Annual Report 2007/Ecology Steward
From EcoReality
Ecology is the study of relationships between living organisms and their communities (living and non-living components). One of the core principles of Ecology is: All ecological cycles act as feedback loops, so that the ecological community regulates and organizes itself, maintaining a state of dynamic balance characterized by continual fluctuations. All energy is solar, and thus optimization of harnessing, using and re-using that energy is the natural state of ecological systems. Metaphorically and literally, that is how the first year felt to me at EcoReality 160 Sharp Road – a year of perceiving energy in and around me by listening to the land and the creatures that make their homes and playground here, listening to each other and listening for what is cyclic and what is new each season, each day, each moment. The natural state of this open energy system is to allow energy to flow from high potentials to lower ones, building complexity in structure as it moves yet waning in intensity. The complex plant food resources that EcoReality land base yields up to us humans, to the birds, the deer, the raccoons, the chickens, and the other multitudes of animal life are amazing to behold as they fluctuate in form, size, abundance and availability over the course of one year. Through an interplay of creativity, death and mutual adaptation, life evolves on our nearly 5 acres, and in the areas adjacent to it.
This year’s ecological highlights include: loss of a faulty dam structure holding the pond at the apex of the property’s watercourse – which created opportunities to clear invasive Himalayan Blackberries (Rubus discolor) from the pond and to recycle their nutrients on the land in the form of berms, these sentinels lining the natural curves of the slope between the lavender and the cedars, seasonal changes to water flows in the stream, as well as along the northern edge of the vegetable garden fenceline where we determined natural swales would help to direct moisture to a possible new pond site to the West of the shop orchard garden. With removal of the constructed pond in front of the main house, we expect a reduction in the number of mosquitoes in May and June compared to what we observed (and felt!) last year. We have contributed much to the fruit trees by pruning them, which we hope will increase their flowering and fruit production, while encouraging new healthy green stems as well. We have experienced the lushness of the many types of grasses that turned into hay for use by our neighbours’ animals, and we anticipate another bumper hay season this year! The gentle, graceful lavender plants have taught us about their effective ways of keeping herbivores at bay, while not being so naturally inclined to allelopathically repel weedy companions from the grass family. Also, the tedious learnings of the 2006 lavender harvest and sale of flowers taught us much about the sustainability of the labour:profit relationship for that type of crop, and has encouraged us to be creative in our approach this time around when the buds begin to break in late June and the variety of lavender species and cultivars stagger their greetings until the final scents die away at the end of August. Will we harvest them all at their peak time for oil production? Will we harvest only some for sale off site and process others ourselves? Many questions remain, and all of them opportunities for learning about ecology and agro-ecology. Finally, we have yet to really observe the impacts of our hens (and pending arrival of a rooster!), but we expect that the ecological services they will provide as they create relationships with their environment and the other inhabitants of the land base will be very beneficial to them, and to us~! Yay for fresh eggs!
As we have begun to use a lens of ecology and permaculture through which to view our every action at EcoReality, we work to build not only our awareness and appreciation of the balance in wildlife that nurtures and supports our physical space, but also our social and economic realities -so inextricable from balanced relationships with ourselves, our animal and plant communities. The principles of ecology are reflected in our community Values and Vision documents, and as such, they have informed the way that our human population at EcoReality has sought to design and create our space, our future both here in existence at 160 Sharp Road, as well as our potential future as a developing human scale Ecovillage. In the first year of our time here, we have experienced a burgeoning of human community among our members, visitors, renters, volunteer workers, and especially our friendly neighbours that can also be described as an increasingly interconnected web of relationships where energy and resources flow; supported centripetally by the sun, the hayfields and the stored energy in fuels. I welcome the continuity of stewarding the ecological relationships in this community for the year to come.
