October 24th, 2023 Issue
Diversity Is The Key To Resilience / Building Your Life Upon A Rock Foundation / A Very Special Seedling Greenhouse / A Diverse Diet For Optimum Health / Float Making Materials / Fly Tying Threads
I typically will only have one issue of the newsletter each week, but this week it has been so rainy, I have had extra time to write. God bless everyone’s homesteads!
Don’t Miss Out On The Full Series Of Articles
The articles in each issue of this newsletter, are part of a teaching series. In order to get the full benefit of what is being taught, you will definitely want to read the previous newsletters. If your email provider is not able to show you the full newsletter, then you can follow this link to go to my Substack website, where you will find all the past issues in their entirety. I hope you are enjoying the content. Craig Schaaf
Diversity Is The Key To Resilience
In the first few issues of this newsletter, we looked closely at how important it is for us to nurture the symbiotic life forms that are necessary for our gardens to thrive. I shared with you that the key to this whole process, was dependent upon the quality of the food you supply your “soil livestock”, or microbial community, that helps your plants to assimilate certain minerals and other compounds that the plants need in order to thrive.
In this issue I want to share with you how important it is that the food you give to your soil livestock is very diversified. All the life, from the microbes, to the plants, to the person or livestock that is consuming the plants, are dependent on receiving food that nourishes and supplies them with the necessary building blocks to function at their full potential. If you neglect the microscopic livestock, then everything else will be effected as well. You simply cannot have healthy plants and humans that are thriving, unless the microbiomes with the plants, and in the guts of the humans, are thriving. To the extent that you learn how to build a diverse, thriving microbial community from soil to your gut, will determine how successful you will be. In fact to do this right you really need to tap into wild sources as well. The foraging post today will also address this really important issue in tandem with this post.
Many years ago when I was first studying my favorite gardening book, Four Season Harvest, by Eliot Coleman. One of the things that really stuck out to me was his chapter on composting. In it he shares how the quality of the compost you create will be dependent on how eclectic or diversified your mix of materials will be. Sure you can make compost out of horse manure and rye straw. But the quality will be limited, because each type of plant or material has a different unique mix of minerals that they mine from the soil. The more kinds of materials you put in the compost pile, you are not only adding unique mineral profiles, but also microbial inoculations as well.
One thing that I would do when my children were younger, was to take them on daddy and I days. I have eight children and I wanted each of them to have a special time with their father by themselves. Usually I would allow them to tell me what they wanted to do. But one summer, each week, I would take one of my children on a picnic and we would take time to collect unique compost materials. If you name it, it was probably in that compost pile. Let’s see, skunk cabbage, porcupine manure, even buckets full of Giant Michigan Mayflies (Hexagenia Limbata) from Portage lake. We scoured the fields, forests, rivers, lakes and swamps looking for different things we could add to our pile. After a full summer of adding to the pile, I covered it to make sure it didn’t get washed out from a big rain event, and I let it age for two years. This is very important, because good compost is a product of time, like fine wine or cheese. The biology in a compost pile will mature and change over time. The biology in a two year old pile, is much better for plants than a pile that is six months old.
I did one other thing to the pile. That first fall I went to the forest and gathered as many kinds of mushrooms as I could find and just dumped the buckets on the top of the pile and covered it over again. You would not believe the different mushrooms that I had growing on that pile later. So I let it set for two years and the humus became so rich I could take a ball of it in my hands and squeeze it tight and it would come out between my fingers standing on edge not crumbling. By the way the glue that holds that together is made up of dead bacterial bodies. The more living and dying you have going on in your soil the more of this important soil structure will develop. We will definitely be discussing this in more detail in the future.
I wish I had pictures of the seedlings I grew with that compost. I have never seen anything like it. The outside of the soil blocks, the plants were growing in, were a blush of white mushroom mycelia. You could not have put a price tag on what that compost was worth because of all that went into making it. Why was everything thriving? Because the compost had a broad spectrum of minerals, microbes, and other important compounds.
I try to make what I’m doing in the garden be as diversified as I can. When I mulch, I use many different kinds throughout my garden. When I make a compost pile, I try to get as many kinds of materials as I can. When I plan my garden, I try to include a lot of diverse kinds of plants knowing they are feeding diverse communities of biology and that their dead remains will end up giving diversity to the compost pile by the end of the season. If I plant a cover crop, I will often include a dozen different kinds of plants in the mix. Diversity is the key to resilience.
Building Your Life Upon A Rock Foundation
When I was a child, going to Sunday school. It seemed like every week we would sing the song, “the wise man built his house upon the rock”. The impression that I was left with, was that the person that built his house upon the rock, were those that accepted Jesus as their Savior. It wasn’t till I was much older, and was a serious student of the teachings of Christ, that I realized what it really meant to build ones life upon the Rock. Let’s look at that passage.
