Dogfennel

Contrary to popular belief, I have not abandoned my blog.  I’ve simply found that more of my time these days is spent reading, writing papers and working on community and personal projects.  That doesn’t mean I don’t have material to blog about, I most certainly do.  For instance, the youngin’ is “individuating”, as my dear friend Cynthia likes to say.  That means my only child has moved out of the house, somewhat prematurely.  Another for instance, the mead has been racked and was a big hit at a couple gatherings.  One more, in my move toward a more abundant life, we now have a papaya, a granny smith, red banana and a fig tree planted in the yard. Albeit, a bit crowded in the space I planted, though they are in and seem happy for the moment.  Well, they aren’t ALL planted but that’s on my list of things to do today.

I still need to follow-up on my house studies.  The beach front home that had it’s porch ripped off during one of the hurricanes has been successfully moved with only a minor snag from DEP.  The cool mid-century modern SIP’s house is up and dried in with some alterations to the exterior and what else?  The permaculture garden I designed for the Seaside Neighborhood School is getting ready to break ground and hopefully in a few months, the video project I’m working on with the TDC will have come to fruition.  That’s just a sampling of the various projects underway.

All that aside, this brings me to the topic of dogfennel, or depending on your perspective, pernicious weeds.  I’m taking an Ecological Economics course which entails looking at our natural resources and their value.  I also have a rather unruly yard (by my neighbors standards) that I have been ever so carefully hand sculpting.  Really, it’s hand sculpted or plain wild, which ever your perspective.  Nothing gets ripped out unless I know what it is and if there is a higher use determined for that space.  Tying all this together, as I was making room for the fruit trees, I was determined to figure out the purpose of the dogfennel that had cropped up thereabouts.  The other plants were easy enough, gallberry-birds love the berries and bees love the flowers, goldenrod-beautiful showy flowers and can be made into a tea for seasonal allergy, sinus and colds, passion flower-edible leaves and fruits, even the devil’s vine can be eaten like asparagus when it is young.  The dogfennel was alluding me, in fact, I couldn’t even figure out what it was until the fellow that delivered our trees told us it was dogfennel and we should eradicate it immediately.  He also pointed out a volunteer baby sand myrtle that will be a nice specimen.  Who knew?

To be certain, the dogfennel is perfectly appropriate for the scale of a roadside, but entirely too large and somewhat invasive for a small yard.  I seem to have more than my fair share of it.  Doing some research on the Internet, I found out that it has a “noxious smell”, which I found amusing because I kind of like it - it smells like fennel.  I found all sorts of ways to quickly eliminate it from my garden and finally, I found what I was looking for, medicinal uses.  It’s not mentioned in Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians, though one website claims it has been used for “reptile and insect bites”.  What I found beyond that was even more interesting.  It’s scientific name is Eupatorium capillifolium and it’s a member of the Aster family.  The oil from the leaves are antifungal and research is being done to understand its antimycotic properties.  Here’s what I found from one site:

New spectrum of opportunistic human mycotic infection are increasing day-to-day due to increase in number of AIDS and cancer patients. Such fungal pathogens form new combination with immunocompromised or immunosuppressed hosts…

E. cappilifolium

The leaves yielded 1 per cent oil which was fungistatic to various fungi at 1000 ppm (1.0 x 103 µl/ l) doze (Chandra et al., 1982b). They further reported that the fungitoxicity of the oil was enhanced at pH 7 and pH 9. Rao et al. (1992) observed antifungal activity in the leaf oil against Colletotrichum falcatum, Curvularia pallescens, and Periconia atro-purpurea.

