Paige with a mango

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! 

It has been fun learning bits and pieces about Permaculture from my husband over the past few years.  Even more so though, watching him teach hands-on workshops in ‘the bush’ has helped me realize that this is a part of our destiny.  

The educated Ugandans & Kenyans who have struggled with their unfruitful land, had their light bulbs turned on during these workshops last winter.  They were simultaneously ecstatic and yet frustrated that they hadn’t learned these principles and tools earlier in life.  However, they are not people who dwell on the past.  They expressed how thrilled they were to begin passing on these sustainable methods to their communities and future generations. 

I am excited about digging in even deeper (pun intended) into the ways of Permaculture in Africa.  I am also looking forward to hearing the stories about how their lives have changed since the last time we were there!  It is inevitable; once you learn about swales and plant guilds and micro-climates (and the list goes on), you can’t look at the world as you did before.  The ‘old way’ no longer makes sense.      

As most of you know, in permaculture design we attempt to:

1. garner the greatest amount or number of yields
2. from the minimum amount of work 
3. while creating no waste (at least minimal)
4. and restoring the environment.

Let’s see what additional benefits we can obtain from this project other than just the insect, grass and weed-removal help from 100 chickens.  This will be our chicken saga as it reveals itself in real time.   We’re always learning too and raising this many chickens at once, and in this way, is stretching us some.  But we will take the bit of experience we do have, plus apply permaculture design principles while adding in good-ole common sense (with help from some great books and the internet) to work creatively and to see what we can come up with.

It all starts with an order of 100 chicks (multi-heritage breeds from McMurry) that Hayden and Cameron (our two work/study intern students) selected. All were delivered through the U.S. mail. All survived. Hayden created a safe and warm habitat from a yard-storage container, a heat lamp and some old boards and fencing. This structure lasted almost 2 weeks before they outgrew it. During this time we work on a more permanent home.

We had several design objectives for the chicken coop that would house our chickens in the orchard. The coop had to be varmint proof, relatively inexpensive to build, sturdy to last a long time, relatively easy to move (not every day...this is not a chicken tractor - that's a different thing), protect the birds from wind and rain, and have a floor that would allow their droppings to sift through. After several designs, Hayden and I came up with a 16 foot long, triangular coop, made from livestock panels. These are available from most Farm and Fleet type outlets and cost $28 each and are 52 inches wide. We then purchased some chicken wire ($26) and a large bag of zip-ties (500 for $14 - we used them all). Total cost: About $125.

The chicken wire is wrapped all the way around up the first half, and then just across the floor on the second half. We had a heavy plastic swimming pool frame that we saved from Hayden's backyard swimming days 12 years ago. (Becky knew there was a good reason that we never threw this thing away.) We cut it into sections and screwed it on by placing some old 2x4's on the inside. This will block any wind or rain and even help hold in a bit of heat. We plan on using woodchips as bedding material to absorb their wastes. Why? We'll explain later.

The scrap lumber and the old swimming pool plastic frame or wall - already cut into pieces.

Here it is, all complete and in our front yard for just a few days as we work out the kinks before taking it to the orchard. Most of our neighbors enjoyed seeing it but some admitted that they would not want to see it there all of the time. We appreciated their concerns and their honesty. These little chicks won most folks over however. They are such fun to watch that I even pulled out a lawn chair at one point to just sit and observe them for awhile. The heavy wooden doors on each end (waste wood again) pop in and out and will help give the fencing structural support while also keeping out larger animals such as full grown raccoons and dogs.

Here we took the door off the enclosed end so that you can see how they favor the heatlamp on a cool day.

We hit some very cold nights at one point so Hayden and Cameron covered the open end with a couple of tarps to help hold in the heat. Everyone made it through the nights in fine shape. We attached a 2-foot tall chicken wire fence next to the coop so that the 'kids' (as our interns call them) could run around during the day and begin to get familiar with eating bugs, worms and grass. They took to this immediately.

