Green Darner Farm

Original webmaster moves on/ changing of the guard

2007-10-21T07:33:00.000-07:00

Here it is October 2007 already, and I (the original designer of this page) have moved on to another state/ another farm, but the residents of Green Darner Farm will hopefully add more to this blog in the near future; and, if you know 'em--be sure and prod them to do so!
Thanks for all of the feedback on this project, and please visit me at my other blog-
Mindwrecker.blogger.com
Cheers!

WINNOWING the first Wheat Crop

2007-06-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

Cleaning the combine-- I just missed an excellent shot of just his legs sticking out of the hopper. One must keep a clean machine and blow out all of the material between grain harvests--natch!
In go the grains/out goes the chaff...

We have tarps down to catch the blown-off material for the chickens; those lucky chickens.

View from inside as the grains come down the tube to the bin.

Does keep those pesky coyotes down...
More live wheat action. Mmmmm--lotsa good food for the year. We ground and ate some in crepes immediately after processing, and boy were they delicious.
This year's wheat harvest is mixed with a lot of volunteer barley from last season....pretty much contaminating the load--but it still tastes fine.
A panel from "Diggy The Derrick", whose story will soon be up in full online at http://mindwrecker.blogspot.com/

The fish lady, an old painting of mine; here for no particular reason.
Same for Heino-buddy here.

Chicken Delight

2007-06-07T14:44:00.000-07:00

As promised- a short post to show some very new chick photos from last night.
But first- a neighbor of ours-
A delightful pic stolen from NICK CAIN (below)....it's here because of the chart that some of us were looking at this morning showing various world powers and their relative "bank accounts", which had USA at the bottom of the chart, with the biggest deficit of all.
And 3,500 solidiers dead in Iraq so far and counting...
Ephemera: handbill from a 1919 Missouri livestock company.
Anyone else notice how this country's press isn't paying much attention to "super-cyclonic storm" GONU ? Hmmmm. And it's heading right for the world's most busy oil supply port. And it's taking that area to the cleaners, since they're not built for it.
Bad chicky- No! Don't peck our house!

"The first dream that one has in a new house, or when sleeping under a new quilt, will nearly always come true--many mountain girls are anxious to "dream out" a new quilt or coverlet. The same may be said of a dream related before breakfast, or of one dreamed on Friday and told on Saturday:
Friday night's dream, on Saturday told,
Will always come true, no matter how old.
......Some people are accustomed to place a knife under the dreamer's pillow, to prevent nightmares. I once noticed a small girl, not more than ten years old, sleeping with the handle of an enormous homemade bowie knife sticking out from under her pillow. "Maizie used to wake up a-hollerin'," the mother told me, "but since I put that knife under the piller, we ain't had no more trouble."
Vance Randolph, Ozark Magic and Folklore

Freshwater fish
More ground-level portraits of the birdies.

I think this is the rarest one we have--it looks like that fella with the extra toes and the turkey-shaped head.
Mom pouring out some chicken salad.
"... There is, then, something which is always moved with an unceasing motion, which is motion in a circle; and this is plain not in theory only but in fact. Therefore the first heaven must be eternal. There is therefore also something which moves it. And since that which is moved and moves is intermediate, there is something which moves without being moved, being eternal, substance, and actuality. And the object of desire and the object of thought move in this way; they move without being moved. The primary objects of desire and of thought are the same. For the apparent good is the object of appetite, and the real good is the primary object of rational wish. But desire is consequent on opinion rather than opinion on desire; for the thinking is the starting-point. And thought is moved by the object of thought, and one of the two columns of opposites is in itself the object of thought; and in this, substance is first, and in substance, that which is simple and exists actually. (The one and the simple are not the same; for "one" means a measure, but "simple" means that the thing itself has a certain nature.) But the beautiful, also, and that which is in itself desirable are in the same column; and the first in any class is always best, or analogous to the best."
Aristotle, The First Cause

BIRD PARTY (flood irrigation brings on a)

2007-06-05T18:27:00.001-07:00

Yes all of the local birds came out the last couple of days for the feasting when the fields fill up. Even our local female turkey got into the act, but was annoyed by an amorous pheasant. ....Hard to get close and get nice pics without a longer lens--which I have on my 35mm--but that's a bit slow for here...Nice to see some birds about that haven't visited in a few weeks....We've all been setting lots of siphons lately.
The sunchokes are doing nicely.

