Shameless Plea

We are getting ready to preserve nearly two acres and transform it, like we did our last two properties, into a permacultural wonderland of native, edible and medicinal perennials, pollenator gardens and habitat for a variety of creatures. On our second walk-through at the property, we frightened a muskrat who looked fat and happy but for the fact that he was awakened and had to run a long way for cover. We would definitely improve that critter's habitat! Our earlier goal of saving 80 acres remains our ultimate goal, but this property has an established caretakers home and two greenhouses. We would have to raise four times as much money to build in all those improvements on 80 acres. Not to mention the infrastructure needed to even set up such a facility. As an added bonus, instead of being 3-5 hours from major population centers, there will be a million people within bicycling distance! Talk about offsetting carbon footprints!Even more interestingly, we will be just of fth eIce Age Trail and will be able to offer no trace camping to through hikers!
Trouble is, I'm not going to sugar coat it, money. Due to covid-19, it has been two full years of less than half my normal professional gig that allows me to fund the work that ECO-Tours has done. We are adept at soil restoration and teaching about how to make and use biochar. Spreading seed and re-establishing native cover. There have been many events where contributions have covered gas or lunch, but often not both. We can afford to operate on exremely small budgets, whether we are tree planting, seed collecting and dispersing, teaching classes or doing intrerpretive programs because our labor and management have always been 100% volunteer. It took us our first ten years to do, but we planted 60,000 tree seedlings across Northeast Wisconsin and we raised less than six thousand dollars a year during those years.
We were able to do it because we got creative. One of us would wait around, until after pick-up hours at the annual Department of Natural Resources tree seedling distribution event, many years hundreds of trees came home with us that otherwise would have been thrown into the compost. In fact, the year before the first year we put in our order, I had been walking past the greenhouses at the County Extension Offices. Out back I found over 2,000 tree seedlings in their compost. We took them home. potted them up and it took a while, but we got nearly all of them set out into permanent and appropriate places, their forever homes, within that first spring and fall. After I found that treasure, I went and asked why they had thrown them out and they said that every year, when they did the DNR tree seedling sale, some live plants would not get picked up and they didn't have any way to store them or hold them for later pick up, so they just put them in the compost pile.
I made sure after that to always show up at the beginning of the day to help set up, then to fill my order as late in the day as possible, so I could help after they shut down. After two or three days of getting people paired with their orders for pick up, everyone woul dbe pretty tired and the idea of taking a hundred or a thousand trees home ot plant is too much for anyone to think about, unless you are someone with friends who will help pot them up and eventuqally come help plant them out on another day, which we did. Inevitably there would be at least a few dozen left over seedlings. Most times there were many hundreds and once or twice over a thousand free trees to help keep our costs down. The real value was in all the loving hands that helped pot them all up and those loving hands that came later and lovingly placed them in the ground. Indeed, the loving hands of those who pulled competing weeds were also necessary to have the thousands of sucessful trees, spread across many hundreds of acres that would have never grown without the participation of many hundreds of people who care.
The reason that I mention this is to point out that rather than contributions being eaten up by administrative or fund-raising costs, our dollars flow with power and immediacy to what needs funding, not advertizing and gala events for megadonors. Give what you can. If you would like to stay in the loop about our events, which are mostly centered around Wisconsin let us know at: biocharmaster@gmail.com or if you would lik eot purchase a class, We can teach you everything you need to know to make top quality biochar in just a few hours by phone or online through zoom or fblive. Any contribution of fifty or more gets you a class if you would like to start sequestering carbon forever. If you are having trouble with our paypal link, you can go there directly and use our account number, tnsaladino42@hotmail.com or, you can go to our gofundme page and contribute to "Save 80 acres of Wisconsin for outdoor school".

These trees were some of the first we planted and this image is from ten years ago. The last time I was past the farm, they were taller than the house! They are also large enough now to shade the west side of the house from summer sun and winter wind. The energy savings alone is like offsetting carbon use that is now unnecessary. In very real ways, we continue to prove that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the second best time is today!
Again, please contribute what you can.

