Hmmm..... I need to grow more food

I haven't felt this way in a while. This year has been a normal garden season, no urgency, just grow our own healthy food and put it on the shelf for another year's supply of homegrown food. The garden is a little smaller and would be even smaller still if we hadn't decided to grow a little corn for the first time in many years. Just another year. Right? Waiting for the collapse, watching the shenanigans of our congress, observing the demise of civility, avoiding crowds if at all possible.

We had this same flooding about two weeks ago. Here it is again.

We have had an over abundance of rain this year, with over four inches in the last 24 hours, and more falling from the sky as I type. Everything is growing well, not necessarily producing a harvest yet, but growing well, except maybe the okra. It's barely over knee high and is just starting to bloom. The peppers are in the same shape, starting to bloom. The tomatoes are green, but there are quite a few of them. 

Our great bread basket across the country has been flooding and flooding and flooding. Stories have been coming out about the impact to major crop harvests. Some say there will be shortages and rising prices, some say all is well. What do we believe? We have been fortunate to get comments from CW who lives in Iowa's corn country. We like hearing from boots on the ground.

Somewhere along the way we ran into a link for the YouTube channel of the Ice Age Farmer. I watched him to see what he had to say about farms underwater and the country's major crop harvest. It doesn't look good according to him. And then he started talking about the grand solar minimum. I didn't think a lot of it at first. I knew the sun cycle was at the low end because of how it is affecting radio propagation. Then I remembered an article I wrote back in 2014, What is a Maunder Minimum? I went back and read it, then went in search of more information about the grand solar minimum that the Ice Age Farmer was talking about. This took me to these two articles.

Winter is Coming – Super Grand Solar Minimum

Evidence of Grand Solar Minimum Continues to Mount

Hmmm..... comparison to another mini ice age? I sure hope not. But Colorado did just have two feet of snow in some places on the first day of summer. The same storm that caused major storms in other parts of the country. I have never believed in the current global warming paradigm. Man's carbon emissions are not causing the planet to warm. The planet has always gone through cycles of warming and cooling. Just like the sun cycles. Either we adjust or we don't. We learn new ways of living and producing food, or we don't. If we as a society don't learn to adjust, we die. To me, it's that simple.

Is this the only reason I feel like I need to grow more food, after the growing season has started and the garden is already planted and growing? No. But you probably suspected that didn't you? Our last few articles discuss the ways of the world, our country, our politics, the invasion of foreigners from all over the world, and the potential conflicts between countries worldwide. Is that it? No, not entirely.

In the last few weeks Frank has begun working on a project to provide another source of water to our house. We will write about it before long showing the steps, equipment and results. But just yesterday Frank looked at me and said, "After all this time, I don't know why I am doing this project now." You see, we have had the supplies, parts and equipment for a long time, in some instances up to ten years. It has all been on a shelf, waiting in the wings for the time it was needed. But recently, he took these things down, looked them over and started to work. The scary part is he doesn't have a distinct reason why.

Amaranth will be planted here.

As I harvested the carrots and cleared up the area between the tomatoes, Frank asked what I was going to plant there. My response? Nothing, we don't need anything else. Then we harvested the beets. Again, same response, we don't need anything else. As the amaranth has grown well and started to produce large seed heads I have been reading about harvesting and winnowing the seeds for use in our bread, reviewing the nutritive value and how it can benefit both us and our chickens and goats.

Then, in just the last week, I have had this need to grow more food. Densely nutritious food. Just this morning at breakfast I asked Frank what shorter season crop we can grow once the pinto bean crop is finished. I plan to plant some carrots for winter eating in a portion of that area, but there will be a lot of room left over. Cow peas are a 75-85 day crop, high in protein and other good nutrients, good for animals and humans. That's why I planted some yesterday after I tilled the space where the beets and winter squash had been. This is what lead me to pull up the winter squash before it was fully finished with it's production.

And instead of leaving the winter squash to cure so we can bake one every now and then, or bake and freeze some if the need arises, I am going to can them all. We can add a jar to soup and it will be ready on the shelf for another food option as desired or needed. Why? I'm not sure. It's just another one of those food options I have been impressed to change from my original plan.

The areas I showed you between the rows of corn and between the tomato trellises will be planted with amaranth as soon as the new seedlings come up. I have two trays planted and more pot maker pots made up today for planting. And if there is time once the corn is harvested, the rest of this area will be planted with amaranth.

Wire cat protectors for the seedlings as they grow.