Well, now - there's another use for those old pitchforks we have in that barrel in the yard....
New patio/porch under way...

Some nice recipes to clip out for your index card recipe file book. Or scrapbook. You all have one of those, right? Anyhoo - I often pull a few extra images at almost random from my library and the Hillbilly Recipes book called out to me today:
A bit of the old hunt and peck.
Those bad chickens! I want to shoot some more pics this week to show how enormous they are getting...some are nearly 5 foot now and show no signs of slowing down. It's totally like Food Of The Gods.
Steam generators are as hip as ever. they make new ones in Missouri. These could've helped out during Katrina a heck of a lot. This is quite the setup that this lady has! Banging out some big loads of laundry.

Again on the topic of random things popping up in books, the above image grabbed me yesterday and the caption also was interesting. Here it is from the 1934 issue, cover by John Howitt:------------
"Over the whole continent, little children clung whimpering to the skirts of distraught mothers, crying piteously for food. One of the most brilliant men in America, a national figure--backed by a powerful, efficient organization--drunk on ambition and the promise of supreme power, controlled all the reserve supplies of the land. Hosts of voracious insects, bred at his command, were laying the plains waste, devouring all green things. Incendiarism and lootings daily depleted the shrinking store of government-owned foodstuffs. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse laughed in their saddles as they thundered their mocking call of doom--forewarning the slavery of a proud race of men. One man alone--Jimmy Christopher--can check their wild onslaught. Only he, Operator 5, can outwit the madman monarch!"

Just like our place...
The combine all lubed-up, hooked-up, and ready to go get those grains.

IF ONLY U.S.A. WOULD SUPPORT CLEANER POWER MODELS

2007-05-31T09:07:00.000-07:00

I'm riled-up by news of new regulations trying to be pushed through by the powers-that-be in Washington to further squash WIND and SOLAR energy development and use by anyone but the richest, most-subsidized farmers and consumers. They teach alternative power types in schools and yet when these same students enter the real world- they'll find that the HUGE COSTS of "professional design" and "inspection" of even the most minimal home off-grid power systems are WAY beyond their reach.
How sweet it would be instead if the government could create programs to make it attractive and possible for ALL economic brackets to experiment with solar and wind power. Some systems, such as windmills, require much tweaking and fussing, re: location and wiring setup, before you can dial in the correct configuration for your needs. But if you've paid enormous amounts already to just get "design & approval" for ONE type of setup--you're stuck.
What a shame. When we could be joining the REST of the planet by HELPING people use cleaner energy forms.

Mom and Pop and lower-income families COULD be provided with some programs to help them achieve this- and yet our government is instead trying to make it harder than ever to put up ONE freaking windmill on their farm to generate electricity.
The message is as clear as ever: OIL, GAS, COAL, NUCLEAR, AND MORE OIL are the methods approved by our great leaders. Anything else just doesn't make the OIL MOBSTERS enough money.
And unfortunately the OIL MOB has been running things (why are we at war, for instance?) for a long time.
It's just really really sad- our obsession with private vehicles and planet-killing "freedoms" has led us to ridiculous fake-o "solutions" like ethanol, which is wasting lots of good farmland and resources, and doesn't even get real mileage---it's harder on the planet than OIL, for heaven's sake!
A shame, really, when once again, the U.S. could set a great example (since we already consume SO much more power and resources per person than ANY country anywhere) by PROMOTING less oil dependence.
STOP THE PRESSES: This just in: (June 1st) Perhaps you read my recent BlogSpot "jest" about the "Peak-Beer Shortages"-? Well now it appears that there WILL be a possible TEQUILA shortage. Why? Because more farmers are leaving behind food crops/agave/anything useful, to run and grow CORN for the ETHANOL BOONDOGGLE. Yes, farmers in Mexico, who are no doubt in even more desperate straights than their U.S. brethren, are now switching their fields over to fuel-production to try and stay solvent. Thus furthering the RULING CLASS PROGRAM for the Overall Culling Of The Unwanted/Overabundant Masses. And cutting-back on our tequila supply. Gulp-!

