![]() ![]() This happens every day, five days a week. ![]() “They shoot the radiation beams through those three holes. “They make a mask for you, and there’s places for bolts in the back, and they bolt you to a table,” he said slowly. He lifted his chin and showed me a neat square patch on his throat, with three tiny black holes in a line across it. He’s excessively private, until he’s in front of you. It didn’t take me long to understand why Helm’s mafia is so protective. He wore a spotless blue oxford shirt and twill pants, and sat down on a stool with his chocolate-brindle pit-bull mix, Muddy (as in Waters), lying on a towel at his feet. As the music wound down, he led me though a wide wooden door that connected the studio to a bright, rustic sitting room off his kitchen. That night, as Helm grinned behind his drum kit during a version of the Band’s “Chest Fever,” everything that mattered about the decade seemed alive for the taking.Ī couple of weeks later, following an afternoon Family Ramble at the barn, Helm agreed to his first in-person interview for Dirt Farmer. I’d attended a Ramble, and though I’d spent my entire adult life resenting the sixties for being so much less in retrospect than they supposedly were at the time, I left a convert. It’s an outgrowth of Helm’s Midnight Rambles-intimate biweekly jam sessions, held at his home-studio-barn with a rotating cast of simpatico young musicians, plus an occasional star like Elvis Costello, Gillian Welch, or Rickie Lee Jones. And in 1999, Helm lost another close friend in the Band: bassist Rick Danko-who’d once sung, “Ain’t no reason to hang your head/I could wake up in the morning dead”-died in his sleep.ĭirt Farmer is a testament to perseverance. In 1986, while on tour with the Band, singer and keyboardist Richard Manuel committed suicide in a motel room with Helm down the hall. Helm rebuilt it with the same footprint, adding a few stone walls as fire barriers. In 1991, his Woodstock home, built post-and-beam style without nails, went up in flames. At the end of this month, he releases Dirt Farmer, his first solo album in 25 years and his comeback from throat cancer, with which he was diagnosed in 1998.Īctually, Dirt Farmer is a comeback from much more. Helm, the former drummer for the Band and a Woodstock resident since 1968, when the Band’s Music From Big Pink put the town on the map, is on the verge of a major moment. “He can’t hold onto money,” my friend answers. “Nice people but very protective of him.”Ī hippie mafia. FosterĪ Woodstock friend e-mails me about Levon Helm. He said carbon has also brought some much-wanted visitors to the pastures.Levon Helm, second from left, with his daughter Amy, right producer Larry Campbell and singer Teresa Williams. "For every tonne of carbon, it can hold 30 tonne of water, so if you are storing that in your soil profile, you're a long way in front," Mr Olsen said. This high carbon content also helps retain valuable water in the soil. His soils have gone from holding 3 per cent of carbon to more than 10 per cent. "We have converted that 50 to 60 millimetres of topsoil into 200 millimetres of topsoil in the last five years, which has greatly increased the ability to push out some pasture on top," Mr Olsen said. ![]() ![]() The mass of plant roots stores carbon, improving fertility, aeration and water-holding capacity, and allowing the soil to support multiple plants. This smorgasbord can be grazed several times, but food for livestock isn't its only purpose. When summer comes, the machine will be run through again, sowing crops like maize, sorghum, oats, peas and barley. This winter, the Olsens used it to sow peas, oats, barley, rye, corn vetch, chickory, plantain, brassicas and the tillage radish. ![]()
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