Sequestering carbon by land restoration and reforestation in Iceland

[KarenRei]

I headed out toward Tesla, which is roughly en route. But there was a lot of traffic on the way out of town (hey, don't laugh ), so I decided to head home after Tesla and grab a bite to eat, letting the traffic clear up first.

Nothing to see at Tesla. The service vehicle hasn't even moved today, and it still contains the flat-pack furniture and receipt from Rúmfatalagerinn that it had yesterday.

Okay, let's get back and have something to eat.... okay, now to head out and... dangit. :Þ

So, eventually I get out of town and get to my land. And as soon as I'm parked, I mix up some red cover seed and... that ought to be enough!

What, that's not much? Well, I don't need much pure red. Because pure red only has one job... and that's to colour in the Tesla logo and the text below it

Indeed, that seed was enough for nearly two passes!

Now I calculate that I should need about a third of a bucket of white clover.

I've been adding the water straight to the inoculant bags and shaking it to mix. Works great

Adding the seed.

The sky is unexpectedly cloudy, which is unfortunate. But the sun peering through the clouds to the west is making pretty effects over the fjörd

 

[KarenRei]

Obligatory "seed on the ground" photo:

Wild thyme (blóðberg - lit. "Bloodstone") and crowberries (krækiber). I like the flesh of crowberries, but am not fond of the rinds.

Almost done with the pure white seed to line the text and logo. Will need to make mixed clover next for the non-artsy seed sowing

I try to deal with the red clover bag that was accidentally cut by the barbed wire - it's so full that it's hard to keep the seed in. I extend the slit to one end and then tilt it down into my measuring cup.

Mixing together all of the varieties with the inoculant. The water amount feels... acceptable, yes, I think so.

I notice that it holds a impression when I touch it, not unlike wet sand. Hmmmmmm....

Okay, enough with me being a goofball. Back to work. I start on the ledge overlooking the place where I plan some day to build an underground cave house. If only my investments were doing better right now

The sunlight keeps coming and going.

A spói flies past with Akrafjall silhouetted in the distance.

(More in a second!)

 

[KarenRei]

I'm just loving the way all these new grasses look, with the different colours depending on the age and soil type. This area, too, was just a gravel pan last year.

The new grass looks almost like it's made of silver. There's so little green on them that I don't know how they managed to grow, but they did.

A seed head of a different type of grass mixed in with the "silver grass"

Missed a spot with the phosphate last year

The way that the different grass colours mix together is surely the result of a combination of the type of soil, and the uneven nature of my spreading fertilizer last year. The clover seed too should create unevenness from sowing. From there, different varieties of clover and grasses will grow in the places whose sun, moisture, and soil serves them best, creating an ever-more diverse landscape. Nature will get to evolve this landscape as she so chooses - free of the harsh rule of the grazing terrors.

Some types of light really accentuate the silver.

Okay, okay, sorry for all the pictures of grass. I'll stop, I promise.

.... after this one.

Spói approaches from Akrafall:

Found a second plant with significant insect damage. Or was this the same one? This was planted in a marshy area, which is probably host to some insects. In general, though, bugs aren't much of a problem.

 

[KarenRei]

Gleym-mér-ei (Forget-me-not) stuck to my shirt. They adhere (loosely) to clothing. A hopeless romantic might stoop down during a walk and gran a sprig of it on their significant other with some lovely words.

Marshland

The largest wild tree on my land, this willow was fortunate to germinate on a cliff face. Until someone breeds a 4-meter tall sheep, it's probably safe.

Down at river level. It's weird seeing the water this low. The river normally pinches tightly up against this cliff, but now you can just walk past it.

A lot of the riverbed is exposed as if it were a river bank.

Looking at parts of the bottom that normally are hard to see.

Exposed, normally underwater cliff base.

Moss-covered rocks and cliffs.

 

[KarenRei]

Flowing slow and shallow.

The cliff-face willow, from the bottom:

It: "Hey, are you a 4-meter-tall sheep???"
Me: "No..."
It: "Whew, I was worried!!!"

Almost out of clover seed:

Done. Heading back up, 10:05 PM

----

About 5ha of clover seed done, about 3 left. Might be able to finish in one evening. Definitely maybe.

