Stocking the Pantry workshop - Success!

It was a sold out class on Saturday in Manhattan and we had a blast!  We went over the complete 72 hour emergency kit, how to purify water, how to store all kinds of food long term, developed individual storage plans and finished it all off with a wonderful made-from-the-pantry meal cooked by chef Jeremy.  Feedback was wonderful and everyone seemed to have a good time.  There's talk of inviting me out to Junction City to teach this workshop again and maybe going back to Manhattan to teach canning and garden planning.  Woot!  Have I mentioned that I love teaching? 

On the home front, we spoke with Chad Bowen of Bowen excavating about getting some dirt work done around our farm.  We hope to get the estimate back from him this week so that we can get started on the first of those projects. 

We're gearing up for Halloween too.  I finished Catherine's Hogwart's robes tonight (she's going to be Hermione Granger from Harry Potter).  We're working on Jacob's outfit still.  He chose to be FDR (as in Franklin Delenore Roosevelt) for Halloween.  Unfortunately, boys suit jackets are not cheap and we haven't had any luck finding a used one.  I bought a pattern to see if I could sew one for a reasonable price, but I think the fabric would be just as expensive as buying a new one.  There's also the tiny detail of my not being a very good seamstress.  The search continues.

For the last couple of weeks, we've been devoting large amounts of time to a project that we can't quite talk about yet.  Hopefully, we'll have some good news on that front in the next week and we can let the rest of the world in on the newest craziness in our lives.  Until then, sorry for the radio silence - we haven't slowed down, just redirected.  ;-)

Planning and putting the garden to bed

We had a pleasant afternoon at the farm today.  It was a beautiful day.  We took the opportunity to clean up the garden from the frost.  There were lots of cantaloupe vines and partially ripened melons to add to the compost along with tomato vines and sweet potato vines.  We had hoped that the sweet potatoes would have had enough time to make a few decent roots, but there weren't really any to speak of.  That said, they made a good amoung of material for the compost pile.

Many lost melons and sweet potato vines

 

We had planned to plow a swale above the greenhouse, but the tractor had other plans.  The front tire is now flat and won't hold air.  We'll get to make a trip to pick up the tractor on our new trailer and tow it down to the tire shop to have the tire fixed.  *sigh*  

Flat tire!

We took some more time to walk the farm and narrow in on exact placements for future buildings.  Our mental plan for the farm continues to take shape and its going to be awesome!

Cleaning, stacking and fixing

That's been the story of this week.  First, we had to clean out the spot for the wood from Colorado (as mentioned in the last post).  Here are some pics of how that went and what the wood looks like now:

Before cleaning and organizing....

 

After cleaning and organizing....

Latest load stacked and drying.

Homemade spacers cut from our sawmilled wood.

 

We also had to do some quick re-work on our scaffolding shelves.  We discovered that the pointed feet will sink about a foot into the ground!  Naturally, this does not a set of level shelves make.  So Jeremy took everything off, lifted the scaffolding back out of the dirt and put a board under the feet to keep them above grade.  Problem solved!

Our next challenge was that our tall door into the greenhouse is about a foot too short for the RV to get in.  In order to make it possible to back the RV into the greenhouse, we will be cutting the sill under the door, digging out a trengh about 8 feet wide, 15 feet long and a foot or so deep and then re-filling it once the RV is inside.  *sigh*  We've started the prep for that and work will continue on it as we have time.  Fortunately, the RV is safe where it is and we have the time to work on it.

In other news, we're starting to purchase the tools we'll need to do the timber frame joinery.  The design for the cabin is pretty well finalized so the final plans with dimensions are in process.  It feels very slow, but we're moving forward!

Sunset at the farm.

A Weekend in Colorado

Jeremy made another trip to Colorado to pick up lumber and move more logs to the miller out there this past weekend.  Because our trailer was not highway worthy (one of the rear lights doesn't work), we took the 12 foot trailer that Jeremy’s uncle Rob has been incredibly generous about loaning us.  Jeremy met up with his father in Salina and they finished out the rest of the trip uneventfully.

For those who may not know, Jeremy's grandpa, Ott, had 2 heart attacks this summer and had a stint put in.  He’s an incredible guy and you wouldn’t know anything happened to look at him and talk to him now, however, we had planned to let him rest and do all the loading ourselves.  This was part of the reason for Jeremy’s dad going along – the idea being that 2 were better than one in getting Ott to take it easy.  We underestimated his determination.

