Moisturizing Char

Once made, char needs to be moistened. Moisture is critical to making the char come alive. The best material I have found for that is rainwater, or urine. Char can be extremely hydrophobic, resisting water. Sometimes amazingly so. Super pure char can be difficult to get wet, but when it does absorb water, it can hold six times it's weight in H20. Typically, when adding water to char, it is well to add some of the nutrients you want to be held in the microscopic pores at the same time. Dilute bat guano, urine or fish emulsion will add nitrogen as well, as moisture but I am getting ahead of myself. See the post called: "Mineralize Char" The moisture that char absorbs helps reduce the amount of dust that is generated when dealing with dry char, especially when stirring or crushing it to powder. Char dust is dangerous! Do not breathe it! If you are around char powder dust, wear a respirator! Rock dust was the first carcinogen discovered, char particles are vitrified to emulate porous stone. Moisture is the source of all life and the mixture we are creating as a precursor to biochar is based on water. The microbes we eventually introduce are like us in that their cells are full of water. Remember as well that activated carbon, the exact same thing we just made, to remove chemicals and fish waste from fish tanks, they use it to purify drinking water and to remove odors, but we want to fill all of that filtering capacity with organic nutrients and minerals that will encourage microbes to thrive upon it later on.

The best moisture level is one that allows the char to feel like wet sand with no ponding or puddling, no water in the bottom of whatever broad low container you work it in. When wet, the char will have a glassy texture at first and almost squeak as the shards of material pass by one another. The tiny pores and fissures have enough surface area to allow hundreds of billions of bacteria to have space on which to grow. If the tubules get too long, there cannot be adequate access to fresh air and water inside. For the most part, the smaller the particles of char become, the more surface area becomes available for life to thrive upon. Again, this will be covered more in other installments, specifically the post entitled, "Micronize Char".

So, when we add a ton of char per acre, it can hold six tons of water, so handling larger quantities presents some specialized challenges as well. For fun, I checked the figures to see how much six tons of water is, since I typically urge folks to add a ton of char per acre, the amount of water it holds makes biochar heavy. Char itself is super light, but when we prepare it for life and inoculate it with microbes, it gets many times heavier. A ton holds six tons of water alone to be exact. I resorted to my Old English rhyme, a pint is a pound the world around, so 12,000 pounds equals as many pints. Two pints to a quart, so 6,000 quarts, divide by four, makes 1,500 gallons. I continued trying to imagine just how much that would be, nearly thirty fifty-five gallon drums (exactly 27.2727etc. of them) to be exact. The way I like to measure large volumes is by Olympic-size swimming pools, especially when measuring liquid. I is about 1/40 of an Olympic sized swimming pool. Held by the char applied to each acre!

Add to that the organisms that inhabit the char surfaces hold additional water in their cell walls and that would hold moisture above and beyond the capacity of the char itself, perhaps much more! As we broaden the base of the soil food chain, it kicks everything into high gear, but again, I get ahead of the process. Imagine though, before we get back to moisture proper, a simple doubling of the soil microbiome. See the post entitled "Microbes". Getting back to the moisture part, doubling from a single ton of microbes per acre, to two is more than likely, there might be three or five (perhaps many times more than that,) fold increase in microbial activity when the soil is very rich, extremely fecund, fully carbonized with biochar and nourished long term with healthy mulches and green manure. I have even seen pictures of plants growing in pure biochar, although for most of us, that would be prohibitively expensive. These further tons of microbial creatures are all holding nutrient and moisture as well, moderating and stabilizing changes in the soil climate and ecology.

Just remember that you do not want the char to become anaerobic. To cultivate the healthiest microbes, the char should be as wet as a wrung out sponge, much like compost. They also need air and being moist together give the organisms to give the organisms the best chance of survival. Underestimating the needs of these microscopic creatures is a common problem. Making sure they have plenty of resources to get their needs met is the primary focus of the charmaster. I can help get you over some of the most difficult hurdles to making excellent char, but your active participation in the process will help you develop an affinity for what your biochar needs. Again, local conditions will dictate what is best for your biochar. Exponential growth of the community of organisms is normal and natural, we just have to content ourselves with not being able to see the miracles we are able to create in the char.