One can get lost in the Internet for sure, you see where i’m going here… This is from another site about Curvularia pallescens:

Curvularia spp. are among the causative agents of phaeohyphomycosis. Wound infections, mycetoma, onychomycosis, keratitis, allergic sinusitis, cerebral abscess, cerebritis, pneumonia, allergic bronchopulmonary disease, endocarditis, dialysis-associated peritonitis, and disseminated infections may develop due to Curvularia spp. Curvularia lunata is the most commonly encountered species. Importantly, the infections may develop in patients with intact immune system. However, similar to several other fungal genera, Curvularia has recently emerged also as an opportunistic pathogen that infects immunocompromised hosts…

Now, I make no claims to be versed in biology or medicine, the point of all this is that, I believe the planet is trying to tell us something and/or heal itself and therefore us.  If we would only pay attention.  In Ecology, we know that trees like oaks and pines seem to have devised ways to ensure their survival, like masting or producing a super abundance of nuts or seeds in response to resources and nut predators.  We also know that plants like dogfennel, goldenrod, poison ivy and passion flower thrive in disturbed areas.  They are opportunists living on the edge and we are constantly trying to eradicate them.  If we look at a plant like poison ivy, often it’s anecdote, jewel weed is growing near by.  It’s all instinctual on my part, but it would be interesting to see more scientific research indicating these perceived useless plants to be exactly what we need as a species to survive.  All I know for certain is that the tree guy sells small buckets of goldenrod for $5 a piece and with all the goldenrod I relocated, I figure I saved myself several hundred dollars…and my neighbors think I’m just growing weeds over here.

I like to pretend that I know what my neighbors think but truthfully, they probably are too busy with their sprayers and lawnmowers to have time to contemplate the state of my hand sculpted yard.      

The World of EATer’s and Permies

The Labyrinth at Rose Creek 

I thought I would be posting sooner than now, though “re-entry” into reality has left me a little shell shocked and bewildered.  I was away for two weeks at a permaculture design course outside Ashville, N.C., but it wasn’t the run of the mill pc course.   For starters, we were spoiled with three ‘organilocal’ squares a day, which were shared over in depth conversations of conflict resolution, tantra, permaculture playground design for burning man and the like.  This was preceded and or followed by various earth based rituals with lots of singing, sharing and getting in touch with your inner self (looking like a fool).

  

Laying out contours w/ an A-frame and a quick permaculture design on 1/8 acre

Not to be taken lightly, this was an intensive course to say the least.  Interwoven with the required course material, including a design project and participation in a no-talent show, we were sporadically exposed to surprise actions in which we were enticed to procure a collective intelligent response.  As example, a spontaneous dance party broke out between lectures and was abruptly halted when we (the dancers) were corralled by the police (actor children and other students) and beaten with batons (paper batons).  Things got quite physical when we banded together, fell to the floor and started to chant.  The police, thoroughly engaged (and enjoying it) in their role, began to attempt to pull people (me) from the pack.  I was ultimately terrified of becoming seperated from my sisters & brethren, who had a firm clasp on my extremities to the point at which I began to wonder if this were a real direct action, would I simply be pulled apart?  Note: see Starhawk’s non-violent activism resources.

Jack’s restored 67 VW

There were herb walks, where I learned how to identify water hemlock - ‘veins to the cut, pain in the gut - veins to the tip, everything is hip.’  There were peaceful nights in the tent and wet soggy mornings in the tent.  There was a girl named Dragonfly, a guy named Noah who is an active member of the International Solidarity Movement, a girl that was studying to be a doctor in Cuba and the author of Radical Healing, among other inspiring souls.  I didn’t get as dirty as hoped due to the relocation of our course, but I did get to hike to the Tennessee River and take a dip.  Oh, and the mead.  If I got nothing else out of this course, I took away an intense interest in mead and mead making.

Noah & Kelly exhibit their Fire Poi talents

We were remotely located away from cell phone service and nearby towns, so we created our own “bar” at our retreat, where the organic porters, double belgian brews, ports and meads flowed.  I sampled apple-lemon cyser, hyssop-anise metheglin, apricot-cinnamon melomel and various other home made meads.  I witnessed a small (30-40 gallons) homebrew mead operation, a mead making demonstration at the no-talent show and various wild yeasters sporting their wares.  Within two days of arriving home, I had a gallon of Joe’s Ancient Orange mead bubbling away on the counter and another gallon in the makings.

