Flurries

We just passed the milestone of two full months of Toolshed living, and as the seasons continue to tilt, we are having a variety of types of flurries here on Sundown Road lately. 

Flurries of: 

:: snow 
A winter weather advisory for the area this morning, and fast enough snow showers this morning to build up just a bit.  Just enough to make us rush through cleaning up after breakfast cooking (when snow is piling up on the olive oil and the salt, it's a different sort of cleanup!).  As we pulled a tarp over some half-finished construction projects, Malaya kept jumping on it and snapping at snowflakes.  She's putting on the fluff in preparation for winter. 

:: building
More compost bins (one very special one we won't discuss just yet...).  A platform bed to hold a brand-new locally made wool and cotton futon made, by special request, without flame retardants.  Note: this took

:: learning and planning
How deep are the underground irrigation lines?  Where are all the sprinkler heads?  How can we use the existing system for new garden space, but make it a bit more efficient? 

:: connections
When we mentioned the coffee roasting at a MUD* workshop last night, the woman running it said "Oh, I know who you are.  I know all about you--I just knew we'd meet at some point."  A dynamic and passionate local-food advocate with her hands in all kinds of good stuff, and a self-described "do-er, not talker," we are sure she's going to be a good ally and resource.

:: upcoming transitions
Including the most anxiously-awaited move into the cottage!  The farmhouse renovations are supposed to wrap up this Friday, with a cleaning crew scheduled for Monday, and the beginning of the grand housing shuffle on Tuesday.  We'll help Anita move from the cottage to the farmhouse, we'll move our living from the Toolshed to the cottage, then we'll move our office from in-town (and storage unit) to the Toolshed.  Next week may be a flurry of moving, but I am looking forward to finally settling in indoors.  


* Missoula Urban Demonstration  Project--a local sustainable living resource organization that hosts classes on all kinds of practical skills, and also runs the tool library that allows us to borrow,rather than buy seldom-used tools like a jigsaw or sawzall or caulking gun (just to name a few, lately)

A time of precious sunlight

Please forgive the absence of posts lately--it's been farm-to-be work time here for the last several days.  We drove back to Montana last Sunday hauling some 15 gallons or so of apple juice pressed in Oregon last week, and ever since have been fully immersed in trying to get systems set up here on the place.  We're still in the toolshed, but taking advantage of some nice fall day weather to get stuff done outside.  Our friend John is visiting from Wisconsin, we've put him straight to work....a new metal roof went up this morning on a great old pole building we refer to as the "goat shed."  It's support timbers are sound but shingles had blown off ages ago, and one more winter would have done in the wood on the roof.  We're aren't sure, really if goats will be the first thing it houses, but at least now whatever lives in there (not us, thankfully) will be dry! 

It may be quiet here for the next few days again as we build nest boxes and roosts for a chicken coop, dig garden beds and plant garlic, and, um, run a small workshop on Permaculture this weekend.  And of course, we'll be composting, as always.  Noah is officially compost king this week, because he won the wager we had of how hot the compost would be when we returned (the measured 136 was closer to his 140 guess than my 130).   

Currently On The Road

Team Toolshed is on the road.  We left Monday morning (cats staying behind, of course; we are grateful for Anita taking care of them for the week).  It's a combination of work and family visiting, a week on the road.  A few snippets from the trip so far:

Montana is an early morning start, straight from the bed to a down jacket, the cold metal of the roof racks bite fingers as we load the car in slowly brightening fog.  Gallons of extra veggie oil fuel cram the trunk, and containers for buying more in Portland. The wildfire smoke seems to be creeping back in, so it may just be a good time to get out of town. 

Idaho is easy.  We breeze through the skinny part of this state on veggie oil in the time it takes to have a few conversations: another debate about pigs, scheming over tractors, cover crops, speculating about compost.  

Washington is still smoky, but bright rabbitbrush in bloom lines the roads through the Palouse country.  We are headed for Quincy, a small town in the middle of fields watered by the Columbia, with blue labels on the fences informing drivers what is growing in each field.  My favorite reads "PASTURE: HORSES."  While Noah interviews a bean farmer and consolidator, Malaya and I wander a strange region of ag warehouses and offices.  Tons and tons of food are being gathered and stored here--apple trucks loaded with the giant wooden crates come and go, but the whole complex has no living plants except the green grass in the adjacent cemetery, so we walk there instead.  Diesel fumes, smokestacks, and acres of mysterious cement buildings are all somehow part of the food system.  It's a bit large. 

We know White Salmon, with our good friends, dinner, and bed, is south on 97, but we don't quite know how far.  A traffic back-up near Toppenish appears to be from an accident involving an apple truck. The vehicles have been dragged off the intersection, but a galaxy of smashed apples remains on the pavement. 

