today we adventure further into biochar and soil wellness.
love and permanent culture joining in the garden
at the wonderful waltz in late august we met many new folks who made there way to sunswept farm.. that night was magical, full of star light streaming down into our mountain cove and mixing with the fiddle and guitar and lifted us all to a melodious community moment. children dancing with elder children along with seasoned waltz steppers, and those looking to in joy the romance of dance for the first time. in this musical mix appeared the biochar man,, jon and his daughter full of life, dance and talk.. jon and i talked, when feet were still, and brained up this day as a day to apply jon genius to our mind’s eye of dreams to grow better understanding of fertility and soil based beauty. jon comes to consult and give us the intelligence based understanding of modern bio engineering of mycrobes and bacteria and manure rich investments into soil. if you don’t mind some rain come this way and learn about the wonders of bio char, and wealthy soil lasting a millenia..
currently only a small handful of people rule the corporations who control our food industry.. we refuse to be content with this historical moment’s march. small as we are, we are one of the many voices & biceps that makes small farming and family farming continue in this modern moment. got to get back to the garden in heart mind recommunion with the real earth which we are a part. 
to me this is the only answer i can wrap my self around on a daily basis. politics and the current march of humanity numbly marking today as same as yesterday and wakes not to the conditions of vulnerablity we bring to ourselves and our planet does not weaken our resolve to continue to herald the microbes and terra petra.. little it may be to make good soil, but start where you stand,, rise up in little ways as a citizen of the earth, and claim a better way.. today we will do that.. come listen to jon talk to us if you have the time to attend.. fresh made cornbread and fresh pressed apple cider to in joy while ears are open to new info for applications of your own..
a quote, as to our ability to return to a more full citizenship of our land, by returning to the soil and gardens that were the lifestyle this country found origins, within the cycles and intimacy with land and food. 
Food Power: Only Connect
This rising global food movement taps universal human sensibilities—expressed in Hindu farmers in India saving seeds, Muslim farmers in Niger turning back the desert and Christian farmers in the United States practicing biblically inspired Creation Care. In these movements lies the revolutionary power of the food movement: its capacity to upend a life-destroying belief system that has brought us power-concentrating corporatism.
Corporatism, after all, depends on our belief in the fairy tale that market “magic” (Ronald Reagan’s unforgettable term) works on its own without us.
Food can break that spell. For the food movement’s power is that it can shift our sense of self: from passive, disconnected consumers in a magical market to active, richly connected co-producers in societies we are creating—as share owners in a CSA farm or purchasers of fair-trade products or actors in public life shaping the next farm bill.
The food movement’s power is connection itself. Corporatism distances us from one another, from the earth—and even from our own bodies, tricking them to crave that which destroys them—while the food movement celebrates our reconnection. Years ago in Madison, Wisconsin, CSA farmer Barb Perkins told me about her most rewarding moments: “Like in town yesterday,” she said, “I saw this little kid, wide-eyed, grab his mom’s arm and point at me. ‘Mommy,’ he said. ‘Look. There’s our farmer!’”
At its best, this movement encourages us to “think like an ecosystem,” enabling us to see a place for ourselves connected to all others, for in ecological systems “there are no parts, only participants,” German physicist Hans Peter Duerr reminds us. With an “eco-mind” we can see through the productivist fixation that inexorably concentrates power, generating scarcity for some, no matter how much we produce. We’re freed from the premise of lack and the fear it feeds. Aligning food and farming with nature’s genius, we realize there’s more than enough for all.
As the food movement stirs, as well as meets, deep human needs for connection, power and fairness, let’s shed any notion that it’s simply “nice” and seize its true potential to break the spell of our disempowerment.
plows cleared the roads as the season to hunker down is upon us. well worth the in joyment of just that hunkering.. this morning the brilliant whiteness of the snow covered close inner shoulder that faces the first breath of morning sun, was so bright wild white, the light back lit or front lit the rest of the cove still in the east mountain shadow. every moment was moment so unlike the one before as the sun moved into the cove. the fabulous sparkles that occur as the light throws the rainbos in the still crystalline frozen hexagon snow flake out like little spot lights appearing in the still shadows of early light.. reflecting the coming brilliance running into this holler. snow is gonna stay here for a bit. time to hunker down.. john has made it be we have our winter’s wood.
creative commons/ year of the dragon
the moon is bright in the late night sky, beaming into my skylights as a street light of the winter silent hours. all the seed catalogs are here and it is easy to expand the dreams into greens and small plants of spring. our winter projects include building the soil here at Sunswept. we are wealthy in many material ways here. not really the kind of wealth you take to deposit into a bank as that magic paper we all chase, but wealth as in fresh wonderful cow’s milk, & the vibrant universe of manure, cow, chicken and horse!! we have learned much over the years about what it means to put manure into a garden too hot, too late, and any other way of finding out how to make better and better soil..
who nose
this season, we have more knowledge than ever! before,, thank you John Nilsson, for your consultation last fall. we now know how to build a truly amazing compost pile system using our manure so close and rich, and adding our own biochar, and proper ionic and magnetic soils to bring all levels of soil value to a supreme addition to our own gardens and fields and more. so composting we will go, the gravel is here to begin the place where compost will brew with in ground pipes bring air under the manure and rotting hay and produce oxygen rich environment to grow just the right bacteria and organics best for soil and additions.
as weather is allowing we are moving the oldest manure to the poorest soils adding rotting hay and last year’s abundant biochar we have successfully learned much making. this mixture is on beds destined to be this year’s tomato patch,, with our own bent tube hut built over the 60′ x 12′ wide tomato paradise. Madison county grows, ( in my opinion ) the Best tomato umm. trouble is blight from tobacco mosaic. gets my tomatoes more often than not if a wet summer. so covering is my answer amongst other care like soaker hoses, not water on leaves, etc.. so far,, so good on that.. by building proper soil with proper mycrobes, i can beat the blight ,, so this year i am making my plan and it begins now.
feet in it all
the sun’s return is very noticeable now.. the chickens are laying more eggs. the grass has a glow of green i can imagine spring green to build upon. the snows come and melt into the soil, full of the nitrogen that snow adds to the wet. it will snow some more tonight.. last wednesday those all over Asheville talked of a brilliant double rainbow,
thunderbeings become light
to the ground, with more that the usual colors in both rain bows, actually mirroring each other, how can that be.. for them is was the bow, here were the thunder beings, winds and whirl and the light moved through to the west. rain/snow/hale/sleet and rush of thunders moved the house to tremble, and protect. seemed the energy started here and vibrated radiance from these hills and earth print. they say thunder in january big snow in two weeks.. i am counting,, umm,, January 25th then let us see about mountain speak. we come together now to build up our store of firewood,
plenty up hill on the mountain, good dry locust like you can’t buy, still even with equipment and the know how Raphael and John have, it is really UP hill with 150′ of 1/2″ cable to hook to a locust log is work for sure. our house is warmed by the wood and the work of those who live here. even with the roll of the waves of being ourselves, the routines kept bring us to our knowledge of our full connection and loyalty to our place in the universe. for now it is here. live the moments that you have to live.
we are a creative commons, welcoming the playful engagement in meaningful play. intelligence is at the edges of a system.. reaching as lock to key of the moment ever unfolding we will go.. light through the cracks in the universe creative are we pot and potter
i’d rather be a Could-Be if i cannot be an Are:
because a Could-Be is a May-Be who is reaching for a star.
i’d rather be a Haz-Been than a Might-Have-Been by far,
for a Might-Have-Been has never been, but a Haz was once an Are