permaculture

["Trudie Redding" <tredding@mail.utexas.edu>]

Hi Isabel, I am glad you wrote this thought down and shared it with us.
Some of us live in a city and are citified. I have found that I can
incorporate perma in my everyday living somewhat, gave up car, ride
bike, bus, grow veggies, save rainfall, have solar panels, more insul in
attic,, leave 1/5 acre yard to grow mostly by itself, wash clothes in
sink, grey water line.
Separate from this is the issue of moving to the country and making a
stand for country living and you hit the nail on the head. I was
thinking, who could I hire to build, to dig, etc, but the reality is,
when you move to the "road less traveled" you must be aware that you
cannot take all the worker bees with you, you are the worker bee. 
Just call me nine acres growing wild without me.
The next issue is talent, no I cant make a windmill, trial and error
that you use in the city and a gradual change of lifestyle which I think
is really fun, is brainwork. Living on your own way out takes a lot of
basic understanding of building etc. I was born without a knack to build
for instance or to do plumbing and I work around these shortcomings by
drawing pictures and cultivating relationships with a very smart,
forward thinking carpenter and a plumber. 
These people are super valuable to all in my neighborhood however, the
more people that do manual or physical labor in this world the better,
because they are ones that can keep people clothed, fed, housed
One idea I had, was to have a carpenter build a small building in
perhaps 8 pieces and then we would cart it to the land and set it up.
I went to a green energy fair and lo and behold there is a company now
that builds these here in Austin (not in pieces, I don't think) They use
recycled stuff, then they cart it to your land, very smart, very forward
thinking, do solar, wind, adapt to your needs. The thing is, this takes
lots of money, but it fits your question I think, this couple branched
out and are filling a stitch in the permaculture seam
Groups that are willing to go place to place selling their special
talents, perhaps the permaculture way would be to house them and make
them a part of the small community temporarily till they want to move on
or offer them a habitat so they will stay and use their talents locally,
barter
Separate from this my idea would be a fourplex on the site, simply
designed as self sustaining as possible, but I don't think that you can
just put up a sign saying, wanted, one of four who wants to live a self
sustaining life, some like me, still think it's fun to be smart in this
way and some people think it's a real drag. Anyway, it's interesting to
speculate about the changes, it is hard to finally realize that everyone
who works should get the same amount of money per hour for their labor
as myself, once this lighted window opened in my mind, a healthy society
is nearer at hand for me personally.

Trudie 
512-471-8044

-----Original Message-----
From: permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:permaculture-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Udan Farm
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 10:17 AM
To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [permaculture] Trends in America

Hi Everyone,

I admit, I do not keep up with this list nearly as much as I would like
to, but I'd like to start a discussion about a trend I see, and perhaps
how to alter it, or harness it, or ???

I live in a southern state, so we are fairly far behind in Permaculture,
as in, classes being taught, and interest in general.
I am a new Permaculture teacher, trying to get the word out, and my
partner and I will be student teaching our first design course this
winter.

What I have noticed here in our southern state is a trend of fairly
wealthy couples, or single middle aged women, who "decide" to start a
farm, eco-village, or other farm related business, with little prior
knowledge. They go buy the land with little realization of what to look
for, realize that it's a lot of work, and then want someone to come
"assess" their land. Most of them want to host a class (mainly because
they are too busy to leave the farm) and hope that it will include lots
of people planting trees for them. In other words, they want someone to
come "DO" permaculture to their farm, and hope it won't cost much.
Generally they also hold down jobs in another town or they live part
time in another place. They had enough money to create the beginning of
the dream but no clue how to sustain it or build it.

I don't want to come off sounding like a whiner here. But this is
happening over, and over and over here in my state. You can pretty much
map them out, about 100 miles apart. 
We are feeling very much pulled by every little wind as permaculture
teachers, so we are having to be very selective about what we do.

What I was wondering-I don't mean to just crab about it- is are any
other Permaculture Teachers out there experiencing this, and what do you
tell folks, and how could we get them all together? Mind you it's a 5
hour drive from one end of the state to another.

This is really, in my opinion, an indicator of our larger American
society in general. We have enough money to go off in our little corner
and live, and we want others to "work for us", as we have come to
expect. (I don't think that, but I think American society in general-or
at least upper and upper-middle class society does.)

Granted the tide seems to have turned, and people may be more serious
and honest about wanting to live simply and sustainably...

but I just wondered what my fellow Perm. folks out there are
experiencing, and how they are turning THE PROBLEM INTO THE SOLUTION.

Peace,
Isabel


      
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