Permaculture Design Charrette
June 29 – July 3, 2011
On 40-Acre Farm in Door County, WI

Please Note: This Training is Complete…!

Click here to view the design work. 

Help Us Create a Permaculture Design for “Wind and Sun Farm”
A 40-Acre Farm and home of “Lake Michigan Wind and Sun, Ltd”.
Address: 1015 County Road U, Sturgeon Bay, WI  54235

In addition to Permaculture Design, we will learn about:
– Solar Energy Applications
– Practical use of Wind Turbines.

Would you like to understand how to apply permaculture design to your own property or want to develop your own permaculture designing skills?
Learning it by doing it is a powerful way to get there.

Wind Turbine at LMWS

5-Day Design Charrette Includes Learning to: – Assess the key characteristics of the land; – Create a zone and sector map; – Design various rain-water harvesting strategies; – Minimize energy demands of the farmstead; – Design planting systems to care for land and people.Registration Fee Includes: – Basic permaculture instruction – Basic wind and solar energy instruction – Practical permaculture design experience – Some hands-on swale design and digging – Free camping and mealsPre-requisites: – None – Just the willingness to learn – Recommend reading: “The Basics of Permaculture Design“ by Ross Mars

Vacation?
Come early or stay in the area afterward since you are in one of the prime vacation spots anywhere.
Our hosts wanted you to know about these two events:

June 26- Peg Egan PAC – Egg Harbor- BeauSoleil – World class Cajun
July 10- Peg Egan PAC – Taj Weekes- Raggae- Some of the very best

Here is Peg Egan’s Performing Arts Center’s Summer Calendar

And here is a quick listing of other local events around that saem time period.

Wind & Sun Farm Wind & Sun Farm is also the home of Lake Michigan Wind & Sun, Ltd., Hippensteel’s 30 year old renewable energy company.All of us involved in this 5-day design charrette will have a front-row seat at learning just how a farmstead or homestead can incorporate wind and solar energy applications (photovoltaic and hot water panels).When we asked John and Ann why they were looking for a permaculture design for their property, they replied… “There is no time like the present to continue our transition from conventional farming, to organic farming, and now to permaculture.  Organic just isn’t enough to meet the needs of the future and community based agriculture.”What we will be designing is their entire 40-acre farm including the farmstead (with home and out buildings) and the surrounding farmland. What sort of vision do they have for their place? “‘Findhorn of the Midwest’ may be a bit ambitious for this little farm, so lets start with getting our 40 acres back to being in tune with nature and supporting people locally. “We want to maintain some areas for field crops while developing more wild areas.  Fruit, nut, and vegetable production for on-site consumption and for sale to local markets would be ideal. “A future greenhouse with thermal storage for extended production is already in the plans.” So, there you have it. We, as designers, have the land to work with and the vision we will be designing around. How are we going to design the property to match these up?  Join us as we co-create this permaculture design together.

John Hippensteel   Ann Hippensteel

Aerial View of Property. A Genuine 40-acre Square

Design Training Details

The training will start on Wednesday, June 29th, at 2:00pm at the farm.  Students may arrive as early as 11am to get their tents set up and prepare for their week.  Lunch will not be served on this first day.  Better bring some vittles.  The training ends sometime early afternoon on Sunday, July 3.

Schedule:
We will go all day, every day.  Here is a quick overview:

Food – Camping – Lodging
As mentioned, all meals will be provided, with vegetarian options at all meals and meat at most.  Locally raised organic foods will be sourced as much as possible.  There is plenty of space for tents and a nice hot shower is available 24/7.

Classroom and Design Space
We will be set up in the workshop of LMWS so there will be plenty of room.  WiFi will be available so if you have a laptop computer, please bring it for research purposes.

Other Design Materials
If you have some favorite resource books, feel free to bring them along.  We will set up a table to hold these books.  Be sure to put your name on the inside cover so that they go home with you.

Personal Design Work
If one of the reasons you will be participating in this design charrette is to learn the skills necessary to create a permaculture design for your own home or property, we invite you to bring information about your site to the training.  For example, bring a sketch of your property in fairly accurate proportions and/or an aerial view map, a plant list of what is on your property now (does not have to be exhaustive – what are the dominant species – place them on the sketch), note the sunny and shady parts of the property and what direction is south, and what your current dreams or visions for the property might be.  There will be some time over the 5-days where individual/personal projects can be explored.

Registration Fee:  $495
This was a $695 training… but due to light registration numbers we are encouraging participation by keeping the early registration price of $495. This training is like a crash course in permaculture design at about 1/3 the usual price.  It’s a really good deal and will be a wonderful training.  Join us if you can.

