The Coming Few Days

 Please forgive me, I waited ten days to publish this.

 We, here on Earth, have both a massive inbound plasma stream and a low-density high speed stream the result of Sun Spot Radiation converging on Earth. It is a great kickoff for change. We will all eventually "see the light", but for now, let's just say that more and more people are waking up to the reality that no matter how much you want a lie to be true, it can't change the facts. Something many of us have known for a long time is that we are an integral part of nature. Many more become aware of that fact each day. The age of ignoring that we are one and pretending that human beings are somehow divorced from or alien to nature is dying. We are at a time in history where the truth must be accepted. Humans must evolve intellectually as well as in their hearts. The death rattle of ignorance can be heard and seen by watching and listening to the commentary of the shriveling third of the population who thought that Donald John Trump would "fix" our nation. As we speak, they are becoming disillusioned. Many of the problems we face are actually created, supported and solutions confounded by oligarchs who wield far too much power in our democracy. These challenges are directly influencing the environment and virtually every square foot of our planet has some evidence of human beings and the lack of integrity we see in our leaders. 

We now know, through scientific work that we are indeed part of Earth's natural systems. We also know that we have the power to change our environment. Civilizations have come and gone before us and they will certainly come and go after us. It is interesting to imagine human life and our populations rising and falling, like breaths of a ubiquitous beast or individual flecks of animated lichen, scattered across a stark rock face. Our civilizations mimic the other cycles of life on the planet. Interestingly some still think they can conquer nature. Those who think nuclear energy is the answer to our energy woes or that we can subdue the soil, forcing it to produce massive harvests of calories while dosing the soil with poison, these are the beliefs that hurt all of us for the benefit of a select few of us. 

This period, over a week ago now, we had more than an average amount of energy coming in from our closest star. Whether we or how we channel that energy for good, as investment in the now and it pays dividends in the future, the more we will see benefits accrue moving forward. Like with water spouts, we can direct energies that surround, permeate and move through our bodies to work in harmony and resonance with Mother Nature, our fellow creatures and the other members of the natural world. Our cycles can be her cycles. Sometimes it only takes a very brief moment of centering to see a more grand pattern of interaction.
 

In an earlier post, I describe the Square Foot Ecotour. I still use it daily, in a variety of places to help me to understand my location more fully. I often use it to center myself amid tumult. We are at the earliest Spring Planting date in our unheated greenhouse. The season to give back to Mother Earth is in full swing. Let us know if you would like to be part of the healing. We have frequent biochar classes and love sharing more than twenty-five years of experience to help people to successfully double crop production, increase CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity), reduce the need for irrigation and fertilization, please let us know. We offer our students comprehensive information about how to utilize biochar to the greatest degree and to benefit whatever your growing systems and cultural practices are. You can e-mail: biocharmaster@gmail.com or reach out to our Director, Tony C. Saladino through facebook.

When Will We Know?

 msicsaF fo sngiS (don't read this backward)

Using Secret Police (or anonymous terrorist agents)
Denying Human Rights
Controlling Education
Stealing Elections
Using Military Against Civilians
Denying Reality-Constant Lies
Controlling Media
Re-writing History
Appointing Incompetent Loyalists
Rejecting Election Results
Ignoring Due Process
Normalizing Corruption
Using Fear to Gain Power
Labeling Minorities as Enemies
Blaming Other for Their Failures
Claiming to be Persecuted While in Positions of Power and Influence.

When the facts are in, and one chooses to not look away, it can really take the wind out of our sails. I've been along for the ride like all of you. What can we do about it?
Well, the citizens of Minneapolis stood together to oppose the secret police. Two our of tens of thousands paid the ultimate price for what they believed in. Their deaths, as terrible as they remain have led to many, many more American Citizens seeing through the lies we are told on an hourly basis. The tragic lesson all of these traits bring to our attention is that we have allowed our Democratic Values to be undermined by a greedy and hateful few. We are living under a system of taxation without representation right now. The very thing we fought a Revolution over. 

This 250th Anniversary of our nation should not be the swan song of an idea but a re-invigorating threshold to a better nation, one free of malice and selective prosecution (or lack of justice for some...) We need to see through the process of creating a more perfect union and make clear what our government is meant to protect us from as well as what it can offer us when we all work together for positive change. I keep calling and writing legislators and speaking out for new candidates that have ideas about a future we can all believe in. Bernie Sanders has not been wrong yet. When the current guy in charge opens his mouth you know it will be a lie and frequently one designed as an insult. 

Obligatory Review

 Happy end of the calendar year again. I'm having more than a little bit of trouble giving it the sad send off that most years get. I'm actually a bit worried about giving it the old heave-ho. Similarly, rather than the New Year being represented this year by a baby, as it has been in the past, quite a few of us seem to understand that it is much more likely to be a baby pterodactyl or giant "baby" chick that may grow bigger than human size and eat us. There is certain trepidation that comes of existential angst. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I'm a decade or more into my second half-century of life. I doubt that's it. I do understand that my contraction just there could be misinterpreted but in my efforts to shorten the string of characters, I guess I was willing to be a little vague. Please, grammar police, let this transgression slide as long as I am willing to explain myself. Later.

No, seriously, I want to do the proper send off of 2025, but the best course of action would be to have a virtually complete do-over, except with the Administration and Congress abiding by the Constitution. For readers that either have not read the document, or live under a different system of government, there are subtle differences between founding documents of other nations. I get that. However, I have to abide by what mine says. Stepping outside the limits set by whatever form of government you live under requires certain sacrifices to be made. I honor whatever form of self expression you are allowed.

I always try to side with the pro-side of issues that I have to deal with and make decisions about. Instead of thinking about boycotts as anti-such and such business practice or human rights issue, I think about the something better I do want and how to spend dollars upholding that possibility. See, every dollar, euro or yen we spend is a vote. Better that it be "for" something rather than going into what we all know we don't want. Feeling, seeing and understanding the idea of dollars being votes is even more dangerous and necessary when it is in a country that has forsaken humans and their one person, one vote tenet, used to allocate political power in our nation. In fact, a single Supreme Court Decision has upended that traditional interpretation with one that has twisted both the idea of citizens and whose "voices" are heard in an extremely different way. Corporations are now allowed to spend unlimited dollars and it is still considered "speech". 

One dollar, one vote demands that we pay much closer attention to the things we buy. I always remind people to check out the free scientific information at Environmental Working Group (ewg.org) their Skin Deep database can help guide you to products that are safe and effective that also don't ship money to corporations who don't care about toxic ingredients in personal care products. This group is so fantastic that I urge everyone to use their online database to search you water quality as well. They have a zip code searchable database, again free. The one New Years resolution that I wish everyone would commit to is to treat your body well. you deserve it! Make sure that you have good clean water, healthy food and clean air to breathe. We the People of the entire planet deserve health and safety.

A brief biochar message: www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9a8bmiOc-g&t=20s 
Thank you Joan for asking such good questions! I'm sorry that I was a bit late getting through...I'm digitally challenged.

Young Warriors

 Each generation confronts a slightly different version of the same problems. Throughout time we have had those who wish to exploit and enslave others for the sake of enriching themselves. That fact may never change. However that does not mean that the best thing to do is put your hands in your pockets and buck up under the pressures exacted upon you by the forces which seek to exploit you. The people of Ukraine have said for years, that Oligarchs see us (We the People) as shit they grow their money in. We are but vessels used to bring them their ever-expanding booty. Pirates, by definition could only take the ship and it's contents, oligarchs exact their blood money one drop at a time throughout many generations of your family tree. Until and unless we determine that we have had enough, they will continue to exploit even the most minute chinks in our armor.

