Obtain a Yield

The third principle of permaculture is Obtain a Yield. We have discussed the importance of taking time to observe and interact with our surroundings. We realize the value of energy, spreading it out across our landscape and conserving for future needs. If you have already put these two principles into action then you are likely starting to see some positive change. The third principle can be applied in many ways. We can see yields in food crops, electricity, finances, habitat improvement etc.
Obtain a Yield
Often enough when we start building our dreams we can forget to stop and refuel. We push onward until we are exhausted, then resent ourselves when things are not moving along quick enough. This is why it is so important early on in your design to establish a means of obtaining a yield. Take something you are very good at and use that skill to create something of value that you can utilize early on in your system. This way you will be able to watch it grow as you are working on some of the tougher bits of your design. Watching something you created flourish will help keep you motivated and boost your confidence. I have a small garden bed that produces fresh greens almost year round, I can take some pride in it knowing that through observation and interaction I was able to realize a microclimate region. It helps show me that the practice works.
As your design begins to mature your yields will increase, both in diversity and value. The landscape will begin to care for itself in many ways and your work can be put to use elsewhere. This is perhaps a good time to reflect and share your experiences with budding permaculturists. I have found that sharing knowledge with people gives me a spiritual uplift. This is a type of yield you will experience in social permaculture. Even if you are just starting your journey, like myself, you can use these tools to help yourself and others obtain a yield of knowledge and community.
For many the yield is the end result, the main goal.  For us the yield is just a spoke in the wheel. I takes many more functions to create a sustainable model of living, one that is restorative and wholesome.

Catch and Store Energy

Energy comes in a myriad of forms. It can be suttle or explosive, calming or deadly. However much of society views energy as a one dimensional entity, believing that it only can be used for mechanical means. The truth is energy is in everything.
The second principle of permaculture is Catch and Store Energy. We use this principle in many ways in day to day life, often without even thinking about it. Our goal is to maximize this in all of our systems, creating redundancies to ensure a broad spectrum of energy storage for times of low production or crisis.
Catch and Store Energy
Water, wind, earth and fire. The four elements that sustain life. Each one can come in different forms and can have a multitude of effects, singular or combined, beneficial or destructive. Our main focus in this principle is how we can focus these energies and extend their benefit over a longer duration.
Water is life. It is the elixer of all existence on earth. We prefer if possible to catch water high on our landscape and slow it down, maximizing it's edge, allowing it to sink into the soil, storing it in the soil, ponds, swales, cisterns and rain barrels so we can share it back into the system. The goal is to create a surplus of water,  therefore recharging the aquifer and creating abundance downstream while controlling erosion of the soil.
Wind is often caught in turbines and stored in batteries. A sailboat catches wind for propulsion. We often overlook winds' effect on our landscape as it can help us in micro-climate location and creation. We can use wind to help naturally cool our homes in the summer by opening windows at appropriate times. Each site will have different ways to use wind to help build a resilient energy source.
Earth offers us many forms of energy as well and is naturally slow release. We are only begining to scratch the surface with thermal mass technology, soil building and geo thermal power. Fixing the soil should be top of the priority list here as it is critical in a successful ecosystem. A healthy soil environment will give you an abundant yeild, with little outside input.
Fire can be the sun, or a cozy woodstove. Either way we want to catch and store that energy. Solar passive homes, annualized solar inertia,  solar pv panels and battery banks. Solar power is all the rage and for good reason, it's free. Fire used to heat our homes can also be stored through efficient designs that stack functions. Rocket Mass Heaters are a burgeoning technology in the field of permaculture, incorporating thermal mass, efficient burning and beauty into the home.
There is no way I can cover all of the ways to catch and store energy in one short blog post, but I will let you in on a little secret. The best way to catch and store energy in your system is to simply plant trees. Trees turn all of the above elements into life. They store solar energy, hold back water on the landscape, use wind to create a strong fibrous backbone, a habitat for insects and animals and strengthen soil by dynamic accumulation of minerals and nitrogen fixation. Fruit trees take all of these elements and convert them into another energy source that we can catch and store.
Thanks for joining me on this look into the principles of permaculture, tomorrow we will discuss ways to Create a Yeild.

