Pepper Fest

Posted on October 27, 2011 by

Pepper Fest has been a time for me to try out new ideas in photography. Some of my favorite photos have come out of these annual events, so I was glad to once again get an invitation to photograph the annual Pittsboro Pepper Festival. This was my fourth year documenting the festivities. It was not called Pepper Fest the first year, but rather the Seeds of Change Pepper Tasting. I captured this particular event with a Canon point and shoot.

Pretty straight forward and to the point – peppers, pepper tasters, the end.  Since then the pepper festival has grown and evolved. The same can be said about my life in photography.

For this year’s festival, the big attraction for me was all the kids playing with the giant bubble wands. I shot this event with my Nikon D300. This was the last fest for that camera; I sold it last week. I used an ultrawide lens for the most part, which demands that you get close. So I got close and then got closer. I wiped bubble spatter off the lens more than a dozen times. All worth it though -

 

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Posted in photo essays | 2 Comments

Urban predation

Posted on September 29, 2011 by

In almost three years of living in the country with chickens, we had minimal problems with predation. We lost one rooster to a hawk, one turkey to a black snake; that is all I can remember. Contrast that with a few weeks in the city – we lost two chickens in two consecutive nights.

In doing some research I found that the two nights were probably different predators. The first chicken I found had its abdomen chewed open and all the entrails were gone.  Looking into the aspects of the kill, it looks to be the work of a possum – “One or two birds killed; mauled, abdomen eaten.” The body was right by the fence. Curiously, the next day’s egg was not eaten and remained intact in  the body.

Last night we woke up to the hens going on and on with a sustained amount of squawking. I wasn’t much interested in going out there since they sqwauk every damn night, but something seemed a bit different this time. Kristin was also persistent. I tried to get 80 to help me out, but she was too busy sleeping on the couch. When I got out to the coop, part of the door covering was ripped. The chickens were huddled in a corner of the coop, off the roosts. A quick count showed one was missing.

There was no sign of the body, a small clump of feathers right by the door, and part of the fence was down. Again, going to the Internet – “One or more birds dead / missing; no more than one removed; pile of feathers” – it appears to be the work of a fox.

While our coop is not pretty enough to be on the Durham tour of chicken homes, Kristin is reinforcing the door today and hopefully making the coop a decent and dependable fortress. There is no doubt that these critters will come back.

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Posted in animalia, Durham | Comments Off

Return of the mulchers

Posted on September 21, 2011 by

After taking two very hot months off, the Crop Mob has returned to work. While we were resting, watching the drought march on and otherwise getting irritated with the heat, several new crop mob groups began around the country – Denver, Findlay Ohio, Olympia, Austin.

Now, freshened from rest and with plenty of built up demand to participate, the plan is to complete four mobs in two months with two of the mobs organized as “mini-mobs” with several nearby locations getting mobbed simultaneously.

In August we returned to Spence’s Farm to do some of the tasks that we do best – pull weeds, make large piles of compost disappear and lay down mulch.




Full slide show -


This past Sunday we split up to hit three location in Durham. The Interfaith Food Shuttle’s urban farm plus the home gardens of several long time mob participants.

Kristin and I attended the mob at Steph and Steven’s house, turning a lot full of English ivy and wire-grass into several nicely cleaned up and mulched garden areas.





Full slide show:


I am excited to see many, many first time crop mob participants. Ever expanding and pushing the model forward, I am still in awe at how it all continues to come together and function so well.

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Posted in activism, biographical, crop mobs, photo essays | 1 Comment

Enough of that crap; let’s make biscuits

Posted on September 8, 2011 by

One of the best things about moving to Durham has been living in a house with an awesome stove. It is a 1950s era General Electric push button electric with a double oven. I had never even seen a double oven before this one, and now I don’t think I will ever be able to give this one up.  It is quick to heat up and gets right down to business. So, what to make with it?

I happen to be the happy owner of about twenty five quarts of rendered pork lard. I threw last year’s lot of hog fat in with Bobby at Okfuskee Farm in order to get to the minimum amount that the slaughterhouse would render. As a result, the package label has Okfuskee Farm on it. No matter – it is all good stuff.

