Ian Erickson

What I would be worried about most is contaminated wood in my wood chips. A friend of my who runs a major demolition dump for a major city recycles wood. They do this not to make profit from selling the wood, per se. The make money by diverting it from the landfill. It is profitable to do in some places. This means some wood chips out there could be recycled wood. A major concern for the landfill was unacceptably high arsenic, dioxins, and asbestos levels in their product. They found it was next to impossible to produce quality product that could be used for households. The point is that you should know the source (company and especially product). Additionally, I would avoid recycled and especially recycled and mass produced.

Hi Paul,

The comment was all in humor.

It does show how ubiquitous the effects of marketing spin are.

Well done on getting the message out.

Ian

I eat it only if I hit it or saw it hit. Otherwise it is hard to say what happened to it. Roadkill found frozen can be risky too. It may have been hit late in the fall rotted a day plus and then froze. Or it may have been frozen and thawed several times. I have gotten two Ruffed Grouse as roadkill. Heed the advise about local regs.

I should have posted this here:

Hi Paul,

Really, really important stuff here! Comments on your CFL cartoon.

I watched your CFL video today ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ta2ozf_uJJ8 ). In your animation video you have the characters Mr. Stinkypants and Mr. Halitosis. Basically, the story goes that these two characters are shysters creating marketing spin surrounding CFLs for their profit. Now, the names Mr. Stinkypants and Mr. Halitosis are not actual names or alias names to protect the innocent. In true scripting genus you use the literary technique of 'charatonyms' - names that represent the characters that have them (think Marry Poppins, Scrooge, Artful Dodger, all of the seven dwarf and Snow White etc.). The two characters are shysters (German for 'one who defecates') so they get 'stinky' names. All good stuff. You highlight in a creative way the shyster-minds behind the marketing of product product.

However, I believe you have fallen in to the evil marketing shysters hands by promoting another company's marketing spin while attacking the CFLs marketing spin. Oh the horror - and irony.

By using stinky characters with stinky names, you perpetuate the 'stench' surrounding both the characters and the names (conditions) themselves. The condition of halitosis was little known until Listerine marketed its product to cure the condition in the 1920's. Bad breath was not such a bad thing until Listerine started ad campaigns depicting young women asking themselves if they can get over their lovers bad breath (Levitt and Dubner). Levitt and Dubner (p.87) in Freakonimics quote advertising scholar James B. Twitchell as writing "Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis". While attempting to thwart one industry's marketing campaign, you have perpetuated another. Those evil, crafty marketers! As far as I know you are safe with Mr. Stinkypants. I think having stinkypants was long a faux pas before ads for adult diapers, fabric air fresheners or laundry detergent.

The only way I can see you fixing your Youtube karma is to do another animation about Listerine or a video about how having Halitosis is cool. As far as fixing you current video, you might think of other stinky names. This might be more difficult than you think. 'Mr. Body Odor' for example, is not an adequate replacement because body odor is another faux pas created by marketing spin. See they are an evil and industrious bunch!

Ian

Thanks again for everyone's contribution. I am learning a lot.

Dave: Thank you for all of the information with links. The links look great. Have you tried St. Lawrence Nursery for nut trees? I have heard good things and their catalog taught me a ton, but never tried them. They specialize in zone 3, which suits me perfectly.

I think I have a few intermediate conclusions to add to my last post:

6) I should mention my skills are in foraging so I am sympathetic to some of Osker, Mt. Goat, and Mekennedy's approaches. Mt. Goat made the point that only a small amount of land could be managed as intensively as some have suggested vs. more dispersed and passive food forest methods. This seems correct to me, but not necessarily problematic for others who choose more dense forms of food forestry. For Mt. Goat (and others): Dave mentioned creating a clearing of 1-5 acres. Assuming this is what might be suggested as being managed as an "intensive food forest", is this within the size range the you deemed as manageable? I don't think it would be easy, but it seems manageable to me for a family to have a dense 1+ acre food forest. It seems to me that the dispersed methods, as well as being low maintenance even compared to the orthodox food forests which are already lower maintenance, they are able to work much larger pieces of land. Their zones might be very large. To be able to practice such methods, they must have land. Probably 1-5 acres would be way too small. I am thinking maybe 40+ could be worked the way it has been discussed. If I am correct, I think it would be low risk for a dispersed food forest permaculturist to log 1-5 acres a devote it to a dense food forest. If it turned out a more dispersed food forest worked better for them, it would not matter much. It would be wagering a small amount of land.

7) I see fruit and nut trees as being the most important part of my food forest. I am well aware that much can be foraged as Osker, Mt. Goat, H. Ludi have discussed, but I think fruit and nut trees are difficult to replace if they are not significantly present. They can make things much more predicable, and the family loves eating them more than acorns (haha). From this conversation, and my previous concerns, I think I would be very reluctant to spend my first years planting nut trees (and especially not most fruits) in the middle of the dense forest (Dave, H. Ludi, Peachlovingman, Mt. Goat). I am not saying that it would not work. I am saying that given the short growing season, cold climate, dense forest without clearings, limited sunlight, and heavy precipitation, it seems risky. I would be concerned enough that I could be wasting the money and - more importantly - the time on something that may not produce much food. I could see how it could take many take many years to even realize that it was not working to plan. It seems high risk for me - as an amateur - to undertake planting in a mature forest without also clearing an acre plus for a dense food forest.

