half way there

Just finished burning half of the firewood I split for this winter. Since it is toward the end of January, I think we'll make it to spring.
(This does not include my contingency cord of wood in the old shed) A cord of wood is a volume four feet by four feet by eight feet. ( 3.6 cubic meters)

So I wondered, on a long term sustainable basis, how many acres of woods does one need to heat their home in our climate?

We are at roughly N43 latitude, with pretty cold winters. ( It got down to -18F (-27C) yesterday, and they are forecasting -26F (-31C) for Tuesday night, but these are about as cold as it gets)

Tending outside chores was not too comfortable.

I did some googling at forestry and wood heating forums, and a rough average is 1/2 cord of wood per acre that can be harvested in perpetuity. There is obviously a wide range, depending on soil, rainfall and climate. Since we have been burning around three cords each winter, I need six acres (2.4 hectares) to heat our home.

In the rural areas of America, and here in Wisconsin, there are no natural gas pipelines, so most people heat with trucked in propane, though some regions heat with diesel fuel. And what about the cities, where by far the most people live? Natural gas is relatively cheap right now, but it will not last. There is a lot more to sustainable living than this but just the one example of home heating shows how precarious things could get.

I've been fortunate enough to afford buying land which has around  15 acres (6 hectares) of woods, so this home will be ok if fossil fuels fade, especially after I get more good quality trees planted. But what about everyone else? Even if they could afford the land, there is not enough for everyone.

This is an old photo from last fall. It is about 1.5 cords, or half of our annual firewood use. We currently have around eight inches of snow on the ground.

top predator job opening

In southwestern Wisconsin, as in some other areas of the U.S., the white tailed deer has made quite the comeback in the last few decades, and is in fact a problem for the ecological balance in many areas.

We killed all the wolves.

Deer are overeating their terrain, preventing any new trees from taking over as older trees die, and generally affecting the "normal" plant community distribution.

I'm not sure it was quite the intent, but now we need to step up and take on the job of being one of the predators with a specific role in the ongoing predator prey balance that goes on at all scales in a complex ecosystem.

The new twist here, is that because of the overcrowding, CWD ( chronic wasting disease, a form of prion infection similar to mad cow disease) had been spreading through the herds, as there is more deer to deer contact. Hunters are actually encouraged to take more than one deer in specific areas that the Department of Natural Resources has determined need thinning. We need more predators.

So this winter, I did my part and took a nice buck, which we will be eating soon. I'm not what you would call an avid hunter, or very good or dedicated at it. If the deer were not wandering around in our woods, I would not go elsewhere looking for a hunting site. In fact, I get bored sitting in a tree stand for hours in the winter cold, but had some good luck and took a good shot.

This is the deer after I field dressed it and drug it out of our woods.

I view deer hunting as one more part of land stewardship. The DNR does annual assessment of deer populations, and sets deer harvest regulations to try to keep a good balance for the ecosystem health. In my area this year, one deer hunting license permits you to harvest one buck and four does. That is a lot!

winding down the garden season

Almost done with the garden this year. Still to do: harvest Brussels sprouts, plant garlic for next year, and lay down composted cow manure in the rows to mellow over winter. We've had a very wet fall, with the area having record flooding. Lucky for us, we are not in the flood plain, so no damage here, but it's been hard to work in the  garden or stay on top of mowing.

We are trying one more ( always one more!) thing this fall. Because of the slope of our land, and easily eroded silt soil in some areas, we do not till the entire garden. We leave sod everywhere except right in the row. It looks funny, and the rhizome like grasses constantly move back in to the rows, but it's the best thing to do if we want to keep our soil. So we mow our garden all summer.

The new thing is taking the flattest fourth of our garden, tilling it all up, and planting winter wheat.
Luckily, the heaviest rains finished before the tilling, but we've still had some erosion. I hand broadcasted, and raked in as best I could, aiming for one inch ( 25mm) of cover.

The wheat has sprouted, and the stand is not too bad for how it was done, I just hope it was thick enough to crowd out weeds next spring.

Because the rest of the garden areas are too steep to risk full tillage, this is the only place where we'll attempt it, so it will make our rotation scheme a bit tricky for the next year. We have come to realize that we are planting a bit too much for the two of us, anyway, so a 3/4 garden will also be a good move.

We'll hopefully be grinding our own wheat next summer. I'll report on how it goes.

The last of the root crops: Beets, cabbage, rutabagas, and parsnips for the root cellar.

one hen

one hen

Our oldest laying hens are now 3 and one half years old. Our oldest rooster is also. While we have lost a few to undetermined illness, the losses have been rare and isolated, so I haven't felt the need to intervene. Overall, they are doing fine.

