Whose Woods These Are

We live in a Subdivision. There I said it. See, at work I am always talking about the “village”-working on a committee for the “Village”, etc. It seems that some people at work had come to believe I lived in a commune of sorts-or at least an EcoVillage-though they know that term only in abstract. [...]

Get Busy Living, or Get Busy Dying.

Bart and M.E.O.W. have linked to something we all need to Get Real on. The reality is getting so, um, Real that even CNBC is catching on!
I have come to think of Peak Oil and Climate Change as one issue which I loosely call “unsustainability”, the answer to which is Sustainability. The root [...]

Tuesday Vaca, Part Deux: The Organic Bistro

Reading Chomsky, The Union of Concerned Scientists and periodicals about Permaculture and small farming –simultaneously- sparks a weird, fetid brew of thoughts, fears and hopes that takes some time to hash out. Time that I have not given them yet. Despite the incredible restorative attributes of this trip for me, I have not [...]

Beo’s Vaca… Carrboro Edition

High expected to top north of 85 today, but at present it is an extraordinarily pleasant 68 with a slight breeze. After ushering Mia off to another day in the trenches, I packed up my kit ($18, laptop, periodicals [Economist, Permaculture, Small Farm Today]; Chomsky) and hit the road. Today I had a mission. The [...]

Beo’s vaca… the saga continues.

So besides writing an epic primer on Permaculture Guilds off the top of my head this morning from the hotel room, I have been keeping busy here in Chapel Hill, NC. Yesterday I had stumbled upon an interesting looking establishment named 3Cups ferreted away in a quaint little courtyard marred only by the fact that [...]

Permaculture Guilds: A Primer

Permaculture is a world created by merging the words “permanent” and “agriculture” or more correctly “culture”. Looking around, it is very hard to find a more permanent (i.e. sustainable) form of agriculture than, well, Nature; no one has to fertilize a Forest! And that realization is the crux of Permaculture in a nutshell: mimicking Nature’s [...]

Beo v the TarHeels

So Beo and the Eco Mama are on vacation. Scratch that, Beo is on vacation tagging along with the Eco Mama as she attends marathon 12 hour Conferences. So while she is working on surviving marathon meetings I am touring University Campuses, reading Chomsky, and blogging my heart out. Sprout and Bird [...]

Sheet Mulch: Spring Edition

Not sure if you noticed yet, but we have a propensity to add perennial beds at a pace that is almost concerning. Last year that meant I spent alot of time, effort, and profanity cutting and hauling sod. The kicker with removing all that sod is not only the effort expended, but also the fact [...]

Tools of the Trade

I am a Tool Guy. That is a fact that I have come to grips with over the past decade or so. Now, in my defense, it is primarily through a deep respect for quality instilled in me from my father that was honed to a razor’s edge through my adult life by rapping my [...]

Mache

So I have officially kicked off the 2007 gardening season! Here in far northern Zone 5 planting outside on March 1 is new to me. But using the successful coldframe design of 2006 I trudged through the 2′ drifts to my gardens, scratched two rows into the pleasantly warm and moist soil and planted 20 [...]