Sorry pal---- if you wire up your OWN system (and of course I can understand why they don't want just ANYONE wiring up off-grid systems) you better watch out for Mr. Inspector Man a-comin' to hit you with the BIG fine!
EVERYTHING right now depends on oil. Our food supply, EVERYTHING. We gotta get this turned-around. The privations and shortages that are DEFINITELY coming are going to be hard on us all! Expect your electricity and gas supplier to soon deny service on certain days (they DON'T guarantee you 24/7 service-read your contract), the same at the gas pump---I already lived through rationing once; and also your WATER will be rationed severely, too. Sound fun?
And who will choose who gets power and gas at what times? When will the hospital get it, or the grocery store, or the UPS truck...and on and on.

By being a sustainable organic farmer who ISN'T rich and/or heavily subsidized--you will become CRIMINALIZED by your choice of: housing (try and put up a YURT on your property!), farming (try growing with MEAN AG farms spraying herbicide all around your acreage, and running off into your water table/blowing over the fence), and so on...
NOT a friendly country to be in -- especially when one grew up with SO much talk of "ecology" and "conservation"... what a load of rubbish they fed us-really. It was never backed-up with action.
Lets change this.
Walter watches. (and thinks: "Who Took My Tequila??")

TARGETS : Art For Our Target Range

2007-05-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

Guests were to arrive with the desire to do some shooting practice in our dry pond; some time ago I had thought of doing some very reprehensible and irresponsible target art, and these factors converged this past weekend into these targets, made to be blown up.
We'll start with one of my faves the "(Startled) Toddler", and then go into a few of the weaker ones, ending with my favorite two. These were done very quickly, about 90 minutes (on a very hot day on the front porch) for the whole lot, and they're large- averaging three or four feet tall.

Even after many rounds were put into all of these from the nine millimeter, the 22, the crossbows, and the shotgun, they were still in good enough shape to use for sheet mulching around the farm- which is what they had been destined for to begin with; being art drawn on scrap cardboard.
The Cyclist --I thought they'd have a hard time hitting 'im- but he got pegged with great accuracy all around. I thought about shooting "after" photos of all of these, 'cuz they have some lovely damage now, but I have a video of it, anyhow.

Yup, I do have a sick sense of humor... I made a Cop Pinata once for a Dumpapalootza event and have done a lot of intricate art over the years that was designed to be sturdy-yet destroyed utterly at some point in it's functional life.

Sightings of our local tri-city Turkeymonster have continued. No live specimens have been caught, though.

That's about it for this installment- I wanted to share my twisted target art (not being a big "shooter" by any means myself, by the way- but since we are zoned to have our own gun club out here...).
Just another day in Dogtown / Lower Bottom below. Glad I live further away from there now.
Some URBAN FORAGERS from an old magazine illo of mine (below).
It's best to assume at this point that the powers that be are not telling us the whole ugly truth (resulting panic, economic turmoil, etc.) about global warming (even though what we do hear is bloody awful) -
and now-
the food supply is (obviously) contaminated (refusal of enormous amounts of Chinese food additives and products at the borders) to a degree that the ruling class will only barely dare to hint at. Well, it's grim indeed, and I'm glad I don't eat much packaged food at all annually, or have pets that I must cook for weekly. The dystopian and nihilist novels of my youth I enjoyed, sure, but who wanted to see them coming to life with such vigor- and so soon in my life- after all of that 1970s talk from the adult world about how these things were sewed-up and taken care of-!
The nerve of that era- to abandon hippie and green and feminist and racial equality ideals and learn nothing at all from oil rationing and govenment corruption of unimaginable proportions.
What a scenario... what poetry.

50 CHICKS 50 / the balls of FLUFFINS arrive

2007-05-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

EXTRA! EXTRA!-- With a mighty din of peeping, the chicks have arrived!
UPS called and we went to go get the 50 fuzzballs of love.
Ceramic chickens look on from a nearby coop.

They fan out in a wave of pecking, peeping, charging and foraging.
Meanwhile antique celluloid hens sit in the shade, so as not to melt or deform.
"Ready or not- here we come!"
Following are many merit badges from the 1940 Boy Scout manual. I love the old printing and odd shades.
You can't squeeze just one.

CHEF wandered by, holding his buddy, and watched the new chicken house being finished up.
Thirsty after their long plane ride.
Nestling in a pool of sunlight.

Salt and Pepper Hen checks in, with two huge eggs she somehow painfully laid.
Widescreen Chick Action!

