permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

Udan Farm wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> I am planning on visiting a friend in Santa Monica soon, who is very 
> interested in jumping off into the permaculture lifestyles. They are very 
> interested in living on the cheap, off grid, close to the land, 
> homeschooling, rural living etc.
> I was wondering if anyone knows of any rural, low-budget permaculture sites within an 
> hour or two of L.A. that we could visit, so that I can "SHOW" them what I'm 
> talking about! City folk can't really comprehend what it's like sometimes.
> Thanks,Isabel

Larry Santoyo and Larry Saltzman (both subscribers of this list) might know 
of sites.

Go homebrew..
What are (some of) the ingredients of this lifestyle?
"living on the cheap, off grid, close to the land, homeschooling, rural living 
etc."
... is a good starting point. Make lists within an outline and expand on this.

Close to the land - undeveloped land preferably, with as great a diversity of 
fauna and flora as possible
(for me that means birds, amphibians, annual and perennials plants, native 
shrubs and tree that provide resources for
their surroundings, i.e. firewood, building materials, food, wildlife food 
and habitat, elements that create balance
an stability and contribute to ecosystems on site (for me that also means 
black snakes to balance copperhead population,
dirt dobber wasps that capture black widow spiders and feed them to their 
young) Good reasons to preserve and enhance
wildlife in ecosystems on your property!

Living on the cheap - good place to start with that is diet; eliminate everything but bare essentials for maximum health 
through maximum nutrition - grow your own food - start with chickens, then goats; plant grapes, berries and fruit trees
and bushes (some native wild food) - make your own fermented foods (kraut and kim chee); Mollison has a great book on 
this - but staple foods in bulk, seeds, beans, grains; grow your own grain (spelt for bread, corn for cornbread and grits).

Off the grid - this may be a good time to procure equipment for off grid 
power generation - some resources:
Home Power Magazine - excellent
Rolls batteries (the best of all deep cycle marine off grid/solar battery, 10 year guarantee 300lbs. each - they sell 
cabling and assorted connectors and other componnts also, Trace Inverter, Bergey windmill - 1000watt unit and various 
towers 1 or 2 people can erect
the usual photovoltaic components
There is, from what I understand, something of a new generation of off grid equipment, smaller, lighter, more compact, 
cheaper, but I do not know the preferred manufacturers, look around but be picky.

Lots of excellent resources on the web for all of this - use the search 
engines