As they pulled into Tanglewood Acres where Ott and Phyllis live, guess who was blocking the road at the gate? None other than Ott Lehrman. He drove in front of them up to the point in the road where one of the piles of logs were and basically ordered them to back up the trailer so they could load it that evening. There was no arguing with him about it – he blocked the road and there was no way to back the trailer all the way back out of Tanglewood! So, Ott climbed onto the skid steer with the biggest grin you’ve ever seen and proceeded to load the trailer with logs. It took about 10 minutes.

It was a beautiful day to work - 53-65 degrees and sunny!

Load #1

The next morning, Jeremy and Dean (his dad) drove the first load to the miller’s. Over the day, the loaded and ferried 2 more loads. After the last one was unloaded, they loaded up all the already milled wood (about 1300 bd ft) and settled up with Dave Roscoe (the miller). The lumber is beautiful –we couldn’t be happier. The 3 loads from this weekend should come very close to getting all the rest of the wood for the house. 

Time to trim this down a bit...

Our miller, Dave Roscoe unloading logs

3 generations of Lehrmans - (left to right) Dean, Jeremy and Otto 

The trip home was slow due to the load, but otherwise uneventful.  We stacked all the lumber in the greenhouse to cure on Thursday evening (thanks for helping Scott!).  Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Why aren't we talking about this?

FYI:  This is a break from your regularly scheduled homestead building programming.

I recently watched this clip from Bill Maer’s show where world renowned climate scientist Bill McKibbon had a short debate with 2 conservative commentators about whether climate change is real and warrants immediate action.  In it, Bill McKibbon asks if the actions to mitigate or reverse climate change are conservationist in nature (i.e. trying to maintain the current state), why isn’t it a conservative political issue?  I would encourage you to watch it (its short) before reading the rest of this so that you have the context for what I’m about to say.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ce7_1349566635

In the clip, a conservative writer for CNN makes the argument that “The projections for how bad it will be go out for 100 years and no model can be accurate that far in the future”.  He also seems to imply that we should just wait and see before we commit to doing anything about the problem.

This argument amounts to saying “We don’t know for sure so we should just ignore it.”  I have 2 counter arguments to this one.  First, there is a scientific process for evaluating how accurate a model is and one must follow it to determine how trustworthy the projections are.  You can’t just make a blanket statement that all models that try to project into the future are inherently wrong.  That would mean that all budget projections for federal and state governments should be tossed out, all retirement planning is a waste of time because it depends on projections of the economy out 40+ years and no one should ever be granted a 30 year mortgage because it requires believe the model that our economy will grow thus ensuring that you continue to have a job to pay it back.  Clearly, we use models at all levels of our society and they serve a useful function to alert us to trends and help inform decisions about how our current behavior can influence future results.  The same is true for climate models.

The scientific method for evaluating a model uses shorter term predictions to test whether the model accurately represents a system’s behavior.  Typically, a scientist would put in the values for the system at some known point in time (so, say the climate and human activity for 1990) and let the model run to see how well or poorly it predicts the current state.  Additionally, a given run of the model using current data would be checked against as we move forward to see if it accurately represented how the system is behaving now.  If the model performs well in those tests, then its results can be assumed equally trustworthy in the longer term.  No model is 100%, but many are close and they provide necessary information on how our decisions can affect the future.

Along with the accuracy check, a scientist would look at the bias in the model.  No model is 100% accurate, so an analysis of the gaps between what the model predicted and what actually happened gives  a sense of whether the predictions generally err on one side or the other of true – in other words, is the model generally predicting a worse situation or a better one?  Future predictions can then be evaluated in that light.

Lets take a look at how climate models perform under this process.  First, there are many climate models out there.  Every major national energy agency has a model and there are numerous models in academia.  All of the commonly used models show a significant warming trend that leads to increasing natural disasters, more frequent and severe droughts and significantly rising sea levels.  Lets look at one of the oldest of these models, the one presented in The Limits to Growth published in 1972.  In this book, a group of scientists predicted that human populations would collapse somewhere around 2050 without significant, large scale and unified action.  Scientists have compared actual conditions in the world with the model's predictions at several points, including a printed update in 2004 (Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update)  demonstrating that we are tracking very closely to that prediction now.  We are right on the path predicted by the model when no actions are taken to improve the situation.  Based on that, we can have a high degree of confidence in the model’s future predictions, none of which are pleasant. 

