frameworks for the future

what frameworks support us in getting from here to the future we want to live in? here are the current favourites at appleturnover:

integrate. what are you doing separately that could be integrated instead? examples. lifelearning so that tending your garden or making your clothing is the curriculum. creating a business from what you already do. the small farm workout. the cleaning meditation, the harvesting party, the dinner-cooking date. weeding-therapy/soil-microbe aromatherapy. apprentice-helpers (yes! stay tuned for this at appleturnover.) walking meetings. slow foraging bicycle commutes. bicycle-milling high intensity training. watching the live entertainment that is weeder geese, slug-catching ducks, bug-chasing hens, bramble-eating goats.

stack functions. what else can you do while you do the thing? examples. while the wood stove is heating our home we can also boil water for tea, hot water bottle, washing up, we can dry laundry, make toast, bake inside it, warm yogurt nearby, dry fruit, cook english muffins, make a stock, boil kitchen linens, make wood ash and biochar, warm up leftovers and cups of tea.

downshift. if you need fossil fuels to run a tool, can you swap it for electric? say, a chainsaw. if you need electric to run a tool can you swap it for solar? say, a pump, a hot water heater. can you use mechanics that draw on human-power? say, wind-up radio flashlight or a bicycle mill. can you swap exercising for the sake of exercise, for labouring for exercise, say scything grasses, or barrowing haybales, or digging compost. if it needs water (toilets) can you swap it for waterless (compost toilets). if it is waste, can you find where it is a yield? (pee, greywater, wood ash, prunings, cleaning rags, eggshells, vinegar, mulch, wood-chip, compost.)

sometimes friendly connected problem-solving and thinking together in dialogue is such a catalyst for the change we long to make in our own lives, that can reverberate out into all of life. if that’s what you need, you might like the member-directed appleturnover farm and farmhouse tour or the appleturnover mentorship messages.

what frameworks are you working with to move toward the future you want to see?

an integration pattern

there’s a pattern that allows us to simplify and manage a great deal more than we might otherwise. it’s a pattern of integration.

between homeschooling, homesteading, working from home, here, we turn to this pattern to sustain us.

homeschooling here is almost indistinguishable from living, life-learning. while our children grew up relating to the world by reading a good deal, it’s in making with their hands, writing, image-making and living that they test and integrate. this isn’t often felt as hard graft, unabashedly so, in that way a party springs up when many hands make light work on the farm. projects in learning can be inherently projects in living.

our youngest is eerily my likeness in being wholly project-based. we’d never dream of assigning her the tasks she’s crafted, say, to tell the ducks a story every single night (after feeding them and locking them safely in the duckhouse she helped design and build) never mind sustaining this creative writing project for six solid years. this is the power of integration.

so too my work in filming, writing, supporting folks through farm tours and mentorships to grow more resilient, collaborative, regenerative, ready for uncertain futures, is also how i help us to become so. this work is almost indistinguishable from tending to the farm and farmhouse. we like choices that meet multiple needs, stacking functions. work done once can feed us and our community many times over.

the principle of integration repeats. we see it as we free-range geese in the orchards, food forest, ponds, creek and silvopasture, to protect ducks and chickens from predators, and so too, trim the grasses, convert them into microbially rich compost distributed effortlessly across the farm. the flocks pick up every windfall apple, plum or pear, tidying and nourishing at once, setting carbon as the grasses root-prune and feed a microbial underground that feed trees that feed flocks and people.

immersed in these multiple languages, connected to the needs of the ecosystem that we support and that supports us, we can find a rhythm to simplify how we learn, live and work.

get on the appleturnover ‘postcards’ list below for new films, farm tours or mentorships.

an introduction

so, this is appleturnover, 1½ acres of heritage orchard-turned-smallholding over half a century ago, planted densely with an astonishing number of fruit, nut, and coppice trees around a farmhouse built by the old grandparents who made the studio, root cellar, gardens, added to with great care by a carpenter and shepherd, made vivid by a painter and now tended by our little family of artists, filmmakers, writers, life-learners.

my sweetheart and i unschooled our two all the way to college, from my city to his, striking out into the countryside in sussex then to the lakes of vancouver island and for the last seven years, right here on this tiny island in the salish sea, salt spring, part of the important traditional lands of the hul’qumi’num and SENĆOTEN speaking peoples.

i came to farming by way of art, following a fascination with traditional skills and learning to make what we need. i came to it too, by way of attachment parenting. it didn’t take long to find these threads tied to the land, to languages almost lost to me, though my mother’s people in finland were farmers and my father’s people in germany kept the village shop stocked from their gardens and delivered the milk by horse and cart.

like many of you that lineage grew very thin and my work has been to knit it back together, preparing a strong tether to help our children to weather whatever storms may come. in this orchard-turned-smallholding-turned-food forest, art is now inextricable from living, living from tending the land, just as learning is now synonymous with it.