Mead at AVI

I got to hang with the female permaculture heavy weights for two weeks, Starhawk, Penny Livingston-Stark and Patricia Allison.  I forewent the day trip (our one day off) to Earthaven Ecovillage to catch up on some much needed relaxation.  Ah, another time I’ll make the trip to see how they have assembled their little village.  I’m back home now, immersed in courses and design work.  Back to 90 + degree days and the land of the flatwoods.  Got mead?                

Speed Restrictions on Housing

Exit door of “Pipe Dreams” at Elefante, handcrafted home structures

I wish that I could claim that I thought of Slow Home first, what can I say?  I didn’t, but when I ran across the idea, I was like, “Well, yeeah.”  As a residential designer, who secretly (guess it’s no secret now) wants to design & build treehouses and garden rooms, I hope the Slow Home movement sweeps the nation.  I hope it brings a new era of building or deconstructing that encompasses environmental restorative design, reconnecting humans and nature, and is a celebration of the human spirit possessing both anima and animus traits.  That is all.

The 10 Steps to a Slow Home 

1. GO INDEPENDENT

Avoid homes by big developers and large production builders. They are designed for profit not people. Work with independent designers and building contractors instead.

2. GO LOCAL

Avoid home finishing products from big box retailers. The standardized solutions they provide cannot fit the unique conditions of your home. Use local retailers, craftspeople, and manufacturers to get a locally appropriate response and support your community.

3. GO GREEN

Stop the conversion of nature into sprawl. Don’t buy in a new suburb. The environmental cost can no longer be justified. Re-invest in existing communities and use sustainable materials and technologies to reduce your environmental footprint.

4. GO NEAR

Reduce your commute. Driving is a waste of time and the new roads and services required to support low density development is a big contributor to climate change. Live close to where you work and play.

5. GO SMALL

Avoid the real estate game of bigger is always better. A properly designed smaller home can feel larger AND work better than a poorly designed big one. Spend your money on quality instead of quantity.

6. GO OPEN

Stop living in houses filled with little rooms. They are dark, inefficient, and don’t fit the complexity of our daily lives. Live in a flexible and adaptive open plan living space with great light and a connection to outdoors.

7. GO SIMPLE

Don’t buy a home that has space you won’t use and things you don’t need. Good design can reduce the clutter and confusion in your life. Create a home that fits the way you really want to live.

8. GO MODERN

Avoid fake materials and the re-creation of false historical styles. They are like advertising images and have little real depth. Create a home in which character comes from the quality of space, natural light and the careful use of good, sustainable materials.

9. GO HEALTHY

Avoid living in a public health concern. Houses built with cheap materials off gas noxious chemicals. Suburbs promote obesity because driving is the only option. Use natural, healthy home materials and building techniques. Live where you can walk to shop, school and work.

10. GO FOR IT

Stop procrastinating. The most important, and difficult, step in the slow home process is the first one that you take. Get informed and then get involved with your home. Every change, no matter how small, is important.    

Ah, the Emerald Coast

I just couldn’t help myself.  I saw this article and I was hysterical.  I was instantly inspired to write about it.  Upon further reflection, I thought JHK would do it better justice.  I ripped off an e-mail to JHK and was delighted this morning to see a reply.  Not that I didn’t think he read his e-mail, but I certainly had the impression he had quite a bit of it to wade through.  Because I read JHK every day, hope to see him in person at some point in my life and love his satirical, punchy and descriptive prose, I had to post our short correspondence…for the archives.

Dear Jim,
I am an avid reader of Cluster*uck Nation and thought you’d be interested in this article.  Well, not really interested, or surprised really, it’s just another absurdity of our times.  “Realtors Pray for Better Times” http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/6725, just a few short miles from Seaside, FL.  Huh??  I guess they haven’t read The Long Emergency or don’t connect the real estate bust with maybe someone upstairs is trying to tell us something.  Maybe instead of praying for a resurgance of house sales and well, let’s face it, more destruction of the planet, they should be praying for another way to feed themselves.  Hey, I’m in this growth industry as well and you better believe I’m working on some other skills to survive the long emergency.  The world and especially the Emerald Coast has too many realtors and designers (myself included) as it is.  The lull in the housing market isn’t hurting my feelings, Im spending more time in the garden and getting acquanted with my neighbors both human and otherwise.  When will these people get a clue and how can that preacher seriously lead a prayer asking God to allow these realtors to continue their profession by exploiting this planet some more.  It’s simply mind boggling.  Ta-ta and I hope you get to Seaside some day again soon.  I’ll be there!