Price per Couple or with a 2nd Family Member:    $895
Persons 17 and Under:   $ 18/year of age (Example: Child 10 = $180)

Registration includes… permaculture instruction, permaculture design experience, instruction in solar and wind energy options, some earth works digging experience, meals and camping.

Course Limit: 16 Student Designers

Registration Options Option 1 Registration on Line. We take MasterCard, Visa and Discover.  If you are registering for more than one person, or with children, please call Becky (815-256-2215) to work out pricing and details. Option 2 Call Beckyto register over the phone at 815-256-2215 with credit card or to mail in a personal check.$100 non-refundable down payment will hold a spot in this design charrette for you.

Recommended Design Text:
The Basics of Permaculture Design – by Ross Mars  - $25 (Free shipping)
(Appears on On-line registration page for optional purchase)

Down-Payment / Course Reservation
Our simple e-commerce page is not set-up to handle partial or down-payments.  If making a partial payment is an important factor to your ability to participate, please call Becky at 815-256-2215 to work out these arrangements.

Low Risk Cancellation and Refund Policy
If a student cancels their registration 30-days or more before the design charrette begins they receive a full refund less $100.  Students do receive a $100 credit toward any future Midwest Permaculture Full Design Certification Course.

If a student cancels their registration within the 30 days before the charrette there will be a full refund less $200. Student will receive a $200 credit towards any future Midwest Permaculture Full Design Certification Course.

There are no refunds for cancellations or for withdrawals once the course begins.  However, in certain circumstances, we may extend partial credit towards a future Design Certification Course.

Midwest Permaculture Designers and Instructors:

Bill Wilson
Cofounder of Midwest Permaculture

Bill has been teaching permaculture for 6 years. He holds 2 PDC Certificates and has Advanced Training in Permaculture Design and in Teaching Permaculture.

He has hosted and co-taught over 24 PDC Certificate Courses and teaches widely on permaculture and the Transition Town initiative. Besides working with his wife and partner Becky on creating a permaculture design around their own home, he has been a part of many other design projects from residences to multiple acres. “Bill, Thanks so much for coming to Purdue and inspiring us. In my opinion, your overview of permaculture was one of the best presentations we’ve had at Purdue in many years.” Brent Ladd Center for the Environment - Purdue University More on Bill Wilson…

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Milton Dixon
Urban Permaculturist, Wild-Edibles Forager, Internet-Technology Guru

Milton has been assisting with Midwest Permaculture’s webinars and trainings for several years now.  As an urban dweller, he has taken many creative steps toward a more permaculture lifestyle including foraging for fruit in parks and alleyways, planting gardens, making wine and growing mushrooms…to name a few.He is accomplished at identifying edible-wild plants and recently took his Advance Permaculture Teacher’s Training with David Jacke (author of Edible Forest Gardens).Pictured below: Milton Leading a Wild Edibles Walk

“I was honored by the sharing and passion of Bill and Milton.
This training exceeded my expectations.”

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Bryce Ruddock
A Walking ‘Plant Encyclopedia’ – Gardener Extraordinaire – Plant Forager

Bryce holds a Permaculture Design Course Certificate with Midwest Permaculture and has been practicing permaculture techniques at his suburban property in South Milwaukee since 1984. He and his wife Debby are currently redesigning their 1/4 acre home site to allow for year-round food and forest products harvest.Because of his vast plant knowledge, Bryce has been designated as Midwest Permaculture’s official ‘Plant-Guy.’ As such he and Debbie host the “Plant Guild” public forumon our networking site.Below: Bryce harvesting wild rice from one of his ponds in his backyard.

Click Here for a picture narrative of Bryce’s rice growing experiment.

Instructors for Solar and Wind Applications… and Our Hosts.

John and Ann Hippensteel
John is a NABCEP certified PV & Solar Thermal Installer and a Professional Engineer. Ann is an active community organizer and with John, has over 30 years in the wind and solar business.
Please see their website.

More pictures of Ann, John, family and farm below…

John, Ann and Family

Workshop – Classroom

Inside the Classroom/Shop

A Look at the Landscape

Some of the Local Residents

Hippensteel Home

This will be a fantastic way to learn how to apply permaculture thinking and design to just about any property. The steps we will go through to create this design are the exact same steps one would follow on any other piece of property. The details and results will differ, sometimes greatly from site to site, but the process to get there is the same.

We hope you can join us if this looks like the ideal learning experience for you.

Questions? Call Bill or Becky Wilson – 815-256-2215