Hickory Glass: Blowin’ Organic in Vermont

After taking home the first place in this year’s Pipe Classic, Hickory became the most famous neighbor I’ve ever had. A talented man, he is also a role model father, husband and carpenter!

Behind The Lens

Trophies and Stuff

Glass

All Done!

Last Days At Little Rock Pond

Reflection Inversion

Over The Hills And Far Away

She’s So Natural

An Environmental Poem

What was the last time a branch

Fell on your head

Screaming, “I want to kill you?”

Have the forests ever asked

Why they should bother listening

When we can not hear ourselves?

Dear forest,

that which we pride

Ourselves for contemplating

While destroying All of it

Except those parts we would like to

Contemplate in complete solitude,

Only our (de)vices

To share our contemplative state of solitude

Via Facebook.

 

What with having been put forth before you,

Dear forest,

I can not escape the toxicity of

My own body, my morality

Festering in its own  juices of humanity

as I destroy you

With this ink and this pen and

This paper contemplating

My gratitude nonetheless

In the solitude which you have

Always offered to me,

Sweat and tears

Running down your sides

Into a hole older than mankind,

This uterus of undeniable reflection,

Swollen with autumn rain.

Reasons to Start a Revolution

1. Because it’s up to you and me and that guy over there, too.

2. Because any start matters.

3. Because there is so much to learn from each other.

4. Because we could all use a healthier environment.

5. Because water shouldn’t come from a plastic bag.

6. Because sweeping our mistakes under someone else’s rug is not a solution.

7. Because there is more than one way to live.

8. Because children shouldn’t be casualties of our drug wars.

9. Because the whole world is watching.

10. Because it has already begun.

Farming Should Be Fair

Dear Mr. Welch, You have been a true leader through your representation of Vermont’s voice of the people. Please continue to support our liberties and economy by discouraging the implementation of Secure Communities methods which are very similar to profiling techniques once widely practiced in classrooms, especially in states such as Colorado and California. Many thanks.

Outhouse Magic

Most of us have heard about low flush toilets and other earth saving poop management devices but what about the old school outhouse? After using one of these privies for nearly four months, I am inspired by its simplicity.

Here is the privy. It has a toilet seat inside and human waste goes into a 70 gal plastic bin underneath. After each sitting, you throw in a handful of bark mulch to neutralize odor and speed up the composting process. Lumber mills often give this stuff away. Once the bin is full, you transfer the contents to another container until you are ready to do a full compost run.

For the full run, you just transfer all you’ve stored up into a big bin, stir in some more bark mulch for the right moisture balance and add some composter microbes which can be found bottled in most shops. After 6-8 weeks you have wonderful compost to use on your field, garden or spread in the woods. This one even had beans growing out of it!

Once Upon 10,000 Years Ago!

Ancestors of the Mohican and Abenaki people were creating tools for cutting, drilling and scraping, and leaving evidence of this work in the ground near Little Rock Pond, VT. Archaeologists/Flintknapper Jeff (grinning, below) and Dave have been discovering them with the help of dig happy volunteers. Excavations have yielded points, commonly referred to as arrowheads, and flakes, chips from the shaping process known as flintknapping. Archeologists have also been able to identify sitting platforms, rounded stones used as hammers and chert, another type of material used for tool making. Most of these artifacts are believed to be about 10,000 years old!

Fruit of the Earth

Coral, Puffball, Oyster and Tooth Mushrooms with Indian Cucumber

New York City Farm Scene

Wedged between New York Film Academy and the subway, the farmer’s market draws a crowd even on rainy days.

Formerly based in Vermont, Wes now sells all sort of pickles to people and places in New York City.

Heirloom tomatoes, never failing to impress.

Ostrich eggs, ostrich soap, ostrich dog jerky, ostrich books…

What do graffiti, chickens and bromeliads have in common? They are all part of a Brooklyn community farm!

Bushwick City Farm. ‘Nuff said.

Touch the Earth: A Self Portrait of Indian Existence

In this compilations of excerpts from Native American writings and photographs, T. C. McLuhan tells the story of a people once living harmoniously with the land. Indigenous people around the world often have radical and insightful beliefs about the human relationship with the earth and each other. I was so moved by some of the words that I decided to share them with you.

The Land

“Our land is more valuable than your money. It will last forever.”

– Blackfeet Chief

“You ask me to plow the ground, shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s breast? You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men. But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?”

 – Swohalla, Sokulk

“The man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures and acknowledging unity with the universe of things was infusing into his being the true essence of civilization.”

– Chief Luther Standing Bear

On Religion

“Their Wise Ones said we might have their religion, but when we tried to understand it we found that there were too many kinds of religions among white men for us to understand, and scarcely any two white men agreed which was the right one to learn. This bothered us a great deal until we saw that the white man did not take his religion any more seriously than he did his laws and that he kept both of them just behind, like Helpers, to use when they might do him good in dealings with strangers…We have never been able to understand the white man, who fools nobody but himself.”

On Traditional Clothing

“Our bodies were used to constant bathing in the sun, air, and rain and the function of the pores of our skin, which were in a reality a highly developed breathing apparatus was at once stopped…aided by that worst of all torments – red flannel underwear…Many times we have been laughed at for out native way of dressing, but could anything we ever wore compare to the steel ribbed corset and the huge bustle our girls adopted after a few years in school?”

– Chief Lutheran Standing Bear

The Uprooting

“My people are few they resemble the scattering trees of a storm swept plain.”

“If we can not live here, we want to go into the mountains and die. We do not want any other home.”

– Cecilio Blacktooth

“All lost, we walked silently on into the wintry night.”

– An Ollokot widow

The End

“The changes of many summers have brought old age upon me.”

– Black Hawk

The Future

“We…have been instructed by the Great Spirit to express the invitation to the President of  the United States and all spiritual leaders everywhere to meet with us and discuss the welfare of mankind so that Peace, Unity and Brotherhood become part of all men everywhere.”

– Hopi Leaders and Representatives