Bruce Thompson*
November 22, 2003

This document offers a comprehensive  summary of the current oil crisis situation, what is going to happen, the inadequacy of expected solutions, how it will affect YOU, why public warning is so late, WHAT YOU CAN DO with more information via links to sites discussion groups and contacts.  You can also download this document from links at the end.

Feed the Future Note – This document was written SEVEN years ago.  The crisis is much more imminent.  Alongside that we have the rise of genetically modified food, natural disasters and more.

YOU CAN MAKE a DIFFERENCE but you MUST ACT NOW. Read this document to inform yourself about peak oil and the implications AND why we must localize food growing.

Oil & Gas Shortages Soon, Final Emptying of Wells

Summary

This document reveals that in this decade:

• After a hundred years of exploration and extraction very little new oil and gas is being found. See graph.  Today, for every barrel of oil discovered, the world consumes four barrels.
• When energy get scarcer and dearer there is very serious disruption of transport, industry, business, government and private life.

Serious shortages and disruptions

• Globally, 90% of transport (road/rail/air/sea) depends on oil. So does industrial & farm equipment (food).
• Much natural gas is used by power generating stations to generate electricity. Gas shortages can therefore trigger grid outages that disable computers, communications and electronic control equipment.
• More than 500,000 oil & gas-based products will also become scarcer and dearer: plastics, clothing, asphalt, tyres, medicines, sealants, inks.

Alternative energy sources cannot compensate

• Hydrogen is not the answer because it is actually made from natural gas, which itself is running out.
• Hydroelectricity, coal, nuclear, windmills, solar etc. cannot be increased sufficiently in time to prevent seriously disruptive shortages of energy.

Difficulties adapting

• Changeovers take years. Our immense existing infrastructure was built assuming plentiful fuels. (Cars, globalization, suburbs, arctic/tropical cities.)
• Changeovers demand fuels to implement them too.
• Coal, nuclear, oilsands etc involve serious pollution of air/water/soil. They use oil/gas/electricity to exploit them.
• The energy decline is strange, unwelcome news to the public. There is confusion, resistance and delay.

Evidence of decline of oil and gas

Some people still say oil and gas are abundant, and that money and technology will meet needs for decades. But oil and gas industry data show:

• A clear, 40-year trend of less and less discovery of oil. (See graph at top of this page.)
• In regions including USA, the North Sea, Norway, New Zealand there is obvious decline of oil and gas.
• Global oil supply is 70% from pre-1972 wells
• Steadily decreasing output from the existing wells.
• Big military takeovers of oil & gas resources.

Timing and severity

• North America’s gas supply: Start of decline: about 2003 – 2004. Electricity is 20% gas-powered. Grid blackouts, brownouts in North American workplaces, cities, homes, Internet system, economy. Importing gas is seriously constricted by lack of ships and suitable port equipment.
• Global oil supply: ‘Conventional’ (easy-to-extract) oil: Decline from about 2005 on. Expect higher prices not only for fuels, but all goods and services because all require energy to create and deliver them.
  ‘Unconventional oil’ (Expensive deep sea, polar, etc): Decline about 3% a year  from 2009 on.
• Competition: Prices are affected by fierce global competition for oil and gas. Scarcity for one kind of energy also raises the price of the other forms, such as electricity or coal.
• Duration of decline: Forever. Oil and gas took millions of years to form, in extremely rare conditions. Regeneration rate is practically zero.

World now consumes four barrels of oil for each barrel discovered

• Barrels consumed globally/year: 28 billion (2002).
• Barrels discovered globally per year: 6 billion of “conventional” plus 8 billion deep sea, oil sands etc. Discovery of oil fluctuates each year, but peaked in the 1960s, and has declined at an average of about 9 billion barrels per year over the past 40 years.
• Pre-1973-discovered oil in use today: More than 70% of present global supply. We’ve mostly just been using up huge old oil fields.
   

Those figures, & the above graph of discoveries are at http://dieoff.org/page85.htm  and http://dieoff.org/page90.htm

Proportion of global energy provided by oil

• In developed countries 40% (1997)

Inadequacy of Expected Solutions

The “invest more to find it” idea

Yet-to-be located oil, globally

After a century of exploration, the earth’s geology and oil resources are generally well known. When the fields are emptying, money only helps to scrape out the hard-to-reach remainder. There are 210 billion barrels left to discover and 1000 billion barrels left to extract. This is indicated by the 40-year decline in discovery of oil. No amount of money will create oil that simply isn’t there.

Number of oil wells already in world/USA

More than 500,000. In USA, 80% of the wells now produce less than three barrels a day.

Percentage of oil recovered from a typical oil well

20% to 60%. It relates primarily to the viscosity of the oil. You get less from a heavy oil than a light one because it sticks in the reservoir.

“Technology will solve it” idea

Challenge to technology

To compensate for the expected 3% oil decline (at today’s 28 billion barrels a year), create and install, by year 2009, permanent supplies of portable energy, equivalent to 840 million barrels of oil a year. Then as oil keeps declining forever, increase this new energy it until it replaces 40% of the world’s oil  supply (22 billion barrels a year) OR reduce energy demand equivalently as the global population increases by almost a quarter million people every day.

The “better efficiency” idea

Increases in efficiency usually fail to reduce consumption (more m.p.g. just causes people to travel more or buy two cars, or other goods) unless they are personally determined to reduce energy consumption.

What about nuclear power?

Nuclear supplies 16% of the world’s electricity. Its ability to soften the oil and gas crash is problematic:

• Past accidents. Risk of more, and terrorism.
• Many more reactors would be needed, at huge cost, against local opposition.
• Tons of radioactive materials to transport at risk to public.
• Nuclear waste disposal is still the major, unresolved problem, especially breeder reactors producing plutonium – a nuclear weapon/terrorist raw material, half-life contamination is 24,000 years.
• All abandoned reactors are radioactive for decades or millennia.
• Nuclear is not directly suitable for aircraft and vehicles.
• Adapting nuclear to make hydrogen or other fuels would be a huge, and energy-expensive project.
• Nuclear fusion is still not available, after 40 years’ research and billions of dollars invested.

Note from Feed the Future.  Obama is considering bringing two nuclear plants to Georgia in spite of all the evidence above.

Natural gas

Proportion of global energy provided by gas

20% of global energy supply (1997).

Natural gas is also running short

Demand in North America is already outstripping supply, especially as power utilities take the remaining gas to generate electricity. Later in this web page there is a graph suggesting important effects of gas decline on the electricity used for computers, communications and control equipment.

Gas is not suited for existing jet aircraft, ships, vehicles, and equipment for agriculture and other products. Conversion consumes large amounts of energy and money. Natural gas also does not provide the huge array of chemical by-products that we currently get from oil.

Hydro-electric

Present use: 2.3% of global energy supply (1997). Many rivers are already exploited.

As a replacement for oil:

Very minor compared with 40% provided at present by oil. Unsuitable for aircraft and the present 800 million existing fuel-powered cars.

Coal

Current global use

24% of global energy supply.

As a replacement for oil

Is 50% to 200% heavier than oil per energy unit. Bulky and dirty. Expansion of coal mining, causes land ruin, and increases greenhouse gas emissions.

Hard to fine-control the rate of burn

Tuning the rate of burn of oil and gas fuels is easy, but coal is different. It is therefore is used in power stations to make electricity, wasting half of its energy content.

Coal mining operations run on oil fuels

Present coal-mining machinery and transportation runs not on coal, but on oil-based fuels.

Pollution

A single coal-fired station can produce a million tons of solid waste each year. Burning coal in homes pollutes air with acrid smog containing acid gases and particles. (Smog, greenhouse gases, and acid rain).

Liquid fuels from coal

Very inefficient, and huge amounts of water required.

Solar and wind

Global solar use

• Is about 0.006% of global energy supply. Energy varies constantly with weather or day/night. Not storable or portable energy like oil or natural gas so unsuited for present vehicles and industry. Batteries bulky, expensive, wear out in 5-10 years.
• Photovoltaic solar equipment (US$4/watt) is about 15% efficient, giving about 100 watts of the 1 kW per square meter exposed to bright sunshine (enough for one light bulb). A typical solar water panel array can deliver 50% to 85% of a home’s hot water though.
• Using some of our precious remaining crude oil as fuel to manufacture solar & wind equipment may be wise.

Global wind power use

0.07% of 1990 global energy supply. As with solar, energy varies greatly with weather, and is not portable or storable like oil and gas. Each wind turbine from Denmark produces an average of 698 kW averaged over a year.

Hydrogen

Current global use

US (only) 1998 consumption is 0.01% of global energy.

As a replacement for oil

• Hydrogen is currently manufactured as from natural gas, which is running short. It is therefore an energy “carrier” not a source.
• It can be produced in other ways, such as electrolysis, but always with a loss of the energy needed  to do that. Usually it is better to simply use the original energy directly.

Other sources of energy

Options

Shale, tar sand, coalbed methane, ethanol, biomass (from vegetation), etc.

Effectiveness as replacements for oil

• Huge investment in research and infrastructure to exploit them, plus large amounts of now-expiring oil supply.
• A major problem is that they cannot be exploited before the oil shocks cripple attempts to bring them on line, and the rate of extraction is far too slow to meet the huge global energy demand.

