12-06-2021 Status Report

ECO-Tours has been working to purchase land for an outdoor school. Not only will we be able to teach carbon smart farming in a hands-on way, but regenerative grazing, permaculture principles, Leave No Trace Ethics and skills needed to be more sustainable. In the old days, we called some of the skills Home Economics, or Folkways, and we will also teach skills for enhancing energy efficient and healthy home retrofits that dfon't require people to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to drop on a home renovation. We will also teach strawbale construction, Living Home systems design and construction. We have recently received a large contribution from an anaonymous donor and want to thank everyone who has contributed through our gofundme page as well. We now have more than ten percent of the total needed for the land purchase and we have more than a dozen experts who are anxiously waiting to teach as soon as we close on the land.
In the interim, we have reached out to several Land Trusts to see if we can begin teaching some of our classes even before we finish our fund-raising efforts and several other not-for-profit organizations have voiced an interest in collaborating and participating with our programs in several important ways. Bringing students, offering classes of their own and helping spread the word about what we offer. This word of mouth advertising is invaluable for making the transformation we need to happen. At this moment there are thousands of voices raised to tell people that there is no hope, that we are devolving into some sort of Apocalyptic mayhem and our message of peace and cooperation, mutualism and intentional communities that allow people to thrive is more important than ever. If there is any way that you can help share information about our efforts, or use anythnig that has been written at this blog or at theotherfishwrapplease share it. Education has always been and continues to be the second most expensive thing in the world, ignorance is number one.
For now, we continue to give away what we can afford to and hope it finds traction because we cannot wait for better times to do our best.We are anxious to work with you and are willing to teach via the digital realm wherever you are. If you want to contact us, we are available in a variety of ways. tnsaladino42@hotmail.com will get you to my personal e-mail. You can reach out via facebook. Tony C. Saladino Drirector/Guide ECO-Tours of Wisconsin,Inc.

Save Money Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Most of us live in stick built homes. Wood, cut into rectangular boards or sticks are used, most often at a standard distance from one another to create a frame. Within this frame are holes that are later filled with windows or doors and in places that are eventually covered with siding (outside) and drywall or plaster (inside), it leaves a voids the thickness of the sticks that get filled with insulation. Most of these types of buildings are built upon a deck of some sort which becomes the floor of the finished space. The most common area to be forgotten, especially by insulators is the space directly under the floor. Often, it is just what is referred to as the rim joist. Often a single wide board, set on edge, holding all the floor members (joists) together. The structure that is made of the intersection of rim joists and the floor joists is often called the sill box, because the end of the floor, above the foundation looks like a series of small boxes along one wall of the basement, or foundation and the opposite wall the two walls going the other direction may just have a single, or in some cases a double joist to supprt the rest of the floor deck.This area, especially if forgotten in an otherwise insulated home can account for up to thirty percent of the heat loss in the entire structure and it causes floors to be permanently cold in winter and it even wastes the expensive cooled air in an air conditioned space in summer. some people like to spray foam insulation into that area but unless you take your time, to make sure all the gaps are filled completely and work slow enough to build up a thick layer of spray foam, this may not be the best approach. A more time consuming but also more reliable way to make sure adequate thickness of insulation gets put around this area is to use rigid foam, which can be cut to the proper size and wedged into the space.

