Blog Posts

Intern Blog, Week 1, By Ian Thompson

4/25/2019

Ian Thompson
Intern blog week 4/15/19 - 4/20/19

April is finally here, and the summer internship 2019 has started! We have done so much work in the garden already and everything is looking so great! There is so much excitement and anticipation in and around the garden. I am the only intern as of now, but that will soon change when Flower Star joins us to help next month. However, all of our helpers have been busy busy, especially planting in the green house. Now is the time when the tiny plants get tucked safely in their beds in the garden, or so we hope. The beautiful onion plants Helen and I started in February with so much love only lasted a few days in the garden before some hungry critter came through and had a feast, half were lost. We covered the rest in a garden fabric and hope for the best. But yet there is still a mystery as to why the hungry critter targeted the onion; It's supposed to be the one green leaf that deters pest like rabbits and deer. So we are keeping a close eye on them.

Since starting the internship, we have gotten a lot done as well. Like the other day, Anita and I made some potato cages. The hopes is to grow these potatoes above ground in a cage to keep the rat population from eating all our crops. We built three of them in different sizes from scrap fencing and other materials found in our barn. We wired them together with a fenced in base and put them in the garden and filled them ¼ full of soil and compost. Then it's just as simple as tossing them in and covering with another few inches of soil. They will then flower up above the soil and we will just bury them. The potato leaves will then die, then something amazing happens. The potato leaf node will then start to grow roots, and produce more potatoes! This is very exciting, because not only does everybody love potatoes, but it seems that the years previous, the large amount of potatoes that were planted, were decimated by rats, and some were even lost.

Friday was also a very busy day that yielded some pretty sweet results. It started out with Anita and I creating and designing a most detailed compost tracking method. We made these pretty cool spreadsheets that have spaces for date created, materials used and dates they were turned and by whom. They even all get personalized names. :) We then went to go get them laminated so they can be kept outside and not get ruined by the rain. On our way we procured a truck load of wood chips to be spread on Saturdays harambe. When we arrived back to Songaia, we had a delicious lunch and afterwards had a meeting with community member and good friend Douglas R. about the forest and possible plans going forward with it's restoration. I would personally like to see more curriculum involving different ecosystems integrated with the garden internship. There are so many ways that a garden can be looked at, and in a system more closely integrated with nature could yield different results than what we currently have. Our garden can be looked at as a closely controlled system of creating just the right conditions to produce only what we desire to grow there. Everything else is considered a weed and treated as such. It's a proven method for creating a reliable and measurable food source, but falls short of being sustainable or regenerative. It could not exactly be called a permaculture garden, but more of a market garden. Which isn’t necessarily “wrong”, but simply a particular way to look at how to grow food on the land. By trying different methods and working closer to how nature acts in the real world without so much human manipulation, we could quite possibly find better methods to producing food and becoming closer with the land. But all philosophy aside, I would love to learn more about food systems and how we can improve them in a human dominated ecosystem. Then we flipped compost.

I am extremely satisfied with the first week of the internship. I have high hopes and am very excited for the future and what it holds. There is so much knowledge here in Songaia and only time and experience will present these learning opportunities. I am very thankful for the incredible opportunities and guidance I have received. I will never forget the kind nourishing nudges towards learning and discovery of the world around us. I am very thankful for Songaia and everyone here. I love you all! See you all next week.

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Week 1: Compost and Contemplation, by Anita Higgins

4/19/2019

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Hey, guess what?

The internship started last week!! And I started my second "growing season" as Garden Steward here at Songaia. Man oh man. Last year, I set the intention to mindfully implement the first principle of permaculture--Observe and thoughtfully interact. This principle posits that you have to take the time to step back and observe, or cultivate an intimacy with place, before you are able to design a sustainable, resilient, and regenerative system. Simple, right? Here's a beautiful musical representation of the first permaculture principle by the glorious Formidable Vegetable Sound System, introduced to me by Brian when I was an intern:

What I was surprised by in this last year, was how much the very last verses of this song rang true.
"The problem is the solution,
it just depends on your perception.
Gotta change yourself before the world.