Making Char

This first step in creating of biochar.
In essence, all you do is heat dry plant material to between 450 and 500 degrees F (230-260 C), basically making it glow, without allowing air to get to the reaction site. This process is called pyrolysis. When the material glows, it changes form and makes it like more like fired clay, than wood or dirt. when vitrified, ut becomes permanent in the environment and not subject to degradation. Charcoal has been made around the world, throughout human history. When human beings learned of the power of char, and how it is turned into biochar is still a mystery. It is well established that as recently as 2,000 years ago, humans were making it and some tribes and cultures still use this practice in modern times.

It is sad that intact cultures are referred to as primitive, because they are often far more scientifically advanced and sophisticated than that term implies. Utilizing biochar is one of the indicators of a highly advanced agriculture.  My tool of choice in the matter of making char is a retort, a basic scientific instrument designed to allow heating and vapor release, without introducing oxygen (air). Typically, the retort has but one opening to allow gasses to escape, mine actually has three, but they can be closed during cooling.  Here is a schematic view of a retort.

Below is picture of my old retort in use and I have made other types of charring equipment as well. It is important to understand all the ways to do this step, so you can pick the one that suits your needs, available resources and needs. In my classes I discuss at least five types of charring techniques, the pit or flame cap, build and bury, similar to how much char was made before the fossil energy revolution and the current infatuation with liquid fuels; retort, of course, because it is my preferred method, the can within a can (which pretty much explains itself) which could also be called a retort in a chimney, and the TULD, Top Lit Up Draft. The method you choose varieties depends on how much you are making, what materials you have available and how pure you want/need to make your char. In addition to teaching facts about biochar, making and using it, I try to get across a feeling, or attitude of appreciation and the desire to teach and share with others the ancient miracle that is biochar. Making char requires nothing more than a basic popcorn, cookie or cracker tin. Just pop a few holes in it to release the gasses and fasten the lid on with self-tapping pan head screws, then char away. You can even use dry garden clippings, woody yard waste or herb stems, any dry woody debris will do, as long as it is completely dry. Typically, I just put the whole container right in the fire pit while enjoying a camp or bonfire. At first, the container smokes a little, but then the flammable gasses come off, making pure clean flame. When that flame dies down, and disappears, even if you shake the container around, it is finished. Lay it on a surface that won't burn with the holes you poked facing toward the ground to smother off as much air as possible from getting into the container. When it cools, it is ready to start processing. Beware though, wood and sawdust, or organic material is a good insulator, so the coals may stay warm for several hours or more depending on how large a container you use.

This retort is made from a Cornelius keg, it holds five gallons of material (I prefer dry sawdust) and reduces to approximately one kilogram of material. Making char from sawdust eliminates the need for micronization, because the pieces are small enough to be used without further smashing into powder. A typical firing of a retort like this takes about three hours with dry sawdust used for the feedstock, or parent material. The value of this will become evident in later posts. (see Micronizing) As in nature, stacking functions is the key to increased efficiency.

I did not have a big enough fire pit to roast the material in this retort, a sealed 55 gallon drum, with conduit to direct the gasses out the bottom. Although it worked well enough to produce the flammable gas, it was just not enough to help warm the drum.  Had I been able to build a larger bonfire, it would have been able to make over ten kilograms of finished char. That would be enough to amend a ten foot wide bed forty feet long to a depth of three inches.

If you are not able to make a fire for some reason, you can use high end charcoal that is readily available at grilling outlets. Typically it has names like natural charcoal, cowboy charcoal or lump charcoal. Essentially it should appear like burned wood. If it has been compacted into uniform briquets, typically it will have contaminants and binders that reduce the quality of your finished product. In this case, I must admit that I am a bit of a carbon snob. The goal is to get the open grains of the wood's cellular structure, binders, paint, stain and other foreign material can close the ends of the pores and render the finished product either contaminated or useless. If you had a scanning electron microscope, tiny particles of the finished product would look like this:

It is really that simple. Dry organic, woody material, the cellular structure of the plant is what gets preserved at approximately half size. As the material is heated, the gasses liberated are nearly pure oxygen and hydrogen, these flammable gasses must be able to leave the retort and they will readily be burned off during the process. The nice thing about the retort is that when the gasses stop coming out, you know that the char is done roasting. After removing the retort from the fire, loosely plug or  cover the hole(s) to keep air out and let the char cool. Another way to tell if the char is done is to feel the weight of the container. When finished, the char is very light and when you touch finished char, there will be very little black carbon that sticks to your hands. Incompletely fired or poorly pyrolized char will still have oily soot-like residue. It gets your hands dirty when you handle it and it will smell or taste of creosote.