not long after we moved here and added goats, ducks and geese to our flock of chickens and very important cat, i began to write, though i never was a writer, as if all the life here is writing through me.

one day my sweetheart suggested i make films, and being a filmmaker he taught all of us how. now i make films for anyone who might like to grow a little more connected to how we might live in ways that create the conditions for all life to thrive. you can find my work here and community on patreon.

i’m elisa rathje and i’m so pleased to meet you. i’m looking forward to spending some time together. get on the ‘postcards’ list below to hear about new films, new podcasts, new conversations and events.

farm + farmhouse tours

our farm-tour patrons co-create a monthly farm and farmhouse tour film with elisa, directly based on their questions and requests. join us in exploring the systems that function resiliently here, with a close-up on what’s happening in this particular moment in the season. each month we privately release a freshly filmed tour of appleturnover, including current challenges and successes, what regenerative projects we’re working on next and featuring patron questions. farm-tour patrons get an opportunity to direct the focus of these films and to see more closely behind the scenes how things could work in their own lives. 

our farm-tour patrons also make it possible for us to make more films, articles, books, podcasts and live events of our experiments in regenerative ways of living on the smallholding and the island beyond. many thanks! 

in addition to the monthly tours, get your name in the credits of the long-form films, make suggestions for future films, receive the letters subscription and a copy of the journal of small work* serial printable book with your name in the acknowledgements, as well as early access to  the journal of small work* radio.

you’ll get your patron-only video farm + farmhouse tour monthly, and the private thread stays open to ongoing discussion and questions. tour patrons have access to the patron-only archive, where we’re building a private library catalogued by seasons, of small works to support your own projects.

deepening connections with each other and support for all of our small work, particularly within the member-only threads, is the heart of this project.

if this feels like the collaborative project for you to get more support and insight into the philosophy, practices and skills of regenerative living so you can get more done on your own projects, check out the farm tour membership. we look forward to seeing you at the next farm + farmhouse tour!

become a farm tour member:

PATREON

small works membership

get the small works subscription for an immersion in new written and filmed works that explore the practical possibilities of living in ways that create a flourishing future, while adapting to profound uncertainty.

what if the small work of how we live each day could transform the world?

the small work is the practice and philosophy of culturing regenerative lives, following collaborative patterns of being, starting with what we can reach with our own hands.

new for 2024! plans are in the works for a new season of the journal of small work* ‘tv’ series, as islanders join elisa at appleturnover farm for collaborative projects and conversations about how we can live in ways that make a brighter future. get your name in the credits of new films and make suggestions for future episodes.

elisa writes small works —essays and posts — weekly-ish, and thrives on the patron conversations that regularly inform the direction of this project.

receive the small works collected into new volumes of the journal of small work* printable book with your name in the acknowledgements, download the first volumes, and get early access to recordings of read-alouds. crowd-publishing the essays is community supported activism and creates new pathways for ongoing volumes of the book and companion projects.

at appleturnover on patreon our discussions often bring up ideas and questions that elisa answers in film form and in written works. join a conversation about how regenerative practices and frameworks could work in our own lives and pattern a better world.

appleturnover members support and inform independent, experimental filmmaking and writing at a critical moment in time, and do amazing small works in their own place in the world. be a part of a growing movement.

join the appleturnover membership:

PATREON

mentorship messages

catalyse your own regenerative projects and get your questions answered in the mentorship messages. if you need support for your small projects as you transition your home (and community!) towards a positive, collaborative, regenerative future, starting with what you have, the messages are for you.

want to trial the mentor messages? try your first week free to see if we’re a good fit!

these are private audio messages that will yield around 45 minutes each month of personal responses from elisa. send your questions in your own time, and elisa will respond in hers, in the pockets of time between herding goats, tending the orchards and gardens, running the farmhouse, making films and writing. let’s have a conversation that gets your most important regenerative projects moving forward.

in addition to the mentor messages, you’ll have access to the collaboratively-directed monthly farm tours, get your name in the credits of the long-form films, make suggestions for future films, receive the the journal of small work* letters subscription, rss for read-alouds, and receive each volume of the printable book as it emerges, with your name in the acknowledgements of the next volume. questions about whether this is a fit or more details about how it works? send a note to elisa.

our mentor patrons also make it possible to make more films, letters, articles, books, podcasts and live events of our experiments in regenerative ways of living on the smallholding and the island beyond. many thanks! 

what’s included for patrons:

  • mentor messages
  • the farm + farmhouse tour + archives
  • the journal of small work* essays
  • the journal of small work* book, volumes I, II…
  • your-name-in-the-credits + suggestion box

join the appleturnover mentorship :

PATREON