There are numerous patches of hair, fur, and wool littered around the woodlands of EEC Forest Stewardship at this time of year. Soft pastels on green canvas, the art of scent makes clear statements of domain for the hair of this fluffy first coat shed. I’ve brushed out a “standing” -where this animal waits in place long enough for me to brush with a shed scraper- also used on horses. This large guarding animal makes their own scent signs on the landscape by rubbing tall grasses and clumps of vegetation, along with urinating. If this animal really wants to make a point, they use their large paws to scratch into the grass and soil, leaving physical markings, as well as scent and sheds. It’s worth noting his rout and placing groomings as a long lasting security. As the season warms up, more predators and their young will join us on the greater landscape of this region. We host lions, bobcats, and bears. Luckily, or sadly, depending on glass half full or empty beliefs, wolves are not present. Coyotes take a far second place as the most prolific and daring predators in the basket. When the elk fully return, the wolves will come too. Maybe some of The North Cascade Grizzlies will migrate down- but that will likely be long after my stock and I are gone from this living community. Gratitude for playing a part now.
In the action of brushing out my dog’s coat with intention, grafting lines of protection- warding, like a witch in the woods- how thrilling! It really is about creating lines of defense for the farm. As livestock are phased out, and forest replanted, long term wilderness will be the “order” of this small patch of “ownership” in a greater temperate rainforest ecology trying to claw back some semblance of resistance in this ever changing Anthropocene. So, using tools available, I impose human ambition of ownership in a small place, while also making slow, but growing accommodation to wilderness- towards old growth situ state. Acknowledging that part of that return would include tending by First Nation People, with intention to restore old growth capacity. What does that look like? The whole basket of wildlife precense- all the indicators, from marbled murrelets to Pacific giant salamanders. That will take generations of our lifetimes, and thousands of years more to achieve.
A little dog brushing folds in with keeping livestock, more imposing, but without the massive influx of biomass in manure, this soil cannot hold old growth trees. In fact, the cataclysmic instability of the greater landscape- strata volcanoes, tectonic uplift, and Pacific Temperate conditions, allow for the growth of massive ecological rainforest biome. In a world that needs to sequester carbon from the atmosphere to survive, old growth rainforest could start today with a meager investment of space and a blink of an eye in geologic time to right the atmosphere for human life to survive. It will take massive forest replanting and responsible tending- allowing the forests and wildlife to return. Humans as a species has taken so much, but we can give back just as generously. It would take that upper 0.001% of billionaires loosing their holdings to make the change, and the military industrial complexes would have to be dismantled, but hey, that’s a graspable target of mindful thriving we humans could achieve. I’ll start with dog grooming, shepherding, shit shoveling, tree planting, and a little blip in time where something was growing in the right direction.
For the wooly ones, itchy feelings signal scratchy rubs on anything that will take some of the winter coat off. There is no shedding comb for these gals, it’s fence posts, tree trunks, and even the feed troughs as rubbing stations. Once in a while I can pull some larger mats off, but the sheds are relatively smooth, with a mid look akin to mange in the worst state of transition. Hair sheep shed naturally, no shearing necessary. There is a little wool in the mix, enough to felt something with the hair, but you would not spin anything usable from these flocks. Their locks fall as calcium rich fodder in the soil building mix. Elk and deer shed their coats seasonally too, so the ground expects these shedding amendments, like the feathers from the chickens as they take dust baths, and all the muck out of their asses, the greatest worth of animal exchange with their plant prey. Incredibly complex microbial words infuse the soil and its surroundings with the living matter that forges super highway systems transporting all the necessary nutrients needed for thriving environments woven out of millions of years of evolutionary wisdom. Humans are indeed apes on this time scale, and should revert to their basic needs until capable of comprehending this small state of being in grand scale universal.
Our newest member of the flock, Quern, was born April 28th to Parsley Patch. He will bring his own unique biological signature into the soil her at EEC. His mom’s genetics were also completely home grown here; two generations grown from the landscape they were born into. Their bodies match this land more closely than mine ever will, even after twelve years of relationship, I was not built from the molecular signatures of this place. We don’t spend a lot of time thinking about this part of our creation. I’m full of signatures from Illinois corn, Oklahoma beef, Texas wheat, Nebraska Soy, and much more. There was no garden at my Mom’s house, or my Dad’s. My Grandparent’s kept kitchen gardens, and used chemicals in them. The commercial store items we keep eating are from such a chemical and atomic mishmash of biology grown all over this earth. What if we lived closer to where we are from? What if the majority of our diet was local? How could you implement this for yourself? Then you could shed your own closely linked outputs back into the land where you live… wait, but that’s a whole other talk, one you’ll find in previous writings on this blog.
At EEC, what we shed here does stay on the land. We host a well cared for septic system, so what we eat does stay close to home. The farm humanure system is not at work now, but has been and will be again, as the most efficient design for the composting of human manure. Human unine is great for marking territory to keep out predators. I’ve written about that practice and how it helps here at the farm. You can collect it and dump it in more exposed places. If we put our hair, and nail clippings into our kitchen compost, we could add our own calcium to the soil too. It’s great when passive systems fold in to help human ambitions in a balanced way. Brushing the dog is a more active implementation, and I could always pull the sheep’s shed as it loosens, like the vikings did with their Soay sheep. That’s how they collected the wooly hair of their flocks to make sails, tapestries, and clothing. I’ve pulled some shed from my sheep, but it bothers them when I pull it, and I’m not making sails. The shedding is natural, and spreads naturally too. Embrace the passive systems when you can, says the lazy farmer.
EEC Forest Stewardship 