As the sun symbolically sets on 2015, it is a natural time for both reflection and anticipation, complete with a heart of thankfulness. The beginning of a new year brings with it a sense of refreshing and promise, along with new projects and to-do lists waiting to be completed! While it is easy for us to get wrapped up in planning all we hope to accomplish in 2016, it is vitally important to look back on the wisdom, encouragement, and validation this past 12 months has to offer. From the somber and profound, to the humbling and hilarious, 2015 gave us moments worth taking pause to acknowledge and learn from.
Our lives as permaculture designers and practitioners are guided by sets of ethics and principles. It seems appropriate to practice the principle of, “apply self-regulation and accept feedback,” during this transition from 2015 to 2016. All of the planting, earthworks, livestock care and more offer chances at taking in feedback from the systems we create and manage. Mistakes were made, but in permaculture we view mistakes as tools for learning. Based on that, I would say much was learned this past year! Grace is a necessary prerequisite when engaging in new ventures, and it is remarkable to think of all the new things experienced. One of the several new experiences was with managing cattle and their grazing behaviors on pasture. Scottish highland cattle were added to the farm this past March, with one of the two cows giving birth to a calf born on and appropriately named, Easter. These horned cattle were a bit intimidating at first, as we had never tended to cattle before. However, I was amazed at how quickly we became comfortable with one another, as our daily paddock moves onto fresh pasture for our cattle afforded many opportunities to get acquainted.
Rotating our small cattle herd through the use of temporary and portable electric fencing provided some shocking revelations. Some painful lessons of how electrical currents flow will not soon be forgotten! Along with that, we monitored pasture daily after the cattle moved, seeing how much they grazed from the previous day’s paddock, and making adjustments to the next days paddock sizes accordingly. We feel we now know enough to realize that there is so much more to learn, and we gratefully look forward to becoming more experienced in cattle husbandry and pasture stewardship.
Another significant moment for me was personally killing and butchering chickens that my family and I would later eat. It felt only right that I kill the laying hens I had raised and cared for through their lives. It was an intimate expression of the truth that daily things die so that we as people continue to live. A truth all too often taken for granted, and so I felt thankful that my chickens would die on the land where they had lived, hearing a voice they recognized offering gratitude and comfort in their final moments. I felt a newfound integrity as a meat-eater, and a deeper connection to my food.
We also began to try our hand at aquaculture and pond creation. Although time and the demands of the farm got the better of us, we were given a gift from nature for our efforts. Our pond only reached a depth of about 3 ½ feet as the groundwater levels rose in our partially dug pond with the seasonal rise of the nearby Bitterroot River, which is fed by snowmelt from the mountains above. Even so, our incomplete work taught us that if you create the conditions for life to happen, then it does. Frogs, ducks, geese, great blue herons, sandhill cranes and more all visited the pond this past year, when they hadn’t been in that pasture before. Then, Tim and his sons found fish we had not introduced in the shallow pools left by the seasonally dropping water levels this fall. We had heard that fish eggs can travel on the webbed feet of waterfowl and hatch in new bodies of water, but to experience it firsthand was rather special!
Many more moments could be recounted; successes and follies, triumphs and tragedies all occurred in 2015. It is remarkable to think of how much growth and development occurs when one puts them self in the thick of it. For me, that meant being an active participant in producing the resources that I consume, and learning practical skills for helping create a better world for my children to live in. So, through all the mistakes and victories of 2015, I am thankful to have experienced them, and learn along the way. As the dawn of 2016 comes, it looks to be a bright year ahead!
Blessings,
Grant
