The last week had me occupied with organising my workshop, tidying the log pile, cleaning the wood burners and chimneys (they heat, cook and make hot water). I'll be cleaning and waterproofing all my jackets and safety boots and storing away the garden furniture and outside kitchen. And finally sorting through the empty pots and seed trays, ready to begin cool weather seed sowing and propagation,if it all appeared to be in advance, the reason is that it is best done in the fading summer sunshine, rather than rushing in the first down pours and blustery cold weather.

Anyone with cows knows how happy they are when you give them fresh pastures, they almost skip and jump onto the field, wrapping their tounges , lassooing and pulling the grass into their stomachs as fast as they can. Then after about fifteen or twenty minutes they settle down and begin to ruminate, coughing up their bounty and chewing purposely. At the decline of summer into fall , myself I begin to chew the cud , and in reflection of the years accomplishments and failures, start to conceive being on new grass and different projects towards the end of the year and into the next, all based on adding to what's already here. This loop or cycle fits well into natural patterns of growth , renewal, and evolution. Just as the cow knows when it's time to stand up and move on to the new patch of grass, I'll be looking for new areas for regeneration. This photo is of our first house cow and a new born calf, it's not the best quality and was taken over twenty years ago, which seems like ancient history now . The third photo is the calf fully grown with her first calf .

In June 1924, a group of farmers gathered on an estate at Koberwitz, in what was then Germany and is now Poland. They had come to hear Rudolf Steiner speak about agriculture. Steiner was not primarily known as a farmer. He was a philosopher, writer, lecturer, and the founder of anthroposophy. His work had already moved into education, medicine, the arts, and other parts of human life. Agriculture came near the end of his life. From June 7 through June 16, 1924, Steiner gave eight lectures that later became known as the Agriculture Course. Those lectures eventually helped give rise to what we now call biodynamic agriculture. Before we get into what he actually taught, I think it is worth understanding the question underneath the course. Steiner was looking at a farm as more than a collection of separate problems. Soil, plants, animals, manure, food, weather, landscape, and the people caring for the land were relationships within a larger whole. That way of looking at a farm is one reason I think this is worth exploring through Roots Through Time. It does not mean that everything Steiner proposed should be accepted as scientific fact. Some of his agricultural ideas grew from observation. Others came directly from his anthroposophical worldview, including ideas about spiritual and cosmic influences that modern science does not establish in the same way. We can keep those things separate without dismissing the historical value of the questions he was asking. Over the next several Roots Through Time posts, I would like to work through these lectures slowly. We can look at what Steiner actually said, what farmers and biodynamic practitioners later did with those ideas, and what modern soil biology, ecology, agronomy, and observation can tell us today. More than a century later, one of the questions behind that gathering at Koberwitz is still useful. What changes when we stop looking at the pieces of a farm or garden separately and begin looking at the relationships among them?

I’ve been looking more seriously at tree tubes for young trees and I’m curious what everyone here has experienced with them. The benefits seem obvious: deer and rabbit protection, wind protection, some sun protection, and often much faster early growth. But I also wonder if we sometimes confuse faster vertical growth with healthier establishment. Possible downsides I’ve been thinking about are thinner stems, overheating, excess humidity, rodent habitat, and whether trees become too dependent on that protected environment. I’m leaning toward using tubes as a temporary establishment tool, not assuming they’re automatically better for every tree or every site. For those who have used them, did they improve long-term tree health, or mostly just speed up early growth? Any drawbacks you didn’t notice until later?

I'm beginning to reluctantly embrace technology because I know it's a good tool, and already the wheels of humanity are, and have been wobbling for a long time. They say "keep your friends close and your enemies closer", and the progression of the machines is happening with or without me. My question is how much should we depend on this progression? When do we hold back, how can we keep unique skills secret? Or should we just be absorbed into the system. Given ultimate free time and no worries, what would you do with your time, because in the future, that's going to be how we sell out . As an example start by looking at BYD(building your dreams) and it's rapid expansion from nothing , and where 98% of the production is done by robotics.