 
More than two decades ago, I was privy to a long and detailed conversation amongst a group of about twenty High School-aged young people and although what they were talking about was far outside my own experience, it held an integrity that is rare in the world we are seeing unfold around us. Remember, no oligarch-owned media empire will educate us about things we need to know to fight them. These young people, who are now heads of households, were talking about how to value corporations and how to behave, knowing that some corporate entities were funding fascism, undermining communities like their own or exploiting the workers or ecological resources. They directed and selected where to shoplift and what corporate entities to "attack", whether through deception, or misrepresentation, outright theft of resources "owned" by those corporate entities and/or disruption techniques designed to cripple them. Please understand that I cannot advocate illegal behavior unless it stops an even greater crime from being perpetrated. I understand why some feel they have no other choice, but I will not advocate for anarchy.

However, I do understand what emotion, reason and morality motivates people who will fight to the death for their community, those who would practice malicious compliance to allow the oligarchs to fail, which they have always done and those patriots who let their own integrity lead them to the choice to let their rank incompetence operate within oppressive systems. Instead of turning in your fellows as the government is telling you to do, turn in those at the top. Don't buy or patronize any of the oppressors tools. The only language they speak is money. We can no longer afford to give it to them, it has only made them spoiled and to believe that they are entitled to their privilege. In a case I am very much aware of, ULINE Corporation's owners flooded fascist organizations with many tens of millions of dollars between November Elections that gave the win to Biden and January Sixth, when conspiratorial forces, at the behest of "their president" attacked the Capitol, police and our elected representatives in order to "Stop the Steal" which is a fiction of convenience for the oligarchs. Election lies alone have done more damage to our nation than any foreign army ever has. The packaging giant makes money on everything you see that has their logo on it.

Please share this with those real people, those you love and care about, those who can see that they are being lied to in order to support a system that hurts us all. Speak out, speak truth to power, through any platform you can find.

Give

I was listening to Ted Talks, as I do from time to time and came across one from Rhua Benjamin, regarding UStopias. This was recorded long before our former President had the "insightful" epiphany that USA, has the word "us" in it. In any case there were some things I have known and integrated in my life, my experience, world view; things I often say or tell people about, which is the concept of thriving. It is, in many ways, like the Basque region's Mondragon systems of ownership and co-operativism. These co-operatively owned ventures benefit everyone and everyone matters enough to be supported and provided safety and sustenance. Ustopias can be formed at many levels and reflect the same underlying understanding which is we are each valid, valuable and as human beings, deserve enough. Enough to thrive!

UStopias we create together willfully wide awake, that allows each and every one to thrive. We enter into this co-operative behavior cycle that gives to every member of our family, home, business, life the full measure that their needs dictate, enough. This line of reason was cross pollinated with knowledge that arrived a couple weeks ago that I was not sure how to integrate, but now makes perfect sense.

People of a certain age may remember the Polaroid Land Camera,which at the time was revolutionary in that photos could be made and developed in your hand within a few minutes! Anyway, the Land fellow the camera got it's name from was tasked by NASA to research geniuses, because they knew that they would need a lot for the space program. What Land and his fellow researchers found is that among 1600 children between four and five years old, 98% are considered geniuses, because as they defined it, they used their creative imaginations to solve problems. By Grade School, that number had dropped to 30% in High School, the number dropped to12% and as adults, only 2% retain this ability. To be Genius. IMHO, we always have a choice, unless we were one of the dullard children to start.

Unlearning the constraints of sport and all forms of competition seems to be impossible, but humans are made to cooperate and be geniuses, so what stops us from utilizing our inherent ability to utilize our creative imagination to problem solve? In F-1 for instance, the difference between first on the starting grid and last was 2.5 seconds. Typically a lap would last more than a minute, perhaps as much as a minute and a half. The difference is nearly imperceptible between these elite competitors. Certainly not enough to make a difference if they were, in virtually any field other than auto Racing or perhaps at Mission Control at NASA.

When we stop policing the limits of our imagination, we find opportunity for work that does not push us into an early grave. That genius potential lies within all of us, the results of everyone thriving is worth whatever it "costs". There are rising calls for redistribution of wealth, co-operative ownership of not only housing, transportation infrastructure and banking/finance, but the educational needs for future generations can only benefit from less focus on competition for scarce resources and abundance through cooperative effort.

In my charmaking, the material would be useless when it is first made, only through investment of time, energy and consideration for all the organisms I coax to thrive in the char, once they thrive, they create their own thing, soil and that renews and replenishes itself in ways that benefit future generations as well as ours. I believe we are the macrocosm of the soil microbes that exist under our feet. We can live integrated into something much more rewarding for all of us, perfecting the give away is not something we have been trained to do well, yet; however when we find our way to do better, things will get better.

What Our Co-op Will Accomplish

This link takes you to notes for biochar classes
I hope they find you in good health.
Our property is just under two acres but we will sequester ate least two tons of carbon on site and we include biochar soil enhancement in all of our bedding plants. We are creating a gathering space and refuge for rest, relaxation and recovery from daily stressors. Our time signature of life is determined by what needs to be done when and as we develop more and more site specific ecotours, we also adapt them to be on-site specific as much as possible. We have been helping to teach about nature in ways that exhibit qualities that are worth mimicking. The inevitable principles that keep nature stable that can assist humans in becoming more resilient, more attuned to natures cycles so that our members can guests can thrive. In addition to sharing produce and insight, members and guests will also be invited to events through the seasons and benefit from the abundance of our land. To find out more or join, contact biocharmaster@gmail.com

Building Char Reserves

Carbon sequestered may have more and more value over time because it has the possibility of replacing the carbon we have so zealously burned and released into the atmosphere. In my humble opinion, Mamma Earth is trying to sequester carbon herself, the only way she can, massive charred forests. We have had them in the U.S. as well but the black ash is a gold mine for soil formation. Nature will reclaim charred logs in hundreds to thousands of years, which leads to the reclaimed forest soils. I teach how to transform lifeless and sterile char into the best emulation of soil for your location. The process is not unlike making beer or saurkraut. to be brief, it requires a host of soil precursors and enough mpoisture so that biology can literally take root in th esoil emulating pores of the biochar.
Many use the term biochar to stand in for any charred woody biomass. I dosagree. That, I call char, as in charcoal. You wouldn't want to put it in your garden, that's for sure, unless you wanted to make paths of it, intentionally. However, when you spend about six weeks, enriching and adding many and varied foods for soil life, it completely transforms the char, enlivening it, creating colonies of healthy microbial community that can be spread over a large area. A 1% concentration in soil doubles crop production, reduces irrigation needs by half, makes nutrients available in soil twice as long, and increases CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity) which helps feed pllants more appropriately. Doubling of plant biomass is a huge pay off, but the healing that is done to the soil itself will pay incalculable benefits, for generations if we treat it well. To research further, check out Gabe Brown's work restoring cabon to his soil. Armoring the soil is essential. Guarding the surface from direct Sun exposure, raindrops and wind helps the biology of the soil to stabilize and diversify. The more broad and prolific the microbiome becomes, the more stable it is as well. In this time of climate destabilization, having any soil that is resistant to both flood and drought, which again, the 1% concentration of quality biochar can achieve. Not tilling, a gentle opening of the soil with a braodfork, insertaed and leaned back on ten or fifteen degrees, just a bit to get air into tight soils, can be helpful, but keeping the majority of large and small structures in the soil intact is essential to soil health. That is why you armor as well, to protect the "little ones" in the soil profile who make it possible for both air and water to get in! When you till, the first thing to go is the large structures, and their carbon reserve in the soil gets lost. Next to go with continued tilling are the small structures and then, you just have dirt.
Just as I feel strongly about keeping the word char for sterile charcoal distinct from biochar which is alive and emulates healthy native soils. If you have ever seen dirt and know what soil is, you could not argue that those two words apply to different materials as well. I have been so dirty that I had soil on me, but the vast majority of it we prefer to leave in the garden beds. We have a preliminary hand wash prior to going in the house and that water gets used on plants often. Keeping your biochar at home becomes essential when you know how transformative it can be. Keeping living roots in the soil because they are the large structures that also help get air, moisture and sugars, when they are healthy; into the soil to feed microbes.
Fostering diversity also helps to stabilize both microclimate and helps feed a thriving soil microbiome. If you apply these five principles, your soil will revive and you can do all of this with virtually no inputs. I have and I can guide anyone through the process.