Just like Frank and the water project. I don't know why, but I need to grow more food. We have lived our lives listening to that little voice of warning and instruction and it has served us well. So, it's time to plant, tend, harvest and preserve. The why can take care of itself in it's own time. Heed the warnings you are given. Listen. Act. 

Until next time - Fern

What Is a Maunder Minimum?

So, what is a Maunder Minimum, and why should we care? How does it or will it affect us? I usually don't pay a lot of attention to solar activity, unless it looks like we are in for a CME (coronal mass ejection) which could cause an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) and fry everything electronic including our sources of electricity. An EMP can also be man made, but that is a different story. But sometime last year I ran across this thing called the Maunder Minimum. It deals with a dramatic decrease in solar activity on the sun. Let me give you some of the information I found. It will explain it much better than I.

According to Wikipedia: " The Maunder Minimum, also known as the "prolonged sunspot minimum," is the name used for the period starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time."

What happens to Earth when sunspot activity is rare or minimal? Washington's Blog has an article dated January 2013 that has a couple of interesting quotes. First, they referenced an article posted back in June, 2011 which states, "However, just this week, scientists from the US Solar Observatory and the US Air Force Research Laboratory have discovered – to their great surprise – that the sun’s activity is declining, and that we might experience the lowest solar output we’ve seen since 1645-1715." Then, 18 months later, the January 2013 article goes on to say, "NASA reports this week that we may be on the verge of another Maunder Minimum (a period with an unusually low number of sunspots, leading to colder temperatures): Much has been made of the probable connection between the Maunder Minimum, a 70-year deficit of sunspots in the late 17^th to early 18th century, and the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters.  The mechanism for that regional cooling could have been a drop in the sun’s EUV output; this is, however, speculative."

When I read this it brought to mind the bitterly cold winter we just experienced in many parts of the country as well as some of the near record cool temperatures we have had this summer. Any year can have it's oddities and extremes, that's just the nature of the weather. There are many things that can affect weather, such as El Nino and La Nina. So, I kept the Maunder Minimum in the back of my mind to remember if other information surfaced that seemed plausible.

Then I ran across this article from Forbes, Sun Flatlining Into Grand Minimum, Says Solar Physicist. Just the title caught my attention. The article opens with, "With each passing season, the weather seems stranger and more extreme. Who can argue with a sudden outbreak of the “polar vortex” phenomenon; unprecedented winter drought in California; and summer temperatures so torrid Down Under that even play at the Australian Open was briefly halted?" He then goes on to say, “My opinion is that we are heading into a Maunder Minimum,” said Mark Giampapa, a solar physicist at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona. “I’m seeing a continuation in the decline of the sunspots’ mean magnetic field strengths and a weakening of the polar magnetic fields and subsurface flows.”

 So, what does this mean to us? “If we’re entering a Maunder Minimum, it could persist until the 2080s,” said Giampapa, who points out that if such a minimum’s primary effect is cooling, it could wreak havoc by curtailing agricultural growing seasons which, for instance, could lead to lower wheat production in breadbasket economies." I would take this to mean that many of us that are trying to grow much of our food supply would be affected, from gardening to raising livestock or chickens for eggs. Not only would it affect agricultural growing seasons, it would affect wildlife and the insects and birds that we depend upon for pollination and pest control.

Just a few days ago, I found this article, The sun has gone quiet…solar cycle 24 continues to rank as one of the weakest cycles in more than a century dated July 17, 2014. This article contains some technical descriptions of solar activity and it's relationship with our atmosphere. It is interesting to read. At one point it says, "In addition, research studies in just the past couple of decades have found a complicated relationship between solar activity, cosmic rays, and clouds on Earth. This research suggests that in times of low solar activity where solar winds are typically weak; more cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere which, in turn, has been found to lead to an increase in certain types of clouds that can act to cool the Earth." 

Is any of this information conclusive? No. I really don't believe mankind can have really conclusive data when it comes to things such as the activity of the sun or weather patterns. Man has developed a keen sense of

observation and analytical processes, but some things are just not as predictable as an apple falling down from a tree instead of up. The reason I bring this information to the blog is to increase our arsenal of knowledge about things that may affect our ability to produce our own food. Sometimes, in our preparations, we need to prepare for the unexpected. I have read many times where gardeners have not been able to produce a crop one year, even though they have grown the same seed, in the same conditions for many years before that were successful. Ask yourself these questions: If this event occurs, how will this effect crop production worldwide? Then ask: In the long run, how is this going to affect mankind? You never know what may come along and impact your ability to preserve an adequate food supply for the needs of your family. Just food for thought.

Until next time - Fern