Now lets consider the second test – which way are the results biased?  This model, along with the ones used by the major energy agencies, has a bias toward optimism.  What does that mean?  It means that the predictions are proving to be better than what is actually happening.  The current effects of climate change are more severe than what is predicted by most models.  This means that when we see the model predicting it to be really bad in the future if we don’t do something, it will probably be worse in reality.   

So, the models used to predict the effects of climate change have proven very accurate and their bias is toward showing things will be better than they are actually proving to be. 

My second argument for why we should not just throw out all scientific models that predict the future (other than that it is a ridiculous idea on its face), is that his argument amounts to saying, “lets gamble and see if its really as bad as you think it will be.”  This is akin to saying that we are collectively ok with gambling the lives of over 6 BILLION people because we don’t want to change our policy and behavior.  Why do I say we’re gambling with people’s lives?  Lets look at some of the concrete effects of climate change, most of which we can already see.

First, we know that we can grow enough food to feed the current world population in the climate we have enjoyed for the last several centuries.  As that climate changes, there is no guarantee that we will be able to continue to do that.  In fact, there is mounting evidence that we will not be able to feed the world in the near future.  The overall drying and warming trend mean that the kind of farming we use today to feed ourselves can’t produce as much food as it does now.  More specifically, it says that every 1 degree increase in the average global temperature results in a 10% reduction in the amount of grain harvested.  We are already predicted (and remember the predictions are biased toward understating effects) to see a 2-4 degree rise in global temperatures.  That means a 20-40% reduction in our staple crop production.  This in a world that is already seeing record levels of hunger (we hit an all time record for number of people starving in the world last year).  Its safe to say that a reduction of that magnitude would result in widespread famine because it already is (we’re already 1 degree higher than our 1900’s average).

But wait, if it gets warmer doesn’t that mean we can just move farther north and farm there?  As one who has spent a lot of time growing food, I love this line of reasoning.  It clearly comes from people who have no basic understanding of geography or farming.  If you look at the world’s major food producing areas (like the American Midwest), they share one common thread – great soil.  In order to consistently farm somewhere, you need deep, loose soil that will feed the plants.  Now lets look at what is directly north of the Midwest.  Hmmm.  Canadian forest.  Well, we can just cut the trees down, right?  Not exactly.  Those trees are growing on rocks.  The soil in the area of Canada that will have weather most similar to the current Midwest is shallow and full of rocks.  This is not an area that can be successfully farmed on a large scale.  Additionally, if we cut down all the trees we will further accelerate the warming trend and all of its effects.  So, no, we can’t just move our farms north. 

Second, the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters means that more people will be killed, displaced and traumatized by tornadoes, floods, droughts, hurricanes, mud slides, etc.  It will also be more expensive to pay for more and worse storm damage.  Anyone who thinks that we can pay for these exponentially increasing costs hasn’t been paying attention to the current debate about the federal deficit.  The magnitude of natural disasters that we can expect to see, not in 100 years, but in 10, 20 or 30 years (so well within my lifetime) is projected to overwhelm the GDP of all developed nations.  In other words, we won’t be able to rebuild.  Those affected will be left with nothing.  The suffering and trauma this will cause are unimaginable and they will happen everywhere.  We are already seeing this in New Orleans where many communities still have not been rebuilt since Katrina.

To summarize my argument against the “models aren’t accurate and we should ignore them” point:

-The models have proven very accurate in the 10-40 year window that we already have data on.

-The models are biased toward things being better than they are turning out to be, so if they say its going to be bad we can assume it will be worse.

-We will not be able to feed ourselves in the world predicted by climate models

-Increasing numbers of people are and will be affected by natural disasters that we are less and less able to deal with.

One last thought in case you aren’t convinced:  you don’t need the model anyway, because its already happening. All of these effects are already starting and are easy to see.  Climate change isn’t the future’s problem, its ours.  Right now.  Here.  And its getting worse.  This is THE ISSUE we should be talking about.  And we are ignoring it.