How It Will Affect Us

Food supply

Food production & delivery depends on oil

Food grains now contain between 4 and 10 calories of fossil fuel for every 1 calorie of solar energy. Example: 4% of USA’s energy budget is used to grow food, while 10 to 13 percent is needed to process it and transport it onto plates.

Fertilizers are made from natural gas. Grain yield without fossil fuel support can fall from 130 bushels/acre down to 30 bushels/acre. The worsening fuel shortages will make agriculture increasingly expensive and land-needy. Localizing agriculture closer to cities will help, as will more-vegetarian diets.

Efficiency

70% of all grain grown is used to feed animals for human consumption

The meat feeds 1/5 as many people as the grain could.

Number of cats & dogs in USA

131 million

Food given to pets

North American pet food business is $30 billion/yr, and is growing.

“Future food” being consumed by using gasoline in vehicles

Gasoline consumed ‘now’ will deprive future agriculture of energy for producing food.

Below are examples of how much “future food” a 30 mile-per-gallon vehicle is “eating” now. Also shown is the heavy physical labor humans will have to do in future when gasoline is unavailable for farm/industrial/office/home machinery:

• Bread, 1 kg loaf = 6 miles = one slice per 422 yards That 1/5 gallon = human heavy farm labor for 23 hrs.
• Beef, 1 kg = consumed by driving 76.2 miles That 2.5 gallon = human heavy farm labor 300 hrs.
• Canned corn 1 kg = consumed by driving 5.4 miles Again, 1/5 gallon = human heavy farm labor 20 hrs.

Transportation, Business, Globalization

Oil for transportation

• Automobiles, globally: 722 million
• Automobiles, USA: 132 million
• Trucks (all types) in USA: 1.5 million (all types) in USA:
• Buses: (all types) in USA:: more than 654,000
• Locomotives: USA: 26,000
• World aircraft fleet: 11,000 aircraft of more than 100 passengers. All 11,000 designed for oil-based fuel.
• World shipping: 85,000 ships in world.
• Decked fishing boats in the world: 1.2 million

Globalization

Will end. (Fuel costs & scarcity).

Oil for industry

Construction industry example: Energy to build an energy-efficient home is equivalent to 6,500 gallons of gasoline.

Number of by-products of oil

Over 500,000 including fertilizers, medicines, lubricants, plastics (computers, phones, shower curtains, disposables, toys, etc.), asphalt (roading and roofs), insulation, glues/paints/ caulking, (modern synthetic rubber) tires and boots, carpets, synthetic fabrics/clothing, stockings, insect repellent.

Government Services, Economy

City drinking water, government services

• Number of cities in the world: over 55,000
• Services to consider: Water supply pumping, sewage disposal, garbage disposal, street/park maintenance, hospitals & health systems, police, fire services. National defense (land, sea, air).
• Possibility of wars over remaining oil.

Economy and employment

• International oil import costs: Sharp rises (increasing global competition for dwindling oil & gas of five Middle-Eastern countries and former Soviet Union. International tensions.
• National debt, inflation: Money goes out of country, to oil producers. Money gets scarce. Interest/mortgages rise. Government prints more money to pay overseas energy bills. Money devalues. Inflation. Prices rise.
• Poverty: Public, and businesses become poorer paying higher energy costs. Less spending, less sales. Layoffs. Unemployment.
• Welfare costs up, taxes up. Therefore taxes up. Pensions for aging/disabled reduced or discontinued, and devalued by inflation.

Migration

• People will migrate away from hardship into less uncomfortable areas. Locally, regionally, globally.

Other serious quality-of-life aspects

• Heating and cooling: In cold regions oil heats buildings (burned as fuel in homes or in oil-fired electric power stations). In hot areas oil power provides air conditioning. As natural gas is substituted for oil, the gas price will rise too.
• Smog: Energy price and shortages will increase wood and coal burning in homes, increasing city smog.

Why Public Warning is so Late

Normal business and political posturing

For business and political reasons, there have been very misleading reports of sizes of stocks of oil:

(a) By firstly understating discoveries, and then later overstating discoveries, oil companies have given the false, but pleasing impression of an increasing discovery trend. Investors respond accordingly, and finance more exploration.

(b) The seven major oil-extracting countries have for years reported unchanged reserves (even though they were extracting and selling billions of barrels of oil, and that the reserves would therefore be less each year). See table of “spurious reserve revisions” shown below.

(c) In 1988 five of those countries claimed they each had about twice as much reserve oil as in 1987. See graph below, based on tables from < http://www.hubbertpeak.com/campbell/images/com12.gif >.

d) We, the public have enjoyed using up the gasoline, heating oil, plastics, and countless other oil products for decades. The oil kept flowing generously. We “looked on the bright side” and mostly ignored warnings by environmentalists that fossil fuels would run out. Media constantly announced new oil discoveries, and increasing stocks of oil. Emptying wells seemed decades in the future. Nobody planned for it. Now they really are running empty.

(e) OPEC countries need to earn as much oil revenue as possible to support rapidly growing populations where the public health care, education and other services are provided free, from oil revenues, not by taxes. They seem especially frightened of alternative energy sources, even though when examined closely, those alternative sources are drastically too small to compensate for oil. “As a group of fossil fuel exporters, OPEC stands to lose more than most from any proposals that threatens to cut oil consumption,” – Rilwanu Lukman, the Secretary General of OPEC, speaking at the 16th World Petroleum Congress, Calgary, 2000. (Globe & Mail Newspaper, June 5, 2000.)

Economic theory says exhausted resources always replaced

Economists have taught us the illusory theory that market demand will always generate suitable solutions. This ignores any physical limitations of the earth, human resourcefulness, or time needed. Example quote:

“Minerals are inexhaustible and will never be depleted. A stream of investment creates additions to proved reserves, a very large in-ground inventory, constantly renewed as it is extracted… How much was in the ground at the start and how much will be left at the end are unknown and irrelevant.” 

 Feed the Future note – BULL 

That is from Professor of Economics, Emeritus, Morry Adelman, who has long been one of the world’s foremost energy and resource economists and a leading analyst of international oil and gas markets. The quote is on page xi of his book, The Economics of Petroleum Supply, M.A. Adelman, published 1993.

 They lied to us

Certain countries reported that oil stocks were “not declining”, even though oil was being taken out, steadily emptying the wells.

Certian countries spectacularly increased the reported quantities of oil in stock, so that OPEC would recognize them as bigger suppliers and allow them to export more, increasing revenues. They were desperately competing with each other to make up their revenue by having a bigger slice of market share, because the price per barrel had plunged to about $12 per barrel.

The history graph of the information on all this prices is at  http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chron.html

What You Can Do

Feed The Future Note - If your local town has a transition organisation, join it.  If not, start one.   Get together with your community to increase community and local fortitude and work together to create ‘energy descent’.   Look up transition towns on google.

Personal preparations

Reduce energy dependence of family, home, lifestyle. The less fuels and goods you consume, the less affected you will be..

Workplace

Observe, reduce energy need. Talk with friends, workmates, neighborhood, city, governments. The ideal use for remaining oil and mineral reserves is into industries that create inexhaustible alternative energy equipment like windmills, solar water heaters, biomass (vegetation that creates fuels), etc.

Share your feeling with others

Try to stay positive and active rather than ignore it or blame people for it. Where there’s life there’s hope, especially if we all collaborate and are creative.

“It’s not that new”. Humans have always faced hardships, and many among us do so constantly now. Learn from them.

Possible emergency measures to consider

• Alert the public so people understand the energy decline and cooperate to adapt to it. This includes alerting your city council and local media, the government. Everyone needs to collaborate, at all levels.
• Prepare the community for conserving and rationing of dwindling fuels & oil/gas-derived products.
• Discontinue projects that assume abundant fuel, such as road widening, overseas trade
• Re-localize life, business. Un-globalize
• Relocate food production nearer to cities
• Feed the Future note- learn about permaculture and how you can create forest food gardens that contain all nutrients for health and wellness and will in a few years supply YOU and your family or community AND have surplus
• If you already have children, STOP NOW Population control IS VITAL to prevent children being born into extremely harsh conditions that seem likely, and to conserve soon-scarce resources for those already alive.
• Reconsider immigration, which adds load – Feed the Future Note - don’t run off somewhere else, it’ll be the same everywhere.
• Strengthen the police and army to deal with social chaos & to control distribution of  supplies. Feed the Future Note

  – we don’t agree with this. Strengthen your own defences and start to care and share, make sure you have your own community supplies and encourage other communities to do so, sharing with those nearest to you.

• Alert national leaders to organize well against this major threat that faces us all.  Feed The Future Note – this was written in 2003.  Our sense now is that national leaders are not interested in taking the measures we need because they are too concerned about securing resources for the moneyed few. THEY WILL NOT HELP US WE MUST HELP OURSELVES.

Feed the Future – additional info on what to do

1. Start shifting your lifestyle now into a more ‘return 2 earth’ simpler one.  Research how to do this. (Adapting to new ways of life takes time and effort so it’s to your advantage to start now). Repurpose, Recycle, ReUse, Refuse to buy stuff that travels thousands of miles to get to your table or home

2. Learn new skills in order to become as self-sufficient as possible; in terms of food, water, energy, and personal transport.

