Living Lighter on the Land

This Blog is moving to a new URL

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 19:52:00 +0000

Living Lighter on the Land will no longer be housed here at this web address. The new blog will be located on the official website of the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy, where you can continue to read about off-grid living, organic gardening, habitat management, natural history, conservation and all tenants of Living Lighter on the Land. Here is the direct link to the blog's new location.

Please update your bookmarks to correspond with this transition. There will be no more post at this address. Thanks and happy reading.

Biodiversity and disease risk

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:05:00 +0000

Lets think of all the mammals that currently inhabit Pound Ridge, NY: chipmunk, grey squirrel, mice, vole, groundhogs, moles, opossum, cottontail rabbit, raccoon, red fox, gray fox, bobcat, mink, white tailed deer, bats, coyote and bear. Now think of the additional mammals that were here before the eastern forests were cut down: there were mountain lion, wolf, porcupines, beaver, woodland elk and weasels of all sizes. When you stop to list them all, this diversity seems impressive. It should be obvious this wildlife diversity varies greatly from place to place and depends on the presence of suitable habitat.

Consider our Lower Hudson/ Southern New England/ NY Metro region and all of the landscape pieces that make it up. We have cities, state parks, county parks, small lot suburbs, large lot suburbs, farms of all sizes, pasture, orchards, wooded wetlands, lakes, ponds, rives, stream, town centers, tree farms, and (thanks to groups like PRLC) small nature preserves. As you can see, there are a lot of different places for our mammals to live and each of these landscape pieces support a unique diversity of mammals.
For example, the diversity of mammals in Van Cortland Park is expected to be lower than that in Ward Pound Ridge Reservation. Certain mammals need large tracts of land on which to roam (bobcat, for example), while other animals do fine in a heavily fragmented suburban setting (such as the white footed mouse).

Here is the $64,000 question: does a place's diversity affect how that place functions? For years Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies has been asking this question. Specifically, Dr. Ostfeld studies the ecological components that contribute to Lyme disease risk across the tri-state region. His findings are shocking! In a nutshell, here is what he has concluded:

First, a bit of background:

Back legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) carry a spirochete (Borrelia burgdorfii) which, when entered into humans through a bite, causes Lyme disease. These ticks are not born with the spirochete, they must pick it up from a vertebrate (commonly a bird or mammal) during a blood meal. The animal that initially gives the spirochete to the tick is called a reservoir. Just stop here for a second. This is an important piece to understand. Without the reservoirs, ticks in Pound Ridge wouldn't carry the spirochete that causes Lyme disease. It is the reservoirs that keep infecting new generations of ticks with the infectious spirochete.

Now on to Dr. Ostfeld's research. He has found that:
1) Not all potential reservoirs are equally good at giving the spirochete to ticks. Specifically, ticks that feed on white footed mice are very likely to obtain the spirochete during their blood meal, whereas ticks on opossum are much less likely to obtain the spirochete. (*The reason behind this is not totally understood but it likely has to do with the reservoir's immune system*). This means that we would be better off with less mice and more opossums. There's more.

This cartoon shows the differences between two disease reservoirs

2) Reservoirs vary in the amount of ticks that they carry. Specifically, the average mouse carries roughly 50 ticks whereas the average squirrel carries roughly 150.

3) Reservoirs vary in the amount of ticks that they remove from their body. Specifically, mice remove far fewer ticks from their body than opossums.

A white footed mouse with an ear full of ticks

4) A tick's chances of surviving the winter (an important component of their life cycle and therefore, disease transmission) depends on where it obtained its pre-winter blood meal. Specifically, mice-fed ticks survive the winter better than opossum and squirrel-fed ticks.

From these findings we begin to realize that it matters very much which animal an uninfected tick feeds on. Now on to the question of diversity. If it matters which animals an uninfected tick feeds on and we know that different places have different groups of animals and levels of diversity, can we then begin to predict which places are more likely to have infected ticks (and sadly, infected humans)? This is exactly what Dr. Ostfeld has done.

As diversity declines, disease risk goes up.

Think about it this way: as a forested landscape gets fragmented by development the first animals to be lost are those that are long-ranging - animals like the bobcat and bear that just love to roam. As we continue to whittle away at the landscape animals drop out in a predictable pattern based on their habitat requirements such as area, cover, and food source. Some animals do very poorly in the modified environments that are now common throughout the region while other animals do very well. You don't see a lot of porcupines around your house but you do see a lot of chipmunks, right? What Dr. Ostfeld has discovered is that the species that thrive in our fragmented and human dominated environments (specifically, the white footed mouse) are the most efficient disease reservoirs. His research shows that as animals are taken out of an ecosystem (aka, as diversity decreases), the risk of Lyme disease goes up. He also shows that as predators are removed from an ecosystem the number of mice (very efficient disease reservoirs) goes up.

For these reasons, managing for vertebrate biodiversity should be a priority. Predators like the red fox and bobcat are important in keeping down mice populations and critters like raccoon and opossum are helpful in diluting the reservoir effect or Lyme disease. It makes me happy to know that the compost at the Armstrong House is visited by raccoons and opossum!

More resources:
This book is a fantastic read on the subject.
Click here to watch Dr. Ostfeld cover a lot of this material in a lecture.

Time to cut Japanese barberry

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:24:00 +0000

Its official, spring has arrived: the pheobes are back, I heard an american robin singing, the leaves of the trout lily have emerged and I saw a red maple in bloom. In the coming weeks the forest will green out and it will start with the Japanese barberry. This shrub (originally from Japan and eastern Asia) is one of the first plants to push forth its leaves. For someone suffering from the winter blues the early-spring color of Japanese barberry can be quite welcoming but unfortunately there is a downside to its leaves.

It turns out that Japanese barberry is able to create a microclimate that is favorable to the black footed tick, the insect that transmits Lyme disease through its bite. Under the dense shrub, humidity stays high enough to allow for active ticks that would otherwise have to burrow into the moist soil to escape desiccation. This blog post encapsulates the recent findings of UCONN professors who say that managing Japanese barberry will reduce Lyme disease risk. This blog post presents additional findings.

Japanese barberry leafs out while most of the forest remains dormant

I have spent the last few weekends removing Japanese barberry from the Armstrong Preserve. Besides harboring disease-carrying insects, this plant is well known for being an invasive plant capable of lowering plant biodiversity and altering soil characteristics. To read more about the plant's invasive behavior read here. Most of the literature offers a variety of options for barberry removal, from burning to pulling. On the Armstrong Preserve I either remove the entire plant (roots and all) or simply cut the plant at its base. Cutting at the base leaves the roots, from which new shoots will grow. With this approach subsequent cutting is necessary to finally kill the plant. Cutting Japanese barberry at its base has some advantages over pulling the entire plant, namely causing less disturbance to the soil. Around our vernal pool I decided to cut Japanese barberry instead of pulling it up because I wanted to reduce the amount of soil that ran into the water. Likewise, in areas of well established Japanese stiltgrass, disturbing the soil to remove Japanese barberry might create an ideal seed bed for stiltgrass.

