Photo Journal: February in ten photos
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writings & media
Articles, photography, video, and writings sourced from our work in and beyond the field. Our “from the field” series features projects, daily life, and reflections inspired by our work at home on our two farm sites in Frenchtown, New Jersey. Our “beyond the field” series features, projects, collaborations, and partnerships we are engaged in with our broader community.
Popular subjects include permaculture, forest gardening, regenerative agriculture, plant medicine, ecological restoration, earth based spirituality, and other diverse musings on agroecology topics.
Photo Journal: January in ten photos
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If January is a seed containing the full articulation of the year, the forthcoming story has been frozen solid around here. Blanketed in a perma-snow since December, we’ve scant seen the earth all month. Temperatures colder than we’ve known in years have tempered our progress on planned forestry work and infrastructure projects, and so we’ve been banging about the interior quite a bit. In the farm office, in the barns, in the house, in the recesses of our subconscious; the idea of a year has been taking shape. All we can plan for, all we can imagine, in the shape of a frozen seed.
Read MoreWorking With What Is: Site Specific Plant Selection, Landrace Breeding, and Creating a Resilient Future
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Some time ago, I was dispensing some free advice regarding a proposed meadow conversion with a prospective client. The terrain in question was a former hay field with hospitable soil in a rural corner of eastern Pennsylvania.
She was nervous and unsure about her vision for the site, and in an effort to lighten the load, I offered, “There are many ways to create a meadow depending on your available resources, but at the very least, rest assured there are already meadow plants out there, just waiting.”
Read MoreBearing witness to what is
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There is a permaculture principle called Observe & Interact, that like most permaculture principles, seems at first, simple, obvious, and perhaps perfunctory. But to truly observe with honesty, is a radical act that requires one to suspend preconceptions, rote prescriptions, and built in prejudices to stand as a witness to what is. It is precisely at this intersection that interaction with our environment can begin from a place of collaboration and respect, rather than dictation and control….
Read MorePermaculture Principles: Produce No Waste
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We keep a lean operational budget on the farm. It’s one way we’ve found to make it work over the years on this experimental farm in the absence of topsoil, existing infrastructure, or reliable market channels. We might say this attention to the bottom line is the primary motivation for saving seed, not heating the propagation house, or conducting every class for seven years around a single picnic table, but that would only be part of the story…
Read MoreWhen the center of gravity shifts
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We’ve been out of touch for a while. It’s been a challenging time to put to words as the world around us rapidly reorients, and moves like the blustery winds in this otherwise mild spring.
At the start of the year, our center of gravity was already shifting. We ended our three month stay at the farm on Barbertown Idell Road nearly a decade later than expected. Johann’s mom finally moved into the cottage, and we moved to the “new farm,” five years later than anticipated. The intervening years between expectation and realization were some of the most challenging of our lives so far…
Read MoreREADING THE LANDSCAPE SERIES: Microclimates
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Watching this ice storm melt is like lifting the veil on the energetics of elemental forces in the landscape. Where does the water gather and freeze, or trickle and melt? Where is the whipping wind persistent enough to keep a bent branch permanently encased in ice, even as it twinkles in the sun? It is as revelatory as it is enchanting…
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