Take a look around,
On the inside and the out.
Cause when you observe yourself,
you'll see everything else.
Make good use of it now."

Despite the fact that I was learning multiple systems--the garden, the community, this position--his past year really became about cultivating an intimacy with myself. Mid-summer I fell into a bit of low spot. I was discouraged, tired, stretched thin between my homes, and feeling the weight of expectation from the community for a yield of food, the interns for a yield of experience, and the garden for a reliable drink of water.

Pause for gratitude for garden elder Helen Gabel, who held me and guided me throughout this past year. Gratitude for Brian Bansenauer who invited me over often to "have cookies" (laced with community wisdom and therapeutic laughter). Gratitude for Nancy and Diane, who helped me lean into the "problem is the solution"---just said with different words. Gratitude for Laura Klepfer, who is a great listener, a devoted piglet, and a loving friend. Gratitude for Elizabeth Dequine, who sees disconnections and chooses to act in love, and who has invited me and Olive to share a home with her. Gratitude for my dear friend and beloved intern, Ian Thompson, who has inspired growth in me by both accepting and challenging my conditioned beliefs about the world. Gratitude for Brent, Nartano, Mary, Susie, and so many others. You have all inspired me to find and grow from my edges over this past year, allowing me to see that cultivating an intimacy with ourselves is at the foundation of sustainable, resilient, and regenerative systems, because it allows us to see past our conditioned beliefs about what's possible and enter a truly creative and abundant space.

This brings me to my intention for this coming year, which includes story-telling, and two permaculture principles:

Principle 3: Obtain a Yield
and
Principle 11: Use edges and value the marginal

More about this next week.

Here's a little about what moved this past week in the garden:

Tuesday: If you look very closely, you can see little squirming earthworms, thriving in our compost pile. Ian and I flipped the compost and made a new pile out of community kitchen scraps, rabbit poo from a neighbor, green material from clearing garden beds, and leaves raked last fall on property (likely by community member Art Morton--thanks Art!!). Lots of planting happened in the garden by Elizabeth, Helen, Selina, and Oluwa this day! It was so fun to have former interns Oluwa and Selina out for the morning before their classes. After Lunch, Ian and I went to get more rabbit poo from our long time supplier, Carrie. We've been using the rabbit poo in our compost, a good nitrogen source with a 12:1 C:N ratio.

Wednesday: On Wednesday I worked alone, because Ian had come down with a cold and our other Piglets were busy with community and personal responsibilities. It was a great day of observing myself, the garden, and my relationship with it. I met with Bee Elliott in the morning and we hammered out the details for the upcoming Restoration Work Party here in the Songaia Forest on Sunday April 28th from 10:30-3. Bee is a student at UW Bothell, deeply involved in shifting our larger cultural narrative by acting locally. She will be bringing members of the UWB Outdoor Wellness Club to this work party. I am excited about this partnership!

I spent the day drifting back and forth between garden work and administrative duties, getting a bed cleared by the end of the day and setting up a small experiment in the garden. Last fall one of our beds was colonized by perennial white clover. Throughout the winter, this bed resisted invasion by our dear friend buttercup, unlike many of our other beds (even those that were intentionally cover-cropped with other species). What I want to test is whether or not we can just plant directly into the white clover, leaving it as a nitrogen-fixing perennial cover crop, with occasional chopping-and-dropping to keep it from overtaking food crops.

After establishing which area I wanted to leave covered with clover, I needed to figure out how to mark off the area so it wouldn't get cleared by someone else, and I needed to mix soil to start some seeds for the experimental bed. I went up to lunch and thought about how to mark it off. While eating lunch, Doug R came in and told me he had removed the oak planter that had been sitting outside the Common House for quite some time with no plants in it. He expressed his uncertainty about what to do with the wheelbarrow full of soil and large rocks. The problem is the solution!!! Well, his problem was my solution. I sifted the big rocks out of the soil, used the soil to start seeds, and used the rocks to delineate my experimental plot.

The Songaia potting soil recipe! Shhhhh

Potting soil mixing as an art...

