The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Catching rain water and rooting willows

IBC rain barrel

Mark's words of wisdom: "Build a rain barrel; call a drought."

Sure enough, once our IBC-tank rain barrel was ready to test...it stopped raining. We used up the few inches of water in the bottom pretty quickly, and then we had to run a hose to the mushroom area to irrigate using water that began in the creek. Not a huge deal, but it would be nicer to use straight rainwater with no electric pump as a middle man.

So I was thrilled when the tank started to fill back up! We haven't had enough precipitation yet to fully test our tank supports, but I hear it's drying up in Texas and thus might be getting wetter here again. (My weather guru says these events actually are linked.) Mark tells me he likes it dry, though, so maybe he'll build another rain barrel to slow the shift in weather down.

Growing willow cutting

Meanwhile, the willow cuttings I stuck into the ground near the mushroom area (in the wettest part of our core homestead) all rooted with alacrity. They're growing so quickly now that I probably need to start training them to one trunk so I can begin to weave with the living wands. What fun!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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After record setting cold and snow and a late spring, we had the hottest and driest May on record here (all the spinach bolted about the time it was big enough to harvest) and now when it is time to plant the corn and sweet potatoes, we have dipped back into the low 40s. Ah, such is life.

What kind of willows are they, and what do you plan to weave?

Ps. I am picking up two little goaties tomorrow! Soooo excited. (Just had to tell SOMEbody.)😊

Comment by Deb Tue Jun 2 18:30:40 2015
is there anyway you could find time to improve the bad areas your road while it is dry, instad of waiting till truck gets buried for months?
Comment by ralph Tue Jun 2 21:10:54 2015





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