8) From 6 and 7, it comes down to risk. If I have enough land to do a dispersed food forest, would probably have the land to also do a dense food forest (little risk). If I have a dense food forest, it will likely work even though there may be lower maintenance methods such as a dispersed food forest (little risk). I think it is likely because of my lack of skill and location's conditions that I could lose a lot of time trying to do a dispersed food forest in lieu of a dense food forest (high risk). If I get a dense food forest going, I can easily start honing dispersed food forest skills. I think there are only two viable initial options for me with in this scenario I have posed. They are: A) logging a clearing myself within a forest or B) purchasing one that is already logged. Because of this, I have to deal with the potential of fungus Sylvain mentioned in both scenarios. I will read up on it.

9) From 8, in an important sense, it is arbitrary whether I logged it or someone else logged it recently so long as it way logged in the same way.

10) Despite Conclusion 9, I think it would be unlikely someone would log the land the way I would. A couple of the benefits in logging the land myself is that: A) See Conclusion 2 on my previous post; B) I can ensure it was done in a way that left as much of the tree on the land as possible without burning it (David); C) I can save some of the more useful trees and bushes as I see fit; and 4) I can clear the land to suit how I would like to use it (Mekennedy, David).

I think this has me, in my situation, leaning heavily towards logging some acres myself initially. It also has me keeping my options open to do less dense forms of food forestry in the future. Any thoughts?

Thanks again to all,

Ian

Yes, most rocks retain cold also, but might be useful to think of cold a little differently to understand this better. Cold is not something different from heat in the same way dark is not something different from light. Absolute darkness is the absence of light and absolute zero (cold as anything can get) is the absence of heat. When something gets cold, it is a little more accurate to the process to say it is loosing heat rather than 'gaining cold'. Rocks usually have thermal mass which means they are good at storing large amounts of heat energy. The energy that they retain has to come from somewhere. When rocks loose their heat energy (get cold), it takes a lot of heat energy to 'recharge' something with a lot of thermal mass. In the spring, the rocks you see are slower to 'recharge' with heat energy than the surrounding environment, so they are colder. Color also comes into play with the speed with which they gain heat energy. Lighter rocks in the sunlight will generally be slower to heat than dark rocks. Color (reflecting properties) aside, rocks with thermal mass you could say 'mellow' the surrounding temperature because they absorb (steal) heat energy when they are colder than the ambient air temperature and give off heat energy when they are warmer. I hope this helps.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. Thanks to Dave for the link to “The Draw”, they are very close to the land I am talking about (30min). I know I will be given their nursery some business.

I have intermittently concluded a few things from the comments:

1) There is no such thing as a blank canvas when it comes to recently logged land (Dave and Osker)
2) On logged land it is very important to know what tree species were on the land, especially if Douglas Fir was present. (Dave, Osker, Mt. Goat, H Ludi)
3) This hypothetical situation that I posed is hard to conclude on when I have not mentioned what type of forest it is. (Mt. Goat, H Ludi)
4) I take the point that hybrid forest and pasture eliminates much of the dilemma. (Peachlovingman)
5) If I may paint some very broad brush strokes, there seems to be a value or a goal related aspect to whether one should start a food forest in a forested or on logged land. Possible this is undercutting the decision. For example, those who subscribe to the ‘Mollisonian’ belief that we should leave the bush alone and concentrate on degraded (Dave and H. Ludi) seemed to lean more to the idea that logged land would be a better choice. While those who were concentrating more on food production (Osker and Mekennedy) leaned towards forested land. I don't have an opinion about one goal being better than the other philosophically, but I am interested in food production for my family and eventually community. There is a lot of degraded land in N. MN, N. WI, but there is also a lot of decently healthy forest. Rather than confine myself to degraded land, I would like to choose the land the will best suit food production in a food forest.

In an effort to filter out the differing goals (I am especially interested in Dave and H. Ludi's opinion), if you were to share the same goals as Osker and Mekennedy, which do you think makes a more ideal canvas for a food forest? In other words, which do you feel is better for food production in a food forest: forest or recently logged?

My biggest concern in regard to this decision was brought up by Peachlovingman that the forested land would represent much more work then the recently logged land. My concern is that I will be a long way away from putting trees in the ground or that I risk putting trees and bushes in where they will never thrive because the forest is too dense.

The forested land in question in my particular situation is Mixed hardwood Sugar Maple, Red Oak, and some paper birch. The dominant understory is Hazelnut etc.. It contains a decent variety of useful plants. To answer Mt. Goat, I am very interested in planting lots of nut trees. I did not know they grew well as an understory (besides Hazelnut). That is good news! I am foremost concerned with getting useful long term perennials established, rather than raised beds etc. Any further thoughts?

This might be an option if you have wind exposure and better if you have dry air. Afghans in the very hot and dry western Afghanistan shove their windows full - and a few feet thick - with a dense brush (think compacted tumbleweed). They then splash water into the brush initially and then when whenever it dries. The wind blowing through it has an impressive cooling effect. Just like a swamp cooler, except the brush supplies greater surface area and thus cooling effect from evaporation. Even though they often have little water, they find it a worthwhile activity.

Here is a more theoretical question:

Let us say we have a choice between two pieces of land: one that is a 50 year old forest and the other is recently logged. Let us say that the two pieces of land are identical in every other way. Which one is more ideal canvas for a food forest? If this is more of a question of preference than doctrine, which would you prefer and why?

I could see how this could go either way. The former would be a rather established ecosystem. We would be entering an ecosystem rather than creating it. However, the latter is a blank canvas for design, and the fruit and nut trees would not be competing with much more mature trees for sunlight. Any thoughts?

I should add that in my specific case many of the more obvious reasons for desiring a mature forest such as water retention and shade do not apply as much in the water rich, sun poor NE Minnesota / NW Wisconsin.