Otenaw from the Air \\ Vue aérienne d'Otenaw

Otenaw Notes: 2010-01-31

Human Systems as Earth-Works, as Land-Art. Thinking of the waterway, the gravelpath, the roadway to and past the creek. (2009-12-02)   Thoughts return to the roadway, the North\South access road, and to its creation: gravel, bulldozer, drainage pipes in the swampy zones, digging out a creek bed (from the seasonal waterway that it now is), collecting the millenia-rich silt that has accumulated, and with it, building up the gardens that will line the waterway on  both sides. Stocking the creek with fish.     To then working our way north, past the creek and the future north lots, to the great field-that-will-be on the eastside of the roadway, with its dark, rich soil, bordering the bogland, which itself borders the small lake on the public-land to the east of the arcology. That great field will be cleared of the young, post-disturbance (post-clearcut) plant-growth using a bulldozer: embanking the field along the eastern, southern and northern borders (as fire protection), then to do an initial planting of 'green manure' to further enrich the soil.      This area would then become our first great garden site, with rotating crop and pasture zones. Another option apart from using a bulldozer, is to have a herd of goats to clear the greenery. After they have eaten their way through the brush, the humans would go in with portable cutters. Bigger trees that had been left behind by the loggers (years ago, before I purchased landrights), or those felled by windfall, could be moved by horse team. This approach would be more labour intensive, yet less damaging to the soil structure.