Luke 6:46-49 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? 47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: 48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. 49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
“Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them” “He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep” What was the difference between the wise and foolish men? The wise man expended great effort by digging deep and not only was willing to hear what Jesus said, but was obedient to what Jesus had taught. The foolish man was lazy, he decided instead of doing all the digging, he would just build his house on the surface of the ground. He also wasn’t all that interested in what Jesus had to teach, and had no interest in obey or doing what Jesus taught.
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Faith is hearing what God has said, and acting in accordance with it. This is not just reading a verse and trying to do it blindly. No this is hearing the Great Shepherd now, and following Him. But He is only a rewarder of those that diligently dig deep. Years ago when I was pouring myself into studying these things I would often say, my desire was to understand God’s heart. In other words, His heart behind why He asked many radical things of those that would follow Him. At the time I was studying, I was purposely looking for everything the Lord had commanded, promised, and warned about. It was an amazing study, that opened my eyes too many things that reveal God’s heart. For a person that is simply religious, and doing things in their own efforts, this kind of study could be very dead. To someone that was seeing that the commandments of Christ are a revelation of how God wants to live in and through you, it was very eye opening, and edifying. He had been showing me, that just as plants need a broad spectrum of minerals available in the soil, I needed a broad spectrum of the doctrines of Christ hidden and written on the fleshly tables of my heart. Always present for the Spirit to bring to life and give me direction. Did not the Lord tell us:
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. 6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
This is how He gives us direction. We meditate and chew on these doctrines and allow God to write them on the fleshly tables of our hearts. Then as we seek to bring glory to Him with our lives, He orchestrates situations where He can bring those doctrines to Life.
Now I want to take a moment and look closely at the concepts of legalism and obedience. Whenever you start to use words like obedience in the church today, you’re going to raise some hackles. Immediately someone is going to quote Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
As if those verses were some kind of excuse why we don’t have to obey the teachings of Christ and His Apostles. Ninety nine percent of the time those that are quoting that passage will leave out the next verse:
Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
That verse gives you a glimpse into the heart of God. Whenever you read the word “unto”, you are having revealed to you why you have been saved. God has a special plan for your life, that entails “good works” that will be preformed “In Christ Jesus”. This isn’t you trying hard in your own blind effort to be right with God. No this is you walking in an intimate relationship with God IN Christ Jesus, resulting in His works flowing through you. Remember the commandments of Christ are a revelation of how God wants to live in and through you. You have the privilege to be his hands, feet, and sometimes even his mouth. Satan is trying desperately to label true obedience to Christ as legalism, because he knows the power that will flow through the church if people enter into all that God has for them.
Very simply put. Legalism is mans own efforts in the flesh, to read the Bible and pick out passages that suit their own plans and try to “obey” them. True obedience, what I’m going to refer to as relational obedience is entirely different. You could be focused on the same passage of scripture as the legalist, but the main difference is the direction of the Holy Spirit and His power present to obey, and often in a way that would have been impossible in your own efforts. One of my favorite quotes is “until you allow God to put you in a place, that unless He acts you will be a failure, you will not see the power of God”. Think of Jesus standing before multitudes of people with a few loaves and fishes and relationally the Father speaks to Him and tells Him He is to feed everyone, and to start breaking the loaves and fishes and to trust Him with it. If God didn’t back up His Son, with the needed miracle, Jesus was going to look pretty foolish. Jesus was constantly allowing His Father to put Him in these kinds of situations. He had come to manifest the Father to the world.
Do you want to be available for the Lord too manifest Himself through you in a multitude of different ways? You will have to seek to hide in your heart the whole council of God. The more of His doctrines you allow to become alive to you the more He will reveal Himself to the world through your relational obedience. Just like that compost pile in the gardening lesson was more rich and fertile because of the diverse mixture, the biology had to work with. In the same way we need to add to our spiritual compost piles as much as we can of the different doctrines of Christ to allow God’s Spirit to help digest it so it is available to us, so we can live an abundant life in Him.
One day I received a phone call from a young man that was a friend of a friend. He was hitchhiking on his way out west to find work. He wanted to know if I could pick him up and he could spend the night at our farm. After I picked him up, the Lord told me I was to offer him work to help pay for his trip. So I asked him what he did for a living and he said he was a logger. Once he told me that, the Lord told me to ask him if he would be willing to cut down a huge cherry tree for me. He said he would be glad to. There was just one problem, I was not in the possession of the Lord’s chainsaw. You see everything that is in my possession belongs to the Lord. As long as it resides on the farm I have the responsibility, as the steward to make sure it is maintained and taken care of. A year or so before this young man showed up, a brother in the Lord, that was a logger had a need for the Lord’s saw. This was a really big 395 Husky. At that point he took over the stewardship of it, and made sure it was properly maintained.
