Winter Camp has Begun….

The beginning of 2014 brought with it the arrival of an amazing crew of devout forest tenders, naturalists, and bold experimenters in “social forestry”:  Winter Camp.   What exactly is Winter Camp?  Its collective of 10 mixed gender individuals committed to learning together what it means to truly care for the forests of this Bioregion.  Using whatever skills and practices they have at their disposal (Permaculture, Regenerative forestry practices, primitive skills, non-violent communication/process work) the winter campers are discovering and rediscovering practices that bring human beings into a more intimate, regenerative and sustainable relationship with the forest ecosystem.  And by all accounts they are having a fun time doing it!

Yesterday most of the Full Bloom residents participated in a work day at their site, where we helped gather and burn the lopped branches from several days of  thinning the forest (Historically the native people performed periodic understory controlled burns to keep the larger trees healthy, reducing competition and cycling in nutrients) and peeled usable poles that came from the forest thinning.

After a morning of working together on the poles and the burn piles we gathered at their camp headquarters for a delicious meal then the group as a whole began a ceremony initiating the restoration of an Oak woodland that had been taken over by conifer species (cedars and firs).   Rather than going right at it with a chainsaw we started with song and hand tools, which felt good and not so much like work.

I feel deeply appreciative for the vision of these young folks to have put together such an undertaking that provides untold benefits to the land and to the residents here at Full Bloom.  Yay Winter Camp!!

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir

“If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?”
Steven Wright