As I wake up to the cool breeze blowing through the window of my cabin, the dawn chorus is just wrapping up its morning symphony. Summer is a busy time here, and I try to make use of the early morning hours to get my outdoor work done. Strolling down the hill I bid "good morning" to Desta as she makes her way down to milk the goats and let out the ducks and chickens. We can expect about a gallon of milk per day as well as a dozen and a half duck and chicken eggs.
I spend a good hour watering vegetables, fruits, and flowers in our 2 acre organic garden. The sweet spicy smell of basil drifts up to me as I make my way around the raised beds. The sun is just now starting to peek down into the garden. After poking around in the greenhouses looking for an elusive ripe tomato, I begin gathering ingredients to start a new batch of compost tea. We have a small 5 gallon KIS brewer and I have been experimenting with different tea recipes over the past few years. Today I will try a mixture of kelp extract, molasses, fish emulsion, humic acid, bone meal, and oyster shell flour. Once all of that is added to the brewer, I turn on the aerator and add a mix of our best composts from last season. The tea will be ready to apply later this evening. I leave behind the sweet smell and gentle gurgling of the compost tea and head up into our strawbale-insulated dormitory to check the time.
It's eight-thirty and our interns are bustling about the kitchen making breakfast and getting ready for their morning class session at nine. Every spring, summer, and fall we run a ten-week hands-on internship program in sustainable living skills. The courses focus on organic gardening, sustainable forestry, appropriate technology, permaculture, and various other holistic living skills. Today the interns will be heading out into our forest with Matthew, our forester. They're sure to have a good time wandering through our beautiful 40 acres learning about the inner workings of our private moss- covered paradise.
Back in the kitchen Jason and David are hard at work preparing lunch for everybody. I spend the rest of my morning catching up on my chores and bringing food scraps down to our ducks and chickens. Lunch, as always, is spectacular--a smorgasbord of fresh garden veggies, garlic breadsticks, and homemade goat cheese pizza. After lunch I head back down to the garden to make sure none of the plants are thirsty. The bright airy sounds of an acoustic guitar drift down to me as I take a detour from my watering to savor the summer delights of our raspberry beds. The interns are relaxing before their afternoon class. Soon they head back into the cool shade of their forest classroom, and I retreat into the moderately cool shade of my office to exchange my gardening hat for my thinking cap.
For twenty-five years now Aprovecho has been designing, researching, and building fuel-efficient wood burning stoves. We send consultants all over the world to help people to incorporate our designs into their own stoves. I have spent the past month working with Dean, our head of research, on a paper titled "Design Principles for Wood Burning Cook Stoves." This paper is being written for the EPA in an attempt to put the knowledge we have gained in stove theory into the public domain. I have been chunking away for a few hours now making final revisions to the booklet. Time sure flies sitting in front of a computer. The dinner bell is clanging away and I head down to the strawbale to see what sort of meal the interns have concocted tonight. Once again I am pleased by another delicious organic feast. One certainly feels well fed here.
I head back to the garden, which thankfully is starting to cool off now. After a bit more watering and setting up the sprinkler for the night, I check in on the compost tea. It's been about twelve hours since the brew started and the tea has a dark brown color and a sweet earthy aroma. It is ready to be diluted and applied. As I water the tea into the vegetable beds I can't help but to imagine myself as a vegetable. After a long day growing in the hot sun what could be better than a drink of sweet rejuvenating tea? All of the soil around my roots is being stimulated by a boost from the bacteria, fungi, and minerals in the tea. Lipton never made it this good.
The garden is going to sleep now and I, like the garden, take my rest with the setting of the sun. Pulling myself up the hill one last time I manage to clear a space for myself on the bed. I give a quick thought, a mental review, on the particulars of seed starting, as that is the class I will be teaching in the morning. A cool breeze brings the smell of blackberry blossoms in through the window as I drift off to sleep.
Aprovecho is a non-profit organization located in Cottage Grove, OR. For more information on their internship program, stove work, becoming a member, or anything else please check out their website and feel free to contact them at (541) 942-8198, www.aprovecho.net).
Gardener Jeremy Roth has been involved with Aprovecho for the past five years. He has also spent time working with native plant nurseries and managing a CSA and Market Farm in the Portland Area.
©2004 Talking Leaves
Late Summer/Fall 2004
Volume 14, Number 3
A Day in the Life: The Many Faces of Eco-Community