Last night, R. sent me a link to an Albany Times-Union article based on investigations by WNYC and ProPublica about the gas drilling nightmare. Today is the deadline for the Guv to sign (or not) Assembly bill A10526 which streamlines the permitting process and greatly increases the permissable well densities.

This morning the audio popped up on TOD: Local. I highly recommend listening to this, and if you are a New Yorker, call the Governor’s office and ask for a veto.

[UPDATE 7:27 PM EDT]

More links. Here’s Delaware Riverkeepers’ brief on gas drilling in NY and PA. And in case anyone thinks the DEC can or will protect air, water, habitat and people, some reports by EANY.

Unfortunately it looks like the Governor signed the rushed-through last minute bill. What’s quite disturbing to me is that, according to Judith Enck (interviewed on WNYC yesterday), the bill was actually written by the DEC staff. Patterson is also directing the DEC to do more assessment of the impacts to water, air, noise, soil and so on. Will the staff be beefed up? Probably not as NY is facing large budget deficits. But how will the DEC have time to do all the research and assessments necessary? They’re obviously busy drafting legislation at the behest of the gas companies to streamline their permitting and making it easier to put more wells in.

[UPDATE 7/24 12:17 PM EDT]

Found a blog on Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth Basin area in Texas, which is apparently the formation most similar to Marcellus. I have an opportunity to attend a conference in Ft. Worth in September, so I hope to check out some of this first hand. Some of the reports are showing leases worth $17,000 per acre signing bonus, with royalties of 25%.

I watched Escape from Suburbia the other night. Phil and Tom are featured in the film, and I wanted learn more about what they are doing in NYC. The movie covers a number of efforts across North America to deal with and find solutions to Peak Oil, and secondarily Climate Change and poverty, mainly through local food production. At least local food production was a theme.

What was most moving to me was the segment on LA’s South Central Community farm, a 14 acre community project at ground zero of urban gardening. This farm had private plots for 350 local families who grew food, medicinals and ornamentals. They started a market because people there were growing things not available anywhere else in LA. Horrifyingly, the city took back the land and sold it to a “logistics” company to build a warehouse there, because “people in South Central need jobs.” Despite community action and protest, the site was bulldozed on camera while the urban farmers could only look on in despair.

Carolyn Baker points out in her review what this means. Relocalization is not currently threatening to the powers that be, but will be soon, and we can expect a very nasty backlash. This example is just a taste of that. I’m relating this to the Archdruid’s post a couple of days ago about the misconception that collapse will somehow mystically be okay, and not too violent. I doubt that. The image I have of collapse is not a bunch of spontaneously emerging ecovillages, but something like New Orleans, post-Katrina, times every major metropolitan area in the world. I see pain in our future.

The conclusion I’m coming to, inescapably, is that food, relocalization and gardening are political. The good news is that gardening also seems to be a great way of organizing people in a way that doesn’t overtly seem political. In other words, like me, it’s only after gardening for some years that one comes to understand that gardening is political.

There seem to be two approaches to fighting the Beast. One is to go head to head, like Gandhi, Mandela or MLK. Another is to go underground like the mycelium network and stay off the radar until there is enough strength or pain to stand and fight. The danger is that being underground can become comfortable and the standing up never happens, or it gets co-opted before the groundswell.

When I took the PDC down in Hancock, a big and growing concern of my other classmates, who actually live there, was gas drilling in the area. Catskill Mountainkeepers have put together the best summary on the issue I’ve seen. I’m linking to that in response to the Pickens Plan link (Drumbeat July 8th) on The Oil Drum. Shifting natural gas to transport doesn’t solve anything, and I’m guessing that Mr. Pickens has some $ interest in Big Wind.

Today was an awesome day! I was able to get hot water for my coffee this morning, then went for a little walk and found that despite it’s strip-mall and industrial park cosmetics

Chicopee has a heart of gold. I took my coffee down to the parking lot and started looking at the flora when I noticed an old road or path running behind some shrubs and decided to explore further. Some black caps, black-eyed susans, milkweeds, sumacs. Then I came around a corner and found myself in a state park. Walking further I found a swimming area which turns out to be the Chicopee reservoir. Thus, it’s a short five minute walk from that to this:

I was completely astounded by this, and spent some time there to start the day. I went back for my camera and tried to drive there, but couldn’t find a way! Walking was the most direct method. After a McSaussage I went on the the Convergence.