If cutting is your method of barberry managing, now is a great time to get out your tools. Hit the plant before it leafs out to 1) prevent it from building up a tick-friendly microclimate and 2) prevent it from photosynthesizing (growing). Cut every winter/spring until the plant gives up. By continued cutting you are forcing the roots to resupply the shoots. If you keep taking the shoots, the roots will shrink and eventually poop out.

If you are facing Japanese barberry on your property, you are not alone. It is so ubiquitous that eradication is not an option. Instead we have to strategically manage the plant to prevent its spread, remove it from the most ecologically valuable sites and eradicate it where public health is most compromised (along paths and around schools). The Invasive Project of Pound Ridge (TIPPR) is a recent initiative solely focused on managing invasive plants, including Japanese barberry. TIPPR will be holding ongoing workshops and informational events to tackle the issue from a town-wide level.

This problem isn't going away. Take up the fight, at least on your own property.

Hear them peep

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 22:26:00 +0000

Spring is slowly emerging...and so are the frogs. Ever since March 12th's warm rain officially unlocked winter's tight grasp, I have been hearing occasional peeps and quacks coming from the forest. I spent a few hours this weekend in my waterproof 'froggin' boots cruising through woodland ponds (also called vernal pools) looking critters. Here's what I found:

A male wood frog floating in a vernal pool, March 23, 2013

In a pool behind the Bedford Audubon Society's HQ I found THOUSANDS (!!!) of wood frogs (Rana sylvaticus) doing what wood frogs do at this time of year: float, quack and mate. These 2 inch amphibians live most of their lives on land but lay their eggs in water and rely on the safety of fish-free vernal pools to do so. During the first warm and wet days of spring wood frogs congregate in impressive numbers in the shallows of a vernal pool and get directly to business. Below is a picture of wood frogs mating. The larger, pinkish female is below the smaller and browner male. Both sexes contain a black mask over their eye, which helps in identification.

Female (larger, underneath) and male (smaller, above) wood frogs mating.

Wood frogs have attained a good bit of fame due to their amazing overwintering strategy, which is described in the following videos.

Funny video of wood frog freezing and unfreezing.

Beautiful video of wood frogs freezing and unfreezing in Alaska.

A good technical description of what the heck happens to the wood frog in winter.

Another frog found in vernal pools is the spring peeper, (pseudacris crucifer) whose very loud 'PEEP', 'PEEP', 'PEEP' can be heard echoing from wetlands at great distances. You have probably heard this little frogs before, but maybe you haven't seen one in action (they are certainly impressive). For a great look at the peeper in action, check out this video (I am sorry about the advertisement before this video - believe me, its worth it)

Back at the Armstrong Preserve's vernal pool, I found something that may rival the freezing frogs: fairy shrimp. These 1/2 inch - 1 inch long crustaceans in the Eubranchipus genus swim near the water's surface and take cover as shadow's pass by. The fairy in the picture below is carrying an egg sack on her back, which will be deposited in the pool where it will sit for a year before hatching.

A female fairy shrimp carrying an egg sack

Vernal pool conservation
Unfortunately, life isn't always easy for animals that inhabit vernal pools. For centuries, vernal pools (and wetlands of all types) were seen as valueless to humans and were drained, filled and developed. Thankfully, times are changing. Now vernal pools (and wetlands of all types) are the subject of public interests, scientific research and conservation. Wood frogs, fairy shrimp and mole salamanders (which I have not yet seen in my nearby pool) are consider 'vernal pool obligates' because vernal pools are the only known habitats in which they beed. The future of these amazing animals would be critically imperiled if vernal pools were destroyed. For this reason, the Armstrong Preserve's vernal pool is protected, valued and used as an outdoor classroom to educate others about protecting vernal pools on their property. Although many municipalities have wetland regulations on the books, vernal pools could always receive more protection. Vernal pools are connected to the surrounding forests by the wildlife that move between both. Any harm that comes to the nearby forest will be passed on to the vernal pool. Forest and pool protection go hand in hand.

You and vernal pools
There may be a vernal pool in your backyard. Do you hear frogs in the spring? Is there a seasonally flooded pond in your forest? This website will help you identify a vernal pool from other wetlands. For a fantastic resource on vernal pools, their natural history and conservation, written by the region's pool expert, Dr. Elizabeth Colburn, see this book. If your property contains one of these pools, you can expect to spend many hours studying its fascinating wildlife. Protect it, and it will reward you with its beauty.

Microgreens in March

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 22:41:00 +0000

I am always interested in finding new ways to grow plants and experimenting with ways to do so on a tight energy budget. This is our latest success story: Sarah and I started growing microgreens next to our south-facing bedroom window last week. We didn't quite know how much light we needed to grow our pea and sunflower shoots but we seem to have enough. We are very happy to report that we didn't need a grow light. The pictures below show a few of the stages.

Day 5. Little baby pea shoots opening their first set of seed leaves or 'cotyledons'.

Day 5. A cute little sunflower shoot.

Day 10. Two trays of microgreens. Pea shoots on the left and sunflower shoots on the right.

Day 15. Post harvest. Our microgreens aren't so 'micro' anymore.

There has been an increasing hype around microgreens recently as they have been said to contain tons of nutrients. In a quick internet search, I discovered that there is some debate about just how healthy microgreens are. This NPR article refers to an August 2012 study out of the University of Maryland that concludes that microgreens contain more nutrients than mature leaves of the same plant. This source (scroll to the bottom of the page) contests the researcher's experimental design and remains skeptical about their findings. Here is some info about the August 2012 study, which was the first of its kind. Apparently, claims made before the University of Maryland study was conducted (and there are alot of them) were not based on evidence.

Well, I for one don't need too many nutrient-based reasons to grow microgreens in my bedroom in March. Vegetables are good for you (no matter how 'micro' or 'macro' they are) and growing them at home reduces my carbon footprint. Seems like a no brainer to me.

If you are interested in growing microgreens at your own home you can check out A good how-to guide for growing micro greens.

At the Armstrong Education Center I am likely to continue growing microgreens because they are mobile (just pick up the tray!), taste great and (some say) nutritious. I will have no trouble growing them in the long days of summer and now I know that I can always throw them in front of a south facing window in late fall and early spring. Happy growing!

A fire inside

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:06:00 +0000

I have always been a little conflicted about fireplaces and wood stoves. No matter how much I love sitting next to my wood stove I must admit that it releases pollution and carbon dioxide into the air. This fact has caught the attention of municipalities and governing bodies around the country and air pollution laws often times address residential wood burning.

See what the City of Los Angeles did in 2008.
Arcata, California also addressed wood burning at home.

Diagram showing the relative emissions of 7 common heating methods.

