The Little Artshram

Fortunately, we have MANY talented kids in our Art-Farm Camps, and so, today, I’m inviting them to help me write this web-log journal. We’ll be posting some of their insights and experiences for the remainder of the week….and maybe a few pictures too!

And, here’s another of our principals that applies….

~Many hands make it happen, Neighborly cooperation.

Tuesday was food and earth day! What we eat, how we eat, the creative art of growing our food, preparing and cooking our meals, how much we LOVE our food, and what we had for supper were some of the opening discussions in the morning circle.

We also considered the permaculture ethics–care for the people, care for the earth and giving something back. When we grow plants and take our food from the garden how do we give something back to the earth to keep the soil healthy? How do we know if the soil we garden in is healthy? We can look at what’s growing. Mr. Quack Grass is doing a fine job–especially after the mighty, rain storm. But what about the soil itself? What’s happening underneath that top layer where the plants are popping out?

Fortunately, to help answer these questions, we had some special, underground visitors. There in the center of our circle sit a green box on a tray, with a black lid on the top. What’s in there the kids asked.

And, so we lifted the lid off…and inside, underneath a half of cantelope, decaying celery and other partially consumed veggies was a beautiful pile of dark, dark brand new soil. And wriggling and wiggling around and throughout were hundreds of pinkish-reddish earthworms.

I stuck my hands into the garbage-gooey, wormy pile and turned it over. There were lots of oohs and yucks, then I pulled my hand out and held it close to my face, under my nose and took a good, deep inhale. Mmmmmm, I said smells like good fresh dirt! Who’s brave enough to take a sniff?

A few resisters stepped back, but many sniffed and then carefully dipped their hands into the compost to scoop up new dirt and worms. Shelby picked apart a clump of fresh dirt and found all different sizes of teeny-tiny worms. One was a quarter inch long.

We agreed that our appreciation for worms and understanding for soil life was growing, and would feed our worms well the rest of the week. Yip-hip-hooray for Earthworms….our wiggly, little teachers down below.

Okay–here’s an interactive part of this web-log journal—can you apply any of our permaculture principals to our worm experience besides the one below?
~Garbage is golden, It transforms into treasure.

Most times when I paint it’s a whole lot of fun coming up with the painting titles…. like “In Her Mind, She’s Dancing”. The title came first–then I painted it—and then, I sold it—my first official fine-art sale!

The same thing happens when I write….I’ll title something then go on and on about it. Titles are different than names—which I tend to have an occasional memory block on—I remember the way things look, and can draw fairly accurately, but can’t remember the human-appointed name that’s been given.
But darn it, I really wanted to say something about pickles and flowers in my last—last months’ chat and then I forgot. And so now, I will.

It’s been a scramble at the Community Gardens to get our Art-Farm plots planted, get the workshop space settled, meet a few chomping critters, tend to their voracious needs and encourage them to spare a few leaves (Some of the broccoli survived, but, the basil is gone, gone, gone….although, we have more teeny, tiny basil seedlings being nurtured in flats).

And keeping up with the ever crazy-growing quack-grass….let me just say—Aaaarrrghhh– after spending two hours pulling out those intelligently designed wide, spreading, claw-like, root systems from our Medicine garden plot. And, another…..Aaaaaarrrrghhhhh…for my lower lumbar!

Now after a long month of long days, I have time to sit down and write, and, I can tell you that the pickles and the flowers are growing strong. Something about the soil on this farm, makes cucumbers grow like crazy! We have Smart Pickles, Northern Pickling Cucumbers, and Straight Eights how’s that for a few names? Please don’t ask me for the latin names, I’ll be sticking to Northern Michigan/Mid-western farm speak….

Our biggest challenge is trying to grow plants without a consistant water source. This is a big boo-boo on the Permaculture design principal checklist….before any real work of planting, a proper site anaylsis and water catchement system needed to be in place. In hindsight, our sensible wish is catching water in a couple of cisterns off the BIG, big barn roofs nearby, routing it down in hoses— and we will respectfully, propose this to Rolling Centuries Farm and the Rec Authority as plans continue for the gardens/farm improvement and rennovations.

What we do have and are grateful for is Sheriff Fossil and his work crew. These guys weekly tend to our Community Garden needs, by driving the Sheriff’s pick-up truck which is pulling a tank on wheels to the nearby creek, filling it and then delivering it to 100 gallon barrels which line the edges of our garden. I really appreciate the effort all of this takes, for the sake of our shared Community Garden space!

As it is, and has been for the past few years at this Community Garden, we work as a community and within a group system and so decisions and action sometimes come about slowly—Unfortunately, this happens lot’s slower than the needs and life-cycle of a plant in our short Northern Michigan growing season.

Even there is a permie lesson—-Thoughtful and protracted observation—-taking time to think about our relationship to each other and the earth and our needs and the earth’s needs—-and so we put another permaculture principal into action—The problem is the solution….we are the problem, we are the solution….

It’s then that we begin our Watering Fairy ritual of dipping our watering cans in the barrels and hiking, flitting, and dancing, to and fro, to our sweet, little thirsty plants.

Now’s the time for me to name some of our Water Fairies, who like Sheriff Fossil and his crew, weekly, arrive at the gardens and tend to our growing, plant families.

Kendra and McKenna are true Water fairies, as well as their mom Nancy. Kendra is the first, flitting, Art-Farm fairy that inspires me to write these words. She hits the garden gates and gets to work with a watering can, and does it in a gleeful and Tinkerbell-like way.

The Dent family, Christiane, Calvin and Lily faithfully visit our gardens every weekend and occaisionally there is a stone and stick sculpture, or is it a fairy ring that pops up in a corner near the Pickle Teepee or the Medicine garden?

Bailey and Allison, students at Central Grade Montessori–and their families stop by on Wednesday evenings to water and have joined our Art-Farm Ambassador program, which meets on Tuesday afternoons.

Jacob is working with us as one of the Art-farm Apprentices and helped create the sunflower signs that are marking the long drive back to the gardens, planted some of the garden beds, helped determine the farming ants invasion, and has done a fair share of watering.

All of us Water Fairies had lots of fun a few weeks back learning about an old garden tool that our neighbor gardener, Steve and his family, found which pre-dates (we imagine) a hoe and rake. We believe that Leonardo DaVinci designed this farming wonder and have named it: Leonardo. It looks like it came out of the 17th century, but it really tears through the soil and weeds!

It’s going to be in the high 80’s today, time to get to watering—