The Book Farm Project

Thank You Mom!

Mom,

Thank you for keeping the property all these years. Thank you for enduring the financial hardships when Dad left; Thank you for enduring me as a teenager; Thank you for enduring the time I spent out of state; Thank you for enduring my million different projects; Thank you for enduring MY financial hardships; Thank you for enduring as you've grown older. Despite a million reasons you could have sold the property, you didn't. Thank you for believing in me, and waiting for me. I love you.

Dave

Photo Gallery of Fallen Trees

I think I missed adding this link before. >> Gallery of Fallen Trees

The Book Farm is working with Tim Scharff of OfficePlans.net

I first met Tim when he volunteered to teach Community Education classes for Boise Schools. He contacted me again upon reading my blog, with some great suggestions about our parking dilemma. We have decided to work with him on our long-term site plan and on the implementation of specific projects (like the parking space plan). 

In just the few short meetings I have had with Tim, he has come up with ideas for our long term goals that utilize resources already on the property and save us a BUNCH of money. He understands the vision of the Book Farm -especially our desire to enhance our neighborhood and community in an environmentally responsible way. He has additionally used his economics and business background to provide ideas and guidance to how we can grow the business part of the Book Farm. I encourage you to take a look at his website - his approach in unique, innovative and refreshing. I'll be posting updates on our projects soon!

Are we really selling books again?

We're going to try a old fashioned way to get financial help with our projects - we are going to ask for it.

At the Book Farm Home Page there are now three mini-stores which are essentially starting places to shop at Amazon.,com - as Amazon "associates", we get a small commission from any book or other item purchased when people shop at our site, or transfer over to amazon.com's main site from our site.

I'd like to ask each of our supporters to bookmark our site and use it to start their shopping experience whenever they go to Amazon.com --it doesn't add to the price of any purchase, but it does generate a small referral commission for us -- and truly, EVERYTHING helps.

There is also a place at the bottom of the Book Farm home page to make a direct donation (in any amount, even $1). I almost feel presumptuous to ask, but if you have been following our blog and understand what we are working to accomplish and the challenges we've had, I think you will see why we are / As they say, you never get help if you don't ask for it. Thank you -- for reading, commenting, supporting, donating -- whatever you decide to do.

I am just so glad this blog is getting some readers :) Please help me find some more.

In "LIMB o"

Sorry for the horrible pun. Check out this gallery of photos of the trees we've had cut down. My mom and I were sitting in the midst of all this one day and she pointed out that is a pretty tranquil setting as it is. It was nice to stop for just a moment and appreciate that - it's easier to look at it and think of how much WORK it is to remove it.

Thanks to Mark we have made some progress. The priority was clearing away the tree in front of the house located in the area that the sewer line needed to be dug. As mentioned earlier, I decided to leave the larger straight logs at lengths 8 feet to build grape trellis supports. It turns out that black locust is frequently used for this purpose: it does not have to be treated, and it will last for years in the ground as it very non-susceptible to rot. Black locust has even been used to shore up mine shafts!

The mid-sized logs are great for firewood, although they are extremely hard to split. We are cutting and seasoning 1 foot logs now, and are planning to sell small firewood / wood stove bundles like they do at the convenience stores (the difference will be that this wood will burn much hotter and longer then pine). This wood will not be dry enough until next Fall, but that should be great timing. We will also create kindling from small logs that are too narrow to split, and combine those with our firewood bundles.

We purchased a chipper for 1 -2 inch width branches and plan to create some wood chips for use as ground cover on the upcoming vineyard. And finally, we will be processing the leaves, stems and very small branches into mulch to add to our rapidly growing compost piles.

This is certainly the ultimate recycling project!

It's On! It's Off ....

Well, based on the amount of work we have had to do (and are doing) my mom and I HAD decided that now would be a good time to apply for our conditional use permit to do weddings and other events on the property. The tree removal on the main lawn has created a much larger area for these events, and with the connection to sewer, one of the requirements we knew would be forthcoming is complete.

So I scheduled a pre-application meeting with City Planning and Zoning and was preparing to notify our neighbors of a neighborhood meeting to discuss this matter (they all know our plans, I believe, but this would have formalized it). But then, we discovered a big problem: The city will require us to build a hard surface parking lot.

Now the city is fine with – they even require – building parking facilities that are complementary to the landscaping. They are also fine with using environmentally friendly materials such as porous asphalt or interlocking concrete pavers (which we were hoping to do sometime down the road). The last thing we (or they) want is a big open asphalt parking lot that takes away from the residential character of the neighborhood. We knew parking was going to be an issue and were expecting to simply have to cover open “parking” areas we do have on the property with gravel. The city will not permit this, and after talking to the planners I understand why. Slopes, drainage, and other issues have to be considered. Now that I understand the requirements I am fine with them – however it does put our application off until we can afford to build a parking area.

So we are back to the basics of the Book Farm for now and we are continuing our massive cleanup project slowly but surely. I will post more soon on our efforts to recycle the wood we have cut down. It turns out this wood is perfect for grape trellises as it will last untreated in the ground for up to 100 years - I am trying to find a post miller to mill them for me). We are also going to have a lot of good quality slow-burning hard firewood, which when seasoned, we hope to offer for sale.

