Gatherers Stand With Their 'Edge of the Forest' Works

Lesley Turner

website - lesleyturnerart.com

Shamina Senaratne

website - shamina.info/

Terry Phillips

website - terryphillipsartist.com/

Connie Chapman

website - constancechapman.weebly.com/

Deborah Dumka

website - deborahdumka.ca/

Donna-Fay Digance

website - donnafaydigance.com/

Judy Alexander

website - judyalexander.ca/

Laura Feeleus

website - laurafeeleus.ca/

To find out more about any of the works visit the 'Edge of the Forest' website  here

Thanks to Judi McLeod for masterfully taking presentable portraits under gallery lighting.

Day 2: The Gatherers Meet at the Edge of the Royal Roads University Forest

After Kerry Mason's talk, there was time for a quick lunch at the Habitat Cafe on the Royal Roads University campus before walking across the road to the edge of the forest.

Gaia College instructor, ecological landscape designer and consultant, Manon Tremblay (centre) took the first group upstream for their walk in the forest.

She led the Gatherers through a series of sensory exercises to help them explore the rain forest.

Meanwhile, Gaia College instructor, Ecological Landscape Designer and Master Gardener, Debbie Guedes (centre), took her group downstream to experience the shifting ecologies as they walked towards the ocean.

Debbie sharing her wealth of knowledge.

An excellent example of a wildlife tree seen from the track.

The Skunk Cabbages are in fine form.

At the same time, under the shade of the forest trees, I gave the third group a quick workshop on earth dyeing.

Here I am showing Jean Cockburn a dyed cloth while she massages earth into her cloth.

I use Bengala earth dyes. They are so simple to use I was able to set the workshop up under the trees for 40+ people.

Shamina Senaratne checks her cloth as it dries on a branch.

Debbie and Manon try their hand at earth dyeing.

I could not have run this workshop without my 2 excellent assistants - Sarah McLaren (in red) and Louise Slobodan (in green). For 2 hours, with cold wet hands, they helped people, reorganised the work table before the next group arrived and packed everything up at the end.

These 4 made this an event enjoyed by many. 

After each group had rotated through the 3 activities it was time to return to the hotel to freshen up before the next event.

The post-event survey results had comments from some Gatherers that they wanted a longer time out in the forest. We were lucky with the weather but if it had been any colder, windier or raining the 2 hours would have felt too long. The committee decided to take the risk and allowed 2 hours for the outside activities. We left time the next day for the Gatherers to return to the forest to experience more on their own.

Thanks again to Judi McLeod for the use of her excellent images.

Fencing Donnington Food Forest

The dear deer are wondering what is happening. 

They are creatures of habit and their foraging paths are being disrupted. They are confused.

The Nordic Fencing team is doing an excellent job.

Cutting pipe to length.

The fence needs to be 8 feet high to keep these agile jumping deer outside.

An impressive array of specialised shovels, diggers, and other tools is carried on the back of the truck.

The back of the truck tray has an ingenious concrete making set up.

They are able to make a small batch of concrete, tip it into a wheelbarrow or bucket then carry it to the fence post hole for filling. This method results in minimal disturbance of the forest underground. We really appreciate the care they are all taking.

This looks like a graffiti artists kit but it is what a fencer uses to mark post locations.

The fencing project continues and we see the progress being made each day. It is getting closer to the day when I will be able to plant something and wake up in the morning to find it is still there.

Back Yard Project: Fences and Mulches

It was an exciting day when the Nordic Fencing team arrived to begin building the deer fence. Over the 6 years we have lived here the deer population has exploded. The deer eat every new shoot that comes out of the ground preventing all plant succession happening in the forest. I had given up buying plants because it was like laying out a buffet for them. They are particularly hungry in the spring and eat everything, the whole plant, not just a nibble like they used to.

We took our time making the decision about a deer fence because we didn't like the idea of being fenced in.

The design of the fence incorporates the buildings - my studio and the house acting as barriers to the deer entering the fenced area. We have placed the fence so it can't be seen (much) from the house.

This is Mike doing the hard job of digging holes for the posts.

He uses a manual digger, but not this one because it is Matt's, and so named.

The fencing team is very good about the minimal disturbance of the forest vegetation and understand we are fencing to protect the forest.