The Beverage Manager of Beantown

I met up with a friend for coffee yesterday and she has started using the term "spoons". Instead of telling people that she has "no more fucks to give", or something that could be considered abrasive, she'll say, "Too many spoons." In some cases, she'll say, that dealing with certain types of people would require a whole ladle and "I just don't have the spoons." for that level of interaction. It is interesting to think of parceling out our fucks by the spoonful. I think it is tied up with my theory that if I don't know you, I'll try once (perhaps one spoonful) giving my energy to share the truth with that person. I always try at least once to educate people, even strangers. If I am more invested, like with a good friend, relative or someone I deeply care about, I definitely have more spoons, perhaps a whole ladle to put into sharing my vision of truth. You don't want to waste a whole lot of energy on folks who you may never see again, so "Ain't got the spoons" for them might be the perfect amount. Wear a "Make America Great" hat around me, you are getting served with a coke spoon. I'll still share my truth, but don't want to squander too much truth on someone who is in active denial. I'll still tell the truth, but won't waste much of my energy doing it. I ain't got the spoons. I also had an interesting interaction with the Barista, who happens to own the coffeehouse. She is from near Boston and I told her about the time I was invited to go to The Athens of America, Beantown and how the folks who brought me were going to stay with paranoid friends who didn't want to open their home to me, so I nearly spent the night homeless. About 2 AM, I was outside the Hilton, looking as dejected as a young punk ever did, I am sure; when the beverage manager walked out and saw me. He was on his way home after a long, long day of making sure that people he may never meet could have their desires fulfilled. He said, "What's wrong, you look like you are in trouble." I told him what had happened and he said, "Do you like dogs?" I said that yes, I did and he said, "You can stay at my place, but my dog will want to sleep on the bed with you." So he took me out to Squantum on the train, telling me about how his whole neighborhood was built atop the garbage of Boston that had accumulated during the previous century. He let me stay the night in a nice big bed with a lovely pit bull terrier named beast or something like that. In the morning when I woke up, he was gone to work already and his wife sent me off with breakfast and a brown bag lunch in case I didn't meet up with my friends before I got hungry again. She even gave me train fare back to the city along with great directions for finding the train station because the neighborhood looked completely different in the light of day. The Barista from Wrightstown reminded me that hospitality is not about how we treat the people we know, but those we do not. How can a guy live nearly sixty years and nobody ever explained that to him overtly? I mean, I had lived the experience! In my industry, "hospitality" is an actual place, where you can go to get fueled up, re-hydrate or catch a quick snack. When you travel around the country, you may never even meet the people who care for you and provide you the service of caring for you. Catering to your essential needs. Hearty thanks to all those strangers who have the spoons to provide hospitality! The world would be a dismal place without you!