Traitors at the Helm

I have taken the long view for over half a Century. I detest ever having to say I told you so. Now we know that the Hippies were right! I've written this before, but we now have a transgression so vile that it deserves repeating. The five Supreme Court Justices, who allowed landowners to fill and grade over wetlands, the same ones that protect from flood and contamination of the aquifer, upon which we all depend. That is a serious erosion of both the Clean Water Act and fifty years of law. Chief Justice, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Grosuch and Amy Coney Barrett have in one decision cast over half of all wetlands as developable, (to the wolves) leaving each of the fifty states, free to develop their own rules, or not; a vacant, unscientific, ignorant of physics, "let er rip." message to millions of private landowners who want to "develop" in wetland. What it means though, is put impermeable surfaces out there. One of the most repugnant and sad features about the case that the desision was made upon, is that the landowners were told, before they did any work, by consultants they hired, that wetlands existed there, they just ignored the professional, hauled in tons of gravel, graded it flat and began to build. Anything without a "permanent connection" to a flowing stream is now exempt from the intent and words of the Clean Water Act. If that is not treason, I'm not sure what is!class="separator" style="clear: both;">

Waxing 2-D

It seems that humanity is a bit like every other species. We cycle through time, corkscrewing through space and time, emulating phases of the moon. We seem to come into the light of awareness and retreat to dark ages and ignorance, sometimes for centuries at a time. I spent a little time this week digging around a bit to find information about a type of textile whose origins are well-documented although the process to make it was never written down. Humanity lost this luxurious type of muslin to the mists of time. The fabric is called Dhaka muslin for the city in which it was made and was so light weight that the wearer felt nude. Clothing made from it left virtually nothing to the imagination but today, not one person on the planet remebers how it was made. Simlilarly, the rediscovery of how to make biochar or terra preta, the soil enhancing material that ancient people used to double their crop production and hold nutrients for long periods of time was lost as well. Researchers noticed a single ingredient amongst those that were required to make it work and then nearly fifty years went by before someone rediscovered the findings and began their own experiments designed to learn more about this ancient black gold. It has taken decades more to find out what made this substance useful. You see, the carbon that is the substrate upon which biochar is based is the only form of carbon that is pure enough to be stable. Once vitrified, it lasts for extremely long periods in the soil, unlike most carbon that we know and understand from our daily lives, the organic kind that represents a component part of all living things. All that carbon is not elemental, stable or pure, it is the underlying catalyst for life, part of an amalgam of chemicals and can be nearly infinitely transformed into tissues of plants, food for soil microbes, birds, bees, bats, humans or trees. We have explored organic (carbon-containing) chemistry to the point of inventing about 400 new chemicals from it each and every year based primarily on the carbon atom. We have gone full bore into the unknown, often releasing these compounds into the air, water and our bodies, before they have been adequately health and safety tested and/or studied to any extent at all. It can take twenty years of research to understand a chemical and it would not be possible to test 400 such compounds every year. If one of the 400 works for our desired purpose or economic benefit, it is deemed a viable option, until, sometimes many years later, the legacy of another txoic, carcinogenic or mutagenic compound has already been released into mass production, the environment and our bodies. When we delve into the complexities of any discipline, we can be lost in a forest by ignoring the trees. In real ways, our understanding of the texture of the world, it's lumps and bumps, the vagaries of what is possible can frequently negate our understanding about whether it makes sense to even try changing things or inventing perviously unknown systems or materials. When we weigh heavily the idea of making life easier (which has been known to be a myth for over a century) or advancing the species in one specific way, say healthier for instance, by definition we sacrifice our attention to other factors. That is why so many drugs have unavoidable side effects. We have valued the outcome more highly than how we will get there. Just as when we travel, picking whether to go by foot, bicycle, train, car or plane, once the choice is made, there is no attending to the possibility of any of the other options. So too our decisions to look to future luxury and forego whatever it takes to get there cuts us off from other possible options or experiences. When choosing the title of this post, we were looking at art that was sculptural, but then, if you added energy, it would transform into something fragile and frail, until the energy stopped going in. Then, it would become a soild sculptural form again. So too, our mind has this quality, as does the collective mind of our community. We frequently charge ahead, putting energy in to whatever our persuits are and pay little attention to the wake we leave behind. Many people have been lulled into the false belief that none of that matters. A very two-dimensional view of reality. In fact, the propensity of modern thinkers to believe in duality is a good place to see 2-D thinking on display. You can't get more two-dimensional than, "Two sides to every story". It validates the experience of bullies and fools, criminals and charlatans. If every story has two sides, does that make life easier to understand? As we continue waxing into two dimensional thought, perhaps someone should be ringing alarm bells for us to wake back up!

One Year Ago

Today is the one year anniversary of our first walk through at our new property. At first look, the work required was daunting, to say the least. There were unhealthy smells coming from around two hideous bathrooms, the floors throughout were nasty and most needed total replacement. First floor windows were functionable and good for 1951, but had voids and to be best, would have needed total reglazing, paint and some new panes of glass just to get them up to 71 year old specs. The plumbing was a little sketch to say the least and it looked like it had been through at least a couple decades of not being cleaned. Our financial "resource base" was a little over 50K to invest, and the work looked like we could "afford" it if all the sweat equity was provided by our Directors and Volunteers. By the time April Fourth rolls around, the date we signed the mortgage, the home repairs should be complete and we can switch our focus to the greenhouses! ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. now has a site at which we will continue to teach classes, plant and restore the land, build healthy soil. Continuing to provide the same program we were going to do in th eremote Northwoods of Wisconsin, right on th eScenic Shortcut that millions take to Door County. Tourism is up 13% over pre pandemic levels and shows little sign of levelling off.
Our initial plan was to buy a large acreage, where nearly half was lowlying natural buffer to development. The parcel we found best suited to our goals (after two years of searching mind you) was taken off the market before we could complete an offer to purchase. In fact, we had not even gotten to walk the land, although from photographs and Google Earth, we could see how a physical plant could organically develop on the high ground, far from th ebeaten path. It was expensive for what we would have gotten but that also would present an unforseen negative, long travel times for our guests to get to the site! The site we have secured can do all of the things we needed for approximately the same amount of money. We are actually able to start out several years ahead of where we would be having bought blank land and building from scratch and because we spent frugally, getting a large amount of the physical plant pre-built, we don't have to do constant fund-raising! We are ready to host our first biochar class now, we just need to plan for a time that the most people can come.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/1111+Clark+St,+Algoma,+WI+54201/@44.6076943,-87.4478729,3a,75y,347.5h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s0xA4GafyFFcwp3oBrtk5DQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x881d36ba58830fd1:0xd518aea10fdbec2!8m2!3d44.6080375!4d-87.4479921 Intead of having to cast a broad net over the landscape to get within reach of a million people, it would have required drives of three to five hours for many of our guests. Where we settled, we are less than an hour drive from over a million people and many millions more go by on their way to vacation!The carbon footprint of our guests will be virtually non-existent compared to what it would have been being so far out in the boonies and we can also offer fishing tour recommendations for fishing expeditions on Lake Michigan for our guests. If guests forgot anything, stores are a short walk away and the roads here may never be impassable. Up in the woods, we would have had to drive for miles on a sand road, or traverse the fields a half mile from the closest paved road just to get in or out. Settling on an existing place in the City of Algoma will serve everyone who comes and the planet far better than developing another place in the woods. We went from being virtually inassessible for many without transportation options to available to a million people within a one-day bike ride.

