Stool for our little Toad. A late June Pleurotus?

Hello Friends of our Forest.

It is a little over a year since we kicked off our Community Supported Forestry Project here at Driftless Farm.

Since its inception, we have hosted over 8 workshops, countless camping trips, community gardens, staff retreats, a winter greens CSA, spring water deliveries, shipments of milled lumber and firewood, and even had a sexy turkey decoy spend some early mornings trying to lure a mate!

Some of you appreciated close-contact interactions with the forest, some of you took its abundance into your city homes.  A couple of you have yet to redeem your full membership value.

As for the future of the CSF: it has been the most exciting melding of Roald, Derek and my passions– forestry, cottage industry, and community.  But it has been dwarfed by the increased demand for Whole Trees Architecture and Construction, which has demanded tremendous focus on our parts over the last many months as it gains in popularity.

For this reason the CSF must remain on a simmer until we settle into this new plateau of growth within Whole Trees. I hope that at some point in the next year, I can return to promoting and maintaining a strong CSF.  Until then, I assist with our exciting building projects:

Karawoods Residence in June. Willard, WI

Onward and Inward!

Amelia

Yesterday some of the Whole Tree staff was honored to participate in the Home Blessing Ceremony held for the Kara Woods residence which is currently in construction.  Roald, Amelia, Della and Christopher Cooke (who is visiting to do a detailed LCA on whole trees as a part of his graduate thesis) traveled north to the building site in Willard Wisconsin and met with Sisters Marge and Gabriele and with some of the current residents of the Christine Center.  The Sisters had planned a beautiful ceremony to express gratitude for all the contributing factors – from mentors to the bountiful earth – and to set intentions for their new home.  Due to the continuing rain (ie “holy water”) we held the first part of our ceremony inside a near by building and then processed over to the house site complete with a swinging incense burner and blessed and set intentions for all the parts of the house.  We were honored to be involved in the ceremony … and thrilled to see the house on its way to eventual completion.  With some walls up and some rafters in place on the poured concrete pad it is really possible to see the building taking shape.  We’re all excited to keep following the next steps!

Sisters Marge and Gabe also gathered a number of small personally significant items and placed them in a decorated box after sharing them with the blessing group.  They placed the box into one of the pallet walls as a sort of corner stone time capsule.  We feel confident that the blessing ceremony will contribute to making this house a home for the Sisters and everyone who visits them there!

It was a very different feeling to be unloading the truck with a crane!

We assemble each timber frame “bent” on little rolling dollies which makes it easy to move it into position before it is raised into its upright position.

Since the rest of the building will go up right around our timber frame structure (and eventually tie into it structurally) we have it all braced up with scrap lumber for the moment.  That way the guys on the construction site don’t have to worry about tipping in the mean time.

Once two bents are up the feeling of the space begins to emerge.

At the center of the building the hallway widens out into a “Brahmistan” space.

Once we got all the elements bolted together it was ready to stand on its own … and hold up the rest of the building as well.

Finally, here are some detail shots from the connections.  Whole tree elements can come together very beautifully, even when they are a simple structural framework of columns and beams – we always remember craft.

One of the ways we compromise is by preparing and assembling our whole tree framework right here at our home base and then organizing an efficient Ship it, Build it, Come on Home operation to get it to its permanent location.    After arduous weeks of harvesting, peeling and preparing these pieces they are finally ready to ship out!  Because the Maharishi timber pieces were SO LARGE we actually borrowed a little workshop space from a neighboring business – Chaseburg Manufacturing located in scenic Coon Valley.  Here are some of the beams, all prepped and ready to ship.

Once everything was securely strapped in place we were ready to caravan on down to Fairfield Iowa for our big timber raising event!

Elevations for the Karawoods Dwelling, facing South and North

Toward a residence in Willard, WI, affectionately titled, “The Karawoods Dwelling”, we’ve selected rafters, beams, and even the white oak for the custom kitchen counter tops.