Part of the design objective was to make the coop relatively easy to move. With a couple of garden carts from our tool co-op and some come-along straps, we were able to lift it on both ends and roll it all the way down to the orchard (about 1/3 mile). Word of caution... one of the garden carts was older and more worn out. It did come apart at one corner and we'll need to repair it now. In the future, we will not be moving this with the doors on it or the chickens in it so it will be lighter and we'll be sure that the carts are in good repair.

As soon as we got the coop in place and another fence set up, Hayden let the chicks out to experience their new home. To be clear, these are all male chickens that we are raising to be harvested for meat. We have a separate group of hens for our co-op egg consumption. The life of a typical 'broiler' is one of living in a cage or pen with many other birds and being feed grain and drugs for 8 weeks. Our chickens will live and feed off the orchard floor and be harvested at about 12 weeks of age.

The fenced in area is just up for the time being. Once they get used to eating from the grass, we'll move the coop further into the orchard and allow our chickens to get 80% of their food from the orchard itself. We are feeding them while they are small but the objective is to wean them from 'processed feed' (even if it is organic) to real food (bugs, worms, grass, weeds) thus minimizing the cost to feed them. At the same time, we hope that the chickens will help us with insect damage to the apples and trees. Check out this quick video from Geoff Lawton on how this might/should work.

 We’ll add some more pictures and summaries as our chicken journey continues…  All for now… Bill

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

Grant Explaining Different Forms of Earthworks for Rain-water Harvesting

Teaching Community Members How to Build an A-frame

Illustration of the Final Design

Permaculture Design Course Graduates - Summer 2011 - Stelle, IL

 Context:

Connect Africa – Permaculture Design Team

Grant Shadden  - Todd Gustafson
Patricia Jacques - Jillian Ferguson - Kate Marnul 

Grant and Todd

Patricia, Jillian and Kate

Here is the design work that they came up with…

Design for the Connect Africa Hub
Matuga, Kampala, Uganda

Introduction

The Connect Africa Hub is a resource center aimed to reach out to the people living in internally displaced camps in Northern Uganda. The recently purchased 20 acres of land is located outside of Kampala, Uganda and will include training facilities and accommodations to teach appropriate technologies. These techniques include biosand water filters, interlocking stabilized soil bricks, wood saving rocket stoves, repair of equipment and permaculture strategies. The facility will include a conference center for 100 people, housing for 60 people, a vocational school, workshop area, experimental demonstration farm and staff housing. 

Location

The 20-acre site is approximately 15km north of Kampala in South Central Uganda and 60 km north of the equator.

General Topography

The Hub is located on the side of a mountain and has a 60-meter drop in elevation. The drainage pattern flows in a southerly then southwesterly direction off the site. The northwest corner of the property is near the top of a hill and is well drained. There is a pond in the middle of the property with a 1-meter deep stream, and 1- meter deep swamp in the farthest southeast 3 acres of the property.

Climate and Water

The annual precipitation for this part of Kampala, Uganda is approximately 48.2 inches per year with two dry periods during the months of January, February, June and July.  The rainfall is greater at the Connect Africa Hub than in Kampala proper, as a small mountainous area west of the Hub creates a wetter microclimate, which makes the Hub receive an average annual rainfall of 82 inches.  The rain comes in brief heavy rainstorms, with clouds clearing off quickly after rain events.  The temperature remains fairly consistent throughout the year with an annual average of 71.4 degrees Fahrenheit, with an average high of 79.8 Fahrenheit and an average low of 63.0 Fahrenheit.  The location is 60 kilometers north of the equator, which gives consistently high amounts of sunshine all year.   

Client Goals

The goal of the Connect Africa Hub is to have a productive demonstration farm to compliment their already existing sustainable technology education facility. An increase of on site food production is necessary to feed the staff and visitors in order to live a more healthy and sustainable lifestyle. There is also a desire to increase the number and variety of livestock species such as goats, ducks, geese, pigs and chickens. Successfully integrating livestock into the linear food forests to distribute nutrients and naturally manage access paths. Permaculture education and experimentation will be implemented in order to meet the long-term goal of producing a yield and teaching the local community. 

The Connect Africa Team have been fostering a sense of community and they hope to further develop these relationships through shared use of resources. This is reflected in the shared access pathways connecting Zone 2 food forests and other land resources as well as the intentional placement of connecting pathways between dwellings and places of gathering. 

