Respect to a Dynamic World

Respect to a Dynamic World

This is my latest Blog at for the Aldo&Leonardo Science and Art Collaboration. Interesting I get a job continuing Aldo Leopold Ethics, but more importantly I get to study my passion of the combination of Art and Science. We are currently working on the long term goal of a book and or Exhibit in the Smithsonian about the one month residency Colorado Art Ranch has put together over the years. 

Aldo & Leonardo, a partnership between Colorado Art Ranch and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, is a project to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. The project is inspired by the scientific wisdom of Aldo Leopold and the artistic genius of Leonardo da Vinci. Our endeavor is an interdisciplinary collaboration of artists and scientists designed to celebrate the lands, resources and opportunities protected by the Wilderness Act. In 2013, we are hosting one-month residencies in six diverse wilderness areas. Artists will work alongside wildland research scientists and gain firsthand knowledge of the wonders, complexities and challenges of our nation's wildest places. The result will be a body of work that creatively illustrates the value of wild areas and honors the scientific efforts to preserve wilderness for the next fifty years(Pound,Lawless)

Photo &Blog ~Ryan Mudgett

The role of beauty and its position in conservation was always a very serious matter to Aldo Leopold, which can be seen in his most famous book A Sand County Almanac. Without finding simple pleasures in nature it may be quite difficult to listen to what your environment has to tell you. Leopold writes at the beginning of the section “Song of Gavilan,” “The life of every river sings its own song, but in most the song is long since marred by the discords of misuse.” Here he is speaking of a global cycle of anthropocentric perturbations which includes land and water misuse. He goes on to say “Overgrazing first mars the plants and then the soil. Rifle, trap, and poison next deplete the larger birds and mammals; then come a park or forest with roads and tourists. Parks are made to bring the music to the many, but by the time many are attuned to hear it there is little left butnoise”(Leopold 159). This noise Leopold speaks of is best tied in at the end of the section where he writes “That the good life on any river may likewise depend on the perception of its music, and the preservation of some music to perceive, is a form of doubt not yet entertained by science” (Leopold 163). We can appreciate rivers by learning how to listen to their harmony. Each drainage and its corresponding riparian habitats have their own melody. It’s up to the listener to decide whether or not they enjoy the music or not.  It can be tough to appreciate all the splendors of nature when you are constantly reminded of all the harm we have done. I think it is time to find joy in all of the complexities that our wilderness provides us no matter what landscape you live in. There is nature everywhere, and don’t forget we humans are part of it as well.  Even if you are not quite sure what it is that makes your landscape so amazing, a sense of wonder can often lead into a journey of passion and stewardship for the land and waters that you call home.

ecuador may 24

Last day working with the cows and horeses, it´s bittersweet but i am looking forward to what we are doing next. Im hoping its the chickens! It doesn´t involve so much shit shoveling... This morning was fun though everyone was energized and in great moods!

this mornings class we talked about green manure and mulch. We talked about specific ways this can be implented depending on where in the world you live and what kinds of materials are avalible. after that we went off into the forest to collect materials to make bokashi. It´s really cool that everything we need is so close and is sustianably used. We collected a lot in the orchid forest, currently none of the orchids are bloomed but it  was neat to say the least.

This afternoon i taught one of the new girls how to make the matte spoons and helped with loose end transplanting.

Im looking forward to this weekend though! going to canoa agian and it´s ecuadorian independence day so it should be a great fiesta!!! It´s my last real weekend with the friends i have made at the farm so we are sure to make it a good one!

ecuador may 22nd and 23rd

Wednesday May 22nd

Woke up early and worked with the cows again. They were all in thier plces so it made things really easy! I had to go collect the grass i talked about earlier for the cows this morning. Man i didn´t realize how heavy it was! and sharp!! It rained lastnight all night so the roads were really muddy and washed up making it difficult to carry the leaves the distance i did. But im a lot stronger now ;) It was an adventure!

More class after breakfast. Our main focus today was composting which was super interesting and relevant to bringing back home. We talked abuot invisible urban composting anmd the two methods of that: hole and trench. When i get home im looking forward to trying our the hole composting. I believe it will work really well at my house! ç
Once agian today was cultural day. We took a little hike to a HUGE tree that has been taken over by parasite. It was trully amazing. Apparently the local people look up to the tree because it is able to survive and create beauty with the parasite. Later we made rings out of old nuts from a native tree the practially has no use. Nicola and Dario believe that everything has a use and this tree is continully beingh cut down for because many believe it does not. So they have come up with a way to make it useful. and not to mention provide great gifts made by myself to bring back home!

May 23rd
 Cleaned more stales this morning. Dirty work, but it´s worth it. Clean, happy animals = healthy animals ;)
After breakfast was another class in permaculture. We leanred more about compost. Primiarly hot and cold composting. We then went to the garden and made our own hot compost pile. We used dryleaves, green leaves, manure, little bit of soil, and lots of water to complete the pile. Its about 4 ft tall now but when fginished composting  in 3 weeks it will shrink down to about a foot. It was so easy to do this! i know i can do it back at home for sure. Hot compost has to be made all at one time and it´ll have to be at a much smaller scale with less compost remaing but hey! i can use it on my house plants :) We also talked about 15 day composting and bokashi. We took a more in depth tour of the farm as well. looking at all the random things around the farm. It was all so interesting. We discused the solar and biomass systems the farm uses as well. The solar system here at the farm was actually donated by a company from Colorado! So cool! along the tour nicola introuduced us to a dye that natives use to paint themselves and dye thier hair. Im the only one with blonde hair on the farm so i was voted to use it to dye the tips of my hair orange. Its really cool haha!  today was a great day full of information, applied application and fun!