I should start making preparations to get the second batch of trees. Will need to check how much I've spent vs. how much has been donated to see how much is left.

ED: Expenditures thusfar (I've been charging to my credit card rather than drawing from Paypal so I dont have to wait for things to clear): $690 for trees, $405 for clover, $148 for fencing, $38 more for fencing, and $310 for more clover = $1591
Paypal balance: $2494,71

Okay, no problem getting the trees then! Feel free to drop me suggestions on what you'd like to see in the next acquisition, as far as the mix of trees go, sizes, etc.

 

[Don TLR]

I so enjoy seeing your pictures each day along with the visual tour of beautiful Iceland. That cave house will be a tough dig with all the rocks or would it be more of a sod house?

 

[KarenRei]

I so enjoy seeing your pictures each day along with the visual tour of beautiful Iceland. That cave house will be a tough dig with all the rocks or would it be more of a sod house?

Little digging at all! Rather, notice how the land drops down there, then is flat (where all the wood is stockpiled)? The house will be built down there, then just covered up. The fill will be the ground removed to flatten the site, plus pumice / scoria as natural insulation. If any large boulders or bedrock are encountered in the leveling process, they'll be left where they are and become part of the interior of the house. The windows of the main dome will be right on the edge there, looking down into the canyon and out to the fjörd. But the house won't be visible from the road; it'll just look as though the bluff extends out a bit further.

The house will be made from a pozzolanic concrete - substituting up to half the cement for basalt dust as a pozzolan (cement is the high-CO2 footprint part of concrete, so I want to eliminate as much of it as possible). The aggregate will be local crushed basalt. And instead of steel (except at specific locations, which will be stainless), the rebar will be basalt fibre, which has a lower environmental footprint. So overwhelmingly, the house will be made of basalt. Most importantly, without any non-stainless steel, and with a pozzolanic concrete, the structure should last hundreds if not thousands of years - more akin to Roman concrete. The rusting of steel in typical modern concrete causes it to spall out after 50-150 years, depending on conditions; it's like a time bomb in the walls.

The most environmentally-friendly home is one that never needs to be rebuilt, for generation after generation - just renovated occasionally to keep up with the times.

The inner form of the domes will be made simply by piling up dirt, and concreted directly over it. Rocks on the pile will get incorporated directly into the concrete, which will be pressure-washed afterwards to reveal and clean them of excess cement. No paint or drywall will be used - the "rocky cave" look is exactly the goal. Conduits will be used aesthetically (e.g. an industrial/steampunk aesthetic) rather than hidden (any ugly (e.g. plastic) conduits will be wrapped in basalt tape or similar). The domes are irregular in shape, with a "tunnel" connecting them and the garage, and at different heights - including bridged "dropoffs" and "secret passages". The master bedroom will be a loft built in the main dome, made of salvaged driftwood logs (they collect on our north shore, primarily logs lost out to sea from logging operations in Russia)

The heavy focus on using basalt, and also a "buried" home, is also to honour the connection of the home to the land and its history. Up until the 20th century (and even into the early 20th century), many people lived what is called a "torfbær", or "sod house", where the sod roof acted as waterproofing and insulation. You can still find some people today who grew up in them. This is sort of a modern throwback to historic times.

Can't wait to start on it. But as long as my investments are down, it's just going to be small incremental steps. Finally got the permit though, and the engineering is just about done.

 

[Lessmog]

The house will be made from a pozzolanic concrete - substituting up to half the cement for basalt dust as a pozzolan (cement is the high-CO2 footprint part of concrete, so I want to eliminate as much of it as possible). The aggregate will be local crushed basalt. And instead of steel (except at specific locations, which will be stainless), the rebar will be basalt fibre, which has a lower environmental footprint. So overwhelmingly, the house will be made of basalt. Most importantly, without any non-stainless steel, and with a pozzolanic concrete, the structure should last hundreds if not thousands of years - more akin to Roman concrete. The rusting of steel in typical modern concrete causes it to spall out after 50-150 years, depending on conditions; it's like a time bomb in the walls.

The most environmentally-friendly home is one that never needs to be rebuilt, for generation after generation - just renovated occasionally to keep up with the times.

