amount of knowledge.

Thanks to Larry Williams who operated the excavator. Janaki Kilgore and Kevin Finnigan participate from beginning to end, learning and working on every aspect of the project. Special thanks to…

More preparations for our swale making event....

Excavator: We decide which excavator would be the smallest that will still do the job. The smaller the machine the less weight and so the less compacting of the soil. We actually did the research weeks ago. Brian decided which one he'd like to use and I called around to compare prices for renting one. He decided on a Kabota KX 41:…

Using the map of the elevation lines on the property to roughly gauge where the contours are, David used the A frame to plot the course of contour lines across the property where we plan to carve the swales.

Using this map with elevation contour lines:

2010_AP_wContourLinesFeet.pdf

Using a level and a plumb line to find the level spots at this contour…

1% of the water a tree takes up is for photosynthesis. 

5% of the water a tree intakes is for 'making new cells'.

What happens to the rest of the water? Or rather, what is the rest of the water used for?

David built this A frame with a plumb line:

OK I thought it was going to be easy to describe how you use the A frame to mark the contour lines of the land....but it's actually difficult to put into words. So I'm including a couple videos that do a decent job of showing and explaining it.

Check out these videos on how to use an A…