Late Season Frosts

Our winter, in my part of the world, was relatively mild. We had a few days that were cold and a few more nights that were bitterly so, but it was nothing like when I was growing up. Back then, we would have whole weeks where the temperatures remained below zero. Your nose couldn't run while you were outside, because the snot would freeze each time you took a breath. Ice would grow so thick on the Bay that motorcycles and cars would race on the ice and in Spring, when the ice shoves would happen the giant blocks and sheets would be feet thick. That thick ice would not be plain white, riddled with long thin crystals, but it would have the azure, turquoise of pale blue sky or the luminance of a marl bottomed lake. Pantone 17-4139 The clarity of the ice being like a vast prisim that transmitted only that one color. This winter, we had ice and a few foolish drivers put their cars through it, but it was stable enough to walk on and do some ice fishing, but the season was cut short by warms days and nights above freezing. Interestingly, maple sap flowed early and for a long season this year, warm days and cold nights seemed to come early and stayed late this year to the delight of many sap collectors however, when that time passed it did so abruptly and we have been having fairly warm evenings for over a month now. So many were led to plant early. This, combined with the resurgence of victory gardes and so many new growers has led many to cove rtheir newly planted sprouts and larger tomato plants with blankets for the recent cold nights.I'm glad that so many new gardeners are coming to learn about the joys of eating food produced in their yard or on th eporches and patios of the world, however the late season frosts are always a concern if you get the urge to plant your seeds or seedlings too early. Many old-timers waited until after the Indy 500 to plant. I don't put anything in the ground until Memorial Day Weekend they would say, as if Mother Nature cared about our calendar. In their defense, they had a family to feed and no money for buying more seeds, so they could not afford to take any chances. I listened intently when I was young to this relatively ancient wisdom. Memorial Day was only 100 years old back then however, my life had been less than a decade, so it seemed ancient to me. I did not realize for many more years that what I was hearing in those words was their conservative nature speaking. They also wanted to avoid the extra work of putting plastic or blankets over their gardens as many old folks do now. Many of my ancestors didn't have extra sheets, blankets or quilts to throw over their rows and rows of tender plants. Even if they had, it would have been too much work covering an area larger than the footprint of their house! What we find when we look into the whole climate issue is that Mother Nature really does bat last and as we destabilize the atmosphere more and more, the planet is constantly seeking to stabilize itself. After all, that is why the wind blows. it moves from high pressure areas to low pressure ones. That is why the seasons follow the relationship of the Earth to the Sun by about six weeks, because it takes that long to heat the atmosphere and the water. That is why the ephemeral plants of spring jump up to grab as much sunlight as they can before the trees leaf out and that is why, if you are going to plant early, you have to invest in blankets or green houses or enough plastic to cover your rows for a few of those late season frosts.We are living through an age so out of balance that we don't care to honor the systems that have existed for generations. We like to eat sprouts instead of waiting until the whole plant matures. Think of it. I like sprouts as much as the next guy, but think, just for a moment. In the case of alfalfa or mung bean, sunflower or radish, all make tasty sprouts, full of life's energy and vigor. The tiny seed combines nothing more than water with its' inherent genetis lust for life and makes ten times as much food for us as we might have been able to get from the unsprouted seed. If we let it mature and express the genetic code fully, we would experience a thousand or perhaps even a million-fold increase in the food value of the plant. We are willing to sacrifice at least a tenfold increase, possibly one of a thousand fold, but boy those sprouts are sure tasty and who has time to let a radish mature? Who has time to wait for a sunflower to set seed? I would like to end this with something Cat Stevens said, many years ago. "Take your time, think a lot, think of everything you've got for you will still be here tomorrow but your dreams may not."

Biochar Introduction in 2 min.

We have been teaching people to make and use biochar for more than a decade, but the past year we have turned almost exclusively to online classes. It has been much easier and more efficient in many respects, but there are still a number of people who would rather have in-person classes. That is why we are fundraising to buy land on which we can teach about this and other skills important to become more sustainably oriented. Permaculture design, foraging classes, animal husbandry and regenerative ag. skills, even home economics and other sustainable living skills are more necessary now than ever and there are dozens of great teachers who have offered to teach at our facility. Things from knitting to soap and candle making, canning, drying and putting up th eharves during the fat times so we still can appreciate Earth's abundance during the lean times, etc.
Making and use of biochar can be taught in a fairly comprehensive way in just two or three hours, but some of the other skills we teach can take considerably longer to learn. For guests who want or need to stay longer, we have a plan to offer glamping opportunities as well. Just enough "roughing it" with just enough luxury to have fun and stretch to the limits of our comfort level. That is why we are developing a broader plan to purchase a significant acreage upon which we can offer opportunities fo rno trace camping while teaching a variety of management strategies that layer functions, emulate nature by closing the loop on nutrients, energy, carbon, water and other "resources" and adapt creatively to our rapidly changing world. In our experience, we find that appreciating the gifts of the nature and investing in them often pay dividends that are not necessarily financial, but are every bit as important to our quality of life. what we put in, or give away often comes with unimaginable rewards.
One of the most important aspects of permaculture is that one needs to look, listen and learn, really get down to the level of what goes on in nature, before ever trying to make change happen. The often quoted belief that native people have that every decision needs to be weighed for the good of the next seven generations may seem like far too long a timeline to consider seeing as many are predicting that human actions may make our species extinct within a decade or two, but for those people who have been paying attention, we know that even if people don't want to change, they are going to have to. Far from being a drag, or predicting destruction of society as we know it, we teach ways that the recovery of sound ecological practices will enhance quality of life, jobs and the sense of community that seems to have evaporated under the powerful, but often nearly invisible hand of capitalism.