Ides of December

We had our preliminary winter rain with a dash of snow at the end. If it had snowed, just ten days before Solstice, and we got all that rain as snow, it would have been impressive. Instead, we got torrential rain that eventually turned into a sleety ice mix, and in the overnight, it finally got near 32F (0C) and some snow fell. The ground, not yet being frozen was soaking up as much as it could, but eventually, the ground was saturated and the slush started building up on top. Late in the day, much had melted into the grass and more than half the lawns were clear. The cold is supposed to come this week, but for now, the ground is wet and thawed, at least on top. Six weeks and ten days from now, temperatures should begin warming, but for now, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, this will begin story time and long winter's nights by the fire. So much has been written and researched regarding soil carbon and so little is being done to heal the soil and re-establish a viable water cycle in our agricultural lands that time is running out to adapt and change our behavior before we turn the great "bread baskets" of the world to desert.
In these times, we must rebuild our soils. Many recent advances have led to multi-species cover cropping and interplantings that build soil rather than deplete it. We have the skills needed to increase carbon in soil, increase biological activity and reduce the effects of both drought and flood and those who know how to do it are anxious to teach others. The biochar classes we teach at ECO-Tours of Wisconsin are designed specifically for you, your soils, your resources, your intended use of the land, all of these things dictate the type of biochar that best suits your desired use. Someone wanting chicken odor reduction as their primary use for biochar would get a very different product than someone who wanted to add it to asparagus beds, for instance.
The primary thing to remember is that once char has been heated to a glow, but kept from air, it is transformed, like fired pottery, the sherds can last virtually forever. Research into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World modern archaeology has not yet "found", leads some to believe that ultralight soils may have been biochar-based and fed from newly discovered canals/aqueducts near and leading to Nineveh, near Mosul, Iraq. Ancient ancestors from over 4,000 years ago had worked out the details of using fire to turn clay to stone and it seems a tiny step for them to also realize that the black ash made in virtually every fire, was transformed in a similar fashion, and has benefits for soil building and drought resistance.

Our current lack of understanding regarding soils leads many to not even understand the difference between soil and dirt. So much of our agricultural landscape has been assaulted, de-carbonized, tilled to death and saturated with chemicals that finding intact soils with well-developed structure are getting harder and harder to find. Our biochar classes are designed to convey knowledge, skills and attitudes that lead to healthier soils, healthier plants and doubling of crop production without the use of harsh or persistent chemicals and to facilitate the establishment of a viable soil microbial communjity. This in turn leads to an increase in marcro-organisms and beneficial insects that also store carbon and cycle water, nutrients and carbon, allowing it to stay in soils longer and to provide resources for other trophic levels in the soil. The current system of agriculture needs to be revised for so many reasons, our classes teach literally from the ground up, why change is necessary, how to create positive change in the soil and all the specifics regarding the six steps required to make top quality biochar that will transform the soil for thousands of years. If you are interested in taking our classes, we can do them in-person or online. We have also had a few opportunities to consult with people using the phone, so whatever your needs are, don't hesitate to ask. This information is too important to not share. Just remember, we have bills, overhead and taxes to pay. Spending a reasonable amount for the information is crucial to allow us to continue to exist and it helps you value the years of effort we have put in to help re-discover this ancient blend of art and science. The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.
As another year slowly fades into history, it is well to remeber that we are the drivers of change. The greedy, self-serving, ignorant and rediculous people who have all the money don't care about us and do not understand that they need us far more than we need them. We don't need to close ranks around them, dehumanize or demoralize them, but to step away, teach by example and invite reciprocation. According to abundance theory, when everyone does better, everyone does better.
Contact us by mail at: ECO-Tours of Wisconsin, Inc. 1111 Clark street Algoma, WI 54201,
e-mail: biocharmaster "at" gmail.com or call/txt: nine twenty, double eight four-triple two four.

Turning the Page

When we first sold our homes, which were across the street from one another, one had been meant to be a long term rental and morphed into an air bnb which was finally able to turn a small profit. We looked at the "sweat equity" of twenty years of home ownership and it was less than five dollars per hour that we had spent doing much needed repairs over the course of all those years we had owned them. More than that, we had to say goodbye to more than thirty six edible perennial plants that we had cultivated and nurtured on those properties which were providing great joy to us, food, beauty and wildlife habitat as well. During most of covid we lived in a spare bedroom at my sister-in-law's house which did not allow for much gardening or yard work, but now we have taken up residence in our new home which sits on 1.8 acres. We will continue to use our home as the base for ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc.That is not going to change.
The house is seventy-one years old and has been lived in pretty hard. In additon to replacing and/or renewing all the floors, we have added properly grounded outlets, a few newer and more efficient light fixtures, GFCI protection where needed and new supply lines for our water. Some drains have also been replaced correctly and the cleaning, painting and investment has not yet come to an end. So far, we have only attempted to work on the interior, so that we will have a comfortable space to live through the coming cold weather. We have already invested more than what my first home cost! We will have all new windows by next Spring and we are working to make the garage situation more efficient as well, putting it on the side of the house closest to the street so that we minimize the costs of clearing snow in winter and the fuel required to drive across our property every time we come or go.

Leaving behind the city by the bay, my wife's hometown, the location that held on to us and that we invested in for more than twenty years as a couple was much easier than one might have thought it would be. We are just ove half an hour away, so friends and family can reach us easily but the smog, hustle and traffic of the bigger city won't be missed. The cost of quiet is planning trips to town like a farmer might, making sure to combine activities and planning our route to not have to double back, ever, assures that when we go to town to make money, we also get as many small errands done as possible. Driving a half hour for one or two items would blow their cost through the roof, so even if we can't get something here in our new town, it is easier to learn to live without it than to make a special trip to find it. We also don't mind paying more for an item we really do require because that could save us a long drive and our time is precious. As with most things, while you are in the moment or performing the task, attention is required that also obscures other aspects of the picture. Moving on is an activity unique to itself. Interestingly, I have made more new friends in the town I had lived in since the Eighties, in just the past six months than I had made over the past six years! Again, proving the permacultural maxim that by perfecting the give away, or the give back, life becomes more rich, more diverse and more resilient. We continue to welcome those who wish to learn about biochar, sustainability and permaculture. We have opportunities for people to learn about so many simple living skills, but you need to contact us prior to arrival and let us know what you want to learn about. In the coming years, we see ourselves becoming like the Foxfire living history museum, teaching by doing all the things our ancestors did to make a living. Gardening, putting up food for the cold months, harvesting what nature brings forth at the appropriate times and crafting the things we need from what resources abound locally. We also have many lifetimes worth of experience, because we learned from our elders how to manage the plants and animals around us so that we can have healthy food and to reciprocate the love that Mother Earth shows us in providing for our need. To this end, we want to share, again the best ways to reach us. e-mail:biocharmaster(at)gmail.com or check in by txt msg: (nine-twenty) double eight four-triple two four.

