First Day of Design School

March 25, 2009

Christening the Vessel

Launching the good ship – Earth Angels Design School for Kids

With two weeks to go, and despite having made a decision and commitment to move out of my present home which is so perfect in so many ways for the Earth Angels Design School for Kids, we were called to go ahead and initiate the project and receive the blessings that this house and the people and stories that have been through here, have to offer.  All of the young ones who were present today and helped Earth Angels land in this way, have contributed to the bounty of joy that has been shared in this home over the years.

Some look rather serious here, but it was really serious fun!

It’s March.  The fake summer tease of February has passed and we are now in the often dark and wet unpredictability of Pacific Northwest spring.

The birds are returning, and they’re sure to be hungry.

Our theme is birds.  And the desires that emerged from our opening circle ranged from building a tree-house bird observatory to building bird houses and feeders, and making garden stones and peace flags.

We settled in with a story and drawings.

Observe and Interact

We then talked about what we already knew and looked at books on bird lifestyle, birds of our region and habitat design.  Some of the kids drew out designs.  Then we took a walk: spotting nests, birds in action, birds in repose; gathering items for nests or feeders; climbing a lone digger pine for the prized mammoth cones they produce; coming home to warm up by the fire .

Permaculture Principles

Learning how to Teach

I didn’t get very far with downloading the “official” principles of permaculture onto the kids, as they quickly took control of the topic of principles and had numerous stories about the Principles of their schools.  ahem!

That’s okay, I think I slipped a few permie design principles in over the course of the day.  The following principle statements that we noticed throughout our day, are a blend of Toby Hemenway & David Holmgren’s work.

Observe – use thoughtful observation rather than thoughtless action.  Observe the project, the site, and it’s elements.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Catch and Store energy and materials – Identify, collect and hold the useful flows moving through the site.  We used recycled, recyclable and biodegradable resources.

bad photo showing way too much plastic…  the materials that went into the bird feeders were: dried sunflower heads we collected in the neighborhood, food from the pantry, some bought bird seed and nuts, some sturdy cotton string, recycled aluminum pie plates.

Connect – Place elements in ways that create useful relationships and time-saving connections.  You want a lot of connections, not just a lot of random elements ·even though kids really love “random” at this age.

Use small scale intensive systems – Start at your doorstep with the smallest systems that will do the job and build on your successes with variations

The next day brought new insight; simpler materials; and better design elements

Accelerate Succession – we created a more diverse and mature system for the birds dining resources by making the feeders, which will increase the flow of birds through our yard, quicker!

Turn problems into solutions – turn problems into solutions!

Mistakes are tools for learning – mistakes are tools for learning!

Abundance is unlimited – the designer’s imagination and skill building is part of the abundance of nature

Good bird food is good people food!

Get a Yield – Reports are coming in from the field:  birds are visiting the feeders!  Other yields:  we had fun, we initiated Design School, we expressed ourselves creatively.

We came up with a principle of our own.

EarthAngel design principle #1:

Never try to design on an empty stomach

Closing Circle

What went well?

Kenya – making peanut string, I liked getting poked by the big pines when climbing the tree

Azhray – we resolved a conflict

Jasper – making the bird feeders

Luka – making the peanut strings

Makayla – really enjoyed the walk and Kenya throwing pine cones

What was challenging?

Kenya – hand “cracking the corn” with a hammer

Azhray – getting the bird feeder to be balanced on the strings

Jasper – getting the seed mix to stick

Luka - making it not lopsided

Makayla – not being hyper!

Something I Learned?

Kenya – when there is no tea, there is no tea

Azhray – I have really awesome friends

Jasper – learning to layer the peanut butter and seeds

Luka – how to make really cool bird feeders and measuring string

Makayla – dry noodles with peanut butter tastes all natural!

What did I Un-Learn, or want to Un-Learn?

Kenya – cracking corn on a dirty rock

Azhray – trying to learn to eat less sugar

Jasper – (a big smile and a shrug)

Luka – random string lengths

Makayla – playing the piano too loud and interrupting

Namaste,

Blessings, and more blessings,

ta-ta for now!

 

State of the City – Ashland Oregon

2008 was a big election year, not only for the nation, but for our town.  We had 3 of 6 city council seats, and the mayor’s seat up for grabs.

This was a major opportunity for the polarized factions of our town to become weighted in one favor or another.  Sustainability vs. Development.

How the new city council members weigh in with their voting remains to be seen, but our Mayor’s position is stated very clearly in his State of the City speech, given December 2008: he’s a strong sustainability visionary with a level head for business and development.  This will be exciting!

http://dailytidings.com/2009/0105/stories/0105_am-update-videos.php

 

The Village Farm begins

Highly inspired and humble beginnings

We began this project in February 2008. At least at that point, we gathered in the front yard, looked at a field with no farming history; looked at each other – who many of us had worked together on various farming and community projects; felt into our own heart’s desires and into the beauty and the invitation of the land; and decided to go for it. By March 2008 we had purchased a greenhouse and had begun bringing in as much fertile resource as we could gather for free.