Resources

-          Abundance of biomass and natural vegetation
-          2 Pre-existing ponds, a spring and 5 acres of marsh
-          125 banana trees with 6 different species
-          2 oxen and a plow
-          6 pigs with pig tractor
-          12 chickens and chicken tractor
-          rocket stoves
-          biosand water filters
-          4 full-time farm staff
-          Local farms to provide manure
-          Building materials for raised beds (rocks and ISSB (Interlocking Stabilized Soil Bricks) blocks)
-          A population eager to learn 

The Conceptual Permaculture Design Illustration

Narrative 

The first objective of our design is to hold water high on the landscape.  This serves many purposes such as:

1. allowing an increase in water security during the dry seasons,
2. used passively to gravity feed water down the sloped landscape,
3. for agricultural uses
4. and to aid in creating microclimates.
5. It will also create the possibility of onsite aquaculture further in the properties development.

 Through the use of:

1. linear food forests on contour between complimentary swales,
2. hugelkultur beds,
3. keyhole gardens,
4. and other experimental gardening techniques

our design aims to discover the most productive and regionally sustainable methods of production.

 Another design objective is to enhance the current state of soil quality by applying methods including:

1. sheet mulching,
2. vermicomposting,
3. distribution of livestock manure,
4. and the planting of both nitrogen-fixing and dynamic accumulators.

This will ensure the biodiversity of microbes in the soil and will help provide a more stable, fertile, and self-regenerating planting medium.
 

Designated Zones 1-5

Zone 1 gardening activities will be placed around the main compound and places of current regular human activity. Future zone 1 plans will be implemented around new housing structures as they are developed. 

 This zone will include several methods of sustainable gardening, in order to experiment and demonstrate for future recipients of training in permaculture.  An example of this is the raised-keyhole bed.

Zone 2 will be on the downhill slope and is to the southeast of the main compound. This zone will be designed as a linear food forest on contour, which will harvest rainwater through the use of swales and will increase annual vegetable production with bermed hugelkulture beds. The linear food forest will consist of fruit and nut trees planted in guilds with other edible, medicinal and support species, knowledge of which will be provided by local experts.   Below are two illustrations as examples of terraced hugelkultured swales.

Zone 3 will be directly south and southeast of the main compound and will consist of pasture and fodder trees for the oxen and goats. The banana trees are placed in the middle of the property slightly uphill from the pond. We will add support species to the current monoculture to fix nitrogen, add mulch and accumulate nutrients.

Zone 4 is the semi-wild northeastern portion of the property as well as in the middle uphill portion of the property. This zone will be used for collected wild food as well as for timber production. Bamboo and other useful species will be planted in this zone.

Zone 5 has been designated to the area of lowest elevation where much of the water settles. This region is marshy and is inhabited by green vervet monkeys along with other natural wildlife.

Sector Analysis

Wildlife Sector- In an attempt to keep the vervet monkey population within the designated Zone 5 area we will plant crops that they thrive upon as a buffer. The hope is to ensure the safety of the crops intended for human consumption and create a habitat in which the monkeys can live without interference.

 Run-off Sector- Currently there is some water run off from the cow grazing lands to the west of the property. This land is commercially farmed and there is fear that farm chemicals and other pollutants are being washed on to the property.  Swales on contour planted with water-cleaning plants will both slow and cleanse water as it enters the property.

 Theft Sector- Poverty is prevalent in Uganda.  Theft of crops and goods are common occurrence.  Keeping initial development near the main compound will minimize theft.  Staff housing, and the increased community, which will share food and other site-produced resources will greatly increase security.  Connect Africa has already been engaging in positive neighbor relationship development.  Sharing surplus resources with neighbors will continue to further develop community relations.

 Staff development

In order for the permaculture design to be successful and sustainable, teaching and nurturing permaculture in the 4 full-time farmers on staff is of great importance.  Strategies include bringing educational resources relevant books, handouts, and videos. 