New Digs

At first, we see what we know, with repeated exposure and/or more intimate exploration, we find a more true nature of that which we see. When I walked in the room, I saw these lampshades as gourds. When I came close I was not sure, because all the gourds I know of have fairly thin skin. These are, in fact Earthenware, thown as a pear shape and then cut into this amazing lattice. ECO-Tours of Wisconsin, Inc. is moving to a new location. We will be near the shore of Lake Michigan, just a half-dozen miles from the premier tourist area known as Door County. Our first concern is to make the home on site liveable and to add two bedrooms for travelers and guests who come for classes and tours. After that, we will begin documenting the natural ecotones on site and putting effort into a large classroom space so in the event of inclement weather, we can still teach our biochar classes. By the coming Spring, we will be actively reforesting and adding to permaculture management strategies, getting the fruit trees and vines back to their prolific state and infusing the land with many, many more perennial food and medicinal crops.
For our supporters and friends, it may seem odd that we have drastically pared back the size of our new center, but in light of rapidly escalating prices for everything, not just energy, we want to place our home base in a more central area, so that we can serve a greater number of people at drastically lower cost. Instead of asking our guests to treck many hours into the Northwoods of Wisconsin, we are locating just a day's bicycle ride from over a million potential guests. The air quality is much better than where we were located and the night skies are much more full of stars. Although it may not be the remote backwoods experience that "Up North" has to offer, we are within about an hour drive of one of the state's dark skies parks and can arrange transport and camping expeditions to that location for stargazers and those who have not yet seen the Milky Way or Northern Lights. Kayaking opportunities abound and as we are located about a day's walk from the Eastern Terminus of the Ice Age Trail, those who want to hike have ample chance to find peace and quiet there as well.
UPDATE: We have been at our new location for about a month. We remain focused on the inside, it took months of Nancy and I working every spare minute to get it back to move in ready, but we are a little flexible in what that means. When we go to town, we still bring a load or two of laundry, our chest freezer is still at the old pod. We have planted about a half dozen things, like rhubarb and elderberries which had been in pots, some given to us, some purchased with gracious donations from supporters. As we do begin making holes in the ground, it seems that this will be an excellent property on which to showcase biochar and the effects of re-generation. Carbon sequestration will be meticulously documented and the results will be obvious. Each time we get a read on soil quality in different areas, we gain understanding of where we are, our place is based on the soil and in this spot, there are places with precious little of that. We will practice our own version of ecological triage, deciding what will remain impacted and what can be easily recovered, focusing resources on places that our intervention makes the greatest difference. I work hard to bring salient messages to this blog and for many reasons I have sought to keep it free and available. If you appreciate that, my paypal account number is the same as my e-mail. t (as in Tony) n (as in Nancy) saladino42 at (because We're old school) hotmail dot com.

What is the Nature of Soil?

One of the most fundamental ways of looking at soil is to determine what the main ingredients are. Some soil contains rocks and gravels and it has been determined that anything bigger than 2mm is just a contaminant in soil. Rocks, stones and gravel are considered by soil scientists to be too large to be considered. So, first we have to screen soils through a 2mm mesh to see what portion of the ground beneath our feet is really soil and how much is just a contaminant. I have tried growing a garden on gravelly ground and the plant that did best there is purslane. Sadly, at the time, I didn't know it as a nutrient dense food crop, but I did know that it composted easily and turned it into compost for years, until I could build enough soil to grow other plants for food. Like most living things in soil, which I will discuss later, I have the tenacity to not give up, not give in to pressure, but to hold out long enough for conditions to improve. I put forth as the primary nature of soil to contain and express the deepest level of tenacity our human brains can fathom. Let's not get ahead of ourselves... The most important information to get about soil is what on earth is making up the mass? Luckily, the simplest and most profound question can be answered with a simple and profound test. Take a handful or two of soil, put it in a clear container that is taller than it is wide, fill the container with water, put a lid on it and shake. let it sit overnight or up to several days or weeks until the water has cleared and you will see three separate and distinct layers in the vessel. At the bottom will be sand. These are the largest soil particles, so they fall out of suspension first. The middle section will be silt which ranges from as small as two thousandths of a centimteter all the way up to five hundreths of a cm. Finally the topmost layer will be clay, particles smaller than two thousandths of a cm. I recently heard an interesting way to think about these relative sizes. tiny numbers really don't tell the story, especially when you get down to sizes we can't even see. Think of it this way, if the smallest particles were the size of BBs or marbles, the middle sized particles would be the size of basketballs or beach balls and the large particles would be the size of a chair. Typically, these three ingredients make up over 95% of the soil.
Of course with any hard and fast rule, there are major exceptions. Organic material in the soil, which is often seen as bubbles on the surface of the water used in the previous test, can become a large percentage of the soil, but then it is either called peat or muck. Peat being derived from mosses and growing organic sources and muck being from lake sediments, or detritus (like the waste bin of nature)Across most of the developed world, many soils have been tilled so agressively that no organic material is left in them, less than one percent organic material is frequently seen but it is an extremely dangerous condition for soil. At that point it is more accurately called dirt. It will easily erode with either wind or rain, without a thick mulch layer or some growth and living roots to hold the material together and protect it from rain and sun. Each component of soil is good for some things and terrible for others, so having a good mix is best. If you have a single material dominant it raises management issues but any soil can be worked with. My own personal preference is clay, but the management of that type of soil is just as quirky as would be a predominantly silt or sand soil.The difference is that I have learned to respect the limitations of my clay soil. Sand drains like crazy, which is normally very good, but it presents a problem in that it drains so easily that it is hard to keep soil misture even enough to get plants to grow well.sand also very seriously flirts with contaminating surface and ground water because any nutrients applied to the soil can be washed away because the matrial drains so freely. It can also be a challenge because many organisms will find it difficult to stick around when the soil routinely goest through extreme wet and dry cycles. This also can mean huge variations in surface temperature as well, especially if mulch cover in not maintained.
Silt provides much more surface area which can be available for the soil microbiome to flourish upon and although it drains more slowly and provides more opportunity for life to thive than sand can, it can also be threatened by tilling or not enough nutrients. Most people hate clay because mor ethan likely they inherited poorly managed clay, as I did. It had been seriously compacted through consistently poor management and in large areas it was just lifeless. Although clay can provide the most habitat for soil microbes of all the soils, any land manager who has to deal woith them needs to understand their limitations as well. Most often the limiting factors are the ability to get air and water down into the soil. If water can't even penetrate the soil, it can only run off and it will take some clay particles and nutrients with it as well. The best thing in all three cases mentioned above is to add either compost (or other organic material) for organic carbon or mineral carbon with microbes in the form of biochar. I make the distinction betewwn the two because material that was once living releases most of its carbon over the course of about four years, ninety percent leaves the soil. Mineral carbon is not a food source for any soil organism, nor will it break down if eaten and excreted by soil dwelling creatures. It remains unchanged for hundreds of centuries, continuing to provide habitat for soil organisms. This small but vital part of soil, organic and inorganic carbon are what allows soil to be healthy, well-drained and able to withstand drought. The living and dead roots, provide some large structures that increase porosity, but it is the living organisms and th edead organic meterial they eat, as well as what they excrete that make soil vital and healthy. In soil the tiny percentage of living organic material does most of the work feeding the plant roots and providing smaller structures that allow air and wate rto be available enough under the soil surface to create a rich habitable zone within which millions of other life ofrms co-exist. The most true nature of soil is to be the ultimate team player, providing opportunity and the synergy that comes from diversity and abiding by terms of the give back or give away. When soil is treated badly enough, it often just goes away.

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.

Imbolc Blessings

The proverbial back of Winter has been broken this week. The Sun is on the way back to our hemisphere. The "Flaming Arrow" of our shared human spirit is on her way back from the underworld. This spirit, more recently described by the name Brigid, has a corollary in Persephone. Fertility, renewal, inspiration and crafts all flow from the burnig fires she brings forth after she has been impregnated in the dark. Her feminine aspect going, during the dark time, to the deep, mythic subterranian realm. As the days quicken, nights grow shorter and the sun angle continues to rise, higher and higher, the promise of Spring's arrival, no matter what a select rodent might think, will come in about six weeks. In the Celtic Calendar, this was the New Year Celebration a feast day, a night of bonfires, reflections on th epassing of last year's struggles and re-commitment to what is coming so quickly upon us. In preparation for Summer's flush, the season was determined mostly by the birthing of young livestock, the coming in of the milk for the herds. Modern humans may not want ot admit that they feel these stirrings, but we had an unbroken rhythm to our lives back to our earliest ancestors that ran by the intricate workings of th eseasons, not just a mechanical clock and a raster of days. The punctuation of life was that every six weeks or so, throughout the year, some sort of reason to get out, be amonst the neighbors and to celebrate were the touchstones of time.

