EEC Forest Stewardship

While traveling in Holland, we found many nice mushrooms. There’s a fungus everywhere in the world, yes, even in The Arctic, but luckily, you don’t have to go all the way to the south pole to meet some new ones. Whenever Bernard and I find ourselves in a new place, we keep an eye out for mushrooms and are never disappointed. Even in December, in The Netherlands, with cold wind whipping across the landscape, we found our fungi friends.

We wandered a dune system near The North Sea, where oak savanna dominated. The site was now a park, but was once a military instillation with bunkers and large guns to defend against sea invasion. We saw many bare spots in open fields that reflect great impact from human use. The park is now allowing recovery, and water systems for public drinking water support the larger cities near by.

Oak groves are a rare treat for those of us living in Western Washington. Even in a very different bioregion on the other side of the world, familiar friends of the fungi kingdom were easy to find. The mushrooms are as recognizable as the oaks themselves, and it was such a pleasure to just look around and see so many knowns. That’s the reward of pursuing nature. She will become a close friend, and you’ll find her everywhere you go.

The soil beneath our feet is often neglected in our search for nature, yet it holds most of the nutrients and living matter that supports all life on earth. Within the leaf litter and debris of the oak savanna where we wandered, mycelia was running, just out of site under the duff. Pulling up a large white cap, we can see the extent of a mushrooms connection into the soil, and better understand the complex living system around us.

The mushroom kingdom is a wild one, with many new faces in every search. I’m drawn to these little fruits of the woods, because they are so unique and under appreciated in the natural world. Mushrooms have some of the most mysterious and amazing chemical compositions, as well as the ability to consume and neutralize many toxic elements now polluting the earth. There are also some delicious species to eat and enjoy, with confidant identification and awareness.

As mushrooms continue to captivate, Leafhopper Farm pledges full support to fungal farming, and encourages anyone interested in mushrooms and how they can help save the world to contact us- info@leafhopperfarm.com

Our pond is back to hosting wildlife again after a stint of domestic ducks, and the female common merganser is an example of return species. By removing the pressure of domestic livestock from this sensitive bioregion, we allow wildlife a space to exist. This is often overlooked on farms, and more so in backyards where even a small oasis of green can be a haven for animals, especially birds.

The greenhouse is looking a little underutilized, and in need of fresh plastic. It’s about time for a redesign, and the honest truth is, I really am not taken by greenhouses, so it might just come down permanently while we focus on rewinding forests and tending the landscape which is already growing so much. I don’t need tomatoes every year, and I can’t put starts in here because the slugs get everything. In future, I would love to pair ducks in this environment seasonally to keep slugs down and heat in. I’d try a fall, winter, spring cycle, with ducks butchered before it gets too hot in summer. Another idea to cogitate on. We’ll see!

Pleachered cherries are growing strong, you can actually begin to see the natural fence developing. Many more trees will be pleachered this winter, and I must say that the bitter cherry is a superb candidate for this activity. They also put out a lot of suckers, so replanting offshoots is easy too. Birds love the fruit, and you can make jelly with them, if you add a lot of sugar. Blackberry is still trying to take over in this area, and it’s soo sensitive to brows down with goats, so we’ll spend some time hand removing, which is tedious, but not a forever thing. Once the larger plants establish and block out light to the understory, the blackberry will be unable to get a foot hold. In the mean time, pruning and diligent weeding will have to suffice.

Our cultivated turkey tail logs are flushing nicely, and really taking off through the wet months. I am so glad we can establish a thriving colony of this medicinal friend on the land, and hoping this strain will be here for years to come. I’m very happy with the productivity of these first logs, and look forward to more inoculation with this strain. It was interesting to see how much more productive the logs are on the ends up against another tree. This could be coincidence, but I think something about the moisture on the moss attracted them. It will be fun to keep watching the development of these logs as they continue to produce. I will try not to move these from this spot, accept to harvest. We’ll dry all the mushrooms and grind them to powder to make it very easy to extract their medicine using a decoction.

