Class: Week One

Tuesday: Orientation and Introductions


The class opened up the way most classes do - with students milling nervously, some awkwardly, mingling with the other nervous, awkward students in the air thick with potential.  We are informed that class will meet in the Outdoor Classroom and that our journey there will be in silence until the interns, graduates of this class last year, light a friction fire to start the day.  We made the trek of a couple minutes, all backpacks and summer tans, some outfitted to the teeth in woods camouflage, many others in the barest threads of clothing, soaking up the unusually warm and sunny end of season.
     The ODC is a gazebo-like structure, only instead of walls there are benches, instead of flooring there is a fire pit and log stools, and the roof has a smoke hole among the sky lights.  We crowded in, almost 40 students and 10 interns and instructors.  It was tight but cozy, not uncomfortable.  In silence, two of the interns started a fire with a bow drill.  This fire blazed hot and high, perhaps more dramatic than intended, but impressive nonetheless. PS: Gordon was not present for any of this.
     We started this day (and all those to come after) by Bringing our Minds Together.  This was done with the Words Before All Else.  This is a universal thank-giving that begins with the smallest of the small and ends with the largest of the large (before entering into the unnamable all).  We were taken from the air we breathe and the waters we drink to the plants and animals to the sun and moon and beyond then back again.  Then came naming.
     We each shared our story, as brief or long as we pleased, in terms of Why We Are Here.  Then we picked a name out of a hat.  This name was to be the first thing we researched, learned from, and got to know intimately.  It could be taken as our name, if we identified with it.  The sharing of almost 50 people takes a while.  What I was impressed with the most was the genuine reflection most seemed to give this normally banal part of class beginning.  After speaking my piece, I picked a name that made me laugh on the spot.  I thought it was a bird, but I have found out that it is not.  Blue-eyed Darner.  I found them a couple days later, and I think I like them a lot.  
     When the naming and sharing was almost finished, one of the instructors (who is also a house-mate of mine), asked us if we had heard a Frog on the roof.  I should mention at this point that throughout the entirety of the proceedings thus far my attention had been split.  I knew that Gordon was nowhere to be seen, but that he was surely nearby.  There had been one point during the naming that I had heard a sound on the roof.  I had thought it possible he was up there, but heard nothing more.  So, when Steve asked, "Has anyone heard a Frog up on the roof?" I spoke up immediately, "I thought so!" as everyone looked at each other or Steve with vague uncertainty.  (In retrospect I should have left that moment silent for greater effect.)  Then came loud, clomping footsteps across the roof and down fell the shadow of a gray hoodie and a camoflaged face.  Off came the hood and there was Frog, introducing himself as one of the students from last year who had specialized in scouting.  The rest of the day was spent learning our smaller group's members and touring the grounds in our small groups, which we will keep to often for the rest of the year.  It all took a while, and as far as first days of class go, it was a good one.  The day ended with us Bringing our Minds Apart, where we reflected on how we started the day and brought the energy full circle.  


Wednesday: Introduction to Naturalist Skills


When I was in 10th grade, my biology teacher gave us the Alien Test.  It is a series of identification questions that would be logical for an Alien to ask you if they came to you seeking an explanation for the various species on Earth.  The questions are actually all pictures of animals, field examples of plants, and a few sound clips.  I remember doing terribly on this test in high school (as did almost all my peers) and being told by my teacher that we must surely all be aliens to know so little about our surroundings.  The outcome of this go 'round was a little bit better, but not a lot.  I broke 50% on the animal portion and almost 20% on the plant section.  Granted, these were all Washington native plants, which I feel slightly reasonable in not knowing very well at this point.  I can tell you that I know them a lot better in the few days since taking this embarassing test.  The funny thing about the Alien Test that I took in high school(and here) is this:  it was created by John Young, who helped create the school where Jason Knight (the director and co-founder of Alderleaf) learned and taught for years.  It is amusing to me that I am interacting with the same lineage of knoweldge years later in vastly different circumstances.
     After lunch we learned the basics of plant identification and prepared to begin our Plant Inventories, a process I will describe in detail a little later (after I've started mine tonight or tomorrow).  Then we went out to look for our Sit Spots.  The Sit Spot is the focus of a program like this.  Instead of concentrating on a wide range of knowledge and going only so deep, by sitting in the same spot a few times a week (or even every day), one learns intimately that area and everything in it.  The trade is quality over quantity.  
     By sitting in one place for at least 40 minutes at a stretch, the land is allowed to come back alive and out of the hiding that occurs whenever a human tromps through.  That pretty bird singing as you walk down the woodland path?  It is telling everyone in earshot that there is a THREAT on the ground moving around loudly and unpredictably.  That cute squirel chirruping away in the tree as it flicks its tail?  Same thing.  By sitting still those alarming animals are allowed to come to rest and the forest (or meadow or mountaintop or mudflat) slowly comes back into itself, back to baseline.  This is the way to witness the world as it is moving, just outside our peripherals, all the time.  Slow down and become part of the landscape.  Put in the time and the animals will get to know you.  There are incredibly inspiring stories from those who have given their sit spot enough time.  I wait with expectant patience.  Thus far my times at my sit spot have been peaceful above all else, but each visit yields at worst a single new insight, and, even better, ten more questions.  
     The best place for Sit Spots are places away from human activity if possible, on the edge of habitats, where there is like to be more diversity and activity, and most importantly (yes, MOST), easily accessible.  If you won't go there frequently, it doesn't matter if it is in the most magical place on the planet.  For a great introduction to viewing your boring back yard as a phenomenon outside your imaginings, check out, Tom Brown's Field Guide to the Forgotten Wilderness.  It's about your yard.  It's as worthy a spot as any if you'll simply go there.  
     I will talk about my sit spot a lot in the time to come, so I'll spare an elaborate description of it here other than to say that it is full of moss-covered hummocks which I like to lay on and is criss-crossed by fallen trees that form a highway anywhere from two to ten feet above the ground.  Ferns, huckleberries, and salmonberries abound, nestled into the undulating moss carpet.  This place is beautiful.