Very nice plans! Hope you will see them through soon.

Agree on the problem with rotting old steel reinforced concrete.

Both Stockholm and Göteborg are being riddled with ageing (80+ years) constructions in absolutely vital central positions and the traffic infarct that comes with their replacing: the intricate Slussen carousel was one of only three ways (except the subway) to cross between North and South Stockholm (while it was still open ) and similarly Götaälvbron is one of only four ways for street traffic to cross the river in Gothenburg, one of which is the motorway tunnel. That bridge is now so decrepit that trams and busses are limited to very low speeds; cars have a 50 kph limit. I think the replacement for Slussen is well under way now and a good start has been made with a replacement, Hisingsbron, over Göta älv, planned to be ready for the 400 anniversary in a couple of years. Meanwhile, the rest of Gothenburg is dug up for other giant jubilee projects, turning the whole city into more or less a constant gridlock.

As usual, these problems have been known for a long time but only patched over until they became an imminent danger.

But only some 15 years ago another vital artery in Stockholm was actually repaired and rebuilt in stages while somewhat keeping traffic flowing (slowly), Tranebergsbron, to the western suburbs. Before it crumbled and fell.

May your cave never crumble. Back to basalts, eh

 

[Don TLR]

I remember you talking about the concrete and basalt process some time ago along with the stainless. Sounds quite impressive with all the natural products and mindset of the build.

 

[KarenRei]

Today, I first stopped by Tesla, but there was no visible progress. So I went around back and took a photo of the new plug for Semi's megachargers:

(I think that's a scrapped prop from some electric promotion that Hyundai had been doing )

The weather was nice and sunny - just a bit of haze

Let's get this puppy rolling!

This tetraploid red clover seed that I got (in the bucket) is much larger than the diploid red clover seed (in my hand). It helps explain why the info I found was that the tetraploid grows faster, but the diploid is more effective at seeding.

Ironically, the reddest seeds aren't from red clover, but from white clover

Walking through the home construction site. It took ages to haul in and stack all this wood.

Every single board has to have shims between it in order to maintain airflow (otherwise they'd just turn into piles of rot), and each stack is bound with steel wire to help withstand wind. But even that's not enough - the bundles are in turn all tied with steel wire to these fish crates that are full of rocks. Have I mentioned that winter winds here are pretty dang fierce?

The neighbor to the south (Tindstaðir) starts driving around his land in a pickup truck, trying to chase a rogue cow back to where he wants it. Cattle aren't as willing to let themselves be pushed around as sheep are

Getting ready to head down into the landslide marsh - the largest, wettest marsh on my land. Normally I wouldn't even think about going into it without boots, but it's been so dry recently... hey, worth a shot

(Little do I know what hell I'm going to be putting myself through on this trip.... )

The "outskirts" of the marsh aren't bad. It's so dry here that these marsh plants are looking pale.

 

[KarenRei]

Sitka spruce. Has it been grazed? No. Is there any insect damage? No. Any signs of transplant stress? No. Again and again and again, these spruce are way too easy. Too bad I'm not into monoculture, or these guys would have it hands-down.

The grass is so green and deep. I'm starting to question what I'm doing here. I mean, does it even need clover here? This is the healthiest soil on my land - tall grass, bright green on satellite images. And will clover even grow in the marsh? Am I just wasting my time? The ground isn't too wet yet, but I'm sure it'll get wetter. If my feet get soaked, this could get pretty miserable. Better be careful.

At least it's dry here. Normally this would be a rivulet.

A piece of wind-blown debris from last winter (the tie-downs aren't perfect ). Tossing it back uphill.

Seeding some clover on the ground where it was.

Okay, well, good to see that clover can grow in the marsh At least I'm not wasting my time in that regard.

Man this meadowsweet is dense. Smells nice when walking through it, though. Meadowsweet used to be used as a "strewing herb" - a plant scattered around floors and intended to be treaded on.

I'm getting clover seed into my shoe. Better take care of that while it's still dry enough to sit down.

Well, now it's time to descend into the first ledge of landslide terrain, and onto wetter ground. Yeay...