Observe and Interact

Today we embark on a two week discussion on the Principles of Permaculture. This should be a good primer for anyone planning on taking a PDC or just interested in adding resiliency and weal to their life. We will start with the first principle, Observe and Interact, and work our way through the other eleven one day at a time. When we are done I will likely add a discussion on the three ethics and then have a day of q+a. Please feel free to add to the discussion, it is after all a large part of the first principle.
Observe and Interact
Life moves very fast. In the scale of time we are but a blip. Somehow in that blip humankind has managed to cause irreversible damage to the life systems that the Earth so efficiently manages.
Man is quick to turn a blind eye to the natural forces that create resiliency in nature. When we slow down, giving our senses time to absorb our surroundings something magical happens. We begin to see patterns and relationships everywhere. The more we observe, the more we begin to form an understanding of the natural world and how we can interact with the world in a positive, caressing manor. A life of abundance surrounds us, yet we shall not drink from its' well. We shall add to it and take only what is necessary for our well being and returning any surplus back to the system.
Many errors in our designed systems can be avoided if we look for guidance from the natural landscape. Our homes can run much more efficiently if we use care in incorporating the structure into the landscape rather than thinking only about road access. Many issues associated with infrastructure can be avoided if natural contours are used in the design. Food systems become a healing oasis, a place where soil is massaged and fed rather than abused and finally lost.
None of these ideas are new. The writing was on the wall the whole time, we just needed to open our eyes to it.
Observation can come in many forms. Watching, listening, reading, smell and touch. You must use all of your senses. In fact if you are reading this now you are practicing the principle. There is no end to the amount of information you can learn by simple observation.
Interaction is where many of the other principles come to life. It is what we do with the knowledge and how we cope with success, failure and the energy that surrounds us that determines our benefit to the system. As we integrate ourselves into a nurturing lifestyle these interactions become much more seemless and take less energy to perpetuate. We see life as a perenial bounty rather than an annual struggle. Some interactions may at first look like mistakes, but are often only stepping stones on our path of observation. No one gets it right the first time.
It is also important to share our observations with each other,  as it helps to build relationships of understanding and empathy. As you will see, permaculture is much more than gardens and eco villages. It is an all encompassing design for life and everything that life involves.
Thank you for joining me on this experience and please interact in the comments section!

Back to the Future

Sometimes I amaze myself. Back in November of 2011 I wrote episode 8, at the end of my post I said "You will never get back the time you wasted worrying about all the time you wasted." No shit eh? This is the beauty of the blog. I do not have to go far for a little inspiration. Alot of my writing is spur of the moment, I get a gut feeling and just go with it. Lost in the confusion, in between the rough edges there is an idea, a beacon of hope to light my way somewhere down the road. I am not sure I realized the value of all of this when I started writing the blog. This archive of my thoughts, a rear view mirror.
To be honest with you I have been struggling a bit lately.  I often get feelings of guilt and remorse for the work I do. I feel I am taking advantage of the earth for my materialistic benefit. I cannot blame anyone for the way things have turned out but myself. I have made poor choices in the past and now I must pay the price, I just seems wrong that in doing so I must destroy something that I have grown to hold very dear to my soul. So in fact it seems I am making a direct attact on myself. It is a conflict in which I would rather not engage.
So what are my options? Two important things I have learned are "the problem is the solution" and "when the student is ready the teacher shall appear."  Ah ha, yes indeed. I am broke but I am not broken.
Life is a crooked path, in permaculture we call that maximizing the edges. Life flourishes at the edges. The more twists and turns in a system, the more edge, the most diversity. In a diverse system you have competition, succession and synergy. Each unit benefits from its predecessor, nothing is wasted. I know that my life is no different. If I follow the principles I will have success and will live a synergistic life within my given environment. I need to understand that there will be conflict along the way, and that I shall use the energy of the conflict to benefit the system, the way a forest fire can rejuvenate an aging ecosystem.
Another part of this permaculture principle is finding value in the marginal. "All those rusted signs we ignore through out our lives, chosing the shiny ones instead", thanks Eddie. It's true though, there is a definitive trend in today's society of devaluing simplicity. Often the answer is staring us straight in the face, if we would only take the time to look in the mirror. The dull and mundane things in life help keep us rooted when all we want to do is fly, often well before our wings have fully developed. This is the time for observation, the interaction will come later once we fully understand how to become a beneficial part of the system.

Sometimes a look back at yourself is all you need for a little guidance. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