Mom watches from above.
And that's about all for this quick EXTRA update; I'll leave you with this chart of hobo signs, useful for your future trips by rail. "Easy Mark, Sucker" sure reminds me of something...
Until we meet again- "PEEP! PEEP! . . . PEEP!"

With Love For Mother's Day

2007-05-13T15:03:00.000-07:00

Concrete fissured; releasing crocodiles into the yard. This in the midst of high-80s and 90s temperatures.
Work on the greenhouse went on despite the reptilian threat.

Our despicable cover crop, alfalfa, was baled finally ( the crop came with the plot, and is slowly being removed, acre by acre ). Nice antique tractor, though (not ours).
On-the-spot scenes from the latest Berkeley Critical Mass: (below)

Objective: find the lizard in this photo.
"Let us go on to tell about the great number of dancers kept by the Great Montezuma for his amusement, and others who used stilts on their feet, and others who flew when they danced up in the air, and others like Merry-Andrews, and I may say that there was a district full of these people who had no other occupation. Let us go on now and speak of the workmen that he had as stone cutters, masons, and carpenters, all of whom attended to the work of his houses, I say that he had as many as he wished for. We must not forget the gardens of flowers and sweet-scented trees, and the many kinds that there were of them, and the arrangement of them and the walks, and the ponds and tanks of fresh water where the water entered at one end and flowed out of the other; and the baths which he had there, and the variety of small birds that nested in the branches, and the medicinal and useful herbs that were in the gardens. It was a wonder to see , and to take care of it there were many gardeners. Everything was made in masonry and well cemented, baths and walks and closets, and apartments like summer houses where they danced and sang. There was as much to be seen in these gardens as there was everywhere else, and we could not tire of witnessing his great power."
Bernal Diaz del Castillo The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico 1517-1521
"At length corruption, like a general flood,
Did deluge all; and avarice creeping on,
Spread, like a low-born mist, and hid the sun.
Statesmen and patriots plied alike the stocks,
Peeress and butler shared alike the box;
And judges jobbed, and bishops bit the town,
And mighty dukes packed card for half-a-crown:
Britain was sunk in lucre's sordid charms."
Pope

"Making nails was originally done by eye; they just hammered them out with a blob on top for a head, and a point on the other end. At that, you can see why so many old houses and pieces of furniture are pegged and not nailed. Later on they had a nail machine, which really amounted to a mold. They would buy nail bars commercially; they heated the bar, put it in the form and pounded it to a point; then they would cut the tail off, and shape the head...
The steel square was invented at a blacksmith's shop right here in Vermont. You may not think its an invention worth talking about, because what else would you make a carpenter's square out of? Well, the old squares was wood. The blacksmith upcountry used a wooden square to mark off hot iron, and the wood used to burn; so he conceived the idea of taking a broken saw blade, and welding on the short piece to make a right angle. This was the first steel square that was ever made, and it used to be quite an industry in Vermont before other people started manufacturing them too."
Walter Needham, A Book Of Country Things (1965)

Here's a handy map of our tri-city area. (below)
I recently began building a series of chairs and loveseats to put around the compound.

Chair number one almost finished.

Chair number two, installed at it's site.

"According to Ummon, "In Zen there is absolute freedom; sometimes it negates and at other times it affirms; it does either way at pleasure." A monk asked, "How does it negate? "With the passing of winter there cometh spring." "What happens when spring cometh?" "Carrying a staff across the shoulders, let one ramble about in the fields, East or West, North or South, and beat the old stumps to one's heart's content." This was one way to be free as shown by one of the greatest masters in China."
D. T. Suzuki, Zen Buddism (1956)
Crew working on the chicken house.
Painting by the Mindwrecker, below:
Photo by Molly Vickart
...Just a fun image from the files, good to remove the date and use again.

"Our coach rattled out of the city, and, at a short distance from its outskirts, passed over a bridge, of elegant construction, but somewhat too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On both sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the kennels of the earth emptied their pollution there.
"This," remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, "is the famous Slough Of Despond- a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater, that it might so easily be converted into firm ground."
"I have understood," said I, "that efforts have been made for that purpose, from time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above twenty thousand cart-loads of wholesome instructions have been thrown in here, without effect."
"Very probably!- and what effect could be anticipated from such unsubstantial stuff?" cried Mr. Smooth-it-away. "You observe this convenient bridge. We obtained a sufficient foundation for it by throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, volumes of French philosophy and German rationalism, tracts, sermons, and essays of modern clergymen, extracts from Plato, Confucius, and various Hindoo sages, together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of Scripture- all of which, by some scientific process, have been converted into a mass like granite. The whole bog might be filled up with similar matter."
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Celestial Rail-road (1843)

Some of our acreage is done in the Grow Biointensive method, and here I'm at work on some beds.

