Building a Floating Island

I've begun getting video.
http://vimeo.com/user7636532/building-a-floating-island

A Permie Plant

The chayote is blooming!

It's true California is blessed with an amazing climate. But in my ignorance before embracing permaculture, I thought of winter as an off season. Now I'm enjoying finding crops that are winter crops, like tree tomatoes, fava beans and chayote.

We are using the "edge" of our deck to grow this monster vine. The root is down below next to the gate and fence. I protected it from children, pets, and watered it often and deeply. It took a year to get established well, growing from a spindly, sad little vine (like the sorriest cucumber you've ever grown) to its current glory.

This slim vine is very cold to the touch; on a hot day the effect is almost shocking. I would guess the plant has tapped into the water table and literally gallons of cool water are being transported through this stem every day to nourish all those leaves and developing squash.

I've been told that chayote is a perennial. If so, then this is a great example of permaculture design. I spent a fair amount of effort getting the plant established, it's growing in a margin (edge) adding value, and it offers a stacked function of providing food while enhancing the privacy of the deck.

Frontlines of Permaculture

This is not the frontline I want to be on.

I do not want to live where gunmen kill, and fleeing authorities, slam through busy intersections killing more people.

I do not want to hear sirens passing, heralding another violent tragedy.

I do not want a helicopter bristling machine guns circling a point just a few blocks from my home, pounding away the peace of twilight with its thwop-thwop-thwop and pushing back the night with its searchlight.

I want to live at the frontline of unmaking the system that has institutionalized classism, ableism, sexism, globalism, and whatever "ism" stands in the way of people treating each other humanely. I want to live at the frontline of spreading seeds of future greatness, of future opportunity, of future abundance. I do not want to live at the frontline of this urban violence.

And yet, I do live here.

People are dying by violence in Pakistan, in Gaza, in Darfur, in Sri Lanka... and in Berkeley and Oakland. Caitlan notes the irony of requiring an illiterate parolee to fill out and mail a postcard to the parole officer who tracks addresses; Betsy notes the lack of choices available to low-wage earning parents with children enrolled in public schools that are failing under the "No Child Left Behind" program; my black neighbor struggles to distance himself from the black thug that sometimes roams our street, to create for himself a future where "black" does not equal "criminal."

In permaculture, there is no away. You cannot throw trash away, because the whole world is your backyard. I submit that in urban permaculture, we are all on the frontline. There is no place you can "escape" to, because the problems are all around us. The problems belong to all of us.

We've made our street safer, through diligence and connecting with neighbors who value working together, through parties and food and sitting in each other's yards. Prejudice is not vanquished, but there is grace and tolerance here. We have yet to take on a larger task, such as ensuring children in the area get access to fresh produce, or that parents in the area have energy left to attend parent's night at school after an emotionally wearying workday. Were I to live in a place removed from violence, would I be safer? Or simply less at risk? What use is my mortal life if I've forsaken the task and destiny of my immortal soul? Am I allowed to risk my children? What choice does a parent in a refugee camp have? What choice do I have? What is my choice?

I'll choose to see that I am at the frontline. Of Oakland violence. Of Sri Lankan violence. There is no away. There is no shirking from choosing to help. This permaculture, intentional community, food justice and opportunity for all demonstration project that I am part of, is what I am doing and will continue to do. It's small. It's slow. But it is change.

Small. Slow.

Change.

More Unintended Benefits of Thinning

We sow seeds thickly. We also inter-crop intensively; lettuces, radishes, carrots, mustards and kales, all sown together. Two benefits have already become apparent: pests can't get a very good grip on the crop (mustard seems especially good at keeping slugs away) and as we thin baby plants, we get a harvest much sooner than if we had to wait for full maturation. As long as seeds are cheap, this will be a good strategy.

Two benefits showed up over time: the cats don't poop in the beds (they prefer fluffy dirt, not soil filled with growing things) and now, this. Jori thinned some kale, and made an edible "floral" arrangement with it.

I've been really enjoying wandering through the kitchen and eating a few leaves. As if going down to the garden were any great burden! But here are greens, in the kitchen, succulent and tasty, just waiting to go into my mouth.

If It Gets Easier, Am I Still Doing It Right?

When I wonder if I'm still following my calling (as it becomes easier, and familiar, I have to find a compass other than "is this the most uncomfortable, growth-filled thing I can be doing right now?"), I'll catalog activities over a couple of days and assess them.