I found this diagram and think that it is worth sharing but I certainly don't take it as gospel. The diagram suggests that oil, gas and electric heat emit the least amount of fine particles. If you only calculate emissions at the home, this diagram is accurate. If you take into consideration that your home's electric heat was produced by burning coal in a factory, you might have to take out your paper and pencil and double check your math. Obviously, this diagram is too simple and doesn't account for other sources of pollution along the process of production. What the diagram does do well is illustrate that not all wood stoves are created equal. Most open-faced fire places are still pretty inefficient, but we have entered the world of efficient residential wood stoves. Since Neanderthals first made fires in caves, efficient and clean-burning fire technology has come a long way.

My wood stove is much more efficient and clean burning than this fire

My wood stove is not the primary heating source for the Armstrong House. Its more like a very fun and entertaining way to heat up my living room. I fire it up at night when I watch a movie, when I entertain guests or when I simply want to play with fire. I don't think too much about releasing airborne toxins because my wood stove is an amazing piece of technology.

Generously donated by Wittus (a local stove dealer), my EPA certified, soapstone-covered stove boasts a handful of technical efficiencies, including:

Clean burning - many of the organic particles (like ash) are burned in the firebox instead of being sent up the stove pipe.

Cold air intake pipe – This is my favorite feature. My stove has two pipes that connect it to outside: 1) The smoke stack (necessary for any stove) and, 2) an air intake pipe. Without this intake pipe, the fire would steadily pull in the room's air (remember, fires need to breath). As the fire sucks in the room's air, the room needs to replace it – where does the room get this air? Cold air from outside enters the room through the windows and walls to replace the air being sucked into the fire. While that air exchange is going on the temperature of the room goes down. My air intake pipe streamlines that whole process and directly sends air to the fire without inadvertently cooling the room.

Insulated combustion chamber - the materials used to insulate the combustion chamber allow it to reach extremely high temperatures, which increases efficiency while reducing emissions.

The Armstrong House's wood stove.

The soapstone stays hot for hours and is actually still warm to the touch in the morning. I have found that wood stoves certainly have their place in residential home heating and, like at the Armstrong House, stoves are suitable components of the overall heating system. Now with efficient and technologically advanced stoves, burning wood doesn't necessarily mean spewing pollution into the air.

If you're shopping around, you need to do your research. Here is some general starting information on residential wood burning. Happy heating. Respect fire.

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:40:00 +0000

Here is a flyer for a neat event series coming your way this spring.

Join local gardeners, botanists, ecologists and land managers to learn more about Westchester's spring wildflowers.

These flowers are beautiful, mysterious and threatened - find out more by coming to one or more of these events. Link for more information.

Post-blizzard greens

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 23:18:00 +0000

Look what Sarah Bush got me for Valentine's Day...lucky me!

Sarah presenting her bounty.

We opened the cold frame today to find a beautiful bed of greens. Last week's winter storm Nemo couldn't stop the power of this passively-heated winter garden bed. As you can see, some of the plants were a little bit crowded and needed to be thinned.

The picture below was taken after Sarah thinned the bed. Now the remaining plants can grow to fill in the space.

See my first post on cold frames to find out what they are and how they work.

Post-blizzard walks

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:42:00 +0000

Hooray, snow has come to the northeast. Like a good rain, there is something purifying about a load of fresh snow, which covers the earth like a fresh canvas. A new beginning, I suppose.

You've shoveled out and plowed the driveway – now its time to take advantage of all this snow. GO FIND SOME ANIMAL TRACKS. Animals move through the snow and leave direct evidence of their identity, location and behavior. For instance, on the Armstrong Preserve I found where three deer bedded down during the storm. I also followed a fox on a long trek over hill and dale. The grand prize of my post-blizzard journey: an American mink hopping along the icy shore of the nearby Cross River Reservoir.

Seeing animal tracks in the snow really puts our backyards into a new perspective. Most wildlife is secretive and many of our local mammals only come out at night or during twilight. They usually go about their lives totally undetected, so it is hard for us to appreciate them as neighbors. After a snow fall it becomes obvious how many critters rely on your backyard. I suggest you spend a few minutes wandering around your backyard, scanning the snow for signs of animals. You will be surprised by the amount of wildlife moving about just beyond your awareness. Don't worry if you don't know which animal made the tracks – what's enjoyable is seeing where the tracks lead and getting a sense of your wild backyard.

The following pictures are from a few hours of wandering around the Armstrong Preserve. Note: The powdery snow is sometime difficult to track in because it is so easily disturbed (melted, blown around, etc.). After today's rain, the snow will be harder and more able to clearly capture the track of an animal.

If you are interested in the subject of animal tracking there are many resources out there. Here are two:
In print: Mammal Tracks and Sign by mark Elbroch
Web-based: Alderlead Wilderness College

Happy tracking, feel free to share with me what you find.

Night at the Movies with the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 19:52:00 +0000

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO WINTERN STORM NEMO. PLEASE JOIN US ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15TH.

Controlling heat loss

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 02:48:00 +0000

I am always impressed with the winter survival strategies of animals: bears that metabolize their fat, inactive frogs that nearly freeze and active birds that drop their body temperatures. This last thermoregulation strategy – reducing body heat to minimize heat loss – is one that has direct human applications.

Ducks in an icy lake

In the winter, ducks swim in very cold water and stand around on ice. Why don't their feet freeze? Why doesn't their body heat quickly drain through their feet, slowly cooling them? How do duck feet work with the rest of the duck body to keep it alive in the cold?

The winter physiology of ducks is a marvel of biological engineering, where many sophisticated systems come together to sustain a warm-blooded animal in a very cold environment. For the purposes of this blog post I will highlight only one aspect of duck physiology – reduced foot temperature – which is beautiful in its simplicity. First, a question:

On a winter morning, which will lose heat faster.
A) A hot cup of coffee
B) A can of cold soda

Answer: A, a hot cup of coffee will lose its heat faster than a cold can of soda. *if your dying to know why, click here. It makes sense, then, from an energy conservation perspective for a duck to maintain a lower body temperature in winter. The obvious hiccup with temperature reduction is that bodies need to stay warm enough to carry out their biological processes (which are temperature dependent); simply reducing body temperature could result in a loss of the body's function. The duck does a wonderful job of keeping its body functioning while reducing its temperature. It does this by breaking its body into different heating zones.

A temperature diagram of a common gull. Like the mallard duck, this gull sustains a high temperature in its core, but – to conserve energy – allows its legs and feet to cool dramatically.

So what does cold bird feet have to do with Living Lighter on the Land? The Armstrong House is actually a lot like the duck – they are both broken up into different 'zones' and which are heated differentially. Once the Armstrong House's heating system is completely finished it will be broken up into different heating zones (which roughly correlate with the different rooms), where some rooms will be kept at lower temperatures to reduce heat loss. By slightly reducing the temperature in less-used rooms or rooms that don't require much heat, the Armstrong House's overall energy consumption is reduced. Also, the different zones can be managed to have their temperature's fluctuate over time. For example, the whole house temperature can be reduced at night and specific zones can be heated in the morning in the order in which they are used. For instance, the bathroom can be heated first, then the kitchen, then the office. In fact, the zones can be managed to reflect the occupant's schedule. Zones that are unused during the day (bedrooms and master bathroom) can be lowered until 4:00 pm – just in time to be warm for the occupant returning from work. Likewise, primary rooms where the most time is spent (like the kitchen and living room) can be grouped as a zone that stays warmest. The mud room, sun room and work room can be zoned together and kept cooler.