 A good way to tell if char is finished is to smell or taste it. There will be no taste or smell. The best char, is pure carbon. After it cools, if you stir the pieces, it will almost sound metallic or like broken glass shards, especially after it is moistened, but that will be covered in the next post. Poorly made char can degrade as it breaks down in soil, so take care and do whatever it takes to make the best char possible, it will reward future generations, many times over, not only for seven generations, but for geologic time.

There are other ways to make char and they include something called a flame cap burner, basically a container that does not allow air in either the bottom or sides. In this method, you have to build a rick. (a rick is like a log cabin, but the logs are layered from side to side like a nearly solid floor on each level, but to maximize air flow, room is left around each log, stick or branch, not like a solid floor of wood, but a lattice in three dimensions.)  A small fire is built atop the rick and when the material burns down, you will notice that the fire only exists at the top of the vessel, where air first contacts the hot gasses. Material inside will just glow, but not burn. Keep adding material until all that is left is the glowing bed of coals, when the flame cap stops burning, the gasses have all been released, the char is done and has to be quenched with water or have a loosely fitting lid ready to cover the vessel to keep air out. This method is great if you do not have strict burning regulations because it gets smoky if you put too much material on at once. The ideal rate for adding material to the flame cap burner is evidenced by the absence of smoke. You want a very clean burn, if you get any smoke, either you have put too much on at once, the inside of the container is not hot enough, or the material is too wet to char. This can even be accomplished by just digging a hole in the ground and building your fire large enough to fill the pit with glowing embers. Quench or smother them out with the soil that remains from digging the hole. It is "primitive", but if you know what to do and how to know it is done, it can work beautifully.

The TLUD (Top Lit Up Draft) burner and the vessel within vessel method are also useful if you have the materials and metal-working skills to make them. First, for the vessel within a vessel technique, you would need a small, sealing, steel container and it would need to fit within another larger steel container, I have seen them made from a 30 gallon drum inside a fifty five gallon drum. Holes are made in the bottom of the thirty gallon vessel 2-4 inches (5-10 cm) up from the bottom, to allow gasses to escape.  This container is then filled with the material you are going to char and sealed. The larger drum also has holes in the bottom and is kept up off the ground at the start to let fresh air in when lighting the fire, but since they are in the bottom, when the burn is complete, you can pretty much seal them closed by simple lowering the container to the ground. The larger drum also has a lid, but it needs to have a hole prepared to accept a stovepipe. About six feet of stovepipe above the  penetration in the lid, to keep all the smoke up and away from people. This device is very smoky upon starting as can be the TLUD  In any case, the large drum gets propped up off the ground to start the burn, the smaller vessel, once filled with material to be charred and the opening of the drum is sealed, it goes into the larger vessel, atop a bed of tinder and other fire starting material, vent holes down. The inner drum is propped up off the bottom as well. The space under the smaller vessel holds the kindling wood and helps air to flow upward during the main burn.

The next step is to be to fill the space around the inner drum with dry, burnable material An easy way to start the burn is to make ready some coals, like you would use for grilling, dump them down into the tinder and quickly fill the drum with the wood, quickly capping it and installing the stovepipe. As the outer wood burns, it begins to heat the inner drum and as that happens, flammable gasses begin to escape making the fire hotter. Eventually the smoke stops as the outer sleeve of wood goes to char, then ash, but by then the additional heat, from the escaping gasses leaving the inner vessel, continue to burn, also heating the inner vessel. This allows it to finish the process. As the material finishes, less and less gasses are produced until there is no more flame, just glowing coals within the inner vessel. At that point let the outer drum drop to the ground, sealing out the air. Some people like to throw a "seal" of sand around the edge, or do that and then moisten the sand to help keep out the air that could get in the bottom. I have not worried about it and done well, just getting a good solid seal on flat ground. To reduce the updraft of the chimney, which could draw air in the bottom, you could add a flue damper.

