We have wanted so much to recover the valuable strands of the broken thread between the past and present. Not that we have a notion to revert to a primitive state as much as to take a hold on those elements of life, nature and spirit that have the unique quality of being timeless in their worth in regards to health and well being. We have found ourselves being radically independent of  so much of contemporary society and yet very desirous of that sense of community that other generations have valued. We are very aware of the fact that more often than not community centered around some ethnic, religious and or political commonality.   It's very powerful to have such a medium as the www to be able to observe and perhaps enjoy the subtle or perhaps drastic differences in individuals without the often deep sense of vulnerability associated with sharing "religion and politics". Our lifestyle is an amalgamation of old and new that we'd be glad to share with you. Let's start with our herb garden.

We so appreciate the plant kingdom. So often some ailment or other need has been met around here simply by going to the herb garden or the woods and gleaning some treasured essence from  a plant. One of the shocking lessons of my young adult life was to learn that many, many of the contemporary medicines are mere synthetic copies of some lowly herb or bark or leaf. That was in the 60's.

Today, though our knowledge of  just what's out there seems so very limited, there's hardly a day that goes by that we don't avail ourselves to some proven essence derived from grasses, forbs, trees and the like. We've amassed a small library to compensate for the knowledge that didn't get passed down to us from previous generations. Our herb garden has three main aspects: culinary, medicinal and dye plants. It's nowhere near what it should be in size but it's a good start. We have several mints including chocolate mint and catnip. Yarrow, feverfew, wormwood, horehound, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme along with quite a few others are cultivators in the rock garden. Our region of the country boasts a tremendous diversity of wild sources of food and medicine. The above picture also includes my "three gang" plow (it has three plow blades)  and "shave horse". 

Our garden is a raised bed organic one. We've used this technique for well over 20 years and have found it profoundly efficient and enjoyable. We don't use a tiller but do use a combination of spading, forking and vermiculture (worms!) to work our heavy clay soils into a rich humus. The goat and ox manure which is in abundance works wonders. Winter is full of rain. I noticed that the precipitation would literally pound the clays down and most organic elements from the previous year would be gone by spring so I developed this technique. In the fall the earth is spaded and forked.  I work any amendments I think the soil needs in at that time. Then progressively through late fall and winter I put a substantial layer of manure ON TOP of the worked up soil (4 -6 ins.). By spring the soils have not been compacted by the rain, and the worms have worked the organics into a ready made bed. Much of the nutrients are still in the region of the root systems of our veggies because the top layer of fertilizer also acts to prevent a total diluting of the plant food by diverting the rain considerably. Our garden has fed us well.

We water it well into late autumn by an underground poly pipe over 2,000 feet away that connects to Joe Hall Creek.  It is a gravity fed water system and works very well for us, the drop in elevation from the water inlet to our garden providing enough of a flow to run two sprinklers.  When we water and the sprinklers turn on their axis, Alexandra is one to shout:  "No electricity!  We're doing this without a lick of money spent!"  I'm afraid I've gotten her too used to living off the grid...

One of our favorite crops - garlic. Each year we plant up to 400 plants that have various culinary and medicinal virtues. As of 2002 we have planted 28 varieties from around the world. Garlic is a most forgiving plant that grows well in various soil types. Planted in the fall it is ready for harvest by early July or late June. We put it in many dishes but we especially enjoy the whole bulb dry roasted. Many of our animals have benefited from it's use also. Alexandra has nursed very sick calves, lambs and kids back to health with an herbal concoction whose main ingredient is garlic. It purges parasites, has antibiotic qualities, assists in cholesterol control, repels harmful insects from the garden and people if we eat too much :-)

Below is a photo of apple blossoms on a tree set in our orchard.  Apple blossom time at Singing Falls is always a busy time for the bees (see in the distance a white painted hive body.)   

This year (2002) the orchard will be about 8 years old.  The trees are just coming into their own.  We lost a two or three to insect damage over the years and one last year (the young Gravenstein) to the severe drought we experienced in summer 2001.  It's always "survival of the fittest" in both the animal kingdom as well as the plant kingdom, and the Gravenstein had already suffered some insect damage the previous year.  It seems the drought took a heavy toll on the land.  Water is crucial to life, and in spite of the deep roots laid by some of our young trees and the vineyard, we experienced loss from its lack.

We don't insecticide spray for insects simply because and we don't know what's working in the readily available pesticides. What did people do before there were sprays? It's a tough battle. Our apples are mainly for storing and cider. We have a 1700's variety English cooking and cider apple called Brambly that we've recently planted. 

