Medicine of the People conference 2012

From the http://www.traditionsinwesternherbalism.org/ site

I'm back from my intense experience at the Medicine of the People conference (formerly the Traditions in Western Herbalism).  It will probably take me weeks, if not months, to go through all the notes and process them.  The amount of information available at this conference is staggering.  Thankfully the class notes are available for download for a while and I don't have to rely on my chicken scratch!

Some of the buildings at the lodge

The classes weren't just about using herbs or plants.  They were about life.  Classes as diverse as "Coping with death and caring for a dying loved one", "How to sit with a patient", "Making a financial living as an herbalist", "Ecology and activism in women's health", "Creating a dynamic practice", "Starting a community supported herbal clinic", "Clinical skills", "Endocrine systems", "Teaching the teacher", "Disaster preparedness",  "Chronic pain" and "Creating social and political change for herbalists".

The information the presenters shared was sometimes so personal and came from such a deep place, that their words had to wait in the throat behind the lump that only comes when sharing the deepest, most personal experience of pain.  But most of the time was filled with laughter and smiles shared between friends and strangers who all shared the common love of nature and the health of her residents.

Vandana Shiva on Bill Moyers

Just a post to ask everyone to watch this interview by Bill Moyers with Vandana Shiva and read the transcript.  She has said so succinctly what would take me days to say.

In response to the question "But what can I do?"

VANDANA SHIVA: I think first thing is each of us has to daily ask a question, "Where am I complicit in a war against the Earth? Where are my daily actions part of a devastation of the planet and with it, a devastation of the lives of people."

http://billmoyers.com/segment/vandana-shiva-on-the-problem-with-genetically-modified-seeds/

Wild Rose Traps

I have been warned so many times about not having Multiflora roses here, that I need to pull them all up.  But I decided to leave most, specifically the big healthy ones.  Not only do they produce an abundance of flowers and hips for me and the insects, but they are a wonderful trap plant.

These plants can take a beating every year from Japanese beetles and who knows what else.  Some look gorgeous, but some poor rose bushes I wonder how they make it.  But they do.  They can grow 2 - 6 feet per year vigorously.  They take the damage that would otherwise be done to other plants and they take it on powerfully.

Thoughts on Gaura Biennis

Photo by Jamie

I've talked on this blog several times about Gaura Biennis and Japanese Beetles.  I've given more thought to where this wonderful trap plant grew and thought I'd pass along my observations.

I first noticed it around the edge of our flower garden that was created with a sheet of black plastic.  Black Plastic was put down till the grass died and then I ran timbers around the rectangle shape of the space created.  I didn't run the timbers right to the edge and left a bit of bare ground just outside the timbers.  Inside the area framed by timbers, I scratched the ground and broadcast some perennial flowers and those came up along with other wildflowers.  No where on the interior of this garden space did Gaura Biennis grow.  It only grew, and quite thickly, right along the outside edge of the timbers where the grass had been killed but the earth not scratched.  In this area it was dense, healthy and grew about 6 feet tall in the full sun.  I've read it likes shade, but it did great in the full sun.

Our experience with Permaculture

      Here is my presentation from the Sustainability Festival on the 20th ..... Something I forgot to say and would like to add. When you first start out not mowing and you aren't used to it, it's going to look a bit like the beginning phase of a beard.  Rough and scraggly,  just hold on.  It's going to be a colorful ride.   (P.S.  I have no idea why blogger is making the font big in some places and small in others?)

From: http://www.permacultureglobal.com/posts/394

Picture in your mind the Garden of Eden - a paradise.  I imagine an ancient place dripping with fruit and nuts, food at my finger tips and I don’t imagine a place where people are slaving away.  It’s what we dream of, but gardening the common way is so labor intensive and expensive.   Much of the time and effort is spent adjusting for our poor Earth stewardship.  When I think of paradise, I never think about acres and acres of mowed monochromatic grass.  Imagine a garden that each generation in a family can build on for the next and the quality of life and land value for each generation is improved.  

      When I started gardening, I did it the way we were all taught.  I tilled, planted annuals in a row using crop rotation, hoed, watered a lot, fertilized, sprayed for bugs, weeded and started over the next year.  When we started out as organic gardeners none of that changed.   Then I started learning about permaculture and was hooked.   Permaculture isn’t a new way of gardening, it’s the oldest way. 

We've built a house

Judy has officially moved in to the home we've all been building for her for the last year and 9 months.  We tried to do it as naturally as possible, but there were areas of compromise.  Even with one of the walls being completely uninsulated the house doesn't get cold, underground homes are awesome!  It took a lot longer than we thought and there is a lot of finishing work to be done including the earthen roof.   For the floor we'll do an earthen floor workshop hopefully some time this year when our house has 4 walls, a roof and doors so that Judy will have somewhere to stay while we're doing it and the floor dries.  We should start on our house soon.  

Judy moves in!

Judy is spending the first night in her new home!  Not quite done, but done enough to move in.  Pictures soon!!!

Meanwhile, here is a funny video of my cat Falon playing with some seed packets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhhxmPX0pHs&feature=youtu.be