The TLUD kiln is similar to the flame cap, but the flame essentially working its way to the bottom, using up all the available oxygen before it can burn the char all the way to ash. I'm not completely thrilled with this technique because some creosote residue might be deposited on the finished char. I have not fired one myself and it requires one to not have to worry about making lots of smoke, again when you get it started, it will smoke to beat the ban, until the flame front gets established. In a TLUD kiln, it works like the flame cap, but the air coming in the bottom is severely limited, and the flame actually advances down from the top, as it goes toward the small amount of air, it uses up all the oxygen in the process of burning and the hot material left behind is hot enough to continue to give off gasses. In this sort of kiln, typically, they run a stack with an afterburner to burn off the gasses when they finally get out into the air. These can be impressive and may bring to mind a fire breathing dragon! To my understanding, having the material loosely packed in the kiln is crucial to success, you can't pack the material in the kiln because the air flow, although small, is crucial. When packing the TULD kiln, the feedstock needs to be about as dense as a natural sponge, so air flows around and through the material, rather than if it were packed tightly, or irregularly, it would choke off the air flow, burn unevenly or only partially char. I plan to make one of these and try it for myself. The people who use them swear by them.

You can put any vessel over fire, as long as you have somewhere the flammable gasses can escape. When the gasses stop coming off, if you stir the material and the flame does not continue, or flare up, pull it from the fire and put a loose fitting lid on it, seal it with the ground, or quench it out with water, because as it contracts, air will make it into the retort, but the goal is to not have it touch any glowing char that has not yet cooled below 400 F, otherwise it could continue to burn when oxygen gets in. I have had batches where the integrity of the seal was compromised and the char continued burning for over ten hours, without me even noticing. I went to sleep and in the morning, the container was still warm, opening it revealed the embers had consumed almost half the char! When making char in any sort of retort, it is important to wait until the material is fully cooled before exposing it to the air. If you do not, it can reignite on contact with air. The still warm char gets wasted when it turns to white ash. Keeping this white ash production to a minimum in all but the most acidic of soils and getting the highest percentage pure carbon as possible is the goal. It is critical to getting the most from your effort.

The most important thing to remember about white ash, is that it is very alkaline, lye is made from fully burned ashes. DO NOT USE white ash. It is no longer carbon, even that gets burnt. Once burned to white ash, only minerals remain. We want the carbon, that is what benefits the soil, when it becomes fully pyrolized. Wood that has not fully charred will decay and lose carbon as well, so make sure that you fully char the material you use. The embers must glow and completely, lose all their hydrogen and oxygen. Pure, vitrified carbon will remain fixed in soil for geologic time. Once prepared this charred material has fourteen acres of surface area per handful. All that surface area needs to be nourished to become a healthy precursor to soil. That is whay the next five posts will cover. Basic science rules those phases, but for now, keeping with the title of this post, making char is easy, if one has some simple tools, a fire and patience to make sure your woody material is fully finished before you remove it from the fire. I will cover more about the golden ratio of minerals and nutrients, in the post "Mineralization"

If you choose to make a retort, vessel in vessel, TULD burner, or use a flame cap  method, the only requirement is to have complete pyrolysis without either un-charred material or white ash. The best tests for quality are look and feel, smell and taste. It should be ultralight and the darkest black you will ever see. Occasionally it may have a rainbow oxidization, but the predominant feature is to be super black (the best char sounds a bit like glass when pieces are touched together. You will hear a hollowness to the pieces and they will be very light) Testing char quality by smell, (should smell fresh, not like creosote or smoke) Char is a great deodorizer. There should also be no taste; again, smoky or oily flavors are evident straight away. Material not thoroughly heated for long enough will smell like smoke. Excellent char will not taste like anything, in fact, the predominant sensation is that it sucks moisture from your tongue. Truly an anti-taste.

This material is so much more valuable than gold, I cannot begin to tell you. This beginning ingredient, char, when treated and processed properly will double crop production when added at the rate of one kilogram per cubic meter of soil, or roughly two pounds per cubic yard. If anyone ever needs help determining how much char they need, please contact me directly. My land line is nine twenty, double 8 four, triple two 4. Mornings in Wisconsin (Central Time) are the best time to reach me. Best wishes on your journey. When you use your char and see the benefits, think about who taught you how to make it and send a token of thanks. Think long and hard about the principles within sustainability, which  urge us to equitably distribute the abundance. That is all I ask. Ubuntu as they say in Africa, namaste' as they say in India. We are each incarnations of the godhead and without a single one of us, all would be diminished. I truly am, because of you! Appreciatively, Tony C. Saladino

