Dr Elaine was really a pioneer....Humanity owes her a lot.

Thank you for the inspiration and the thousands, maybe millions of people who have learned to treat soil as a living being.

You will be missed

Follow-up on the 500 nest boxes project I’m building for declining cavity-nesting birds in my area.

The idea is to create durable, low-cost nesting structures using hollowed log sections from leftover tree trunks that would otherwise be chipped.

The goal is to produce them in larger numbers so they can actually make a difference for species like collared flycatchers and common redstarts, which depend on natural tree cavities.

Someone commented on my last post that metal roofs can overheat birdhouses and kill chicks.

Instead of arguing about it, I decided to test it.

I ran a small worst-case experiment where I heated the roof to about 70–75 °C (158–167 °F) for four hours while increasing the surrounding air temperature from 22 °C to 31 °C (72–86 °F).

Thanks to the ventilated roof design, the inside of the nesting chamber stayed between 22–26 °C (72–79 °F) — well below temperatures that become problematic for eggs or chicks.

So at least with this design, overheating doesn’t seem to be an issue.

I filmed the setup and the results here if anyone’s curious:

https://youtu.be/58_RWLtPs58

Edit: My research also suggests that the sound of rain on a metal roof shouldn’t be a problem for cavity-nesting birds.

When I was in school I was taught about settlers arriving to an “untouched landscape.” Native Americans were part of the story, but it was said they lived “lightly” on the land.

And then, in my 40s I take a prescribed-burn class and it’s like the world turned upside down.

It’s taken me more than two full years to wrap my head around what I learned in that class about the Indigenous people’s impact on the land. That they burned the prairies so often and for so long that entire ecosystems adapted to prefer regular burnings - to need it to stay healthy.

The shear scale of that hits me the same way as gazing at the Milky Way on a clear, dark night.

It rocks everything I thought I knew about humans’ roll in the natural world.  

Even though I first learned all this a while ago, it’s recently gotten stirred up because a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon this really cool Story Map that has collected and mapped all these firsthand accounts of Native Americans burning. From the breadth of these accounts, where they regularly mention the Indians burning “every year,” I still have trouble believing that fires aren’t a bigger part of the pioneer stories.

Though maybe it was always there and I just didn’t realize? 

I went back to my Little House on the Prairie books and found a passage where Pa saves the house from a prairie fire. The neighbors speculate that Indigenous people started the fire to drive out the settlers. But Pa rejects that interpretation:

“Pa didn’t believe it. He said the Indians had always burned the prairie to make green grass grow more quickly, and traveling easier.”

I loved these books. I remember the fire, but not this interpretation of the fire. It didn’t register what this might mean. That it was stewardship, that it was intentional, that it was scaled to tens of thousands of acres of prairies. 

I’m super curious…Am I alone in this? Is this a new or recent revelation for anyone else or just me? Did it change you as much as it changed me when you learned it?

The land I bought a few years ago has been overworked and overgrazed for centuries, which is especially bad in semi-arid environments like mine (~avg 400mm rain per year). This is the current state of my zone 1 area. Total is 1 acre but this part has had the most effort done to it... now to expanding the regeneration to the rest of the zones!

Hey folks— I’m an undergrad researcher working on a soil biology project that looks at how partially spent mushroom substrate (mostly oyster) influences soil regeneration. I used a basic CO₂ meter inside sealed containers to test microbial respiration over time—comparing substrate-amended soil to untreated control soil.

The results? The SMS-treated soil consistently showed higher microbial activity (aka more CO₂ release), even when nutrients like nitrates and pH began to shift. I’m now connecting this with mycelial memory, carbon cycling, and regenerative soil strategies.

This was all part of a student research expo—so I kept it DIY: no $10K lab gear, just solid methodology and consistency. The community’s feedback has been incredible so far, and it’s made me realize how much untapped potential there is in using SMS not just as waste, but as a real soil amendment tool.