The "Hag Tree" standing in the woods, 150 years old.

To our left, an aging white oak, perhaps 150 years old.  Our managed forest plan suggested we remove it, as it falls into the description of a “Hag Tree”– Useless for milling.  Instead, we call it a Great Mother Tree, and will honor it in three different projects this Spring– custom fascia, slabs for custom counter tops, and perhaps a branching column or two.

Ben Hansen, of Hansen Diversified, works with us to respectfully remove trees from the forest.

We have a wonderful colleague and friend in Ben Hansen, who skillfully removes larger trees, and works with us when we mill, plane, and customize certain pieces.

I am sorry to say that no one ever yells, "TIMBER!" Sometimes I do just for fun.

Turns out, the wood is even more beautiful inside than we had hoped.

In addition to this Mother Tree, we’ve pulled out beams and rafters for the Kara Woods Dwelling, and are now washing and preparing to urethane.

Peeling a Rafter in oddly warm March weather.

Next on our agenda, selecting the structure’s columns and beams, and beginning to pre-fab the joinery for the timber frame.  When we pour the foundation in mid-late April, we’ll then deliver the timber frame ready for immediate erection.

Rafters for Karawoods. Aspen and Bass Wood.

Melissa has joined our farm and forest for the season. She will garden our earth, and type us poems. "Following her on the deer trail, past all the footprints from last week, side by side with the spring, she hopped, and I cautiously stepped to the other side, in and around the kissing spring, we snipped tiny tufts of watercress."

This week’s winter greens box will include…

*Watercress!

*A mix of tender salad greens: sorrel, claytonia, tatsoi, mizuna, mache and more.

*Blossoms and shoots from Raab and other mustard greens.

*Small bunches of kale/chard/or bok choy.

*Rosemary Sprig and remaining autumn garlic.

*Potatoes from Driftless Organics.

Sometime in the last couple weeks all the plants in the greenhouse got to talking.  They discussed the ratio of sunlight to darkness, mixed with soil temperature and daytime highs.  And from this conversation, they lept into BLOSSOM!  All the mustard greens and brassicas that have quietly persevered the winter have now decided to send forth shoots of soft seeds, full of sugars.  The greenhouse is now charged with fertility, and as tastey as can be.  Each blossom and shoot are like tiny broccollis, but so much more tender.

And in the forest, the watercress peeks above the spring water now; the mint has sent up its tips, the sap is about to run.

We started these seeds on January 9th, and transplanted them into the greenhouse yesterday. They will be bright red mustard leaves, lettuce leaves, and endive by mid-late April.

This is a "hanging gutter" of arugala sprouting toward the February sunshine.

Here is a stack of fire wood (white elm) ready to be delivered to a forest member for February and March.

A rendering of the Albertson Cottage, prior to the addition of a loft.

We have been pulling inventory and pre-fabbing structural bents for a 1000 square foot home in Potosi.  The beams, rafters and columns, as well as much of the trim work, will come from our forest.  The exterior siding was sustainably harvested near Ontario.  This week, our crew is fashioning parts of the stunning staircase that leads to the loft area (see below).

This home was scheduled for erection this winter, but we sadly missed the chance to pour the foundation by about 36 hours– when we received the first DUMP of snow (8″) that stalled us until Spring.

Sexy Carport Column, the first thing to see as one drives in.

Joinery work on a black locust carport column.

The exterior columns in the carport are all of black locust, a rot resistant invasive that we’d rather not have in our forest.

Derek describes, through interpretive dance, the way in which a car will enter the "eyelash" of this curved exterior.

Rafters prepped with Timbor and Urethane, await their next incarnation.

Rafters, primarily aspen, elm and some basswood.

The stairway will be flanked by a gnarly-turn niche box elder.

The stairway's box elder "stringer" (supporting side beams of the stair).

The stairway's stringer from another angle. Again, an invasive species put to a better use.

The central interior bent has a dramatic curved, black locust beam and American elm columns.