In surfing the web I found a neat house in Vermont that is similiar to the Armstrong House. They too understand the benefit of zoning their house and heating based on use (see below).

The three heating zones of 'Perfect House', an energy effecient house in Vermont.

I love my warm and cozy house, so I am certainly not advocating for living in an icebox. I am convinced that a comfortable environment can be kept inside the home and energy can be conserved by strategically managing the temperature of various zones. If the mallard duck can stay active in a half frozen pond, we can surely figure out better ways to thermoregulate our houses to conserve energy.

Mid Winter Compost Tip

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 21:53:00 +0000

Here is a compost trick:

If you throw whole eggshells into your compost heap you are likely to get small pieces of egg shells in the finished compost: not ideal. Manually crushing up your eggshells before you throw them into your compost pile will help them break down faster and more completely. See the following pictures:

I save a bunch of old egg shells in the fridge and grind them all at once.

I lay all of the eggshells in a cookie sheet and then dry them, one of a few ways. You can bake them in the oven at 170 degrees for an hour or so. In the summer you can just put them in direct sunlight on a hot day. I have also seen people put their egg shells over the grill on a long day of cooking to let the waste heat dry them out. The goal is to simply dry out the eggshells and make them brittle. However you achieve this will be fine. *Be sure to keep your work station clean when handling wet egg shells so you don't accidentally spread or ingest harmful bacteria. Wash your hands and materials well*

I use a large mason jar to crush the egg shells. The dry shells should break easily.

Crush, crush, crush!

It only takes a minute to crush up all of the eggs.

I will stick the crushed up egg shells in the fridge and await spring. It is best to incorporate these nutrient rich food items directly into active compost. I am afraid that if I throw the eggshells in my half frozen compost now, the rain and snow will wash them away.

It is mid January, which means we have another two months or so before 'compost season' opens. Even in winter you can be improving your compost skills and planning for next spring – make sure you are saving the ash from your fire place and eggshells from breakfast!

Interestingly, the same thing can be done to your eggshells if you want to feed them to your backyard chickens. If you crush up your eggshells really well, you can add them to your chicken feed and recycle the calcium. Recycling = Living Lighter on the Land

Energy efficient refrigerator

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 17:19:00 +0000

When designing the solar system for the Armstrong House we calculated a number of 'load estimates', which aim to predict the house's energy consumption. To provide a generous amount of comfort for the Armstrong House residents we needed to account for every little device they were predicted to use. Imagine doing a load estimate for your house.....think about all the things you plug in:

DVD players, TVs, computers, hair dryers, coffee makers, blenders, lights and lamps (30 of them), stereos, cell phones, washing machines, garage door openers, video games, WIFI routers, toaster, microwave, water pumps, printers, fax machines, radios... the list can go on and on. Some things you only use sporadically - like Christmas lights - so their overall burden on the electricity load isn't great. Other items, such as your refrigerator, never quite - they just keep working away, 365 days a year. These are the appliances that could end up pushing you over your electricity budget. At the Armstrong House we invested in an energy efficient fridge/freezer called the Sun Frost RF 16, which boasts many technological advancements over your 'traditional' refrigerator.

Check out their brochure below or click here to see it in a PDF version.

Sarah Bush showing off our Sun Frost RF 16 refrigerator. Loki the cat in the foreground.

The walls of our freezer and refrigerator are quite thick, which means great insulation.

Refrigerators become less efficient when their motors get dirty. On our Sun Frost RF -16 the motor is on top where it can be easily cleaned.

Remember, when you are trying to cut down on your household energy use you must address the appliances that run frequently like your fridge/freezer, computer (if you work from home) and dishwasher.

2013: A new, cold year...full of fresh greens

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 15:41:00 +0000

Happy New Year everyone. Here in Pound Ridge, NY the temperatures have hovered around 30 F. for the past week. Two storms dropped a total of 6 inches of snow on us after Christmas and in spite of the cold we continue to eat fresh salads at the Armstrong Education Center. How is this possible? With the use of 'cold frames'.

The simple anatomy of a cold frame
Cold frames are just little boxes that trap and retain heat. Just like a greenhouse, these little garden tools are used to create an interior growing environment that is warmer than the exterior environment. It's all about the sun. In the northern hemisphere, cold frames face the south and they are constructed and positioned in such a way that they collect as much direct light as possible during the day. Notice that in the picture below the back wall is higher than the front wall. When the transparent lid is placed on top of both these walls it sits at an angle facing south, toward the sun. Inside the cold frame the soil heats up and the air is kept warm throughout the day. Any insulation that is added to the cold frame helps to keep the air warm after the sun goes down. In Pound Ridge, NY the climate allows us to grow a wide variety of 'cold hardy' greens, whiche are varieties of greens (like kale and lettuce) that can grow at cold temperatures and tolerate freezing temperatures. In general, your summer varieties of greens will do poorly in a cold frame in January - stick with the 'cold hardy' greens. Here is a list of what we are currently growing:

Forcea lettuce
Red Russian kale
Green kale
Arugula
Purple mizuna
Escarole
Italian dandelion
Pac choi
Tat soi, and
Hardy white scallion

A cold frame is essentially a small, south facing green house used for extending the growing season. The picture above shows the basic design, on which more bells and whistles can be added

The following pictures were taken at the Armstrong House on New Years Eve, 2012. You can see that snow is no problem for our cold frames - the little plants inside continue to thrive.

Our rectangular cold frames sit on the southern side of the Armstrong House. You can see there that we removed some snow from the plexiglass on the cold frame's right side.

A close up picture of the cold frame lid. Can you see the condensation on the inside of the plexiglass? That is a great sign because it means that the temperature inside the cold frames is warm enough to evaporate water from the soil.

Harvest time! My partner Sarah Bush picks kale from one of our cold frames. Examine the cold frame's construction: we used straw bales as insulation and lined the cold frame's inside with a thin reflective insulator. Currently, our lid is not attached to any part of the cold frame - it just rests on top of the straw bales. This method is not ideal for the long term but it seems to be working for now.

Sarah Bush harvesting greens from our second cold frame. You can see that on this 30 degree day, Sarah (a Tennessee native) is dressed for the cold. The 'cold hearty' greens in our cold frames do just fine through the winter.

There are hundreds of cold frame designs out there - many of which can be made with recycled materials. Just look at all the cold frames on Google images. Your cold frame design will vary depending on your growing goals, your space, your winter climate and your materials. As long as you are achieving a warm temperature inside your cold frame, you are doing it right. The straw bale cold frame pictured above is not a permanent structure because the straw will eventually rot and loose its ability to insulate. In the future we may continue to use temporary straw bales or we may choose to design and construct a permanent cold frame. The sky is the limit.

