My place is on a several "Edges."
We are located right at the margin between the lower Mid-West and the South. Consequently, we have some very diverse weather patterns! This last winter, we had temperatures in the minus teens, and our summers can get to 100 and stay there for a month. This climate edge creates challenges in deciding what
perennial plants to choose for my food forest.
The property also lies right on the western edge of the Ozark Uplift. The Ozarks rise up off of a flat plain and this can cause some very strong wind sheer. We are a weather-maker area and our rainfall can be intense during thunderstorms. I have watched seven inches fall in about four hours. Sideline winds can also be intense, reaching sixty and seventy miles per hour, and they're gusty. Nurse
trees are important to give my young
fruit trees support from the winds.
As I stated in my last post, our ten acres is covered with mature Oaks, Hickories, and Black Walnuts. One would
think that this ought to produce a huge amount of biomass, and it does! But the soil is extremely sandy and the above weather patterns literally wash the tilth away. I am experimenting with
Swale and
Berm on Contour to stop that flow of fertility.
Another important "Edge" that I'd like to learn to fully develop is the fact that the Ozark Uplift contains plants and animals only found in the semitropics of China and Tibet. There is already an incredible
biodiversity on my site, and I would like to gain insight into how to best understand and become part of it.
We also find ourselves on the "Time and History Edge." This part of the Ozark region was almost completely deforested in order to provide railroad ties for burgeoning industry. I spoke to the grandson of the man who originally homesteaded the eighty acres around us and he told me that when he was a boy, the only trees on the property were the apples and pears that his grandfather planted. Even with drained and wasted soil, this area is an example of recovery from absolute ecological disaster! I want to learn ways of articulating that recovery so that I can use my place as a laboratory model in teaching others.
Finally, we are also on the Social/Economic Edge. Whereas, some fifty years ago, this county and the four counties adjoining it, produced 90% of the food for three large metro areas in the East, the entire state of Missouri produces no more than 2% of its own food requirements. The vast areas of farmland that used to produce so abundantly are now referred to as a "Fesque Desert." Farmers who remained are impoverished and enslaved by paradigms that are not
sustainable financially or ecologically. I want to be able to create a model ten acres that will show Missourans how to get back to agricultural self-sufficiency biologically.
I'm the Elected Principle/Medicine Chief of a
Native American Traditional Organization with membership in the thousands, located all over the United States and Canada. We are a
Community of
people intent on restoring a pattern of living taken from us and replaced with linear, Newtonian, culture of consumption. I'm already called upon for guidance. I need the tools to teach them how to design their own holdings for a sustainable future.
So many edges! I think a
PDC will give me theory and practical application, along with the language I'll need to really drive changes within my own
Indigenous People, and frankly, to be a better neighbor.