That means a large productive community/ home vegetable garden and more particularly a permaculture style food forest garden to compensate for reduced commercial food production and higher prices.  Start canning and preserving food.   Get yourself an emergency food supply.  Investigate  renewable energy generation – get a wind tower or some solar panels.   Start to conserve water by adding water catchment systems to your home.   Change your water outlet system so that greywater [from sinks, bathrooms [not toilets] and kitchens flow into your garden

3. Promote community re-localization to your family, friends, neighbors, colleagues and community leadership; reducing your dependency on long-distance supply chains. Redirect your purchases toward locally produced agriculture and goods, local services, and local and decentralized energy production.

4. Reduce or eliminate your fossil fuel use as much as possible, especially for transportation — use mass transit, bike, or walk. Work closer to home. Support alternative, renewable fuels. Increase the energy efficiency of your home. Withdraw support for further development of highways, urban sprawl, and large personal vehicles.

5. WARNING  If you wait to start preparing, the resources you need or the conditions you count on to adapt may be exhausted, too expensive, or no longer viable. For example, if you wait until things get tough to trade in your SUV for a hybrid or plug-in car, there may not be any left (due to demand), and there may be no one willing to take that SUV in trade.

Prepare Yourself NOW

Order a year’s supply of freeze dried food, buy a solar oven,  get batteries to see you through in times of power outages.  These items are designed  to keep you going while you transition into a more local, self sufficient, regenerative lifestyle .  Be prepared for emergencies and for the future NOW.

Pass this document on to everyone you know.   Talk to people everywhere.
More Information and Contacts

Documented evidence

You can obtain two versions of this document “The Oil & Gas Crash and You”:

• “Shorter Version”, available as a two-sided, one-sheet handbill that you can give to other people (It contains most of the contents of this web page). < http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/_FactSheet.doc
• “Full version”, a 12-page resource for researchers and journalists, containing extra references and authorities, and more explanations and links. http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/OCAY19.doc

Websites

• http://www.hubbertpeak.com/duncan/olduvai2000.htm   The Peak of World Oil Production and the Road to the Olduvai Gorge,by Richard C. Duncan, Ph.D. Pardee Keynote Symposia Geological Society of America Summit 2000 Reno, Nevada November 13, 2000.

This paper suggests that decline of natural gas may be the most disastrous event from year. 2007 (or sooner, see updates) because of resultant shortage of electricity for computers, communications and control equipment.

The following sites are conveniently keyword-searchable for research. They have lots of scientific and oil industry literature about energy resources and the ecology generally. They are heavily annotated with authoritative references and links:

• http://www.hubbertpeak.com/  Named after the late Dr. M. King Hubbert, geophysicist, this website provides data, analysis and recommendations regarding the upcoming peak in the rate of global oil extraction.

•  http://www.dieoff.org/ This untidy, emotional site is nevertheless a very large, valuable resource. It’s full of reputable energy-related and environment-related reports and papers, conveniently assembled in one place by researcher Jay Hanson.
• www.oilcrash.com is a New Zealand activist website operated by Robert Atack. It is especially useful for downloading audio and video recordings of the world’s most prominent speakers as they notify the public about the decline of oil and gas, and the implications.

Discussion forum – Technical/scientific

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/energyresources  (restricted membership at about 450, to prevent newcomers posting material already discussed, but there are ten thousand previous postings keyword searchable.)

Discussion forum – Implications, action

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2 which is the current discussion group.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty which is now closed, but there are ten thousand previous postings in the archives for researchers by keyword search. Monitored the energy decline by featuring news items about it, and discussed countless implications at personal and societal level. Membership by request to bthomson@e3.net.nz.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmpty2OnEmpty2  After 10,000 messages in RunningOnEmpty, this group has continued the discussion, reserving the original egroup as a VIP conference egroup, and as an archive.

Author of “The Oil & Gas Crash and You”

Bruce Thomson, author of this article is  a technical writer in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He moderated the original RunningOnEmpty group, and is the moderator of that RunningOnEmptyNZ2internet forum.

There is no institutional financial sponsoring or influence of Bruce Thompson’s  page or the forum.

Some moral authority to expose the Convince Sheet to the public was gained. After weeks of debate (3,100 forum message) there was a poll of 280 members. We all knew the announcement would be disturbing, with possibly serious impacts on the public, the stock market and general business and personal confidence. Of those 280 polled, 62 members responded, and over 85% of them voted in favor of exposing the truth.

Perceived advantages of informing the public were

• People might cooperate better with governments, instead of innocently demanding more energy or insisting on lower fuel taxes (As fuel imports cost more and more, cutting taxes will just impoverish governments, and cause cuts in services like health care, education and social welfare. A great deal of energy conservation is possible, and is a better solution.)
• People can make correct decisions for themselves personally (to have less children, plan cheaper transport, safer jobs, pay off debts, consume less, conserve energy more, etc.
• All the cleverest minds and wisest leaders of the world could work on the problem. With them helping, and an understanding public, we might fare better than if everyone continues innocently wasting the remaining energy and bringing the oil and gas crash to us faster and sooner.

You may copy freely to others…

• This web page (you can refer people to it: http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ   
• ‘The Oil &Gas Crash and You’ files. This shorter one, and the full version are downloadable at… http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/OCAY19SHORT.doc  http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/OCAY19.doc

• http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/OCAY19.doc http://www.geocities.com/RunningOnEmptyNZ/OCAY19.doc

There are no political or commercial allegiances associated with this document it was created as a personal enquiry, and in the public interest.

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

 I am renewed with inspiration and ideas to begin to live in a self-sustaining and regenerative way that will save the earth and promote co-operation and love amongst communities.

Permaculture is one of those words that most people who don’t know might easily associate with gardening.  That’s a bit like associating spirituality with prayer.  It’s an important part but it isn’t the whole.

On the last day as we shared our gifts in a circle outside on Koinonia Community Farm, we were reminded that permaculture is more than just growing food ecologically.  It espouses a way of life, the principles of which relate not just to growing food, but to our very way of living and being.

Golden Learnings – a way forward

With 230 million acres of forest being decimated in the last 3 years, we must change the way we live.  As long as people are addicted to MacDonalds and the like, forest will continue to be slashed down to make way for grain to feed animals for human consumption.

The Sahara desert was once a lush forest.  

The concrete skyscrapers of New York stand on land that was once covered with diverse trees and plant life, home to a plethora of wildlife and harvest-able edibles.  

We humans are gifted with intelligence and cognition.  We have used these gifts to do many good things, but we forgot to put on the brake.  

Human magnificence has created the keyline plough that doesn’t compact but aerates the land and it has also developed agriculture row farming and chemical fertilizers /pesticides that quickly destroy the natural fertility of Earth.

Say no to chemical fertilizers and yes to pig/chicken poo, compost teas and mulching

The same spark of creativity that discovered fossil fuels in the ground and a way of harnessing it for human energy can now be converted and harnessed to discover ways of capturing and storing energy.

Say no to city water, the electricity grid and say yes to elemental power from sun, water, wind and earth [solar, hydro-electric, windmills and geo-thermal sources of energy]

The same genius that learned to build cities is now able to find creative ways of creating natural dwellings that can appeal to all tastes from simple cob huts to huge earthship systems [Actor Dennis Weaver was one of the first people to build an earthship on his land in the 70's].

Say no to cement and urbanite and yes to sand, clay, straw, bamboo and tire-based structures.

The same genius that discovered penicillin and created anti-inflammatory drugs is now beign redirected to developing herbal medicines, alternative wellness programs and miracles like colloidal silver.

Say no to big Pharma and yes to growing your own medicinal herbs and plants, learning to make medicines and practising and using wellness ways as found in yoga, tai-chi, acupuncture and shiatsu.

The mind power that learned how to store and process food from across the world for mass consumption can also be turned to growing food forests that offer an earth-friendly way of feeding humans coupled with old-timey ways of preserving produce that promotes wellness and doesn’t drive us into the arms of diabetes, heart disease and toxic poisoning.

Say no to mass cultivation and imports of foods that enlarge our clod-hopping carbon footprint.  Say yes to home grown, local produce that is still replete with valuable vitamins and minerals because we pick, eat and share it as soon as we harvest it.

The same intelligence that worked out how to clone and genetically engineer can also be put to divining natural patterns and learning to grow in a way that preserves Earth and makes her a richer, longer lasting source of bounty for all life.

Say no to ‘So not Man’ and yes to heirloom seeds, non GMO foods and the right for farmers to save and distribute their own seeds.

We cleverly developed microwave ovens, espresso machines,  gas powered BBQ systems and state of the art kitchen appliances and it is that same cleverness that will help us to develop resource conserving solar and cob ovens as well as woodstoves that can serve dually as a heat source and cooking facility.

Say no to microwaves, electrical kitchen gadgets and discover the joy of woodstove cooker, solar oven baking and open fire BBQ’s using deadwood from the forest.

The intelligent faculty that helped us invent plastic bowls and man-made fibres can also be turned to learning how to make tree bark baskets, weave natural cloth from animal wool, and eating utensils carved from wood [ecologically harvested to encourage not deter reforestation]

Say no to buying more man-made fibres and plastics, re-purpose what exists instead of land-filling it and say yes to natural ecologically harvested materials for clothing, furniture, cooking utensils and building.

It took a genius to develop suburbia and vast city living structures and that same genius is now being harnessed to create transition initiatives, bringing communities together to build shared resources, and begin the ‘energy descent’.

Say no to urban skyscrapers, isolated housing and road dependent urban sprawls and say yes to helping your community begin to pull together and become self-sustaining and regenerative.