Dropping down hills into the start of Oak tree country on the Yakima Nation, wild horses graze ont he side of the highway. Lights flash when we let the downhill get to fast, but the officer is hiding a smile behind his grey mustache.  Holding the license, the worst we get is a warning: "You're going to have to take it down by about 10 miles an hour, or we'll make you brush your dog." We promise to behave.

We make it to the Columbia Gorge in dark, tired and grateful for friends to take us in. 

The time of first ice

We are feeling the shift here, the tilt away from sun and summer.  Each day is about eight minutes shorter than the last, and we've already been caught by surprise by a few early sunsets.  Noah and Malaya ended a bike ride last week in the almost-dark; it somehow snuck up on us all. 

And it's noticeable, the effect of those shortening days.  Not just a few drifting leaves now, but a fall of them.  A few nights ago we got the first rain in well over a month, which turned to slushy snow in the early half-dark morning. I am most grateful for the clarity that came back to the air after that, as the wildfire smoke finally blew out of the valley and the fires settled down with snow in the higher hills. At the edges of forests on Blue Mountain and Mount Sentinel, a fringe of white is still visible in the shade.  The hills that for weeks we could hardly see are again clear and defined--and now the smoke has lifted, I notice the larches are starting to turn yellow. 

It's not just changing colors and air clarity, though.  This morning when I woke up I found a solid layer of ice topping the water left in our plastic dishwashing tubs.  The soup pot left in the tub after last night's cooking was frozen in place.  It's a thin rim of ice, so far, but the cold is definitely creeping in. Indoors, Mabel and Hershey are clinging more solidly to the bed with each cooler night, burrowing under the covers and refusing getting harder to budge.   

Our toolshed is still pretty cozy, but getting cooler,and the outdoor kitchen and shower are becoming a bit more, um, refreshing.  We've taken to heating some water in the electric kettle to add to the dishwater,and even sometimes using the propane stove to heat a large water pot for showering (pretty luxurious). The semi-outdoor life is evident more in cold fingers than in sunny cheeks now, a contrast to when we moved here in late August. 

It's a time for burrowing in a bit.  We think we will be moving into the cottage house within the next few weeks, which will be especially welcome after after a few more icy mornings.  Till then, we'll take a cue from Mabel, soaking up some warm outdoor sun during the day(even in chilly air), and nesting under an ever deeper layer of blankets at night.

View of the paper birch through this morning's layer of ice.

The Toolshed Roast

This morning we looked at our coffee supply and realized we were down to just one more morning's worth of beans.  That means that, in the midst of all the rest, it's time to roll out the roaster again and roast, at least for ourselves.  It's been a funny discovery in this summer (and now fall) of moving, that the roaster, the process of roasting, even in new and less than ideal locations, has been a familiar and comforting thing.  It makes a place, whether it is an awkward summer-rental apartment or a tool room off of a garage, feel a bit more like home. It has been good to do something that feels familiar and normal, and have it go well. 

The last roast we did, we offered mail batches to our past supporters, and mailed out boxes right before heading to New York.  That was our first roast at the farm on Sundown, and it was a bit of a celebration of finding our new place.  We called it the Toolshed Roast, and included some of the story from the very first nights of our arrival there.  This is the text and image from the label:

When we tell friends and new neighbors that we have moved to the small farm on Sundown Road, we don't generally let on that at the moment we are actually living in a toolshed. It's cozier than you might think, but we can't recommend it for everyone--cooking off a propane stove outside, carrying water in five gallon jugs, running our fruit dryer off borrowed power, the continual sweeping from the dry yard which the animals track through our various zones from the outdoor kitchen into the sitting area and bedroom corner. The proximity to horses is another matter. On a recent evening after dinner with neighbors, we followed the path through the pasture back home, only to find ourselves surrounded by horses. With one hand on the dog, and another on the horses, we just had to talk our way through the matter, both softly and strongly.

This roast is just like that, soft and strong, from our friends in Papua New Guinea, who dig down, working with the community to build up their own farm, really from the soil up, just the way we work here in Missoula, Montana. So, to celebrate our temporary living situation, until we move into a real farmhouse, the toolshed roast is good for simple work, or when you need a bit more. It's been tested over coffee with neighbors, running meetings, designing our new chicken coop, and talking to horses.

We'll always make room for a little more (especially a little more coffee).