Interlude:  Life on the Farm


By living on the farm I am being afforded some unique opportunities that I wouldn't have if I were a commuter.  Today, for instance, I fed the chickens and earned a share of their egg output.  Likewise, for garden work.  Sometimes, though, the opportunities come unasked for, and very unexpected.
     Before class began on Wednesday, there came word that a fawn had been hit and killed on the road very close to school.  Because it would be used for education, an instructor was legally allowed to collect it and use it for demonstration.  That evening after almost everyone had left, a few of us helped (I helped mostly by watching) in the skinning, gutting, and butchering of the young deer.  It was altogether a bizarre experience from start to finish, and left my instructor housemate covered in blood almost everywhere.  I am glad to be surrounded by such interested and capable people.  I watched with a mixture of amusement, awe, and horror, as my friend and housemate squelched her hands into the severed head cavity to pull out, bit by pulverized bit, brains for tanning the hide.  The brains are an incredible variety of colors, by the way, a mess of pinks, reds, whites, and anything else gory you can think of.  With very little exception, all of the animal was used, from sinew to spine.  This is extracurricular activity around here.


Thursday:  Introduction to Wilderness Survival


This was a cool day.  We began with the theory of shelter building and some of the fundamentals of wilderness survival.  Shelter, water, and fire are infinitely more important than food.  Staying warm, hydrated, and safe is the priority.  After an hour or so of information, we went to the woods to be taught how to build a shelter.  Practically speaking, shelter building should be limited to situations of need, I think.  The amount of debris that it took to make two shelters that could house a total of five people left the better part of 3000 square feet pretty bare of leaf litter and dead fern fronds.  The result was impressive.  The shelters are sturdy and would insulate individuals well for many nights.  Once the process began, however, so many of us were scavenging for debris that few got the chance to really have a hand in the creation.  There were just too many of us, and not enough land for everyone to make a shelter at the same time in the same place.  
     In the afternoon we moved on to fire.  We went out to look for our bow, a piece of sturdy wood about arm-length with a slight curve and diameter around 1 1/2".  We strung twine between the two ends and wrapped a spindle(that we carved from red ceder) in the string.  Working that spindle back and forth vertically between two pieces of wood(one hard oak, the other the softer red ceder) fast enough creates friction enough to create a coal.  That coal is then gently tipped into a tinder bundle which, if blowed upon lovingly, spurs to flame.  This works easily for some, and not at all for others.  I was lucky and fortunate and made fire three times.  Between my first and second fires, though, I had an interesting sidetrack.  


Segueway:  Blue-eyed Darner


After my first sucessful fire I was counselled to start Wilding my fire kit, by replacing some of the provided materials with those that I find myself.  So I wandered into the forest looking for a piece of oak.  What I found was the little pond to the right of the South Trail.  It caught my eye with twitches of movement across the water.  They were too big and sinuous to be appropriate for the normal water skimmers, but as I crept closer I could not find their cause.  Then I saw it, a snake, about two feet long and quite thin, weaving back and forth, seeming to chase large tadpoles.  I was rapt, seeing this snake swim around and around.  I'd only ever seen a snake in water a few times before, and never so close.  
     As I crouched, I saw there were many dragonflies buzzing about, chasing flies and dipping in and out of exposed root crevices.  I knew at once what they were: Blue-eyed Darners.  Their blue eyes glow and their bodies radiate color in segments that look like black and blue tie dye.  Exactly like tiedye.  Of course.  I let them flutter around my unmoving form before I saw another snake in the water.  I eased out onto a log in the water and found to my amusement a third snake poking from under a submerged root.  Only the inch or so behind its head was out of the water.  It was like a new grass shoot, bobbing expectantly in the pond.  I almost fell off the log laughing at it.  
     In the end I did not find my piece of oak.  I did catch the attention of a passing student, who I had remembered mentioned missing his snakes back home.  He and I shared a good piece watching the garders spinning their ripples about.  That student then showed me the moss (right next to me) that I could use as a tinder bundle all by itself.  Fire kit Wilding: 1/3 complete!


Potluck:


Thursday nights, all year long, are potluck nights.  I made a demonslayer salad (constituting either 10 or more ingredients or at least 5 avocadoes.  I went the avocado route this time) and was not disapointed in the spread.  Everyone brought amazing things, not least of all was the liver and heart of the fawn we had come by the day before.  I ate a small piece of the liver, and it felt good.  The festivities devolved into a riot of clothes-pinning (as a lot of the new students became aware of the game for the first time as they discovered themselves to be pinned) and a lot of musical jamming.  There is a lot of joyous culture here to be shared in.  


Friday:  Workday


Every friday is Farm Project Day, where we work to actualize the permaculture vision of this farm.  This time I worked in weeding a bed and preparing it for our winter crops, mostly brassicas.  The other team worked on splitting firewood.  More on this as I become more familiar with the Permactulture in action here.  I know that the brain-squishing girl is the kitchen right this moment working, as ever, on canning of the fresh peaches from our trees.  She's been in here working so long on it.  I'll find my domestic stride around November, I expect.  


After lunch Gordon and I hopped in the bug and zoomed down to Olympia to visit a friend, but while there were many adventures to be had there, I don't think they need to trouble these tired fingers today.  I have resolved to not let a whole week of class pile up at once, now.  Pictures to follow, too.  Love to you all.