There are quite a few apple and pear trees spread over the property planted by this homestead's past residents.  Louis Thomason, quite the fruit grower in the way of apples and pears back in the 20's and 30's, planted a wide array.  The story is told that thieving youngsters in those days would steal the man's apples and pears, toting the fruit away while he slept.  (We assume this may have been during the country's depression era.)   He apparently had "had enough" of their thievery and cut down a multitude of his fruit trees, we're told.

There are still a few nice old trees with unusual varieties of fruit attendant upon their gnarly branches.  There's an ancient tree in the field adjacent to a running rivulet of water that doesn't produce many apples - but its round yellow fruits are tasty, nonetheless, tantalizing us with the taste of cinnamon and banana when we bite into the juicy and crispy fruit.  Old Ike Wilson across the way said that indeed it was called in its day "a banana apple."  

Mrs. Wilson, on the other hand, always told us that the pear tree out by the spring in the far pasture was called a "Sugar Pear tree."  She said the early pioneers used those sweet pears to do all their fruit canning with, the juice of the fruit being as sweet or sweeter than sugar water.  It's amazing to trace the history of this land back to its pioneer roots, and one must allow for legend and lore, which sometimes overlaps a bit with the truth.

Our root cellar holds the bounty of the year's garden and harvest labors. It's simple structure is made of cement blocks set into a hill behind the cottage. Usually the temperature ranges from 40 to 60 degrees F, though 50 degrees is nearly constant. Since the Oregon winter is so wet the humidity stays very high during that time of year. It makes an excellent storage area for root crops, apples and canned goods. The large bottles in the back are carboys used to hold the year's various types of wines. The ceiling and front end are super insulated and lined with foil (like a thermos.)  

We recently installed a Solahart hot water heater and it's been an incredible asset. This winter we have been amazed to feel the warm water flowing into our propane heater (in spite of the sprawling umbrella willow branches that block the low winter sun rays ). Even on the mostly overcast winter days of Oregon we are able to generate a substantial amount of heat to prewarm the water. Some of these late February and early March days when the morning temperatures were in the 20's but the skies were crystalline clear, we knew the sun would burn off the frost on those panels and we'd have hot water soon enough.  Sure enough, the water was not only "prewarmed" but actually HOT.  On these days the back up pilot light (propane) never turned on.  The Solahart system supplied our hot water needs in total.  It was days like this that Alexandra gladly washed the mohair fleeces, knowing the sun was heating the water and not propane.  

In the summer (when we wash most of our mohair fleeces) water blows out of the release valve which is set at 180 degrees Fahrenheit. It's a great system and works well in spite of its age (ten years old.)  Its 80 gallon tank holds a lot of weight in water (near 1,000 lbs total system weight), so I was careful to build a secure platform out of treated lumber, securing it carefully to the actual structure of the house.

Solar energy is incredible. We used it for years on our Montana homestead. The twelve years we spent there were years in which we learned to function quite efficiently (and self-sufficiently, I might add) off the main power grid. When we managed to fall into a good deal on some photovoltaic solar panels we couldn't pass up the offer. This summer our ten M75 solar panels will be going full tilt if all goes according to plans. We don't have an inverter to convert the 12 volt to 120. That's in the future hopefully. In the meantime we intend to use 12 volt lighting in the house and barn, just as we did in Montana.

 

We heat only with wood. Below is a photo of our "five run flue" Russian masonry furnace.  (The CD we spoke of on the Homepage will have actual "plans" and a further explanation of what a "grubka," or Russian masonry furnace IS and CAN DO for your home place.)  

We joke with Alexandra's father (who heats his large "den" with a conventional woodstove - stoking it continually all the day long with large pieces of oak) telling him:  "Well, it was a cold one today, dad.  All of 38 in the sun, and countin' downward.  Had to heat the place with seven toothpicks instead of five." 

Stan insists that you don't have to be a mason to build one.  With a little study of masonry skills and a thorough understanding of the principles upon which the heating system is built, an industrious person can economically build one by himself.  We heated our home in Montana with one -- an 1800 square foot log home.  Our "back up" heater was a French Godin parlor stove set up in our large living room area, but most of the heat for the home came from that Russian furnace.   

I used Washington State code plans for building our Oregon and Montana furnaces.  Our house (cottage) is so much smaller than the one in Montana (all of 900 square feet if you stretch your imagination to its limits) - and therefore, its wood needs are minimal.  Usually (winters, I speak of) we fire up the furnace once per day -- in the night hours -- with a "charge" of dry wood.  Small pieces are always best for the burning, for they ignite readily and burn steadily and hot for a short time.  The charge burns until there is a lick of blue flame (gold flames are flames that indicate volatile gases are still being released) spiraling upwards in the firebox.  The tender of the fire must be aware of all of this and watch his grubka carefully.  When the blue flame is seen on hot red coals (around 45 minutes after first firing)- the tender "shuts 'er down."  The damper is closed off then and all the flue apertures are closed for a near airtight seal. The furnace will then radiate its glowing heat throughout the next twenty four hours. 