Fake News

This is one of the most filthy lies perpetrated upon the majority of Americans (again, I mean citizens of the U.S.A.) fake news extends back to the beginning of time. I'm sure that some cave people reported falsely about events that happened to them while they were away from the rest of the group. There will always be a few pathetic souls who are pathological liars, but for the most part, stories get told that reflect the perspective of the person telling them. Great to know if you are trying to get at truth through the experiences of others. For instance, in all the court cases that have been resolved around the current POSOTUS, The message is never, "Would you want to make a deal with a serial delinquent or non-payer of their debts?" Gag orders accompany any legal settlement, so the aggrieved cannot even explain what happened or how it was resolved. The very same person, the current bumbler in chief, blew through a three billion dollar fortune, just making himself seem big and important. Fake news would to be to say that he's ethical and patriotic. No oligarch-owned news service would tell you that. When it is told, it is not fake, just because someone disagrees with it. The vast majority of people realize that grave dangers are common now that threaten life on the planet and that current leadership is not capable of steering a course to true security, stable monetary policy, and that there is nothing they could do to inspire confidence. Instead, the truth is, we see an endless clown car of idiots unfurled for all to see. Each Teathuglican speech seems to get more and more incoherent, but to point that out is fake news?

As far back as I can remember, there were lies put out over the air waves and in print about one group or another. The FBI, CIA, and a variety of other agencies with acronyms conspired to release false information about groups or individuals who represented a political philosophy that put truth above rhetoric and action above the learned helplessness that the oligarchs are so adept at fostering within us! Today, I learned of another resounding success story, the Sardinian currency, Sardex, allows island residents to barter real wealth for products and services knowing that it is a system they can trust . That trust extends to local investments helping local people. The way "commerce" is supposed to work. People want virtual currencies everywhere and developing monetary policy that allows for the future of money...who can say? The new age offers powerful resources that could encourage, not discourage participation in government. We are, after all, supposed to be, as Lincoln said, by, of and for the people. No mention of corporations, for good reason! The fake news is that people like me represent a "threat" to civil society. In fact, we the people not only deserve, but are responsible for seeking out and finding our own truth, not manufacturing it through the application of lies, but finding facts, representing them to the best of our ability and trying not to infer conclusions from partial data. That is why science-based decision-making is one of the campaign pledges that I have based the campaign on.

This week I became aware of data from the State of Wisconsin regarding cuts to local school boards in the state budget. In one year alone, the 8th Congressional District

has had nearly ten million dollars in cuts to local school boards. This is reality. Education is the one tool that has been proven to increase quality of life over the years. Reducing both the availability and/or quality of this vital civilizing force is an outright assault on future generations. Nothing was said about this in the news. The airwaves and print media instead focused on tragedies from across the globe, distracting us from what is going on right in our state, right in our neighborhoods, even in our own local schoolhouses. I am continuing to run for Congress. I will not be cowed by the oligarchs, I will not accept their interpretation regarding what I need to know. I will continue to investigate, utilize truth and facts. I will stand up for real people, regardless of their age, disability or whether they can afford to contribute to political campaigns. Part of the reason I am only writing one post per moon this year is that it takes time to campaign and I have to prioritize my time to spend more of it spreading the word about my candidacy.

Treason

This is an interesting word. It implies that you have taken the war path with regard to the very government that claims to have dominion over you. Here in my tiny part of the world, we are told that we (whites) have had a relatively heaven sent privilege that gives us "dominion" over "our" part of the globe. All too often, individuals also are subsumed. Many of those who look back at our history defend the rights of the whites to slaughter native people as well as buying and selling of others. The whole idea of a government that would serve the people had to ignore the rights of non-natives and natives alike, instead conferring humanity only on the whites of land and wealth, which in their time proved education and "breeding". The power and control they were used to at the time. We have grown as a nation since then.

We have become educated about genetics and the terrible legacy that was handed down to future generations of "noble" inbreeding! We know that there are no valid claims for anything based on race, the entire human race is indeed just one species. The current administration is a small group of people dedicated to eliminate the agencies they oversee. The treason is in the White House!