Kale and lettuce will go into my experimental bed!

Thursday: Ian was a bit better on Thursday, so we decided to make potato cages! Two years ago, when I was an intern, Tater Mater Tom gifted us with 25 different varieties of potatoes. My Irish roots reveled in the diversity of potato varieties, and I took it on as a personal mission my first year here to care for said potatoes. We had two rows, which I dutifully photographed at (somewhat) regular intervals, mounded as best I knew how, and observed the process of growth. By the end of the season they looked marvelous! Above the surface...little did we know, below ground, the rats had discovered an absolute smorgasbord. Last year, in an attempt to get a yield of potatoes, I had the interns plant the potatoes we were able to save from the previous year scattered around the garden. We actually went through with mapping where each variety was planted. Like a pirate's map to delicious buried treasure. The idea was that if they were scattered around the garden, they would not all get plowed through by the rats. Good plan...except they turned out being harder to find in the fall than we thought...it's very possible there will be many potatoes coming up all over the Songaia garden this year. Good thing I still have that map of our "buried treasure".

This year, still determined to obtain a yield, we made potato cages. Something I derive great pleasure from, and I learned Ian does as well, is creating something useful from salvaged materials. We found wire fencing in the magic barn that was stapled to some old rotting wood, and transformed them into beautiful potato cages! We buried three varieties of potatoes in these cages and filled the cages to about 8 inches with soil and compost. As the potatoes grow, we can continue to add soil and compost (or other material) to the cage, increasing the production of tubers off the stem. We ended the day with a planning session--deciding how we wanted to design a simple, effective way of tracking which piles of compost were turned when.

Sketch of a potato tower, in concept.

Friday:
We got SO much done on Friday. We started the day on an expedition in IAN'S NEW TRUCK! Our mission was to get our new compost system sheets laminated and to pick up another load of woodchips from Dennis and Cyndi (Thank you!!) to prepare for the Harambe on Saturday. We mounted the new sheets and ended the day with compost turning (3 piles!) and blog writing.

Ian and his new truck! Thanks for hooking him up, Nartano.

I also learned that I love laminating things...

The new sheets! When a pile is "finished" we can take a photograph and keep a google drive folder of compost turning over time.

Proving to be weatherproof! Welcome to the world, Edgar the Odorous!

Saturday: I was sick and missed the community meeting and harambe, which I was very sad about. Seems like those chips we brought were put to good use though. Thanks team!

Not mentioned here is all the work that went into the garden while my eyes where elsewhere--I know Helen and Elizabeth have been working away--and it looks amazing out there.

I intend to continue to share in this way throughout the season. It may not be as detailed as this in the future, but I see such value in documenting our weeks. I feel so anchored and accomplished after reflecting, and I am really able to integrate what I've learned. To obtain a different kind of yield from the growing season!

Yours in Garden Stewardship,

Anita

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Some Heroes of Songaia, By Helen Gabel

3/12/2019

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The return of springtime has released new energy in the Biogaians! As the snow melted out we discovered massive storm damage on all our properties. And the sunny days coincided with inspiration from Mary and Laura towards long-neglected care of our fruit trees and roses. The response has been positively heroic!

Heroic Piglet Laura strikes a power pose in the garden <3 GO LAURA GO

Below you'll see Brian, Ian, and Douglas R clearing the most dangerous downed limbs at Life Song Commons, and a photo of the first truckload of brush headed for disposal.

Brian channels his strength at LSC

Ian captures Brian and Douglas R in action, removing downed limbs from the LSC drive.

The old reliable green garden truck loaded with brush.

There's been work with chainsaws and big loppers as several other truckloads, as well as dumpsters, of brush have been collected.

Phil wields a chainsaw for post-storm cleanup

Phil does the "brush dance"

Most of our fruit trees are being pruned.

Has anyone seen Mary recently? If you have, she was probably in a fruit tree.

Sylvan prunes the Bosc pear tree in the Commons

And our rose-and-mulch team has been forging ahead, too.

Anita captures a moment of awesomeness as Helen makes her way down the line of roses to prune!