The central beam and columns in the Potosi Home, to be erected on site come Spring.

Footage from the LAST Driftless Forest party

Come Join us to Celebrate Fire!!

The Community Supported Forest’s first event of 2010…

January 29th, from sunset into the night, as the full moon rises.

Bring a snack or drink, and a fire trick if you’ve got one.  We plan on starting fire with a bow, perhaps flint; we’ll have a bonfire; we hope to set a pudding ablaze; and some of us plan on blowing things up.

We’ll have the Bookend kitchen open and warm, for families, and cold feet of all sizes.  We’ll mull some wine, and hope to see all Forest members, Farm friends, and stragglers.

In OTHER news:

January 13th at the head of the Driftless Farm spring, watercress and crystals.

The Forest yields even now, with fresh watercress growing just below the surface of our Springs:

And the greenhouse has faired better this year than ever before, with almost no leaf damage from the sub-zero temps.   All this with no suplemental heat!

January 13th, watering in short sleeves. All greens destined for our winter greens share holders.

We are choosing not to harvest this week from the greenhouse in order to give the plants a rest, and won’t deliver another greens share until late January– share members still have 5 more boxes due before mid-April.

Harvesting watercress for tonight's salad.

]]> http://wholetreesarchitecture.com/communitysupportedforestry/?feed=rss2&p=186 0 http://wholetreesarchitecture.com/communitysupportedforestry/?p=183 http://wholetreesarchitecture.com/communitysupportedforestry/?p=183#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:41:15 +0000 admin http://wholetreesarchitecture.com/communitysupportedforestry/?p=183

here it is all loaded up and ready to roll away

isn't it lovely?

One of the many options that our members have to participate in the Community Supported Forest is to take advantage of our beautiful lumber options.  Member Scott Reber is planning on building a set of shelves with some and we had his milled up at the same time we had some white oak trim pieces milled for the troy gardens greenhouse.  The trailer full of lumber came back today and isn’t it just beautiful.  Quarter sawn red oak boards 11 inches wide with a live edge on one side.  Have fun with your construction project, Scott!  We want to see some pictures of the finished product when its all done!

this is some seriously beautiful wood grain!

Here's what the formwork looked like on the previous trip, ready for the concrete grade beam to be poured. We've come such a long way since then!

Our intrepid construction crew has been battling the elements to undertake some winter construction recently.  We are building the new greenhouse for Troy Gardens in Madison Wisconsin.  Check out their website here. Troy Gardens is a great organization that has a number of elements: there are community gardens where local people can raise a small plot of their own flowers and vegetables, a small urban farm which grows produce for a farm stand and for a CSA box program and a non profit which operates the urban green space with mission “to nurture a meaningful relationship between people and the land.”

What a great mission!  We’re really glad to be working with them and have designed a small Whole Tree greenhouse with polycarbonate paneling which will let in lots of sunlight and keep out most of the cold to allow Troy to extend their growing season and start their little seedlings earlier.  Since they want it to be up and running for the next spring season (just a few short months from now) we are working through the winter to get it up and running.

The end walls are up! But the first step in the construction process on this trip was to shovel off the all the snow from the site. That keeps the guys warm for a while ... so does a trusty Carhardt coverall!

In our last construction trip just before Christmas our crew raised the end walls which we pre-fabricated here in our workshop at Driftless Farm and assembled and installed the round wood columns and beam which will support the apex of the

The north walls are up! They don't need poly carbonate because they are going to be covered in sheet metal (and well insulalated).

greenhouse.  Before getting started though they had to shovel the snow off the concrete pad!  Working in winter can have its disadvantages but the guys came through with flying colors and it is starting to look like a structure at last.

Here it is ... all ready for us to come back and install the south joists. Look at that lovely Whole Tree beam!

Our next trip down is scheduled for the first week in January.  We’ll be battling fierce cold to install the joists and rafters for the south wall of the greenhouse which is tilted to an optimal sun-catching angle.  Stay tuned for more pictures and updates to come!