speak of the devil........

Well; In my last post, I mentioned the concern of dry weather the first year new trees are planted, so we have had the worst drought in 50 years. Many trees are dead, some have died back, and we will need to wait till spring to see if they went dormant enough to resprout. We won't know the total loss till then, but it looks like it is at least one third. And of course, the deer browse isn't helping. We talked with Mark and were looking at a plan B option of buying a large plastic tank and drip hose to try to save them, but a couple big rains in late July made us decide to save our money and cross our fingers.

Here is one of the little guys in late spring, before the drought started taking it's toll. We had already had a low snow winter, so the ground was not starting out wet as normal anyway. The white plastic tube is to keep rodents from chewing the trunk. I understand that will primarily serve it's purpose in winter. We are heading up this weekend for garden tending ( the garden didn't do so well either, that is a whole other post) and preserving tomatoes. We knew that remote gardening would be a suboptimal experiment, but this year has been pretty lousy because of the drought.

water and energy

This spring, our field was planted with hundreds of trees, aligned with the rain capture swales that were put in last fall. Long term, the rain and snow melt will collect in the swales, making the soil just a bit wetter, making them a good place for plants and our especially trees to thrive, and get through dry spells. But this is only once their roots are spread into the wet zone. So till then, the new trees are at risk of dying in dry weather. As with farmers everywhere, we are at the mercy of mother nature's statistical averages.

Until we move permanently to the farm, our garden is at risk also. We drive up and weed, water when we can, but sometimes it's weeks between visits. Not a huge loss at this time if the tomatoes die, just the cost of seed and our hours of labor. The garden is an annual experiment, it is our learning curve, getting us ready for when the food we grow will be a major part of our sustenance. But once we live there, what will we do in dry spells? This is where energy and water converge. To get water where it's needed for our crops, it takes energy. We can use the well, and energy from the electric grid, or we can capture rain water and carry it to the plants, using muscle power. Or we can hope the rains fall when needed.

We will figure out clever use of gravity, natural systems, be frugal with our use of fossil fuel energy,  but in the end, it will require some use of energy to beat the statistical odds and assure our crops make it through summer.

heavy lifting

Our big projects this year are landscape ones. We will continue to convert and expand the old raised beds to a terrace system. We also are going to terrace the back patio area and create an herb/kitchen garden. Patsy has moved most of the blocks so far.

Here are some more of the blocks. We'll be moving them this summer one wheelbarrow at a time around the house and up the hill for the terraces.

EROEI

a little something I wrote for a newsletter I contribute to.

Petroleum, especially in the form of gasoline, is one of the most useful, dense sources of energy that we have. People knew about oil seeps and crude oil for quite a while. They had been daubing tar on roofs for water proofing, and were starting to learn how to thermally crack crude and distill lamp oil. But, it was a minor commodity until 1858, when Edwin Drake figured out how to drill and collect significant amounts of crude oil. The whales were of course thrilled, and we have been on one heck of a rush since then, replacing untold hours of backbreaking labor with fossil fuel energy, and completely transforming our lifestyles. People quickly invented things to make use of this abundant energy source. No need for slaves, no need for chopping wood for heat, no need for horses and the accompanying mess in city streets. What was not to like?
A central key to this renaissance is that the amount of effort (energy) needed to find and extract the oil is much less than that which is then utilized. If Edwin had needed to burn a barrel worth of crude oil in his steam engine drill in order to get a barrel of crude out of the ground, he would have been wasting his time, and we would still be riding horses. However, the amount of energy returned for the amount of energy invested, “energy return on energy invested, or EROEI ” was very high, and got even higher as technology improved and large, easy to pump oil fields were found. Once people realized you could drill and find oil, and get rich, they drilled everywhere. During the heyday of discovery of gusher oil wells and discovery of the largest oil fields, it was common for the EROEI to be 100. The energy equivalent of one barrel of oil would net back energy of 100 barrels. Well, as we all know, the easy, best fields were found first, creating several millionaires.
Unfortunately, as we have used the best oil fields, the remaining oil in the ground is not only harder to find, its EROEI is getting lower by the year. At some point, it will no longer be worth drilling for. So think about that. Even though we might have lots of oil still technically recoverable, it will be so deep or so diffuse, it will take as much energy to extract as what is recovered. That is the inevitable trend that we are facing, and is really more relevant than “peak oil” to how long we can rely on crude oil to power our society.
Now, energy accounting can get complicated, because the flexibility in use and the ability to convert from one form to another more useful form are also important. Also, calculating all the energy that was invested to get “new” energy gets into the area of embodied energy and emergy - a term that describes the quality, or usefulness of energy. Wikipedia provides more details on emergy, for those who would like to dig deeper.
Where are we today? How soon will we reach that point of diminishing returns? Keeping in mind the above-mentioned difficulty in its calculation, EROEI is still a critical metric for evaluating how easy it will be to keep our economy going without major disruption. For crude oil in the U.S. EROEI is as low as 3 now, and even in Saudi Arabia, it is only around 10-20. Efficiency retrofits (both industrial and in the home)have a good EROEI, wind turbines come in around 20, biodiesel and ethanol are only a little above 1.
So, we have some tough choices facing us right now. What will we do? Until we figure out the path forward, I would recommend maximizing efficient use of oil in everything you do.