Conscientious Vandal

I made a copy of the Earth Charter. It is a meaningful enough document that I wish everyone would read and understand it. You can jump to their site by follwing the link In any effect, I copied the document and cut each section and subsection into small slips of paper. Each of the tiny slips of paper had one recommendation from the Earth Charter on them. Then, when I wanted to leave a mark, I would just glue one onto a bathroom stall, a sign post or bus stop, picnic bench, tree or table etc. Wherever people are stranded in one place for a minute or three, they can at least read up about positive steps we each can take to live in harmony with the planet. After showing a friend my idea, he branded me Conscientious Vandal. We had been joking about how odd it is to see so many breasts and penises rendered in spray pain in public spaces. Interestingly, some of the most profound words I ever read were scrawled on a wall in Milwaukee. "Death is the greatest trip of all, that's why they save it 'til last." was what it said. The older I get, the more I hope those words are true. I've had so many great trips in life, I truly hope they are topped by my exit. I remeber back when I was a young man in highschool, I had gotten a contract to help paint a mural on a local, concrete structure that held the mountain back, so it would not collapse into the street. Like a massive terrace, the three sided structure was trapezoidal, having two giant triangles on either end and a broad, more than twenty foot wide central portion. The triangular ends sort of buttressed against the weight of the hill, pushing back against gravity's pull. When you stood back even three or four blocks, looking across form th eother sid eof th evalley, you could see the giant wall. Looking back, maybe that's why I feel like I have had my fill of painting on concrete.

I tried to get a friend to help with the painting, a giant pod of whales with one whale appearing to swim right out of the wall, my friend, who has passed away now said he would not deface concrete because some craftsman made that wall, over a hundred years before and that the guy who finished the concrete had done such a great job that he could feel th epride he took in that surface. His legacy was perfect concrete and it woul dliterally last forever, if left alone. He felt that our artwork was stiull graffitti, degrading it for the sake of a fleeting moment of proving your own passing. I suppose both interpretations are valid. The local arts council had money to spend though and it kept us from getting into trouble. About a dozen people all pulled together and painted it over the course of several weeks and it certainly brightened the neighborhood. Where there had been a dingey gray slab, a pop of color and destination for people to recognize was created for not much more than the cost of the paint. I think the regional artist who designed it got a grand for his art, and for transferring it to the wall in a line drawing and the two leads they chose to guide the volunteers got 250 each and we were primarily there to paint and make sure that different areas of color, as laid out by the atists matched the original work of art. I suppose, even back then I was being a conscientious vandal.

Maturation

This is where things get tricky. Life requires several things and to be healthy it needs all of them in relatively equal measure. Habitat is a biggie because there must be several things for optimal growth and reproduction. The char provides that. Like a condo complex for soil microbes, the habitat is there, all fourteen acres of surface area per handful. Resources include food and moisture, a place to be safe, to reproduce, to consume nutritious materials and to excrete waste and exchange gasses. The more air and water you can keep on and in the char, the better. Again, without pooling water and ideally, warm enough for microbes to multiply. When conditions are right, it will keep you busy stirring the material three or more times a day. When weather turns cool, you may only need to mix the material once a day, or even less if things freeze up. Some bacteria can colonize and exponentially grow and reproduce in a matter of hours, and folding them through the vast surface area in char requires presenting many hundreds of chances for the surfaces to be jumbled. Since microbes are pretty much immobile on the scales that exist in the char, you will be required to spread the microbes physically turning and mixing the material. The fastest I have been able to transform char into biochar is about six weeks. The conditions were optimal and it was during summer when I paid close attention to it several times each day, stirring, adding more minerals, adding compost and/or moisture and other nutrients and micronutrients during the maturation phase. The key is getting the right materials in the right quantities as well, but the bottom line is that it takes time to populate the char with microbes, and the more balanced the mix of inputs, the more rapidly you can colonize the char with microbes appropriate to your site. In situations where people don't want to pay much attention to the process, I have seen them just put a layer of moistened and mineralized char in their compost pile and mix it in the following spring. I don't garden on those sites, but the people who do say that it has been effective too. It just depends on what your situation is and what you want to accomplish with your particular application. My own uses are for gardening mostly and we have alkaline soil, so I typically mineralize with granite dust to help buffer the Ph toward neutral. If you have acidic soils, you might want to mineralize with lime, just remember that changing the Ph is not always practical and if you get soil microbes who cannot handle the conditions of the soil you introduce them to, you will be killing off the microbes you sought to introduce. As my biochar gets closer to ready, I typically add a few, up to ten percent local soil, to help buffer the mixture between the mixture that I jade and the existing conditions. That way, when I finally till it in, it is not such a shock for the soil microbes. I have had beds enriched with biochar that continued to improve both soil tilth and production for several years after being amended the first time and beds that, although they have been amended do not really come into vastly better production for a few years. Perhaps this is in part based on how "ready" I had gotten the biochar before adding microbes. Obviously, a full dose of well made char is best for production right out of the gate, but if there are less than spectacular results in making it, moisturizing it, adding minerals or nutrients, adding microbes or maturation, nature tends to fix them pretty quickly. Keep in mind though, quickly for nature could be several years or a decade. I typically don't like to till the soil very deeply, or very much in fact, but if there is biochar in them and they are not producing optimally, I do try to tousle the material several times to help spread it through the existing soil microbiome. One old-timer told me that his family would burn, and immediately incorporate the blackened and charred, woody material into the soil. The following year, nothing would grow, but after there had been a year or two of poor production, those soils would improve drastically. Nature will always take her course, but my interest is in making good things as fast as is practical. Maturing the char into biochar requires time and the energy of turning the material. you don't want to stir it like a blender would, or violently stir it either, just folding it in and on itself, lifting the bottom layers to the top, etc. as you become proficient in biochar making, you will feel the material change. At first, when it is just a collection of resources, it will feel like you are stirring a container of wet glass shards, but when the microbial community is well-developed, it will feel fluffy and soft. Because we inhabit a range of scale that takes for granted our large size and ability to zip across the globe, it can be difficult to think in the scale of the char maturation process. When tiny bits of char, under 2mm maximum size, as you can see from the SEM images, are like a thousand straws, each can be thought of as a cave in which a bacterial colony might inhabit. In fact, even though these tubes are microscopic, many different microbes could exist and thrive within a single tube! To them, the housing is very roomy. In a cube 1cm on each side, about a third of a sugar cube, of pure char, there is as much square footage as a soccer field. I have tried for years to understand this, but I find that it is virtually unimaginable.

When the char has fully matured, it loses the clean, crisp smell of something absorbing everything it can. It gets the rich fecund smell of soil, that is one way to tell it is done. When you stir it, it feels very light and "airy". Almost like you were stirring a lighter version of marshmallow fluff. In my initial flyer, covering all six parts of the process of making biochar, I wrote, about maturation, "Biochar can be made by adding char to compost heaps, animal bedding, or other agricultural wastes. In fact, many large industrial agriculture operations use char for odor control, however, when we wish to create a balanced, healthy, ecosystem, using organic components, keeping the material moist and aerated, adding organically derived nutrients as well as minerals and allowing nature to take the lead in maturation creates a product more valuable than gold, the best biochar. Because char has such vast surface area, it is like a 3-D petri dish. Allowing time for microbes to multiply, diligently stirring them through the material repeatedly and taking care to maintain an optimal moisture level, speeds the processes that, in nature could take many years. Growing and distributing microbes throughout the char cannot be rushed." Once again, let me say, I love and care about everyone and that is why I share these, most recent posts. I have said many times that biochar is more valuable than gold. Every person that has worked with it agrees, biochar has worked for them as advertised. One even said that if our culture collapsed tomorrow, this might be the most important technology to know about, understand and utilize in an attempt to survive. One friend who is a grower, completely reliant on her soil for her living, calls it her "secret weapon". she has said that it is the only thing keeping her in business. Collectively we can use biochar to literally heal the Earth, sequestering carbon for geologic time, doubling crop production, conserving both surface and ground water, reducing the need for irrigation and off site nutrient inputs. We also would grow far healthier plants and be able to eat healthier food if we used char on all productive soil. We all know what happens when you do that! Some of us still remember when they taught us in school that "You are what you eat." It is time for us to learn that important lesson. Making soil healthier makes us healthier as well. Please share this info. With anyone you might think would be interested. Anyone you know, who grows any crop at all, can benefit from this simple ritual. It is part of our birthright as human beings, your ancestors developed it, share it! How do you measure the value of doubling production forever? when you begin to understand what it means to you, please send me something of value as a thank-you. My Paypal account number is: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com if you want to contact me directly with questions or concerns, please do so, my e-mail is the same... To help one to understand the truth behind the saying "Think globally, act locally.", check out my other blog, ecotoursofwisconsin.blogspot.com, specifically... Get an Apple...