Our greatest gift and that which sets us ‘above’ the animals is that of intelligent creativity and innovation.   That is why we are the designated stewards of this land we call Earth.   Animals and plants know how to live symbiotically and harmonically, accepting natural culling from predators and death to ensure renewal but they do not have an overall sense of the whole.  

We do and it is our birthright to ensure that every life form is taken care of and that we restore natural patterns of living that will ensure the eternal existence of this birthright.

A Native American said to me the other day, pointing to the land we were standing on, ‘This is MY land’ ‘You are standing on the land of my ancestors’.   My response was ‘this is neither your land nor mine. 

It is not a question of right but a question of right stewardship and native ancestry does not always mean that someone knows what is right.

The land has been leased to all humans and we all have a duty to tend it with the same outlook that came from the true spirit of Native Americans not the one corrupted by the white man.     We are all potential stewards not owners.   

Owning land privately should not mean that you can treat it any way you care.   Ownership comes with a hidden responsibility to care for it with the whole planet in mind, not just your selfish concerns.  

Selfish Manicured Lawns

Behind the 10 acres and house that we are renting lies hundreds of acres of neatly manicured non-productive land.   The owner has a massive mansion set in the hilltops, a guest house and a shooting lodge. 

The land has been deforested to create a parklike atmosphere.. and a pond is fed from the creek to house fish that are only avaialble to the few.     And they visit it no more than 3 times a year for an odd day or two.

Say no to manicuring and hoarding land for ego purposes and say yes to land-sharing and using the land to create food, ecological living space and a haven for all of gods creatures, plant, animal and human.

Share The Land

Pic by localfoodcleveland.org

If you own more than 20 acres, you probably have far more than you need and are able to farm and nurture holistically without damaging that land.  If this is the case, please consider sharing your land with those who are willing to work for the good of Earth first and create a pleasant, productive, ecological space for humans, animals and plants to thrive and feed each other in reciprocal generosity.

Find out how land trusts can be written to ensure your lifetime stewardship and provide a measure of security for those who are willing to put their life toil into the land.

If you are on Facebook please join our Share The Land group or pass on this blog or link to people you know who have land and are willing to share or those who are willliing to work and need land on which to homestead and build local co-operative community.

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

I was just in a discussion with people who are talking about their fear that when the ‘crisis’ hits, people will be invading their land with guns and pillaging and looting. I understand and sympathise… and yet I am horribly afraid that our very soul and spirit is at risk if we continue to think like this.   And I am not speaking as one who has got it and is practising it yet.  But I know in the depths of my soul that I must let go and become more giving, less self concerned and more open to the goodness and potential of our humanity.

We must pre-empt this and I don’t think the solution is more fences and more defences. 

In World War II when crisis hit, people pulled together.  In England, children who were in the most bombable target places like cities were evacuated to rural homes.  My own mothers family had to take in two city kids and have them living as part of the family.  My grandfather dug up his orchard and planed vegetables so that he could feed his village and he did it, working night after night, pulling in his kids and friends to help.

People shared, they made room and sacrificed their own luxuries to care for their fellow human beings.

What if in our plans and designs for eco-friendly living we were to make provison for this. Permaculture thinking talks about sharing the surplus.   I think it has to go beyond this and that we may have to sacrifice some of what we have to allow others to live. 

 If each person who has a home and a plot of land were to consider the minimum they can survive on and make provisons to take in those less fortunate and less informed fellow beings, we might just make it.

I urge each and every one of you to begin to make these provisons.  If you have land work out what you need to survive minimally and begin preparations to take in refugees.   This may sound crazy but it seems to me that by offering rather than trying to withold and protect we might avoid excessive violent confrontation.

That is why it is vital for ALL COMMUNITIES to pull together and create ‘refugee spaces’. We need to start planting food forests now everywhere there is available space and even on our own spare space. 

We need to think about lobbying for fundingor tax breaks for those who are willing to create ‘guest living spaces’ by building earth structures and kitting them out for survival for the less fortunate.

If we live our lives in fear of losing what we have, we will.   I am not worried on a personal level.  My husband and I have no land and no money but we do have good friends whom we know will, out of the kindness of their hearts, make space for us.    And we have survival skills. If we have to we will go into the woods and forage and live by firelight and our wits.  We are not afraid. But we are in the minority.

We must also encourage those who are living in the illusion to wake up.   We must begin to educate people in survival techniques. We must have gathering points and facilities to ‘farm out’ people before they take matters into their own hands.    We must begin a program of education NOW.     Do you really need that iphone or second car or thirty extra acres?  How many pairs of shoes or doggie coats can you eat when there is no food.

In a society that allows its citizens to arm themselves, we must be aware that unless we make provison, hungry people will take matters into their own hands.

I urge you to get together with your community, friends, family, neighbors and start talking now about how you can provide space, comfort and nourishment for your fellow man.  And if you are on the edge, begin now to make friendly relations, ask yourself how you can help and offer value in exchange for a place to sleep and some food to eat.

I sense that the impending crisis will see many deaths and an inevitable paring down of our excessive human population.   But I sense strongly that we can avert some of the crisis if we take measures now.

If we want to belong to the human race and be considered as spiritual beings we have no other choice.  This is a difficult path to take, and some may say ‘it’s all very well for you you have nothing to lose’ and that’s true… but I’d like to think that whatever I have I will be willing to share and I have a lot more than many.

Many indigenous tribes lived by the credo that if a stranger passes into their path, they are obliged to offer that person sustenance, no matter how little they have.   And they did so willingly and with love and a sense of offering NOT sacrifice. Some people on this earth still live like this.

I am determined to pare down what we need to the bare minimum and examine each time I feel a sense of fear that others may take what is ‘mine’.   

I truly want to be part of a human family and to do that means we must not make fences and divisions between ourselves and other humans.  It means that we will all have to make sacrifices… that we must learn the true meaning of connection and not just spout it as some kind of airy fairy credo.    If we don’t then we are not all one, we are not connected and we will lose our souls.

Is this possible? I don’t know, but I am afraid that if we dont’ change this thinking we will invite death and destruction in far greater proportions than we can imagine.

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

Permie’s might be likened to earth-friendly ‘jedi warriors’ on a crusade to restore the Garden of Eaten by going beyond the dark side [embodied in our warlike 'dominator' culture, human greed,reckless consumption and selfish corporatism represented by entities like 'No Man Satan/So Not Man and The Big Pharm].  

The word ‘religion’ comes from the Latin re [back] and ligare [tie or connect].  Through time the quest of humanity has been reconnect themselves to what some call spirit or god

My sense of God is not as the awesome figure in white robes sporting a long white beard watching over me from the sky like a threatening cloud, which was how I thought of him as a child, but as the force and spirit of all life that one of my mentors described as  ‘That which is greater than self, of which we are a part and not apart from’.    

“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, it penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.“  Obi Wan Kanobe Star Wars

It seems to me that, until we can connect to this universe on which we live and truly return to and embrace mother Earth, recognizing that we are an intrinsic part of and not apart from and above the system of life, we are up humanure creek without a bamboo paddle.  

Most religions offer dogmatic rules that make no sense to me.  The permaculture ethics and design principles, on the other hand, offer a set of guidelines that go beyond designing a way of living and offer hope for some kind of survival. 

It makes sense  to grow plants and trees that work symbiotically and reduce our long term labor demands.

It makes sense to use our poop as a fertilizer instead of flushing it into our drinking water system.

It makes sense to design our space for functionality and purpose.

It makes sense to plant for the future as well as for our immediate needs

It makes sense to make our own ’cheap as chips’  natural miracle-grow rather than putting profit into the pocket of pharmaceutical giants

It makes sense to catch and store sunlight and divert water into natural irrigation systems and ponds for fish and other aquatic life to flourish in.

It makes sense to mulch the land with cardboard, manure and straw as opposed to breaking our back or bank [with a tractor] to dig  huge planting trenches that destroy the soil. 

It makes sense to value diversity and work together as a system rather than as separate entities. 

It makes sense to make the least change for the greatest result and it makes complete sense to put our efforts into local, easily obtainable, natural organic food production that can sustain us whether we live in a city or rurally.

Last night one of my fellow participants said that now she truly knew the meaning of the saying that until you find something you are willing to die for you have not found your calling.    It was a goose bumpy moment.

The ‘commandments’ of permaculture are the ‘design principles’ and instead of ten there are twenty[although some have reduced it to twelve or ten].   These principles are rather like the pillars of a great temple, each playing a role in supporting the whole structure. 

These principles are foundated on four ethical considerations.

Care of the Earth

As designers, our first ‘client’ has to be Earth.  In considering our plan, we must always ask ourselves ‘how will this benefit Earth? And if it doesn’t, regardless of whether we think it’s great for humans, we must discard it.   This is pretty heavy duty.  If you drive a car, you are not earth friendly. If you use air conditioning, you are not earth friendly’.  If you use pesticides or buy food that travels halfway across the world to reach your dinner plate, you are not earth friendly.

In fact there are very few of us on this planet who truly are ‘earth friendly’.  Just because we buy organic or drive a Prius and recycle our plastic and tin cans, or pay back a few dollars in carbon footprint penance  we mustn’t kid ourselves that our  life style is OK. It isn’t.   We humans have made a lot of mistakes and we are on the brink of disaster.   If we don’t stop now, re-ssess how we live our lives, and make HUGE changes, there won’t be an Earth for us to inhabit.  