Want to learn more?
The book Four Season Harvest by Elliot Coleman describes how to successfully grow food through the winter. Elliot has mastered season extension through his work up in Maine. Here in Westchester County, Stone Barns uses and demonstrates many different season extension methods to grow food through the winter. In fact, it was the Stone Barns Vegetable Farm Manager Jack Algiere who assured Sarah and I that cold frames would work here in New York.

Happy growing

Efficient home heating, Part 1.

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 02:55:00 +0000

Nighttime lows have been dipping into the twenties, making my cozy little home all the more comfortable. The Armstrong House, the physical structure that protects me from the raw forces of nature, envelopes me in a bubble of evenly warmed air. The source of this warmth: underfloor – or radiant – heating. Although winter is a great excuse to wear indoor slippers, they are not much needed as my floors radiate a steady stream of thermal energy. On those early mornings when my cat's demands for breakfast rip me from the bed, my toes happily waltz naked across the heated floor.

Walking on heated floors is a delight in the Armstrong House

A little background on the Armstrong House
When the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy (PRLC) committed to renovating the Armstrong House, they decided to use it as a showcase for simple energy efficient building and lifestyle choices. The PRLC chose to prioritize energy efficiency because it realized that both prongs of conservation (land protection and sustainable lifestyles) need to be practiced and taught. At the Armstrong Education Center we call this philosophy 'Living Lighter on the Land', and radiant heating is just one of the many ways we demonstrate a low-impact lifestyle.

How radiant heating warms the Armstrong House
Like the tortoise, radiant heating (AKA, underfloor heating) is slow and steady. There are many different radiant systems available – air, electric and water – which differ in their heat-carrying medium. At the Armstrong House we use water (AKA, 'hydronic') to carry heat throughout the house. Here is how our system works: roughly 90 degree water is continually pumped throughout the house in underfloor plastic 'PEX' tubes. The water's heat energy leaves the tubes and radiates upward into the cooler room. Radiant heating systems can be thermostatically controlled, just like other home heating systems. Take a look at the pictures below to understand the basic design of this heating system.

Underfloor tubing runs throughout the entire Armstrong House like in this picture.

A picture of plastic 'PEX' tubing in a room. This tubing will be covered by a floor.

A detailed look at how radiant tubing sits under a floor.

Radiant heating versus other types of heating
What makes radiant heating so efficient and great feeling is its omnipresence – the tubing underlies nearly all of a room's floor, which means that heat enters the room from almost every inch of ground. Alternatively, radiators and forced-air systems rely on a few sources of very hot air, which is expected to permeate a space. The result with these systems are drafts, hot pockets, cool pockets and – as you'll see – a room that is heated from the top down.

Two systems of heating compared. Forced-air systems on the left and radiant floor systems on the right. In most cases, radiant heating is more efficient and comfortable.

Radiant heating literally heats a room from the bottom up, which means that the space occupied by people (the bottom six feet of the room) is the warmest and most comfortable. Alternatively, by heating a room in a top-down manner (as in a forced air system), energy is wasted heating unused air. This also creates very dramatic and noticeable differences in heat conditions between floors. For example, I remember in my grandmother's house the second floor was brutally hot while the first floor was comfortable. Besides being uncomfortable, this style of heating is inefficient.

Comparing how heat fills a room in different heating systems. Radiant heating on the left vs. force-air heating on the right.

The body's response to different heating systems
It is said that radiant heating has advantages over other heating systems on a purely physiological level. When looking at the heating preferences of the human body, our feet and legs like to be the warmest and our heads like to be the coolest. The diagram below reiterates the point that a bottom up heating system has advantages over a top down heating system.

Our bodies like to be heated from the bottom up. Our heads like to experience slightly cooler temperatures than our legs and feet.

When trying to reduce your energy and resource use, you have to tackle the large energy hogs, like home heating. Here in the north, many months are spent heating the home and an efficient system will make a large difference over time. This post is Part one of a series on efficient home heating. In part two I will show you how the water in our radiant system is heated. Here's a hint: Its big, yellow and likes to sit in the sky. Stay tuned.

More reading

There are lots of people talking/blogging about radiant heating technology. It is found all across the country and applied in all sorts of buildings. Here are some links. Happy heating!

From the Federal Government

Wikipedia

A Hudson Valley-based private company specializing in radiant heating

A Vermont-based private company specializing in radiant heating

Lots of good radiant information here

What to do with all this wood?!

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 14:16:00 +0000

Hurricane Sandy happened over a month ago but the signs of her devastation still linger on: crushed roofs, fallen trees and the never ending buzz of chainsaws. Of the thousands of trees that Sandy pushed over, many were next to people's homes and have since been cut up and removed. Today's post highlights the role of dead wood in a forest ecosystem and stresses the ecological value of fallen debris. I will take you on a journey through the 'life' of a fallen dead tree:

Some of the many uses of fallen dead wood. Dead wood is extremely valuable to the forest ecosystem as it provides food, shelter and a source of energy for future organisms.

A pile of sticks and branches makes great hiding places for animals

Once fallen, the crown of the tree (all the branches, limbs and twigs) rests on the ground. Here it provides birds and mammals with shelter. An impenetrable pile of sticks is difficult for us humans to move through but ideal for a warbler or a chipmunk hiding from a cooper's hawk. The thin branches quickly break down and become incorporated into the soil's top layer where they continue to decompose and feed small critters.

Bigger limbs fill up with insects, which attract hungry animals.

Larger limbs – like those pictured to the right – take years to break down. They slowly begin to take on water and fill up with ants, beetles and grubs, which attract the pileated woodpecker and the northern flicker. At every stage of decomposition, these dead limbs provide a unique habitat to decomposers which, in turn, prepare the wood for the next suitable suit of decomposers.

Hollow logs attract a lot of animal activity.

Large logs may eventually become hollowed out.
These hollow logs act like little bunkers for forest mammals, used for eating in, hiding in and I like to think – napping in. Exploring around one of these hollowed logs usually shows many sign of animal use such as scat (animal feces) and remnants of an animal meal.

A 'snag' or standing dead tree.

What about a dead tree that doesn't quite fall over? This type of dead wood (called a 'snag') is also very valuable to the forest ecosystem. Snags will eventually fall to the ground and contribute pieces of wood to the soil but before they do, they act as a sort of wildlife condominium. Notice the snag to the right. See all the round holes? These round holes happen when a rotted limb falls off or when excavated by a woodpecker.

A flying squirrel in a tree cavity. Picture by me!

Once established, a tree cavity will be used for many years by squirrels, flying squirrels, owls, song birds and raccoons. To read more about the importance of snags, see my Blog posts from March and April.

There is a lot you can do with your downed wood to provide wildlife with useful habitat, shelter and food after a storm like Hurricane Sandy.

1. Leave logs on the ground to rot.

2. If you want to dress up your decomposing logs, you can turn them into rustic outdoor furniture.

3. Let broken trees stand and turn to snags.

4. Pile up downed branches to provide small animal habitat.

At the Armstrong Education Center in Pound Ridge, NY I practice these different methods of using downed wood for wildlife. As an added bonus you can expect to save some cash because these practices are often less expensive than paying a crew to cut, chip and haul your downed trees. This is just another trick to Living Lighter on the Land.