In this photo, it is still winter and lying in the field are imported piles of manure and massive piles of peanut shells from our local Maranatha nut butter factory. We’re finding lots of support from the community at large as other farmer/gardeners with their own projects and aspirations show up with piles of fertility loaded in the back of their pickups to drop off, or seeds and starts to contribute.

Getting the party started

APRIL 2008

The fun begins. We got the greenhouse up, erected the 10 foot fencing around the acre + field to keep deer out, bought organic starting mixes and ordered lots of seeds!!!!

We’re technically a “no-till” crew because we are natural farmers and Permaculture adventurists, but for the first planting, we needed to fluff this compacted scene up a bit and mix in the piles of manure and peanut shells. With the fields nice and fluffy and all the manure’s mixed in, we were ready to begin shovelling out paths and creating the raised beds.

Besides the manure imports, the field was green with weeds and grass which were tilled in. This is called “green manure”, which provides essential nutrients, especially nitrogen, plus the mychorrizal relationships that exist in the soil and root systems to carry on their good work in the overall health of the field.

After this, we are building soil and fertility ecologically as nature might do it, if nature planted market gardens, by mulching and cover-cropping and other purely natural ecological methods.

What we do here is not all about a market garden however. More on that later. That’s when the collective vision comes in and The Village Farm purpose comes into form.

All so beautifully gettin’ it on with life~

MAY 2008

After two months of fence building, seed ordering, plant starting, path digging, visioning, dreaming, meeting, planning and planting, planting, and planting; all of a sudden there was a field of vibrant green greeting us. Varieties of kales, chards, lettuces, beets, radishes, spinaches, chinese mustard, sweet peas, lambs quarters, chamomile, wild mustards, clover and more I can’t recall.

Can you guess which of these are the healthy wild volunteer crops (lovingly referred to as weeds) that, while they might overtake the less resilient annual plants, are indicators of good soil and hence bearers of good tiding and are also doing great work pulling nutrients nearer the surface and innoculating some nitrogen into the soil. As much as we love them, most of them are weeded. The lambs quarters are so tasty that weeding comes with a meal!

Idyllic, yes?!

YES!

These humble beginnings, are humbling for sure. Soon, the rains stop, then it’s too cold again, the warmth arrives late, the greenhouse is roasting, we’re out of money, the quail and gophers are getting fat, the coddling moths are doing too much cuddling, and we’re having too many meetings, then not enough and gracefully nobody’s too concerned about the abundance or lack of meetings.

We are many hero’s on this early part of the journey. The success and survival of the farm is dependent on our main farmer’s and family’s commitment, organizing and ingenuity. There’s irrigation from the irrigation ditch to figure out and water storage when irrigation isn’t available. An outdoor kitchen is built from all recycled and reclaimed items to prepare for harvest time, and lots of communication updates.

There’s the day jobs we all have, and the community building relationships that are ongoing in most of our lives; there’s the growing awareness of all that wants to birth from each of us, and we are getting to know one another on deeper levels. There’s deep-healing and joy gushing from the heart of this project.

And, there’s the first harvest. The first tasty radishes, rainbows of chard, french sorrel, kale, cilantro, and spinach so large and sweet and hearty that it could be considered green-steaks. We are happy.

Bon Apetit!

Please come back for more share-time on the farm. Because there’s lots more to share. Projects, education, art, businesses, and celebrations. Our Villagefarmers website and/or blog should be up soon.

The Village Farm: We are the inner and the outer. We begin with the Heart. We begin with Love. We begin with Nature.

We are children and adults learning through our commitment to co-operatively bring our skills and passions to the field, finding balance in the support we give and receive, as we regenerate our selves and our community to full capacity beingness in these magificently curious times.

We are not a “commune” or intentional community. We are rural urbanites and our “community” is Ashland, Oregon and the surrounding communities.

Our vision is to inspire and model abundant living and joy through partnering with nature, the land and our bio-region as place-based beings living harmoniously in nature’s tender balance. What we bring to each other is an offering of our life-purpose gifts and aspirations as we surrender to the creative will that flows and manifests through the shared projects that support our well-being and that of our community and soul-kins across the universe.

With love and gratitude,

jessica mycelia

nurturer, creatrix, mom, tba

village farmer

earthangel

 

My Favorite Kind of Day

Misty, from sunrise to sunset.  One color of gray blankets the day; and stillness.  One constant temperature, and no changes in the wind.  The aire is moist, but not enough to penetrate the dry heat which radiates my skin from deep within.

Time stands still and I blaze through this day like the sun, noticing not whether time ever existed today or at all.  This is my favorite kind of day.

These are the kinds of days you find yourself in on moors, or in Bolinas, Caliornia.

Today in Ashland, Oregon – it thought of being that kind of day, for a moment.  However, I can still tell what time it is by the light in the sky despite the overcast and I can see the mountains across the valley, giving away too much perspective.  I may have to remove a layer of clothing in 5 minutes, just to put it back on in 30.

This morning was glorious as the sun warmed the fields that we were weeding, which have been under frost and rain for far too long this spring.  And the sun-kissed and wild, flowery grass lawn proved a great place to debate the details of business transactions.  For now it is windy, warm, cool, gray, green, steel blue… and busy with birds, dandelions and gardeners anticipating another rain shower.

As for a superb ending to my first blog post:

In The Flow!