These rushes are abundant in certain types of marshy terrain.

 

[Fred42]

The sky is unexpectedly cloudy, which is unfortunate. But the sun peering through the clouds to the west is making pretty effects over the fjörd.

View attachment 436333

Maybe Slartibartfast just didn't think to mention Iceland. It doesn't look like he left it to an assistant.

 

[KarenRei]

More debris to toss aside:

The ground underneath is a mix of black and brown mud. It gets properly clovered.

Most of the grasses in this part are at least waist height, and some exceptional pieces are nearly shoulder-height. Why, exactly, am I here again?

Illustrating how much lower the marsh is here than the surrounding land, due to past slides.

Active iron bog with goethite sheen.

While trying to get a decent picture of it, I start feeling water penetrating my shoe and sock. I decide to simply hightail it out of the swamp afterwards.

This rivulet en route out of the marsh is very much not dry - and indeed, is flowing.

Escaping the marsh on the west side, I get to the ravine.

 

[KarenRei]

Yes, yes, we know, you're all perfect down to the last needle, WE GET THE PICTURE.

Old metal drum that well predates me, embedded into the ground by landslide activity and/or overgrowth. No getting it out of there. But it's already doing a good job of rusting away to nothing.

Approaching the shear breakaway zone of the landslide.

Too high to get down here. Will need to find a better place.

Yeah, I think this will do.

The ground at the base of the breakaway zone. I've actually never been to this spot before.

Water flows out from under the sheered-off mud.... and suddenly, everything is starting to click....

 

[KarenRei]

... It clicks because the ground that I'm standing on is this loose glacial till:

While sitting on top of it is by far the thickest layer of dirt I've ever seen on my land. Like 1-2 meters thick. Which is great - I wish all my land was like that! But the problem is that it's thick enough that the grass's roots don't make it down to the bottom anymore. So at times of high groundwater, when water is flowing rapidly underneath, there's nothing holding this big mass of earth to the glacial till below. So it's just free to slide at will.

I need trees here. Badly. Sitka spruce and tamarack, ASAP. Grass roots are just too short to reach all the way through; it's going to take trees.

I head downhill, sowing clover all the way. Restoring this now soil-free till is not the top priority at this point, but soil is still desirable. The left-hand side is constantly moist and mossy. The right-hand side is barren.

Curiously, a lot of the rock appears to be rhyolite. But my bedrock is basaltic. There's some rhyolite / andesite peaks a few kilometers to the east, and I occasionally find rhyolitic dikes when hiking, so maybe that was a source?

Getting to the accumulated soil that used to be on this hillside.

The grass on top is deep and dense. It's clearly - again, like this whole region that slid - a mass of healthy topsoil, in no need of restoration. So I'm just wasting my time treading through it.

It's also very tussocky, making the going very slow.

The closer I get to the centre of the landslide near the river, the more irregular the ground underneath me becomes. "Crevases" start opening up, of increasing depth, full of muddy muck.

It just gets worse and worse ahead of me... but you can't see it.

Like hiking on a glacier, where a death-deep crevase can be covered in ice, all this mass of plants has overgrown the dropoffs. I'm walking blind.

 

[KarenRei]

This shiny muck may look, due to the way the picture was taken, like it's right below the grass. It's actually about two meters down. Now picture a whole network of these crisscrossing around you, which you can't see. At best if you fall in, you're cold, wet and muddy. At worst, you break your leg.

Every single step was a minute-long act of terror, trying to feel my way through without offbalancing me should my foot not find purchase. I've been through here many times. I've been here in late July/early August. And I've been here recently. But I've not been through here in late July/early August recently. The vegetation has gotten denser year over year, and now it's simply unnavigable by late summer.

I get to a tree, one that's really out of place.... an apple tree.

Remember how I mentioned that early on I had tried planting a number of "That would be a neat tree to have!" trees, rather than, "What will survive long enough to give me the critically needed shelter?" trees. I also mentioned how I planted a number of trees by the river, only to see the floods take them out one at a time. This is the only survivor of these - planted high enough up to avoid floods. It doesn't thrive, but it does survive.