In the last few weeks our Toolshed has served as home-office workspace, print shop, coffee packaging/ shipping warehouse (the actual roasting happens outside), as well as hosting all our normal daily functions.  You know: sleeping, eating, housing two cats and the dog, making applesauce, drying plums, etc..  Just the basics.  I’ll be honest, there are times when it feels a bit cramped.  While shuffling boxes to extract the one large pot to heat shower water (too much smoke to heat the solar shower lately), or putting all other operations on hold till the photo prints spread over all surfaces are dry, it can feel like there is not room for one more thing or operation in this space.  By all logic, there probably is not.  So why not order over 800 pounds of coffee to be delivered to our door?

When we first started roasting, one of these bags seemed large.

Back in the Grove, we used to just pick up our Papua New Guinea coffee ourselves from the small warehouse that Larry and Aarlie import through near Seattle.  Driving on veggie oil, we’ve gotten up to three bags crammed into the backseat.  We usually managed to combine those coffee trips with some other meetings and errands in or near Seattle, so it worked out pretty efficiently, getting a few bags at a time.  We are by far the smallest customer at the warehouse, so it was always fun to see our one or two bags brought out to the loading dock.  But now that we’re hundreds of miles farther away, the direct veggie-oil fueled pickup isn’t so feasible.  Added to that is the fact that this year’s crop is looking to be pretty low at the Madan farm, so we’ve had a bit of worry about having a good supply over the next year.  So, just to be secure, we decided to take the new action of having some coffee shipped to us.  And if a truck is going to come to our house, even though the freight is shared with many other things coming to Missoula from that region, we want to maximize the efficiency of fuel.  So, of course, with nowhere really to put it, we ordered 8 bags of coffee. 

 

It arrived yesterday, while I was working at home (fortunately) and Noah was at the office.  The freighter truck couldn’t get up the driveway, but one of the builders working on Anita’s house was happy to drive his pickup truck out to the street to pick up the pallet of coffee for us.  A pallet of coffee.  Eight bags, piled up, strapped down, and marked with “Forest Voices” on a wire-and-paper tag.  A whole pallet of coffee is a bit exciting, and a whole new scale for our operations.  

I was tempted to start wrestling bags off the truck and into our living space right away, but since I’m still supposed to be on lockdown for any strenuous ankle activity (something I need to get better at obeying), I called Noah home from the office, and we tackled it together with the wheeled dolly that has proven to be one of our most valuable pieces of equipment.  I thought for a while we might have to pile these in one corner of our living space, reducing the access pathway to our bed to a small corridor, but with enough shuffling, we managed to squeeze them into a garage storage space between Anita’s furniture and boxes.  We are still proceeding with pretty much all activities even in this toolshed homestead, but I’m looking forward to the day when there are more distinct zones for all these different business and activities.  Till then, we’ll just continue this shuffle, doing our best to make that Toolshed Shuffle into some sort of dance. 

 

  

The handcart purchased for the multiple moves proves invaluable for wheeling the coffee from the truck through the kitchen and toolshed for storage in the garage. (note that Noah is similarly versatile, transitioning easily from being a sustainable agriculture consultant on skype video calls, to coffee freight transfer without so much as changing clothes.  We're bit on versatility here.

and what do you do?

A set of standard questions is emerging in my conversations with people in Missoula lately as we re-establish in this community.  From the people I knew before, they run along the lines of "So, you're back...for how long?"  "Did you find a job here?"  or "Are you teaching at the University here?"  Behind the questions I can often sense the curiosity about my return, my two year adjunct teaching stint in Oregon, my future goals.  From people I'm meeting more newly, it's usually some variation of "What do you do?"  Meaning, really "what work do you get paid for?" 

It's funny, it's such a normal question in most circles, and the answer to that question tends to define us, the basic job-title-as-role definition of who a person is.  I had an interesting exchange recently with a friend from grad school about whether or not she was still a biologist.  Meredith spends most of her hours these days wrangling two small children, but is also branching into some science writing.  She has a PhD in biology, is one of the best bird-nerds I know (she named her black shepherd dog Corvus, part of the Latin name for crow), and is married to a wildlife biologist.  Their recreational family outings more often than not involve binoculars, birding, and species identification.  She wrote a lively and informative article on the biology and natural history of dragonflies for a local publication in her small Colorado town, and described herself in the author blurb at the end as "a former biologist."  I took issue with the "former" but since she wasn't getting paid for biological research or working at an institution anymore, she didn't feel comfortable claiming the "biologist" title at the moment. 

I can relate, to an extent.  After all, I carried a university ID card marked "faculty," had a nameplate with "Mary Bricker, PhD" outside my office door (an office of my own, with a door! not a grad student cubicle!) for at least one whole semester, maybe a whole year, before the answer "I'm a biology professor" started to come naturally. I often dodged a bit, saying "I teach biology at a small college," taking the activity descriptor, rather than title-claiming route.  Eventually I got used to it, embraced it, even if it still sometimes (often) felt like I was figuring it out and barely functioning as Professor Bricker.  But, on the other hand, those two years of teaching were probably the simplest, easiest to explain job I've had.  People understand, or at least think they understand, what it means to be a professor. That simplicity was s relief after six years of grad school and a year of working for an educational software company, both situations complicated and nebulous enough that even my own family had a hard time telling people what I did.

