SUMMER FAMRSTAND...ahhh the summer days live on.

Hunter Park Saturday in the Park

Tree of Life Ecological

Student Organic Farm Tomatoes!!!! All summer long....

Eaters Guild and Tillers International

My Family

Dads Garden in Belding summer 2008

In this picture there is a Japanese Maple tree that is center right with a lantern on a stone left of it. The trees lining the hill are various dwarf fruiting trees. There are 14 trees total. Yucca grows under the fruit trees and can be seen in the upper left of the picture.

Fruit Ridge in Dads Edible Forest Garden.

This is a picture of my Dad and Sandy's Garden. Their garden is certified wildlife habitat. There is a grape trellis on the right side of the picture. The trellis supports wonderful table grapes. Here there are about five dwarf fruit trees lining a small south facing slope. The trees are inter-planted cherry, plum, and pear.

Happy Hill Family Farm

SOF

SOF CSA

SOF Flowers

Tall Trees Earth Garden

Tall Trees Earth Garden

This is a picture of the Makwaa infront of the garden about three weeks ago. After last weekend the landscape has transformed greatly by the intensive handscale work that Fay and I have charged into. My camera was not working , but I will get more pictures next time. The frost from a couple nights ago killed the early tomatoes that Fay had put out, but our cold season crops were fine.

The Garden Desk

At Tall Trees I sit at a desk in the garden. I believe desks belong in the garden or at least with nature. A desk is a place of study and contemplation. What better place to study and contemplate than nature. The Earth is our mother teacher, the master designer, our true being. We are endowed to the Earth with gracefulness. Our hearts and breath beat with the pulse of the river and are carried by the wind.

Gardens at Tall Trees

Tall Trees Community Farm

Foraging for wild plants at the farm is a beutiful way to eat. Working all day with soil, plants, and animals inspires me to relate to them for health and life energy. We share our relationships with moon, sun, stars, and earth. Passing our stories from one to another. Learning all the time that there is more to listen for. There is more to say. We are alive.


Dinner included the infamous garlic mustard, young dandelion greens, wild carrot root, burdock root, and a mix of very young shoots: dnadelion, plaintain, wintercress, miners lettuce, and various flowers of these plants too.

Foragers harvest

On Saturday morning I walked about for an hour or so and harvested some food in Lansing. It is always amazing to me that all of this food and these beautiful plants are not respected more... I harvested Garlic Mustard, Burdock Stems, Chives, Yarrow, Wintercress, and Lemon Balm.

Compost

There are spirits that dwell in the compost and the soil. There are spirits that are calling out to you in the land. There is a great deal of respect that is owed to the soil. When we make compost, we are using a very powerful force that should be revered by all. Compost is not just a cheap easy way to fertilize our gardens and farms, rather it is a life force with tremendous value to the future of humans living on this earth with such high populations. Compost is a natural design that serves as a model of how human relationships with soil, plants, and animals can provide everything we need without compromising ecological principles.

Lambs Quarter or Forever Spinach as I like to call it.

The past few days have been perfect for lambs quarter to germinate. I have found little sprouted batches of this spinach relative in my backyard garden at the Fairview house. Its perfect to eat when the plant is under a foot, but I pick the leaves all year long. The seed can be made into a flour/meal and the leaf can be used such as spinach. I even let some plants set seed in the garden for early spring sprouts like these here. Lambs quarter seed can stay viable for 50 plus years in the soil. I imagine the Michigan seed bank of Lambs Quarter is astounding in age and quantity. I know where I'm getting my next meal from....

Asparagus Guild

The Asparagus guild is growing at the student Organic Farm's Edible Forest Garden. The asparagus has been prolific in its second season and I have been munching off of it for the past few weeks. The asparagus guild includes: asparagus, dandelion and rye grass.

In the edible forest garden a guild is like a ecosystem. In a guild plants have an relationship with other plants, insects, humans, soil, water, air, microorganisms, fungus, and bacteria. Guilds are planted to mimic the beneficial qualities that ecological diversity and symbiosis have in natural ecosystems. Some gardeners refer to this as companion planting. It is a practice that has been utilized for centuries and has long been forgotten in the monoculture of today's big agriculture industry.

wind

The wind feels everything, the wind is my love, when I tell you that I love you I am speaking from my heart, which is carried by the wind.

In this life as a human I need beings that I can rely on, I need to be carried at times, and when others need to be carried I will in turn do so. We are not ment to burry our burdens within ourself, and we should not expect others to carry our burdens ethier. We must let go of our sufferings and hold on to love.

My breathe is the wind. My love is reflected in everything I do.

I need to be able to rely on you when I am weak, and if I can than I am strenghtened by this. When you are weak as we all become at times I will carry you through so that you may have time to rest. When you are rested and strong agian I will also be given strength by this action.

To care and nurture other beings is the essence of our meaning to be alive. I need this. I need love.

Being in love is comfortable. Love is a natural state of being for humans. To not be in love is to suffer. Love understands and understanding is patient with love. To understand does not eliminate suffering rather illuminates love. It allows patience.

Society distract our true vision of love. Today's society turns love into a possession and a object to be controlled.

I will not control love. I will not force love to my space. I will see love. I will be with love. And I will be grateful...

biology of our realationship

Being...Evolving...Growing...Understanding... I feel our biological chemistry is in harmony with each other. Human relationships with each other are a tremendously biological process. I often ponder how the structure of the brain is malleable, and how relationships with other humans contributes to the form and reformation of our brain structure. Behavior is influenced by the structure of the brain and the structure of the brain is formed by behavior.... How we behave in our daily lives and relationships with humans and all other beings is a amazing process to be pondered upon. I believe love is a primal drive in humans. We are inherently creatures of love. To behave in a manner that reflects this belief is a primary goal in my life.

Anxiety

Anxious butterflies flourish in my stomach and the wind from which their wings echo becomes a deep sadness in the bottom of my heart.

The ocean in my heart stirs wind, water, and sun that rush out of endless motion.

There is a connection made.

The butterfly’s wings are still. I am at ease. If a butterfly lands on you, you are blessed. When the butterflies are still my stomach is as though a small srping feed pond where the bullfrog sings ocasional hyms.

When I see someone for the first time and I feel love for that person, I wonder if this love that I feel is unconditional love. Was the love that I felt for that person based on a love that I felt for them before I ever met them, or is it based on the condition for which I see that person in? I think that my love for people I have not met is based on a past lifetime, and or a genuine love for all. If it is based on a past lifetime; than I have met that person in some form before. I feel unconditional love for all. Breathing is a testament to that statement, in the way that I believe that the universe lies within a single cell. Ecological and biological processes are infinite in space and time, as well as in energy. Cells are biological processes that are infinite in space, time, and energy.