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| We were invited to deliver our “Essential Permaculture” weekend training in Kalamazoo by a former student of ours who is one of the coordinators of the Trybal Revival Eastside EcoGarden (TREE). |
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See Other Posts about Grant and Paige’s Work
Living in the U.S. can be like living with your eyes closed. There is so much possibility in the world and yet it is not easy to see because of the way we live. Sometimes it takes a change of scenery to reveal to us the true potential of the world.
Paige with a Mango – Paige and Grand are both Midwest Permaculture PDC Grads and Donate 3 Months each Year to an important Small-Community Project in Africa
My eyes are more open each time we go to Africa. And now I’m excited (in a brand new way) for next winter when we hope to return. The new lens I’ll be looking through is completely invigorating to me, as I’ve recently completed a PDC course through Midwest Permaculture!
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Permaculture Training Applicable Around the Globe The brilliance of Bill Mollison’s PDC course is the universality of it. Students of a Midwest Permaculture PDC Course can take this educational experience and apply it to any location or climate on the planet. The PDC is about learning how to design; learning how to see different situations and the landscape through a permaculture way of seeing the world. We have had students from just about every part of the globe take our trainings and all of them leave with the knowledge of how to apply permaculture thinking and design to their own environment and circumstance. Even though Grant Shadden took his PDC with us in Illinois, his education has allowed him to be of service in Africa. We are now delighted to have Paige Shadden joining us in an upcoming PDC course. Bill Wilson – Midwest Permaculture |
My husband, Grant, and I are gardening nerds. We both have childhood memories of gardening with our families (his more fond than mine!). Even more now we enjoy it as adults as we discover the realities of pesticides, the high prices of organic produce and how destructive our industrial agriculture system is.
Grant and Paige Shadden – Volunteer Permaculture Work in Africa
Why Thermal Mass Rocket Stoves are part of This Permaculture DesignWhereas wood gasification turns wood scrap into a flammable gas to run engines (generating electricity power and heat), a thermal mass rocket stove simple turns scrap wood into heat…. lots of heat…with a lot less wood!!! So, we have included them in our overall design, especially for Earthcamp Village, because they are:
Bottomline: They burn 1/4 of the wood to generate the same heat from a conventional wood stove and the outgases are 90% cleaner as well. The Key? They burn the wood…and…the smoke and gasses! |
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The exhaust system of Bev and Wayne’s stove before cobbing it over into a bench for heat extraction. More pictures at bottom of this post.
Not long ago, our friends and neighbors, Bev and Wayne, started to build a thermal mass rocket stove in their living room. Wayne took one of our PDC courses and was inspired by the rocket stove concept (See the illustration and links below).
Bev and Wayne have been sharing their adventure with us and we are very excited about the possibilities.
Imagine having a wood burning stove in your home that:
The big thing for us, living here on the prairie in Illinois surrounded not by woods or forests but by corn and bean fields, is the very real shortage of easily available firewood.
What I am talking about are the large hardwood trees with trunks and large branches which are typically chainsawed to length and then split to fit into a wood burning stove. All of this tonage of wood then needs to be hauled out of the woods, dumped or stacked somewhere, then loaded back into a truck for delivery to be driven to someone’s home (a lot more energy) and then unloaded and stacked again for winter use.
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It’s always exciting when we hear about the mainstream media picking up on permaculture and even more so when they’re talking about graduates of Midwest Permaculture. Here are a couple of these recent appearances in the news:
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A Full Permaculture Design Certification Course
Winter Training: Feb. 2010
With Added Focus: Creating Productive Growing Spaces
– Kitchen Gardens to Small Farms -
The 2009 Suburban/Urban Permaculture Design Certification Course Graduates
| Becky, Wayne and I find it gratifying to stay in touch with our students from almost every course we have hosted over these past three years. To hear about the projects they have tackled and of the life changes they are going through as a result of their training is humbling.
Permaculture is not just about designing the landscape. It is primarily about relationship – relationship to everything – to our land, our homes, our energy needs, our work, our families, our communities and our very own lives. We are very inspired by our graduates and are delighted that they are interested in continuing to sharing their lives with us and their fellow students. We intend to start a new area on our website this year featuring the work of some of our students, but in the meantime, readers might enjoy sharing in some of the advice that they are giving to the general public through the |
 Pictured: Three of our Recent PDC GraduatesClick Here to View the |
Permaculture Design Certification Course
Nov. 2009
Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm – Grass Valley, CA
Graduates from Grass Valley, CA, PDC – November 2009
Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm
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Last November, Wayne and I headed to Grass Valley, California to deliver a permaculture certification course at the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Farm. It was a great training and we have been invited back to repeat the training and continue the design project of the Farm. |
| What a great surprise to have 4-National Guardsmen join us for our Michigan PDC Course. One of the officers had been exposed to permaculture years earlier while in the Peace Corp and instinctually knew it was the training needed before their deployment to Afghanistan. Part of the mission for these guardsmen will be to help the Afghans rebuild their farming infrastructures which have been largely destroyed by the war. These Guardsmen will bring the expertise and knowledge of their civilian jobs while remaining sensitive to traditional farming methods.In a country with little rainfall and few available resources, permaculture provides a design approach with small-scale intensive systems that will help conserve moisture while providing ample food, shelter and drinking water. |
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