 A trip to Sabina Permaculture Farm Rakai, Southern Uganda will be a tremendous learning opportunity for the farm staff to be able to see a working permaculture farm being managed by native Ugandans.  The opportunity to take a tour and observe, ask questions of the Sabina staff, and potentially obtain plants will assist in getting the Hub project off to a good start.  Engaging the staff throughout the design and initial implementation process will help them begin thinking in permaculture ways. 

The possibility of hiring a PDC member of the Sabina farm would help to provide income for a Ugandan with their PDC, as well as further the education of the Connect Africa farm staff, as well as ensuring successful implementation of permaculture design principles throughout the continuation of the permaculture design.

 Energy Generation

The electrical grid in Southern Uganda is rather unreliable, as well as polluting.  The Connect Africa Hub currently uses a diesel generator to power their lights in the evening.  Solar photovoltaic panels, as well as solar hot water, will capture the year-round consistent sunlight received at the Hub, with the generator only needed as back-up. 

 The slope and large amounts of rainfall also provide an opportunity for the application of a small-scale hydro-electric system. 

 A biogas digester tied to the septic system would capture gas that could be used for cooking, or other uses.

End

Larger Picture of PDC Graduating Class - Summer 2011 at Midwest Permaculture

 First we cleared away the remains of last years compost pile, pulling out the hose to reuse in the new pile and spreading the compost on the garden.

Then we measured out a radius of 7′ and began depositing the wood chips and horse manure, all the while embedding nearly 300′ of pipe spiraling throughout, and a 55 gallon container in the middle to produce methane (that’s a whole other story).

We added many gallons of water with each layer to provide moisture for the bacteria that will break down the pile and generate heat.  

The resulting pile was nearly 5′  in height, you can see the layers of wood chips and manure within.

Once the pile begins to heat up, a pump will move the heated water into a yet to be built hoop house, heating grow beds inside, and will keep the temperature nice and warm for starting seeds. 

If you’re interested in more information, you can see the original inspiration for this project on YouTube: Jean Pain part 1 & part 2.  Jean Pain extracted hot water from his 18′ diameter, 9ft high pile for 18 months. In the picture below you can see Jean, his methane storage tubes in foreground and the compost pile in the background. Peter Bane of the Permaculture Activist has also written a great article on Jean.

Some other examples are Darren Doherty using a similar idea to make a  compost heated shower or  Rob Frost, at One Straw’s compost heater experiments. 

This was one of our standard, full, PDC courses and included an emphasis on the growing of food.  
We expect to continue to offer this winter training yearly which is well timed for those folks too busy during the growing season to attend a full PDC course.  Keep an eye on our schedule for this and all other future trainings. 

Our Group Photo with Rocket Stove in Foreground and Midwest Permaculture Homesite to the Rear. Mom (Becky) standing on left... me (Hayden) standing on right...and all of our great students.

Visit to Spence Farm - Fairbury, IL

Wayne and Bev's Thermal Mass Rocket Stove

Wayne loading up Rocket Stove with wood to fire it up!

Notice how the fire is burning sideways into the stove.

This stove still needs a finish coat of cob and the cushion to be complete.

Making and Working of Cob

Tour of Midwest Permaculture Grounds - Becky Guiding

Hayden Teaching how to use A-frame

Bill using clay model to explain water harvesting techniques such as swales, ponds and keylining.

Visiting one of our Swales. It's soaking in water, even in winter.

Milton Teaching

Students Sharing a Meal with our Community

Students doing Design Work in Teams

Our Party Evening (we do have some great fun)

Winter Walk Through the Orchard (being redesigned into a food forest)

Keep an eye on our schedule for this and other future trainings.  We had a wonderful week together…. Hayden W.

Becky at the Fuelwood Energy Plant, one of the places we'll be touring during the March PDC.

Using Fire to Cool a Building
So, using similar principles and the use of appropriate technology (metals, tubing, vacuums, basic chemicals) Lied Lodge created a system that could cool the entire building. Here is a simple diagram from the Lied Lodge Website: 

What’s the Big Deal?
As we shared in our last post,  with good generational planning and conscientious designing for the future, we can actually create way of living that requires the use of very little coal, oil or natural gas (ancient sunlight) and instead uses current sunlight to harvest the excess CO2 from our atmosphere.  We could create a culture that is sustainable in the long term while leaving the planet in better condition with each successive generation.  We just might be able to stall or even reverse global climate change. We could create a more permanent-culture…a permaculture.