Innovative Fiction

I have explored the idea of cognitive dissonance, the ability of humans to hold two diametrically opposed views simultaneously. I have written about the concept of epistemic closure, the truncating of our imaginations that leads to inability to integrate new data because of our preconceived ideas. The tours we take readers and guests on often point out the need for new folk tales and fresh creation myths, that create a new landscape in our world view.  I have even written at length about the various ego defense mechanisms that jump to defend our sensitive and naive nature, every bit as impenetrable as an armadillo or turtles carapace. Many of the tours that we provide here at ECO-Tours of Wisconsin are on the level of imagination. Frequently, these writings stray into very real territory, for us, that may remain unexplored by many. Frequently, the spiritual realm is the domain of our explorations. As we reach more and more ecotourists through the internet, it is perhaps reasonable to explore areas that lie off most maps, as long as it helps us to inform ourselves about where we are and how our interactions with the physical realm affect the planet. Innovative fiction can help us inform better choices by lessening our investment into tired old lies, foisted upon us by the ruling class.

Who we are certainly leads to what we can achieve and the limitations on our thought, whether imposed by external forces or our own ideation. What we need to do, it seems to many, is to resurrect our own imagination. The ice in the arctic began to break up several weeks ago, a full month earlier than ever before. Record amounts of freshwater drained into the ocean off the surface of Greenland this year. Nearly every parameter we look at closely has been perturbed in ways that break records, defy conventional understanding and set us on a new course of perception. Even in our political and spiritual underpinnings, we have become shaken by the range and scope that is taking place. The way we conceive ourselves and our environment spills over into social policy, educational institutions, even our interpersonal relations.

Today, we can investigate the discreet ecological quality of intestinal flora, there are "boutique" methods of using phages, developed to specifically correct unique colonizations by unwelcome intestinal bacteria. About half of my readership lives in places where these methods are illegal under FDA (Food and Drug Administration) regulations. That is not to say they are not effective, just unavailable. Understanding of ecology is both global and local. It seems that most of what we are seeing reported in all areas of our lives are so incomprehensible, that if one had written it as a novel or screenplay just a few years ago, no publisher would have printed and even Hollywood would have rejected it because it would have been seen as too unbelievable.

We, here at ECO-Tours actively encourage all of our readers and guests to use your imagination to vision quest into realms that can grapple with the impending change that confronts humanity. Re-prioritize your life in ways that circumvent what we know to be the destructive tendencies that abound in technology, medicine, agriculture, energy, transportation, politics and the educational institutions that are charged with passing on the collective knowledge of our culture. Allowing the exploitative and destructive actions to cease and encouraging the growth, nourishment and facility for creation that is our birthright. We are stardust, we are one. It is high time to start acting like it. Tell the stories of your life that reveal the power of love over fear, perhaps that way we can heal the sick, house the poor and eliminate the need for poisons and prisons. The Earth and her creatures are infinitely resilient but cannot be expected to come back from exponentially changing conditions. I could draw you a map of how to find peace, but it will only depict how I get there. It is for each of us to resolve how we will help to re-create Eden. Perhaps if my terminology strikes you as naive, think of it as becoming responsible crew upon Starship Earth.

How each of us responds to and reflects the "spirits" that are recognized as Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit is unique. It cannot be mediated and there is no "proper way" to do it. To step away from the abyss that raping Mother Earth has represented, we need to learn not only how to heal ourselves, but how to inflict the least damage in our passing. Instead of the tried and true ideal of "Leave no trace" ethics, we need to understand that there is the possibility of enriching and enlivening the planet with our lifestyles. We have the power to rewrite the myths of our time, encourage others to see things from new perspectives and to respond to what the Supersuckers refer to as awesomeology, the giving of more than anyone could have possibly bargained for at a lower cost than they ever could have imagined. Cultivate peace, sew the seeds of compassion and spew forth love, as aggressively as some choose to spew hate. It is the only thing that has the power to change the world for the better. I believe it was FDR who said,

“The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself.”

This wonderful message, penned on the back of a foundry worker's jacket describes well the urge to "clean up" our conceptualize the world around us. When impurities float to the top, we need to skim them off to reveal the glistening white hot metal that will be used to forge a new civilization.

"WHAT WE ARE PULLING OFF IS SLAG, IMPURITIES IN THE METAL. SAND AND INVESTMENT THAT HAS TURNED TO GLASS AND FLOATED TO THE TOP. IT IS THE DREGS OF HELL. IT IS THE SIN OF OUR FOREFATHERS...