In 2012 we will build a dwelling place on our land. We are working with Whole Trees Architecture and Construction on drawing up plans to design a structure built of locally grown (many grown on our own property), unmilled timbers. These won’t be the best “specimen” trees around. Instead they’ll […]
One of the workshops at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference we attended a few weeks ago was called “Creating a Regional Food Economy in Our Backyard.” This is a topic Doug and I care deeply about, and it’s central to the plans we have for our future. We’re lucky. We […]
Those of us who live in Wisconsin have been observing and/or participating in a major civics exercise the past few weeks. It’s been an astonishing demonstration of what people are willing to do when they perceive their government is overreaching its authority. My throat is raw, my arches ache and […]
Doug and I each attended different lectures on mycorrhizae by Jeff Lowenfels at the MOSES Midwest Organic Farming Conference a few weeks ago, and we both felt Lowenfels’ talks on mycrorrhizal fungi were some of the best info we got at the conference. It’s sent me on a quest to […]
8:30 a.m. Feb 25 and I was full up on organic oatmeal, organic raisins and organic milk, leaning forward in my seat at the first of two day’s worth of workshops at the Midwest Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse. I was learning about “Soil Building through Cover Cropping and […]
What would it feel like to be a tiny crab scuttling about at the bottom of a very shallow pond that is being filled with toxins? We should know. We are looking up through a very thin and increasing polluted layer of air — air that is getting rapidly hotter. […]
I listened to Dr. Don Waller, UW-Madison professor of botany and environmental studies and editor of “The Vanishing Present: Wisconsin’s Changing Lands, Waters, and Wildlife” give a presentation on long-term changes in Wisconsin forests last week as part of the UW-Arboretum Winter Lecture Series. He shifted my forest focus from […]
GUEST POST BY DELLA HANSMANN. Read more of her thoughts on green building and design at Dwelling Places. Does anyone else in their late twenties (or with kids that age) remember the old Sesame Street song about “Clean, clear water”? I still find myself singing “Don’t… waste… water. Water water […]
THOSE WHO EXPECT TO REAP THE BLESSINGS OF FREEDOM MUST UNDERGO THE FATIGUE OF SUPPORTING IT. Thomas Paine THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING. Edmund Burke I am going to go off my usual environmental topic for this post. Things […]
According to a report, “Tackling High Tech Trash,” by Demos, a non-partisan public policy research and advocacy organization, Americans now own 3 billion electronic products with a turnover rate of about 400 million units annually. We now have one computer for every six people on the planet. This […]
Digging in the Driftless 