Personal Resilience and the Maine Primitive Skills School

It's been awhile - my focus has been elsewhere, recently, but I think it is time to come back to this.

This morning I was reading a book that I recently obtained, "The Knowledge; How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch" by Lewis Darnell, and paused, thinking about what I had read.  To survive conditions that he imagines could arise (collapse resulting from a pandemic), I am thinking that the approach that Arthur Haines suggested could be the ticket.  In the event of a collapse scenario centered around failure of societal structures, (as opposed to an epidemic), the 'prepper' approach  - stockpiling supplies and planning to defend them with weapons- seems unlikely to lead to success (survival) - if the perception is that you have things that others want, the likelihood is that someone, or a group of someones will come along and take what you have (or at least give it a good try), leading to much unpleasantness.  Haines, a re-wilding advocate, suggests that carrying ultimately portable survival information and skills in your head would allow you to escape and get to an area where you can live off of the landscape.
With this in mind, I went to the Maine Primitive Skills school website. They have put up a great series of videos: Here is one that I just watched on the Winter Trees: The balsam fir.

Pickling get-together Saturday, August 15

At Dilly Fest, we'll be making Dilly Beans, as well as dill pickles and anything else folks would like to pickle. We'll be doing it Saturday, August 15 at Neverdun Farm (259 Log Cabin Rd.) In Arundel, starting at 9:00 and going until 1:00 with potluck at noon. We'll also have a brief update on the state of the Community Asset Mapping project on which we've also been working.

I was just talking with Noah at Neverdun this morning to work on details of the get together, and we were thinking it would be a good idea to get a sense of people's experience levels with pickling.  I've pickled cukes a couple of times but would would imagine some people within the group have done more with it than I have. Please let me know if you are planning to come, and if you are, I'd also like to know if you are willing to share what you know about the process at the get together.

If needed, Noah will have available beans, cukes,etc. for pickling at a special Dilly Fest price through the Frinkelpod farm.

Looking forward to seeing you again, sharing skills, socializing and putting up some food!

Asset Mapping Session in Kennebunk, Part I

On this day when students were gathering in Augusta to focus attention on the issue of climate change, a small group of us gathered in Kennebunk to begin to map out and make connections between some of the many efforts that we have going on in our area that are moving our community in the direction of sustainability, local self reliance and resilience.  Before starting the mapping work, we had some great discussion around the goals for the mapping; who it is for, and what we mean by community, as well as about the barriers that need to be overcome - or worked around -  that prevent society from becoming sustainable.  We came up with a fair number of leads that need further research to compile contact information and a description.  A good bit of information was compiled on clothing with just a bit of research ahead of time.  For next time, focusing similar attention on some of the other areas will move this effort ahead significantly.

Kennebunk Area Asset Mapping,  Part I

Over the next weeks, I will be working to research and compile contact information and descriptions based on our work today, and will be sharing the result at the followup Asset Mapping Session (date and time TBA)

I left the session today feeling hopeful, positive and energized and that it was a worthwhile way to spend a few hours taking a tangible step forward. Looking forward to continuing this work with you all!

Kennebunk Area Connections - 1st project!

As one of the first projects that the Connections group will be doing as we work towards greater community resilience, we will be holding a community Asset Mapping on March 14 - location TBA.  This session will be a springboard to creating a catalog/guide to locally based business, groups and projects that are deemed to be important in forming a locally resilient and locally self reliant economy.  Where we notice aspects that are missing, that will serve to identify areas that need additional research and further networking, and ultimately, may identify opportunities for an individual or group.

This coming Summer, we'll be working toward a Dilly Bean Festival as we work together to celebrate and put up some of our harvest this growing season!  Stay tuned for more information.

Acorns as food!

Several years ago,  we (Elyse, Abby and I) took a class down at the White Pine School in York on Acorns as a food source.  Apparently, some native american tribes considered acorns to be a staple food, and at least in some years, they are so abundant that in those times, the only excuse for going hungry might be a lack of knowledge of how to utilize them.  They do naturally have tannic acid in them that needs to be removed before they can be eaten.  There are two ways to do this: the hot leach method, and the cold leach method. The White Pine School class we took focused on the hot leach method which entails repeated boiling and water changes, but it ends up using a huge amount of energy to do it and it cooks the acorns, and winds up removing some of the nutritional value  in the leaching process. I tried this method a couple times, but found it changes the taste, as well.  This year, I have done a couple of batches using the cold leach, and found that it is less labor intensive, uses very little energy - just enough to run a blender or food processor (and the human power to shell the acorns - that was a fun project for the girls on a snow day or two!), and should preserve more of the nutritional value of the Acorns.
Here are a couple videos on the cold leach process:
An Acorn Video by Arthur Haines, A maine based botanist and wild foods expert

And another that I found online


This video shows the technique I have been using lately.

Group order at Fedco through Portland Permies?

Anyone interested in participating in a group order with the Portland Resilience Hub and Permaculture group? There is a discussion thread here with details:

I (Ethan) would be willing to do a pickup from Portland and bring it down to our area.  You can expect to eliminate shipping, and save up to 20% on your order.
Deadline for ordering is Jan 16.  Please contact me if you are interested.

attached Lean-to hoophouse

Over the Winter break from school, I got it in my mind to build a lean-to style greenhouse.  At first I was going to build it solely from wood, but after I started pricing it out, I realized we couldn't afford to do it that way.  After thinking for a bit, I got the idea to recycle stuff we had on hand. - In the mid 2000's, I'd built a hoop house with some thick plastic water pipe back,  and for the last few seasons it had sat at the edge of the property looking sad and shabby.    As of this writing the new structure is still in it's early stages but I am hopeful it'll work out well.  Eventually we want to replace the deck on the south side of the house with a sunspace, so this will be a good test run.  In researching the project on line, I found this article from UVM with lots of good info.