The Wasteland of Opportunity

There are three ethics in permaculture- give care to the earth, give care to the people and give care to the future.
I was sitting in one of the largest open pit mines in North America, possibly the world. Encased in a massive cage of iron and glass I am building a roadway for the deisel guzzling monoliths that haul the prized bituminous ore. The scene is one of destruction and struggle. Man against earth. The path of most resistance. Many have compared it to Mordor, a dark and firey land from the Lord of the Rings novels. At first glance I would agree. However, as with most things in life, once you spend some time and really observe the whole picture you begin to realize a shimmer of hope. For in this landscape of doom and gloom I have seen life. I have seen pioneer species of plants trying to stake their claim in hydrocarbon laden dirt. I have seen green algae prospering in pools of oil-slicked water. Many species of insects and small mammals seem to thrive in this decrepit environment. These observations paired with a little permaculture knowledge spawned the question "Why can't we perma-blitz the tar sands?"
Sepp Holtzer is a renaissance man. He is growing lemons in the highlands of Austria. Outside. The Holtzer homestead has and elevation difference of 400 meters from the lowest to highest point and has a short growing season and bitter cold winters. He uses these hardships to his advantage and has one of the most productive farms in the world when you weigh in the fact that he uses extremely little off site inputs. Lemons aren't his prize crop, just an experiment. He has a diverse polyculture of plants, animals and insects on the property and he lets them do much of the hard labour.
So what the heck does Sepp Holtzers' farm have to do with the tar sands? Let me explain.
A mine is more than just a big hole. It is a series of benches and slopes. There are small ponds and ditches. There are sectors than have much sun exposure and others with almost none. Each bench has different features as does each slope. In some areas water gathers in contour lines. Water from the high elevations eventually gravity feeds down to the pit bottom where it is typically  collected in large sumps. Holtzers landscape shares many of these features and his cold climate is reminiscent of that of Northern Alberta. Possibly by now you might have an inkling of where I could be taking this. Hold on because I am far from finished.
First the land is surveyed. Then slashed. Then the muskeg and topsoil is stripped and stockpiled. Then the big gear moves in. Electric shovels and haul trucks move mega tonnes of earth while massive bulldozers and graders do their best to keep everything running at top production. Within months a century's old forest is replaced with a cavernous scar. All so we can drive to work, send our kids to an education system that trains them for a lifetime of debt, and buy food that is likely the sole cause of the health crisis that we are only beginning to see the severity of. That's a fair bit of doom and gloom, but it's the truth. We can make things better. If we work together.
Hydrocarbons are a real problem if you are a living creature. For almost all they are an extreme toxin. That is of course, unless you are an oyster mushroom. A recent breakthrough in bio-remediation has discovered that many mushrooms have the uncanny ability to not only feed off of, but break down hydrocarbons to their less harmful individual elements.  Many mushrooms can also sequester heavy metals and toxic elements such as lead and arsenic. What's not to say that a pile of muskeg, inoculated with mushroom spawn, could not then be used as a biofiltration device for tailings pond effluent. Once composted the muskeg could then be utilized in landscaping and reclaimation. The filtered water could then be coursed through a series of plant based biofiltration systems and finally be released into a purpose built wetland. All of this could be accomplished with gravity feed as the tailings ponds are on the top bench and your catchment wetland would be in the pit bottom. Path of least resistance, just like in nature.
Once extraction stops so does the cash flow. How do we go about funding such a large scale undertaking? This is where a permaculture ethic must be put to use by the stockholders, corperations and governments that hold interest in these operations. This ethic, the third ethic is Give Care to the Future (aka return the surplus). We must save funding for the huge remediation effort that will be crucial for the life systems in the boreal forest of Northern Alberta. It is my belief that more jobs will be had in remediation than extraction and refining could ever supply. However, if we use permaculture as a business model we can greatly reduce the monetary expence of this undertaking. I would also argue that no amount of money can make up for the destuction of the original landscape, but we are beating a dead horse on that topic. The current housing options for a massive workforce are already in place, however they are incredibly resource intensive and are not self supporting in any way, shape or form. This doesn't mean these structures cannot be retrofitted to be more efficient. Here's the thing, there are thousands of mining truck tires laying in piles all over the place. These tires are really big. Filled with compacted earth or mature fine tailings (a blend of clay particulate and polymers) these tires would be a fabulous building material for large scale earthships, the thermal mass of the huge tires would make many earthship builders quiver with excitement I am sure. With garbage building we could house many workers with little to no input for heating or cooling, an enormous savings. If we located these buildings proximate to the worksite transportation needs would also be mitigated. All waste products from the kitchens could be composted for the gardens or fed to the on site farm animals that could then be used as a protien source for the workforce. All blackwater could be added to the wastewater biofiltration stream. All potable water could be collected from the rooftop collectors and through solar distillation of grey water or snow melt. All food could be grown on site, just because the growing season is short doesn't mean it can't be done.
So now I put myself in the same spot. Only this time I am lounging in a hammock strung between a hazelnut tree and an apple tree, wildflowers sway in the breeze as swallows snatch mayflies out of the sky. The marsh is full of life. The air is clean. The only semblance of the old mine is the terraced slopes, now each one a working forest, each one lending nutrients to the one below. The houses barely recognizable but for the panes of glass soaking in the warmth of the sun and recharging the thermal batteries for the cold winter ahead. For the winter will bring new opportunities in this newly discovered oasis. An educational retreat where we teach the future generations how we came together as one to overcome the most destructive force ever known to the earth. Us.
The power of nature is beyond our understanding. We can only be humbled by her unrelenting need to heal. We can be healers too, but only if we let go of ourselves and let her guide us through this land. For one day we will all be returned to the land and the cycle will begin anew.

