Papaw Dew's Deer Camp

I mean, besides what's in the curriculum.

• Apparently, my grandaddy may have been a jerk after all.
• My uncle got on his bad side by majoring in education going on to coach football, a much lower paying job than the welding he was doing while in school and in the lag time before landing a job.
• He became a coach because he and his cousin would have been football stars if the coaching staff at their high school hadn't curtailed their opportunities because they were poor rednecks. Read: embarrassing. He wanted to give the next generation a fair chance.
• There used to be a shotgun house where the shop is now. My granny's family lived in it while her parents-in-law lived in the main house.
• When they were kids, not only did they have horses, they had cows too! They each were different breeds, and his gave five times the milk of the others. So he usually gave up after two gallons and let the calf have the rest.
• He knew somebody who found a fungus that was effective against Johnson grass, but was bought out by one of the pesticide companies and they squashed it.
• One year they raised a lot of beans and harvested the bean straw. People told them nobody would want to feed their cattle bean straw, but that year there was some kind of famine on the Texas straw that people usually bought, so his family made a decent amount selling bean straw. -The water table used to only be 8 feet down. Before the levee was built, the flood waters would get up to the floorboards of the house regularly. I think the house is three feet off the ground?
• Down by the church in Eden there is going to be a community garden this year.
• Eden used to have 7 substantial stores.
• There used to be a Methodist Church next to Eden Baptist Church. Neither had a full time preacher so they alternated sharing their circuit preachers. One week both congregations would meet at one church, the next week the other.
• He's pretty excited over a native tree species called the bluebell tree, royal paulownia, princess tree. He said it yields wood as soon as 7 years. ( Don't worry, while looking up how to spell paulownia, I found out it's not native and rather is an aggressive invasive. Now I wonder what else may be inaccurate.)
• He's a huge proponent of composting! He's had compost piles everywhere he's stayed and doesn't hold with putting food on the garbage. Whatever isn't fit for compost, the dog can have.

I got all that while interviewing my uncle. The big surprise from my dad was that he's done with breathing Sevin Dust and that's why he won't garden anymore. I'm keeping it a surprise that my project is free of it.

#PermacultureDesignCertificate #PDC #OregonStateUniversity #permaculture