When a hurricane visits a forest

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:58:00 +0000

One day I was walking with my mentor in the woods when he asked me ‘Why are all these trees the same age?’. With his hands in his pockets and a silly grin on his face (as was his style), he stood facing a small clump of young sugar maple trees. These ten trees –all roughly the same size and age— went unnoticed until Jeff drew my attention to them. Before he asked about them, they simply merged without distinction into the rest of the forest. Now, they stood out as a single group with an obvious common history.

What was the history of this group of trees? What took place to result in a tidy patch of even aged trees? The answer is in today's post...

I was reminded of that day on a recent visit to Carolin’s Grove, one of the preserves owned and managed by the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy. Late October's Hurricane Sand visited Carolin’s Grove like she did any other place in Pound Ridge. The preserve’s namesake—an 80 year old grove of Norway spruce—was torn to bits by the storm. Some trees were entirely torn from the ground (roots and all), but more commonly they were left standing, splintered and shattered in half. As I walked through the wreckage my eyes were drawn up to the sky, which now occupied large gaps in the forest canopy where spruce trees stood only a few days before.

The following was the sequence of my thinking:

My thought process as I gaze up through a gap in the forest canopy.

Every so often, something comes along and kills a handful of perfectly good trees and replaces part of the forest canopy with a wide open gap. All types of catastrophes can cause a gap in a forest canopy: hurricanes, fire, pathogens (i.e., insect, fungi), ice storms, wind storms, lightning, and let’s not forget the good old fashioned ax.

A view from Carolin's Grove after Hurricane Sandy. Forest all over Pound Ridge, NY were devastated by her strong winds.

What happens once a canopy gap is produced? Typically, trees grow to fill in the gap. More specifically, a handful of very lucky trees get an extra dose of light and prosper…upward. Think back to the story at the beginning of this post – could this have been the cause of the ten evenly sized maple trees?

In one sense, last week’s Hurricane Sandy was a perfectly normal forest phenomenon; forests along the eastern seaboard and in New England have been dealing with bad storms for as long as there have been forests. Sandy represents one piece in a never ending cycle of tree death, birth and growth. There is, however, something happening in the forest these days which may alter the cycle. These days, our forests are experiencing a little extra pressure which affects the processes of birth and growth. Any guesses?

A cute little white tailed deer. In Pound Ridge, NY white tail deer are so numerous that they prevent any new trees from growing in the forest.

The current deer density is so high that it suppresses new trees from being recruited into the forest. For effect, I'll say it in a few different ways: new trees don’t grow in Pound Ridge; trees fall, but new ones don’t grow back; with every storm, our tree count goes down; every day, our forests are getting thinner and thinner; many new gaps go unfilled. I'll express it in economic terms: we are only withdrawing from our bank account—there hasn’t been a deposit in years.

Need proof? Go to the forest behind your house and find a tree less than 5 feet tall. You'll be lucky to find one. This is not forests in other places look like. Most forest can replenish their toppled trees, and they do so with a forest floor full of young trees waiting for a gap to open in the canopy.

I spent last autumn in a part of Maine where logging is the industry. I spent endless hours exploring the logged forests, learning great lessons in forest regeneration; all places recently cut were home to fresh clumps of young trees, fighting their way to the sun. I didn’t mind the destruction to the trees because the forest’s future grew roughly knee high and smelled of fresh spruce as I brushed past it.

Unlike the regrowing forests of Maine, the barren forest floor of Pound Ridge lacks promise for our forest’s future...

A stranger among your maples

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:50:00 +0000

The forests of Pound Ridge, NY are filled with maples and they live in just about every part of the landscape: on wet sites and dry sites, south facing slopes and north-facing slopes, in the shade and in the sun. We have six maple trees in total:

Red maple (Acer rubrum). A very common maple found in wetlands.

Black maple (Acer nigrum). While it is said to grow in this area, I have not seen it in the wild.

Striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum). This small tree is found in only the coldest places of the area (i.e., exposed, north facing sites at high elevation)

Silver maple (Acer saccharinum). This tree lives on floodplains.

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum). The most common maple around Pound Ridge, NY and the one from which we make maple syrup.

Norway Maple: INVASIVE MAPLE.

This maple tree is not from North America. Since being brought here it has negatively changed the forest.

The norway maple is said to be invasive because it spreads quickly through our forest, outcompeting native trees and shading out forest wildflowers. The tree is also undesirable from a forester's perspective – when compared to the native (and more desirable) sugar maple, the wood of the Norway maple makes poor lumber and burns cooler.

Now, during the second week of November the Norway maple is very easy to spot in the forest. Now, its yellow and orange leaves stand out against a grey (or after yesterday's snowfall, white!) leafless forest. In the grand show of fall foliage, the Norway maple is late to the party. All of the other maples already shed their leaves but the Norway is only just now entering its dormancy. Below are pictures I took to help train your eyes to this plant.

A Norway maple up close. Notice that it is the only tree still holding colorful leaves

Large Norway maple trees along side a road. One in the foreground and one in the background.

The entire yellow band in the center of the photo is comprised of Norway maple trees.

Try to spot these yellow trees as you go through your day – you'll be amazed just how many are invading the forest. I spent a few hours this week girdling Norway maple trees at the Armstrong Education Center in Pound Ridge, NY.

Hurricane Sandy

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 22:20:00 +0000

My heart goes out to all the people who have lost something to Hurricane Sandy. In these hard times I hope you find support and that your life regains a sense of normalcy soon.

A little bit of love for the victims of Hurricane Sandy

Rooting for the underdog: eastern bluebirds

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 13:31:00 +0000

Imagine you live inside of a tree. Your hunger forces you down to the ground where you glean ants and worms out of the grass. Upon returning to your tree you find a strange bird comfortably occupying your home. Its time to move.

An eastern bluebird in its preferred open-woodland habitat

This has happened again and again to the eastern bluebird, which live in small holes in trees. The non native European starling and house sparrow (both intoduced to the Americas after the Columbian exchange) pose a serious threat to the bluebirds: starlings (another 'cavity-nesting' bird) enter bluebird cavities and evict the occupants while house sparrows kill bluebirds and/or destroy bluebird eggs. Its a rough world for the adorable bluebird, which are also negatively affected by severe winters and loss of habitat.

The bluebird has been subject to an extremely dynamic and turbulent history in North America. See here for a nice synthesis of their history. To sum it up, due to loss of habitat, land conversion, and the introduction of non native birds (European starling and house sparrow), the bluebird population crashed around the middle of the 20th century. Their numbers were so low that by the 1960's birders and scientists feared that bluebirds may actually become extinct. A widespread, grass-roots movement to save the bluebird ignited a new interest in their plight, research for their conservation and the spread of bluebird boxes across the country.

Bluebird boxes? Yes, there is something that you can do to help the bluebird!