From last weeks post… 

 Arbor Day Farm and Lied Lodge Demonstrating Great Leadership

Quite interestingly, the Arbor Day Foundation has had an on-going hazelnut project for over 15 years.  When one looks out over the valley from the Lodge, the first thing they see is the Arbor Day Farm’s expansive hazelnut plantings.  They are doing trials and research on the most useful and beneficial varieties of hazelnuts while inviting the entire nation to join in on the project.

The Lodge, fuelwood energy plant, the hazelnut plantings and the various biomass-tree-planting trials will all be a part of our upcoming training from March 25-31, 2012.  Join us if you can.  It promises to be a great training in the comfort of this beautiful lodge.

Lied Lodge in Winter - Their Hazelnut Plantings are in the Foreground

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.

Early this fall, 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 not long ago 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:

1. Burns less than 1/4 the amount of wood you typically burn
    
2. Keeps you as warm or warmer
    
3. Allows you to easily burn sticks, twigs and branches instead of just large chunks of firewood.
    
4. Burns cleaner than any wood stove ever made

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.

Up-to-date Picture of Above Stove at Bottom of this Post

So, imagine for all of us prairie or rangeland dwellers that there would be an option to be able to grow and harvest the wood we need to keep warm in the winter within 2-3 years, instead of waiting 10-20 years for a tree to grow large enough to harvest.  These thermal mass rocket stoves can easily burn 1-2 inch diameter branches which can be grown in a short time and harvested with just loppers or pruning shears.

No longer would we need to harvest firewood with a chainsaw, log splitter, gasoline and truck.

Hayden could harvest our annual firewood needs with a pair of loppers and pruning shears.

 This is big…big…big…news…!!!

When the price of fossil fuels and electricity begin to soar, so will the price of firewood.  With an increase in the demand for firewood comes the risk of harvesting more and more of our trees and the potential to disrupt the ecological balance on our planet. Besides, a full size tree takes a couple of decades to grow. Will we really have time to wait?

Quite literally, farmers will be able to convert some of their prime (and not so prime) farmland into the raising of selected firewood brush using the long honored art of coppicing.  For example, a farmer could grow hazelnut bushes for the nuts.  Once every 7-10 years, it’s a good practice to coppice the hazel bush  (cutting it completely off, close to the ground) thus harvesting the perfect firewood for a rocket stove.  The next season the hazel bush springs back to life and will begin producing nuts again in another 2-3 years.

Bill Hogarth, an English expert, Coppicing Hazelnut
Click on Photo for more. 

This is why permaculturalists have such a passion for food forests.  In a food forest we not only grow the foods we need to eat, we can also produce fuel and fiber while simultaneously building topsoil.  Food forests improve the land and water with every successive generation of farmers.  Traditional row-crop farming however does just the opposite.  Half of the topsoil in North American has washed away since we opened these soils with the plow.

So, the implications of the widespread use of this stove and a new firewood harvesting system are substantial:

1. Decreasing our need and use of polluting fossil fuels
2. Harvesting the energy from current sunlight instead
3. Repairing damaged farmland
4. Providing income and right livelihood for farmers and growers
5. Harvesting CO2 out of the atmosphere and storing it into wood and soil
6. Minimizing flooding (woodlands hold much, much more rainwater than farmland)
7. Creating habitat for wildlife
8. Providing greater homeland security

Cheers…. Bill Wilson

P.S. – Our winter 8-day PDC course starts in just a couple of days and at this training we will be looking at all of this in much greater detail.  Our students will be able to see Bev and Wayne’s stove in action because this training is being held in Stelle.  We’re excited to share this and more!

Here is how Bev & Wayne's stove looked during the PDC course. The cob is being built up around the exhaust system. They still have the finishing work to do which I will post here when done.

