Looking for place in Ashland to live, share, and grow

My name is Daniel Kra. I am 27 years old, originally from New Jersey, though I spent most of my Adult life in Israel, where I got into Permaculture, Sustainable living, natural building etc. That's why I came out here to the west coast, cause there's so much of that going on here. After work trading for a few months in California, then another four months at the Mountain Homestead community in Coquille, Oregon, I came to Ashland because i heard so many great things, all true. I've been living here for the last 8 months and though my first winter was kind of tough and scary, being in a new place and all, I'm excited to stay in Ashland and make more connections and help do wonderful things. I've been doing yard work, landscaping, babysitting and a few other odd jobs. I'm hoping to continue with the landscaping work next year with an emphasis on edibles/medicinals/useful plants as well as making and selling herbal beers and meads and a few other new money making projects.



I would like to find a place to live in or outside of Ashland beginning around October 1st after a visit to Israel to see my family and friends. I am looking for a place with community oriented people, possibly sharing food budget and making meals together(I'm a budding Freegan), making art and music together, doing sustainable oriented projects, especially food related, biker friendly too. There should be plenty of space on the property for gardens, chickens, rabbits(not that i would get chickens and rabbits right away, but it's a goal), mushroom patches, cob oven.. I want to build a bunch of raised beds and other beds for growing annuals and perennials. If it was in town that would be great so I could bike around rather than drive everywhere. It shouldn't feel cramped because I am a bit claustrophobic and like large rooms and spaces, especially for doing yoga or even dancing, outside space for a fire pit, hammock etc. Ideally the individual rent should be as low as possible only as high as $400 including utilities, If there was a work trade option that would be great too. Cigarette(outside) and 420 friendly. Pot lucks and small gatherings are great, huge college type parties not so much. I might be interested to find like minded people and rent a whole house as opposed to just moving in to an existing house with existing housemates. Either way is good. I should also mention that I intend to live in this next home for at least a whole year, probably more if it's great and we make it great.

If you know of any places that sound like what I described or like minded people who would be interested in creating a new space together, I would love to hear from you. Even if you just think that I'm a neat guy that you'd like to get to know. I could never have too many friends.

Many blessing,

Daniel Kra
541-362-1052
daniel.kra@gmail.com
ekralogical.blogspot.com
(I'm on facebook too)

How I experienced four days of a ten day Vipassana meditation course

Well first off, it was hard. But I'm getting ahead of myself. At the recommendation of my friend Hadas, I signed up for a ten day Vipassana course. She thought ti might do me a lot of good. It's ten days of silence, ten days of meditation, ten hours a day. The meditation is guided by audio tapes of S.N. Goenka, who teaches the meditation method by video discourse at the end of each day. No speaking( except to ask the assistant teacher a question or if you need something), no intoxicants, no reading, no music, no sexual activity. It's meditating, resting, eating(delicious vegetarian food) and sleeping.

The course took place outside of the City of Rogue River here in Southern oregon. At a private residence in the woods, very beautiful. Now I've never meditated before. I mean I've never sat down and consciously meditated. I know I've meditated on things before, just thinking, or praying. But never meditated to increase my level of awareness of my mind and body, which is part of what Vipassana is. So it was hard. First off, physically. if a week ago I had sat down and meditated for an hour, similarly to what i do sometimes in yoga, just sitting indian style, following my breathing, I would have had a better idea of what i was getting myself into. It hurt to stay in one position for one to two hours at a time. I tried a number of different positions while there, finally on the third day moving to the back of the meditation hall so i could sit up against the wall, which helped. So the first three days were hard physically including the fact that I slept poorly the whole time, nodding off over and over while meditating.

Obviously, it was mentally hard. It's all about focusing the mind on one thing, at first your breathing, then specific areas of your body. Focusing on these, being aware of them and aware of the sensations you feel connected to them. And when I was doing it really focused, it was a wonderful feeling of being at Peace and being very aware. Though most of the time, I was out of focus distracted by being physically uncomfortable or in pain, or just by the distracting nature of my mind. I must have had every song in my ipod stuck in my head, popping up all the time. I also had a tough time not thinking about the future, my plans, things i need to do. It's not easy to live in the present and only the present.

It was on the fourth day that things really changed. The first three days were just preperation for the actual vipassana meditation. The actual vipassana started with the focusing on our entire bodies, section at a time. Focus on the head, then the neck, then the shoulders etc. Being aware of whatever sensations pop up along the way. Anything. Warmth, tightness, vibration, pressure, anything. That wasn't so much of problem. It was the fact that we were discouraged from changing positions at all, as well as discouraged from leaving the meditation hall until the end of the one or two hour long session. Sure i could move to change positions or leave the room if I wanted, though slowly and quietly so as to interrupt my own medition and the meditions of others as little as possible. But I was already physically suffering and this just compounded it. The final straw for me was that i realized I was in pain physically and feeling very claustrophobic. There were walking trails but very short that looped back to the meditation hall. I couldn't really walk far to be alone. Couldn't make eye contact with the other participants, had to behave like I was alone there. Couldn't play guitar, sing. Couldn't scream.