I’m sharing this in case: • You’ve ever tossed your substrate and wondered what else it could do • You’re working with compost, degraded soils, or garden amendments • You’re interested in fungi beyond fruiting—into their ecological legacy

Would love to hear if any of you are using SMS like this—or want to. I’ve attached my poster + visuals if anyone’s curious. Happy to chat!

-This has me thinking a lot about fungal succession, myco-composting, and what a low-cost, high-impact soil renewal system could look like on degraded land. Would love feedback from anyone who’s used fungal material to kickstart soil recovery.

Government officials are seemingly working to cover up the dangers and health risks. Nobody as of yet knows what is in this stuff other than that its “mostly” oil, but presumably lots of other chemicals as well. Waiting to hear from neighbors what independent lab testing shows. We didn’t get the worst of the “black rain” like some people who got completely covered, but are still worried about what did get on our plants, in the water and soil, etc… are thinking of just abandoning the property which has been in the family since the 1800’s. The oil plant sits in the recharge zone of the huge Southern Hills aquifer that supplies most of SE Louisiana above the saltwater line with drinking water.. Oil in the river i grew up fishing on.. Anyways I keep thinking maybe I can do some sort of massive bioremediation effort using fungi, mostly because its so hard to let go of the land I grew up on and 10 years of work planting and maintaining a food forest all on my own.. but part of me feels that its hopeless and not worth getting cancer, which we were probably already at risk of before the explosion.. if we leave I will essentially have nothing. Lots of big farms around me are proceeding with business as usual because they haven’t planted their fall crops yet and because the EPA and DEQ are acting like its no big deal. It could be cool to move to a community of like-minded permaculture people instead of living in a poisoned town with people who are openly proud of being in the KKK.. but I don’t know where to start. Went WWOOFing one summer and it was a total bust/scam most of the time.. worked like a slave for meager meals and learned very little other than not to blindly trust people that claim to be permaculturists. I think it will be hard to sell the land, especially after this event. The lot across the street from us has been on the market for the last 10 years or longer.

For bioremediation I am thinking remove topsoil and vegetation, mix with woodchips, inoculate with fungi and let it do it thing, then later compost it all and test to determine if its safe to spread.

The good news is.. well we no longer have a chemical plant 3 miles from our house.

Thoughts?

Just closed yesterday on 37 beautiful acres in Vermont (zone 5a)!! My partner and I have had this dream for 15 years and we’re thrilled it’s finally happening. We’ve used plenty of permaculture practices in our rentals over the years, but nothing’s quite like doing it on a space that’s yours forever I think. No house yet, but we will yurt it over the next couple years while we build and establish everything. I’m reading Ben Falk’s “The Resilient Farm and Homestead” and Michael Phillips’s “The Holistic Orchard” while we pack up our rental and spend time getting to know the land.

My question- if you bought land just before summer solstice, what would you do before winter arrives to prepare for next year? What are the first few things you’d do? We have about 8 acres of cleared meadow, 12 acres of flat forest land with some small clearings, and 17 acres of steeper forest and two creeks. There’s also a small pond in one of the front meadows. Trying to make my to do list for this year and overwhelmed by all the potential first steps.

I'm a bit of a hermit, so nobody around to boast to.

This land was formerly the flood plane of the Rio Puerco. It was degraded by damming upstream, erosion, and overgrazing.

Issues:

Loamy Sand

Excessive drainage

1% organic matter

Brackish irrigation water (2,700 mg/L dissolved solids)

No-till

Soil improved through cover cropping

Drip and olla irrigated

Lots of rainwater catchment

Wildlife friendly

Fed with poops (goats, mules, people)

The biggest problem is that the soil had no structure. The answer was cover cropping with high root mass producers (sorghum, barley, rye, legumes). Tilling in compost didn't make structure, it just added organic material. Cover crops do both. The first two seasons were difficult. The third season was okay, but the 4th was fantastic.