Work on details

The clouds of acrid, ground-hugging smoke having cleared away, and a few spits of rain having arrived, most of the neighbors are burning piles of the brush that enthusiastically sprouted up last spring. This has prompted a ruckus on the neighborhood app, where some object to being exposed yet again without being asked. They might be among the newer residents; generational locals have always burned and probably always will - a perceived right and rite of Autumn, like putting pumpkins by the front door.

We don't participate; we just chop and drop and let nature take its course. Not that this saves any carbon; or maybe it would, temporarily, if we had the oomph to bury the stuff; but I think it helps provide for the diversity of critters, seen and unseen.

In the field garden we have cut everything fine to get it close to the ground. We generally add barn waste and the like until February, then begin doing work in the beds. This coming growing season, like the one just ending, we'll likely cover all this with the black plastic again, perhaps in late January, and begin to uncover near to the end of March, bed by bed. This is to try and stay one step ahead of bindweed and crabgrass.

We did better than expected here; this was sod as late as March 11th. We've put away a substantial crop of seed potatoes, winter squash and pumpkins, and canned quite a lot of paste tomatoes as chunky sauce with onions, garlic and basil. No actual recipe. "Salt, olive oil and a bit of vinegar, to taste."

In the kitchen garden, frost has made its first visit, as shown by a touch of brown in the grape arbor. Basil has given up the ghost, and the tomatoes are thinking of following suit. The lettuce, carrots, onions, and of course kale don't seem to mind.

There should be a bed of beets in this photo but the gophers came when we weren't looking and took the lot. Well, we all have tummies.

With the beets gone, the gophers have targeted the roots of the Fordhook Giant chard. I find the stems arrayed in a wilting circle with some disturbed dirt where the root had been. I pick them up and find a quick use for them. Didn't want the root anyway.

Our collards and kale trees seem to be less to the gopher's liking and declare they are ready for the winter. We have found they can stand weather down to about 15F without covering; below that it would be prudent to do so.

Like last year, but less strikingly, August apples have clung to the trees late. I put up chunky applesauce until I ran out of canning lids. These are the Egremont Russets. This tree came to me at work in the pannier of a friend's bicycle, three decades ago. I rode home on the bus with it in my lap. Never turn down a fruit tree.

As the weather changes, I spend more time in the hut. It has proven to be an extreme heat collector in summer, in spite of my efforts, but as winter comes on, I can settle in, brew tea, watch the rain come down, Zoom with fellow Boods, and perhaps write the occasional blog post.

  Baizhang Huaihai was asked by Yunyan, “Master, you work on details all day.

Who are you doing it for?”

  Baizhang said, “There may be someone who requires it.”

  Yunyan said, “Why don’t you let that person take care of it?”

  Baizhang said, “Because that person may not have the means of making a livelihood."

-- The True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s 300 Koans tr. Tanahashi and Loori

Swimming upstream

 A sunny and bright day, not so long ago, I sat down for a Zoom zazenkai and three hours later, saw intense winds rushing through the orchard, laden with fresh brown smoke. That smoke came from fires some distance away, the Lionshead and Beachie Creek mostly. I had been thinking of the Lionshead as a central Oregon fire and Beachie Creek as a small one near Detroit Reservoir, but in the wind they both blew up, ran together and have since devastated some 400,000 acres, some lives, and many, many buildings.

A number of other large Oregon fires sprang up in the next few days, the nearest to us being the Holiday Farm Fire. In less than twenty-four hours, it ran over 30,000 acres of the McKenzie River canyon, and approached us over the next week, coming within about twelve air miles at the top of the Little Fall Creek drainage.

Although the evacuation zone boundary was drawn along the river, about a mile and a half away in the photo above, we chose to decamp to Eugene for a few days, just in case. Many of our neighbors did the same, and as we were packing, we noted a number of horse trailers heading west.

It doesn't take us long to pack, because in fire weather we pull Tessa the Teardrop out of the garage, load her up with supplies, and keep her hooked up to Henrietta, the '99 Ranger. 

We were at Daughter's house after a twenty minute drive. 

At the time, Daughter, a health worker, was not in our current Covid pod and we had to use indoor potential-exposure protocols, hard on all concerned. Space was at a premium, so I slept in Tessa with the vent closed and hoped for the best.

Normally we would head for the coast under these conditions but this time the smoke was almost as bad and ... pandemic considerations.

Although Daughter has a tight house and decent filtration, local AQI rose above 500 and everyone suffered. Having the weakest lungs I went down hard and began a coughing spell that lasted well into the next week. I should have been admitted to a smoke relief facility but ... pandemic.

After a few days we went home and toughed it out in the old house. Here, you can just see the white roof of Gogo-an, the meditation hut, in the middle distance.

We were caught between HEPA filters so we put a furnace filter on the box fan, which helped some.

Currently the Holiday Farm Fire is holding at about 173,000 acres. It has burned 430 houses and caused loss of life. A near thing for us, but for others it has been nearer than near. 🙏

There have been a couple of smoke-clearing rains, and we've resumed most of our homesteading activities. 

It's October and temperatures are in the high eighties when there's no smoke, so the late tomatoes are very happy and have unexpectedly come in by the bushel. I'm currently making tomato sauce and struggling with less-than-ideal unmarked canning jar lids provided, from far, far away, in used Ball canning-lid boxes (all we could get) -- there seems to be some kind of scam going on.

Looking at the history of our big local fires, I see a pattern. 

Fifteen years ago, the Clark Fire covered 5000 acres on Big Fall Creek. Three years ago, the Jones fire covered twice that. This year, the Holiday Farm Fire was more than fifteen times the size of the Clark Fire and ran west right past it almost into Springfield. I think these Cascades fires are moving west as we dry out and closing in on us in the valley, including here at Stony Run Farm.

 The water table is dropping, the soil exhales moisture faster than it used to and plants are extremely desiccated here at the moment, even with the inch or so of recent rain. 

Had the high winds persisted for another day, this fire would have run down the ridge above Little Fall Creek right to us, and the river would not have presented a significant barrier. Another similar year and all bets are off, especially with more lightning than we had this time.

The continued drought with increasing chance of fire, combined with unhinged roving vigilantes in the neighborhood looking in all the wrong political places for arsonists, leaves us feeling that our time at Stony Run may be drawing to a close. We may have to retreat to Daughter's urban college-town place to live out our days -- there is a plan for that, which might include the addition of a tiny house (easy on a fifth of an acre).

To which end I'm continuing to work there. The back room I've added to the house is in constant use already, and this week I re-roofed the meditation shed/potting room/workshop.

As I see it, a salmon swims upstream until it can't. So we might as well swim upstream.