Sunny Baba

Hi Mary,
We are in SW New Mexico.

Hi Josie,
I live in an intentional community of mostly introverts! There are about 14 of us on 1500 acres. Lots of room for our own space and yet we do enjoy coming together for meetings and potlucks. Just not too often. There are a few more extroverted folks among us and sometimes they feel that there could be more social time but some how we manage to find a balance.
We call ourselves a "village"; people have built their funky little homes with privacy as a big consideration. We all know who is ok with unannounced visits and who we need to forewarn. And we respect each other's needs for space.
We help one another when needed and share the care of the land, and maintenance of facilities.
B Dooley was kind of correct when saying it might be like a monastery. Definitely NOT a typical neighbourhood because we have more care and respect for one another and if there are disagreements, we are committed to showing up and resolving them together, (without having to spend countless hours in group process.)
We are an inclusive Sufi community; not everyone is a Sufi but anyone on a spiritual path is welcomed. Some are pagans, Buddhists, or follow the Native American path. Lots of diversity of beliefs. We are both a Nature Sanctuary ( most of the land is in a conservancy easement and surrounded by a huge wilderness) and Retreat Center. Western Sufis are mystics who choose to study Nature as their "sacred scripture" and often go out and live in the wilderness to attune with a Higher Source. Being an hour from town on an unpaved road keeps all but the most adapted to remote living from joining! The seekers that need constant social interaction end up moving to town where there is a myriad of options to choose from.
I spend the majority of time with my goat herd and garden. Get in the truck once per week for town errands. Grow some extra food to sell to folks who don't want to garden, share some of the dairy and eggs, have friends close by when I need to talk but for the most part am engaged in a deep immersion in the Silence and Beauty of my little Oasis in the desert.
It is possible!

We planted a 2 yr old grafted Meader persimmon and it flowered and fruited 2 years later! It's only about 5 feet tall. The flowers are unusual but very pretty. Fruit are smaller than a walnut but delicious!

This is an old thread but since it's been bumped up I thought I'd offer some thoughts and experience.
There's a great book by Ramiel Nagel called "Cure Tooth Decay". He makes many good suggestions including cod liver oil.
Doug Simons' DVD also has good info on caring for cavities well so that they can remineralize.

Years ago I was getting the occasional cavity and I read about how glycerine,  a slippery substance which is in almost all toothpastes, actually coats the teeth and prevents them from remineralizing! Wouldn't it be the greatest irony if the very tool that 4 out of 5 dentists recommend to prevent cavities , was preventing the body from healing them on its own???
So, I experimented by quitting toothpaste. It's been 15 years and I've not had a single cavity since! For awhile I used homemade toothpowders but now I just snip a willow twig from my backyard , chew the tip into a "brush" and brush my teeth only with that. It gets my teeth incredibly clean and no more plastic brushes into the landfill for me. You can also buy neem tooth twigs or use other shrubs like hazel, etc.

The other thing I did for my gums was quit dental floss. Do you know that a lot of floss is coated with teflon which can be very irritating to people with sensitivities? After decades of flossing religiously, I stopped cold turkey and my gum "pockets" started closing up and became a non-issue during subsequent dental check-ups.

Having the right minerals in our bodies is essential. Most food is devoid of minerals because of the lack in soils these days. The body knows how to remineralize cavities but we need to have those minerals flowing through our blood, tissues, saliva for the body to do what it knows how to do. We need to grow our own food in soil that is rich in essential and trace minerals. Eating nutrient-dense, high-brix foods will heal our bodies and our teeth and will provide the nutrients for our children to inherit good teeth as well.
Smile everyone!

I was hoping to learn more from this thread about pollination.
I bought about 20 seaberry seedlings 5 years ago and assumed several of them would be males.
We planted them here and there, mostly on the fencelines. I had no idea how tall and wide and invasive and thorny they would get to be! I was only thinking ahead to all of that wonderful food source of Vitamin C we'd be harvesting.
They have quickly, without much care, grown into 10 foot+ trees, spreading all over. They bloomed profusedly for the first time last spring and I thought for sure we'd have some fruit. But alas, I read afterwards that the male and female plants need to be within a few feet of one another to pollinate with wind. And I didn't know enough last year to check and see which flowers were male and which were female so that maybe I could have grafted where needed this spring.

But, wow, when I hear about so many people having a hard time getting them started....it's hard to believe because we're not exactly in a lush environment. It's high desert, 16 inches of rainfall...maybe. Last summer the monsoons missed us and the temps got up to 107 degrees but the stress did not bother them at all and they just kept on growing and growing.
We've got sandy loam, drains really fast, not especially high in nutrients. Maybe they don't like to be pampered?

Cecile,
We've worked for years to raise the brix of our plants. Yes, absolutely, we can change the brix of the entire plant including the leaves.

One thing I read recently though is that the 12 Brix works best on sucking insect pests and maybe not so good on chewing or boring insects.

hey Matt,
We tried the Cucuzzi gourds last summer and they were beautiful and grew well. But we found them almost unpalatable. So we let them keep growing and are making digeridoos out of the longest ones. probably will not grow them again for food.

Our favourite for mildew and squash bug resistance is a moschata called tromboncino. They can be eaten like a summer squash when young and mature like a butternut when full grown. Flavour is mild and kind of nutty when young. Firmer texture than a zucchini. Stores really well. And they grow BIG! we got 8 4 foot squashes from one plant. We let it grow up and over a tree as a kind of trellis.

I have learned that Cobalt deficiency can cause bitter or off-tasting milk. I get it in a mineral block because they don't need a lot so can usually get what they need from a block for maintenance. You can also get cobalt sulphate or cobalt carbonate powder and make a 1% solution much as you would with copper sulphate for a deficiency ( 20 ml twice per day) until she's back on track and then go to maintenance.
Cobalt seems to not be available in hay or pasture plants in drought years when you'll see more deficiencies.
Cobalt is the precurser to B12 , but it works better that giving B 12 itself.
Giving supplemental Selenium can block Cobalt uptake as well as copper and Iodine
Cobalt also helps prevent parasites.