Driving Towards Nothing

I get inspired by books, by radio programs and podcasts and sometimes I write about them. This time it's a book. I guess you could say I stole this book. I downloaded a pdf file online. It was free. The authour passed away some years ago and after reading a bit of his book I am sure he would not mind. The One Straw Revolution, written by Masanobu Fukuoka is one of those life manuals that are often overlooked by the mainstream. It has had brief surges of popularity over the past 35 years but most people have never heard of it.
Fukuoka was a farmer in Japan. He maintained some of the most productive lands in that country with natural farming practices. He used no fertilizers, no chemicals, no conventional compost methods and, possibly most impressively, never turned the soil. He called his method "do-nothing" farming. This is slightly inaccurate, the true expression has been lost in translation from japanese to english. It was Fukuoa's belief that humans could not fully understand nature, as the complexities of the relationships found in nature are beyond our mental capacity. This is a view that I share. He also came to realize that our beliefs and efforts are meaningless, self centered even if in the best of intentions. This is a hard idea to grasp for alot of people, but it is so true. We are only part of a cycle. Life and death.
Our egos drive us. Everything you do throughout your whole life is the name of self aggrandizement. Your feelings, happiness, embarrassment, anger, frustration, lust, all ego. Perhaps the only one that is not directly tied to ego is true love. True love cannot be explained. It's natures' realm. Like one of the elements. I suppose every living creature feels love, yet only humans have the capacity to be driven by ego.
So are we truly driving towards nothing? I have been asking myself this question alot lately, have written about my frustrations with the system on this blog. Fukuoka has shown that a productive existence can be lived without the means of modern industrial methods. A small group of people are trying to incorporate this knowledge into the mainstream and we are largely being ignored, or pointed out to be radicals, anti establishment and political extremists. We are the permaculturists.
We do not arm ourselves with grenades and rockets. We do not use violence. We do not inflict damage upon the land, nor impose ourselves upon the rights of others. We pledge ourselves to a simple element. Love. Love of nature. That simple element goes far beyond the realm of our understanding but we do not fear. We can only observe nature and try to duplicate her methods to the best of our abilities. Once we have found success in our work and have gathered enough resources for ourselves we must share the surplus. It is in our ethics. This is why we share our knowledge with you. Often free of charge, for only in times of no surplus can we accept payment for our duties. We are born with nothing and so shall we return to the earth free of material belongings. Our legacy is in the systems we create that will sustain life in natures' terms for decades after we are gone.
If any of this makes sense to you, or if you are completely baffled by it but intrigued at the same time, get yourself a copy of One Straw Revolution.

Little Green Lies

Today has been interesting. It was my last 12 hour night shift before a well deserved week off. Today is also my travel day, so after working all night I get to sleep for an hour or two before I have to pack up my belongings and head for the airport. I do not have a vehicle in Fort McMurray so I use transit, taxi or my own two feet. It works and is way less hassle than you might think. Suncor provides our transportation to and from site, this helps alleviate much of the traffic on the highway north of town. Once again I find myself going of track...
To make a long story short the airstrip in Comox was fogged in so my homeward flight was diverted to Victoria.  Now I am riding a bus north to Comox.  I spend alot of time on the bus! What a green way to travel right? Well maybe not so much.
Throughout the last couple years I have been interested in and studying the way we live. Let me tell you, the more I learn the more disgusted I become. Green tech is all the rage right? CFL, low flush toilets, low-e windows, high eff gas furnaces and water heaters, fuel efficient trucks with ecoboost 400hp engines, plant based water bottles, green detergents, green cosmetics, the list goes on. Guess what? All that stuff, all that new, cutting edge tech, it's all bullshit. It's all a consumerist fucking lie and society is buying it hook, line and sinker.
All these innovations are patches on a ship that has already sunk.
What I ask of you now is to go to youtube and search a man named Michael Reynolds.  Alternatively type in earthship. You will find some short videos, Ted talks and most importantly a full length video called "Garbage Warrior". Once you have watched a few of these videos you will begin to form an understanding of what real green tech is. We're talking permaculture living. Biotecture. It's an art of passion. It's almost too easy to believe. Total freedom. What a way to live. My dream. A necessity.