It's like having a huge warm rock in the middle of your house. After spending the cold Montana nights stoking a convection wood burning stove sometimes every two hours, the masonry furnace was all the more appreciated. Even here in mild Oregon the furnace's  24 hour cycle saves a lot of time and energy in wood gathering, splitting and burning. The charge used is very small compared to the average amount of wood consumed with conventional wood stoves on a daily basis

Whatever you choose to name it, the Russian masonry stove is the only way to go.  Ours does not utilize some of the features of the typical Russian grubka that has been known to exist for centuries in the cold areas surrounding Siberia. Some had a wooden "shelf" that wraps around the unit - serving as a warm bed for a weary and cold body nesting against the stones or brick or limed over grubka.  Others had warming ovens to raise bread or warm up boots. Still another neat feature was a built in wood cook stove. Our cottage is too small for that, but we appreciate the unit we did build immensely.  

You can build one, too.  Guaranteed.  Not a hard task, just patience and carefulness to the demands of the mason's skills.  If I can be of any assistance - just write me.

Oregon is a majestic land and its seasons, though not as varied as the seasons were when we lived in Montana, never fail to amaze us with their beauty.  The pictures below show the same pasture at two different seasons. On the left you can view one of our misty afternoons as rain clouds dissipate (a pretty regular scene here.)  On the right you see late summer at its apex, nary a cloud in sight - Oregon drylands, Oregon badlands, where the Indians dwelt and the wagons then came along, and where the prairie was still new and fresh and bountiful enough for any who lived there. 

This is one of our meadows. It is the largest of three places we utilize for pasture and it is naturally opened in the midst of our heavily forested region. Generally the trees that inhabit the field are white oaks with a smattering of black oak, madrone, Douglas fir, yellow pine, and a host of shrubs of various kinds and rarer confers. Fruit trees of various sorts have taken root in and around the fields also. A wide variety of grasses and forbs flourish in this sub-irrigated area.  If we could market this large field of pennyroyal that comes up each year, we might do well for ourselves!  I've often wondered if the natural menthol found in the pennyroyal flowers that our bees work like crazy during early summer is what has been so responsible for keeping the mite problem at a minimum in our hives. It's a thought worth consideration, anyway.

Above is Uzi, our Hungarian Kuvasz guardian dog. Up until recently only Australian Shepherds could be found with us. Predation problems became so severe that we had to develop a multifaceted proactive approach that included finding a guard dog to protect our precious herd. 

    This is Caleb, our much too intelligent Australian Shepherd male, telling us he's cool!  We've had "Aussies" since 1977 and I can't say enough good about them as an asset to the homestead. They can get protective but that's a minus that can also be a plus in this lifestyle. "A good dog will take the place of three men on horses", the saying goes.  Caleb responds to voice and hand signals and has a very large vocabulary.

Acuva and Caleb hard at work doing their most enjoyable task, fetching.   

   

Sheep and Goats - fiber, meat and milk!

 

 

One on going project on this homestead has been the timber frame barn that I've been hard at work building for many a moon.  The timbers were cut using a Stihl chainsaw and an Alaskan Mill.  Some of the main timbers were yew wood, a particularly hard wood that is naturally rot resistant.  The wood is so hard, in fact, that if one pounds a nail into it - that nail is secured there forever - no getting it out!

The barn's progress has been slow, but at this time (early spring 2002) we are just about ready to put the roof rafters up - though there is a strong possibility another floor will go up before the roof is finally put on.  Our faithful friend, Todd, has been an enormous help along the way, also, his help being of immense value to us during some of the initial phases of the project.

Essentially, this barn is built like all timber frame barns were during America's long history with barn building.  Most of these structures are widely scattered throughout the east and midwest.  It is a time honored way of building, the structures usually outliving their builders by 100 years or more.  It's the way our forefathers built their barns, in a time when balloon frame building with presized lumber was non-existent.  It's slow and tedious, but as Stan often says, "If you have more time than you do money, it's the only way to build."  

The timbered barn will house (on its second story) a weaving studio for Alexandra.  She is excited to "move in" and has watched the project as it has gone forward, often making requests in regard to her studio that were not original to the plan for the room.  Now it seems she will get her "windows that face south to view that incredible mountain vista" and a step down alcove that will house her favorite loom.

Click on the highlighted timber frame text and scroll down the page to see some  more pictures.

 

 

mohair@singingfalls.com