Finally, I will be deciding by the end of December if we will offer classes in the Spring (most likely). Something will be going on in the Spring at the Book Farm, that is certain.

Bumps in the Road

Wow! You know that old saying that it never rains but it pours?" Well, that has definitely been the case for The Book Farm these past several days.

About 3 weeks ago, our septic tank started having issues and needed to be pumped. We were warned at the time that the tank was probably going to continue to have issues and that we should look at connecting to sewer by spring.

Then, last weekend, a pair of trees (pictured) collapsed on the property overnight, during a windstorm. They were Black Locust, a personal favorite tree of mine (whenever those trees blossom in late spring / early summer, it always means that hot weather has arrived in Boise to stay for the summer). Realizing that one tree had fallen and pulled over a second one nearby, I started to wonder if the root system in the circle of trees had been impacted, and decided to have an arborist check it out.

So one thing I didn't know about Black Locust trees - they are highly susceptible to boars. In the case of these trees, the board had infiltrated the entire lower trunk and created a hollow shell. The worst part of this news is that we have 28 large Black Locust on the property and we don't know which can be saved, yet. We do know we need to get rid of the ones that can't, or risk more falling incidents. Hollow or not, those trees could kill if they fell on someone.

So just as we were digesting that and creating our game-plan for the trees (I'll post on the trees specifically soon) the septic tank began to show signs of failure again. So now I have three large issues to deal with for Spring: Fire danger mitigation, which we will resolve by panting the grapevines, fruit trees, berry bushes and lawn (and a big thanks to Ken from Owyhee Mountain Fiddle who has offered to help me install the drip irrigation system), Tree safety, which we will resolve by working with Idaho Tree Preservation to salvage the ones we clearly can, and someone still to be deterimned to cut down the ones we can't, and sanitation, which we will resolve by connecting to Boise City Sewer sooner -- much sooner - than we expected. In fact, THAT process has already begun.

In the interim, I've made the decision to cancel all Book Farm classes and events until we have these situations resolved. In a way, I guess it is a good thing to have our hand forced -- even though we are getting a big setback before we really even get started. But, I will keep updating this blog as we progress, and, as always your comments are appreciated.

Grapes, Anyone?

Well, in the time that has passed since the Trailwind Fire (our family currently lives a few blocks away from the scene) I have been pondering the reality of having foothills directly behind the Book Farm. If a fire has started at the top of the hill while that 50 mph windstorm was going on, the Book Farm and the people who live in it (my mom and my sister) could have been lost.

A friend of mine named Debi once came out to look at the Book Farm and strongly suggested we do something to mitigate the fire danger. The terraces are covered with tall, dry grass and half-dead juniper trees that would be great fuel for a fire.

Another friend of mine, Bob Potter of EJI Consulting (one our Book Farm Instructors this Fall) told me on a different occasion how much potential he thought there was on those terraces. Strolling gardens, picnicking, a place for gathering or just enjoying nature.

All of these things have been in my mind along with my own vision of those terraces which has been for some time to restore the fruit trees that once flourished there (my late brother Bill once showed me an aerial shot of the terraces from the 1930's, apparently the city encouraged foothills fruit tree planting to mitigate potential erosion). From what I understand (and I will credit my good friend Chef Maggie Kiefer for cluing me into this fact) it is very difficult to do fruit trees organically. She suggested wine grapes when we had our carnival and that has been something I've been thinking about ever since.

So imagine several rows of foothills terraces, with grape vines planted on the edges and grass pathways behind. The existing faucets on the east side of the property could provide water for a drip irrigation system that will keep it alive and moist. We plant them now, and in a few years, we may have enough grapes to create a house wine or sparkling wine to be provided privately at our weddings and events. More importantly, we mitigate the fire danger by creating a beautiful series of drip-irrigated terraces with lush grape vines and soft, green grass. Maybe we even finish the waterfall that my dad began building many years ago and create a bubbling brook that meanders down the hill.

So imagine that, and now tell me - what are the challenges with this vision? What am I not thinking of, or what could I be thinking of that would improve this vision or perhaps be a better vision? I want to hear what you have to say.

The Summer Carnival - Link to photo gallery at end of post.

More than three years ago, when my daughters begged for a birthday party they could invite both their cousins AND friends too, and we came up with a backyard summer carnival as a compromise, who knew it would become such an operation?

Although pared down a bit after last years event, this summer's carnival was fun, relaxing and featured lots of happy kids on waterslides and in dunk tanks! I appreciate the adult helpers who made this happen: my sister Jennie who cooked and prepared a small kids water park, my former coworker and friend Chef Maggie Kiefer who patiently filled hundreds of water balloons, our new friend "Pops" who cleaned the front of the house and helped me prepare the lawn the day before the event, Ayad Al-Mansuri of AhA Lawncare whose guys did a great job mowing, and my mom, who patiently puts up with this craziness every year! Oh yeah, and thanks to the Murillos for bringing plenty of ice!

Ken and Victoria Pollard, and my wife Shelli, took the pictures of this event you are about to see here!

The Classroom Projection Screen

What classroom is complete without a giant 10 foot by 10 foot projection screen? Thanks to Molly O'Shea and Gibert Guransky of Dreamweaver Hammocks for giving us a great deal and installing it as well! And thanks to Ruben Holguin who helped get the screen hanging correctly, after I lost the hardware for it!