Our goats and sheep are tending the land for us with gusto, and you can see in this picture just how well they clip the grass by comparing the left side of the fence line (no animals) to the right side where the grazers and browsers have been working away at gleaning green growth, taking out tall grasses and blackberry with no hesitation. I love these fence line shots, and often use them to judge when it’s time to rotate animals. When the goats start going for the trees too much, we have to move them out to safe guard the bark of our arbor friends. A goat can girdle a tree very easily, which only happens when a space is overgrazed. Leafhopper Farm has avoided these devastating issues by keeping up a healthy rotation, and making sure the goats are given regular mineral blocks and good fodder.

Over the winter, Bernard and I took a trip to Egypt and Jordan. Of corse we began in Egypt, with The Great Pyramid!

Regardless of one’s belief in who, what, when, and why these monuments were erected, they are splendid; worth making a trip to North Africa for. Though travel in Egypt is challenging, and defiantly not recommended without a licensed guide. Luckily we had a great tour group from G-Adventures, a travel company with ethical mindfulness. We were able to see fantastic historical monuments, stay in clean, safe accommodations, work with local guides and small village businesses, as well as be a tourist and relax- most of the time.

There were certainly moments of cultural ignorance and typical tourist trap experiences along the way, but the overall adventure was a great trip with no regrets, though I would not go again. Why? Because you only need to see it once. Truly, it was a spectacular journey through history. However, Egypt and Jordan are both places that are not so welcoming to certain beliefs and lifestyles pervasive in America. They look upon us as decadent fools- though we carry a big stick- we still stumble in our youthful ignorance. However, most of the travelers who joined us were from Australia. It didn’t make a difference really, we were all light skinned, English speaking, and Christian- even if we weren’t- because none of us prayed when the minarets called all to worship.

Petra is another must, if you are going to be in Jordan. The Treasury is impressive, and I’m sure most have at least seen a photo of this part of the park, but it’s just the tip of a monumental iceberg. For instance, it’s not even the largest carved edifice in the complex of deep canyons and high craggy mountain tops within the historic site. It’s called “The Treasury” for no other reason than European explorers who stumbled onto it thought treasure might be buried there, and sought it out. They found nothing but empty “tombs”, as they are called by other excavators, and are as probable as “treasury”.

We’ve forgotten our history, oral tradition passed down into writing, which ultimately changed with the needs of those who wrote the books. It was demonstrated when our guide explained why Israel was and forever will be Jewish. He used names, Hebrew names from The Old Testament, which is not a political collection of writings at all is it? No- religion is purely faith, that’s why so many have died in the name of belief. We all hope for a black and white answer in the end. Ethics will never bee easy, but it’s taken a back seat to moral ambiguity for too long, and time’s up.

Bernard and I walked the lengths of Petra, even climbed the “1,000 steps” to gaze upon “The Monastery” a place where later Christian monks set up shop, finding the isolation of high mountains to be more defendable from the barbarous resident people who did not encourage organized religious conversion. No one at the time could remember the Nabateans, who are credited with building the monuments of Petra. Though like all history, we seem to get hung up in painting our own understandings of life, only living memory, onto ancient experiences which have little direct influences on our present conditions, other than imaginative speculation.

Many of Petra’s splendors are more metamorphic than man made. Though the soft sandstone did make shaping easier, the actual color and design of geologic activity is far more engaging. In the end, the blending of natural with artistic license does bring about a rather grand display, and even the modest carved spaces are still impressive, and no man could copy the splendid color of mother nature’s own work.

It was only after climbing up into the peaks, looking back at the path we had come and seeing the mountains still stretching on in all directions, only then could we begin to comprehend the vastness of man’s hold on the landscape. Carved stairs seemed to curl around every cliff, water basins with smashed clay pipe, all partially worn away with time. In those moments of discovery, we came closer to seeing the fleeting moment in ourselves, of being only a few footsteps fallen into far deeper whispers of the past. Haunting remembrances carved in rock, stacked over older rock, carried to the sea with wind and rain; all eroding softly with every breath we took in our climb. Could it have been what our ancestors in this rock garden of beauty, tried so desperately to capture? Tombs yes, tombs of our past collaborations, triumphs, and struggles, tombs filled with stories of conquering nature, falling victim to our hubris, then crashing down like the very cliffs in earth’s trembling furry. This is the memory I took from stone monuments across The Middle East.

