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Greetings Everyone,
Two thousand nine (2009) was the year of the Garden, aka “Food Production Center”. Nineteen years ago, we started with a few organic garden beds and took notes for a number of years on high altitude growing (6400’ elevation). But over time, construction and establishing Sage Mountain Center took the front seat. Well, last year we made great progress on getting back to our roots, so to speak.

The Garden
A fence was first put up to keep at bay our resident deer, elk, moose, rabbits, and bobcats (see photo!). Next, raised beds were built and planted next to a perennial herb stone spiral. We then experimented with row covers and layer mulching. Heirloom and high-altitude varieties were planted with fruit trees and berry bushes going around the perimeter, inside the fence line.  It was a great test year and the successes and failures were all noted with the results being integrated into this year's plan. On a very small scale, we have even started selling veggies to neighbors and are trading certain crops for other crops that grow better at lower elevations. Our big plan for this year is to build a year-around straw bale green house.

At the other end of food production is storage. In the fall we processed, canned, and froze apples, nettle, chard, spinach, rhubarb, and beets, -which we continue to enjoy even now in February. Our straw bale root cellar went “online” as we put in racks and buckets for organic grains and legumes (purchased at the local co-op).

Indoors, we recently completed a total communications upgrade to accommodate a growing interest in sustainable consultation work. Without cell phone reception and only a dial-up internet connection, we have had to adjust to a slower pace of living (sometimes experienced as delayed gratification or, in some cases, pure frustration). This is fine for folks who don’t interact much with the outside world, but as our network with others grew every year we realized that it was time to make the shift. And with the worlds ever-evolving IT, along with the operation of our small business, speed and capacity does have its advantages.

The process of upgrading a 12 year old office to satellite internet and all new computers, printers, and software was certainly not without its challenges. Thank goodness a solar electric system doesn’t have to be regularly upgraded!

Our ’05 Toyota Prius has hit 155,000 miles without a single glitch. We added a Tacoma to our little fleet and are eagerly awaiting the plug-in hybrids as they make their way into the mainstream. We are still planning on doing a conversion on our existing Prius so that we can charge it from our off-grid solar electric system. Here in Montana, most trips for us are at least 40 miles, so efficiency is crucial for costs and environmental benefits.

In 2009, we also saw a lot of growth in our renewable energy consultation services. The federal administrations new support of renewable energy and efficiency has been very helpful to the renewable energy industry, and we continue to see just the beginning of what we believe is a new direction in clean energy technology and applications. As you can see below, we had another busy year giving tours, field trips, and presentations around the state, with interest in sustainable energy at the forefront. We look forward to seeing many old friends again this year as well as meeting many of you who have been thinking of getting up here to experience Sage Mountain Center first hand.

In addition to our site assessments and tour offerings, here were a few highlights from 2009.