So I left. They were really nice about it even though when you start you vow that you will stay the whole ten days. I'm not embarrased or ashamed. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded here on the west coast, particularly in ashland, by amatuer yogis and practitioners of every meditation technique or tai chi or hear circles or ancestral healings. I've been a Jew all my life, in fact I always will be. Point is, my Jewish upbringing taught me to pray,to read words from books. But nobody taught me how to feel, how to think, how to just be. So I sometimes feel like I have a lot of work to do to get where I want to be. I learned a lot in those four days. I learned a few simple techniques to help me focus and sharpen my mind to be aware of different aspects of myself. I can't tell you what I would have learned the next six days cause I wasn't there. But maybe someday I will.

I'm back home in Ashland. Back to work, back to friends, my housemates, music, my guitar, the farmer's market, the park, bonfires and full moons. Life.

I'm back baby!

"Back from where?", you ask. My last blog post was in December, so I have a lot to explain for. First off, This was a very hard winter for me emotionally and psychologically. Winter in a new place can be very tough, especially for someone like me who really suffers from Seasonal Effective Disorder. Anywho, I'll just say that i was really depressed all Winter, which was also a late winter here in Southern Oregon. I moved out of the place I was at in Talent, even though the property has so much potential. The main reason is that I didn't fit with the other renters. One in particular was very OCD and bossy, and she made me feel like I was a bad guest living in her home rather than a housemate. Leaving, I felt like a failure.

No worries. Though it was sad to leave such a beautiful property, I found three amazing University students living in a huge house on the edge of Ashland who were renting out the basement apartment. So thats where I've been since New Years. I've been working doing yard work for people I found through Craigslist and that's paid the bills(Yay me!). I also recently started a work trade with a clinical herbalist, helping her in her Apothecary and gardens in exchange for consultation and guidance in living healthy. Then there's my work with Bach Thor, a older man here in Ashland who wild harvests stinging nettles for restaurants, farmers markets, and other customers.

I got back a few days ago from the Village Building Convergence, an annual ten day event in Portland with projects all over the city to improve neighborhoods, like using natural building styles to make public space useful like cob benches, saunas, as well as gardening projects all over the city. There are workshops of all kinds related to Sustainable Living, as well as lectures and live music at night. I saw some old friends there and made new ones as well. Portland is an awesome city and I wanted to stay longer, especially to participate in the worlds largest naked bike ride next Saturday. Though I came back this week because I am participating in a ten day Vipassana silent meditation course starting this Wednesday.

Today after doing Yoga with one of my housemates, I went to Lithia Park in town to play guitar. I made 15 bucks in one hour, plus a ticket to the Feast of Bill, a dinner in the park to kick off the start of the summer season at Shakespeare Festival here in Ashland. Barbecue chicken and Bagpipes, who could ask for more. Then on the the way home, I found a garage sale, where I bought a 2 person dome tent and an fm tranmitter for my ipod, for 5 bucks. pretty sweet. So all in all, I'm one happy camper.

Let The Games Begin!!!

My trip to Hood River, near Portland was a great success. Besides coming back with enough money to pay my rent for the month, I had the great experience of being part of a very quick permaculture design. Which is normally speaking, not supposed to be quick. You're supposed to take your time observing the property, thinking about your needs, the lands needs, and so on, similarly taking your time with the design, waiting to implement it only when the design seems solid. At least that's how I used to think about it. I also thought that every Permaculture Design had to have maps, maos, and more maps, otherwise it wasn't a Permaculture design at all. Lately though, I have begun to learn that the real map you make is the one in your head. The owners of the property in Hood River, have one of those head maps. They've been living there for two years, seen the sun rise and fall, noting where it's sunny and where it's shady, where the wind blows etc. It is also helpful that there property is quite small, about a quarter of an acre. While I was up there I planted about 30 fruit and nut trees and bushes. They may look small now but in ten years they're tiny gardens will be Eden!

Now those fruit and nut trees are only one layer of Permaculture gardening, Forest Gardens. Let me show you.


Here in Talent, the house we're renting is on about an acre of land. Now I don't plan on investing too much time and energy into developing this property, seeing as how I'll only be here for a year, but I have a few ideas. Let's take a look at the hazelnut orchard.