Microbes

Again, we need to start with an object lesson. Imagine a cow and her calf, on an acre of healthy soil. Science has calculated that the microbes on this same acre of soil have about the same mass as Bessie and her calf. I have heard the claim that billions of organisms live in a tablespoon of healthy soil as well and I'm sure that the scientists are right, even though I can't see things that small and I will never be able to see a germ, flagellate or bacterium no matter how good my eyesight is! In my "initial contact" flyer, I have this to say about microbes, "The biochar ecosystem provides all that soil microbes need, security, moisture, air and healthy food. Microbes can be added by using compost, or healthy soil. Waste products of microbes that live in soil, often as many as billions per teaspoon, actually feed healthy plant roots." Microbes can be added by including some compost or compost tea in the mix. Some commercial mixtures are available that tout themselves as compost starter, etc. but the truth of the matter is that spores and bacteria are on the wind. It may be difficult to get a representative sample large enough to really get the char to transform into biochar, but in theory, time is really all that is necessary to get the microbes to take up residence there. I typically start to see insects hanging around my char after it gets minerals and nutrients added to it. Whether they are trying to eat some of the bits of rotted food, or harvesting smaller organisms that I cannot see will have to remain a mystery. I certainly don't shoo them away, because I see them as vectors for getting more beneficial microbes into the mix. To make compost tea, you just need an air pump, like you would find in an aquarium, some tubing you can weigh down with a rock , a five gallon (20L) bucket of water, and a quart or so of compost. Set the bubbler up so that there is a constant stream of bubbles in the bucket, then add the compost and let it go, bubbling away for 24-48 hours. The air is essential to getting a healthy representative sample of microbes. Adding some of the resulting water to the char after it has been made, micronized, moistened and mineralized will allow the microbes direct access to the territory that has been prepared for them. Of course, there are far more idiosyncrasies and special circumstances to deal with than a short post can include, but for the most part, in the vast majority of locations, you can utilize local resources to make highly effective biochar. Jumping back to the previous post, "Minerals", nitrogen, an important soil constituent, can be added to char through the use of many different ingredients. Some of the best char I have ever made began as 75% grass clippings by volume and 25% char. Another excellent batch started by moisturizing it first with pure, fresh fallen snow. Once material breaks down or concentrates, less is needed. Most of the nitrogen in the batch I mentioned got a lot of moisture and loads of nitrogen from moist grass clippings. Additionally, I added urine every time it dried out enough to soak it up. Nitrogen can come from blood meal, bat guano, fish emulsion, urine (urea) and virtually any manure or offal. As you can imagine, the bacteria which break down these materials are typically present, if not common in soil. When needed, they proliferate quickly and die out after their food supply disappears. Remember though, even dead microbes feed the next generation, it is the cycle of life. Whether you make biochar with manure or urine is not as important as the fact that microbes can grow on either, or both. If animals are fed anti-biotics, this is less so. The goal is not so much to culture a specific set of microbes, but a flourishing, diverse community that utilizes all wastes, from all the different microbes, their predators and competition as well. In diversity there is balance. I often think about how much better off we would be as a civilization, if we accepted this, or at least understood the need for diversity among our human population also. Char itself helps to moderate extremes as do the organisms who live on and in it. So does the water that it holds. Mitigating and ameliorating change is helpful for the whole soil biome. Instead of trying to give crops what they need for just one season, or rotating crops periodically to help the soil stay healthy, utilizing biochar requires us to take a much longer view of soil health and conservation. Once we put all the time and effort into healing the soil, building up the soil biome, we are loathe to abuse it or let it blow away. My county here in Wisconsin Brown County, holds the state record for the most soil lost to erosion each year in our entire state. Perhaps if people decided to value this finite resource, we would get true conservation started. Understanding that healthy food leads to healthy humans is perhaps a stretch for some who sit behind the wheel of a tractor, but we can't continue living as if it did not matter or we threaten our very existence. Just as we have become aware of the micro-biome in the human gut, we need to also become aware of the science behind the micro-biome as it relates to soil health. Estimates of the value of the gut bacteria in our health range up to claims that 80% of our immunity comes from the gut. In soils, there can be billions of microbes in a tablespoon and millions of types and strains can live in close proximity to or atop one another. Like the unbroken forest that we hear, used to cover the Eastern United States, in which a squirrel could travel branch to branch, without touching the ground from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi River, microbes inhabit healthy soil, cheek to jowl upon each and every soil particle. Biochar exponentially expands the amount of surface area upon which they can thrive. Microbe habitat waiting to happen. Atmosphere is automatic, moisture allows life to flourish, organic material, minerals and nutrients are needed by all life, even microbes. Meeting their needs is paramount to growing healthy soil. Remove just one necessary resource and life gets stunted or fails to thrive. Boutique biochar, such as I teach people to make, transforms soils immediately and lasts for geologic time. Valuing a technique that more than doubles crop production, forever, has an infinite value. What is this knowledge worth to you? Please remunerate me for my efforts and sharing with capital. You can send money through Paypal at account number: tnsaladino42@hotmail.com which also happens to be my e-mail. If you would like to contact me that way, I have brochures that you can use to spread the word about this ancient miracle in your local community. I can even Skype in on fire pit parties where you would teach others the same sort of class that I do. Humans must emulate natural processes and seek a state of peak evolution by mimicking nature's way of stacking function, producing nothing considered waste, just recyclable materials anxiously awaiting their chance to face the crucible of change. In soil, every trophic level can serve as top predator. This layers multiple levels of living carbon, inhabiting these surfaces, covering them with a micro climate that is warmer, because of metabolism. That warmth is held because soil air has a bit more carbon dioxide than the air we breathe a result of microbe metabolism. All good things for the rest of the community. Just as we have 75% water in our bodies as newborns and it slowly dwindles as we age, down to fifty percent water when we are elderly, microbes have a high percentage of water within them as well; like us, over time, they begin to desiccate, even though the cell walls try to hold on to moisture, it inevitably reduces with time. Up to 75% of the water in soils can be bound within the cells of microbes. This moisture allows metabolism within the cell, but also makes the exchange of gasses possible, helps stabilize soil moisture and moderates temperature. Building the base of the soil food web invites heterotrophs and macro-invertebrates. Microbes that can not be seen with the naked eye are difficult to explain or understand, but the most important thing to remember is that less desirable ones tend to make dank, musty or off smells. The less desirable microbes also are more tolerant of conditions that have limited amounts of oxygen. 85% of bacteria are either innocuous or helpful to humans, many lend their aroma to healthy soil. You probably know what good, healthy soil is supposed to smell like, so too our body is able to sense bad organisms by smell too. With the pathogenic ones, typically you can overcome them with creating conditions favorable to beneficial organisms. Being careful to not let stagnant water develop, aerate more, stir the biochar more often and be careful to balance the amount of nutrients available and the amount of minerals and detritus as well. some less composted material is not bad either. Typically, I have found that in making good char about ten times more nutrients, especially nitrogen are needed by weight when compared to the amount of other minerals. If there is too much moisture, dry powdered minerals can help absorb it. Worm castings can also help absorb excess moisture. Balancing the moisture level so that the biochar never dries out, but never gets too wet is something that you will develop a feel for. The typical make up of soil, as stated in previous posts, is 25% Air (soil atmosphere has more CO2 in it, from microbe respiration) 25% water, 40-45% minerals, 5-10% organic matter. Subdivided, this last 5 to 10% is 80% humus and ten percent each of roots, (both dead and alive), and organisms. Adding biochar, even at 1%, would provide habitat for more organic matter, most of which would be living creatures. These organisms are only 10% of that tiny 5% sliver of soil that is referred to as "organic matter" typically. The carbon matrix upon which biochar is designed and the pyrolysis process rendering it vitreous makes it both mineral, but immune to break down and able to foster microbial life indefinitely, growing habitat for these beneficial microbes, perhaps exponentially. This burgeoning microbial habitat helps stabilize soil moisture, holds minerals and nutrients and creates micro-biomes of better drainage, stucture and retention of moisture when it is available. It also raises soil temperature slightly as a result of microbial metabolism. All these benefits and carbon sequestration! This is where all of the water that passes through and by me, into the Great Lakes wants to flow. The microbes life, health and well-being depend on moisture. Just like we humans how much water they have inside their cells will determine how well they can function.

