Living Primitively

Since I got help clearing away all the windfelled trees around the house of my smallholding I have started working on the forest garden I wish to establish there.

I’ll tell you a bit about my goals in general with my forest gardening, why the previous forest garden I started is not doing particularily well and what changes I have done to this one.

My goal with forest gardening is to create a system that requires very little energy to maintain and expand, giving a fair variety of plants to add to the wild diet, sheer calories being more important than nutritive foods, which are already present. Per hectare productivity is less interesting to me, since the size of the area available is not a limiting factor. Because of this, it is at least as important to me to improve habitat for game species. I will try to focus plant species around locations where I’d otherwise be during harvesting time exploiting other resources like game and fish.

No native species will be eradicated, only their proportional occurence changed.

My strategy for achieving this is:

• Clearcutting small patches of spruce forest, planting in oaks, siberian pine and hazel. These produce lots of calories in the long run and provides plenty of food for wildlife species that are desirable to me (like squirrels). Oaks also improves the soil greatly.
• Planting hardy, preferably native and easily propagatable plants. For instance: The local varieties of sour, sweet cherry and plum sucker freely and can be divided with success at most times. Same is true with the local Ribes species.
• Give very little attention to the herbaceous layer, since there already is a number of very good plants growing wild in the area and which may spread if the soil improves. Will mainly introduce comfrey and nitrogen fixers.
• Burning the ground (meadows and some forest types) to shift the species mix and rejuvenate the vegetation. As of yet my experiments with burning vegetation seems to favour plants which are quite productive, such as valerian (seeds) and angelica (greens and root). But I’ll know for sure in a few months.
• Graft domestic apple on wild rowan shoots and plums/cherries onto bird cherry. It is too early to tell whether my experiments this spring were successful. I am also competely inexperienced in grafting, so I will not write off these combinations even if the grafts this year seem not to take.
• Spreading plants marginalised by centuries of overgrazing and senseless management. For example elm, maple, linden and ash. These are all favourable to wildlife and improves soil conditions more than the currently dominating spruce.

In my previous forest garden I thinned a predominately birch dominated forest to bring in more light to the cherries, plums, currants and herbs I planted below. I thinned the forest too little and the cherries have died from the competition. The plums and the currants look alright and will probably survive if I thin the trees out yet a little more. The young hazel bush that was already there has however benefited from my activity.

In the site of the smallholding itself quite a number of very good food species are already existant, but their proportion is not so useful and their interaction is more one of competition rather than mutual support.

The fallen spruces on the site has acidified the soil and provided excellent habitat for rampant spreading of wild raspberry and hops. This has killed one of the 5 existing sour cherries and significantly damaged two others. The situation has been taken care of now, through removing the felled trees and the branches and sheet mulching the area were the problem was the greatest. To improve the recovery of the surviving currants and cherries, sheep manure and shell sand was spread on the ground before the sheets were laid on. A few raspberry and hop plants were left to survive, the dead cherry was left for the hops to climb on.

Highly beneficial plants for human use already on the site:

• Sour cherry
• Red currant
• Blueberry
• Grey willow
• White birch
• Wild strawberry
• Wild raspberry
• Hops
• Angelica

Plants I have introduced to the site:

• Siberian pine (has sprouted, but further growth will not be appearant for a year or two)
• Sweet cherry
• Lovage
• Rhubarb
• Blue lupine (yet to see whether it has sprouted)
• White clover (yet to see whether it has sprouted)
• Stinging nettle
• Potato
• Quamash (yet to see whether it has sprouted)
• Burdock (yet to see whether it has sprouted)
• Comfrey (yet to see whether it has sprouted)

Although it isn’t strictly necessary and since I have manure available I have planted in a very tradtional way. I make a hole several times the size of the roots of the tree, both depth and width. Then I packed a thick layer of manure in the bottom, made a packed layer of earth above there and then planted the tree the regular way. Then I watered the soil to complete saturation in order to take out any air pockets. This method will appearantly ensure good rooting and early growth.

