Happy 80th b'day, Adam Purple

Adam Purple, an old friend and mentor, turned 80 recently, and the following post is my belated letter of congratulations to him. He is the creator of the Garden of Eden (NYC),  http://www.zentences.com/edra85.html, and a pioneer in urban homesteading and off-grid living. 

Dear Adam,

I hope this finds you and finds you well. Congratulations, belatedly, on your 80^th birthday. I’m sorry I missed it; but then again, I’m sorry I missed your 79^th, and 78^th, and 77^th, and, well, you get the idea. I’ve missed having you as a regular part of my life for a long time, and regret the loss. It’s just not enough to be on the receiving end of your email blasts; sitting around the woodstove smoking a joint and waiting for the tofu stew to cook is so far superior as to render the comparison ludicrous. Please send your recipe.

Eighty years on Planet Earth is a long time for anyone, I would think especially for one who’s so far away from his home on Uranus. But as your birthday comes at the end of the year in question, you’ve already done the time, so you might as well enjoy the party. I hope you had one.

Out here in New Mexico, we’re getting into rhythms that I suspect are similar to those of the Missouri farm of your youth, and not too different from life at the Garden of Eden. I’m getting into the swing of managing a wood furnace; ours is an early 20^th century model from the Holland Furnace Co. of Michigan. It’s a big old monster that was either brought into the basement in pieces or the house was built around it.

It’s an octopus, with five heat ducts, two returns, and a chimney, and even at 6:30 on a four-degree F. morning, the house is in the mid-50s, if I’ve done my job properly. We don’t heat the second bedroom or the bath or the upstairs, ‘cause we don’t use ‘em much, but the layout of kitchen/dr/lr/br works fine for us. With nine-foot ceilings (8-1/2 … I just measured), there’s plenty of room.

I’m cutting up the deadwood piled around the ranch, and I suspect I’ll have to buy one more cord of wood before the winter’s out. I’ll buy as many as we can afford, if the price is right, and it’s on my list to check out the landfill when I get a vehicle. It’s lovely outside in the afternoon with the sun shining and the temp in the 40s, and it’s no problem staying warm. All the cats, except the oldest … and our Beagle, Lady … come out to help and wear their little cat asses out.

I’m planning my first garden here, and trying not to get too carried away, mentally or financially. We collect rainwater, and I hope to collect more, to supplement the 18 inches this area receives. I’m also working on swales and whatever else I can think of to trap and sink water. We have a lovely spring and pond, but I haven’t got an easy method of getting water from it to the gardens above. It’s a couple hundred yards away from the house, which is a bit far to haul buckets for an old American white-eyes unused to such work.

We also have deeded access to the Canadian River, in the amount of three acre feet, which would make for plentiful irrigation, if I went that route, but it’s a money thing, plus I don’t know what I’d do with all that water, plus I’m a bit uneasy about taking water from the river, on ethical grounds. We’ll see.

Meantime, my current thinking is to manage the place for bees, with lots of plantings and, initially, a couple of hives, built on the top-bar method. I have a set of plans for a top-bar hive, based on Golden Mean proportions, and I’m looking forward to my first build. The top-bar beekeeping method is said to be simpler and easier on the bees, and I’m all for that. As I learn what I’m doing, I may well be able to conservatively harvest 75 pounds of honey from each hive, and as it’s selling for $5 or so a pound, the economics, as well as the ecology, are good. If I can feed them enough, which means planting enough for them, I’d like as many hives as possible … 20 … 50 … 100?

Other than that, I plan Three Sisters plantings of dryland varieties, alternating with strips of alfalfa for nitrogen fixation and rainwater retention, on the large fenced yard; a small orchard and nut-tree plantings in the same area; and a medicine wheel of herbs in our front yard, facing the Sangre de Cristo mountains to our west. And chickens, a few layers of some endangered breed; no butchering, just pets with benefits.

At any rate, this is long enough for today. I’m going to post this letter on my new blog, www.TaylorSprings.blogspot.com, which I hope you’ll check out. If you’d like to take the train, it comes as close to us as Raton, where Andi works, and we’d love to have you here. The time for us to see each other again grows shorter; a visit would gladden my heart. Happy Birthday!

Love,

Rick