And now, once again, the answer to the question of what I do is a bit tricky.  You might be wondering, too.  And one complication is that right now, it's work that I think I will eventually be paid for, somehow.  But it's not so secure or clear as hourly wages or a year's teaching contract.  One way I answer "did you find a job here?" is "Well, I'm making myself one."  That's partly because I'm not quite read to answer with "I run a not for profit organization," even though that is the thing I spend most of my time doing right now (not alone, of course, it's with Noah,and we're continually adding affiliations and partnerships to ensure that it's not just our own crazy idea and plan, but something with support, focus, and longevity).  Some parts of it are running already, like the coffee roasting direct trade program--that's approaching a year now.  Some parts Noah has been running for years, documenting farm and forest people in words and images.  None of it has yet been done under an official 501(3)c status, but we're getting there.

I want to be clear: I didn't leave my job teaching at Pacific because I was unhappy there, because it was hard (though it was) or required ridiculously long hours, even on weekends (which it did) .  I left because, as much as I liked the role of Professor Bricker on a little campus of brick buildings and lawns shaded by Oregon White Oak, I believe that the ideas Noah and I have for our organization could bring about something even better.  It's still hard work, it's still requiring some long hours and some difficult, loosely structured tasks that seem never ending. I have to make phone calls to people I don't know way more often than I'd (it's not something I do well(.   But it's also exciting, and we've had some good successes recently.  I'd like to share some of those stories (including how we went straight from bucket showers and the toolshed homestead to a conference room in Manhattan to make a pitch to an organization there).  But before some of those stories, it might help to see some summaries of "what we do" these days. 

I've been working already on drafting descriptions of our organization and programs, for sharing with contacts and people to whom we'll make requests for help, meetings, etc..  So, though still in draft form, here's the basics of what we at Forest Voices do.  And maybe before too long I'll find a smooth way to answer the question of "what do you do?" in conversation as well.  After all "I run a small non-profit organization with my partner" is a pretty normal answer to that question in Missoula!

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The official Forest Voices logo

Forest Voices is an establishing not-for-profit organization based in Missoula, Montana.  We have three programs that function independently but also complement and support each other.  All programs work towards our overall goal of supporting the people and communities who rely on forest ecosystems. 

Mission and Vision: 

Forest Voices uses student courses, direct trade, and storytelling programs to foster meaningful connections between people across vast geographic and lifestyle distances.   We help consumers of globally traded products such as coffee, tea, and cocoa understand and directly experience how good practices of trade and agroforestry can impact the lives of the farmers producing these crops.  We believe that understanding the full process and story behind the foods and products we consume can encourage people to think and act with greater care, to enhance the quality of life and sustainability of the communities of the farmers and the consumers alike. 

Our programs:

Storytelling:  We listen for and document local stories, particularly in communities living in forests and at forest edges.  We use participatory methods, in which we empower people to record, document, and share their ecological knowledge, traditional and innovative farm and forestry practices, and cultural heritage.  These stories and knowledge, recorded in writing, audio, video, images, and maps, remain in the community as a resource for community members, and for exchange with other communities. 

We also gather and share some of these stories with the end consumers of high-value, globally traded agro-forestry crops such as coffee, cocoa, and vanilla.  In this case, the stories of farmers, the forests they rely on, and their farming practices, are meant to educate and inspire consumers.  A compelling story can lead people to make choices and take actions that directly enable the forest communities producing such commodities to obtain a fair price, earn a reliable living, and continue farm practices that enhance and preserve forest ecosystems. 

Student courses: On two to three week travel courses, students explore the complex ecology of agro-forestry crops such as coffee by living and working with families in communities growing these crops.  Through direct experience and service learning, students gain understanding of both the culture of the host community and the natural history, ecology, and conservation challenges relevant to that area.  In addition, we work intensively with students on these courses to develop and refine their ability to effectively communicate what they learn.  Specifically, students learn to identify, and craft stories in order to present information in a way that is compelling, and inspires thought and action in an audience.  Through this emphasis on storytelling, students are able to return to their home communities equipped to bridge their course experience with their home life, and share the stories with that home community.      

Direct trade:  We buy directly from farmers with whom we have established relations and whose farming practices make a positive impact on their surroundings. We process these products (coffee and cocoa) at small scale in our home facilities and sell to local consumers.  These products also serve as vehicles of farmer stories, to educate consumers and facilitate building of community in the US.