Calla Felicity

I hadn't heard the word, but I immediately went to the web and researched it a bit. This type of pasturing would be highly suitable for the terrain in our county. We are engaged with trying to re-establish and maintain high meadowlands amidst the forests so we will be less likely to burn. Forest management and animals for human and pet consumption is a win-win.

We sometimes need to use a truck. But we would only need to use a truck ourselves for maybe a couple of days a month, so maybe 60-80 days total in a year. That wouldn't justify the carbon footprint of a regular gas-powered truck, and electric trucks are at this time only conceptual, not for sale anywhere. There are no readily rentable trucks closer to us than 30 miles away. So we created "OWL-Truck Brookings". OWL-Truck stands for Old Women Loaner Truck. We purchased a used small truck (trading in our fancy non-electric CRV and now loan our truck, with me driving it, to others in our town who need some stuff hauled from here to there...they supply the lifters and they pay for gas. We have a FaceBook page, and we are putting small printed cards that tell about our free truck-sharing service, in the realtors' offices in town, as well as on community bulletin boards. We hope others will also consider how to share vehicles in our rural area where the terrain is challenging to walk (limited sidewalks, older population, hill terrain) and some of us have garages and have enough time and resources to help neighbors we don't personally know yet. 

Our county is only about 15% non-forested, and of that small amount of land, only 3% is habitable. Much of it is very challenging deep canyons and mountains which are largely federal and state forest lands. The challenge of small farms is very real. The nearest CSA is a 60 mile drive to pick up, so unfortunately the carbon offset of locally grown food isn't great enough to pay to drive the distance weekly. We shop in the local farmer's market nearer to us, where we know the farmers and love to eat their produce. We also make our own dog food (don't get me started on what an ecological disaster the pet food industry is!) from local and organic ingredients whenever possible. A benefit of good organic food which is largely grain and vegetables with the amount of meat that is healthy for the dogs (5lbs raw weight, incl bones, for a 9-10 qt cooked "batch" of completed food) is that they have NO "skin  conditions", they easily maintain a healthy weight, and they are in general extremely healthy dogs, all 7 of them. And, they love their food!

I interviewed a long-time environmental activist-scientist who works with land preservation and restoration on both public and private lands. In the course of our conversation, she told me about sustainable ranchland practices in place near and in our county. One of the  sheep ranches nearest us is a generational farm that practices most of the components of regenerative agriculture; specifically, pasture rotation, and intentional grazing/fertilization. I hope to visit this ranch this summer, to observe their practices in person!

The outdoors air is cleanest during this time of year, locally. Birds are everywhere. Robins engaged in food searching alight on the bare branches of a bareroot cherry tree we've already planted. 
We had to deforest our bluff/cliff property because the existing trees were the types of evergreens that explode in a fire, and they were planted very close to our home. We are burning their wood in our modern, efficient appliance (extremely low carbon emissions) and the logs explode in there. And the trees shaded so much of the growth s[paces here that gardening was very challenging. We plan to replace the conifers with low silhouette fruit-bearing trees to supplement flowering trees that also attract and feed local pollinators. I love envisioning the life cycle of these new trees, and their deciduous natures will make for better year-round pollinator and food plantings. It is good to envision the future, as sometimes the climate crisis looms so depressingly in my dreams. I am an old woman, an earth witch, envisioning life going forward past the current climate crisis, and hoping that birds and insects and people will all benefit from my labor and care of these trees. I hope to live long enough to see them flower, fruit, and grow sturdy enough to withstand the ferocious stormwinds we sometimes experience. I think of their diversity amidst the nearby conifer forests, and hope for compatibility with the other casual and ecologically sound landscape of our mountainside yard.