Meanwhile, the green manure crop is sprouting and covering the bare soil in the rock garden beds.

We got a delivery of straw bails to use as a mulch to cover the soil after the green manure crop is dug into the soil. We don't want hay because that introduces grass seeds to the garden beds. In the forest ecosystem, we are working to eliminate bacteria supported grasses and encouraging fungal dominant soils.

Cutting Down Trees - a Safety Issue

We called in Evergreen Tree Service once  it was pointed out we had 2 leaning trees north and near the house. Their roots were being lifted out of the ground. They were a safety hazard.

This is Cam suiting up with his tree climbing gear and chainsaw.

And up he goes using his spurs to dig into the trunk.

You can see here the angle of one of the trees. It is rubbing on and probably being supported by the Maple tree beside it.

This is Tyler, the ground man. Here he is making sure Cam's belay line is not tangled in the branches that fall down after being cut.

This is Gord making the tree into a wildlife tree after cutting all but about 20 feet down. He has roughed up the top to allow rain to penetrate and accelerate the decay process.

Gord bucking the logs i.e. cutting the log into lengths that will fit in the fireplace. They will be split and stored for a couple of years before being burnt in the fireplace. Some of the logs will be cut into rounds to make paths around garden beds in the backyard.

Tyler has been on the job only a few weeks. Here he gets a lesson from Gord on how to buck.

Watching the tree felling was an exciting way to spend the morning. I learnt a new vocabulary. Now we will keep an eye on the remainder of the trunks to see if they get visited by the pileated woodpeckers who are the first bird species to open up a tree to other creatures.

Backyard Project - Recap and Coping With Winter Rains

It has been so long since I posted on progress on the Backyard Project I'm going to do a quick recap of where things were at in the beginning of November.

The raised studio beds were constructed, filled and planted with spring bulbs.

The 3 hugelkultur beds were constructed and planted with a winter green manure mix.

Soil was laid down for the meadow plants in the flat areas in between.

Here am I planting comfry roots around the base of all 3 hugelkultur beds.

I mulched the studio beds with fallen maple leaves making them ready for the winter.

Tom had excavated and placed the rock for the gravel bed garden.

He had also constructed all of the raised rock garden beds and filled them with logs and soil.

Then the rains kept coming turning the gravel bed garden site into a swimming pool. It served to highlight where we needed to place the French drain.

The areas around the hugelkultur beds got super-saturated. We want the water to accumulate around these beds where the buried logs have the capacity to absorb huge amounts of water but the amount of water showed us how much we have to build up the pathways.

Meanwhile, the raised rock beds soaked up the above average rainfall like a sponge. The rotten logs under the soil are doing their job.

And this is how we left the project until the new year.

Backyard Project: Prep for Next Room Construction

Preparation for the construction of the next room included Tom doing a few tasks while he could still get the excavator into the areas.

One task was to lift the 2 Garden Towers off the balcony. Ron had removed all the railing in preparation for the conservatory construction which made lifting the Garden Towers easier.

For Tom, it was just a matter of lifting them off the balcony then rolling them off the bucket. Without the excavator, it would have been a major task requiring lots of preplanning and manpower (not girl power. I don't like doing those sorts of tasks).

The deer will be delighted when they discover these 2 picnic baskets set out for them. I am resigned to the plants all being eaten to nubs. We will replant the towers once the deer fence has been built.

In the meantime, the girl power is scraping up the last of the compost from the compost area and spreading it on existing garden beds. I didn't want to lose the compost we had made.

The critical task in preparation for the construction of the next garden room is the placement of needed materials where they are both accessible and out of the way of the construction.

Tom piled the decomposing logs on one side of the track downhill from the next lot of beds.

He piled up his specially mixed soil on the other side of the track.

More truckloads of rocks were delivered. Tom spoke to the driver each time. I think he asked for bigger rocks with every load. One truckload had only 8 rocks because they were so big. The rocks come from a construction site not far away where they are blasting out a mound to level the ground. With the rocks being local in origin they match perfectly the  rocks used in the original construction of the house.

Tom's next task was to remove all of the existing plants I had tagged with tape because I wanted to  keep them for the new beds. He put them out of the way of the construction area.

Let the construction of the Raised Rockbeds begin.