This is not a judgement call.  I write this as a fellow sinner knowing that whilst forgiveness is always available, it is our duty as ‘reformed sinners’ to start walking a more righteous path.

That’s a kind of turn around for us humans who have spent so many eons believing that we are more important than anything and that the earth is there as an endless well of chocolate for us to gorge on.   [Although, if you've tasted the bitter chocolate pecan bars that Koinonia produce you might be tempted into the sin of gluttony]

Care of Humans

Our second most important client, as designers, is humanity.  That doesn’t mean that we’re more important than animals or plants.  We aren’t. But we are more intelligent and with that intelligence we have a responsibility.  If we live with holistic integrity, then animals and plants get to do their thing to the best of their abilities  and everyone is happy.

Give Away the Surplus

How many pairs of shoes or items of jewellery or bath towels do you really need?   As someone who has gone from being fairly comfortable to on the edge of poor I have learned to value functionality over style and frivolity.  

When we stop being greedy and selfish, recognize that our needs are far less than we’ve been hypnotized into believing, limit what we consume and how many of us are on this earth, we will have enough left over to give to others. That’s a pretty tall order for the consumer culture we’ve been cunningly trained into by those who wish to pump up our false economy.

The last permie ‘article of faith’  requests that we respect the intrinsic value of all beings.

There really is nothing natural on this earth that is not part of the grand design. Snakes, spiders, wasps and even soldier flies all have a role to play if we’ll only recognize what it is and utilize it as it was meant to be.

Here are a few of the design principles… see if they make sense to YOU…

Observe and Interact

The foundation of this is about being ‘present’ or ‘in the now’. When our five senses are on full receiver mode we take in much more information about what’s going on that when we’re ‘in our heads’.  And like that we can react more quickly and more effectively. 

Design for Reduncancy

Don’t put your eggs in one basket.  If you’re using monoculture and a blight pops up, the whole crop will be gone and your stomach will be rumbling.  Multiple streams of income and a variety of planting, maturing at different times, ensure that if one fails, there is something else to put pennies in your pocket and fill your stomach

Use Appropriate Technologies

We have to be realistic.  If we have a lot of earth moving to do in order to set up a long term ecological system, it’s OK to use gas-powered machinery.  We just need to be mindful of not becoming over reliant and consider this as a short term solution that can eventually be replaced by more earth-friendly ways.

Stack and Pack

Instead of laying out your garden in rows, use the vertical as well as the horizontal. Squash and cucumbers don’t have to grow along the ground.. they’re often quite happy trailing themselves up a strong corn stem or a tree trunk.  Look at the unders and overs.    Tomatoes can grow happily strung from the eaves of a roof and herbs or grapes can flourish on a rooftop turf.

Obtain a Yield

Don’t just plant stuff to look good, make sure that it can sustain yourself and your family and strive to go beyond that so that you can help others less fortunate than yourselves and have stuff to trade.  As they saying goes ‘you can’t work on an empty stomach’.

Produce no Waste

Re-use everything.   Cardboard becomes a mulch base, old bottles can build retaining walls, plastic  bottles can catch water, your poop and urine are mega effective zero cost natural fertilizers, and food scraps feed chickens and pigs.  

Use Energy Efficient Planning

When designing your permaculture lifespace, it makes sense to put your herb and kitchen garden NEXT to the kitchen.  You get easy access and they get greater care from being close to you.  Divide your area into zones, the closest one being the ones you access on a daily basis and the furthest ones being wild land like an area of forest that needs minimal human interaction and then only for healing.

Design from Patterns to Details

Start with the big picture and then fill in the details.  You’d be surpized at how we zone in on something we want like a ‘herb garden’ or a particular tree and become so obsessively and narrowly focused that we end up trying to manipulate everything else to fit that. If it doesn’t fit into the whole pattern, it won’t work no matter how much we want it to.

Start Small and Learn from Change

Make lots of small mistakes that become learning milestones, rather than big ones that turn into disaster tombstones.  Big mistakes will linger on in living death, longafter we are gone.

And there are more and that’s what ‘google’ is for….

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

As you can imagine,  I was not looking forward to having to make a scale map of a 500 plus acre farm as part of my team permaculture project.   

 Handy Body Measurements

As we sat down to a session on map making given by Dylan, another of the dedicated assistant trainers on this amazing 2 week permaculture course,  my automatic psychological ‘numbers escape mechanism’ was activated and my eyes started to close. But not for long.  It’s amazing how learning just meanders in when you’re having fun.

Instead of being confounded by trigonometry and calculations I found myself learning how to measure using my bodies.   I discovered that the space between the top and second knuckle on my pinkie finger measures roughly 1 inch.   My arm span is 5′7 and when I stand up straight and raise my right hand, it measures 7′2″.  Wow, I’m a living ruler.   

One of the ‘design principles’ of permaculture is ‘use appropriate technologies’. This means finding tools and technologies that liberate us from dependency.  It doesn’t mean that we have to throw away our tractor or computer and build a road with a shovel and a pen and paper.  

Modern technological tools can be really useful and whilst we still have the electricity and fuel to power them and they are utilized for the greater purpose we should.  A chainsaw can help us build a log home quickly, and when the fuel runs out, we can learn to use a cross saw just like the participants in Frontier House did.

If we’re creating a food forest garden that will eventually feed hundreds of people, it’s perfectly ethical to do what it takes to set it in motion, using big and techie tools in the beginning and then moving onto more ecological innovative, simpler methods.

And what could be more ecological and simpler than using our bodies as measuring instruments?    If you don’t have your tape measure or one of those digital laser things that need batteries and are liable to break down [as was my experience years ago when the realtor reduced the size of my living room by 6ft because his fancy digital measure was on the blink] relax, because as long as you’ve got all your limbs, and a willing friend, you can still take pretty accurate measurements.

In that spirit, we step outside into the crisp sunny afternoon to watch the intrepid Dylan demonstrate how to measure 100 ft using our paces.  

He marks out a 100ft path and places two flags at either end. Starting at the first flag, we walk to the furthest one and back again at a regular leisurely pace counting up each time we put the same foot on the ground again.   Average out the two and I now know that twenty of my leisurely paces are equal to 100ft.    It’s so simple I want to cry!

A few minutes later, Patricia prances onto the grass waving a round protractor with a string dangling from it with a pen attached to the end of the string.  She shows us how we can measure the angle of rise of a distant object by holding the protractor to our eyeline and tilting it to meet the top of the object we’re measuring.   The string moves round the protractor to reveal the angle.   Doh!

And if you’re going to build a road, you’ve got to know the angle of elevation so that you can calculate how to wind the road round so that the rise is not too steep.    Yes, I did say ‘build a road’.

Little Old Lady Road Building

After Patricia’s presentation on road building yesterday, as someone whose home improvement skills were limited to what I could do with a hammer and a box of nails,  I had a big grin on my face as I thought to myself  ‘ohmygosh, I actually know how to build a road’ 

Patricia remarked to me on the way out of her road building presentation, with a twinkle  in her sparkly green eyes,  ’If a little old lady can build a road, anyone can’. 

Back out on the lawn, Dylan took us through our paces again.  This time we were learning how to measure  the distance across a creek by using nothing more than our hand, eyeline and the foot of a friendly partner.  This is of course vital if we want to know how long a tree we must cut down to make a bridge across the water.   I am beginning to feel more than a little empowered!

This course is peppered with all kinds of fascinating  tricks and tips for doing things simply and innovatively and in particular gardening.

Make-do Gardening Tips

Chuck Marsh’s gardening tips are unmissable.  This man has 35 years experience of permaculture and he must have tried every trick in the book.   

If you are thinking of throwing away that old mattress forget it.   You can turn it into a garden by placing it on top of a piece of old plastic sandwiched between two layers of old carpet and a bit of straw.  Poke a few holes in the top, shove in some seeds, water it and hey presto.. you’ve got a raised garden bed.

And instead of forking out $9.99 for one of those fancy tomato hangers [as we did in our ignorance] you can make one out of a couple of plastic store bags and some old chicken wire with a bit of scrap material scraps wrapped around it to stop light degradation [Bob added in that bit].

Old tires, which generally end up being burned are an amazing re-purposing resource.  Slice off the top, shove in some soil and a bit of manure and you’ve got an urban container planter.   Short of space?  Plant some tall growing field corn and a little later, shove in some beans which with a little bit of encouragement from you will grow quite happily up the stem of the corn. 

Chuck advised urban gardeners to carry a poking stick around with them… and each time they see a bit of earth, poke a hole in the ground and shove in some seeds.   He told us how he got his landlord to plant a couple of apple trees in his garden which fed the homeless with nutritous organic snacks.   The trees were conveniently located along the route from the homeless shelter to the liqor store!!!

If you’ve got some old windows [and there's plentiful discard of old windows as more and more of those who can afford it sling out their old ones in favor of energy saving sealed units] and a bale of straw you’ve got the makings of a greenhouse.  

Stick the bale of straw on its side, stuff in some manure or mulch on top, pour water into the bale until it’s saturated, shove in some seeds and lean a window up against it.   On top you can raise the hardier green leafy stuff while using the space between the angle of the window and the straw bale as a kind of make do hothouse.

If you think you can’t because you don’t have any space, we heard today from one participant about the abundant gardens being raised by New Yorkers in tiny apartments using a 3′ by 4′ window and vertical spacing.  ANYONE can grow food.   There are even portable plastic sprouters that provide high quality, portable nutrition that can be grown in  two or three days in the back of your rucksack.  