That's all it is, hazelnuts. But not for long. Existing orchards are perfect candidates for becoming food forests. They just need more diversity and layering. I spoke to the owner, and she said that some of those hazelnuts can come out and be replaced with other fruit or nut trees. I am also coming up with a plan to sheet mulch the orchard,inoculate the mulch with a few different mushrooms, and plant tons of stuff underneath the trees. I'm not sure what yet, but they'll be coming off of my plant list, a list of plants that i want to grow this year.



aloe vera-c
anise
basil
Bee balm
burdock-c
burnet
Caraway
Coriander
catnip
capsicum
chamomile
cloves
Coltsfoot
comfrey-c
curry
Dandelion
dill
Dock
echinacea
evening primrose
fennel
Feverfew
Flax
garlic chives
golden seal
hyssop
Indian summer
lovage
lavender
lemon verbena
marjoram
Marigold
mint
mugwort
Nasturtium
parsley
pennyroyal
poppy
Queens annes lace
rue
rosemary
sage
San Pedro cactus
sassafras
summer savory
Sunflower
stevia-c
scented geraniums
st johns wort
tarragon, thyme
tobacco
valerian
winter savory
yarrow

Vegetables

Arugula
Artichoke(P)
Bean
Beet
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cabbage
Carrot
Caterpillars
Cauliflower
Ceylon Spinach(P)
Chicory(P)
Corn
Cucumber
Eggplant
Egyptian Onion(P)
French sorrel
Garden Huckleberry
Garlic
Ginger
Good King Henry
Gourd
Ground Cherry
Kale
Lambs Quarters(P)
Leek
Lettuce
Lima Bean
Lovage
Mashua
Melons
Mustard
New Zealand Spinach(P)
Okinawan Spinach(P)
Oca
Okra
Onion
Pea
Peppers
Pigweed
Potatoes(P)
Radish
Runner Bean
Rocket
Stinging Nettles
Salsify
Sorrel(P)
Soybean
Spinach
Strawberries
Squash
Sunchoke(P)
Sunberry
Sweet Potato(P)
Swiss Chard
Tree Collards
Tomatillo
Tomato
Turnip
Watermelon
Watercress(P)
Wild leeks
Yacon(P)

Now you're getting the idea. Polyculture, diversity.

BACK ON MY FEET

I'm finally getting over being sick, my housemates convinced me to go to a doctor. I got antibiotics for my sinus infection, and all is well in the world.

What about everything else? Well life is difficult sometimes, especially when it concerns change. So settling in to a new environment, new circle of people can be tricky. I've been living at the Talent Homestead (I prefer the name New Talent Homestead but nobody's buying it!) for three weeks no. And what have I accomplished? Well fist off, let me remind you that I've been sick, and that I've also been taking advantage of the fact that i have a place of my own and can do what I want, no WWOOFing, no schedules. Ok, I haven't done that much. I've already gotten some work, putting up solar panels, and painting a house that is going to be part of a Cohousing project here in Talent. I just lined up a few day work in Portland(that's weird!) helping plant stuff for a urban food forest. I've also applied for a couple of jobs to be a caregiver for older people. Let's hope I get some steady work!

In terms of my own projects, things are going slowly. I could start growing Oyster and shitake mushrooms tomorrow, all i need is the spawn(usually bags of sawdust thick with white strands of mycelium). I'm trying to find the most local source of spawn, and so far the closest I've found is 223 miles away in Corvallis, which is on the way to Portland so I can pick some up when I come back from there. Buying locally isn't just about supporting the local economy. it's also about finding someone who has mushrooms and mushroom spawn suited for this climate. Kind of like saving seeds with vegetables. I want to start growing mushrooms indoors ASAP, which doesn't really require this local spin, cause I can control temperature and humidity artificially. But I want to sheet mulch the hazelnut orchardand other areas on the property and inoculate them with spawn of different mushrooms as well, and it will be more successful the more local the varieties are. I could look for people with spore prints(basically a piece of paper set underneath a frshly picked mushroom which drop thousands of spores onto the paper) and create mushroom spawn of my own. It's not rediculous, but can be tricky because everything needs to be sterile if the mushroom that i want is to grow and not some other household mold. i want to play around with making mushroom spawn, but for oysers and shitakes, i think i'll just buy a couple of bags for about $25 buck each. I should be able to grow a lot of mushrooms with those mixed into coffee grounds and sawdust(both of which I can get for free) and then afterwards I can spread the spent mixture into a mulch of sawdust,wood chips, wood shavings,straw, more coffee grounds, newspaper, and cardboard outside and hopefully this spring we'll get tons of mushrooms!

My housemate Karen is going to be mapping the property. I know i said I was going to do it myself, but hopefully I can help her do it and learn from her. All that i want to do is hindered by the fact that by nature, i am a pretty lazy guy and have wasted years of my life watching tv and movies. Though i made a promise to myself that from now on, I'll only watch movies with other people, it's still hard for me to get up and do the things I need to do. When I'm working for other people, I easily prove myself in terms of getting a lot done all day long. But building up the motivation to do my own projects is still very difficult and something I'm trying to work on this year.