Now you need to pay close attention to what I’m about to tell you. This reveals the difference between Faith acting in obedience to Christ Himself relationally vs dead legalism. When I realized this brother had the Lord’s saw, the Lord quoted this commandment from His teachings to me:
Luke 6:30 Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
He was telling me I needed the saw but I wasn’t to ask for it! Do you remember the quote I shared with you: “until you allow God to put you in a place, that unless he acts you’ll be a failure, you’ll not see the power of God”. This was it, God was asking what was only possible for Him to pull off, praise God! You see a disciple that is a Lover of the Lord Jesus just loves to be put in these kinds of situations, because God can manifest Himself and get the glory. I just prayed a simple prayer, asking the Lord to move on the brothers heart that had the saw. The next morning, bright and early, my phone rang and it was the brother. He asked if I had a need for the saw. I shared with him what had transpired and both of us rejoiced and our faith grew!
Do you understand now what the kind of obedience looks like that God is interested in? IT HAS to emanate from a relationship with Him. “My sheep KNOW my voice and they follow me”. The sheep know the shepherd’s voice because of how much time they spend together. Remember He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. I had spent time meditating and considering that passage in Luke 6. It is something He is commanding or asking of us. Do we take it seriously or do we avoid it because it seems too radical? Are you lazy and don’t want to dig deep to lay the right kind of foundation?
Matthew 11:11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
Matthew 13:45-46 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: 46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.
Revelation 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
It looks to me like the Lord is expecting a zeal from those that will follow Him. A willingness to give up everything, even their own life, to enter into His Works. Those that are lukewarm and are lazy and don’t want to expend the effort to lay a proper foundation, He will spue out of His mouth.
To those that are spiritually hungry, a word like this will cause them to desire to press into the Lord more than ever. To those that are simply religious, saying Lord, Lord and have no desire for God to live in and through them, these kinds of words will offend. Are you hot or cold? Are you built on the true foundation or just lazily built on the sand? Remember, both of the individuals in His parable claimed to be following Him. My prayer for you today is that you will forsake or repent of living in your own dead works and enter into Christ’s Living Works. God has quite a plan for your life, if you are willing to forsake your own life.
Hebrews 6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
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A Diverse Diet For Optimum Health
If you have taken time to study health and the many different cultures all over the world that have unusual levels of health and lack of diseases. One of the things that immediately becomes apparent is the benefit from a diverse diet. Most of the cultures that are the most healthy will consume 100’s of different species of food throughout the year. Scientists have been figuring out why this has been so beneficial for them. The more species of food that you consume in your diet, the more species of microbes you can potentially support in you gut. I say potentially, because you have to have sources of food that come with unique microbiomes intact when you consume them. If you go out into the fields and forest in the spring and gather dozens of different wild greens and you consume them raw without washing them heavily. You are receiving not only the nutrient value from the greens, but also the unique microbial communities that are present there. But the more kinds of beneficial microbes you have happily living in your gut, requires a bigger diversity of foods for them to survive and thrive. In fact a thriving diverse microbiome in your gut is a major part of your immune system, and you would be amazed how much of your emotions are tied to the health of you gut flora.
Eating a diverse diet has been a hobby for me over the years. Some years I am much more focused than others. At my peak I was eating somewhere around 160 different species a day. I had mushroom mixes with 50 wild species I had foraged. A pancake mix with 30 or more grains and seeds in it. Nut and dried fruit mixes. The list went on and on. I still eat from day to day much more diverse than the average American. Having a diverse diet really takes a certain lifestyle, that has to be developed though. You have to spend quite a bit of time gardening, foraging, hunting and fishing. To some that sounds like a dream. It is very enjoyable. But you really have to study and become familiar with the resources that are around you seasonally. That is some of what I want to focus with you in this segment of the newsletter. Helping you to become extremely resourceful, or what I call “deeply resourceful”.
A Very Special Seedling Greenhouse
This is a picture of the inside of our seedling greenhouse. I’m standing inside of what I refer to as my inner cover. The wooden structure you see on the ceiling is actually a greenhouse inside of another metal bowed hoop house. The boxed in area where you see all the seedlings I refer to as my inner cover cold frame. This large cold frame has insulated covers that I slide over the 2x’s that run across the top at night to hold in heat. Inside that cold frame I have around 1000 gallon jars that I have recycled from a bakery a friend of mine use to own. I put water with a teaspoon of red food dye in each jar to help collect heat from the sun during the day and release it at night. So why have I done all of this?