The mushrooms were out as foraging kicks into high gear at Leafhopper Farm! Though we are unable to find chanterelles on the farm property at this time, a stone’s throw away in nearby woodlands, the golden treasures of Fall abound. This season was one of my personal best, not so much in quantity, though this was a “haul year”- the verity of species and locations was broad too. From Bear’s Head to Chanterelles, the awesome fungi feasting has lasted into late November, and will continue!

The Bolete above was spotted by my partner Bernard on a steep mountain slope just below the snow line. Mushrooms are out even after the snow covers the peaks! Below you can see Hypholoma of some kind roosting in the green moss of a decaying log just above the snow covered road. On a continued exploration of mountain elevations (above 1500 feet)- we came across a variety of species which really encouraged me to keep hunting into the winter cold months. Within the observed list included enough winter oyster to feed a family. That’s some great foraging in a terrain many might overlook. 

A lovely Hygrophorus puniceus, scarlet waxy cap mushroom in an almost pink blush against evergreen and clubmoss. Brightly colored mushrooms really pop in the landscape, drawing the eye. Though many mushrooms are brightly pigmented, many others are not, and should not be overlooked just because of a more camouflaged appearance. Another common misconception of mushrooms is that they are always on the ground. In fact, many species are up on standing dead wood or even on the tiny dead twigs. Fungi is all around us, so remember to look above and below- some mushrooms grow underneath logs. 

Another variety of fungus we engage with often in The Cascades are shelf fungi. The brightly colored young specimen of saphoridic (wood eating) mushroom below is a red belted conch. This familiar friend is great medicine (grind up and steep in boiling water, drink tea). These are very young mushrooms because of the amount of light colored flesh on the forming cap. Older specimens will have a much darker cap, while this white  color will be found on the underside. To me, this is a great sign of the health in this forest. 

Winter oysters were still the prize find of the day for edible picks. Another great thing about this species is it’s tolerance to freezing and reshaping. Many mushrooms will melt after freezing. The winter oyster is an exception; having a thick enough flesh to remain fleshy and whole even after continual refreezing. I learned this trick when I accidentally left a frozen winter oyster in my jacket pocket for a few days and then finding it unfrozen but still firm a few days later. So lucky!

Oysters favor red alders in Western Washington. This log pictured above has been in this creek for a few years and I’ve witnessed flushes like this over the past few winters. This log will most likely continue to host these oysters for a few more years, but it a larger flood comes through, it will be swept on down stream. We’re inoculating oysters into alder logs at Leafhopper Farm in hopes of getting great flushes like this, year after year. 

Some mushrooms are very bright, but quite small. Mycena, like the M. acicula pictured above, has an average size of 1 cm across the cap, and a 4cm high stipe (stem). The whole Mycena world takes you right into the micro, turning red cedar needles into up close scaled patterns netted across the ground in much the same way the mycelium of all these fungi roam within the organic material of the soil. It is that unseen mat of nutrient transport and chemical communication which threads all life together in the natural world. I think that’s why you can find mushrooms everywhere, almost any time. Keep looking and please share any specimens you come across. 

Bernard and I are heading overseas for a few weeks and plan on seeking out mushrooms in more exotic places like North Africa, where even in deserts, you can find fungi. In our own backyard on the farm, inoculated logs of pearl oyster mushrooms await colonization. There’s more mushroom magic to come here at Leafhopper Farm. 

 

 

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep

-Robert Frost

 

Walking through the woods may seem like an everyday activity enjoyed by millions of people around the world, but it’s not, and most people do not walk through woods very often, if at all. Many people drive through woods, or look at the edge of forests, like the two pictures above, but when you are in them, standing with giants, you take a breath of something so real, palpable- rich earthly loam and rotting wood; the climax of earth’s biological productivity in physical form, forest.

Trees are taken for granted; we grow millions a year to chop down as annual decorations in the house, only to be thrown out on the burn pile or into landfill a few weeks later and forgotten for another year. What if we decorated neighborhood trees that continued to grow and thrive; adding life to the community and creating a shared gathering place for festivities of peace on earth and good will towards your fellow man? I know, it’s cold at Christmas time, and if the holiday season is your thing, green bows of fresh evergreen are crucial for that old time smell of the woods, complete with crackling fire and warm tidings of feasting.