I was informed by my father that the traditional way of planting potatoes in the area was to spade up the turf and plant the potatoes underneath the turf. Being somewhat worried about a potential weed problem with this method I did some modifications. I turned the turf upside down and piled some half rotten branches, manure and shell sand underneath, then watered heavily as with planting the trees. On the surface I sowed the seeds of white clover to hopefully work as a living, nitrogen fixing mulch. The propagation beds were done in the same way.

It is worth noting that I haven’t been to the site for over 3 weeks now, so I have no idea how things are developing right now. I’ll update on it further when I get back home.

I´m getting things ready to head out into the woods. For probably most of this coming summer I´ll be immersed in the woods with a small group of people. That also means that I won´t be posting here, since there will be no computers available. If you´re interested in reading about the immersion, there´ll be a blog about it at

http://teachingdrum.org/intothewoods/

which will be updated sporadically with writings, pictures or sound recordings thanks to some people who will transcribe and post the material for us primitives.

The lakes around here still have a layer of ice, soon they will look like this…

It´s been great sharing here, and I´ll probably continue doing so once I get back from the immersion in the fall.

Enjoy the spring/summer!

Thomas

This year, spring and winter seem to be switching back and forth a lot in the Northwoods…

Here are some pictures from a trip I recently took to a remote wilderness area. The picture above shows a natural grassy meadow on the floodplain of a creek.

Grassy knolls are the first to thaw up in the sunlight. The creek is still frozen over.

A beaver colony that ran out of food took advantage of an open creek and started cutting some new vegetation.

This spot seems to be a popular site for an otter. I observed her as she came up out of the waterhole, wallowing herself in the snow on the other side of the creek and basking in the sunlight. Otters are very playful creatures and fun to watch. Upon closer examination I also found that this spot was also used as an “otter toilet” with some of the scat dating back to earlier in the winter.

With warming temperatures the last of the snow melted off and the lakes started thawing up.

A few days later…snow covers the ground again, and it keeps snowing. Yet the creek shown here was open enough to be paddled.

With the approaching spring, I´ll be immersed in the woods with a few other people. My plan is to be there for most of the summer (not being around computers etc. for that time) so updates will be very sporadic (if i find someone to post them for me) or not happening till later this summer.

I decided to split the winter clothing post into two different sections for better readability…so here´s the second part, winter head wear.

This brain-tanned beaver hat is very comfortable and warm under most circumstances. It consists of a circular top piece and a long, rectangular section of fur (in this case, two short ones sewn together) that forms the side.

A look at the inside shows part of the stiching around the round top piece. I make the side section extra wide so that it can be folded inside and easily adjusted as needed. That way the ears can be completely covered during a snow storm, or kept free in other conditions for better hearing.

I found an article in Wilderness Way magazine called “Making a Winter Hat from Beaver Pelt” (Volume 2 Issue 2) that uses the same basic pattern, and since then I´m using a baseball stich for this type of sewing. I used artificial sinew as a thread.

When there is a lot of precipitation or I move through brushy area with a lot of snow on the branches I like to use this simple coyote fur hood. Its weight keeps it from slipping off, and it nicely overlaps the neck and shoulder area of the parka to keep snow from falling in (and melting down the back…not the most “pleasant” feeling). The hood consists of two pelt pieces sewn together along the centerline. Again, it´s a simple whip stich that does the job, whereas the “thread” is a buckskin thong (since coyote pelts are so thin, I prefer to use buckskin lacings over thinner threads such as (artificial) sinew since it tends to tear less through the hide).

Northwoods winters can sometimes be unpredictable. Until recently almost all the snow melted away – then, a couple of days ago, a snowstorm moved through and brought several inches of snow with it, along with more winterly temperatures…

It´s time to put on some winter gear again.