There is no simpler way to say it. The outright assault on our government is being waged from inside the White House. In addition to Presidential ignorance and gaffes internationally, there is the fact that our "leader" made vast amounts of money and took loans from Russian loan sharks. The current POSOTUS has had hideous appointments and his flaunting of law regarding his tax documents and appointing his own children to cabinet level positions as well as a series of appointments of shady characters pushing an agenda rather than serving the people of our great nation continues to desecrate the office! There is an all out war on the nation we have decided ,over the last two hundred years, to become! Through laws and deeds, we either rip asunder the environment, the economy and all that is valuable in our nation, or we strive to conserve what can never be re-made, invest in things that will be around a while and commit to the things that matter.

Anything less is against our interests! Saladino 4 District 8 is my campaign's facebook page. Seek me out there or on twitter. TCSaladino.

Who Wouldn't Love...

Who wouldn't love days warm enough to leave the windows open. The sounds which we might hear outside, yet not really even notice, take on a different texture when they come through a window...birds, the wind in the trees, squirrel chewing on antler, far off mowing machines or even traffic sounds better through a window than it would in the open air, on the street or in your yard. Even sirens and trains sound more soothing through a window when the climate cooperates. Who can ignore the scents that waft through as the warm weather season rolls by, coaxing open the windows far and wide. The smell of serviceberry, linden flower, lilac, cherry, apple, peony, lillies of the valley, elder flowers, milkweed, and the whole array of flowers and trees you and your neighbors have planted. Who does not love to go from inside to outside without donning a stitch of extra clothes!

Windows open, we feel the world around us much more fully. The acrid smell of fireworks drift through from time to time as do the gasoline fumes of musclecars, mowers and bikes of old. How can it get better than smelling rain or knowing which way the wind is blowing because all the windows in the house are open? This is good really really good means much more when you hear the sound of a boat sloshing in the water through screen on a warm summer night. When you hear a loon or owl through the screened window of a tent, it it way better than hearing it on a movie soundtrack or PBS Special. The net of safety that our enclosure implies sets us just far enough apart from nature that we can listen without fear. The fear of losing ourselves in nature. I think this is a pretty common reason, although not always eloquently expressed by non-campers. Many people say that they,  "Don't like the quiet" or who claim that, "It always rains" when they go camping. But I'm afraid, many feel separate from rather than part of nature. I have lived in the woods, rain, shine sleet and snow and it can still be a lot better than a day at work!

Who wouldn't love sitting around a fire, telling stories and listening to calm voices and relaxing after a good meal and refreshment? When the nights turn cool and the warmth tightens the circle just a little bit. The crackle and hiss of the wood charring, the dancing flames and the way your clothes smell the next day? I once had a girlfriend who would not wash her outdoor clothes, or ones she wore at fires. Instead she would always hang them with her regular clothes until she had another pair to replace them with, so the smell would scent all of her clothes! Some people may not go to these lengths to feel at home in the woods, or in the woods at home I guess. However, this love of the activity humans were born to do seems to be inextricably linked to our urge to dream, to drift off and to become mesmerized by the dancing light. They say candle light makes everyone more beautiful, but if this is true, firelight works that magic a thousand fold. Even the coming and going of voices from the other side make even mundane conversation better. Who does not love enjoying the company of others while at ease around a fire?

As the song goes, "When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when you're feeling sad, simply remembering the placid calm that was with you last time you sat around a fire and you will find the peace and calm to persevere. Today, it is an eerie ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Mid September is typically the time that the Autumn Rains begin, but this year, the grass never turned brown. There was no respite from the rain this Summer.Our local weather reporters got all excited and commented that the last 72 hour stretch without rain was May 5-7 and this was in mid August. Who wouldn't love a shift in climate so drastic that we didn't have to use heat in the winter, right? Well, now, let me think. If I get to make up for the energy savings by running the AC all Summer, I'm out. I have been hearing a lot about Sabbaticals, taking an extended time away to get renewed perspective. My serious run for Congress will consume all of my efforts and it would be silly to try to treat it like it won't. I would ask my readers to forgive me for not writing as many posts over the coming year.