weekend trips

Until we move to the farm ( can't wait!) we run up as soon as we can, working on projects and checking on things. This first shot shows how we need to plug a few holes, bring the cats when we move, and in general take control of the house. This guy almost got away from the electrical trap. We aren't sure how he even got that far, as they are supposed to get zapped instantly back inside. And yes, that is a chocolate chip, flung from his grasp as he bought the farm.

And here is a shot of the spinach we planted in February in the sun space in our self watering planters. Next trip up we might have some baby spinach to toss in our salad. That's some sage doing well behind the spinach sprouts. It did fine all through winter. We still need to experiment with fertilizing plants for longer term production, as we just used plain potting soil. Design of the planters is a takeoff on the Earthtainer. I'm sure we will fine tune the design and operation, but the main reason we built these was because we needed something that would keep plants watered between our trips. Once we move, I don't know if we will use them as much.

hedging bets

At some point we will be raising livestock. Chickens are easy and will undoubtedly be our first foray. The existing coop is large enough for a reasonable flock, and just needs a bit of repair. We will be sure to get a breed or two that thrives on foraging. Maybe down the road we make a mobile coop and do pasture poultry, but not at first. Anything bigger will need proper fencing put up. We debate sheep versus goats, knowing from the reputations that there are tradeoffs for either. In general, goats are harder to keep in, and if we ever do pigs, we really need good fences. So, I've been reading about hedges. They are the long term, natural solution, but would take a lot of initial cost and work. Maybe I'll just start with a manageable stretch, and extend it over time. Our permaculture expert recommends Hawthorn, but Hedge Apple ( Osage Orange) intrigues me. more than likely in our climate zone, the Hawthorn will end up the best choice.

chipper update

So here is the chipper attachment for the BCS I've mentioned. Last couple trips to the farm we've been clearing brush and chipping it. A lot of prickly ash, dead apple, and wild grape were overtaking the area we want to put the barn, and also crowding the apple trees. We also whacked a few sumacs to round out the day. Sumacs are creeping in everywhere, and they chip easy, so we'll always have them for mulch. The chipper works ok, but extra work is needed to cut up branches so they feed well. I got spoiled using the big one we rented the first two springs. That's ok, this one we can fire up whenever we want, and we can also shred smaller stuff and large weeds to make a fluffy mulch. The lower feed chute is for larger, woody material, the bigger chute is for small branches and weeds. So far the Honda engine is a steady workhorse. Gotta remember to change the oil this spring before tilling season.

I've stockpiled a good bit of chips to use on the fruit trees from St. Lawrence Nursery when they arrive shortly. We'll be getting some more cherry, some aronia, and some more nut trees. I've also started adding chips around the more established trees, just so they aren't competing with the grass and weeds.