A new beginning!

I have some very exciting news to share! The day has finally come that I’ve purchased a piece of property in the Mohawk Valley Region of New York State. In March I looked at the land while it was covered in snow, and in May I closed and it officially became mine. What happened next was either really good luck or something that was meant to be from the beginning.

If you look a the areal view of my property below you will see a big open field where I plan to start growing willow for basketry, a barn in the middle, and down below near the stream there is a patch of what looks like bushes. Well it turns out these bushes are actually a small forrest of wild willow that towers over my head. When I looked at the property in May I could notice there was a little bit of willow here and there, but I couldn’t see this jungle of highly useable stuff.

Once spring hit the valley and the leaves started popping I started noticing that there was much more willow than I originally thought. I decided I would try and see what I do with this wild stuff. Typically it’s not very usable but this willow looked very similar to a variety that I have worked with before. Since I’m not an expert on the different varieties yet and this is all I have to work with right now I just started experimenting.

This is what I am dealing with, which is just the tip of the iceberg. High weeds and dense stands of willow. There is a lot of work to be done in order to get these stands to produce usable stuff. A lot of it is dead but with a little love and lots of pruning this will be a great resource for me to work with until I can get my cultured willow growing. Last weekend I started clearing a path so I could get deeper into this jungle of willow.

In May I decided to do a little preliminary bark stripping test. The bark came off, but not as smoothly as it could. My theory was that it was still a little too cold and the sap wasn’t running through the plants enough yet. So I gathered a small little bundle of willow for a celebratory picture and to keep as a reminder of my beginning here.

We also spent a really fun weekend camping with my family. We built a picnic table, fire pit and cut down a dead tree for firewood and chairs around the fire. We set up our tent over the stream and spend a wonderful two nights out in the fresh air.

Now it is June and I got a chance to go back to the property for two days and I was ready to really get my hands dirty and strip some bark. It turns out my theory was correct and the bark slipped off very easily so I gathered as much as I could and spent a whole day just gathering as much bark as I could. I’m really looking forward to making something extra special with all this bark.

Maggie was such a cute helper. The weeds are so high already that she can barely see where she is going. She digs in the mud and runs around having the time of her life.

I also spent lots of time exploring the woods and taking pictures. I found some reishi mushrooms among the hemlocks and a sweet little bird called a blue headed vireo in the most amazingly constructed nest. Maggie and I took naps in a hammock and we just enjoyed ourselves. Walking around the property I have so many ideas in my head of what I would like to do in the future. I would love to have a yurt built for holding classes and eventually an off grid cabin at the top of my field. The view is just gorgeous, and I dream of sitting out on a porch just watching the fields sway in the breeze.

I don’t have a name for our farm yet but I know that eventually it will come to me. The barn looks so bare and eventually one day I’ll have some sort of willow art hanging on the side. There are so many dreams that will one day become reality and it’s so exciting to know that it’s only a matter of time and hard work to get where I want to be.

I also brought home some young rods of willow to see about stripping them with my break. Turns out it worked perfectly and now I’m wishing I had gathered more!!! I’m super excited that this wild willow is working out so nicely. Now I have to start working on some projects to use and feature everything I have collected. I feels wonderful to finally be a part of the gathering and processing of my own materials for basket making.