If you want to find out more, there are oodles of books appearing on the market on the topic of guerrila gardening, dumpster diving and repurposing

Map Making Triumph

And as for mapping, my design team consisting of a retired lawyer, a refugee worker, a farmer and myself actually managed to draw out our map tonight using google earth and a calculator.  After hours of debate, hair tearing out and sleepless nights we finally did it.   

Next comes the good stuff.. planning out how to make an income yielding resource out of an intentional community farm that will not only feed the members of the community but also provide plenty of excess to share with friends and neighbors and be regenerative and self-sustaining for many years to come.

I can’t wait to get back home and put all this into action.. and already we’re thinking about how our newfound knowledge can really and truly help to put nutritious food in the mouths of the hungry and set up a food forest for the future.  

I’m hooked and I bow down to the wonderful people who’ve made it their life mission to take permaculture from a little known esoteric activity to being the potential answer to saving and healing this planet.   

Incidental Mushroom Foraging

And a special hurrah to Bob’s design team who found a huge clump of Lions Mane wild mushroom in a hole in a tree.    Looks like we’ll be eating exotic wild mushroom soup tomorrow alongside all the other amazing goodies our chefs are cooking up each day.

More Permaculture Info

There’s another of these courses planned in Atlanta this year… and I suspect it’ll sell out quickly. For more information check www.georgiapermaculture.com  and check Patricia Allison’s site for more permaculture events round the country.  http://www.patriciaallison.net/schedule.php.  Chuck Marsh teaches permaculture and also runs a medicinal plant nursery in NC.  http://www.usefulplants.org/

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

Looking at my mind mapped notes I see a symbol that, sadly, I’ve used a few times today.  It’s a gravestone with the letters RIP.   Because, if we don’t stop and rethink, revise and regenerate our way of being on this earth.. ALL THE TREES WILL BE GONE in 2050.

If you have ever walked in a forest, smelt the pine, crunched your feet on the mulch of leaves and twigs, stood in a circle of trees and felt the energy or watched the pines waving in the wind you will probaly recall just how precious that feeling is.  But our personal forest experience is but a tiny jewel in an Indra’s net of magnificence compared to the vital role trees play in all life on earth.

Our notes described trees as ‘interfacers, transformers of energies of wind, water and sunlight.  

If our grid electricity were turned off tomorrow, we’d all be up in arms, rioting in the streets, demanding that the service is returned immediately.   Many people would die.   It’s the same with trees, only it’ll take a little longer. Rather like the difference between a quick slice and dice death and a slow lingering one. 

There probably isn’t a person in this so-called ‘civilized’ part of the universe who hasn’t heard of the plight of the Amazon Rain Forest.    We humans are not only short sighted we’re unconsciously suicidal.  We cut down trees to grow crops to feed cattle so that we can make ourselves sick on burgers in pursuit of short term satisfaction yet we ignore the plight of the trees. 

Trees stabilize global temperatures, store carbon, enhance water and preserve offshore reefs and marine life. They are a vital source of nutrition and medicine. They provide a habitat for animals and other plants. Trees offer shade, protect us from wind, warm us with their wood, provide lumber, glue, nuts, pollination, fix nitrogen in the soil, aerate it and offer spiritual solace.  Trees can even make rain!

Traditional agriculture is Earth’s worst enemy.   We cut down our precious trees, turn the soil up which destroys topsoil to grow rows and rows of wheat or corn.   The pests look at it and see a buffet of food readily available, so we drench the land with pesticide. The topsoil degenerates so we cover her with fertilizer.   If  the likes of  ‘So NOT Man’ have their way we’ll destroy the very hand that feeds us and they’ll be sitting in their decaying mansions with a fistful of dollars.  Ever tried to eat a dollar bill or a gold coin?

Down deep and dirty

My father imported toys for a living, so my bro and I had a lot of toys and yet our favorite game of all was to be out in the garden making fake ‘dinners’ with mud, berries and twigs.    I only recalled this fondly after an afternoon of building a swale.   Swales are kind of dams that divert the flow of water to make it more appropriate for both the land and humans. 

Bob took us over to an area between two buildings where, after a heavy rainfall, water flowed in a particular path, making it muddy and difficult to transverse.   As we looked over to one building we could see that the broken gutter was the source of the water flow.   So we set to building a dam to avert the water flow using earth from another project on site.

After we’d shovelled heaps of earth and tramped it down, which reminded me of a version of wine making, we had to make sure it was level.    I love repurposing so I was squawking with delight when I saw what I now know is an A-Frame level.  It was made out of discarded bits of wood, a stone, some string and a couple of strips of tape.    It worked perfectly.

The exercise was a reminder of how important planning for all needs is.  Sarah, who lives in the community and is attending the course, pointed out that the dam was all very well, but what about the people who wanted to get up in the middle of the night and cross the path to get a snack from the kitchen.      So we set to making a step arrangement from some old concrete stuff.    Hmmm.  It just didn’t work.  And then someone came up with the bright idea of creating a path round the dam.

Chuck, our lead trainer, pointed out that this was an example of how important it is to plan.  This was what he calls a ’small mistake’.   Big mistakes in permaculture are ones that we have to live with for years.  Rather like a neighbor who build a big house on a hill and didn’t put in the silt dams.   In a few years the hillside will start to erode and wash down the hill, the pond below, which is full of fish will be full of silt, the fish will die and his house won’t be so steady…  Everything has a consequence for more than just our own individual desires.

Planning and design are the keystones. If we get the plan right, we’ll have trouble free living for years to come and if we don’t.. we’re screwed!

Chuck reminded us that in permaculture ‘the opposite is also true’.    What works in one situation, might not work in another and there are many solutions to our design challenges.

We were wondeirng what we could do to divert the people from crossing the dam instead of using the path and innovative solutions such as putting a brush pile by the side of the path, or planting paw paws or other suitable plants would not only make it pleasant, offer edible pickings but also keep them on the path!

Carbon Footprints

After dinner we adjourned to the library where Bob and Isabel put up the website www.myfootprint.org where you get to figure out your impact on the earth in acres.   Fascinating fact was that when Bob, who lived in Bangladesh for 3 years, calculated that even living like a king there, his footprint was lower than living in the States.   Know what the most heavy-carbon factor is?  OWNING A CAR.  

Maybe it’s time we got a horse and cart like the Ingalls in Little House in the Prairie. Rural dwellers are at a disadvantage for travel because we have to travel so far. So maybe it’s also a reminder that LOCAL LIVING is gonna be the only way to go.

Bob and Isabel are my homesteading exemplars.  They live in the middle of a 40 acre forest somewhere in mid Georgia.  They treated us to a slideshow of their homesteading journey.  All I can say is that to me living in a home made of cardboard, surrounded by a jungle of edible and medicinal plants, with chickens and goats in pens made from dumpster diving materials j[as was a lot of their 'cabin']not to mention the ’swimming hole’ constructed from discarded plastic & living coppiced trees that grow shade in the summer, is my idea of heaven.    

Meanwhile, it’s 8am and time for class to begin. It’s pretty cold here and even the delicious breakfast of home harvested sausage, quiche made with a crust of cooked brown rice and ground up seeds, coconut rice porridge, kefir and home grown grapefruit can’t keep out the bite.     

This course has been totally inspiring.  I find myself jumping up and down with delight at the potential, at the information that is so vital to spread out into the worldand the idea of building our own repurposed living quarters in the middle of an edible jungle of plants and trees all working together in perfect harmony.  

Blogs- check out one of our chef’s blogs

She’s also posting the daily menu on Facebook if you want a gustatory thrill go friend her.  http://www.facebook.com/#!/ms.milkweed?ref=ts

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

Oooh as a revolutionary activist at heart, that got me good and proper.  This morning was filled with profound statements and stories about permaculture, what it is and what it means to us…

Ask most people who aren’t overly familiar with it, they’ll probably tell you it’s about ‘gardening’ and it is. BUT that’s just the surface of this design for life on earth.

Permaculture is a spiritual practice. And I don’t mean that we sit and meditate underneath the canopy trees or worship at the altar of richly mulched soil.   

Permaculture is a design for ethical living and perhaps the only thing that will save this earth from the crap we’ve inflicted on it.   Patricia, one of our lead teachers, suggested we start to call her ‘Earth’ leaving out the ‘the’.  As she pointed out Earth is a living being and deserves to be recognized as such.   

Chuck, our lead teacher with Patricia, and a 35 year-long permaculture activist and passionata, described it as

“An ecological design system for creating regenerative human habitats’.  He said that when he heard politicians using the world ’sustainability’ he knew it was time to find a new word. Regenerative kind of works for me too.

One by one the teachers stood up and shared their definitions of this thing called permaculture. Each of them were obviously moved deeply by their passion.   I use the word passion a lot.  Passion for the earth, for the sanctity of human life drives these people and I can feel it welling in me as I sit there immersed in it.

Bob told us that yesterday he saw a tree on this land that he could hardly put his arms around. It was a tree that he planted here 20 years ago.    He’d tried living in different communities and somehow found himself back here in Georgia, homesteading 40 acres with his partner Isabel, because, as he put it, his mission was to ‘bring Permaculture to Georgia’.  I’m with you Bob…

Penryn talked of the land she’d inherited in Kentucky and how she’d realized that her mission was to bring this work to Kentucky….