To mimic the tree cavities that bluebirds find so comfortable, scientists, conservationists, nature enthusiasts, birders and school children have built and errected small wooden homes for the bluebirds, A.K.A., bluebird boxes. These easy to build boxes provide bluebirds with a safe place to make a nest and bring up their babies. European starlings are too big to fit through the door hole which means that the bluebird family is safe from unwanted squatters and killers.

A bluebird on a bluebird box. A bluebird's door hole must be precisely sized (1.5 inch) to allow bluebirds to enter while keeping out unwanted European starlings.

This type of human mitigation has truly paid off; bluebird populations have responded to the wide-spread use of bluebird boxes. Their numbers are up, but still not as high as they were before humans severely impacted them with starlings, sparrows and sprawl. Choosing to erect a bluebird house is still a fun and worthwhile endevour - one that directly helps wild animals survive in the face of serious human-induced obstacles. You can see working bluebird boxes in the meadows at the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy's Clark Preserve and the Westchester County's Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation.

If you want to build or buy a bluebird box you should consult the many websites dedicated to bluebirds to understand their specific habitat and ecological requirements. Here are a few websites:

Bluebirds forever
From the USDA
Bluebird box info and building plans

A bluebird sitting on a bluebird box. This picture shows how a bluebird box can be mounted onto a piece of metal.

Upcoming event

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Out with the lawn, in with the meadow

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 13:55:00 +0000

In last week's blog post I reported that the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy recently oversaw the mowing of their five-acre meadow on the Clark Preserve as a way of preserving it as an open habitat and supporting the animals that call it home. This week, the meadow conversation continues with a focus on all the cool ways that people are bringing meadows and meadow plants into their landscaping. Really big meadows like the ones at Ward-Pound Ridge Reservation are impressive, but not feasible for the average landowner to own or maintain. The alternative? Small meadow gardens.

Out with the lawn, in with the meadow!
Native meadows have become a fashionable, beautiful and ecologically intelligent type of landscaping over the past decade. Their benefits abound: they require far less water and mowing than a manicured lawn, they require ZERO fertilizers, their appearance changes with the seasons, they support populations of native plants and they attract a variety of wildlife. My friends in Pound Ridge - James and Ellen Best - have beautiful meadows incorporated into their landscaping; their backyard feels less like a generic landscape and more like real nature. Here is what James and Ellen Best have to say about their meadow gardens:

What we like best about meadows is that they dramatically change with the seasons, unlike grass, which hardly changes at all. Cycles of purple, pink and yellow flowers, wispy grasses, buzzing bees and incredible spider webs appear in the meadows; it’s an ongoing show that nature puts on for free. We see fox, hawks, woodchucks, rabbits and more in the natural, protective habitat that the meadows create. After a dry, brownish winter, when the meadow begins to come alive again in the spring, it’s so exciting! Yes, patches of grass offer good foot-feel and space for activities, like a carpet. But how much carpet do you need? Less work, too!

A mowed path through a dense patch of wildflowers at the Best's property in Pound Ridge, NY

A patch of black eyed susan next to the Best's home in Pound Ridge, NY.

The Bests go on to say:

The combination of having both meadow and lawn areas seems like the best option. We have winding paths running through the meadows, making it an adventure to walk from one area to another. And it doesn’t have to be in a big area to give us that experience. Meadows provide borders and edges, as well as natural transitions from wooded areas to lawn areas – so much more alive than just a mowed lawn!

A tree swallow. This bird can be seen flying over meadows picking off flying insects. You are likely to attract these birds, especially if your meadow is near a pond.

A lone cardinal flower grows in a patch of colorful flowers on the property of James and Ellen Best, Pound Ridge, NY.

It seems as if meadow landscapes and native landscapes are popping up all over the place. In just a 20 minute internet search, I found all of the following websites.

See this company, which specializes in 'organic' landscaping. Another company can consult on your property, or insall a thriving meadow.
See an example of landscaping turned wild here from North Salem, NY
Native U, a program at Westchester Community College, is dedicated to teaching gardeners and landscapers how to incorporate native plants and native ecology into their work.
A word from NY State on practicing native landscaping here.
This Blog documents work in the 'Urban Lawn Reduction Project'.

Interested in managing the meadow on your property?
Check out this pamphlet on meadow management put out by the Mianus River Gorge.

Meadow management at the Armstrong Preserve.
On the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy's Armstrong Preserve there is an old field, which is colonized by invasive stilt grass and japanese barberry. I recently drafted a Meadow Management Plan for the Pound Ridge Land Conservancy which outlines a long-term plan to bring native meadow plants back to the field. Over the next five years we can expect more native grasses and wildflowers, bees, butterflies and dragonflies!

*All pictures by James Best

A meadow is a terrible thing to waste

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:57:00 +0000

The Pound Ridge Land Conservancy owns or holds conservation easements on 17 preserves in Pound Ridge, NY. The biggest - at 70 acres - is the Clark Preserve, on Autumn Ridge Road. This preserve is a fair representation of Pound Ridge's ecology; up high its got patches of exposed bedrock where oaks hang on for dear life, down low its got wetlands full of red maple and ferns, and everywhere in between grows a dry forest over hilly, rocky terrain. A unique feature of the Clark Preserve, and one that draws many each week, is its beautiful meadow. In the simplist terms, the Clark meadow is a refreshing change of pace; it permits a grand, open view and induces a feeling of expansiveness that the forest can not. Likewise, in ecological terms, the meadow refreshes the landscape; the open, grassy habitat supports mammals, birds, insects and reptiles that the forest does not. The bounty of the meadow interacts with the bounty of the forest to support those animals - such as the fox, hawk or box turtle - that rely on both ecosystems. An ecologist would say that 'the meadow increases landscape diversity'.

Here, in the eastern part of the U.S., meadows don't usually stay meadows for long. This is really a tree's world and before long, every meadow will become colonized by woody plants. While on one hand this change is totally natural, on the other hand we have a limited amount of meadows left and, without active management, they would simply go away. Essentially, if we want meadows (which a lot of people like for a lot of different reasons) then we must mow them to keep out trees and shrubs. This is exactly what we did at the Clark Preserve last week.

A mower at the Clark meadow in late September.

In this picture, half of the Clark meadow is mowed. By the end of the day, the entire meadow was mowed.

By mowing the meadow we killed the small shrubs that were starting to grow in the meadow. The meadow's non-woody plants - grasses, flowers, ferns, etc. - will grow again next year. In meadow management, different mowing cycles are used to benefit and attract different animals. See this pamphlet, put out by the Mianus River Gorge, on the frequency and timing of meadow mowing.

If meadows naturally turn into woodlands and forests, why should we keep a meadow open?
Or, asked a slightly different way...
Aren't we interferring with natural succession when we mow a meadow?
Eastern meadows - when left a lone - usually become colonized by woody shrubs and trees through a somewhat predictable series of vegetation changes. The following graphic depicts how a place's plants may change through time.

A very general depiction of 'succession', the change in vegetation over time.

