It dawned on me that what I was witnessing was a near perfect example of a local economy in action.  And when Andy started talking specifically about economics, which he will do if pressed although normally he is quiet and reserved, he “brought home” the significance of what I was looking at. He and Jan delight in their frugal life style which is the main reason they can afford to keep on being such small farmers producing such high quality food. Their house, partly underground, is modest and environmentally sane. They heat it with their own wood cut and split from their own woodlot. Parts of the house and of other buildings are made from salvaged  materials. They raise most of the food they eat, obviously. They are keen practitioners of home medicine. They are very artful recyclers of material our wasteful society throws away. And they are content with their lives. “We would rather do without many things that modern society strives for,” Andy says, “so as to have the time to grow really good food while enjoying the natural and spiritual world around us. We could expand, work ourselves to distraction and make more money. We choose to avoid that trap.” I have used Andy’s observation about their life style before: “It is rather easy to live comfortably below the so-called cost of living because the government keeps raising the index.” This is something that today’s society needs to hear, especially now that the international economy has come near to collapse because so many people are so unwilling to live sensibly and have therefore borrowed  themselves into bankruptcy.

Full article here

Star Trail Final Cut, originally uploaded by Tourista de Mancunia.

Star Trail Final Cut

Oh dear I feel like I have violated the whole universe by uploading a video to Flickr! Eeeek! Well technically it is photography, infact lots of photography, 98shots in total. Taken over the course of an hour, 30secs each, wrapped up into a neat little 3fps video, complete with cheesy titles. Hopefully this will be the first of many, I do have a still image of the whole hour which is composed of all 98 shots but because it clouded over towards the end its a bit, er, meh, not that good. Promise to wait till its really clear to try again and you will get a better idea of what I was trying to do.

Enjoy! It was fun, well not the waiting one hour, with the back door open (in Salford) or infact trying to blow up my laptop to process and make it, of just bloody watch it, it'll be over before you know it ;-)

EDIT Oh dear just spotted image quality is well poop gutted! Looks great on my desktop honest. Oh god what have I done! Gene Hunt and the Flickr police will be at my door any minute!

**EDIT AGAIN**

For Dan's benefit...

When salsify flowers go to seed they create the most enormous fluffy globe. They are like giant dandelions. I think they are beautiful. Our yard is full of them right now. Maybe I should make some really big wishes.

The view from a perfect day:

Dreamy sunset in my backyard:

I hear an unusual amount of geese honking outside my house. Seeing one or two geese in the water is not unusual, but I looked out the window and saw this:

I counted at least 19 over there and then 9 more over here (3 in the water, 2 on land and 4 babies!)

Elliott notices too:

A little goose family!

Bye, Geese!

That's right. Food. Beautiful food growing up from the ground. Broccoli heads starting to come forth and cabbage starting to wind tight together in the center--- its big purple leaves dripping with last night's rain. Food has never looked so good to me than when it looks at me with colors and shapes from my own backyard.

I went out this morning to clip some lettuce for my lunch today. I harvested arugula and frisee, red lettuce and buttercrunch and mixed this with some baby greens I pulled to thin out the romaine a bit. I piled it high and wanted so badly to invite someone over who has never had "spring mix" before in their lives to share it with me and my wife at our table. A quick aside: we eat on the table that my grandfather used to butcher on---don't worry, it is clean. It has been very interesting, and telling, for me to watch my garden grow a spot inside my own soul, growing in the dirt with the rain and the sun and worm castings, while at the same time growing something too underneath my skin---a great big hospitality plant with broad leaves and I hope roots that are deeper still, though time will tell whether this great passion in me to share good food with those who don't usually eat good food, is just a seed that springs up quickly only to later wilt in the hot sun, or it winds up being one of those things that somebody somewhere will want to talk about a generation from now like I did about canning with my grandmother.

