Hi, I’m Sunny, the female half of Pierre Soleil and I’m glowing right now. Why?
Tomorrow I leave for a twelve day residential permaculture design course, starting this Sunday in Southern Georgia.
There’s so much to learn and know and this is just the beginning of a beautiful adventure and the continuing of a dream my husband and I have been evolving over the last year from a lifetime of exploration..
Food forests in every community will Feed The Future
We know how important it is to reskill ourselves to be able to survive comfortably in this changing world. Permaculture is gonna be big, real big as people get hungry for knowledge on how to grow sustainable food supplies that will ensure the future of their families and the generations that follow.
It wasn’t easy to decide to spend such a large proportion of our funds on this, but if you’ve ever had that ‘this is so right for me’ feeling you’ll know how it is. I just had to be there.
My husband and I passionately believe that we need to start growing our own healthy nutritious food now. That doesn’t mean just planting an annual garden. It’s much more than that. We need to create ecologically balanced food forests, annual gardens, kitchen gardens. We need to start growing for survival NOW.
We are creating our own food forest garden and knowing how to design something specifically for the location and climate will be invaluable. And we want to share our growing knowledge with as many people as we can.
Our aim is to encourage people to start growing properly planned, ecologically functional fruit forest gardens, that will be there to feed not just their family but others too. If you haven’t got a back yard, you can create a community project. As your energy grows around the project so will the help and support you receive.
A certificated design course coupled with doing our own design are all part of being able to stand up and talk at 101 level in an informed and intelligent way.
We want to reach everyday folk who are going to need to know how to live self-sufficiently. Food is a major need in our lives. Healthy, nutritious, wellness-promoting food can be yours for ever when you create a food forest garden.
Shouting it from the Treetops
We aim to give talks to local communities and anyone who’ll listen to us.. we’re so convinced this is a MUST for every community in the world!
The course is run at a community called Koinonia in Americus, South Western GA, so it’s gonna involve a 5 hour drive to get there form way up here in the North Georgia hollers!
It’s back to the dorm and communal eating as I spend 12 days breathing, sleeping, drinking and learning permaculture in close company with 30 or so other eager permies-in-waiting…
Omigosh, today I took another look at the contents of the course.. it’s mindblowing and led me down a pathway of dreams..You’ll know what I mean when you read the course contents..
Permaculture Design course content
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Even as you read that list, you can probably imagine how useful these skills are going to be.. And they are including things like barter and gift economy. I really love the idea of ‘gift economy’ and what it means to me.
Image from pointloma.edu
Gift economy
Peopole and communities who plant food forests will have such abundant supplies in a few years that they will easily be able to gift those who have less.. there’s a sense of the voluntary sharing we’ve been encouraging in our selves and others from skills to land.
And there are all kinds of other connotations and potential for the idea of a ‘gift economy’…gifts generate abundance for receiver and giver and gifts aren’t subject to.. you know what!
A way of life for us
With the learning I’ll gain and share with my husband added to his Western Montana frontier upbringing, his 3d design skills, acute awareness of patterns a close relationship to the earth and a shared passion for growing food forests everywhere, I sense that we’re embarking on a wonderful new way of living, doing what we adore, wanting only to live simply and self-sustainably on the land, eat nutritious food, be warm and help others to make the transitions…and plant food forests EVERYWHERE.
Watch this space… as I share myexperiences with you on a regular basis
I’ll keep you posted on how it goes for me, what I learned, what I’m loving, what’s challenging and how inspired I am each day…
Meanwhile, I’m listing out all the things I’m gonna be taking with me from my work clothes, rain gear, comfy pillows , laptop, tape recorder and camera and yes.. chocolate. So much to do and already it’s mid afternoon.
Rain is Good
The rain has been steady for a day and a half which makes us remember why this part of the world is so good for growing. Apart from an abundance of natural creeks and streams, we have lots of sloping wooded hills and the growing season in the summer is long with sunshiney Aprils to mid October, usually. Spring is just round the corner here!
Suki our spirt animal on this adventure, doesn’t get to enjoy running through the forest,climbing trees and perching on the woodpile but he’s healing from an awkward encounter with the female up the road which left him with a sprained leg so the rain is good for him too as he ‘rests up’ in front of the stove.
My husband is out chopping wood on the front porch and while it rains where it needs to outside, we’ve got a heap big iron woodstove that keeps this place and us warm as hot toast while we get to write and design and connect with people..;-) And playing in the background is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen..one of the songs from ‘The Watchmen’.
And so tomorrow the adventure begins…and I’ve not even started getting things together yet and it’s almost time to start dinner.
Permaculture Design Course. http://www.georgiapermaculture.com info on upcoming courses in Georgia and the South East.
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Have a great time! learn alot!