The Journey Continues

I'm sitting in front of the wood stove in the living room of our new place. The house is already half furnished thanks to my housemates, who have lots of cool stuff. We already have a dining room table, chairs, a futon for the living room, all the kitchen stuff we could ever need. Great, now that's all settled, now what? I'm a little under the weather right now, I have an ear, nose, and throat thing, which has drained me of my energy. So I'm taking it easy for a while. I got some work yesterday with my housemate Grant. He's putting up solar panels for my friend Chuck. It was fairly straightforward, like building an erector set, only trouble is, I never had an erector set. So i felt a bit stupid, not knowing how to use a wrench, but I pick things up fairly quickly. I could have got more work today, but I feel so weak. I worry I might have Mono, but I hope that it's just a cold+stress. I'm hoping I can find more work too, I have some options to check out.

Then there's the garden, if we want to get our winter garden in, it's got to happen now. So we've got to get some beds made. Anne and Grant have a couple of raised bed frames at their old place that we can use. We just have to get them up here, fill em up and plant them with all sorts of leafy greens, and garlic.

The list of projects keeps growing:

Start growing all kinds of sprouts
Build a Cob oven
start collecting coffee grounds for future mushroom projects


Now I'm writing from the Ashland Food Co-Op, where it's snowing outside! Yay! I'm picking up my bike from the bike place, where it got a tune up. Today I become truly mobile. There's a bike path all the way from my place in Talent to Ashland, even to Medford the big city. Ashland is really bike friendly. Even the buses have bike racks on the front. They don't have those in Israel yet!

Hitchin' to Reno for Halloween

Most cool people around these parts either stick around Ashland for the scariest night on the Calender, or head to the bigger cities like Portland. Me, I'm headed to Reno, Nevada, to see my friend Kat. We met a few months ago at the homestead. I'm sure I'll have a ghoulish time.

Ah, hitchhiking! One of the greater way to feel truly free that I know of. The act of sticking your thumb out on the side of the road says that you don't need a car, don't need anything at all to keep you going. You just need a ride. And seeing as how everybody is driving these huge cars and SUVs, with only the drivers behind the wheels as cargo, couldn't you see fit to a little bit of company while going whereever you're headed?

Reno is five hours away from Ashland, so wish me luck and that I get the perfect ride. From here, to there.

HOME, SWEET HOME!

"The conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems to create the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. This form of agriculture seeks the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and nonmaterial needs in a sustainable way."

Yes, that's right, I've found a place! It's a four bedroom house with wood burning stoves, two full bathrooms, one and a half kitchens, on a decent sized property, including fruit and nut orchard, greenhouse, two hops to a creek, at the edge of Talent, Oregon, 3 miles from the center of Ashland. I'm ridiculously excited.

My roommates are three really cool grownups(over 30), one is an all around handyman, the other two woman are great gardeners, all of them students of Permaculture. Another gentleman has a shop on the property where he does wood working, round timber stuff etc. So I'll be surrounded by skills, and hopefully I'll pick up a few myself this year. It's great to know that I'll be in a place with lots of support for the ideas and projects that I have.

List of projects of interest:

The gardens- This one is the big one. I am going to be mapping out the properties sectors like sun,wind, figuring out what plants will go well with the trees and vegetation already growing there. How can we utilize the perimeter fence to grow food. If we want some chickens, where should they go? I'll be going into more detail about Permaculture design as I progress.




Gourmet and Medicinal mushroom cultivation- The orchard is a great spot for that. Just a layer of sawdust, compost, coffee grounds and straw then inoculate the whole thing with a msuhroom spawn, of varieties like oyster, shitake, crimini/portobello.
This is also a big one for me. I need to do lots more research and talk to people. I really want to make some money from this, selling mushrooms.

Worms- This one's easy. Vermicompost, having red wigglers, turn organic waste into beautiful nitrogen rich castings. It's just a couple og boxes with holes. Easy peasy.

Microbrew- Yeah, Yeah! Let's make some beer! Also fairly easy.

A Hard Night's Day in Ashland

I spent the day biking to town to look at two different housing options, one of which looks really great. A working single mother lives with her 8 year old son right in town in 3 bedroom house with an average sized backyard. There's a studio room behind the garage, which would be mine. It has a bathroom, shower, fridge, and hot plate. Pretty basic. But what makes this place appealing is that she is looking for somebody to help her watch her son when she's working. Walk him to school in the morning, pick him up in the afternoon. Some babysitting every now and then. I could stay there for free, no rent, and grow food in the backyard as well. That's amazing.

Tomorrow I am going to look at another option, a house 3 miles north of Ashland, on a property that belongs to a woman who is very active in the Permaculture scene here. I would be sharing the house with some friends of Chuck, the guy who I wwoofed for in Ashland two months ago, all of whom i met before, and are really cool and into gardening etc. The property already had a greenhouse, a workshop, and other things that make it garden/permaculture ready. There would be rent and utilities, about $300 altogether, which is a good price for the area, but it would mean I would have to find enough work to pay for it. Which is reasonable. I can probably make $600 a month fairly easily. I just don't know how yet. We'll see.