It was placed where it is to anchor the eroding edge of the landslide. Indeed, I'm not going to step any closer to the edge, as I know for a fact that it's highly undercut by the river, and could well give way.

I need to get out of here. No way I'm going to go through this terror-walk all the way through the landslide debris. It looms ahead of me.

My best bet is to head straight uphill, to get to the glacial till.

Once I get there, life becomes so much easier. I can then go back to sowing seed along the slopes downstream toward the ravine. Oh dear Þór, is this all that I've managed to sow so far, after hours out here? I'm going to be here all night!!!

I head back to the river to get a look back upstream at the landslide mess I escaped:

A curious rock formation en route to the ravine.... it looks almost like a piece of basalt is wearing a "hat" made out of another piece of basalt (unseen in the picture: it wraps all the way around to the top). I should look into that better in the future to see what's going on, because AFAIK, basalt doesn't care about high fashion (it takes its appearance for granite).

A pool in the river outside the ravine:

Water runs through the ravine all year (fed by groundwater seeps), but the flow rates fluctuate greatly. Right now it's just a weak trickle. The babbling sound is still pretty, however.

 

[KarenRei]

This little waterfall is barely visible, and the creekbed is mainly just dry rocks.

This is normally a lovely cascade into a pretty pool. But flow rates are so high that they don't even go over the surface - you can hear it trickling from behind the rock face.

Black slug. They like low-lying wet places. The birds adore these things, as well as the marsh snails.

Looking back into the canyon as I ascend.

Halfway up, and the creek is bone-dry.

Looking up to the culvert (hey, remember that? )

Still have a mostly full bucket But finally I'm to easier, universally-clover-needing ground. I can really make pace up here!

Looking back at the car and shed:

A curious plant that I'm unfamiliar with:

 

[KarenRei]

I really should break out Flóra Íslands (don't think I need to translate that ) to see what it is.

Relatively deep pool in the river nearby.

Downriver:

Checking up on the western redcedar. Struggling still, but I actually think it's doing decent. If it makes it through the winter - and I so hope it does - I think it'll be in the clear. They're such great trees - becoming the largest cold-tolerant trees in the world (over 70 meters tall, and up to 6 meters in diameter), able to easily handle our temperatures, and the ability to grow in deep shade. But they're used to growing up in the shelter of mature temperate rainforests, so I've struggled to get them established at smaller sizes than this one. If this works... then I know how big to plant them.

YEAY - finally, almost done!

And that's a wrap! 11:05 PM.

----

Due to my decision to torture myself with the landslide zone, I didn't cover nearly as much ground as I would have hoped. It'll still take another evening with clover to finish. I'm still going to look into getting more trees tomorrow, however. I got a new offer from Flóra, which may be cheaper than Kjarr - but I haven't heard back as to whether I can visit tomorrow. I might just try and see how it goes - and if nobody is there, then I could try Kjarr again and see if they're in.

 

[Frank Einstein]

Would an oak tree survive on your land? Are oaks native trees in Iceland? I like to plant oak trees in my father’s memory (he died 12 years ago last Monday). What would be the minimum size tree you’d have to buy for it to have a chance of surviving? If you let me know the feasibility and the costs, I’ll transfer you some more money if it’s not prohibitively expensive to do this (and assuming you want an oak tree on your land that commemorates some random dude, lol).

Thanks so much for doing this project - it’s unbelievably inspiring. My wife and I are already making plans to buy land to restore the way you’ve been doing. Will take a while to get finances in place, but we plan to follow in your footsteps in a few years. We’re currently living in a flat in town, but we want to move to the countryside once our teenagers are out of the house.

Any thoughts of making a YouTube channel to track your progress and to teach the world what you’ve learned?

 

[Lessmog]

A curious plant that I'm unfamiliar with:

Certainly not a botanist, but I leafed (heh) through Mom's old Flora and found a few candidates. Best semblance: Gåsört, Potentilla anserina (Goosewort). It grows a single yellow flower with five petals, 2-3 cm diam. Stalk creeping , 20-80 cm, striking roots. Found aplenty in Sweden except the inland parts of Norrland, typically on footpaths, damp cultivated grounds, beaches.

Would that describe your biotope here? It might as well be a local variant, I guess. Or something else.