Blog #7: Sharpening Our Skills

“Sun Dance”

“Giant twirling spheres

Magnificent dancers swinging through the solar system ballroom

Gas, rock

Ice, fire

The earth- she has her eyes

On one dancer

Who stands apart from the rest.

Just watching, warming

Holding strength in all his fiery glory.

The earth, she circles round and round him

Eyes fixed on his endless bright being.

Round and round,

She is in awe, and in a moment

Of courage and faith,

She says to the sun,

‘May I have this dance?’”

~

Hello people of planet earth, I am Savannah and I shall be the scribe for this coming springtime adventure! I am so excited to bring you all along on our journey and share the beautiful work of the 2016 Kroka Vermont Semester.

~

It’s spring!

We have all left our winter Big Jobs behind and taken on new roles for the coming months. We have all worked hard to embody our Big Jobs and while some were sad to let go of their roles, many were excited for the tasks that lay ahead. Here are the Big Jobs for the spring:

Tanner Bogner~ Boat/Bike manager

Hailey White~ Kitchen manager

Sam Trowbridge ~ Food manager

Kendal Pittman~ Food manager

Adam Mekki~ Water manager

Julian Lindholm Fiske~ Land Gear and Tools manager

Sebi Crocetti~ Medic/Hygiene manager

Bea Bittenbender~ Bureaucrat

Claudia Danford~ Navigator

Caleb Kennedy~ Navigator

Rory Wade~ Water gear, Vehicle, and Trailer manager

Finn Anderson~ Energy

And myself~ The Scribe and Sewing manager 

~

We have spent the past ten days at Koviashuvik Local Living School in Temple, Maine. Chris and Ashirah Knapp run the school together and welcomed us with open arms. They just finished a beautiful classroom that took two years to build. Our semester was the first group to really inhabit the space and we were lucky enough to find this as our home for the time we were there.

We arrived on the sunny day of April 5^th where we met Chris and Ashirah who would be working with Hannah Billian to teach a variety of skills during our time there. After meeting their wonderful family and having a tour of Koviashuvik we ate a delicious dinner of leftover PB&J from lunch and cheesy, pesto-y bread. Throughout our time at Koviashuvik we started a seemingly never-ending leftover trend, which became an almost daily routine. The longest time we revisited our leftovers for was four consecutive days! I will say there was definitely a creative streak in our food that we had never experienced before.

Bonnie Bee and Owen, Chris and Ashirah’s children- getting excited about some radishes from the root cellar!

Our morning routine was to start our day with chores or a run. Daily chores consisted of two cooks, bringing firewood in, getting spring water to drink and pond water for washing, and various jobs for Chris such as stacking wood or sorting apples for applesauce! Some days we would run in the morning and then do necessary chores when we got back. Right after chores we would go and do sit spots where we observed the weather and the world around us. Then at last breakfast would commence! After breakfast we would have time to write down our weather observations and daily logs. We also had a prompt everyday where we would reflect and share. Our prompts came from a variety of different things we had learned throughout the week.

            

One of the first things that Chris really brought to us was the idea that everything is a gift. To use this gift in the best way we can, there is a process:

CAPTURE

STORE

TRANSFORM

An example of CAPTURE/STORE/TRANSFORM is solar energy. You capture the gift by collecting the sunlight, store it in a battery, and then transform it into energy.

We live on this beautiful earth in constant dependence of the earth’s gifts. Some humans have come to the point where they no longer see these gifts, but if we look at our lives we can see our dependence of Her. We love and cherish food as a culture, and this ability to grow food to sustain us is an ever-giving gift.

                        -Bea Bittenbender

 ~

While at Koviashuvik we did a variety of crafts and projects that filled our days with learning. Here are some of the crafts we did:

Acorns

Processing acorns can be quite the task, but they are well worth the time and energy put in. We learned a lot about processing acorns while we were there, and our finished projects were loaves of acorn bread, acorn cookies, and acorn patties!

The first couple of steps in the acorn process are to harvest them and then put them through the Dave built, a grinding machine for de-shelling acorns. Next comes the water separation where you put the acorns in the water to separate them from their shells and then let them dry. After that you can grind them into either a grits texture or into fine flour. After sifting the acorns you leach them. Leaching is a process in which you place them in a stream so that water is running over them and around them. This results in all the tannins washing away, leaving the acorns no longer bitter. After that you let them dry once again and make some delicious food!

Spoon Carving

Caleb, Sebi, Finn and Kendal- working on spoons with draw knives on Chris’s shave horses

Logging

To help Chris and Ashirah out for all the amazing things they have taught us and shared with us we spent multiple days in the woods with Chris doing some logging. The logs we harvested were for their log cabin that they are building as a second story to their current house. We brought saws and axes into the woods and cut down the trees and carried them on our shoulders to the road. This summer they will be putting the cabin together with a class they are teaching about building log cabins. They are both amazing teachers and everyone should take their log cabin class this summer!