We all had dinner tonight here at Chuck's, all of us interested in this house. Chuck and I made lasagna, and the others brought greens for a stirfry and lentils and chips and salsa. And I had a bottle of really good beer. And fresh apple cider which they made two days ago. So after that, and a good nights rest tonight, I should be ready to meet whatever challenges wait for me tomorrow!

I made it, I'm here, in Ashland, Oregon. Now what?

Finally, after a bus to New York City from my hometown of West orange, NJ, a weekend with my friend Rueben and his Upper West Side Jew Scene, another bus to Boston where I spent the night at my friend Diane's, a flight to Denver, another to San Francisco, and one more to Medford, Oregon, I got picked up by my friend Chuck, who I wwoofed for the last week of August, and drove back to his Farm outside of Ashland. Phew!!

I'm staying in his barn which he just finished renovating, really nicely I should add. The upstairs has a kitchen, bathroom, and plenty of space, not that I need much right now. Just a place to put my sleeping bag down, a desk to do internet stuff, a fridge for some food...

Tomorrow, oh tomorrow, things start to happen. My to do list:

Visit possible housing options- I've got a few places to look at. Three are really promising. One, a professional couple has a house in town with some outdoor space. I talked to the guy, they do massage and other body treatments along with clowning for kids. He says it's a really cool house, and they sound like really nice people. They are really keen on improving the outdoor spaces, gardens etc. I could probably get the rent reduced based on how much work I put into the gardens, which I would do anyway.

The second is a single mother and her 8 year old son. Also a house in town, similarly interested in having a garden. She also needs help watching the kid, and I could reduce the rent by babysitting, which is awesome.

Third, and very interesting. This morning I got an email from Chuck's neighbor and friend, who I had met in August. She, her partner, and Karen, who used to live at Chuck's are looking at a place in South Talent, only six miles north of Ashland. It's a house on the property of a woman who's very active in the Permaculture scene here, already has some gardens, a green house, hoop house, workshop, orchard. Just needs some TLC. I like the fact that it's people i already know, who are really keen on doing Permaculture stuff too.

There are a couple of other options, but they are further away from Ashland than I'd like. I need to be within biking distance of town, social activities, educational activities, etc. I don't have a driver's licence, and i don't have a car, so bikability is key. Which brings me to...

Get a driver's license- About fucking time! Yes, I'm 26 years old and I've never had a driver's license. Truth is, I never really needed one, didn't lead a lifestyle that called for it. Now, with an interest in providing for my needs, including access to resources(i.e. organic material, building materials, plants, supplies of all sorts) and the ability to transport them back home, along with a desire to visit lands for possible purchase, and to just visit people, places, and events, having a license, and possibly a vehicle make a lot of sense. So I'll go to the DMV tomorrow and pick up a study guide for the written exam.

Open up a local bank account- I have some funds which I want to use for some of my projects this year, including growing mushrooms, and I also want to get a credit card so I can begin to build a healthy credit score. When it comes to buying land, I've always thought that I would never get a mortgage, despised the idea. And it's very possible that I won't have to, if i can get an interest free loan from my family. But if that doesn't happen, I will have to make a lot of money in the next couple of years, which isn't entirely impossible, or I can get a mortgage. The USDA offers loans for purchasing houses and land in rural areas, which is exactly what I'm looking for, to the tune of 1% interest up to $250,000. That figure is much higher than anything I'm looking to purchase, especially if I go in on some land with partners. So a 1% interest loan of $100,000 is more than manageable, right? So build up your credit, Daniel Kra. Get a credit card, use it, and pay it off every month. I think I'm up to the challenge.

Sign up for some free health care- The Oregon Department of Human Service is having a lottery to pick people to recieve health care benefits. All I have to do is sign up, if i start making enough money to afford rent, food, and a private health care service, I might switch I might not. I might not even get it, who knows? But I got to try.

Find payed work- I thing this will probably have to wait until I find a permanent housing situation. Sure, if someone offered me to do a day's work for pay I might take it, but my Number One priority is to find a place to live.

Well, it's 12:30 in the morning and I've got a big day ahead of me, so good night and please send some postive vibes my way!

On the road again

I'm riding on a bus right now, headed to Boston. The foliage along the highway is gorgeous, shades of orange, and green. And you wan to know something interesting about me? It's when I'm traveling, when I'm on the move, going from one place to the next which is the story of my life, that I truly understand how I could be terribly happy spending the rest of my life in one place and that it could be any place in this whole world. If only I will give myself that oppurtunity. That time hasn't come yet, but it's coming soon, I feel it in my bones.

Fuck Hydroponics, Aquaponics is the new cool thing!