It rarely gets very cold (-30F or below) around here these days, but we get periodic thaws almost every winter. Most winter days fall between that temperature range, so an Inuit-style parka would be overkill much of the time.

My equipment of choice during cold conditions consists of a coyote fur parka, fur leggins and a beaver hat. I chose coyote pelts because of their insulative value, light weight, and easy avalability (many people here hunt and trap coyotes, yet they still seem to maintain a thriving population). Pre-contact Natives of this area most likely used woodland caribou (which are now extinct here) for a lot of their winter clothing, much like many of the subarctic tribes did.

Rear view of winter outfit. Notice how the parka shingles over the leggins – shingling layers is an important part of keeping body heat from escaping. The footwear is buckskin mukluks with canvas uppers. Part of the rear flap of the loincloth can be seen between the leggins.

Coyote pelts – like a number of other pelts – do have a distinct advantage over caribou or deer hides: They shed a lot less hair and therefore last much longer. Most tribes that used caribou skins for winter clothing made a new set of clothing every winter or two. In contrast, pelts can last for years (if they´re taken care of) without much wear. The picture above shows a caribou parka I made a few years ago which lasted about one winter before most of the hairs were worn off…

Now compare that to the coyote parka which has been used on a daily basis for more than one winter.

The parka spread out with the inside up. It consists of  a front and rear panel (1 brain-tanned coyote pelt each), with side-flaps (half a pelt for each) sewn to both sides of the rear flap. Front and rear flap are sewn together at the shoulder/neck area, with a circular opening cut out for the head. The sleeves (1 pelt each) are attached at the shoulders with the armpits left open – this prevents excessive buildup of sweat. In warm weather, the parka can just be left dangling from the shoulders (much like a poncho). Since the armpits are open, it´s easy to put the sleeves on or off in this position. For more insulation, the side flaps can be tied together over the front panel (see tying strigs on the side flaps in the picture above) – this way all the exposed areas get closed up.

For this parka I used no patterns; measurements were done by eye and by temporarily sewing the parka in a few spots to test & adjust.

All the stiches on the parka are simple whip stiches with buckskin thongs as shown in the picture above. Coyote pelts are quite thin (which makes them fairly easy to tan) and yet strong and durable, so I wasn´t too concerned with elaborate stiching. After a season of heavy use I noticed though that the seams in the areas with a lot of stress/tension (such as where the sleeves are attached to the main body of the parka) had ripped in some spots. I reenforced those areas with a welt to lessen the tension on the seams.

For an excellent article on making a fur parka of a similar design I recommend the article “Make your own Fur Parka” by Tamarack Song, Wilderness Way Volume 15 Issue 1. Unfortunately the magazine is no longer being published but you may find a used copy somewhere.

Coyote fur leggins. Each leg cosists of two pelts sewn into tubes which overlap in the knee area. Because of the amout of streching that happens in that area, I only sewed the pelts in the back and to the side of the knee, with the upper pelt overlapping the lower one in front of the knee.

I find that fur is usually too bulky and too warm for a loincloth (unless the hair is very short), so I decided to use a buckskin loincloth with a back flap of fur (folded under the buckskin section in the picture above and therefore not visible). Since the fur from the leggins already covers most of the hip and thigh area and the parka overlaps the upper part of the leggins, I haven´t noticed any drafts or coldspots with this design (which can sometimes be an issue with a leggins and loincloth combination). The back flap provides an instant insulating cushion for sitting down wherever one desires. The upper outer edge of each leggin is folded over and sewn so that a belt can pass through to hold up the leggins and loincloth. As with the parka, all stiches are whip stiches made with buckskin thong and a buckskin welt for reenforcement.

There is one downside to the leggins: Unless the temperature is 0F (-17C) or lower they´re simply too warm…

As usual, I welcome any thoughts, questions, suggestions…if you made some of your own winter gear, I´d love to hear about how it´s been working for you and what you discovered in the process!