A forest can support such revelry, and heat a home; if the woods are cared for, and the people manage themselves within the landscape to support such consumption. Neither is happening today, and so, for those of us who do have the advantage of mature woodlands; good stewardship and restoration are crucial to allowing a future where anyone can know the collective consciousness of forest. In understanding the climax of soil production, we can perhaps take a closer look at productivity related to our own food cultivation- something we need to survive and sustain the numbers of people we are willing to produce.

In The Pacific Northwest, we were told 200 years ago, that the forests of our towering evergreens could never be completely cut down. Trees are renewable- they grow right back when replanted. Oh how foolish we were, and still are. The only reason our trees grew so big out here and survived was the climate and amazingly rich volcanic soils. Once we cut the timbers, all the fertility eroded away in our winter rains. You can see the silt outflow into Lake Washington still happening today in the time-laps above.

When forests are abruptly taken away, massive loss of top soil happens through flooding, because nothing is left on the landscape to drink up the rains; and so, the waters flow uninhibited across the landscape and take any loose debris with them into the rivers and oceans beyond. Forests have the most ground to sky cover in the form of canopy, which catches the falling rain, defusing impact of rain on soil. Organic matter on and in the soil soaks up the water, holding it where it falls. Plants and animals drink up the waters too, storing the moisture in their own bodies and keeping the water localized

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In this picture, a snow melt during heavy rains flooded the land. As water sheeted down the landscape, it comes into our swale system and stops there, slow seeping into the ground for a deeper watering on this hillside. Our main food forest will be planted here over the next few years. 

 

 

Would it not make sense that the more layers of biomass on the surface to soak up and utilize water, the more could be stored in place? Could the retention of water on the landscape ultimately lead to more fertility and growth? What about additional composting biomass in the soil to aid in water retention? Studies say YES! When we improve canopy layers and create more biomass in soil, its ability to remain resilient as the climate becomes more unstable will be necessary for all survival.

At Weiss Creek, our local salmon bearing stream on the farm, there is always a flow of water here, even during the worst drought season. This abundance is due in part to its relatively intact forests along the banks. However, recent developments above the headwaters of this stream have sent large amounts of silt down stream. It fills up the deep pools where salmon love to spawn. Without good flood years to push the debris on down, reopening the important spawning habitat, the water way becomes clogged and causes more flooding and erosion across the landscape. 

On the southeast side of the farm property, a neighbor clearcut most of their 40 acre parcel in the late 90s. There remains to this day, a seasonal stream which comes from their land onto Leafhopper Farm’s back pasture, feeding directly into Weiss Creek. It was carving away at the bank and forging a path along the east fence line which will eventually carry off the topsoil. By ditching and diverting the flow over the landscape with some intentional earth dams and holding pools, we’ve slowed the runoff, diverting a lot of it into our willow basket grove, nut trees, and future “back 40” food forest. 

Taking advantage of runoff due to deforestation can be to your advantage, but the clearcut land next door will continue to experience drainage problems, flooding, and erosion. In The Pacific Northwest, without the rain-forest, the rain will carry off our landscape, including any development, especially structures built on slopes. Even with good forest cover, entropy does continue, and landslides happen. Human caused deforestation for timber and developable land in a rainforest will lead to a chain reaction of environmental collapse that has already begun. The best thing you can do today is plant trees, everywhere you can, now. 

There are places in the world right now reforesting the landscape and it’s bringing water and bio-diversity back to places once thought lost to desertification. The movement is gaining steam-

Our first major earthworks were in the fall of 2015. At that time, we had swales dug in the northeast pasture, and a catchment pond and wetland area restored. We then went on that fall to dig more water directional ditches, off the roads and around buildings to make sure water sheeting down the hillside was directed to the pond to maximize the retention of rain runoff on the farm. 

When there is a lot of water on the surface of the landscape, it needs direction, and if you put in some smart ditches and pipes allowing water to flow under roads, you can catch a surprising amount of water. It’s work thinking about, especially if you have land on a slope like Leafhopper Farm. 

Our pond has been a great addition to the hydro works, catching all our upper property runoff and hosting a variety of wildlife throughout the year. We are committed to keeping this water source open to our local fauna, including deer, and waterfowl like hooded mergansers and wood ducks. 