The old rooster though, has had it rougher than the hens. He's lost a claw or two in fights, and lost some comb to winter freezing.  He has been a good protector, and is pretty deferential to us humans.When he was young, he would lead the flock all over the place, from barnyard to south lawn of the house. All in all, a good rooster.

A couple younger rosters have slowly worn him down with challenges, and so this year, we have a new top rooster, and the old guy has been relegated to the fringes. Frankly, we have a couple too many roosters. Ongoing negotiations on whether to eat surplus roosters have stalled out.

The new top rooster however, is a bit selfish when finding food, and doesn't seem to be the guardian that the old fellow was. He also just hangs near the barn, leaving all the crickets, grasshoppers, and other potential goodies a bit further afield go to waste.

And of course, chases off the old guy when he tries to hang out with the flock. So the old fellow still comes down by the house, finding plenty to eat, and crowing every once in a while to let us know he is still on the job.


Interestingly, there is one hen that still follows him each day on his foraging rounds. They are both Black Australorps, and one could engage in some anthropomorphism and almost think of them as one of the bird species that mate for life. But chickens do not do that.

So why does this one hen still leave all the rest of her twenty odd sisters, and follow this old fellow around the farm?

Chickens seem to us to be a confounding mix of smart and stupid. In general, they do learn, and develop patterns that work for them, but any new twist can really cause them to lose it. Maybe we aren't all that different??

My mind wanders while doing the daily farm chores, and one thing I've wondered this fall is, why that one hen?

What extra little brain activity, genetic variation,  or chance occurrence caused her and only her to stray from the flock and hang with the deposed leader? Is it more than pure statistical probability?

There is still so much we don't know about our own brain workings, that it seems a bit presumptuous to declare that this or that animal is not thinking, or that it is complex "instinct" we see and no more.

Intelligence, or sapience is obviously a spectrum, and a dog is clearly "smarter" than a chicken, but maybe intelligence is composed of many more variables and axes of progressive change than we currently envision?

I am sure tempted to think that that one hen is just smarter than all the others.


( not my chickens, just an image of black australorps from the internet)

Mine, yours, and ours

Recently finished reading a post industrial civilization collapse novel. It was ok, pretty typical story arc, but it did get me to revisit the whole personal possession versus communal possession balance that all civilizations try to figure out.

We have generated many words describing the tragedy of the commons, the power of private property to motivate hard work and creation of wealth, and other aspects of how humans derive their livelihood, but one observation I'm mulling over is the fact that it may be more a case of the situation decides the best balance, and there is not as much choice in each culture than we might think.

Since we just happen to be living during a once in a planetary history event, it is really hard to keep perspective about what "normal" might mean in the long haul. The rugged individualism archetype of American culture may blind us to other possibilities that would be better suited to the predicted future.

When you think about it, the whole idea of having a choice in creating a system with equitable opportunity, of a chance at a comfortable life, or picking a fulfilling career, is really only afforded to us because of the respite from hard daily toil to feed ourselves provided by fossil fuels. The proportion of our populace that is not working on the direct production of food and shelter is anomalously high because of the productivity multiplier that fossil fuels provide.

I think it is no coincidence that much of the progressive, or liberal change in the last ~200 years is majorly based on the fossil fuel energy we've tapped. All the newly available ability to do work helped end the (official, government sanctioned) era of slavery, and created so much wealth that there was enough to share with a greater portion of society. It also freed up many human resources to stop growing food and focus on inventing, innovating, researching, and otherwise leveraging the resources we have extracted. ( It also creates image consultants, assistant assistants to the undersecretary of diversity, and myriad other tertiary and quaternary roles to keep a complex, wealthy economy rolling).

It's a bit more complicated than that, and I've read many essays covering various aspects of the ascent of "Western" phenomenon, but I think the norms around personal property, shared commons, cooperative group behavior will all change as we descend the energy curve, not so much from considered choice, but by survival forces.

I'll once more share my observation of the nearby Amish community, where collective effort for large tasks, the balance of personal and community responsibility is much different than the rest of us. Amish do not pay in to Social Security, because they take care of their own aged and infirm.

They pay most other taxes, but do not participate in insurance, as they have internal means to share risk.

They are the rare ( possibly unique?) case where the personal/community balance has been intentionally chosen in spite of the conveniences afforded by cheap energy driven technology.

In a low energy future, will we all become a bit more Amish?

trail building

About 15 acres (6 hectares) of our land is a brushy, sloped, rather poor quality woods. I am told that is used to be nearly all clear, and used for pasture, with a few trees sprinkled around. The few large trees are elms ( which are dying from Dutch Elm Disease), black cherry, and just a few oak, black walnut, and shagbark hickory.