A theme was developing that touched me deeply… we all have a duty to spread the word, at local level, no matter how tough the resistance.  That is what pioneers do… and in their own way, these people are all pioneers.  Again, I feel humbled to be part of this growing movement…

Another description that moved me was the idea of permaculture as a ‘design dance between people and the natural world’ an interaction of flow and motion rhythm, give and take.

Patricia described Permaculture as an ‘umbrella for all her spiritual beliefs’ and that echoed what my husband has been saying for years in reference to his love for the earth first manifest in the woeful cry of a twelve year old writing a poem about his beloved… His warcry is ‘It’s my religion’.   

That about sums it up.  Permaculture is the new religion.  Now I know that some people might consider this ’sacreligious’ but it makes sense to me.  Eons ago when the principle energy of the world was feminine, Gaia or mother earth was worshipped, adored and taken care of… and then the male energy came in and we entered a long period of earth rape.

I’m not getting at men… it’s just a way of describing the difference between softly treading and harshly marching… And now,I sense that this female energy is emerging again in both men AND women and we are finding a new way to honor Earth.

The big difference now is that we don’t have time to waste dancing naked in the woods and adoring the earth in ceremony, sweet as that may be.  This lady is dying and we gotta get down dirty and give her CPR.  

Which was exactly what we did today in the mulching exercise.  I knew I was in love when I got down on the ground and dug my hands eagerly into the pig manure to spread it on the garden.   There’s something so alive about touching her body… this lady we know as Earth.   She’s so responsive…

We were presented with two young peach trees which had grass growing a little around them.  Various heaps of material were piled up, in the same way professional chefs on TV have those little white bowls of ready chopped ingredients that they just pop into the mix.

First off we learned that turning the earth with tractors or even spades was an absolute no no. It compacts the earth…So all Bob did was stick a pitchfork in here and there to aerate it. 

After that we shovelled on a heap of pig and chicken poop mixed with a bit of straw and other dirt which we spread in a 10ft diameter circle around the little peach tree.  Then we stuck in some blueberries.  And I literally mean, stuck in.  Someone dug a spade into the ground, pulled back the sod and in went the yummy antioxidant cuttings…

After that we covered the entire circle with cardboard [all tape removed] and a discussion ensured about pure cardboard, chinese cardboard, soy printed paper and more… Bottom line is if people are starving a bit of chinese cardboard is better than none!  But we were going for the full on organic thing here so we used pure cardboard.   Every single gap was covered and double covered. This Bermuda Grass is a greedy blighter and will peek it’s head up through even the teeniest gap.

I realized that my rather half hearted effort to ‘mulch’ our bit of growing land was pretty inadequate.. sheets of cardboard and a scattering of yard mowings won’t cut the mustard here.  And our gratitude to the Deputy Sherrif [our neighbor] who cut and turned the land with his huge tractor is somewhat diminished.. but as they say ‘bless them for they know not what they do’ and the generous intention is well appreciated].

The cardboard was watered down and then some..

After that we shoved on heaps of straw, fully covering the cardboard.   Then we planted some irises around the circle of the tree, after Brendan, the lead gardener of the community, had placed some plastic pots around the base of the tree to protect it. 

We used knives, trowlels and whatever was on hand that would cut the cardboard.  Bob showed us how to make a slit in it and just laid the iris with its root on top.. after that, we just shovelled a little bit of soil starter to give it a booster. and tucked it up in a bed of straw.  

Bob reminded us to plant the annual foody stuff where we could reach it. Irises don’t have to be picked but taters and onions do! 

So here we have this little permaculture plot with a peach tree, blueberries and annual such as potatoes and onions.   Seed potatoes grown up North were used.  And we’re doing this in the beginning of February… Tthe temperature outside here in Southern Georgia was up in the late fifties and delightfully warm so God blessed our planting today.

A hole cut in the cardboard, the potato was simply laid on top and covered in straw. Bob assured us that it would be enjoying a period of growth while the cold was still with us and would give around 6 – 10 potatoes per one planted.   

The onions were planted in triangular form… we used green onions… and again a little hole dug, in the cardboard, pop in the onion, shove on some soil starter and spread the straw around it and finally we heaped piles of pecan shells onto the top. Because people come to visit here and like it to look nice, we also placed circles of bricks around the garden.  

A little part of me and all my fellow permaculturists in waiting will be left in this wonderful place.  Perhaps like Bob, we’ll return in twenty years and with tears in our eyes look at the little bit of garden that we were responsible for starting.  

I loved every moment of it, from picking up handfuls of piggy poop to spreading straw..digging holes in cardboard and putting in blueberries.   And as I remarked to one of our group… these things are like weeds down here yet we still pay $3.99 for a pathetic punnet that’s probably travelled a few hundred miles.  Not for long. 

Somehow everyone just mucked in and did their bit… There’s something so satisfying about getting down in the dirt.. and even more exciting for me was that I’d actually done something practical and that for many years down the line,  people will be eating luscious berries from those little shoots that we stuck in ground today.

After that we engaged in the planting of a number of yummy foodstuffs in our stomachs.. including the hog that was slaughtered this week.  Quinoa pilaff, broccoli and cheese, I can’t even remember what we ate only that it was downright divine…Of course Earthy Girl is pretty versed in giving her lovers a great time!!!

The afternoon was taken up with patterns, led by Zev who talked earlier about how nature’s cuisine is different everywhere populated by species that want to be there.   I thought about my husband and his affinity with patterns and wished he could have been there to see it..

I studied something called NLP for many years. NLP is about modelling what works and adopting strategies for success. Permaculture is Nature’s NLP… It takes what works, uses patterning and reapplies it to create edible gardens using strategies tried and tested by nature herself.. But as we learned earlier, this stuff goes way beyond gardening… It truly is a design for living…More of that later.

We in the West are well aware that we won’t be able to live the way we do for much longer.. The Cubans didn’t have a choice. When we embargoed them and Russia collapsed they were left with nothing.   Our bedtime movie was all about how, through dire need, they learned to permaculture the entire country…

But it truly is bedtime now and I’m ready to hit the sack.. and despite the sunshine today it’s pretty cold right now… and tomorrow is another day….

And I leave you with the thought that, as we were told today…

It’s time to put the ‘nature’ back into ‘human nature’.

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

I have never been more humbled than in the presence of this amazing group of diverse people. 

After a feast prepared by the community including veggie casseroles, chilli and pizza with beef reared on the very grass I’d walked across earlier this afternoon, fresh organic veggies, the most delicous apple dumplings and milk straight from the cow, we adjourned to the ‘museum’ where we had our opening circle.

One by one we stood up and shared what we brought to the group, what we wanted, our roots, story and uniqueness.

A more diverse group of people would be hard to find.  I felt like a pioneer in a wagon train of strangers únited in their common burning desire to set out on the road to create a better life, not just for themselves but as a legacy to the world.    

There’s a young monk who dresses in a utility kilt because his robe gets in the way of the mucky gardening work.  He told me that his order wants to establish a monastery in the centre of Atlanta with a forest fruit garden. 

Another lady who’s a Tax CPA had tears in her eyes as she stood up and said she was obsessed with environmental issues.. with the earth and her connection to it to the point that she’s in the process of giving up her career to follow this path.

A chiropractic doctor, recently qualified said that she was passionate about health and food and that she wanted to be able to heal her patients and to have them understand the difference between an orange bought in the store and one grown in someone’s backyard.

A Southern gal who’d inherited her family’s run down farm in Georgia realized that something was going on when she turned down a generous offer for the land and decided instead that she wanted to make it come alive again.

A father and his son came learn and  to spend time with each other.. the father, an analytical engineer was looking for a way of living more sustainably while his son was searching for a new and more meaningful direction in life…

One guy said he’d been in a dark place until he discovered permaculture.   Another remarked that this was not just about learning to garden or permaculture but about family and community.   There was a farmer who teaches special needs kids by having them come to his farm, a girl who wanted to turn Decataur into a forest garden and a slip of a girl whose dream was to live in sustainable community and revive her Virginia town. 

 One guy said that he grew up knowing only that food came from Safeway and now the only time he gets close to Safeway is when he’s dumpster diving.  He told us that our poo could become part of the system and directed us to the two humanure toilets in the grounds.

A lady who’d spent most of her life pushing paper had inherited some land and decided that retirement offers her the opportunity to turn that land around.  As we walked around the permaculture gardens earlier on she said ‘my goodness they told me sheep wouldn’t do well here and yet they’re thriving’. She likes to knit!

Men had tears in their eyes as they spoke passionately about the connection to the earth, growing plants and knowing that permaculture held the key to the future..

So many inspiring stories, so many passionate people…

A Montana gal in a leather cowboy hat told us how her divorced mother had taught her 3 daughters to hunt, fish, skin a hog and more.  She’s spent the last two years living in a green bus  touring the country teaching people about permaculture and healing herbs.  She smiled as she proudly referred to her daughter who was so into permaculture.

Each one of us had a uniquely interesting story yet each one shared a common thread.. we have all come to the same awareness that the future of the world lies in applying the natural systems of nature to produce abundant and fruitful food supplies.

I realized, tonight that after 57 years of wandering in the desert, I’d come home.  I’d found my passion.  It isn’t just about growing, being in touch with the earth, or permaculture..  it is about turning the world on to what’s possible and finding solutions to the devestation that we have inherited and perpetrated from years of ignorance. 

It is about recognizing as the Natives of America did that we ARE stewards and  that this earth is a living vital organism that can offer us all the abundance we need if we’ll only treat her right.