In the morning Ethan Roland ran a session on Scaling Up, that is how we can work on bigger projects or think about bigger projects. He put an interesting twist on “succession” asking, what do we need as designers to accelerate our inner, as well as the outer, succession. There was some discussion about building community and Ethan specifically demonstrated a design that was not accepted. He said he didn’t know why, but it seemed clearly that there was not buy-in or ownership from the community, some lack of trust by the community for the landowner based on history. This started to emerge as the main theme for me: it’s not the designs, it’s the social and hidden structures that will ultimately determine whether our designs get implemented.

Steve Gabriel made a similar point in the next session- that most designs don’t get built. This was a very instructive presentation on his experience with FLPI, their relationship with an existing Not-for-Profit, the dream vs. reality (”where the rubber hits the road,” Bill would say), and some successes. I was starting to conclude that small was good, that the way to go big is still to expand small successes, join and network the nodes of permanence as if they are components in a design, a bigger design.

After lunch we had the first two events of the Permie Olympics, which involved eyeballing elevations for a swale, then speed digging. There were I think five teams and the result was two nice swales built in a couple of hours for fun and for free.

After lunch, Phil and Sharon gave a talk on their experiences trying to get diverse, multi-cultural (”people of flavor”), urban permaculture going in NYC. I want to talk more to him about the specifics of his experiences, what worked and what didn’t. They seem now to have got a core site at a community garden in Harlem, and have had a very successful PDC where 23 of 24 finished the course. He also talked about financial issues of pricing and chasing down payment and scholarships, which I want to hear more about.

Dave Jacke then led a roundtable on issues related to certification and organization within the movement as a whole, and I found myself contributing some models that might be helpful, and questions about standards being set purposely at a very low level to generate quick growth. As Mollison says, we can’t possibly do worse than the way things are being done now. I’m wondering whether the certification wasn’t Mollison’s way of not dealing with centralized authority and structure. I’ll probably get struck by lightning for saying that. I was glad to add to the discussion, and the point was made several times during the day that the ideas generated by newbies were often very interesting and productive. We’ll see.

I got to talk to Tom and Martin a bit afterwards which was cool, the discussion leading to Bateson and patterns among other things. Some books I need to get:

• Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
• A Long Deep Furrow- Three Centuries of Farming in New England
• Luscious Landscapes
• Human Ecology, or books on this topic

After that my brain was pretty much moosh. Looking back through my notes there’s a ton of material that will be fodder for future posts. For now, my stomach needs food.

This giant greets you when you get off the Mass Pike in Chicopee, which makes me VERY glad I’m staying at the Motel 6 here!

The ride up with Kai was great. Turns out his mom is one of the few midwives still doing home births, and she was our backup for our second daughter. We have a lot in common and started brainstorming ways to get the word out. He’s getting his Certificate in August at Finger Lakes. Steve Gabriel is presenting tomorrow, so hopefully they can hook up together.

Brian managed to make it down too and we were introduced while touring Tierra de Oportunidad farm, somewhere between the goats and the Paso Fino horses. He remarked that he thought he was getting away from the farm for a few days, only to be back on the farm.

The farm itself is pretty amazing- 30 acres in the heart of a highly developed industrial city. Four acres here form the main entrance and “public facing” part of the farm, but behind this is another 26 acres of amazing veg and animals. I’ll try and post a picture of that tomorrow.

I met a bunch of folks including Tom and Philip who post at Energy Bulletin, then Eric who gave the keynote, which basically boils down to “get to work!” We need a Permaculture Platform on issues such as Energy, Transportation, Consumption, Poverty, Education and so on. We also need some plant breeding programs to do things like make air potatoes hardy in the northeast. He demonstrated the shared design process that the farm underwent to reach its current state, what the elements would be and how they would be placed. One thing that he said that continues to become more clear to me is that we do not lack for technical solutions to all these problems- they boil down to social and political problems.