When big machines can make light work, with good planning, many amazing things can happen to enhance the landscape for generations to come. At our farm, we’re still planning many more machine works at the farm, but where we are right now can suffice for this generation of improvement. We hope in future to have our water planning move throughout the landscape, sending water from the top of the property to the creek with many swales and catchment basins in between to filter, feed, and rejuvenate the soil without erosion of harmful runoff. 

There are still many places on the property that need to be addressed, and when we have a significant rain event, like the one pictured above; even with pipes and ditches, water will still cascade down the driveway, but will find it’s way to the pond further down this hill. Most of this writing addresses earthworks in use as water control, but earthworks does so much more, and to see it, I suggest visiting here, or another farm where earthworks are being executed, or already in place and established to see the results. 

Boar goats originated in South Africa as a meat and dairy breed fit for the harsher terrain of aired savannah. The goats we raise today at Leafhopper Farm come from genetics imported through Texas. Brownie, our lead doe, was born here in Washington, and she and her offspring here on the farm are well adapted to life in a cooler, wetter climate. Though they still harbor many traits of their desert dwelling ancestors, like long ears to offer better heat loss, and an incredible immune system, capable of fighting off most infection, including a resistance to parasites. 

We introduced a Nigerian Dwarf buck into our herd last year. Broc was a wonderful stud, but in an unfortunate tussle with another male goat (our boer weathers Bran) Broc sustained a fatal internal injury and we were forced to put him down that summer, only getting one breeding season in. Our current herd has three does, including one female by luck from this year’s covering. The other two male kids were butchered and I am still kicking myself for that decision because we lost our buck and had to requests for bucks in the community this year, only after I had butchered. We lost all our male genetics in one false swoop. 

Gamble is the dream mix of genetics I was hoping for in the herd planning. A good smaller dairy breed mixed into some great boer stock. We’ll plan on picking up a male goat again next year, and selecting Nigerian dwarf genetics again, this time, without a pushy other male to batter him around. We’ll also wait to cull till we’ve advertised our kids to the community. 

We’ve recently been testing the goats out in pasture with electric fencing. This method, ensuring the power is plugged into a main grid for stability, seems to be keeping the goats in without much hassle. We’ve also recently moved our larger stock into new pens. These stalls will keep our goats and sheep dry, while offering daytime access to open pasture. Hopefully this new electric setup is enough to deter escaping. It will also require us to maintain a strict rotational system to keep pastures lush enough to persuade goats to stay in. Fingers crossed!

Leafhopper Farm has taken in a small heritage flock of layer hens and one slate blue turkey hen. The birds came from a neighbor who was out of the country with knee surgery and unable to find consistent care of the livestock. Unexpected life changes can often lead to animals being let go of. Our farm sent a flock of ducks to another farm when the mixing of ducks and our pond did not work out. It is great when fellow farmers can help take on other animals when situations change, but it should not be expected. 

These lovely ladies are in quarantine for a week while I observe them to make sure no sickness is brought into my own flock. I am excited about these new heritage breeds- lacy wyandotte hens are great- we’ve raised brown ones, but not white. The Delaware, Barred Rock, and Road Island Red are all familiar; we’ll see how they hybridize with the Ayam Cemanis. 

The odd bird out is our new slate gray heritage turkey hen. She’s a little confused about the flock, and probably a little lonely too. We’ll probably cull her with a group of older hens, as Leafhopper Farm is not yet ready to take on turkeys. The turkey is nice, a new behavioral study for the barn yard, but also a separate set of needs. Each animal on the farm has a special set of dietary requirement, pasture, and shelter. Mixing multi species poultry together too much is not recommended, especially in small habitats. 

These new hens will find there way into the main flock for now, but with this many birds, we’ll have to split the flock for fertility success. A rooster can only consistently cover about 15-20 hens. We’re already in need of a second rooster to keep the numbers sure. Perhaps it’s about time to create a breeding flock of Ayam Cemani from current numbers. That way there could be a selective flock for genetics and a layer flock for community needs. It would be a step towards specialization, but that’s how you get a breed with specific characteristics. 

The Cemani genes are already dominating the home flock after only two continuous years of pure Ayam Cemani rooster breeding. In 2018, we purchased no chicks and hatched all our own Cemani chicks. In 2019, we plan to specialize a flock to Cemani breeding, as well as continuing a farm flock of layers at Leafhopper Farm. 