Far too many use words to describe themselves that were arrived at by focus group or polling data, so I try to refrain from naming myself, our group or the direction our guests are headed. A wise older gentleman laughed at me once, when I was struggling to give him a word to describe myself. I know that far too often descriptors can be pejorative. He said, "I know what you are, a bioneeer!" and at first it felt a bit like the same slap in the face that tree hugger had always been, but as I learned the depth of meaning behind the term and came to understand that he meant nothing negative about it, I took it to heart and more and more have grown to like it. After all, pioneers are eternally optimistic that perhaps over the next rise will be some sort of Shangrila, a place where the cool fresh springs will be plentiful enough that our livestock will have water and that the lush, green grasses will feed them abundantly, the winds and snows won't be too harsh and that we can find straight, tall and strong timbers with which to build shelters that will serve the coming generations. Bioneers do the same, but they can find their lush abundance right where they are, without packing all of our worldly goods in a prarie schooner and striking out across a vast sea of grass to get there. We often find rich abundance by turning over a single rock, or collecting enough from nearby to build the foundations of a new, rich and abundant life, through interaction with the natural world. We invest time required to turn wast to resources or trash to treasure, getting creative to save money and eliminate waste. When I was first called a bioneer, I was still a young man. I had explored hundreds of thousands of places, slept out under the stars in hundreds of them, gotten to know biota on their terms and within their various biomes. I had come to find many dozens of wild foods that thrive where I live and learned how to propagate ones that were finding it difficult to thrive, learning what they needed that had been missing, creating more stable and habitable niches not only for myself, but hundreds of thousands of other species even though I could not name them all.
At this point in my life, I may be an elder, but the motivation I have is not the same as the elders I met and saw when I was young. Most of them had exuded a holier than thou attitude and explicitly said that things were "My way or the highway." Many of the elders I had when I was growing up taught me far more abotu the wrong way to be than how to grow adapt and create meaningful positive change in the world around them.
I choose to continue to strive toward something better, more fulfilling, to learn and grow, even though it sometimes brings painful consequences. Yes, I am sometimes forced to admit I was wrong or to stretch my boundaries, adapt and change. That hope for a better place, for the bioneer lies in the same space we are in today, the same culture, the same location, we don't find it by traversing a vast wilderness. More likely it lives within us already and by digging deeply into the difference between needs and wants, understanding that there is no "away" and that once we discover how to help nature to be abundant, the hardest task becomes equitably redistributing the abundance. I have written at length about the give away, or the give back. The time I have left may be short, but the depth of experience I bring to the table will not die with me. Stories allow us to transcend death, as long as people continue to tell them and find the meaning worth putting into practice. When I teach people to make and use biochar, it is a story that was told over nine thousand years ago. Before humans had developed written language, there were those who knew how important it was to give back to the soil. The only thing that has really changed is that today it is far more important to know, instead of me speaking, think of it as our long dead human ancestors, reaching out across time to show you how to make the soil healthy and life thrive.

1/60

Our gofundme page has reached the first of a few important milestones. In our intitial phase of community building, we have begun to find other groups and opportunities for our work to harmonize and meld with th elarger community. Lots of local lodges are interested in having more guests as we ramp up our classes. A local resort is offering to give us a first shot at buying their site too, which is within walking distance to our land, somewhat off the beaten track, but easily reached by car and able to provide some of the creature comforts we will not be able to provide on the land. Today, the news came out about Biden wanting to fund a civilian climate corps to rehabilitate and help sequester carbon. We are well-positioned to be one of these teaching facilities that will train future land managers!we have trained thoud=sands of people already and with a larger facility and mor eland to teach these principles, we can do many more times as many training sessions and for larger groups than we have been able ot teach before.
If you are interested in helping to fund the protection of eighty acres and to help endow such a sustainability school ,please either contribute through our gofundme page, or you can still send contributions through our patypal account as well. The paypal account number is the same as our email, tnsaladino42@hotmail.com or https://gofund.me/52fa3b77

