ecospirit

Last week I went to my favorite baker's favorite winter income event: a pizza night hosted at his down-home wood-fired bakery, spilling over into a craft studio, a stringband trio in one corner. A wide-open, cozy social space, charged with the fine folk who inhabit this valley. I was busy that evening, but when I saw that he was serving pizza made with an admixture of acorn flour, topped with venison, black walnuts, and aged pear vinegar, I knew I had to go. I'm a half-assed vegetarian, but like many around these parts, I'll eat venison from roadkill and ungulate garden poachers. I didn't ask where this particular venison came from. The other draw was that Jay advertised that Bill Whipple of Acornucopia would be there. Since I live in the midst of the largest oak-hickory forest in the world, I thought it might be a good idea to meet him.

The pizza was splendid, and I also got to taste some of the hickory oil Bill brought along. It was delicious, with a sweetness I did not expect, one I suspect will be a familiar flavor in another twenty-thirty years, if we last that long. Hickories are one of the dominant species on my ridge. Unfortunately I had to clear most of them at my house-site, a second wave when I added solar panels to our roof. But I still encounter lots of nuts every fall on our drive. I've always wondered why folks didn't harvest them for oil, and have had vague schemes for doing so over the years.

It turned out that I had seen Bill several times at the annual Southeastern Permaculture Gathering, which has been going for about thirty years, right down the hill from my house at Arthur Morgan School. We re-acquainted, and right before I had to leave, he started to give a little talk on the "Generosity of Oaks," which he contrasted with our grasping, distrustful species. We have cleared most of the forest in North America to make way for annual agriculture and all of the headaches and disequilibrium that has brought along with it. He honored the oaks' strategy of generosity, as nature's wise way of seemingly chaotic pulses of high mast years interspersed by many with much fewer nuts. It incorporates what a neolithic farmer would call crop rotation and pest control (with greed control to boot, which our overpopulation and over-consumption have ignored). Wild nut farming takes patience, and obviously in a money economy, cultivating the habits of a polycultural farmer.

I needed to leave for my 7 pm event just as Bill began to describe the curious recurrent vision he's had. I stayed long enough to hear the following: I'm in Illinois, looking out on rows and rows of oaks, planted to the horizon. Not like a forest, but in straight rows. The sky is full of gray clouds. Bill spoke of the oak forest which once covered what is now a vast monocultural plain of corn and soy, and said he imagined he was viewing a future when we finally had enough sense to replant that forest, as being more sustainable, embracing its generosity and helping it along.

Reluctantly, I had to leave for my other event before Bill explained the deep gray clouds. One could go into metaphor, but I simply see them as 1) a feature of a future midwest climate (though I'm not sure about this; it's certainly true of the future that has arrived here in WNC) and 2) a reminder that an oak forest would never need irrigation, for oaks are remarkably adaptable. Stormclouds on the horizon doesn't seem to work, for this was the future on the other side of a horizon which now oppresses us more than most of us will admit.

I have spoken here before of Quaker Earthcare Witness, with which I have a long association. QEW is chock-full of liberal Friends, many so liberal that they have left theism to others. In recent years, a mainstream Friend United Meeting Friend, Jim Kessler, has joined our ranks, coming to as many of our semi-annual meetings as he can. FUM Friends are called "programmed" meetings, because they have a pastor, choir and order of worship. Many are surprised by this, used to Friends' "waiting worship," based in silence.

Jim is a quiet fellow from Grinnel, Iowa with a tremendous knowledge of biology, farming and the native species of the midwestern prairie. He is also a devout follower of the itinerant rabbi from Galilee. Jim has taught college biology, and in recent years, given hundreds of talks on creating pollinator gardens all across Iowa. But what he is most proud of is the restoration of an old farm south of Grinnel to native prairie and shagbark hickory-oak woodland - the kind of forest which Bill Whipple reminds us once covered much of the midwest.

Let me quote from Jim's summary description of his project: "First we planted 14 acres of pasture and rough farmland using local native tallgrass prairie wildflowers and grasses. We began to remove invasive grasses, herbaceous weeds, shrubs, and trees from the landscape. Then we removed downed wood, pulled wild hemp, sprayed Multiflora Rose bushes, inter-seeded native species in a Bur Oak savanna. Next we began wetland restoration in old sloughs and on our creek banks by removing invasive plants. Controlled burns were reintroduced into these fire dependent habitats. Native seeds were purchased from native seed suppliers and collected from area native habitats. Currently there are about 270 local native species that we have planted or found on the property. Kathy, Jim, our oldest son Paul, and 7 grandchildren, have been involved in the restoration process. Our current project is restoration of the 10 acres of Bur Oak / Shagbark Hickory woodland here. Invasive tree species and shade loving trees that were threatening the more than century old oaks were ringed and killed. In 2017 we donated 27 acres of restored habitat to the Bur Oak Land Trust which is located in Iowa City for perpetual protection and active management. They regularly send crews to help with controlled burns, wood removal, and cutting brambles."

Jim Kessler's family has been engaged in a hard piece of work, and a work of love. For Jim it is a