Organizing the greenhouse

First thing Saturday morning, we went to look at a trailer.  It has come to our attention that we could really use a good trailer to haul all the supplies and random stuff that comes with our farm.  To that end, we scoured the newspaper and craigslist to find a good trailer that was in our price range.  After much searching, we found it.  It is a 16’ double axle trailer with somewhere around a 10,000 lb carrying capacity.  The only down side is that we have to re-wire it – one rear light doesn’t work and the electric brake power lines have been cut.  Hopefully that task will be completed this coming weekend and it will be ready to go!  We also replaced the 4 ply automobile tires that were on it with 10 ply trailer tires. 

New trailer!

 

After bringing the trailer home, we went to the farm and spent a few hours organizing the hoop house to make room for the RV to finally make its way in this week.  We began by building some improvised shelves out of some of our rough milled boards and some of our straw bales.  The result was an interesting combination of nooks and shelves.

strawbale shelves

 

It was very apparent that we would need more storage space than this to organize all of our tools and equipment, so we took our bonus scaffolding, added more rough sawn boards and viola – more shelves! 

scaffolding shelves

 

With all the storage space available, we started organizing all the buckets, bins and piles that had accumulated over the course of all of our building and work over the last 6 months.  I’m happy to report that everything found a home and we can probably even find it again!  We got rid of some interesting accumulated trash too.  That pile will have to get loaded up for the dump before the RV can be pulled in, but that’s the easy part!

While we were in an organizing mood, we re-stacked some of the milled lumber in order to make room for the boards Jeremy is bringing back from Colorado. We have another 12 foot pallet re-purposed from my brother’s remodel work that should keep the boards up off the ground. 

Newly (re)stacked lumber

For those keeping track, yes, Jeremy did go to Colorado this weekend.  He left on Sunday morning early and came back Tuesday evening.  As a teaser, the trip was full of surprises but I’ll write about that another day. 

Looking forward to an exciting weekend

We made it out to the farm yesterday to do a little work on the grape swales.  They are now mounded and ready for the trellis posts and wire.  Once the trellises are up, we'll be able to transplant our grapes! 

While we were working in the North field, we took some time to plan out more of what we want that space to look like in the future.  Our dreams included 2 small ponds that will gravity irrigate a series of terraced garden beds separated by perennial fruit crops (blackberries, raspberries, grapes, fruit trees and bushes).  It makes me happy just thinking about it!  Of course, there's a whole bunch of work between here and there, so no one should expect to see all that anytime soon.  One day though, one day...

 

We also picked 7 ripe (and delicious) cantaloupe from the farm.  We gave 2 to our neighbor before taking the picture above, but you get the idea.  The hardest thing was riding with them in the car and smelling their delicious scent without being able to just crack one open!  The family devoured one at dinner and we're well on our way through the second.

This weekend, it looks like Jeremy is going to be making another trip to Colorado.  The trip agenda includes moving another 2-3 loads of logs to the miller out there and bringing back a load of finished lumber to be stacked in the greenhouse.  While he is out there, the kids and I will be re-arranging the greenhouse to make room for the lumber and for the RV.  Its time to spend some quality time organizing our space. 

Lastly, for those who have been wondering about my arm, it is improving slowly.  I can do some light work now without setting myself back.  Eventually it will be back to normal.

Stocking the Pantry Workshop

I will be teaching a workshop on emergency preparation in Manhattan on October 27th from 1-5PM. 

The workshop will cover:
-What supplies are most critical to have on hand if power goes out for an extended period
-How to prepare for different kinds of emergencies (short term power outage vs. larger scale natural disaster)
-What foods store well, how to store them so they stay good and how much you will need
-How to store water and how much may be needed
-What skills should you learn to be better prepared in case of emergency

At the end of the workshop, you should be able to make an individualized preparation plan that addresses the things you think are most likely to happen (blizzard, tornado, brown out, black out, ice storm, flood...).  We will also enjoy a meal made from exclusively long keeping foods to demonstrate that you can live quite well off your pantry.

If you'd like to sign up for the class, go to www.tryufm.org and click on non-credit classes.  You can then search by instructor, topic or date to find the workshop.  The course fee is $15.  I am not getting paid to teach this class - all funds are going to a local non-profit group working on improving sustainability in the area.  It will be fun and I hope to see you there!