Tuesday 22 December 2009 at 2:33 pm
Some thoughts on last weeks meeting...
Suzie bakes the most delicious cranberry muffins and Mary Beth is a master scone maker. I would join Harmony Collective just for these two reason.
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Wednesday 16 December 2009 at 11:34 pm
I was thinking today about the tour we took on the farm a few weeks back. My excitement in everything that could be is keeping me warm right now as Michigan dips to 17 degrees. This property is simply, I must use the word, magical. It is magical. the possibilities are endless and where to being seems to be the biggest problem.
Yesterday Greg said "Not everyone involved will be the business plan type, but will still bring a great deal of skills to the table" -- I think I fall into that category. While the Board of Directors are meeting about financing, business plans, available grants, loan programs, and tax exemption status, I am thinking about - mushrooms.
The grounds of Harmony Collective include many acres of woodlands with a wide variety of trees including Cottonwoods, Maples, Catalpas, Pines, Apple trees, and a lot of Oaks. Oak trees may be my favourite for one simple reason - mushrooms love oak trees. I've been interested in mycology for several years now and when recounting
my favourite memories, finding my first morel comes to mind before getting my first car - which just so happened to be a VW Beetle; and I loved that car! It was a cool spring day, the Trillium's just started blooming and about 30 feet from an old, dying apple tree, there she stood, a beautiful morchella elata, a black morel... anyway...
While this property has many opportunities for business development, including hosting weddings and retreats, I am still thinking about mushrooms. While hunting for mushrooms will always be a passion, I believe we can be very successful here in growing mushrooms, and shiitakes are the first thing that comes to mind. Shiitake's can only
be grown on hardwood logs or wood chips from oak or beech trees, and the property has many many oaks. While I have never grown mushrooms, I think this could be an amazing venture for our newly forming community. The process of growing shiitakes involves cutting live hardwood trees in late winter and inoculating them with "spawn". After inoculation, stacking the logs, and keeping them very moist and occasionally completely soaking the logs in cold water during incubation, within a year, voila! The logs will start fruiting and continue to do so for several years... Yes, this is a gross over-simplification of the process, but no matter what, it will be labor intensive....and FUN! Shiitakes also have a high retail price with relatively low initial costs. Oyster mushrooms and hen-of-the-woods are also good mushrooms for growing in Michigan.
So while the Board of Directors thinks about the business... I'll keep thinking about my mushrooms. I can't wait for spring to come to see what culinary delights will be growing in the woods!
Tuesday 15 December 2009 at 8:59 pm
Last Saturday in our second official meeting for Harmony Collective, Greg asked if I would be interested in posting on the blog some thoughts, ideas, or write in general about Harmony Collective. I'm unsure if Greg was aware that he was asking an idealist and a day-dreamer to write. I have always considered myself a dreamer, and escapist, someone who lives in the clouds...
Everyday heading to work, where I sit in a small, windowless, and sterile office inside a medical facility, I drive north on I-75, past the salt mines, oil refinery and constant rancid odor of a heavily industrialized part of Detroit and my day dreaming beings. It first starts out with where I want to live, then comes what I want to do, and how I would like to spend my time. Next, there is that constant nagging inside my mind that how we are all living, in this wasteful society, destroying our natural habitat, relying on factory farming and fossil fuels just seems so, well, unnatural. I can't help but wonder "how did we get here?" By this time, I am pulling into my parking space, heading into the office and the day dreams slowly fade until I come back home.
In learning about Harmony Collective, the mission, vision, and direction, I learned that there are many more people and from many walks of life that share a similar, if not the same, vision that I hold. There are many of us that look around at the society we live in and desire to see something different. Creating a "symbiotic agrarian community for the enjoyment and well-being of its constituents, while providing a valuable hands-on educational resource for our rural and urban neighbors" is purpose that I can get behind.
That is why I am here. I'm not a dreamer. I am a realist. The vision of Harmony Collective is not a fantasy. The possibilities and opportunities are unimaginable and endless. I look forward to sharing my dreams, or rather my plans for our future here on this blog.
~Andrea
Monday 07 December 2009 at 10:33 pm
I recently came across a blog called the New Agrarian and in it a post titled the Eightfold Agrarian Way. In this post, which I liked very much, the writer states the following.
Harmony is a word I would prefer to see stricken from the English
language, save in reference to music. In reference to human affairs, it
is absurdly optimistic, utopian, not reachable even as an ideal. To
suggest that humans can live in harmony with one another or with nature
is to flout human nature–and nature itself, for that matter. Life on
earth is largely about struggle and conflict; it is in how we resolve
conflicts that we demonstrate our character.
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Saturday 05 December 2009 at 6:52 pm
Those who conspicuously consume must accept that they may be consumed.
I read this in a book I finished reading a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. I don't think there has been a day that has gone by since first reading it that it doesn't find it's way in to my conscious. It weaves throughout my day. It stays in my thoughts in the background, like steam or some other vapor. It finally takes shape at a moment when it senses an opportunity to impact.
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Saturday 28 November 2009 at 11:44 pm
To all who have posted to the blog, my apologies. The first version of the blog was not spam-proof. This version should be. I hope the fact that our first few postings no longer exist will not dissuade you from trying again in the future.
Your Amateur Webmaster,
Gregory Bee