My garden is just under 60 square feet and it will feed both my wife and I a fantastic salad for lunch today and more tomorrow. Imagine what a roof-top garden could do on the top of every flat roof in Columbus Ohio. Imagine the food we could grow if we tore down the fence between my backyard and yours and we planted a justice garden that was "30 X 50 feet or larger" (a quote from the US Government Campaign To Promote The Production, Sharing and Proper User of Food).

Little Princess Me

In My Backyard

video, DVDpal, 2003

i live near the base of a ridge, on the western southern exposure, in a valley in the siskyou mountains of southern oregon.  although it is still february, and rain has indeed returned after a few glorious, deliriously spring-like sunny days, this february is incredibly different (in terms of temperature alone, about fifty degrees different) than the minnesota februaries of grayness and bitter cold that marked my upbringing.  living here in the state of jefferson, in comparison, feels like an all-inclusive trip to the bahamas.   

 last weekend i took a hike up the ridge, which is sunny and dry, populated mostly by old manzanitas and a few madrones, white oaks, and old pines.  the manzanitas are dying off as the landscape changes and the douglas firs move in.  a few patches, which look like they might have experienced fire sometime in the fairly distant past, have large stands of red root (ceanothus) shrubs.  the ridge features a ditch and a wall dug by chinese migrant workers in the days of the wild west and railroad booms.  the ditch is overgrown with honeysuckle, wild strawberry, and poison oak. 

on my walk, i was astonished by all of the early signs of spring.  i saw a few frogs and butterflies, and at night i've begun to hear frog serenades aplenty.  some of the wild strawberry flowers have bloomed, lifting their five bright yellow petals up towards the sun.  the shooting stars have their purple blooms pursed and are about ready to burst open.  the poison oak has buds, which means hikes will be a bit less safe fairly soon.  around here, late winter is truly the time to hike these western and southern faces! 

 i also noticed a stand of arrowleaf balsamroot, which was exciting.  i'm learning more and more about the new western plants, and i'm especially interested in the medicinals and those with traditional and historical ethnobotanical uses by all the different people who've lived around here over time.  every new plant i notice and identify seems like a minor miracle. 

 as spring really begins, i will be updating my backyard discoveries. 

IMG_2392

Originally uploaded by red tide

Sadie... just enjoying the snow.

My altimeter showed a 2,600ft ascent, but it's barometer based, so it's not quite that precise.

Of course Terrell didn't like that and he had to wash me off, but boy it was good while it lasted.

I had a good day today too. I played with the big dogs at the dog park. I haven't told you about the DP yet. One of my favorite places is the Dog Park (aka the DP) at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer State Park. (That’s Diane Sawyer’s daddy).The Louisville Dog Run Association (LDRA) http://www.louisvilledogs.com created this great place just for dogs and their people to go play together like one big family! There’s an all dogs side and a small dog side. I usually like the small dog side better because they’re more fun to play with. They like to run and fetch and wrestle like I do. The big dogs have fun too, but they get a little too rough and if they can catch me they try to sit on me; I don’t like that. Some of my friends are Mo Ling, Billy, Emma, Toby, Pebbles, Mini, Lorna, Gus, and Annie. Some of their pictures are here. To see more pictures go to the http://www.louisvilledogs.com. Dogs come to the DP from all over the city and even from Indiana to play together, so it’s really a wonderful place to make new friends.

Anyway, tonight there weren't any dogs on the small dog side, so I decided to go to the big dog side and see who was there. Well, the whole gang was there...Annie and Luke, and Moe and a bunch more - I didn't get all the names. Things move pretty quick at the DP you know. Gotta roll with the punches and go with the flow if you know what I mean, and I held my own. Didn't let those big guys push me around. I just went for the ball and got it!! Now I know I can play over there anytime.

The big wild area has lots of trees and leaves and flowers and moles and chipmunks and birds and lots of fun stuff to play with! I love to run around there while Terrell and Mary are doing people stuff. There’s a big log I can walk over to get to the other side of the stream; there’s tall grass, and tall flowers, and so many smells I can hardly stand it sometimes! The stream even has little fish in it. I haven’t learned how to swim yet, so I only go wading, but some day I’d like to play with the fish too.