So I've heard of Aquaponics before, but lately I've been getting very excited about the possibilities of growing vegetables and fruit in a symbiotic relationship fish. The idea is pretty simple. Poopy water from fish tanks, which are rich in all the things that plants love is fed to plants in methods that are similar to hydroponic systems(no soil, rather a medium like gravel etc). The plants grow well fed by the fertilizers and nutrients form the fish poop simultaneously cleaning the water before it is returned clean and fresh to the fish tanks. The only real input is fish food, which can be comprised of worms and larvae raised on site, duckweed(a water plant) and other organic wastes.

Chemical based hydroponics is already big business in Israel and the rest of the world. I'm thinking about starting a small Aquaponics operation to sell organic, mercury free fish, and organic hydroponic vegetables(hydroponics is nice because you can control the environment of the plants and they are less prone to disease and pests).

Now Aquaponics doesn't have to be in a green house cut off from the environment. The advantageous relationship between fish and plants have been used before in Agriculture both in Central American Chinampas, and Asian rice paddies.

On a small scale home level, people can have a small fish pond on their property and recycle it through an adjacent hydroponic bed and then back to the pond. and it can all look quite beautiful, with the water babbling over the rocks. Commercially, on a small scale, I see a lot of potential. Especially when I think about connecting a fish system to a Volksgarden Hydroponic system. It's a Rotating Cylinder of plants, with the plants dipping in fertilizer rich water every rotation. Because plants are constantly turning, the plants put more energy into growth to support themselves. This is one of the smallest systems I've ever seen for the amount of plants it can grow at one time. the company also sells a carousel, basically a system to house a number of these cylinders vertically, growing 660 square feet of greenhouse plants, in only 100 square feet taken up by the carousel holding six cylinders(the whole thing is like 25 feet high, not crazy). These things are very energy efficient too, because very little light is wasted, unlike in overhead hydroponic operations.

The only limitations on a system like this is electricity and plant food. Perhaps these systems could use poopy fish water and recycle it back to the fish. Maybe maybe not. Still, if I ever have a hydroponic system, i would get something like this, and jsut use compost teas and the like in the water. pretty cool huh?

My friends, My friends

The last few weeks in Israel has been so much fun. I visited all my friends I worked with last year on Chava V'Adam, an educational farm in the center of Israel. That whole year was truly a time of growth and learning for me. As well as a heck of a good time. Let's face it, you put a bunch of 18 to 25 year olds in a outdoorsy communal environment, they're gonna have a good time. We danced the nights away, outdoors on the stage/water tank, and indoors in the salon area, even the kitchen. While one person would be cooking dinner in this tiny room, four or five girls would be breaking down to the sounds of Balkan Beat Box and other cool Israeli music. Most of the Israelis were 18, right between high school and army. So there was lots of energy.

Anyway, fast forward to last week. I spent the first nights of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot at the farm. Most of my friends from last year are no longer there. Some are in the army, other's are doing things in elsewhere. But there's a new group of people there, particularly, a new group of Americans doing the farm's Eco Israel program . I helped out with the first session of the program last year, and boy have they come along way. These American kids split there time between learning and practicing permaculture, learning about israel, judaism, and hebrew. All in a beautiful organic setting. The current group is really great, and I especially enjoyed jamming with Eliot(guitar) and Anna(violin).

I took some time to visit farm friends in Haifa, who had were selling their wares at the Haifa Film Festival. Gali makes clay art and jewelry from clay and pigments that she harvests herself. Neta makes felted wool bags and jewelry from wool that people were throwing away. Felted wool is so cool!!!

I also visited my friend Hadas, who is now working at a Medicinal Herb farm in the middle of nowhere near beer sheva in the desert. I was really wary about going to the desert, seeing as how I don't really like the climate. I lived in Israel's Negev desert for half a year and it's not really my cup of tea. Anyway, I had a blast. The farm is really cool. There's a very small medicinal herb plot, which they supplement wth wild harvests of local herbs to make all sorts of tinctures,creams, etc, in their lab. The owners live in a beautiful cob house surrounded by all sorts of fruit trees, olives planted everywhere, a dome covered in grapes. They have 80 goats as well. The owners were having a Succot festival for their friends, so there was little work to do, asides from playing music around the bonfire, eating good food, playing with babies, and relaxing in the strawbale sauna. That was particularly enjoyable. I also had the oppurtunity to ride a one eyed horse. Don't worry, I was gentle.

After the southern desert, it was off to the North on a road trip with my friend Naomi. We spent a night on the shore of the Sea of Galillee, swam naked under the stars in Israel's main source of water and the worlds lowest fresh water lake. In the morning I got to ride on an innertube pulled by a motorboat belonging to some new friends I made the night before on the beach. What fun! Then it was off to Tzfat(or Safed as some people call it), the Northern Israeli city where many of the great Kabbalists lived and studied. I myself studied for a year in a religous seminary in tzfat back in 2002, so it was nice to visit my old haunting grounds. We stayed in a thousand year old Mamluk period donkey stables, what's called in hebrew a Khan, kind of like a inn/manger, nestled in the heart of the old city. Friends in Tzfat are improving the Khan and turning it into a Center for Holistic Medicine, like natural births and other therapies, along with a community center for events and workshops. It is being restored using natural building techniques including lime plaster and cob, and will also include an indoor greyewater system, sort of artificial wetlands.