Surprisingly, I haven’t made biscuits in the past. Most of the recipes I found called for shortening, margarine or vegetable oil. I wasn’t sure if lard would bake any differently.

1. Add one half cup of lard to two cups of flour, one tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon of salt and three teaspoons of baking powder.

2. Mix the lard into the flour with a wire whisk until the dough gets crumbly.

3. Stir in 3/4 cup of milk and stir until the dough starts to stick together. But don’t stir too much!

4. Scoop the dough out onto a floured surface and knead lightly up to ten times.

5. Pat the dough down and roll out the a 1/2 inch thickness.

6. Cut the biscuit rounds with a floured metal measuring cup, an inverted glass or just make them with your hands.

7. Put the dough on an ungreased baking pan or cookie sheet.

8. Bake for ten minutes at 450 degrees.

9. Tell Kristin that they are ready!

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Posted in food sources, house, recipes | 3 Comments

Outline

Posted on September 1, 2011 by

I have received quite a bit of feedback regarding the last post, both online and offline. It seems to have resonated with folks who understand that relationships do fail – often painfully and publicly – but their failure is not a sign of future outcomes on similar paths. It is a time and environment specific event, full of particular personalities and details. I can agree to some extent, but that is really damn ambiguous.   The benefit of experience dictates the scope and depth of present relationships and their future, yes, but we should have some idea of how we would like our relationships to work by the time we have the words available to provide the basic outline. From that point we just work on the logistics of filling in that outline. All the specifics already exist. It is just a matter of arrangement.

furniture has no say in life
it was made to be used by people
how many times have you felt like a bookcase
sitting in a living room gathering dust
full of thoughts already written?

Fugazi, “Furniture“

I know that I am not meant to dwell, hoping that the memories are malleable to a point of bittersweet returns. There is no nostalgia for a lost sense of direction, no yearning for a hungry presence among deeply broken individuals. I am intuitive enough to understand a person’s trajectory towards the bottom, introspective enough to see ruins standing tall on the backs of my retinas. I have participated fully in this setback, probably put myself out there too far, now getting ready to do it again in new circumstances with new people within new geography.

I have learned that there is really no other way to go about it – embracing this life of layers we breathe like so much old skin – than just getting right the fuck on with things, albeit with a bit more resilience, learning how to fill out an outline like it is second grade all over again.

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Posted in biographical | 3 Comments

About my disappearance

Posted on August 23, 2011 by

By now, if you are local, you know that Kristin and I left Circle Acres. The reasons are deep and involve many differences in ideology, communication styles and lifestyle choices. My sobriety factors very heavily in this move as does my desire to be less accountable and responsible to an increasingly distant and foreign collective. A strong sense of misplaced entitlement pervades that place, which is something that I cannot support in any way. Living rent free while someone else carries the financial water is not anarchist, not friendly and not nice. The others may argue that this isn’t the case, but all I have to do is read through old emails and bank records to see how things went down,  get a glimpse of what should have been some serious red flags and see that I made many mistakes in making a path for this coddled land project.
 
At this point I have soured on the idea of collective living, understanding that anarchists tend to either thrive in that environment or find it too constrictive. As a very independent but collectively motivated individual, it is very hard for me to see the decision making process leave me behind. So we’ll move on, do our own thing and hope to remain decent with the larger spheres of community that we all populate. We may have wasted our time as part of Circle Acres, but regrets will never make us better people. The bitterness will fade as the freshness of it all moves along with the calendar, as new projects are presented and new people appear in our lives. As you encounter us in real life you may sense a bit of apprehension or distance; please be patient. No one can ever say that the two of us don’t work hard and get shit done.
 
Oh, and we are “city mice” once again…
 


 

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Posted in biographical, circle acres | 5 Comments

Garlic Harvest

Posted on July 5, 2011 by

Early last November, Kristin and I planted out four rows of garlic. Each row was one hundred feet long. Each clove was six inches apart on eight inch rows. For reference and arithmetic, that works out to about six pounds of garlic seed for the whole planting.