Then the magic seeds are dropped in, by hand or device.
" A writer's will is the winds of dead calm in the Western Lands. Point way out he can start stirring of the sail. Writer, where are you going? To write. Here we are in texts already written on the sky. Where he doesn't need to write anymore. A sleight seismic with the cat book. Always remember, the work is the mainsail to reach the Western Lands. The texts sing. Everything is grass and bushes, a desert or a maze of texts. Here you are. . . never use the same door twice. Sky in all directions. . . on the word for word. The word for word is word. The western sail stirs candles on 1920 country club table. Each page is a door to everything is permitted. The fragile lifeboat between this and that. Your words are the sails."
William Burroughs My Education (1995)

"During the rest of the day there was no other adventure to mar the peace of their journey. Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret. These tears ran slowly down his face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. When Dorothy presently asked him a question the Tin Woodman could not open his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. He became greatly frightened at this and made many motions to Dorothy to relieve him, but she could not understand. The Lion was also puzzled to know what was wrong. But the Scarecrow seized the oil-can from Dorothy's basket and oiled the Woodman's jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as well as before.
"This will serve me a lesson," said he, "to look where I step. For if I should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaw so that I cannot speak."
Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it. The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefor he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything.
"You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful, when Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much."
L. Frank Baum The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz (1900)

A recent hootenanny at the compound.
One of my many darned MySpace pages is http://www.myspace.com/walterbrennan
for those who appreciate the finer things...
Drop on by, I'm sure he'd like to see 'ya.
WANTED: Information as to whereabouts of these old-time boomer switchmen: "Old Seegram" Jerry Hart, "Hi-Pockets" Ed Frank, "Bourbon Head" Jerry O'Conner and "Gin Nose" Mike King. I worked with them on the C.G.W. and B&O at Chi in 1917.-Jim Kerr, 1714 N. Luna Ave., Chicago

WANTED: Address of Chas. P. Brown, author of book "Brownie The Boomer", born in 1879 at Lamar Mo., lost his legs while trying to set hand brakes in a Wyoming blizzard in 1913; last heard from at 1418 S. McBride Ave., Los Angeles. Send information to Freeman H. Hubbard, Editor, Railroad Stories, 280 Broadway, New York City.

ANYONE who knew Fred Barner- he used to run out of Pueblo on the D. & R.G.- please write to me. Fred was discharged on account of a wreck in 1909 that I want to know about. Two weeks afterward he was killed by a thug when he joined the Pueblo police.
I live five blocks from the South Park Line, half a block from the C. & S., the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande lines to Colorado Springs. I know a little about these roads and would gladly answer questions.- Bill Mathews, 1422 S. Cherokee St., Denver, Colo.
From RAILROAD magazine, 1936
Chair number three, actually a two-person loveseat.
Chair number three, showing the jeweled seat.

The Coming Peak-Beer Scenario: Are You Ready?

2007-04-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

"Barley shortages lead to Beer Crisis"...grim news indeed! We better get on with that mead production to cope with coming drinkee shortages.
In other news, B has 50 chicks (of mixed stock) coming and so we're all boning up on chicken care. He also received a lovely antique no-till planter (to run with the tractor) from ebay.

Recent rains dropped a nice layer of snow onto the Sierras, visible through our binoculars, but too far away to photograph.
One of our yard rabbits, posing for Molly
"The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce and the sparks of dew
That hung from their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue."
-Giles Fletcher