His reply:

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/6725

Hey, thanks for this.  I just posted it on “The Daily Grunt” http://www.kunstler.com/ That part of Florida has just exploded beyond all limits. Seaside and Rosemary Beach were great things.  But all the wannabes and copycats maye have come to the party too late.I hope they don’t get whacked by storms on top of this.

Jim
“It’s All Good”
(”Va Tutto Bene“)

Fun stuff.

Potluck

 

Events, daily happenings and course work  have spurred the blogging hiatus, which I’m briefly interrupting.

The graduation of the child and reuniting of all the various step, grand and parental “units” (as my sister likes to call the respective mother / father and their marital partner) went without a hitch.  Well, except the little one involving me making party arrangements at the wrong clubhouse.

Anyhow, there were other graduations to attend as well as a wedding, papers to write, books to read and projects to complete (still completing).

Among the projects is a Neighborhood Cooperative I’m constructing, loosely following a business plan model, with the intent of reuniting humans with nature and their communal roots.

The Blue Bag program is finally under way and there are talks of a CSA or community garden or farmers market???  I say “or” because it’s in the works and the specifics haven’t been revealed yet.

The Green Meets is attracting the attention of a sponsor, no specifics on this development yet either.

Today marked a culmination of these small events that represent a growing body of local, powerful, eco-conscious minded individuals.  The fringes of South Walton County are starting to infiltrate and with some hope and momentum this small corner of the coast may just prove itself in the green department.

Today a group of 14 of us came together for a potluck luncheon featuring local and regional foods.  The tables were set outside in the southern heat, under a canopy of pines, bound together with prayer flags.  The tables were covered with Sari’s and adorned with pickle jars filled with magnolias, produce props and beautifully mix-matched napkins, chairs, plates and glasses.  The representation of food was incredible: Gulf shrimp & fish ceviche, venison burgers, inkberry tea, blueberry-peach chutney over Mahi Mahi, watermelon water, spinach & duck egg quiche, pepper jelly, lima beans, pasta w/ local veggies, peach & basil tea, black bean & soy bean salsas, lemon balm & kaffir lime tea, zucchini bread,and cantelope & cucumber salad.  There were other samplings, though these were the staples.  Great food, great conversation with the majority of food coming from local gardens, farms, the Gulf, Alabama and Georgia.

 

Radishes Abound

The garden is well on its way to realizing its full potential.  One of my earlier goals for 2007 was to increase the garden size, which has been a success, though I’m already thinking of expanding.  Here’s the latest on what’s growing.

 

On the left are miniature white cucumbers that will be working their way up the outdoor shower enclosure.  On the right is the first bed I put in back in November.  This was the one when tested, showed few nutrients and the carrots and beets have been floundering since November.  I’m surprised they didn’t rot away.  Anyhow, this is the hodge-podge bed of purple potatoes, chanterey carrots, garlic, lisbon onions, bull’s blood beets and thyme, all planted a bit too close together.

 

Bed 2 (L) consist of Bright Breakfast Radish started from seed, American Spinach from seed and (3) broccoli plants from my neighbor.  I’m trying the square foot method of gardening in this bed, which makes for tidier looking plants.  Bed 3 (R) has Rosa Bianca Eggplants (seed) and Bee Balm in the front (nursery), and Bloody Butcher (seed) and Yellow Pear Tomatoes (seed) at the rear.

 

Bed 4 (L) has the same tomatoes as bed 3, Eggplant, Rosemary and Sweet Red Peppers, both of these from a nursery.  In the far corner are (2) Romaine babies in one of the EarthBoxes.   Final, the second harvest, a handful of spinach and a radish.  I can’t show you the first harvest because we ate it already.  It was a handful of radishes eaten last night with this delightful butter and cream cheese concoction that you see in the corner.  Also in the garden but not ready for a photo-op are Arizona Cantelopes, Black Beauty Squash and another tomato plant in the Topsy Turvy, a gift from T.  All the new beds are a mixture of peat moss, topsoil and predominantly mushroom compost from Thos. Stein’s.

