Just, like, you know, find a cliff and get rooted.

This is an old railway cut, but a road cut will do fine.

For this approach, it’s good to be below a rockface between two slopes. As they fall from the sides and make a scree cone you can harvest the water at their bases… not at the very bottom, but where they touch. In this way, you can be the fall rising up. Nice. (The approach works well for folks concentrating on aerial structures.)

While you’re at it, you can catch some pine needles and compost them to improve the soil.

You can switch it up, and go the other way. In this case, mining the seam between two layers (of pink, radioactive granite perhaps; always a fine choice) in a little fold in the land is the way to go.

This approach works best for folks who think of their roots first.

As the rock weathers above you, you catch it with your many stems and root into it in turn. No water or soil will escape your touch and season by season, year by year, you will climb the slope, building an orchard as you go.

Earth and water fall from the sky and are there for the taking. You just have to catch them, that’s the thing. If you pass your farm onto your kids, and they pass it on further, you will soon have a pine tree of your own and even the stars will come down to stay.

~

With thanks to Smooth Sumac, Ponderosa Pine and Creeping Oregon Grape.