Here we are looking down into the burn chamber. Notice how the fire is burning "sideways". As the rocket stove heats up, it draws air into itself which keeps smoke out of the room and gives the stove a "rocket" sound.

Helpful YouTube Videos…

Building One…

Operational Benefits of Using One… 

6-day “Hands-on” Training - August 2011
Held at Midwest Permaculture in our Sustainably Oriented Community of Stelle, IL
We expect to be offering a ‘family friendly’ training every summer.  See Here for Details

 This Training is also Stage 2 or our 3-Stage PDC Certificate Course 
6 Students stayed on for the 5-day PDC Completion Training and earned their permaculture certificate.

This was our first training that fully welcomed families with children. Four families joined us along with 12 other individuals. Bottom-line... it worked out really well!

“I so appreciated having families and their children in the course.  It really added to the wonderful dynamic.”  Kate – College Student

Because this was a summer training, we were able to take some of our classroom work outdoors.

Teachers, children and students all participated in co-creating a learning environment that was productive, fun and flexible.

“I really appreciated the atmosphere that the teachers and students created together. “ Grant - Foreign Aid Worker from Africa

Even some of our local pets became part of the fun.

Everyone headed toward our first hands-on project with wheelbarrows and stroller in hand.

“This training had a relaxed and informal approach yet we learned so much. My husband and son loved it. So did I.”  Carlyn – Mom and School Teacher for 16 years

We do not see overgrown ditches as a 'problem' but rather as a good source of excess biomass for garden mulch and for compost making. Before these students started, the vegetation was over their heads in many places.

There is nothing like a garden cart to move large volumes of material.

Students built a compost pile seeking to obtain the ideal carbon/nitrogen (or brown/green) ratio of 30/1 so that this pile would heat up thus creating usable compost within a few weeks and with fewer weed seeds.

For some moist, and high nitrogen material, we turned to our community pond.

Students gathered up some of the summer algae bloom along with cattail that was growing in an access area.

It was wet and full of nitrogen.

We layered in about 2 inches of woody and grassy material with 2 inches of wet material.

The pile eventually got about chest high. This turned out to be a good learning experience for us as the pile never did heat up much. Because we have had some experience and success making hot compost (getting other piles up to 175 degrees in one day) we are surmizing that that materials in this pile were too coarse and bulky with not enough contact to each other to be able to interact properly. Over time, the pile did break down nicely, only it took months instead of weeks. A good learning experience for us all.

Our community garden coordinator, Peg, met with us to share of the many successes and even the challenges from this year's growing activities. No question about it, community gardening is as much about the people as it is about what, where and how to grow things.

The next day, up in the community (in our yard to be exact) we all dug a below-grade hugelkultur bed so that water will soak fully into the base of the wood pile for maximum and lengthy moisture retention when it rains.

The pit was dug, wood stacked in, child removed, and soil put back on top.

BTW... soil was worked in and around the pieces of wood as it was being stacked in. This insures good contact between soil and wood right off the bat and minimizes 'mound slumping' during the first year.

The bed was top-dressed with finished compost to give our first plantings a good start. Once the roots from these plants get down to the wood however, they will then have everything they need.

Click Here to view a fun Time-Lapse Video of the Making of this Bed.

While parents were working on this and other projects during the week, some excellent childcare activities were provided.

Meghan, our son Hayden's girlfriend, was a great help as the two of them made up our support staff for the week.

This is our rolling chicken coop that our previous students helped to build back in May. This time everyone helped us move the coop and the portable chicken fencing which allow us to move the chickens around the orchard. This way we are using the chickens to helps us keep grass and insects under control.

It usually takes Hayden and me 20-25 minutes to move the fencing and chicken coop by ourselves (we move it once every 7-10 days). But with all of the students helping we got it done in 5 minutes.

While in the community orchard (2 acres - 120 trees) we took time to talk about what it takes to care for this property. Later in the week students learned about grafting and had a chance to try it themselves.

Some parents were fully enrolled in the training while their spouse (or friend) cared for the little ones. The person caring for the child/ren could come and go as they wished so as to meet the needs of the children while still having access to the training. Because of this they only paid half the regular registration price.