ECO-Tours Creates Community with Living Soils Association

During covid-19, outreach has been mostly limited to on-line and digital links. The half dozen times I had to be around others were because we were moving or had to see a doctor, little things like getting a car repair done. I put it off for over a year because I drove less than twelve hundred miles last year. As often happens when I have time on my hands, which quarantine gave us in spades this past year, I discovered the history of the Lincoln Highway. The first coast to coast road in the U.S. There was a great public outpouring of support for this road and not just upgrading the quality of it from end to end, but to include signage and comprehensive directions, so travel could be much safer with less adventure. There was a new way of thinking about the automobile then an dthe public was glad to step up and sponsor th enext big thing, it seemed that millions wanted to help fund that first big step toward becoming a mobile society, they invested in th esort of future hey could only dream of, a road that would take you from coast to coast.
I would like to think that our understanding has grown. Many lines of research prove the need to rebuild our soils and stop their wanton destruction the way "modern" industrial agriculture does. I live in a Wisconsin County with the highest number of tons per acre blowing or washing away each year. Living soils create the opposite conditions. Many are coming to realize that it is our duty to be the first, to show by doing and to preserve as much soil as possible for the future of our species. The question for many is: How? ECO-Tours of Wisconsin has been teaching these principle for over a decade and we can scale this up and replicate it virtually anywhere! We are having a major influx of interest in biochar classes, permaculture and sustainable living classes just in the past few months. More importantly, we are beginning to see a possible route to end the pandemic. The way we go back to will never be the same as before. People are valuing everything differently. They feel, a need to learn how to grow their own food, put it up for harsh times, live like the soil matters and that is what we have been teaching for generations. I see the need for hundreds of schools like ours that can train thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of new-age CCC recruits. Civilian Conservation Corps made many changes to our landscape, especially parks and public spaces that are still giving back after half a century of service. Our new version, a Civil Climate Corps could turn th etables on our assaultive behaviors toward soil in a generation. We have no time to waste! In the Spring of 2021, we have more than thirty million unemployed young people, imagine unleashing their potential in building soil, managing for diversity and carbon smart management goals. We cannot afford to squander the desire of our youth to be part of the soul-ution. We all know what the problems are, but we rearely speak about solutions, these Living Soils Association Camps will train next-level permaculture practitioners, carbon-smart agriculturalists, sustainability experts and folks who know how to restore carbon to soils at pace and help reverse the atmospheric carbon trend. It is time for growth, in my hemisphere, the life is expanding, we need to mirror, emulate, mimic, whatever you want to call it, nature. We need to do it now. Nature models for us mutualism, where all organisms benefit from the life force of other organisms. Communities collecting and equitably redistributing resources is the rule, not the exception in the natural world, we can teach one another to do that as well. The many are always more stable and healthy than a few, especially when they know how to share. We need to honor that, respect it and give back in ways that honor this natural system.

Living Soils Association can deliver to soil a level of recovery, protection and restoration that will reduce erosion, increase infiltration rates, increase CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity)build soil carbon, both organic and mineral, increase soil life, soil aggregates and productivity and all while reducing the need for irrigation and fertilizer. By using dollars raised from the general public for a model, living laboratory teaching these skills and creating a replicable program for a larger national effort is essential. Our organization has always used contributions and all volunteer staff, because we are committed to ECO-Tours, reforestation, land reclaimation and ecology, but to grow this movement will require funds, we just want to model how to spend those dollars efficiently or ideally fund stipend for service from the Federal Government, we could employ millions, across the country at short notice. We need mobilization of resources and I'm sure that our youth will respond just as they did during the old CCC days. Back in the Thirties, they were paid just a dollar per day, but they got tents to sleep in and meals too.