5/24/2013

The class has been going well, i wish we were staying for the whole thing. today we taked more about compost, mulch and green manure. i was surpried to learn about green manure, which is just plant matter. we talked a lot about micro organisms and how to capture then for gardening and compost use. we taked about bokashi, a japanese method of culturing bacteria. first you cook rice, then mix the rice with a bit of water, place it in a jar with a mesh ld and burry near water. this sits for about 10 days and micro organisms should colonize teh rice. you can fed them molasses water. later we gathered material to make a larger   scale bokashi. we gathered forest material with micro organism and legume leaves for nitrogen.all this material was shredded and mixed together for thebokashi. we wont be here for the final product but i hope it works.

ecuadar may 20th and 21st

Monday May 20th
So many new people arrived on the farm today for the permaculture class that starts. There´s such a wide variety of diversity, culture, and language surrounding us. People from all over the world, Columbia, Italy, France, Canada, Austriala, New Zealand and Belguim!
It was overcasty today making work in the garden a lot more barable than last week. I started out by laying new irrigation lines in the new beds we made last week. Its really cool to see how much this section of the garden has come together in the time i have been here and how much i have helped to make it what it is now! I then helped weeds some radishes, ginger and then on to the onions. I really enjoy weeding. It may seem dorky but i love it and its super relaxing. I really looking forward to tomorrow morning because we will finally be working with animals as morning chores !!

Tuesday May 21st
This morning was awesome. Super disorganized but fun haha. We were assinged to work with the cows and hores. Yet, none of them were where they were supposed to be! After rounding them all up and cleaning thier stales we were able to feed them and that was that. I learned that the cows and horses are feed (when not grazing) this really tall plant (ill have to get the name later) that grows naturally on the farm. They love it! Afgter breakfast was my first class in permaculture. Today we went over the basic principles of organic farming in depth and detail.
Quickly they are:
1- return all organic material to the soil
2- feed the soil, not just the plant
3-create biodiversity
4- plant in associations
5-. proctect your insect populations
6- crop rotation
7- grow what grows well, don´t force it
8- minimize tillage
9- happy animals are healthy animals
10- PREVENTION not cure

Nicola is so educated in this area. She is an organic certifier and has certified farms for organic farming all over the world. and when i say ALL over the world i am not eggarerating.

Later in the afternoon i helped do random things in the garden, it was a good educational day.

5/22/2013

today was cultural day. i love these days. it is great to learn about the ways people live her, its so differnt drom the US. we began the day with class. We talked about compost and teh differnt ways it can be done depending on teh material you have. we leared about hot compost and proceeded to build one in the garden. i had never heard od hot compost before and was very interested. i am hoping to duplicate this when i return home. we also learned about the differnt levels of carbon and nitrogen in differnt materials. i didnt know much of what was taught today so i was very happy.after lunch we began culture day. we went to visit a giant tree which had been taken over by a parasitic plant, it was amazing. after, we carved rings out of pine nuts, this was awesome. i am making rings for everyone before i leave.

ecuador may16th, 17th,18th, 19th

May 16th
Helped in the kitchen this morning. The ladies in the kitchen speak no english and have the coastal accent which was interesting to work with.  We cut some fruits and helped set the table. Not too difficult, but a lot of fun:) After breakfast we were assigned our jobs for the day. In the beginning we started out by finishing up the irrigation in the big part of the garden. It´s important to make sure this system will be running smoothly for the dry season  where it rains very very little. The sun was out all morning but it was nice being able to work with the water to cool off every now and then. Later in the day i learned how Sergio makes the matte cups and spoons that we use for our meals. I helped scrap out the matte fruit (which isn´t eatten because apparently it doesn´t taste good. I don´t want to try it either i think it smells like paint thinner, ICK!) I really enjoyed this activity is was laid bacl and the volunteers were able to hang out and share our stories with eachother. The spoons we worked on will be used for a schoo fund raiser for the childrens environmental school here on the farm

May 17th
I cut my first pineapple this morning! I know, it´s crazy haha but hey i learned something new :) The pineapple came from the farm, it´s neat that they use fruit grown so near. I learned that it takes over a year for just one pìneapple to grow! That´s sooo long for just one fruit!
After breakfast we headed up to the garden agian. I was chosen to work on making beds in a different section of the garden that had recently been weeded out since the rainy season. It was hard work. The soil here is very thick and very rough. Most of it being a hard clay material. Tillage usually isn´t a part of sustianable ag, but in this case and in this location it is vital to helping create air pockets for planting. After that, i planted cucumber in one of the new beds we made. the roots of the cucumber already smelt like cucumber! it was neat. After lunch i learned how to and helped transplant a hole bunch of sesame plants. Transplanting was an intesteriing process that required lots of water and being very very gentle with the plant. Im hoping they turn out great in thier new home!  since it´s friday we are about to head to canoa for the weekend! i am very much looking forward to a break from the farm and experincing a more culture in the area!

The Weekend
This weekend was really laid back. Got to eat some locally made empanadas and spent some time on the beach. Even though Canoa is somewhat of a touristy area there are still a lot of locals and a lot of different things going on. It was a great weekend!