SARS-CoV2 Musings

It's been a while since there's been sufficient time for the luxury of penning a blog entry. Spring and the repercussions of the emergence of SARS-CoV2 had resulted in long, albeit generally highly productive days, around the farm.

Being in a rural setting, with our other business affairs having been organized virtually for two decades, and having always homeschooled the kids, SARS-CoV2 and the increasing array of conditions it can cause have resulted little direct impact on our lives. It has, however, given us cause to reflect upon how fortunate we are, to revisit our mission at Sophia, and in a sense served as a wake-up call for us to redouble our efforts and to complete sustainability and self-sufficiency projects that have been left half baked, in some cases for years.

SARS-CoV2 has sicked, injured, and killed thousands, but through all of this the lights have stayed on, phones and the Internet have remained up, markets and the domestic supply chains have performed amazingly well, and mass communications have continued to bore holes into hearts and minds. But what if those things weren't the case? What if supply chains were widely disrupted for weeks or months? What if large swaths of the grid were down for similar periods of time? What if the global positioning constellations suffered significant damage (hint: 4G/LTE/5G cell systems depend on clock synchronization derived from the same systems that are used for navigation)? We're overdue for another Carrington Event. Less severe storms in 1921 and 1960 caused progressively more damage and disruption as society became more dependent upon technology; a much, much smaller geomagnetic storm in 1989 took down power over most of Quebec, and in July 2012 a solar superstorm narrowly missed the earth. Certain classes of terrorist attacks could result in disruptions of similar scale and duration, and there's other forms of natural disaster and significantly worse pandemics that could cause widespread and prolonged disruption.

If past episodes that measured in handfuls of days are any indication, it would make what we've been dealing with this year look like a cakewalk.

The response of government at all levels to this pandemic reinforces some long-held beliefs: government cannot be relied upon to provide a magic wand to solve problems, one-size-fits-all solutions do not work, and at the end of the day it will be up to the individual and to small groups to figure out how to ride out the storm (whatever that storm might be), care for their neighbors, and care for their community (however they define it -- it may or may not be a collection of people thrown together by geography).

Sophia was created to perform research in sustainability, and to share our findings with others, through publications and workshops. We're better equipped than most to deal with disruption, but nowhere near where our plans call for us to be. And so the busy spring, because in addition to all of the other activities that spring brings to the farmer, we find ourselves overhauling our existing greenhouses and building more, pulling the trigger on projects intended to lead to complete energy independence on a scale sufficient not only to meet the needs of the farm, but to provide the minimum needed for our neighbors to have water and some level of light, to further improve our backup communications systems, and stepping up our targets for field restoration and forest management.

It's going to be a busy year at Sophia, but we feel as if we've been given a wake up call and a warning, and we're going to proceed with projects as if we had a gun to our collective head.

Keep safe, and look after each other.

Up A Tree

It's been unseasonably warm and dry on the eastern slope of the Sierras, so it's time to deal with orchard maintenance before buds break. In this case the client has an orchard of biennial bearing trees that are more than a century old, and they're looking to maximize yield during this "on" year. Rather than bringing in a crew that would simply pollard the trees (and thus reduce or eliminate yields for perhaps three years), Jen "The Apple Lady" and her crew are carefully removing dead wood and overgrown areas in order to open up the tree to light and air, while still preserving shoots that will form replacement branches in the future. We'll be back next year (the "off" year for these trees) in order to further clean things up -- and yes, scion was collected so that the owner will have replacement trees as these slowly give in to advancing age.

It's 2020 Order Time

As January rapidly flies by we're getting our ducks in order for 2020 deliveries. As ever, our goal is to deliver product to customers as, in essence, a side effect of the normal research and restoration projects at Sophia. To that end we're now accepting orders for 2020 delivery of:

• Broilers. This year our plans are primarily focused on Freedom Rangers, as they do well in our environment and produce a healthy bird, albeit at the cost of taking somewhat longer to mature. Broilers are delivered picked, wrapped, and frozen, unless otherwise requested.

• Turkeys. While we are fond of heritage breeds, these typically take two years to mature. For our own consumption we're planning a batch of conventional meat bird for holiday delivery. As with broilers, these are delivered picked, wrapped, and frozen, unless otherwise requested.

• Hogs. Again, our bias here is toward heritage breeds, with Kunekune/Guinea hug crosses being our default choice. As with heritage turkeys, these take at least two years to mature, and are quite small compared to more conventional breeds. This year we will be running Berkshire, Duroc, and Hampshire; for those for whom an entire hog is too much, hog shares are available. These hogs are raised to order and delivered on the hoof; slaughter and processing is the responsibility of the buyer. For customers in the Plumas and Sierra counties, we strongly recommend George's Custom Meat Company.

All of our animals are a byproduct of our leader-follower systems, and as such are free-range and not confined, save at night in order to protect them from predators.

We are gauging the market for duck. Waterfowl are much more difficult to process than chickens and turkeys, and as such we tend to keep on hand a flock sufficient for slug, snail, and insect control. If raised-to-order duck is of interest, please contact us.

Note that we do not offer eggs; the liability associated with doing so vs. the potential economic upside simply isn't worth it. We're also not currently offering lamb, as browsing our sagebrush in order to keep in healthy imparts a taste to the meat that most people don't like. For those seeking lamb, we suggest Anna Harvey at The Harvey Ranch.

In addition to animals, we're accepting orders for perennial plants. From our nursery we're offering:

• Heritage apples, pears, and cherries adapted to the environment of the Sierra Valley and eastern slope of the Sierras. We have apple cultivars suitable for eating, cooking, over-wintering, and cidering; in the latter category we also offer crabs. Cultivars are available on a variety of modern root stocks, please contact us with your specific requirements so we can better help you select the right cultivar and root stock for your needs.

• Medicinal plants. We've been experimenting for a few years with both cultivated perennials as well as wildcrafted items and would be happy to discuss what we can source for your needs, be it in 2020 or the future. Note that while we have a marked bias toward perennial agriculture, we are happy to consider annuals on a case-by-case basis.