In January, School of Living (SOL) extended its network of fiscally sponsored projects to include The Coop at StellaLou Farm! Our wish in becoming a project of SOL is to expand our capacity, share our strengths, teach each other valuable skills, and to achieve common goals. The “Coop” is an agricultural education program that shares the skills and design work that helps to make the farm grow as a sustainable and productive homestead. The Coop at StellaLou Farm pursues a simpl

I visited our permaculture orchard early this afternoon. We’re having a thaw after a couple of weeks of hard freeze conditions. Last night and this morning, the rain has been plentiful. In the little video posted below, you will see: hybrid plums and black currants and asian persimmon planted on the raised berm, a swale catching melted snow and water running down the slope of the land, black alder (Alnus glutinosa) which I planted in the swales because they tolerate wet condi

Our days have been so full that I have been neglecting this blog. But! School of Living will be hosting a full day of learning and sharing on July 15, 2017 in collaboration with the Street Road Artists Space  at StellaLou Farm. It will be the opportune time to catch up in person! Go to this link for info about SHARING SOLUTIONS: HOMESTEADING & CULTIVATING COMMUNITIES My daughter and J, diligently, building the new chicken coop (one of the current happenings on the farm. Yay!)

That looks different. Let’s go check it out. J brought his infrared thermal imager to the scene and, as you would expect, there is a “warm” spot in the area that is not frozen. There is a relative difference of about 9 degrees F. in that area compared to its surrounding. Here’s a theory. A little over two years ago, I started the groundwork for our orchard. We dug about 570 linear feet of on-contour berms and swales upslope of this little pond. Already, it looks so different

We’ve had around 2′ of snow and, then, warmer weather. As the thaw continued, we had about 1.25″ of rain. Water is flowing. The swales in the orchard seem to capture and absorb the water effectively. None of the berms are overflowing or come near it. There are a few drainage sites that I dug last year that continue to function in part. I will consider clearing them should I find the swales are getting too full. This photo shows the 1/2 acre orchard which has four swales and b

We have a lovely gentle southerly facing slope on the west side of the lower pasture above the pond. I decided to put the orchard up-slope of any pooling water, north of where the woodlot shades the pasture, and up-slope from where I observe cold damp air  to collect on frosty mornings. I’m planning to clear the overgrown fence line at the border of the woodlot to promote drainage of that cold moist air. The first step I took was to do slightly off-contour subsoiling to reduc