evan's ant village log

Day 224

Mike's been hard at work writing; he's in the middle of four new books right now! We helped him get some of his books mailed off to Amazon. You can totally buy Mike Oehler's books using these permies affiliate links:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN/0442273118/rs12-20

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN/0960446400/rs12-20

Day 225

Look over there, across that field. You see those mountains with the dusting of snow on them... that's Canada. You can stand 6ft underground and look out the window and see Canada. It's winter over there, it'll soon be winter here as well.

Mike had us do a bit of insulating and winterizing, and we split and stacked some firewood too. They say wood heats you once when you cut it, twice when you buck it, thrice when you haul it, four times when you split it, five times when you stack it, and again when you finally burn it. That's 6x as much heating as gas or electric!

With good dogs... what else? And I love how wood splitting is a spiritual experience in 'mindfulness'... cut the mental monkey mind, and be right here, now, with the eye and the arm, and the target ;) Thanks, again Evan and Sharla, for bringing us along.... feel us right there, looking over your shoulder? :) ox

Day 226

We said farewell to Mike and his fine furry friends for a while, and set off towards the setting sun. Jesse needed a ride to the airport, (he's visiting his family for thanksgiving,) and then Sharla and I drove down to southern Washington to meet up with Sharla's dad, Roger.

Roger's up here in the northwest on business, and we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to get together for a visit. Good to see you again, Roger!

The countryside through which we drove was sort of wide open, gently rolling scrubland. We stopped at a rest area where there were lots of big leguminous-looking trees, so naturally we gathered up a bunch of the seedpods. Always on the lookout for ways to increase biological diversity.

We'll be picking up Jesse and heading back to Mike's at the beginning of December, and soon thereafter we'll be heading back to the labs. But for the rest of November, we'll be traveling around the area and hopefully visiting a few permaculture sites.

As always, we're so grateful for the support and encouragement we receive from all y'all lovely folks who are looking over our shoulders! And if any of y'all happen to be in the area and might like to meet up within the next ten days or so, send me a purple mooseage and we'll see if perhaps we can coordinate.

Day 227

We spent some time with Roger in Toppenish, a mural-filled town in the Yakima valley. There were fields upon endless fields of vineyards, orchards, and especially hop plantations all around.

Rows and rows of evenly-spaced posts with line strung between them stretched outwards to the hilly horizon. Already harvested, the lines were empty save for a few scraggly leftover vines and leaves. These fallow skeletons of monoculture haunted the windswept plain, their nipped buds and stolen flowers long consumed by the unquenchable thirst for beer.

Before leaving the valley and continuing westward, we gathered some seeds from under a big deciduous tree. The leaves were gigantic, but otherwise reminiscent of maple, and the seeds were arrayed in hard spheres with fluffy windborne innards.

Sycamore!

A sycamore... ? in E Wa ? ??

Could be honey locust? I remember harvesting those when I was rafting in Eastern Wa, and my husband saw them everywhere in Southern California.

http://tcpermaculture.com/site/2013/08/01/permaculture-plants-honey-locust/

You might want to keep an eye on them. We brought some home from our rafting trip, and some weird insects drilled their way out of them. I can't recall what they were, but they kind of freaked me out. This was a good 9-10 years ago, though, so I don't remember many details!

Day 228 (part 1)

On the way out of the valley we noticed many more orchards and these giant stacks of boxes. I imagine that these boxes get filled up with apples and other fruits and put on trains and shipped all over the place.

We passed over the Cascades just south of Mt Rainier. Snowy peaks, moss, ferns, trees, and stunning waterfalls. Cascadia sure is a beautiful country.

Day 228 (part 2)

A few Cascadian specimens...