Besides visiting friends I also made some movements toward inquiring about land availability in Israel, particularly the Upper Galillee near Tzfat. That's where the most rains are ,30 inches or so, aside from the Mt. Hermon region in the Golan Heights. Land is not cheap in Israel, even agricultural land, which cannot be used for commercial or residential construction. But in the peripheries of Israel, the North and South away from the densely populated center, land is cheaper. Renting agricultural land in a good option for me to start with and one I probably will do. Then there's growing on land for free. A friend of mine told me about a friend of his who posted signs in agricultural communities asking if anybody had unused land he could grow food on. Bingo! Free use of land. I've seen this before in California. A woman I wwoofed for had a market garden but needed more growing space and a neighbor let her use her front yard. For free! So that could be an option too.

I'm back in New Jersey now, headed to Ashland, Oregon on monday. I've got a bunch of people I'm looking to rent a room from, along with space on the property for a garden. I've got all these projects I want to start working on. i want to start designing and building the garden ASAP, including raised beds,cold frames, greenhouse, self watering containers, collect plenty of organic matter for making compost, want to make a worm composting bin, and get some mushroom kits started. And that's just the beginning! Besides that I have to find some payed work, take some more guitar lessons, and be a busy permaculturist in the garden and home. How exciting!!!

Wow, Israel's really small, and what else is new?

"In 2008, Israelis consumed 3,500 tons of honey. About 40 percent of that amount is eaten in September, when Israelis buy about 1,500 tons,as Jews seek to “sweeten” the New Year. It is part of almost every meal: from the ceremonial apples dipped in honey, to sweet breads, honey cakes, and roast chicken or beef glazed in honey. Apple statistics are even more encouraging: The average Israeli eats about 125 apples a year.

Most people notice the difference between dark honey, whose source is avocado or eucalyptus nectar, and the lighter kinds, from citrus or wildflower nectar. Dark honey contains more minerals: potassium, iron, phosphorus, sodium and magnesium. It is suited to dishes associated with winter, such as stews, and those made with meat. Lighter honey goes well with summery dishes: vegetables, chicken, fruit and vegetable salads, yogurt. The honeys range from a dark amber one made from the jujube trees that grow near the northern border with Lebanon -- a honey so fruity it almost tastes like creamed bubble gum -- to the sharp golden sweet-and-sour sage and thyme honey from the hills around Jerusalem.

According to information provided by the Israel Honey Council, Israel’s 500 honey farmers maintain 90,000 hives, producing 8 million pounds of the sticky sweet stuff. Even this is not enough to quench the Israeli sweet tooth. In recent years, lack of rainwater has affected the avocado, citrus, and other crops on which beekeepers rely for pollen, and honey production has decreased by almost 25%. So, ironically, the Land of Milk and Honey imported 1,300 tons of honey in 2008, up from 940 tons the year before."

"Beekeepers also face stiff competition from producers of artificial honey, and sporadic theft of hives by Arabs. Still, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the apiaries are injecting over $10 million of consumer goods into the Israeli economy each year."

And then...

"An Israeli company is producing embryos from highly productive milk cows, aiming to introduce the Israeli super cow to the global market.

Levanon gazes indifferently at the leafy landscape, unaware that she has been labeled Mother of the Year. Being a cow, it probably makes no difference to her anyway. But by the end of next year, she will be the proud mother of as many as 100 offspring, most of whom she will never see."


And then there is this interesting article about some of Israel plans for their water supply.

What did most people do 150 years ago?

Here's a really neat interactive graph of reported occupations over the last 150 years in the U.S.

Job Voyager

Sustainable Ashland Videos

This is Ashland's local paper's video channel on Local Sustainability. Lots of really cool videos, particularly my friend Josh Shupak's Neighborhood Harvest program, a local business that manufactures elecric motorcycles, the local farmer's markets and a nearby biodynamic farm.

On the front page again! This time in Ashland

Here is a link to the article about WWOOFing in Ashland, Oregon.

My fifteen minutes isn't over yet! Other top stories include the hot high school soccer team and a lemonade stand. Those two WWOOFers are clearly not me but, they didn't get interviewed, so ha!

What's new in Organic Farming?

Nothing is new in Organic Farming. The basic principles have been practiced for over 10,000 years. It interests me that people always want to know what's new, and people's interest get really piqued if their is technology or chemistry involved. So when people ask me whats new in organic farming, I tell them there is nothing new under the sun. If anything, we have most certainly lost countless amounts of knowledge and experience related to living in harmony with the planet.

