Fingerlakespermaculture mailing list

[Michael Burns <michael AT fingerlakespermaculture.org>]

Frank Cetera (featured in this article) will be among the instructors  
in the "Community Training in Ecological Design" course that the  
Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute, along with the Alchemical Nursery  
and the Cooperative Extension of Onondaga County are offering this  
fall in Syracuse. The course teaches experts and novices a design  
method for assessing, designing and planning more sustainable homes  
and landscapes. Learn more at http://FingerLakesPrmaculture.org


GREEN WEEK / Wednesday, August 17, 2011
http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/article-5205-permaculture-club.html

[IMAGE]

Urban homesteading is a fancy term for going back to the earth

By Amanda Rockwell

Green is the new black. Recycling bins, compostable product packaging  
and wind/solar energy are just a few of the new and hottest trends.  
But hidden within many American cities is a larger-than-you-think  
population of people who dub themselves urban homesteaders; they  
aren’t just going green, they’ve been green. Now others seem to be  
catching on.

Urban homesteaders live by basic rules centered on an idea called  
permaculture, a compound word suggesting a practice that sustains  
itself over time. That definition, and a whole lot more, can be found  
in a new book, Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable  
Living (Skyhorse Publishing, New York City; 292 pages/softcover;  
$16.95), by Rachel Kaplan and K.

Ruby Blume. Kaplan knows of what she speaks: She has been an urban  
gardener for more than 15 years.

Within this easy-to-understand, wellorganized guidebook to  
homesteading, defined on urbanhomestead.org as “transforming a city or  
suburban home into a property that produces some or all of its  
residents’ own food and other subsistence needs,” the authors have  
compiled projects, ideas and values on permaculture from a wide  
variety of sources. The two acknowledge that no one has a handle on  
every aspect of homegrown sustainability, so they have gathered an  
abundance of knowledge from fellow homesteaders, validating the  
importance of collaborative community within this way of living.

Throughout the book, Kaplan eloquently reminds readers, without being  
preachy, of why the earth is worth preserving.

This how-to book suggests small changes readers can make to start  
homesteading themselves, no matter where you live: city, suburb or  
countryside.

Urban homesteading encompasses a large range of different green and  
sustainable ideas. Simply put, the practice is a return to the basics.  
Urban homesteading embodies skills and practices that many of us have  
forgotten while living our hectic lives. These homesteaders are  
resurrecting a simpler time by gardening, harnessing renewable energy  
sources, drying clothes on a line instead of in an appliance and many  
more ideas outlined in the book.

In Syracuse, an excellent example of urban homesteading exists on the  
Near West Side, at Alchemical Nursery. Frank Cetera, who works as a  
certified business adviser specializing in green business development  
for New York state, is a cofounder of the group whose mission is, in  
part, providing educational resources, dialogue space, networking  
tools and project development to develop equilibrium between humans  
and the environment.

Cetera is renovating a house at 717 Otisco St., looking forward to the  
day when the clay plaster walls, earthen floor and masonry stove will  
be completed. Not only does this work demonstrate the lifestyle  
choices Cetera has made, but it’s showing the neighborhood the  
importance of the environmental changes he believes we all need to make.

“The whole theory behind an urban homestead is for everything to work  
as one system: landscapes, agriculture and the residents all working  
as one unit to  thrive,” he says. Cetera hopes he can move in before  
winter so that he can start on the house’s interior. Meanwhile, he’s  
living at Bread and Roses collective, 162 Cambridge St., until the  
West Side home is habitable.

“My vision is that at least four homesteaders will share in the equity  
of the site and its production of food and energy,” Cetera says.  
Homesteaders believe there is no individual gain within permaculture  
living. Cetera is on board with Kaplan’s idea that the sharing of  
knowledge and education is the best way for growth within urban  
homesteads across the country. “It’s all about educating at this point.”

Cetera came to Syracuse about five years ago to earn a master’s degree  
in forestry from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and  
Forestry. While studying there he met some likeminded people who  
inspired Alchemical Nursery and the decision to create an urban  
homestead. The nonprofit organization’s mission is to spread the idea  
of permaculture and to educate individuals to become more self-reliant  
and more closely connected to their ecological environment.

“It’s important to me that I interact with the environment, that I  
appreciate living in it,” he says, “instead of apart from it, taking  
social justice into our own hands. People are lost and craving to get  
back to their roots, and getting ready for a time when we might not  
have the luxuries we have now.”

In true green fashion, Cetera is using salvaged materials in this  
renovation. Windows discarded by others, found on curbsides all around  
town, and even as far as Quebec, Canada, while Cetera was on a bike  
tour, will encase the sunroom that will overlook the back yard. Just a  
few of Cetera’s eco-friendly, sustainable energy plans are for all of  
the appliances to be electric (until they can perfect a solar paneling  
system for energy), and the large masonry stove that will be built in  
a central location of the house to provide heat. He chose to exclude  
natural gas from the house and actually discourages its use  because  
he believes the hydrofracking methods used to extract the fuel source  
from the ground are threatening our water supply.

The reconstruction on the property is slowly taking shape, starting  
with the landscape and agriculture. The front and back yards are being  
tested for growth ability. This first season of planting will show  
Cetera which plants will grow best where, and what soil may need more  
attention than other parts of the yard. Cetera’s backyard permaculture  
was the site of a demolished home, so some parts of the yard are  
inhospitable to growth as of now, due to the rubble buried within.  
Cetera is remedying this by building raised beds for planting. The  
knowledge gained from this will assist the homesteaders in planning  
their growth space and landscapes appropriately, making the most from  
the available space for the next growing season.

The renovations to the home itself have begun with demolition to the  
interior; Cetera is tearing out the drywall, to be replaced by clay  
plaster on top of the original lath. Some electrical work will have to  
be done, which Cetera is leaving up to the professionals along with  
the plumbing.

“Sustainability means moving past current regenerative practices,  
which means not just using what you put into the system, but producing  
more,” he notes. “Reduce, reuse, recycle—recycle is the last step.  
First, we reduce, then we reuse and when we can’t reuse, we recycle.”

Since part of Alchemical Nursery’s mission is to educate, the  
collective holds workshops throughout the year, covering such topics  
as ecological design, creating synergy, even gardening. This past  
spring, Cetera conducted a workshop in the future homestead’s back  
yard, during which he and eight helpers built an herb spiral using  
urbanite, or recycled concrete, blocks. The spiral configuration was  
deliberate; it occupies vertical growing space to minimize the use of  
horizontal space.

Cetera attended the seventh annual Northeast Permaculture Convergence,  
July 22 to 24, held in High Falls, N.Y., where he met Kaplan, who was  
speaking there. Considering that the eighth version is in the works,  
urban homesteading is clearly more than just a passing fad. Rather, it  
is a well-supported, educated transformation of communities based on  
pure ideals, with the earth, its inhabitants and future generations in  
mind.

“Homesteading encompasses your life.” Cetera says. “If it doesn’t,  
there is a disconnect. It’s a way of life; not just a piece of it.”

http://www.syracusenewtimes.com/newyork/article-5205-permaculture-club.html

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