Permaculture Design Team

We are separated into small groups for a design projects. When I told Xena, she said, "Uh-oh." She's spent the last couple of years in group projects as she wraps up her degree, and all I ever hear is how disastrous this is. She is always placed in the worst group, ends up carrying the biggest load, and works extra hard on the non-group course work to maintain an "A." And, uh, before I break my promise and start telling her story instead of mine, I'd better stop there.

I love my design team! The instructors gave us just a few minutes to decide what we would work on, so we instinctively did a sort of Borda count to choose our project from a field of nearly 20 options. This ended up being a very good system; we reached consensus quickly, had time left over to discuss our skillsets and start collecting each other's contact information, all while one group struggled to reach accord. We are going to design a community kitchen/cafe, possibly using an abandoned McDonalds®!

First step is observe, right? Well, the pic above is from the roof of the restaurant, with Kathy peeking up over the eave. I notice that the near-equinox sun is lined up nearly bang-on to the building, so I can tell it's oriented to true north. Thus, one side is going to always be in shadow. Hmm, what would a permie do with a permanently shaded side of a building..?

This is going to be fun. I must admit, applying urban permaculture to a kitchen wasn't my first choice, but we are motivated bunch. It was Kathy's first choice, and she was very pleased. Even the sky is celebrating with her.