Fingerlakespermaculture mailing list

[Dave Jacke <davej AT edibleforestgardens.com>]

Sorry for any cross-postings!  Please forward.

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Hello friends!

I am happy to announce several bits of newsy interest.

First, I have produced my first video arising from research on Mark Krawczyk’s and my Coppice Agroforestry book, looking at, of all things, the coppicing of Christmas trees!  Whodathunkit?  I didn’t even know you could do such a thing until I got an email in response to our Kickstarter campaign.  It’s pretty cool, as it saves money, reduces labor, and builds soil and wildlife habitat, so I hope the idea spreads. I put a low res version of this video up on the Kickstarter update page for our book, but this one is higher res, has no copyright issues (!), and includes some fun new music from yours truly and my friends Tatiana and Daniel.  You can view the video “Unbroken Circle” at: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsN1iTL6JBY

Second, I wanted to thank you all and let y’all know that Mark and I have ten days left to our Kickstarter campaign!  We have received $12,000 in backing so far, which is rather incredible!  And, we have another $6,000 we need to make this effort really work through the winter for us, so if you haven’t already backed our project please consider doing so.  You can visit our Kickstarter campaign at: 

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1713110732/dave-and-mark-write-a-coppice-agroforestry-book

Finally, I wanted to update folks a bit.  Mark heads out to California today to do coppice case study research there, in Oregon, and on the way back across the continent. Your support has made this trip work amazingly well, both monetarily and in terms of finding case study sites and people to connect with.  Thank you all!  This book has become a real community effort, and we feel grateful for that.  It looks much more likely that Mark will travel to Europe this winter, and given some of the leads people have sent we are also considering a trip to the Canadian Maritimes to visit little foot yurts, among other people and places (http://www.lfy.ca/).

In the meantime, Mark has written many dozens of pages of first draft, downloading from his bodymind much of what he has learned over his years of experience, pondering, and reading about coppice, pollard, and so on.  I have a lot of review and editing in my near future as we begin cutting, shaping, reframing, and filling in around these very early pieces.  I have also continued developing the plant species database, a long and tedious process that is coming along well.  In addition, our list of scientific papers and other references—both on hand and discoverd-but-not-yet-seen—has grown rather huge, much larger than we thought it would be, so I have also been organizing all of our references and contacts into a database to help us work out what refs we have on what topics/species, which we want to acquire, and where the holes in our literature search lie.  Another tedious process, but quite interesting, actually, to get an overview of where the field stands.

So our project is well underway, and we have a long way to go!  Thanks for your interest, thanks for your support, and thanks for telling your friends what we’re up to so we can receive more support, monetary and otherwise.  We hope you had a good Thanksgiving, and we wish you a happy solstichristmahanukwanzaa!!!

Peace and blessings,

Dave

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Dave Jacke
Dynamics Ecological Design
308 Main St. #2C • Greenfield, MA • 01301
603-831-1298 • davej AT edibleforestgardens.com

Visit www.edibleforestgardens.com for information on or to purchase my award-wining two-volume book, Edible Forest Gardens.

Mark Krawczyk and I are now writing a new book on Coppice Agroforestry!  Find out more and support our effort at 
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/coppiceagroforestry/dave-and-mark-write-a-coppice-agroforestry-book.

It is not the strongest species that survives,

nor the most intelligent,

but the one most responsive to change.

    Charles Darwin