I realize that the discussion is currently about microbes, but the amount of habitable surface area the char provides depends on making the char a fine powder (see "Micronize") with the largest pieces being smaller than 2mm. About the width of Eisenhower's ear on a dime. The structure inherent in char unleashes massive amounts of surface area, the smaller you crush it, the more available surface area, the smallest powders we are typically able to produce are still cavernous for a microbe. Sorry for the repetition. There is much for us to learn when we build soil this way. One of the most important things to understand is that all soil microbes are interdependent. When any overpopulation occurs and death of one group of organisms occurs, it is not a horrible loss, because others pick up the slack and pitch in to return the soil food web to balance. This interdependence and alliance of all in the community to work for the betterment of conditions for all other organisms is something human creatures need to take to heart as well. The complex interdependent relationships that occur naturally in soil need to be emulated and used as templates for layering functions withing our own lives and the human community as well. I wish you all a future of security and abundance and when we realize that it is unnecessary to deprive some "other" to take care of ourselves, many problems, many traumas and untold destruction will be avoided.

Mineralizing Char

This is the part where I utilize non-scientific analogies to try to convey cold hard science. Minerals constitute typically, a full fifty percent of the mass of soil, almost half of the rest of the material we call soil is either air or water. With a tiny sliver of not-yet composted plant material and of course, the soil organisms. We need to understand and respect that when we add compost to soil, 90% of the carbon in this form leaves the soil profile in just four years. It leaves in many ways, because it is essential to the lives of other creatures. It is consumed, broken down, used up, turned into something else, given off in the form of gas, organisms eat it and leave, or the plants it grows are taken away to be consumed, elsewhere. I drew the carbon cycle by diagramming the hexavalent relationship between the points of the carbon molecule, which also echo their relative abundance in these multi-variant forms. Six lines, forming a hexagon make up the skeleton of the diagram: The soil and Earth itself is the bottom bar, the atmosphere is the top one. The two sides represent the plant and animal kingdoms, lower and higher trophic levels. One excellent analogy of the Earth processes is that the soil actually breathes, high pressure conditions are like the soil inhaling and when the stormy lows happen, the earth exhales. Strangely enough, the opposite holds true for the moisture balance. Typically when the stormy lows are present, it drinks moisture, that holds dissolved nitrogen flows in and displaces some of the gasses. Atmospheric nitrogen is taken in to healthy soil, during high pressure, fair weather conditions.

Minerals are also required for proper cell function and minerals represent a hefty percentage of soil. when nature produces soil, bedrock is broken down by processes within to the soil, it helps to keep the soil biome healthy and feeds life the pure mineral upon which it sits. Because we are creating massive amounts of surface area, we also need to add mineral components and nutrients the plants and soil organisms will utilize to keep the soil healthy long term. This involves the big N nitrogen. Typically it can be found in fresh green grass clippings, the atmosphere, as I mentioned, in urine, manures of all types. Basically anything from the yard or garden or farm that smells strong has lots of nitrogen in it. Making the char hold a lot of this nutrient takes time. The pores are so excellent at holding this nitrogen that as they absorb the smelly nutrient, they fill, eventually, when we add too much, beginning to smell. The minerals from local soil are often best, but if there is a desire to temper soil that is either too acidic or too alkaline, the type of rock dust might be different. Granitic rock dust will help increase acidity or reduce alkalinity. Limestone powder would reduce acidity and make soil slightly more alkaline, but changing soil chemistry can be a very long term issue and it is often best in acidic soils to just grow what likes it there and in limey soils to find the crops that do best there. Not everyone can grow blueberries, no matter what the nursery tells you.
What we are attempting to do is make sure all of these forms of life have not only food for quick energy, but that will have staying power, typically in good soils, minerals that are present in the local subsoil is best. If your soil is being limited by being too acidic, you could add limestone for buffering it to a bit more basic. Likewise if your soils are pushing the limits on the basic side, it may be prudent to add granitic rock dusts. Remember, each of these trophic levels depends on all of the other ones flourishing. Mutualism is key to proper functioning of the whole. Sometimes whether an organism is predator or prey only depends on th esize of the competition or if one is sick or dead. The clean up crew is pretty indiscriminate about what they will eat. Also, this is a good time ot add the idea of the biological processing that goes on with carbon. When organic materails are consumed, they typically go through the bodies of three organisms before they have had all their nutrients digested away. The pure carbon that is left, less than 1% of the original mass, becomes humus, the building blocks nature uses to buils structure in soil. If there is a lack of nutrient-laden material for the microbes to consume and thrive upon, their numbers will reduce, so for proper soil health, new detritus must be added to the surface routinely.

This USDA diagram is for educational purposes only. There are many other nutrients that you could add, especially if you have gotten a soil test and understand what needs to be added, but typically, nitrogen is the most important. It is far more rare to have deficiencies of the other two macro-nutrients, phosphorus and potassium, but it happens. When choosing materials to add to char, one of the most important things to understand is the numbers on fertilizer packages all have three numbers on them. Representing N-P-K the numbers represent the number of pounds of each of those nutrients in 100 pounds of the material. high numbers are not necessarily good. Worm castings have very low numbers, but the plants can absorb that form of nitrogen very efficiently, so the functional value is better than more concentrated forms which may not be as easily assimilated by plants. Blood meal and urea are very high, but break down is required for the plants to take full advantage of that form of nitrogen. Typically, our compost has a little bit of everything we grow in it and I do import compost from within carrying distance when I can get good clean organic yard waste. When you begin to see your soil as a large sponge, giving you a tiny percentage of nutrients from the vast trove it holds, like a "nutrition battery" might do, you begin to understand how critical it is to feed that soil as well as harvest from it. In very real ways, the energy we put into the garden comes back to us, like winding up the rubber band on a child's toy airplane makes it fly. I have been told many times by landowners, "Yes, this field is healthy, it has had nothing but hay grown on it for decades." as if he removal of tons of biomass could never deplete the soils. Without inputs, no matter what you grow and harvest, you will eventually deplete available and necessary/essential nutrients, minerals and soil life which is supposed to thrive in it. Understanding the needs of the microbes, we culture the char with, is important. It helps us to know how to prepare the char for the addition of the microbes. Typically, the nitrogen and rock dust are first in, but then I add tobacco and other herbs, especially ones I might use for my own health and healing, hoping to increase the variety of substances available to be broken down. Finished compost holds a wealth of nutrition for soil microbes. Loess, or wind borne soil particles add much as well. Many of the best soils that retain fertility were created when dust settled upon the surface periodically. I try to add at least some to every batch of biochar I make. If you can cut and chop any local plants that grow in un-tilled or "waste" areas nearby, adding that will also help boost the organic content in and around the char. At this point, you could add a variety of mineral rich preparations, kelp or other amendments and any of the biodynamic preparations to really help charge the char for the addition of microbes, but again I find myself jumping ahead.