Brent, Ian, and Jacob spread the gift of mulch from Dennis and Cyndi!

These are not all of our local heroes--just the ones with conveniently available photos. Thanks be to the new season, and to all who love our community!

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Roses are Red, By Winter Intern Ian Thompson

3/7/2019

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2/28/2019
Today was great. Helen and I were at it again on a beautiful day in the PNW. The compost was hot and the ground was cold. We were not the only ones up early exploring the garden. Since all the snow melted different critters were poking their heads up and checking everything out. When the first ray of sunshine peered through the darkness and hit the ground this morning, it started a chain reaction melting the frost off of the sleepy wilted greens. It must have started somewhere on the south east corner and slowly engulfed the whole garden, and before you know it a lil caterpillar could be found scooting around doing a dance. Life was also poking above the soil in the greenhouse as the several brassicas that were planted in a flat and put under 24 hour light has started sprouting in a neat little line. Two little leafs soaking in the light, probably just realizing and getting ready to fulfill their entire purpose on this planet.
Rose pruning was also a priority on today's list of activities. Lucky for me, Helen has been expertly trained by a master rosarian, and is willing to pass on her knowledge to me. We collected our tool and headed out into the garden. Two individuals entering a very diverse ecosystem as champions at the top of the food chain. Our decisions today will, quite literally,shape the way the roses will live and grow for the rest of their lives. It is very important work. Upon our initial inspection we found the rose bushes to be completely untamed. They were wild and vigorous. Their goal in this life is to grow high above any other plant, and spread far and wide. The base was a cluster of thick, strong wood covered in razor sharp thorns. They came out of the ground and grew straight up above your head. It was difficult to even know where to start. We put on our gloves that were strong enough to resist the thorns and equipped our loppers sharp enough to cut them down at the base and began clearing the surrounding stocks. They were thin and just getting bearings before we flattened their progress and forbade their existence. We cleared anything not attached to the main cluster and threw them in a pile behind us. Soon we exposed the thickest and oldest growth and we were able to study it's design and figure a way to best promote it's growth and health while still clearing away most of the bulk. We decided to keep the young and new stocks, and remove the oldest and thickest ones. I imagine it's because they required the most resources to survive. So down they came, we sawed through their trunk and eliminated the cane. We looked at all the qualities and decided which would stay and which would go. In this situation, only the straight and narrow, young and healthy were acceptable, all others perished.
I couldn't help but feel a bit like an ultimate decider/ executer in the fate of each branch. If any were even slightly outside of my expectations, I swiftly eliminated their presence, and took away any chance of survival or reproduction it ever thought it would achieve. I thought about my own mortality in this way, and how relevant this perspective must be to a certain class/ tier of society. With the absolute power over others’ survival or chances to thrive. How does this relate to our everyday life if you don't fit into a certain expectation for society. Examples can be seen in today's world that society too wishes to eliminate individuals who don't fit into the mainstream culture. If an individual grows naturally in a different way than what is desired, they too will undoubtedly face resistance and will be cast aside. I felt bad for the branches that lived their whole lives only to be cut away because they were too old, skinny, twisted, or leaned a certain way against the crowd. I consider myself someone who doesn't necessarily fit into a box, and someone who walks against the crowd. This was starting to weigh on my mind, making me uneasy as Helen pointed and I chopped. In nature this plant would thrive and dominate regardless of what the stocks looked like, and nature would take its course. This plant didn't need us to help it survive.
But as we cleared away the bulk and took away the grass and dead leaves that were once just in the background covering up the main development, I could see that all the stocks we were cutting were all attached to a main bulb. This one bulb had produced so many other stems that we were simply thinning it. The chances that were being eliminated were not just individuals, but together part of one being. We were thinning the crowded stocks from consuming all the resources and concentrating the energy to the healthiest stocks to make the prettiest flowers. And because they are heirloom flowers, and just happen to be in our garden, we want to help the plant flourish in a controlled manner in order to produce the qualities we desire, and there's nothing wrong with that. It was absolutely the first time in a long time those beautiful rose bushes got the care and attention they deserve. And with all the benefits that come with owning heirloom roses, including seeing and smelling their beautiful flowers, they have equally as much maintenance needed. I was very pleased with the outcome and very thankful that I was able to be a part of their care. In the end this plant will live on much healthier to be enjoyed for years by many.