So yes, it is well known that meadows turn into forests, but this does not mean that meadows are somehow less 'natural' or less important than forests. As landscape features, meadows have always been right alongside forests. If we consider the entire eastern forest - from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean - before it was dominated by industrialism, there were thousands of meadows dotting the forested landscape. Fires would burn and open up forests to create meadows. Beaver dams, after being breached, would drain their ponds and leave a wide open meadow. Disturbances such as these were always making meadows out of shrublands and woodlands. So at the same time as natural succession was turning meadows into forests, the forests themselves were being converted into meadows. Within this simple equation, there was always a place for meadows in the eastern landscape and, thus, many animals evoloved to live within their open, grassy vistas.

Today, its a different ballgame: fires are squelched and beavers are a mere fraction of their former abundance. No meadows are being created while the remaining meadows proceed through succession into forests. Given enough time, we will simply run out of meadows - hence the need for meadow management. When we manage for a perpetual meadow we secure habitat for all the butterflies, birds, dragonflies and turtles that rely on them.

Becuase of their ecological and cultural history, meadows are the focus of conservation in Westchester County. Many uncommon birds and insects flock to these areas, attracting naturalists with binoculars and cameras. The following are managed meadows open to the public:
Westchester Land Trust's Pine Croft Meadow
Ward Pound Ridge Reservation
Bedford Audubon's headquesters is surrounded by fields
Marshland Conservancy

On a side note, I can reccomend two good books on the subject of America's historic landscape.

1491: New Revalations of the Americas Before Columbus

Paradise Found: Nature in America at the Time of Discovery

Keeping your garden warm through the fall

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:27:00 +0000

Here comes fall again...its seems like just yesterday I had ample daylight to do with as I pleased: after-dinner hikes, early morning bird walks, flexibility to do my garden chores whenever they fit in. Now, I am scrambling to get everything done before it gets dark. The revolving seasons change the way we are currently gardening at the Armstrong Education Center. We can't create more hours of sunlight, but we can surely govern the micro climate in our garden to keep temperatures – and production – from dropping too low. There are many techniques for what is commonly called 'season extension', which generally means growing crops beyond their normal outdoor growing season. Some forms of season extension – such as the greenhouse – certainly ring a bell with most people. Lesser known methods with interesting names such as 'row covers', 'hoop houses' and 'cold frames' are actually used regularly among small to medium sized agricultural operations.

Row covers, used to extend the growing season, at the Armstrong Education Center.

Underneath the row cover. Inside, our swiss chard, kale and carrots will get some early winter protection.

This week at the Armstrong Education Center gardens, Sarah Bush and I installed Agribon AG-19 row covers over our remaining crops of salad greens, carrots, beets and herbs. This material will provide protection against early frosts and, until then, keep the beds from cooling off on cold nights. In addition to season extension, row covers are used for a variety of other reasons including pest control and preventing wind damage. Just googling 'row covers' will yield dozens of helpful sites and hundreds of pictures.

On a personal level, learning about row covers and season extension opened my eyes to the commitment, skills, knowledge, and ingenuity of the farming community. When I first saw season extension I thought "Wow, these people just wont give up!". I first encountered season extension in Alaska where, with only a three month growing season I expected not to find many farmers, but I did. Growers in Alaska take advantage of the looooong days, which help crops grow almost before their eyes. To get a jumpstart on the late season and to hang onto it as long as possible, the Alaskan growers that I met used various methods of season extension.

Alaska Grown is a state program that promotes Alaska state agriculture

To me, these techniques represent a certain strain of resilience, stubbornness and dedication that I am finding to be universal among food growers. I am learning from these growers that to keep a productive and sustainable garden requires us to master the art and science raising plants. At the Armstrong House, productivity and sustainability are goals and in only our first growing year, we are learning a lot. To increase productivity and sustainability in the future, we have much more planning and learning to do; our row covers are just the beginning. Stay tuned to see what else we try.

For the region's authority on growing, gardening, farming and agriculture see Stone Barns. Visit their website at least, but do yourself a favor and visit their farms, sit in on a class and participate in a workshop. A recent trip to their greenhouse, hoop houses, orchards and compost arena left me speechless. They really know how to grow food over there.

Seasons of want and plenty

noreply@blogger.com (Tate Bushell) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:56:00 +0000

I'm not a foodie but I have a couple foodie friends who would rather eat dirt than a winter tomato from the supermarket. After hearing their arguments and giving my taste buds some time to reflect, I am beginning to agree. At the Armsrong Education Center, I am trying something new this year: my partner, Sarah, and I bought 40 pounds of organic heirloom tomatos from Amawalk Farm in Katonah, NY, and processed them into sauce for the winter. Come January, when the mealy tomatoes get shipped in from who knows where, we will be thawing out bags of tomato sauce for pastas, pizzas, chillis and more. Here is what the process looked like:

We met a farmer and asked if we could buy slightly damaged tomatoes at a reduced price. They were happy to sell off tomatoes that weren't otherwise marketable. After a quick trip to their farm, we came home with two big boxes of assorted heirloom tomatoes.

A quick rinse

Some of the tomatoes were a bit under ripe so we set them aside to eat in a few days. They will not be made into sauce. This informative pictures appeared on the side of the tomato box. The tomato faces are cute.

We cut up the sauce tomatoes and removed any damaged parts. On average, each tomato had one or two small spots that needed to be cut out and composted. This step took roughly 2 hours.

We placed the tomatoes into a oven pan and added good olive oil, salt and cloves of garlic. We broiled the tomatoes for roughly 25 minutes. We stirred the tray two times to make sure the garlic didn't burn.

Amazing.

We spooned the sauce into freezer bags

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.

What does freezing bags of tomato sauce have to do with Living Lighter on the Land?

1) Food is nature, nature is food. We can't fully understand and appreciate nature without understanding our food and bigger 'food systems'. We may not think of a single asparagus plant as part of the ecosystem, but when you consider our country's land cover, agriculture plays no small role. In America, the millions of acres of agriculutral land (formerly wild forests, prairies and wetlands) still connect with the greater ecosystems through their soil, water, plants, animals and the atmoshphere. There's no two ways about it: our agricultural operations are big part of our new ecosystems. To rethink your place in nature is to rethink your place in your food system.

When I thaw out my sauce in the winter I will know exactly where it came from, who picked it, who shipped it, who cleaned it, who cooked it, and who bagged it. That's food safety. Also, I will know how the farm operates, the philosophy of the farmers, how the farmers treat their land and how the farm fits into the greater ecosystem. That's land stewardship.

2) Eating in season, or perhaps more accurately stated, buying in season. When we buy food out of season, that food gets shipped from very far away. Southern California and Florida are the closest large winter-food producing regions, and much of our winter food comes from Central and South America. A tomato that travels 3,000 miles (and the fuel that was required to do so) doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I'd rather buy it from a farm five miles away and freeze it.

Freezing is just one option. You can pickle, jar, smoke, cure, and dehydrate your food to keep it for the winter. It's surely not easier than driving to the supermarket, but it puts you back in control of your food. Plus, you can feel good knowing that you would have made your grandmother proud.