Pack Baskets

During our stay at Koviashuvik we all made pack baskets to take home with us. Here is the process:

Step 1~ The Tree

To begin the process we needed to first harvest an ash tree. We cut down a brown ash because they are straight grained and the wood is malleable. We cut down the tree with axes and a bow saw and carried it back to the van. When we got back to Koviashuvik we debarked the five-foot segments.

Step 2~ Pounding

The next step in turning our tree into basket material was pounding. In the spring, ash trees grow wider cells to suck up the influx of water. These cells can be crushed by vigorous pounding, which releases the growth rings in segments of the appropriate thickness. On the log we scored lines down its length so that the wood could come off in narrow sheets. After the pounding was done we sorted the material by thickness-uprights and rims need to be thicker and sturdier and weavers need to be flexible.

Chris' hands

 As we were pounding the ash logs we would sing this song:

Yuwaye hiyo Yuwaye hiyo

Yuwaye hiyo Yuwaye hiyo

Waye hiyah heyo-o

Waye hiyah heyo-o

Yuwaye hiyo waye-yah ha waye-ya hiyo-waye

Bea, Claudia, Kendal and Chris pounding brown ash logs in the sunshine

  

Ode to the Sun.

Praise for the sun

that glorious orb

Whose light we gather, covet and absorb.

We pull in her rays,

her beauty so fair

and feel her warm touch on our faces and hair.

She pulls us all towards her,

Like moths to a flame

She hides her bright face whenever it rains.

We sing of her comfort

Her light and her joy

But if you’re not careful, then sunburn, oh boy!

We worship her warmth

and give thanks for her rays

Oh sun up above, we sing you our praise

~Hailey White

Step 3~ Stripping

After the narrow sheets are separated, they must be split to desired width. For uprights a healthy inch, and for the weavers around half an inch. The rims should be around two inches and the sewers around a quarter inch. When this is done and all the materials are ready, the weaving begins.

Sam pulling apart strips of ash where the growth rings have become separated

Step 3~Weaving starts with a tapered weaver and the basket gradually spirals itself upward in between the uprights. When a fresh weaver is required, it overlaps the old one and then continues the spiral. When the desired height is reached the rim is tied on using this strips of ash to sew it together. After this the straps are made and the basket is done!

*The bottom of the basket is made up of two skids and a board. The uprights are woven together and sandwiched between them.

~

Kendal weaving

On Tuesday we got the opportunity to meet the famous Grandfather Ray. He has been a big part of both Chris and Ashirah’s lives and came to talk to us about both his life and his general philosophies on life. One thing he brought up that really struck a chord in our community was emotions. We had some philosophical discussions on what he said during our regular morning check ins after his visit. We have been really getting deeper into our daily check-in rhythm, as it can be easy to get stuck inside yourself sometimes and we believe that communication is a huge part of what makes this community run.

Drying food with Chris Knapp

 The Koviashuvik Supper

This meal was made of food grown at Koviashuvik and stored in the root cellar.

~Butternut squash and carrot soup

~Parsnips and onions fried in lard (from a friend’s pig)

~Fried acorn crumbles

~Cabbage salad with pickled turnips, pickled green beans, and garlic

~Field bean and kale hummus served with carrots and radishes

~Kimchi (made with daikon radish)

~Acorn cookies with oats, duck eggs, maple syrup, and fried lard

~Recorded by Claudia Danford

            

“The vegetables had that fresh scent of dirt

            -dirt that came right from Her core.

The carrots faded from a yellowish middle to a fiery orange skin

-skin like a sunset.

The parsnips were a golden tan with a tinted white middle

-cut like a heart

The radishes were a painting unto themselves

-magenta pink in patterns of many dancing bees.

The meal was art,

This art was a gift,

A gift from Mother Earth”

~

I thoroughly enjoyed our ten days at Koviashuvik. It was really interesting to learn about Chris and Ashirah’s simple and meaningful lifestyle. I had a great time carving spoons and making baskets, learning how to sharpen tools, harvesting big trees all by hand, observing weather changes throughout the day and learning to predict what’s next, and all of the other numerous things we did. As I bid farewell to the land at Koviashuvik, I knew it would continue to live, grow, and change just as I do. I’ve gained an understanding, appreciation and admiration for the natural world and all of the gifts and knowledge it has to offer.

~Claudia Danford

The group with our newly made brown ash pack baskets!

 ~

 On our drive home we stopped at Kevin and Polly’s who guide canoe and sled dog trips as owners of Mahoosuc Guide Service. We were lucky enough to spend the day with their thirty-nine beautiful huskies, doing service work in their dog yard and spending ample time petting the dogs.

Finn gets in some cuddle time with one of Kevin and Polly’s oldest dogs!

All in all it was a very special ten days in the great state of Maine. Although we thoroughly enjoyed our time there, we are happy to be back at our northern basecamp, swimming in the cool Northwoods pond, working on our spring big jobs and academic work, and listening to the wood frogs as they sing out into the night. We are spending as much time as possible running, playing Frisbee, and being out in the sunshine as the season seems to have finally turned! We are looking forward to seeing you all in a few short days at parent weekend. Until then, enjoy the coming of spring!