Before:

Before pruning

After:

After pruning

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The Sex Life of Naked Pumpkins--Part Two, by Helen Gabel

2/22/2019

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We investigated the process for breeding naked pumpkins from Patricia's seeds. The hopeful farmer identifies a number of about-to-open blossoms and tapes them shut on the evening before they will open.

Then, early the next morning, the farmer untapes the blossoms. She rubs the pollen from the male rod onto the female basket. If there are several candidate male blossoms, she uses them all. The more pollen the better!

Then the female blossom is taped tight again to prevent any further bee helpers from carrying in wayward genetic material.

This last year a local artist, Lou Cabeen, came out to help us. She tied a red-threaded chastity-belt onto our fertilized female blossoms.

The blossom is tagged so that if a fruit sets, the farmer knows to save those seeds for planting the following year. Luckily, one carefully fertilized pumpkin in both 2017 and 2018 "set."

Our vines produced many more pumpkins, but those fruits may or may not have been pollinated by other naked pumpkins. So we have enjoyed eating them, but haven't counted on them to grow next year's crop.
The mature pumpkin with its naked seeds looks like this, ready to make into a delicious soup.

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The Sex Life of Naked Pumpkins--Part One, by Helen Gabel

2/21/2019

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In 2016 Patricia was given some seeds from an heirloom Eastern European pumpkin, one whose seeds lack an outer shell. Thus they are known as "hull-less" or "naked" pumpkins. The seeds can be eaten directly, without roasting or shell-cracking, and are high in protein and other nutrients. So, of course, we wanted to grow more of them!

However, getting squash (pumpkins are a variety of squash) to "breed true" is a tricky process. Their flowers are flamboyant and attractive to pollinators. How does one prevent an industrious little bee that has just visited a zucchini plant from carrying zucchini pollen over to our naked pumpkins? And you can't tell from the fruit whether or not the seeds will make new naked pumpkins. You have to do your best to ensure that the right kind of pollen meets the right kind of blossom and then wait a full year to see if those seeds produce the kind of squash you want.

The first step is to identify a male flower that is about to open, and a female flower that is about to open. The female flowers have a miniature teeny tiny fruit at their base, and grow further out on the vines. This is a photo of a female zucchini blossom starting to open:

The male flowers lack the mini-fruit and grow from the middle of the plant. This is a photo of a male zucchini blossom:

Inside, the male blossom will have a little rod full of pollen at its base, and the female blossom will have a little basket at its base.

Naked pumpkin male blossom

Naked pumpkin female blossom

The squash plant makes several male blossoms before it puts out a female blossom, perhaps to get the local pollinators used to visiting this particular neighborhood. The farmer's job is going to be outwitting those busy insects.

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ROSES at Songaia by Laura Klepfer, Piglet/Biogaian/Community Member

1/31/2019

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Yesterday, Laura and Mary met with John Harmelling from the Seattle Rose Society. He has been tending roses for 40 years. He also knows the woman who gifted us our rose collection! Nancy came by to let him know about Fred's involvement in the initial acceptance and planting of the roses and to ask if Rose Lee (the woman who gave us the roses) is still around. She is, and is still giving talks at the Rose Society. Perhaps at the height of bloom time we can invite her out for a little appreciation and perhaps even hear her story of the donation. Perhaps a thank you gift of some kind?

I digress. John gave us excellent advice. He shared his deep knowledge of pruning, had watering advice, showed us his favorite tools for pruning, suggested fertilization products and let us know what he is willing to do. He will come for 1 1/2 hours to do a pruning Demonstration. I will also be proposing to the Biogaians the possibility of hiring him to do a few of the older plants of distinct types. We may want to have him come back at the end of June as we learned that some of our plants need to be pruned again betwween the time the blossoms are done and the hips are formed.