Who wouldn't love to live in a world where two weeks worth of to-do lists could be whipped out in a single day? I have come to realize that the nature of how much work I get done lies more in my own perception of what really needs to get done. If it takes a load off my mind for a long time, I give it higher priority and feel more excited about getting it done. Often my ideas for art hold my attention for  along time before I can physically complete them. The waiting, as Tom Petty sang, is the hardest part. I know and understand that and don't want to leave readers with nothing to read, especially the long time supporters. Here is what I think I can do. In addition to my campaigning and work on election-related efforts, I will write approximately two posts per moon, rather than the seven that I committed to when I began to blog. some moons may not even get a single post, but I want all my readers to know that they can dig deeply into the trove I have posted so far and have at any posts from before you started reading. Long ago, I stated unequivocally that if I stopped posting, someone needed to be made aware of my absence, but this time I am actually going on a sort-of hiatus, partial working vacation. Find me on facebook as Saladino 4 District 8, or contact me in other formats if you wish. if you would like ot Paypal some cash to help keep the bills paid, or my run for Congress, be forewarned, any contributions from corporations will be returned, just like Bernie. however, digital donations can be made through Paypal acct. # tnsaladino42@hotmail.com. Please indicate whether it is for ECO-Tours or Saladino 4 District 8.

In honor of abundance, T

Russian Connection

In my experience, having tried to make as many Russian contacts as possible, conversation frequently comes around to what they think is the most interesting thing about America (again, the U.S.of A.). I have heard the same response several times which is noteworthy, since I have only met and had time to ask these sorts of questions to fewer than a dozen people. First generation Russian immigrants have said repeatedly that bread was perhaps the most interesting. When I asked why, they said, you, in America, never run out and you have bread for every class, the poor get white bread that is more like a sponge than food. Perhaps for a dollar a loaf. There are breads for middle class people and bread for rich people. Universally, they said that in Russia, you always buy more bread than you need, because the market may have no bread next time you come, or if they have it, there may be long lines to get it, but it is all the "good bread" as they called it and when I asked, they said rich people's bread. No one in their country lacked for good bread, except when none was available and if you were smart enough to buy more than you needed last time you got bread, you would still have some stale good bread.

I wondered long and hard about this place they must have lived before coming here.
Only good bread!

Man Of A Thousand Stories

When I was growing up, I had an interesting family. Our lives were full of experiences. In addition to moving virtually every year, we sometimes moved at least a couple times during the year...once we lived in three separate houses in three consecutive moons! Going through the collected baubles and books, art and toys, belongings and boxes of stuff, always focused on reducing our collected objects, was our way of getting down to what felt essential. Later, I discovered that this is a great way to learn about your own self. The things that you feel are "essential" often define, or hint at who you really are, physically, mentally and emotionally. By the time I had moved a few times, I began to realize that there are spiritual components to these choices as well. "Giving up" objects often leads to a freedom of spirit and an ability to see past the physical realm that I might never had learned of, had I lived in the same house all of my life, collecting baubles and bits of things that would just end up in a memory box one day. My collection of collections today is probably a reaction to living lightly when I was a child.

When we lived in a place for a total of thirty days, or twenty eight as happened a couple times, living by the motto "Stay Packed" became essential. Having the discipline to live with only one bowl, one cup, one plate, one spoon, one knife and one fork seems strange until you find ways to reduce your belongings further. Several Solstices ago, my sister got me a titanium spork, effectively reducing my kit by one item. The stories that have been lived rather than read about have a texture and depth that make believe, for me, simply does not. Fiction is great for some, but I tend to gravitate to real events and sharing the actual events that I have lived. My own feelings and belief is that these hold more power for me than fictional accounts or flights of fantasy. I do love a good native story from time to time, but these are mostly parables about how we should live, not a true record of how we actually did or do.

Living out of a suitcase, or panniers (bicycle backpacks) as I did repeatedly, changes your notion of what it takes to live and live well. I think it would help society greatly if more people understood what a luxury getting dry or taking a shower can be! Two books I would urge people to put in their go bag are the two Peterson Field Guides. These two books have more information on, Edible Wild Plants and Medicinal Wild Plants, than dozens of other books on the subjects and if you want to keep your pack light, getting the most information per pound is essential. I have seen people who feel that a weapon of some sort is essential for a go bag, but for the weight, I have gotten much more food from the land than a weapon would have ever been able to harvest. Books are relatively heavy to add to a go bag, but the value of these two publications has been immeasurable for me in my travels. I have learned dozens of wild foods that can make living outdoors not only possible but relatively luxurious. I have been able to eat hundreds of meals from plants that grew along my path. I'm sure that there could be a thousand moving stories in my own life about finding, cooking and enjoying food! At the risk of becoming mundane, there may be a thousand stories about how I found shelter while living in the woods, perhaps a thousand more about how I have met folks along my path who both inspired me and to whom I have given inspiration. The real challenge would be to pare down the stories to just ones that have profound impact, important lessons or to choose ones that best convey the deeper messages of freedom and responsibility, compassion and cooperation, commitment and abundance.