And on a personal note it is about using whatever talents I have to shout out loud and clear to anyone who’ll listen to me that growing forest food gardens everywhere is the greatest hope we have for the future. 

Tonight confirmed for me that abundance is not a pair of gucci boots or a fancy home..or anything to do with money  It is the taste of freshly picked kale, natural healing herbs and a slice of grass fed beef… and it is the coming together of all people to realize that we are all in this mess together and that it is only as one unit that we can emerge and be fit to live on this earth.

Tonight the lights came on as we looked up at the stars in a circle holding hands I knew that we were on the edge of a new dawning…

And I go to sleep nourished by the delicous food, the loving energy and the expansive visions of those people who I am honored to share the next twelve days with and maybe a lot lot more..

I also learned something about the Koininoia communitywhich was started in 1942 and was nearly devestated in the fifties because they paid their black workers the same as the whites.. and they sat down to dinner with human beings of different color and that was illegal.   Such was the hatred and prejudice that their homes were shot at, their roadside stalls destroyed and one shop that sold them fertilizer was bombed.  

They were even offered good money to leave the land but refused.   The founder told them ‘once you’ve worked the land you realize it’s like your mother and that he could no more sell that land than sell his mother.

They refused to give up and today this community that has gone through so much has begun to grow new shoots in the last five years becoming a thriving, loving group of people.  

This place is rife with the spirit of peaceful determination to do the right thing.  They are living proof that there is another way…

And after touring the pecan plant and bakery which uses a mixer that was made in 1910 [they didn't build in obsolescence in those days!], eating home grown pecans in the darkest chocolate ever and drinking raw milk fresh from the cow, I can’t wait to savor the pecan and peanut fed hog that they slaughtered today for our dinner later this week..

Pecan trees, I discovered really are ‘feed the future’ food.. taking up to 15 years to mature…

And now it’s time for bed as I have to be up at 6 and on breakfast clearing duty.   So much to learn, so many amazing and talented souls to connect with and learn from… I think I died and went to heaven!

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

On our way down here we came through Atlanta, another huge monument to concrete, ostentation and the money lords.   And I realized how I no longer have the urge to engage in  retail therapy in a mall.   My retail therapy nowadays consists of a trip to Dollar General to buy cheap plant pots and bathroom tissue.  And even that will probably phase itself out the more we return to earth..

A once in a blue moon visit to Sevenanda  one of the cities oldest co-operative stores in Atlanta’s Little 5 area, is the ultimate excitement.  

Aaaah my life is so simple, so sweet…fetching wood, making cornbread, dressing for comfort not fashion.. so what it was not!   We are living on the edge, we have far less  stuff, no TVand I’m far happier.

The back holler folk are amazing… they know how to live and many of the oldies we’ve encountered express concern that ‘these young folk gonna have a hard time cos they don’t know how to look after themselves without flickin’ a switch’. cern that ‘these   There are so many skills and knowings about the land, how to lives self-sufficiently and how to make do. 

They are literally walking Firefox encyclopedias and we’re reading them hungrily and they love sharing their knowledge.  But, I digress…

Six hours after leaving home via a leisurly wander around Wal-Mart and Target to pick up supplies, noticing the way people wander around picking up things because ‘they’re on offer’ or ‘that looks cute,we needed to stop again.

It was late, the truck was unheated and we pulled into a small town MacDonalds to get a coffee as my husband was in danger of falling asleep at the wheel.   Outside two or three ‘kids’ stood drinking liqor, the bottles hidden in brown paper bags. 

It’s still strange to me coming originally from the UK to see that phenomenon.  People in the UK drink just as much in public, they just dont cover it up in paper bags!  And it’s so sad to think that the only entertainmnent for kids like this on a Saturday night is to hang out in MacDonalds drinking booze.   

As we drove through the strip malls with signs saying ’strippers – need we say more’ flashing between countryside lit up by fluorescent and neon adverts for motels and insurance companies cajoling you to ‘have a better year in 2010′ [by buying insurance?]I realized how much I love the earth and the rural areas where I am blessed to live. 

Even if we have to return to living in an RV in the forest, it will be far more rewarding and closer to earth-living than cooped up in a town.  I crave the earth, the countryside and the sounds and smell of fresh cut wood, firesmoke and the deep fecund experience of walking in the forest.

As we moved out of the urban sprawls of lower income Southern Georgia reeking of dying attempts to survive in this illusory world of ’stuff’, we found ourselves in a ‘tree farming forest’ , the smoke of a local pulp mill blowing across the flat countryside.   

Nothing like the wild forests where we live. I love the area because it’s full of hollers and hills.  Round here it’s very flat which is an interesting contrast. 

Arriving last night after dark at Koinonia farm where the permaculture course is being held, was a breath of fresh air.  The prettily painted signs told us we were entering another world and in a way we were. You can smell and feel the peace here. 

Situated in over 500 acres, this Christian peace community is pretty laid back.  I’d called earlier to confirm that it would be OK for my husband to sleep over and break the 10 hr drive..and one of the ladies in the office said ‘there’s plenty of food – we had a great meal last night- so help yourself to leftovers’.

I already knew this would be a good place to hang out for 12 days, this added to the welcome and being here confirmed it.

The accommodation is basic, shared rooms and bathrooms with a kitchen and living area.. a ‘boys’ side and a ‘girls side’ and it’s sufficient – all we really need.   After meeting Isabel Crabtree, one of the teachers and chatting about ‘permaculture activism’ before we found our accommodation, we knew we were with like minded souls.

My husband says ‘this is the war we are fighting and it’s very different from how it was’. We’ll win them over with food and health and a realization that we must grow to survive and beyond that we must grow in a more ecological way’.  That’s why we’ve pulled out all the stops to enable me to do this course..

This morning we got up at cock crow, drank some herb tea and ate an avocad before driving into Americus which is about 5 miles away. Stopping at a Waffle house for coffee and a once in a blue moon wicked [and not even well cooked] breakfast we passed, on the way out a mother, daughter and son, all of whom were testament to how a regular American diet is killing people off slowly. 

Food Forest Gardens – the answer to our dietary hell

That’s why we’re so passionate about inspiring and encouraging people to start growing real food, food forests that provide fruits, berries, herbs, alongside an annual garden.  In a few years when the price of a hamburger has soared, and more people are on meds or dying from a ghastly diet, it might just be the salvation this world needs.

And talking of nuts, Kiononia is famous for its Pecans.  They grow and process lots of pecans.  So, you can imagine my delight when wandering around the grounds today, I found pecans lying on the earth.  Picking up a stone I cracked one then one more then one more open… and smiled… at the experience of tasting delicous food, fresh from the tree, knowing how good it was for me. 

Gradual Dietary Transition Works For Us

Our own dietary transition isn’t as drastic as my venture into raw foodiesm a few years back. Raw food is great, and it’s ultra healthy, but until we start growing our own and the right kind of ingredients together, it will remain exclusive to the ‘rich greenies’ who like I could way back then, can afford the greenstar juicer, the vitamix blender, the nutmilk maker, the dehydrator and all the other ‘high ticket’, grid-dependent  items such as raw chocolate, coconut oil…and agave syrup.  

We are adding more raw, especially sprouts,still picking our winter kale and mustard leaves, eating lots of veggies with every meal and saving energy by cooking everything on the woodstove/heater/cooker. 

We haven’t stopped eating meat, but our intention as soon as possible is to be able to grow our own and treat meat as just that ‘a treat’.  Naturally grazing animals provide a very different meat from their hormone stuffed factory farmed brothers and sisters.   We eat more raw nuts as snacks and juice fruit and veggies but not every day.

Gradual transition is working for us… as we embrace wellness promoting products like MMS and Colloidal Silver.   And we sense that by this time next year, we’ll be ready to plant the first permaculture style food forest garden in our area.

Permaculture Design Course – So Right for Us

This course is a milestone in our purpose… and judging by the enquires and enthusiastic support we’re receiving from people on a more frequent basis, food forest farming is gonna take off. 

And so I sit here in bright sunshine, still a morning chill in the air, writing this looking out on the tranquil grounds and cottages of this part of the complex I know even more surely that this was the right thing to do. 

We begin the course tomorrow, officially, and today most of the students will arrive for the opening circle and potluck dinner.   I found some reduced mushrooms in great condition and am gonna cook up a brown rice, mushroom, onion and jalapeno pilaff to bring along.

Birds are chirping, people walking around and it’s definitely wake-up time on Sunday morning. 

Tomorrow is the first teaching day of the course.. I can’t wait, and yet, even as we use those words so frequently, I know that life is not about waiting for what is to come, but enjoying what is.. the sound of the birds, the rural peace, light chitter chatter from community members greeting each other and mmmm brilliant,warm sunshine and fresh air.. not to mention the pecans!

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.

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 our of 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

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 longer.. Spring is just round the corner here! 

Suki our spirt animal on this adventure, doesn’t get to enjoy running through the forest,climbing treesand 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. 

Hubby, Forest Gardener, 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.

Feed The Future blog – follow my adventures and learn along with me
as I enter the world of permaculture design

© 2010, Pierre Soleil. All rights reserved but relaxed Pierre Soleil We like to pass on the word so YOU are welcome to use this document in accordance with the Creative Commons license. That is, you can tweet, facebook, repost, excerpt and even adapt it so long as you include a pingback or link to this blog.