The most important thing that came out of our meeting is a date for him to come out and give a pruning demonstration and kick off our Pruning Party!
You will hear more about this soon, but mark your calendar's. The event will happen on Saturday, February 23rd starting at 10:00.

May your love of growing be ignited by the Spring,
Laura

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An intimacy with place, By Anita Higgins, Garden Steward

1/28/2019

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Wow, Dear Community, it’s been a while since I have shared with you in this way. I miss it. In addition to not making the time to do it, I have felt some sort of blockage on my voice since accepting the position of Garden Steward here. But I think it’s really important that I flesh out that blockage. Writing plays such a huge role in my own mental clarity, and I know it can be a way of connecting with the community that allows for a deeper look into a person’s thought processes and intentions. Thank you for reading.

I want to start with a story. As some of you may know, I am currently working on a Stewardship Plan for the Songaia forest, with support from the Biogaians, knowledgeable community members, WSU Forestry Extension, and the Outdoor Wellness Club at the University of Washington. It feels really good to be applying what I learned while studying ecology and ecosystem restoration at UW Bothell, especially in service to all you sweet people and to this piece of land that I have been cultivating an intimacy with.

As most of you have probably felt in one way or another, creating a plan to care for our beloved forest is overwhelming. There are so many aspects to consider, from laminated root rot, to vulnerable new plantings, to liability, to our diversity of misplaced (non-native) species, to the increased habitat fragmentation due to development, to the changing climate. How do we responsibly steward a remnant forest surrounded on all sides by human development? Most days I’m able to step back from that overwhelm and look at it-- watching it pass by me, but not letting it color my days. Some days it consumes me. Earlier this month, the forest made an appearance in my dreams.

I woke up in a place that wasn’t my home, but I recognized must have been. It felt like home. Unit 10. I heard the wind ripping past my window. A mighty Pacific Northwest windstorm was moving through and had been since earlier that morning. I looked out the window to the north and saw huge Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) trees crashing down in the Crestmont development, flattening fences. In the flash of a panicked thought, I was outside, standing at the base of Spring Hill. The forest was gone.

All but ten trees had fallen throughout the night. Not only had the trees fallen, they had disappeared. It looked like Weyerhauser had come through and hauled all the trees away, leaving a tangle of dry and mangled organic matter around the stumps that dotted the hillside. I saw a group of people and pickup trucks up on the utility easement. In the flash of another thought, I was at the top of Spring Hill. I observed these people, who I recognized as owners of the houses in the surrounding developments, chopping the trees into rounds and taking them away in their trucks. Most of them just seemed like they were doing it mindlessly, like--why wouldn’t we do this? I somehow knew what to do.

Holding back my outrage and grief, I approached the people from the developments and asked them if they would circle up. I wanted to welcome them and ask them some questions. They did so, with the exception of one middle-aged white man who continued to load his truck. He was red-in-the-face, radiating anger and a masked desperation that came out as a determination to get his share. Once he noticed that everyone else had circled up, he joined, grumbling.

As we circled, my dear friend, soul-bud, feather friend Joey Crotty appeared. Playing off of one another, he and I asked these people a series of questions, ranging from the practical to the philosophical.
“You all have been neighbors of this forest. What did this forest mean to you before it fell? Did you notice it? Did you ever enter it? Did you know it was ailing?”
“Why are you taking these trees away? What have you to gain? What need are you trying to meet? What do you really need? What is it like to be you?”
Round and round the questions went, their answers knitting us together--humanity shining out the eyes of each person, awake in the world and seeing each other.

Hayra came. And as we turned to look at the denuded hillside, the dream ended with deep belly sobs. In the glow of this freshly woven human community, we felt the grief of the remaining Douglas fir trees, who had just lost the better part of the community they had known. We felt their grief as our own, knowing somehow that our well-being was tied to the well-being of this remnant forest stand.

〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰〰

Do you ever have those dreams that linger? They stick with you for days after you’ve had them, begging to be remembered, or told, or interpreted? This dream lingered for days after I had it, and I am still grateful every time I see the forest standing.

