 The Three Sisters, corn, bean and squash, grown together by the native Americans, have a mythical aura that exerts a pull on many a homesteader or experimental farmer. I too, heard the siren of the Three Sisters, and was seduced. In the past two years, we have planted a Three Sisters plot. It is a homage to the original farming practice of this place. But it’s also an experiment in the possibility of growing more and more nutritious food with simple tools, on less land, and little enough labor to make economic sense.
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 How do you move a little flock of sheep across and down the road to their new pasture without a herding dog or a lead sheep? This is a question that vexed us since we started to use a field across and down the road last summer. Until we invented the sheep car....
 I have had an on-and-off fascination with growing mushrooms for the past 15 years. My failed attempts at trying to grow them were chronicled in some earlier letters. I since learned to grow mushrooms and at a small scale, I'd say I have a reasonable measure of success. This is the entire story, including the early failures and later learning. Hope my experience is of use for those entering into this fascinating activity.
 One of the things that became clear to me in planning the chicken food forest is that one must think carefully about what happens to the chicken poop, because too much of it can cause the whole food forest to go quickly off the rails (photo: a fresh item of the topic of discussion).
 Babette’s favorite activity: making dream images. Here is a dream image of the chicken food forest. A thicket of shrubs laden with berries and an overstory of fruiting trees, dropping pears, persimmons, mulberries at different times of year. Chickens scratching the ground for the fallen fruit and hopping on branches to pick fruit themselves. Some areas with dense green undergrowth like comfrey and other herbs, but also mulchy areas under the trees breeding tasty little bugs. Lots of contented cackling and clucking. Chicken owner managing the forest but definitely not spending a lot of time on it once established. Hopefully chickens still laying their eggs in their nest boxes!
Dear future self,
This is a letter post with notes to my future self as well as friends and visitors, logging thoughts and insights about what we did with mushrooms in 2024. I found we forget lessons and insights from recent years and maybe this will help!  My sister Sabine and her partner Lowie have 15 old-fashioned chickens. They scratch around in their half-acre garden, among woods, debris, grass, and flowers (grr!), munching bugs and greens Sabine and Lowie don’t feed them except the occasional food scrap bin; the garden sustains them just fine, even in the winter (they live in Belgium).
If these were modern chickens, each chicken would be getting 1/4 lbs of grain every day, or about 1,500 lbs of chicken feed per year for the flock. It requires modern agriculture about half an acre to grow 1,500 lbs of dry grain and soy. But wait, that’s impossible! Our hyper-productive, advanced agriculture system needs as much land to grow food for 15 chickens (with lots of fossil fuel input), as those chickens get just scrounging around and feeding themselves in a garden?! Somebody must be joking!  For people living near our farm, in Montague Village, Massachusetts, we have triple-win proposition: help a small local farm, the climate, and yourself!
I do like winter and I am very happy to see some snow today. Nonetheless, when I came across this video of happy sheep chomping in a lush, green field of goldenrod, it did make me smile at the thought of Summer... CLICK to see the sheep video :)  |
Babette WIlsBabette is a permaculture farmer in Western Massachusetts. She and people who are working with her on the farm are experimenting and learning on the go. Archives
December 2024
CategoriesHappy 2024!It’s 2024 and we are excited for this coming year. Lots of plans: integrating trees and livestock in silvopasture; working with other farmers in the area to promote agroforestry and make it a viable farming option; expanding our berry patches; and of course continuing our offerings at the Greenfield and Turners Falls farmers markets with our partner Just Roots!
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