"...Here in my chair with a book and the sssh of the water in my ears. Dull people go by. My ears are troubled with inanities. I hear clatter concerning ghastly trivialities. But the sum of all life is not trivial or it does not appear so... The clouds in the east reach out like hands. They beckon and signal, like fingers speaking of lands that never were. They talk to me of dreams that I had in my youth. "Better lands than this," they say, "await you." "Out! Come forth, Shake off the thing that holds you. Spring up into the blue. Be spirit not matter" ... Nothing is more interesting to me than just the silent passing of moods in the mind, hour after hour, day after day, year after year though nothing is said. A man draws near - you dislike him. He goes again and is forgotten. The sun comes out. You say silently to yourself - how beautiful. Life is good. In its light colorful dreams and moods rise and fall like the waves of the sea- all in silence. The sun goes under a cloud. Life is not so pleasing anymore ... On this boat sitting alone I have noticed this - dwelt on it. I have watched my moods shift chameleon like from grave to pleasant but with never a word to me from anyone."
Theodore Dreiser (1916)
I had more tractoring practice this week; grading and dozing on the driveway encroachment (a tiny bit, since I'm slow and rotten at that as yet). Last night I was cutting brush on the levee with a scythe and thus took along the whetstone and water for a steady massage of sharpening. And now there's a better path to the blackberries along the slough, at least until we get out there with the box blade.
..."Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
"As I thought," he said. "No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is."
There was a cracking noise in the bracken behind him, and out came Pooh.
"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
"Oh!" said Pooh. He though for a long time and then asked, "What mulberry bush is that?"
"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word meaning bonhommy," he explained. "I'm not complaining, but There It Is."
Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded to him like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a Bear of Very Little Brain. So he sang Cottleston Pie instead:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."

A. A. Milne , 1926

A female turkey came through very close to the house the other morning. Hope she brings some friends along next time.

HE SETTLED DOWN
Where the cigarettes grow near the lemonade springs,
In the big potato mountains.
Where the ham an' eggs grow on trees,
And bread grows from the ground,
An' the springs squirt booze to your knees,
An' there's more than enough to go 'round.
Where the chickens crawl into the skillet,
An' cook 'emselves up nice an' brown,
An' the cows churn their butter'n the mornin',
An' squirt their milk all aroun'.
Where the lunches grow on the bushes,
And bump the 'boes in the eyes,
An' every night at eleven,
The sky rains down apple pies.
So Iowa Slim sits on his porch,
While his wives all play wit' his hair-,
And he sees the freight trains runnin',
An' he says, "Go on, I don't care."
For he was an old-time floater,
An' he had more wives than a priest,
An' each of them loved the ol' bloater-
The dirty ol' bum of a beast.
His home is where the bird sings,
And young girls swim in the fountains,
An' the cigarettes grow with the matches,
In the big potato mountains.
Hobo song/ Jim Tully (Beggars Of Life)

BEETS ... pic by Molly
ARTICHOKES ... (Molly)
...Sometimes it's hard to find the time to practice the banjo...
"In the morning the mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams and dank pastures and caves of leviathan. And later, in still summer rains on the steep roofs of poets, the clouds scatter bits of those dreams, that men shall not live without rumor of old strange secrets, and wonders that planets tell planets alone in the night. When tales fly thick in the grottoes of tritons, and conchs in seaweed cities blow wild tunes learned from the Elder Ones, then great eager mists flock to heaven laden with lore, and oceanward eyes on the rocks see only a mystic whiteness, as if the cliff's rim were the rim of all earth, and the solemn bells of buoys tolled free in the aether of faery."
H. P. Lovecraft (The Strange High House In The Mist)
"The fact detached is ugly. Replace it with a series of cause and effect, and it is beautiful. Putrefaction is loathsome; but putrefaction seen as a step in the circle of nature, pleases."
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1838)

... "{T}here is now a historical baseline for assessing the incidence and pattern of Los Angeles tornadoes, but further research on the synoptic conditions of their generation has been stymied by a shortage of funding... The biggest advance has been the conclusive demonstration, based on both radar and radiosonde data, that classic supercell storms do occur in California but have gone unrecognized because of "preconceived notions that such storms simply do not occur there."
Mike Davis (Ecology Of Fear) 1998
We looked recently at an inspiring little 5' short on YouTube of Farmgirl who is doing a small sustainable urban garden, using several ag philosophies, and featuring aquaculture, coops set over beds (alhtough with some wrong lumber), a brooderhouse, and spinning out her own yarns and making clothes. What a great dead-of-summer or winter activity! ...Recommended viewing.

Here are the entire plans for the bike-powered pontoon boat, just 'cuz I would totally use one out here; along with the canoe and our other craft.