 

Treehouse as Studio

I started out during the design phase of my home, wanting to build an office/ studio/ guest cottage at the rear of my property. As it turned out, it wasn’t in the budget. This was probably a good thing because at the location where it was sited, I didn’t realize until after the lot was surveyed, there is a nice little grove of young live oaks amongst a thick bed of palmettos. Of course, now that my daughter is graduating and is soon to move on, building another structure just for guests seems silly and the home office still functions perfectly in the the third bedroom. Now I’ve decided if I still need some sort of studio to “get away” or create, I would like to build something open and treehouse-esque. Even though I don’t have any trees large enough to support a real treehouse, I was recently inspired by a childs playhouse nestled in a hardwood hammock that was sporting a bridge to a look-out. For all intents and purposes, it could be considered a treehouse. The treehouse concept is also fueled by a recent holiday gift, Treehouses of the World by Pete Nelson. Each of the treehouses featured in the book is truly spectacular in its own way. The one on the cover, the Redmond Treehouse is one of my favorite. It encompasses several trees that pop out at odd locations and the moss gives it the patina that is evidence that it has evolved over the last 20 years. If you’re engineeringly inclined, you’ll appreciate the design of a little device called the “GL”, which is used in modern treehouse construction as a support to anchor the beams of the treehouse to, so as to allow the tree mobility and growth. The GL hardware device can apparently support up to 9,000 lb.

Really, my intent was to post about ANOTHER idea for a studio, NOT the treehouse, but the treehouse is so organic and small and perfectly immersed in the natural environment, I couldn’t help myself. This other idea is not new, nor is it orginal and I found evidence of this right in my own hood.

The shipping container.

If someone would be interested, I’d love to design them a re-purposed shipping container studio/ house/ outbuilding/ whatever. As for my own purposes, I’d love to use the shipping container, though the problem is fitting it on my narrow lot and wedging it in the back without taking out the sparkleberry tree. The other issue is of course aesthetics, I much prefer the look of two containers together (double wide, if I may) as opposed to a single. I love the charming gable roof on these, though on mine, I would design a barrel roof made of corrugated metal set on some beefy 4″x8″ beams just for fun. The roof would span the double wide. Then I’d design a simple lean-to porch on the long side with again the corrugated (mini preferred) metal roof over 2X4 purlins over 2X6’s, no I’d use “L” channel to keep the profile miniscule, set atop a beam supported by (2) reused 12″ dia. piles. I’ll have to work on that in SketchUp so you get the idea.

If you’re interested in pre-fab design and other ideas that have been executed with the container bay, check out http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/containerbayhome.htm.

I would love nothing more than if we could reduce our living square footage to fit in a couple shipping containers and a treehouse and simultaneously start to appreciate and cultivate creative solutions to our living structures.

Soil Survey and Test

The sandy soil on my land is perfectly suited to growing palmettos and passion flowers, though NOT much else in the way of fruits and vegetables.  Through searching for a soil survey of my county, I discovered that our area, just south of the Choctawhotchee Bay and North of the Gulf is comprised of undifferentiated quartz sands with varying percentages of silt and clay.  Not much in the way of organic matter.

Exoskeleton

Gazing at my potato tops this afternoon, I began wondering if it would be worth the effort to gather up the litter of pine bark detritus left behind from the woodpecker foraging and create my own mulch.  There’s quite a pile all around the perimeter of the tree, in fact the ground is starting to look like an extension of the tree.  There are huge plates of bark still remaining on the trunk, which I decided needed further inspection after hearing what I thought were bark beetles scurrying under the surface.

Post Prescott

Well…I just don’t know where to begin.  Really, it was a lot of information to take in and process for one week.

As usual, I greatly enjoyed my visit with “the m” and child, also I’m extremely appreciative that she gave up her bedroom for me last week.  The city of Prescott itself was fairly uneventful during this time, though it was quite cold, hence riding with the top down (see previous post) was kept to a minimum.