Tomorrow looks like a monster day. I’m looking at sessions by Ethan Rowland (Scaling Up), Steve Gabriel (Starting a Permie Project), Kay Cafasso (Natural Building) and Dave Jacke (the Certification Issue). Eric’s also going to conduct a tour downtown to the Nuestras Raices Centro, and then there’s…

Permaculture Olympics featuring Dale Swigging, Contour Conundrum, Salad Forage Triathalon and other events. I wonder if we can field a team?

Anyway, it’s getting late and my new playlist is almost finished, so I’m going to hit it. Will check in again tomorrow.

I’m getting ready to head off tomorrow to the NE Permie Convergence in Holyoke, MA. Got a call today from a man in Springwater looking for a ride share, so I’ll have some company and meet someone new. Also got an e-mail from Brian saying he was going to head down from his internship in Ashfield, MA. I posted a link in the Permaculture section to the NE Permaculture Wiki which looks to have a fair bit of useful information and established community. I talked on the phone to one of my cohorts from the Hancock PDC this spring, and I’m jonesing for some Permie get-together.

My plan is to live-blog or pseudo-live-blog the event. I’m bringing my iPod and mic, so I may try to get a podcast going. I’m also bringing the camera, though video is out for this time. I want to start lo-tech. I also want to be present to what’s going on there, unseparated by a camera, so I may do most of the work at night in the motel.

Meanwhile, I wanted to give an update on what’s going on here at home. Monday night a friend gave me some sorrel, bronze fennel, lupine and a baby horse chestnut, and I picked up some asparagus by the side of the road and got that all transplanted. In my walks I’m seeing a lot of sumac which I’ve pretty much considered a weed, but which appears to be a fast-growing nurse plant for berries, grapes, roses, nightshades, strawberries. So I’ve transplanted a couple to an area between the spruce and red maple that faces the main street, to start to build some privacy and nurse a shrub area- honeysuckle, dicentra, cherry, blueberry I’m thinking- that will also attract birds. We found a small infestation of Japanese Beetles on the northwest side of the house in the dicentra there. Apparently, knocking them into soapy water seems the best way to get rid of small batches. They don’t appear to have any natural predators, although some web sites state that grackles, starlings and chickens will eat them. I don’t really want to get into nematodes and bT.

The hierloom tomatoes I got a couple of weeks ago have been pretty thoroughly trashed by the deer. They must be tasty because they’ve left the romas alone. I got rhubarb chard and some of the onions in the other day, and I’m going to put the tomatillos in where the munged tomatoes were. Everything seems to be growing rather slowly, which I’m trying to figure out. The lettuces are looking good, we’ve been eating a lot of salad, and I’m getting some peas now that the weather has turned cooler and wetter. The Liberty apple closest to the walnut does not look too good, but the Cortlund is doing nicely. I need to put some intervening leguminous tree and a mulberry between the walnut and the liberty to mitigate the juglone effect.

I started a water feature over the weekend to start moving water from the downspout near the herb bed over to the high point of the property where the pond will eventually go. I want a little rock-faced stream bed that will look nice whether there’s water flowing or not. I’m looking for some roofing slates to build up this water feature to flow the water from the downspout to the streambed. This all sounds romantic, but right now it’s some wet concrete slab and dug up dirt. I will post pictures when I get it working. As the Permies say: “happy little accidents and sad little failures.”

This morning I made my first trip to Rochester’s world famous Public Market in over a year. As part of my family’s attempt to get our finances in better shape, we’re looking at our food spending and cutting back wherever possible. I knew the Public Market was open most days during the week and I could stop by before work, but then I’d have veggies baking in the hot car all day. Y. said, “why not just put a cooler with some ice packs in the car and keep them in there?” Within a day I’d found a free cooler sitting by the side of the road and I was set to go.

So here’s what $13.50 got me this morning:

• five heads of garlic
• three large cucumbers
• seven large carrots
• a pint of limes
• a pint of lemons
• a pint of blueberries
• five plums
• a pound of grapes
• four tomatoes

I believe this is about half the price I’d pay at the local supermarket. Plus, these things I bought today usually taste like fruits and vegetables as opposed to tap-water taste and tennis-ball texture of stuff shipped here from Chile or Bakersfield. This gap in cost highlights the huge chunk of food prices being taken by the supply chain, and the quality gap makes another argument for localization. I’d rather be supporting the farmers and getting good food rather than supporting the BigCos and getting garbage.