There are two new stalls at Leafhopper Farm! We put together new space for goats and sheep under a lean-to next to the coop. The old enclosure is housing some new birds we recently received from another land owner nearby.  With this move, we begin to slowly transform our entire animal housing location. The old coop is getting too small; even after a bird cull at the end of November, we’re still over the count for that small coop, and it’s time to grow. 

The security of these new stalls is weaker- a cougar could crawl into this enclosure, but space and ventilation are much better, and as we adapt this new building, we’ll reinforce the walls. Eventually, this new area of enclosure will allow us an opportunity to rest the old coop ground, improve on those existing structures to better are overall livestock production, and get rid of rats and old rotting structure that is decrepit and unsafe. 

The goats love their new hay creche, and Gamble climbs into it for the best eating. She’ll grow out of it soon enough. Feeding your livestock off the ground is important to avoid parasite infestation from eating off the ground in the poop. 

Below, you can see all the animals standing happily in the pasture to the right of their new “Barn”. Now everyone can be outside with access to their stalls so rain or shine, they all have pasture available, and shelter with water and mineral. We were not able to do this before because the goats were jumping out of the electric mesh netting. They might again, but we’ll hope with the right pasture rotation and access to the stall, they will be content. I know for Brownie, her size might make it difficult now to jump over. 

We’ll continue to try this setup for the next month. If it works, and the animals follow rotation successfully, we’ll go back to using electric mesh instead of the tether system. Though tethering works well, it limits the amount of animals I can manage. Another reason the fence is working now, involves direct plug in to the grid, rather than risking solar charges weakening. There are advanced battery systems you can use, and we will look into that in future, but for now, all animals respect the fence and are grazing happily here at Leafhopper Farm. 

We got after oyster mushroom spawn inoculation into red alders at Leafhopper Farm this weekend! People came to learn about plug spawn inoculation into logs and together, we spread mycelium into about 50 good sized logs. The oysters were chosen for remediation support, as the area we left the logs in is within the stream buffer, which will be treated with glyphosates to overtake the blackberry and knot-weed plants. The oyster mushrooms are very good at breaking down and neutralizing many kinds of petrochemicals- including herbicides. The inoculated logs will have time to develop a strong mushroom population to combat the chemical treatment to come.

Working together with others is such a pleasure, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves as we worked. Lots of warm sun helped make the day much more relaxing as we took terns moving logs, drilling holes in them, plugging with dowels of inoculated sawdust compressed into the logs to colonize the wood. We also experimented cutting notches and filling them with loos spawn, then sealing them up with natural clay, found in our creek. We eventually covered the clay with skunk cabbage leaves to keep the rain off. I hope this method works, for it is much easier and fast for on the ground logs.

Some of the logs were carried up to the pole barn to recive more plugs at another station. Here we could plug into a wall outlet and run a much more powerful drill, which made plugging faster. On Sunday, we hauled the rest of the finished logs back to the site near the creek to be spread out on very wet ground. The added moisture will make the logs easy to colonize, encouraging the spawn to travel along the log and eventually fruiting out into oyster mushrooms.

Most of the logs were sealed using organic soy wax. This process can be very messy to put down a tarp or work in the grass. In the picture below the last of the larger logs is sealed. There is a much smaller log laying on the tarp, which is plugged with shiitake mushroom spawn as a personal take home experiment. It is much harder to establish this strain of mycelium into a log, so I wished everyone good luck in trying. I’m sure with luck, a few flushes will come from them.

Beautiful inoculated logs cascade out the back of the truck, ready to go onto the landscape as more rain brings the perfect habitat to these fungal starts. The work of these eager learners was such a blessing for Leafhopper Farm. These logs will help mitigate pollution in the stream and on the landscape. They will continue to produce mushrooms for years to come- we will not harvest the first few years of flushes, but if new alder is stacked on the older logs long after the glyphosate treatments are gone, future oysters could be harvested for personal use.

It’s the largest inoculation at the farm to date, with about 1,500 plugs going onto the landscape. The work took roughly 6 hours with the help of 15 people over two days. It was not a complex operation, and everyone said they felt they had helped and learned something in the workshop. I was so relived to hear that the weekend was enjoyable, and am in the process of planning more opportunities over the coming months to work together at Leafhopper Farm.