We pulled up a few green garlic here and there, took off the scapes, mulched and weeded, but for the most part we left the garlic bed alone.

After watching the leaves die back and change from green to brown, we decided that it was time for the harvest.

We had incorporated leaves and manure into the bed in early October. Our normally dense clay soil was a bit looser at harvest time. The leaf mold and soil fell off the roots fairly easily.

Between the two of us it didn’t take long at all to pull everything up and load the cart.

The longest process was tying up the bunches and hanging them from the barn rafters to dry.

We’ll dry the garlic for a few weeks, trim the stems and roots off then sort through to select the best seed for next year. The rest we’ll eat.

 

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Posted in circle acres, food preservation, food sources | 2 Comments

Sour Cherries

Posted on May 27, 2011 by

The sour cherries are in various stages of ripening, but no matter what color they are they are a bit too sour for me to eat too many at a time.

 

Most of the very ripe (and tastiest) will go to the birds in the next few days, but human hands will grab the ones in reach.

 

The short season is basically defined by the birds’ activity and not so much about how many we pick for our pies and our freezers.

 

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Posted in food sources, foodshed, foraging, photo essays | 1 Comment

Vote 553

Posted on May 24, 2011 by

I have several images up in a show at Rochester Contemporary Art Center in Rochester, NY. They have a prize for the top vote-getter in an online poll. Folks can vote once per day per email address for the piece of art of their choice. I have been asking folks to focus their voting on one of my images in particular - number 553.

Voting continues through July 1st. You only have to confirm your email vote once. After that you can vote daily, which would be awesome!

 

 

This image is one that I shot at an early Crop Mob at Okfuskee Farm in Silk Hope, NC.

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Garlic and ginger

Posted on May 17, 2011 by

Taking care of our 100 foot row of garlic has been of the utmost importance for Kristin and I. Garlic – good garlic – is a needed treasure in our lives. Grocery store garlic is for the birds so to speak, usually soft in spots and weak. We had a dearth of home-grown last year, so we decided to buy some seed stock from Frederick at Somerset Farm, one of ECO‘s grower/owners.

 

 

We planted the garlic in November of last year, some six or so pounds of it, enough to get almost to the end of the row. After a couple of mulchings, the garlic is beautiful. And scaping. In order to promote the growth of the underground bulb, the scapes are removed. Scapes can be used in cooking for their light garlic flavor or fermented. We picked all the scapes and handed them over to Adah for fermenting, but not before Kristin grabbed a handful to throw in with some beet greens she was cooking.

 

Basically all you have to do is pull on the scape to remove it from the plant. Most just break off where they emerge from the stalk. Others come all the way out leaving you with a nice piece of tender goodness.

The harvest went quickly, the two of us filling a five gallon bucket in about ten minutes.

 

 

 

After the scape harvest, it was on to planting ginger. In early March I went to a ginger workshop put on by East Branch Ginger and Debbie Roos of the Chatham County Cooperative Extension. At the end of the workshop everyone received a few pounds of seed ginger. After pre-sprouting the ginger behind our woodstove and in the greenhouse, it was finally ready to plant. The pre-sprouting gives the ginger a head start.

 

In order to control fertility (ginger is a heavy feeder) and water, we are growing the ginger in our old chicken feed bags from Reedy Fork Farm. The bags provide great drainage as well as easy hilling. Ginger is hilled three times – once when the base of the shoots turns from bright white to bright pink, a second time four to six weeks later and a third time four to six weeks after that.

Our soil mix consists of Sunshine potting mix, feathermeal, leaf mold, worm castings and mycorhizzal granules. We get the potting mix and feathermeal from Chatham Farm and Home Supply. They have bulk feathermeal from North Carolina sources, making it cheaper and more local for us. The fungus comes from Mushroom Mountain in South Carolina and the worm castings come from Carolina Worm Castings who make their compost in the building next door to ECO.

We hope to harvest eight to sixteen pounds of ginger this fall. This is a big experiment, but I can easily see myself getting sucked into this big time.

 

 

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Posted in 100 mile diet, circle acres, food sources | Comments Off