Even on a Tuesday morning when the place is really quiet, the Public Market offers a lot of variety- tons of peppers, locally grown beans (including favas), potatoes, apples, annuals and perennial plants, not to mention the garage-sale fare. An added benefit is getting to chat with the vendors, or at least say good morning. Usually the most charitable thing I feel like saying at the supermarket is “can you get that f*&#$@ing restocking cart out of my way!” The Public Market and various farmers’ markets are just so much more friendly and pleasant.

The local paper ran a story on all the markets popping up all over town, and some of the more established players were complaining that there wasn’t the demand to support all these, yet I believe the demand will catch up, especially as they start to become more present and convenient.

This afternoon I helped these young people:

build this herb spiral:

in less than an hour.

They totally made my day and made me feel like I’d done something worthwhile and fun for the day. I was able to forget about the idiocy of work for a bit. I was able to explain about the different micro-climates we were making, from dry at the top to moist at the bottom, hot and light on the southwest and top sides and darker and cooler on the north and east edges, how the bricks and soil form a more stable structure- they totally got it and hopefully now they can do their own spirals and teach others.

After some hemming and hawing, I’ve decided to attend the Northeast Permaculture Convergence in Holyoke, MA over the July 4th weekend. I’ll bring my laptop so I’ll try to blog from the motel in the evenings.

Coincidentally, I just checked out Eric Toensmeier’s Perennial Vegetables from the local library. It turns out the NEPC is being held at Tierra de Oportunidad farm in Holyoke, which is Eric’s home site. So I’m going to make a point of meeting him and hopefully buy the book and Edible Forest Gardening, vols. I and II, which appear to be “must haves” for the serious permaculturalist.

I also need to make sure I bring my camera. One thing I’ve noticed is that there is a dearth of good photographs of permaculture gardens. People close to me want to know what the finished product is going to look like, and I’ve had a hard time finding good pictures of existing sites.

R. claimed to have gone last year and said it was great. I didn’t truly believe him until I was looking at the pics from 2007 and found him lurking in the background:

If you see this man at NEPC 2008, ask him to show you his wallet!

I fall asleep to the serenade of the chorus of neighborhood toads. I awake to the pleasant song of the wood thrush and the red-bellied woodpecker call. There is deer scat in my yard. This little wooded oasis of ours is in the median between the city and a shopping plaza chain store wasteland, yet you’d never know.

Its inarguably beautiful. The problem with all this is that the area isn’t conducive to food production, at least in the conventional sense. We have trees, probably approaching 100 feet, surrounding our yard and that of our neighbors, not to even mention the half acre mature woodlot adjacent to us. This means lots of shade. It means birds and deer and other things that like to eat. Not to mention the clay soil. It means I have to get somewhat creative.

But such is the dilemma in our modern age. Hunting and gathering will not sustain nearly seven billion people and counting. And the majority of this population resides in urban settings. Learning to work with what you’ve got today is not only a cliche, it’s a survival strategy.

So, we have decided to have two main “gardens”, as well as some other strategic placement of random edible plants. One garden is a 2000 square foot fenced in area that most would recognize as a typical vegetable garden. But as we develop it, hopefully one can see where we attempt to apply ecological or otherwise organic methods of gardening to this seemingly conventional garden.

The second area will be an experiment in the permaculture principle of the edible forest. We are extending the woodlot next to us into our yard. Already we have planted three nut trees, a mulberry tree and several varieties of brambles that will compose part of the shrub layer. This is just the beginning however. In this area we will attempt to recreate a successional forest ecosystem, that which is natural to this area.

In the coming months, we have some sheet mulching and fencing to take care of, and more importantly, taking some time to get more intimate with our new yard.

But before that, the next project is the chicken coop and run. In fact, the basic prefab coop which we mail ordered and are planning to soup up a bit just arrived on our front porch earlier today.

Have you ever heard of a chicken moat? Stay tuned…

In the meantime, check out our Picassa Web Album . There’s not much yet, but it will soon be filled with more pictures of chickens than one could hope for.