Every layer, like a hoop house, that you put over your plants gives you approximately one and a half garden zones of protection. So I’m in a zone 5 most years. One layer takes me to zone 6.5. Two layers. A hoop house inside of another hoop house takes me to a zone 8. Now add my cold frame with the insulated covers and jars and I have achieved a level of protection against the cold that Haiti can’t touch. In fact the lowest temperature we have recorded on our farm was -44 below zero F. It was February. The day before was sunny, and the jars heated up to about 70 degrees F. The next morning when I came down to open up the covers I started a fire in a wood stove under the second layer just to take the chill out of the air so I could take the covers off the third layer. When I opened it, the third layer was still 58 degrees F. That’s 102 degrees warmer than outside! My material cost to build that insulated cold frame was $500 at the time. I have used it for over a decade. If I were to try to use propane or firewood to achieve the same outcome it would cost me thousands of dollars a year to pull it off. This photo is from a past season. Right now we are in the process of getting things ready to go for spring.
Float Fishing Lesson #3- Float Making Materials
In this lesson on float fishing I want to zero in on the materials that are often used to make high quality floats. Some materials are specifically chosen because they are extremely buoyant. Balsa wood and Peacock tail quills are among the most buoyant. Why would you want a material because it is more buoyant than another? If you use the most buoyant material, it allows you to create a smaller float that can carry or support more weight for its size. One of the rules in float fishing is to use the smallest float you possibly can. The smaller float will always be more sensitive in the hands of a skillful float fisherman.
Other materials are specifically chosen because they are heavy and can offset the buoyancy of the float. Some floats are “loaded”. That seventh float from the right, that I discussed in the last issue is an example. The lead at the base of the float allows the float to cast especially well and when it hits the water it immediately sets up for you to see it at a great distance. I will discuss in future issues the advantages and disadvantages of loaded vs unloaded floats.
You will see on quite a few of the floats in the photograph with wire stems. These help the floats to set up quickly while fishing more turbulent waters and gives you a way to attach your float to your line with rubber sleeves. Ways of attaching floats will be an upcoming topic. The very delicate looking floats at the top of the photo with wire stems are pole floats. Pole refers to a fishing pole without a reel. Here in America, many are acquainted with cain poles. When I fished in Europe we were using carbon poles that were 50’ long. That will be a topic for another post as well. The advantage of pole fishing vs rod & reel, is that with a pole you can accurately place a very tiny float a greater distance than you would ever be able to with a conventional casting reel. It will be fun to teach you about pole fishing.
Some materials are chosen for floats because they have very little buoyancy, but are still buoyant. The fifth float from the right. It is brown and has a body on the bottom, a thin stem, and a sight tip at the top. The body is made from balsa wood, but that stem is made from cain (bamboo). Cane is a very special material for float making because it is very durable. But for that particular float, the cain makes it my favorite all around float for lake fishing. That cain stem is so dense, that it cannot support much weight at all. That is its secret. A split shot, the size of a BB, is all it takes to make that stem sink, once the larger lower body portion has been displaced. Why is that important? Because many fish will ambush their prey from below, moving up as they attack. Especially Crappie and Walleye. So if I have that float weighted so just the top red portion is above the water, and a Crappie comes in and picks up my bait 2” higher than it was, the float will immediately rise up 2” showing me exactly what is occurring. This is referred to as a lift bite. You will double your catch at least, using a float that responds quickly to these kinds of bites. If I was using the blue float just to the left of the one we have been discussing, it has a peacock stem that is much more buoyant and thicker in diameter. The same lift bite will only raise that float a small amount since it takes more weight to displace its full stem. If you were using a Walleye jig with it then the float would respond well. But if all you were using was a small hook and tiny live bait then the reaction will not be as pronounced. I hope these concepts are making sense to you. This lift bite concept we will definitely discuss in more detail in the future because it is so deadly, especially for older more wary fish.
Fly Tying Lesson #3- Thread
In this lesson I will discuss some of the special kinds of thread we use when tying different kinds of flies.
https://rumble.com/vwiz35-fly-tying-class-lesson-3-thread.html
Thank you so much! I didn't know anything about gardening except to put the plant in dirt and water it. I have been following your teachings for a long time. Your technique is so interesting and so advanced. I love reading and learning. Thank you again.
Thanks for the article. I've been reading and listening from different sources about the importance of diversity in gardening, but I didn't make the parallel connections between spirituality and diet. That is very interesting and will give me much to think about for some time.
On another note, we've had the worst garden this past year - worse than anything I could have ever imagined. There were a number of things that I knowingly did wrong due to a lack of time. One of the issues we had was the area flooding during heavy rain. I'm in the process of building raised beds for hopefully a successful garden next year. The design is inspired by your quilt garden technique - maybe it will be the first raised bed quilt garden. :)