One of the beaver's dams, as shot by Molly. Perhaps we'll have a gallery of the beaver's many installations over the past years in a future blog entry.

Following is a gallery of some of our common local BIRDY buddies.
The Harrier
Great Egret
Kite
Magpie
Redwing Blackbird
Lizzie-buddies (well they're related to birds)
Western Meadowlark (this pic doesn't do it justice)

Upstairs work on the 1890s house
"Outside, it is wet and penetratingly cold. My sugar maple perhaps intended to turn scarlet, then decided on yellow, the strangest yellow, as if it were strawberry gilded over ... I have an almost theological belief in gardens and I think that trees should be cared for as if they stood in flower pots."
Glenway Wescott (1945)
Naturally we try to generate as little trash (minimizing dump runs ) as possible, with re-use the order of the day, just like for Grandfather and Grandmother. And hopefully fabricating and welding and whacking together as much stuff yourself as you can. Even if we did have an immense budget to bring up the level of sustainability in the operation, one wouldn't want to merely purchase all of the goods and tools and necessities (unless they're used ones) anyway--that'd make us too-perfect consumers.

"Thrashing machine - Merill's - at house. Father dropped his pitchfork and the machine thrashed the handle till it got itself out of kilter. Sixteen bushels oats, seven bushels rye."
diary entry / Benjamin Browne Foster, 1847
There are lots of projects to push along every week, such as:
mushroom production, owl and bat boxes, windmills/panels and their electrical setups, bee boxes, aquaculture on the spread and local fishing opportunities, and so on.
What we may lack now in high-prettiness value, we try to make up for in sustainable immediate goals, to generate food for ourselves and and surplus goodies to barter with. Along with ferociously landscaping and house-customising and building.
"We had no difficulty in finding the Gardener. Though he was hidden from us by some trees, that harsh voice of his served to direct us; and, as we drew nearer, the words of his song became more and more plainly audible:---
"He thought he saw an Albatross
That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
A Penny-Postage-Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
'The nights are very damp!' "

Lewis Carroll (Sylvie and Bruno) 1889

Introduction

2007-04-19T11:16:00.000-07:00

At an organic, sustainable farm experiment somewhere in California, we'll be exploring TOPICS in this ongoing column like:
preparedness (for things like post-peak-oil lifestyles)
bottomland and high water tables
sustainability, wildlife, livestock
solar and wind power and the attendant DC voltage system issues
painting, sketching, music and noise, landscaping, gardening, composting
old wood, old tools, old-school, and old-timey everything
comparisons to other farming eras and locations, such as my boyhood in farm country in Missouri. And of course those delightful "end times" things we all share nowadays.

(By the way, I alone am not Green Darner Farm, merely the moderator of this page)

" Vine shoots, heavy with inimitable stones, clambered everywhere; incombustible braziers glowed red all about, nourished by the mineral embers of every shade of green - brilliant green emerald, leek-green chrysolite, glaucous aquamarine, yellowy zircon, cerulean beryl; everywhere, from high to lows, from the tops of the vine-props to the lowest point of their stems, the vines dripped buches of rubies and amethysts, clusters of garnet and alamandine, chasselas of chrysoprasus, muscat-colored olivines and grey quartz, hurling out fabulous streaks of red lightning, purple lightning, yellow lightning, as they stretched upwards in a tower of fiery fruits the very sight of which was sufficient alone to suggest the palpable impossibility of harvesting such a crop, one only too ready to spit out a dazzling must of flames under the weight of the vine-press."
Joris-Karl Huysmans, En Rade
"I am ... a mushroom
On whom the dew of heaven drops now and then."
John Ford (1586-1639?)
A couple of G's scores from a recent farm auction (below)
View looking west

"When I am in the country I wish to vegetate like the country."
William Hazlitt, On Going A Journey
The metasequoia tree (below)
A living room under construction
A greenhouse being put up
Great White Egrets (always feeding nearby, as are the pheasants, but they're more sly and hard to photograph-pics of them next time)
"The gardener bringeth loads, and his arm and neck ache beneath them. At morn he watereth the leek, and at even the vines - - - -. It also goeth more ill with him than any calling.
The field-worker, his reckoning endureth forever; he hath a louder voice than the abu-bird - - - -. He, too, is wearier than can be told, and he fareth as well as one fareth among lions; he is oft-times sick, - - - - and when he cometh into his house at eventide, the going hath cut him to pieces."
Egyptian school textbook, 1300 B.C. (Nineteenth Dynasty)