This week I started the online WSU Extension Forestry course, which will aid in the creation of a stewardship plan for the forest. The course aims to help the student prepare a plan for the forest they steward that will meet the state qualifications, allowing them to apply for conservation grants, tax cuts, and to register as a sustainably managed forest. Northwest Washington State certified forester, Boyd Norton, will be paying Songaia a visit (day/time TBD--will keep folks posted) and will spend time assessing forest health, looking at liability concerns, and recommending a course of action for our unique situation.

Through the work that will go into this plan, we will be cultivating a deeper intimacy with the Songaia forest, getting to know the forest and its place in the greater region through different lenses. Through my college studies, I learned a scientific way of knowing and seeing the world. Careful observation, applied theory, and controlled experimentation can allow for an intimacy with place that is quantifiable. We can learn what percent of our conifers are susceptible to laminated root rot, how much carbon the forest sequesters each year, how much water it helps to hold in the landscape. We can calculate the percent coverage of Himalayan blackberry (Rubus armeniacus) we have on the edges of the forest, assess the wildlife population, or determine the percent canopy cover change over time. All of these would help us to cultivate a quantifiable intimacy with place.

And while this quantifiable intimacy is no doubt important, there are other lenses through which we also need to look in order to holistically approach the stewardship of our forest, and to create a plan that feels truly and organically sustainable to us. There is an intimacy which is not so easily quantified--an intimacy that comes from years of interacting with a place. From this intimacy, culture is born--language, song, myth, and story. And through culture, truly sustainable systems of stewardship can come into being, in which humans see their functional role in an ecosystem.

This is why I wanted to start with story, and why I am now calling on you, dear community. Story plays such a central role in the formation of culture, and the culture that I encountered when I was an intern, and that continues to emerge at Songaia, is no exception. My requests are twofold:

- First, I request that over the next month, if you have a story of the forest that you put it in writing and send it to me. I already have a few stories of the forest collected (from ROPJ folks, for example), but I know many of you have stories borne from your intimacy with this land, some of which go back to the beginning of Songaia. I have heard stirrings of a "Songaia: The Second Decade" book, and this collection of stories would undoubtedly be a treasured addition.

-Second, I ask you to come to the Forest Stewardship discussion I am holding in two weeks, after breakfast on February 9th from 9:30-11:30 am in the dining room. We will share some of these stories, and have structured space for voicing concerns, ideas, and visions of a thriving Songaia forest. You will play an active role in the creation of the "Land-owner objectives" portion of the forest stewardship plan.

Let me know if you have any questions, or if you want to become more deeply involved.

Much love,

Anita

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Superheroes, by Winter Intern Ian Thompson 1-8-2019

1/11/2019

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On Tuesdays, piglet meetings are normally a big deal, and today was no exception. Helen, and I, along with Brent and Nura all joined alongside the round table; Anita was there to lead the discussion.

The weather outside was grey and soggy, but it didn’t hold back our energy, and there was lots to be done. We all sat as equals, and discussed where our energy was in, these early days of 2019. Some of us were investing energy for traveling abroad, and some were investing in change from within.

Suddenly, in walks our good friend Laura, who had just arrived back home the night before. Alas, the gang was all there. We convened over tea discussing the tasks that lay before us. It seems that Songaia associate and long time friend of the community, Bay, had donated lots and lots of canning jars! This means someone had to take on the daunting task of actually organizing the dreaded canning closet. It would be no easy task. Secondly, the Happy Greenhouse needed some attention too, because February is coming fast and we needed that space to be organized and ready to use. The squad decided to split up and tackle these issues in two teams. Nura, Helen and I were to organize the greenhouse while Anita, Laura and Brent tackled the canning closet.

It was truly a daunting sight seeing Brent load several carts filled with jars, when the closet was already full and completely out of order. It took hours and hours of works and several people to complete, but you best believe we all got the job done. The greenhouse was the first, but the dustiest, to be completed. The canning closet, however, took vastly more effort. A big shout-out goes to all who helped, we’re like real life superheroes, especially when we all unite as one to fight for good. Go piglets!