Castle Brunnenburg

In March 2011, I visited long time friend and author Mary de Rachewiltz at her family Castle Brunnenburg. I first met Mary years before when I was European location scout on the PBS Voices and Visions documentary of Ezra Pound.


Castle Brunnenberg, March 2011 (map)


Romantic painting of Castle Brunneburg ruins before reconstruction


Authors Mary de Rachewiltz and Terese Svoboda


Bust of Ezra Pound by Gaudier


View from the pig pen of the castle's organic farm.

Three of the Herd

This will be the first year and my first time ever owning cattle. My herd will be very small, 8 to 15 animals. Individuals are bought in small numbers from nearby raisers or purchased at the end of the auctions after the bigger sized lots are sold and almost everyone else has left that event. Scott is raising them for me and the cattle are grazing on the organic buffer strip planted around my organic crops. The buffer strip is a barrier to prevent contamination by GMO crops that is the predominant new normal agriculture in western Nebraska. I favor heritage seeds and sustainable agriculture. The herd is not organic and I am participating for just a short time in the economic life cycle of this protein source.
Caveat: My = Terese Sovoboda and I (wife and husband, farming partners).

Aerial Fish Fertilizer

I spoke to my organic farming partner in Grant, Nebraska last night and he said that our crop of corn looked pretty good, a little more rain would help finish the growth. He has been busy this summer that included taking the opportunity to plant millet into tilled soil that had peas and oats growing earlier in the spring which were planted into last year's sunflower stalks. In this late summer break before harvest time he will bill me for my share of the fertilizer he had applied to the corn by airplane. The fertilizer included some fish but also a number of other components, such as seaweed and micro nutrients. The photo is imagined.
Farm report: Grant NE.

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50 oysters in a pail

50 oysters in a pail with the gear required to service these mollusks. Crocs for wading. Scrub brush for cleaning the oyster cages of squirts that block the flow of tides, and the brush makes the oysters themselves look their best. Heavy duty rubber cloves protect the hands from the razor front edges of the shells.

1500 oysters in cages that will soon return to hanging from the dock of the Harbor Knoll Bed and Breakfast in Greenport NY.