I wonder how many people are living in the world today living a lifestyle similar to that of their great grand parents. We, the "civilized" portion of humanity, talk of moving forward, of a better tomorrow. But how have we made our lives better than they were ten years ago, or twenty, or one hundred?

Look at the most civilized of civilized societies, America. Are we happier than we were ten years ago? Are we healthier? Wealthier? Wiser?

What's new in organic farming? Well for one, anybody can do it. That's not actually a new idea, but we most certainly forgot that. Anybody can grow food, anywhere. Whether you live in a house with a yard front and back, or you live in an apartment in the city, you can grow vegetables, herbs, and fruit. The number of people growing food in America has doubled in the last two years due to the economic whatever we are living in. Farmers markets are actually doing less business because more people are growing their own food.

I've never had my own garden, if you can believe that. But, I've made it a goal to have a garden this year. When I go back to Ashland, I'm gonna find a place where I can have a small garden. And it will feel so good.

Shalom Oregon. I shall return.

Tonight I fly to New Jersey for two weeks with my family and friends, and then it's off to Israel for a month with more family and friends. Now is a great time to take stock of the last seven months.

On February 1st I landed in Los Angeles and began WWOOFing and traveling my way North to Oregon. In three months I visited over a dozen farms, ranches, and homesteads. I saw small backyard gardens, large market gardens, CSAs, vineyards, and farmers markets. I met farmers as young as twenty and as old as eighty five. There were entrepeneurs, hippies, ex-hippies, hermits, Rich hobby farmers, and Hari Krishnas.

I slept in my tent, in barns, in cozy rooms, in smelly rooms, and cabins.

I finally made it to Oregon and spent the last four months in Coquille, at the Mountain Homestead Intentional Community. I helped build a recycled concrete(Urbanite) foundation, prepared a new food forest, learned how to live in a dynamic community, took part in a three day search and rescue, baked bread, picked cherries, went to a barn dance, played some great tunes for great people, played naked bocce on my birthday, gathered wild mushrooms from the forest, cared for a beautiful old woman, drank lots of wine, and went to a traditional Native American sweat lodge.

It's been a great year, and this past week in Ashland has been great. Potluck dinners, Farmers markets, driving to the Applegate valley full of small farms. Everywhere I go, people are coming together to make their lives better one step at a time. There is inspiration everywhere and it fills me with such energy and motivation to participate any way I can.

Everybody has the ability to make their world a better place to live in. You don't have to buy a hybrid to change your life. Grow food, please!!! No matter if you live in a house, apartment, wherever, you can grow vegetables and herbs. Talk to your neighbors, please!!! You can build strong relationships and help each other out with almost anything. Support your local community. Your neighbors have skills that you could use. Local businesses, local banks. Go to your local farmers markets, there are really cool people in your area growing delicious foods. Start looking around your town for fruit and nut trees, trust me they're there and many of them never get picked. Local businesses throw out tons of perfectly good food products everyday. Baked goods,dairy products, donuts, etc. Stop buying so much stuff. Ask yourself, do I really need it and how long will it last before I'm forced to buy another one.

I can't wait to come back to Ashland and start taking my own advice. It's gonna be grand!

Let my life be an example

Let my life be an example. Of what? Of a life. Let every life be an example for a life that you could, should or will/not live.


I have $150 dollars to my name. And it feels so good. I can do whatever I want in life, and that feels good too.

I have many friends, but no partners. And it hurts me inside, feelings of loneliness. I could travel the world with an empty wallet and a full heart, sharing experiences with great people. Or I could stay in one place and build long lasting relationships, find a girl, settle down, if I want, I can marry. I'm strongly leaning towards the latter. Yes, there are many places in the world I would like to visit. But much more than that, I want to visit a feeling of being home, of sharing home, of love, babies, and puppies. People talk of planting roots, or being rooted. I share that desire, and to actually plant roots, of trees, and watch them grow and feed me for the rest of my life. Doesn't that sound beautiful?

I find myself in a difficult position in that my family has all emigrated to Israel, and I have just left, with a feeling that I might not want to settle in Israel as once thought I would. Things are complicated there, and an aura of complication taints the air of the truly holy land. There are beautiful people there, but many suffer the bitterness that unending conflict brings to their lives. My sister lives in the West Bank, you could call her a settler, though her house, and her neighborhood is more like desperate housewives or Weeds. Little boxes on the hillside. Rich American Jews, ideological, live in big houses in the West Bank. Houses which could be taken away from them at any moment by their own government. I can not in good concience invest in something like that. Though it is cheap, it's cheap for a reason.

It sure is nice being in America, the land of the free. And I know that so many Americans are not free. Whether they are in prison, in debt, sick, being denied "civil liberties". But I still feel freedom here much more than I did in Israel. And it's a good feeling.

I don't have a solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict. I'm a hippy and just want everybody to love each other. So what can i do? Let me know what you think, all eight of you that read this silly thing I call a blog.