“Stelle is a wonderful and welcoming place to hold this training. Great for kids and grown-ups.”  Catherine – Mom and Non-profit Business Administrator

Mother and Daughter Having Quality Time

Our single students were incredibly supportive of the family environment while also making some great friendships themselves, some if which might last for a lifetime.

As part of the standard permaculture design certification course, all students gain experience with use of an A-frame. With this simple tool we can accurately mark level contours on the land where we wish to dig a swale that will hold excess rainwater.

Students also hand the opportunity to learn how to use a sight level or what is known as a transit to make the contours as well.

 “Doing this hands-on training really allowed me to fully understand
the permaculture concepts. “
Gina – (45) College Professor

Everyone who wanted, had the chance to learn to use it.

Up the field from the transit, I show students how to use a measuring pole, called a stadia rod, to mark the exact location of the next contour flag.

Once the contour was marked we got right in to learning how to dig a swale. A swale is a water harvesting ditch that is cut on contour. It slows rainwater down allowing to soak into the ground thus doing a better job supporting plant growth near it.

Click Here for Three Short Videos on the Benefits of
Holding Water on the Landscape.

Milton demonstrating how to build and fire a 'rocket stove'.

Camping is made available right inside our community, just 100 feet from the classroom and kitchen area. Showers and bathrooms are this close as well.

Another great use of the sun's energy is for cooking food. With the use of cardboard, aluminum foil, and a template off the internet, students fabricated a solar over.

A manufactured oven is seen on the right with part of our lunch in it. The hand-made unit sitting before our students did not reach as high of temperatures as the manufactured unit (165 vs. 210 degrees F) but it still cooked the food we put into it.

As part of the plant guild exercise, students gathered up surplus specimens that we have around the community. No plants were purchased for assembling a plant guild around one of the young cherry trees near our orchard.

 “I really enjoyed the content of the training, the hospitality,
and the sense of community we created.” 
Talia – College Graduate and First Year Medical School Student 

One evening we talked about food preservation. As a treat, Milton broke out a few bottles of some homemade mead (wine made from honey) he brewed up and everyone had the opportunity to sample it.

Even young Theo wanted a taste.

All of our trainings have full days so to maximize the learning experience, but we do take some nice breaks for meals and relaxing. This piano sits in our community center where the kitchen is and meals are served.

We provide three meals a day, much of the food coming from the local area, and almost all of it organic. For some students, it is the first time they have eaten whole, nutritious food for an entire week.

During some of the meals, student have the opportunity to mingle with many of our friends and community residents. Our students tend to come away from our Stelle trainings with a deeper understanding and appreciation for community.

For us, having children at a training in Stelle is like rolling out of bed. There are quite a few other children in town so our community is already child friendly.

Besides the pond, orchard and creek to play around, we have a small playground...

...and a swimming pool for those caring for children while the parent is in class.

Group photo taken following the building of the hugelkultur bed.

We really enjoyed delivering this family oriented training.
Please consider joining us next summer.

Click Here for full details and/or to register…  or call Becky at 815-256-2215 to discuss in person.

Before

As I am doing my year-end clean-up and organizing of my computer files, I came across these two pictures of our front yard (Midwest Permaculture – Bill and Becky Wilson). Here is how the yard looked the spring following the digging of the rain gardens which we did in late October.

After

And here it is in June after we dug in the paths and covered them and the raised beds (our keyhole gardens) with shredded hardwood bark mulch. The mulch gives the yard a more finished look while also helping to hold in moisture and add organic matter to the soil. Because this is the front yard we felt it was important for it to look more ‘landscaped’ being located in a suburban setting. If we are going to help mainstream to see the value of permaculture, we will have to make it look nice as well as be functional & productive. 

Becky and I are strong advocates of making pathways a priority as well. They not only make it easier to get around the yard but they really help define space which helps the mind to organize what to do where. 

The plants in the foreground are sweet potatoes. The vines grew all the way down into the rain gardens and whenever it rained and they filled with water, the vines would float on the surface like water lilies. It was lovely.

Becky and I would like to wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We look forward to sharing much with you in 2012.

All the best…. Bill Wilson