 It was neglected, not used for pasture, and when we took ownership, had filled in with briars, prickly ash, grey dogwood, and sumacs. These are all early succession plants, a bit invasive, but over time would be replaced by the eventual climax vegetation.

The thing is, I would like to hurry that process up a bit, and maybe encourage those plants that are also of use to us. Looking at the dense stands of brush, I wasn't sure where to start, or what the best direction was. Then I got advice from a nearby homesteader who is also a forestry worker. He showed us how he was cutting in trails on contour through his steep wooded lot, and was using that as a beachhead to thin, plant, and improve the overall health of his woods. The contour trails made it much easier to bring tools and materials in and out, and if well built, will minimize erosion and would last for years.

So now it all became a lot clearer what to do, and we have started a multiyear project to create these incursions, and plant trees all along the new paths. I don't need to cut all the brush out, just enough to clear a spot of sunlight for each new sapling to take off and eventually shade out the brush species.


Her are a couple photos of the trail.

I should point out that while these photos were in June, the work was done in late winter/early spring. It's so much easier to see the lay of the land and rough out the route when the leaves are off, and also, it's not hot and buggy. An occasional run through here with a mower or weed wacker will keep the woody plants from filling back in ( and they will do it so quickly!).

A glimpse of the casa. By chance, one good trail route is the same elevation  as the house, so will be quite easy to access, maybe even when the time comes I'm using a walker.

(current) end of the trail. This is what most of the woods looks like before we cut in the trail. This is as far as we got this spring. As you can see, dense stands of young trees, and since much of it is prickly ash, very painful to walk through.

A close up of the prickly ash. You might be able to see a couple of the thorns, but I'm sharing this photo so you can see the clusters of small, reddish tinged berries that they are producing this time of year. To me, plant taxonomy is confusing, and the plants that are related to each other but look nothing alike is bizarre. Turns out these are in the citrus family, and I can tell you that these berries smell wonderful when rolled around in your fingers. A bright, flowery citrus smell, mostly of lemon or lime. They are used in some alternative medicines as supplements, but I'll pass till I see more science on what exactly they do to you.

Here is a new young oak in one of the small clearings we've made alongside our trail. Soil minerals and soil biota are important for tree health, but the absolute first things are sun and water. Once the saplings are tall enough to reach the top of the tree tube, and the growing tip is out of the reach of deer, the tree will be fine on its own without our help.

In times past, each farm had its own dump. They would dump things into the least useful land, like the ravine. The elm in this photo has been dead a couple years, but grew up through the old coil of discarded fencing. No telling how old the fence is. The tree is probably around 30-40 years old.

Next post will hopefully cover the terraces we've been building, as soon as the current section is done.

Grinding coffee

A few years ago, when thinking of things we could do to reduce power usage, I decided to try to find a hand powered coffee grinder. (Yes, we are becoming coffee snobs, fresh ground, organic fair trade, the whole bit) Grinding coffee is in reality a small part of our electricity use, but sometimes, a change like this can be kind of fun,  and keeps the idea of reduced electricity use in the forefront of our thinking.

There are plenty of modern designs on the market, but why not find a used one or an antique, and avoid consumption of new materials? When I began the search, we would stop in antique shops every once in a while while traveling, but many of these antique grinders were no longer functional, merely nostalgic decoration.

Finally found one that was in good working order, and have been using it for the last six years. This particular grinder is over 100 years old, and build of cast iron and very rugged gearing. The design is simple, and once the grind adjustment is set how you like it, no more worries. Grinds fine every time.

Our wall mounted Universal #24 coffee grinder.

This is but one example of designing for the long term, or, as I like to think of it, for the low energy future. There are very few household items built today that have long term durability and low or no electrical energy use as part of their design criteria.

The next possible question is, how can I justify buying coffee, which is an imported luxury? Happily I can afford it, but for now, I feel ok as buying fair trade coffee gives better support to farmers, and coffee is not a commodity that ships by air, so the shipping impact is (relatively) low. However, it is a luxury, and not local, so at some point I will experiment with chicory root as a substitute, and see if I can adjust to that, as chicory grows all over the place here in Wisconsin. I would miss the caffeine though.

What other small, incremental steps can we take to reduce consumption, reduce reliance on fossil fuels? There are dozens, and all it takes is some imagination and being more aware of our daily routines, and thinking about how we could modify them to be more simple and human powered. A bit of research on how things were done in the past also helps.