One of my stories is about the day I was born. Earlier that same day, my mother had gone to the neighbor's house. They had go-karts and she rode them around the yard, bouncing around and she felt that the jiggling and jostling helped to bring on labor later that day. I still have an unhealthy love for go-karting. Late at night, when my mom said it was time to go to the hospital, she said that my dad was running around the house like Chicken Little, even though they had the go-bag ready with everything my mother might need in hospital, dad had completely lost his composure. The doctor with which my mom planned to give birth was leaving for vacation and had already donned his Hawaiian shirt in preparation for touching down in our newest state. I guess they paged him at the airport and he drove back into town to deliver me. As mom was brought up in the elevator, un-comfortably seated in a wheelchair, to the maternity ward, she said she felt me coming. The doctor had arrived pretty much at the same moment she had and I was crowning as she was wheeled out of the elevator. She said that they didn't even have time to prep her for delivery before I squirted out! Blam! Is how she described it. So, the first person I saw in life was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. So many other experiences relate to that moment. Coming into the world is such a traumatic story for some, I am very glad that my birth story was not. I think that my experiences with normal and natural birth led me, later in life, to become a certified Bradley, husband-coached childbirth teacher. There are few times in life that nature becomes unavoidable and to be awake and aware of the process of birth is a joy often denied womyn. In my heart of hearts, I have great issues with the way we typically practice birth in our culture, healing that one aspect of our lives has the power to transform society form the ground up.

Perhaps one day, I will recount the letting go of the thousand or so things that meant a lot to me over the years. My complete set of Hardy Boys hardcovers, for instance had brought me many stories that allowed me to escape the boundaries of our humble home, escorting me on waves of prose to realms beyond my own imagination. Letting go of my home made movies, some of which were made in Denver in '76 & '77. Those documents were evidence of a great many hours studying filmmaking and honing my craft. My longest movie used Pink Floyd's Ummagumma as the soundtrack. I remember giving away art and selling some pieces for far less than their value over the years as well. We once had a larger than life size print made from a temple rubbing, The painting entitled "respond" done by my mother, things as mundane as a concrete Buddha, our kick ass stereo and eventually all my vinyl. One piece of art that I got back was an ink and Prismacolor pencil drawing, partly a self portrait, partly borrowed from King Crimson's court of the Crimson King album cover art. The hands stick out a couple inches from the face and it is tremendously psychological and topical even today!

Giving away art, especially that art was traumatic, getting it back made me ecstatic! I remember selling a bust of Kennedy that my grandpa Harold and I made together, the guy who bought it at our yard sale had said, "Someday I'll give this back." Thirty years later, he was good to his word and returned it to me, no worse for the wear. Again, humbling and profoundly beautiful. Those stories are unique in that once given they were returned. I do have a bicycle that has been stolen twice and each time returned to me by the thief. Both times it was not altogether willingly, but they did give it back. Both of these are stories unto themselves. Bicycling, as a single activity alone offers many hundreds of stories. The dozen  or so hundred plus mile a day stories from when I lived in Eastern Indiana/Western Ohio; each would yield several stories all by themselves! The time our group of three broke down in a storm was just one such story. The two brothers I was riding with took shelter in a woods and I rode on to the shelter under an antique storefront, sheltering under the roof of the porch/entryway as terrible weather engulfed us. After the thundershower and hail had passed, I rode back to find my friends, about three-quarters of a mile and there was evidence that a tornado had swept through right between the store and the woods. We rode a hundred miles one day just to go to the only big hill we had heard about nearby. We rode all the way to Muncie to ride down the hill they use for Soapbox Derby cars. Rob and Scott could not fathom riding down hills that steep for miles like I did when  I rode bicycle in and around Denver. As many stories as I have, it may do a disservice to call me, Man Of A Thousand Stories...