" "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."
"Blasphemy" the general screamed starting to his feet. "Man is made to submit and obey."
Acting out a final confrontation with this Satan he paces the room fingering the jeweled handle of his sword. He cannot return to his maps. Still muttering imprecations he steps into the garden. Under the orange trees an old man is cutting weeds stopping from time to time to hone his knife on a stone, hands like brown silk unhurried and steady. He has worked there as a gardener for ten years and the General has stopped seeing him years ago. He is as much a part of the garden as the orange trees and the irrigation ditch flashing like a sword in sun. The House of the General is built on a high hill. Orange groves, date palms, rosebushes, pools and opium poppies stretch down to massive walls. The Caspian Sea gleams in the distance. But the General can find no peace in his garden today. The Old Man peers at this through the orange leaves with laughing blue eyes and stabs up at him from the irrigation ditch. Forgetting the presence of his servant the General raises his clenched fist to a distant mountain and screams: "Satan, I will destroy you forever." "
William Burroughs, The Wild Boys

"Drowsy animals, snug in their holes while wind and rain were battering at their doors, recalled still keen mornings, an hour before sunrise, when the white mist, as yet undispersed, clung closely along the surface of the water; then the shock of the early plunge, the scamper along the bank, and the radiant transformation of earth, air, and water, when suddenly the sun was with them again, and grey was gold and colour was born and sprang out of the earth once more. They recalled the langourous siesta of hot mid-day, deep in green undergrowth, the sun striking through in tiny golden shafts and spots; the boating and bathing in the afternoon, the rambles along dusty lanes and through yellow cornfields; and the long, cool evening at last, when so many threads were gathered up, so many friendships rounded, and so many adventures planned for the morrow."
Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In The Willows (1933)
Photo below: By "G", from a farm auction recently attended
" For the children of poor folk the country road in summer is like a playroom. Where else can they go, seeing that the gardens are selfishly closed to them? Woe to the automobiles blustering by, as they ride coldly and maliciously into the children's games, into the child's heaven, so that small innocent human beings are in danger of being crushed to a pulp. The terrible thought that a child actually can be run over by such a clumsy triumphal car, I dare not think of it, otherwise my wrath will seduce me to coarse expressions, with which it is well known nothing much ever gets done.
To people sitting in a blustering dust-churning automobile I always present my austere and angry face, and they do not deserve a better one. They believe that I am a spy, a plainclothes policeman, delegated by high officials and authorities to spy on the traffic, to note down the numbers of vehicles, and later to report them. I always then look darkly at the wheels, at the car as a whole, but never at its occupants, whom I despise, and this in no way personally, but purely on principle; for I do not understand, and I never shall understand, how it can be a pleasure to hurtle past all the images and objects which our beautiful earth displays, as if one had gone mad and had to accelerate for fear of misery and despair. In fact, I love repose and all that reposes. I love thrift and moderation and am in my inmost self, in God's name, unfriendly toward any agitation and haste. More than what is true I need not say. And because of these words the driving of automobiles will certainly not be discontinued, nor its evil air-polluting smell, which nobody for sure particularly loves or esteems. It would be unnatural if someone's nostrils were to love and inhale with relish that which for all correct nostrils, at times, depending perhaps on the mood one is in, outrages and evokes revulsion. Enough, and no harm meant. And now walk on. Oh, it is heavenly and good and in simplicity most ancient to walk on foot, provided of course one's shoes or boots are in order."
Robert Walser, The Walk (1917)

Kitchen in progress.
One of our many local Swifts (below)

Two views of the sunset spot.

A green darner, underside
Much of the compound
Even though it's spring, all of us locals have had to irrigate a month early this year.
The meta-sequoia spot, on the slough.

A happy plum tree (below)

Sunset in the kitchen

" In the open spaces, mostly along the line of the old road, there were little hillside farms; sometimes with all the buildings standing, sometimes with only one or two, and sometimes with only a lone chimney or fast-filling cellar. Weeds and briers reigned, and furtive wild things rustled in the undergrowth. Upon everything was a haze of restlessness and oppression; a touch of the unreal and the grotesque, as if some vital element of perspective or chiaroscuro were awry."
H. P. Lovecraft, The Colour Out Of Space