Karl made an amazing barbecue over the fire pit for dinner. Much of the food was local. Then we had our weekly community meeting, but outside, around the fire. Hank took notes on his laptop, and we had illumination from fire, solar-power lights and regular electric-grid tied lights. Urban permaculture rating: people care, earth care, fair share, stacked functions, integrate, small slow solutions, use edges and margins, observe and interact, produce no waste... yeah, that one ranked pretty high.

At work I tried to explain PG&E's TOU (Time of Use) E7 rate to a client, and I measured how much sun shine falls on his roof. I quoted a 4kW system to another client. As much as Right Livelihood fits into urban permaculture, this activity fits: especially as I consider fair share, observing and interacting, planning to obtain a yield, catch and store energy, design from pattern to details, use edges (specifically, the "edge" of a roof and the sky, a place currently barren on most dwellings).

I helped Ingrid Severson install a rain catchment system at her cute cottage. She gave me coconut oil from the barrels we were converting and fed me. Earth care, people care, fair share, catch and store energy, apply self-regulation and accept feedback, small slow solutions, obtain a yield, use edges and value the marginal, creatively adapt to change... another multi-point score!

In no particular order: I also had a sauerkraut party. Not as much fun as the last, but it was spread over both Saturday and Sunday as people dropped in and out. I got invited to two presentations, but I already had plans. I also played, with family and housemates, a version of Sorry!® in which you hold 5 cards and plan your strategy. I comforted a child who was feeling hurt, chauffeured parents to collect their child from the YMCA, and shared our one car back and forth with my wife.

I courageously called a friend when I was feeling down and shared my sorrow, and she listened and I felt better and no longer stewed in my juices.

Well, how about that. So many delicious, delightful activities in my life in the last few days, and all of them supporting and supported by the dense interconnected web that is urban permaculture.

I suppose I'm still on the right path.

Checking the Decomposition of the Pee Pee Ponics Raised Bed.

The rich soil in the picture above is made of wood chips and urine.

Pee-pee ponics promises fertile soil from free resources, and it delivers. The wood chips were free, the urine is free, and the end result is beautiful. Why buy topsoil when you can make it so easily?

Owning Being a Meat Eater

I can't get a handle on what's going on inside me right now.

I killed a chicken today. I chopped her head off, and while her body went through its death spasms, I held her head until her light left. "Thank you, sweetie, bless you baby, thank you sweetie," I whispered to her, stroking her feathers, blood dripping down my wrist.

I'm a meat-eater now, and so I figure that I ought to have the fortitude to take the life of a creature that I will eat. I see this as part of un-making the diseased suburban lifestyle. Job specialization is wonderful, but being so divorced from our food supply that the slaughterer is the only one who ever sees meat as an animal is sick. Wrong. Worse than not knowing what kind of tree pickles grow on.

This chicken was the most loved one in the coop. She was the last one slaughtered. I am very honored to be the one that took her life. "I feel you definitely showed the most love, out of anyone today, for the chicken as you killed it," Betsy told me. That feels nice to hear.

I'm also very undone at the moment.

Loafing on Christmas

Permaculture Principle: The problem is the solution.

Application for our family: we never seem to get all the food shopping done. Last night, as an example, Nicholas and I lucked in to Berkeley Bowl's final four minutes. We got a surprisingly large amount of shopping done in those four minutes, but we are without some things typically considered essential. Shall we mope and whine that we don't have our "favorite?" The problem is we have time, but the stores are closed now. Well, what do we have? Time, flour and a recipe for the world-famous no-knead bread! Suddenly the gift of baking together in the kitchen is recaptured, and the tradition of having special food on the holiday is upheld.

We also found the parts for the pasta machine, so we'll be treating ourselves to fresh pasta later!

The White Pigeon

In a flock of pigeons, is the white bird amongst all the others serving its species by attracting the attention of the predator? Does its mutation help all the other birds escape?

As we move into a post-carbon, post-affluenza world, who among us is willing to step forward and be the white pigeon? Not so much to be prey, but to help forge policies for grey water permitting, to be examples of non-violence, to show how to support ourselves while also supporting our neighbors and leaving a resource abundance for our children's children?

Triumphant Election

Crafty Girl and her mama put up some nice posters out front of the house: "Be the change you would see in the world" and "Obama/Biden."

Later, watching the returns in the common house, she wanted to know, "Now that he's won, will he come visit us?"

Hank pondered a moment. "You know, it's just possible that permaculture will come across his radar. You do know that the ABC news clip about us went international? So, possibly... possibly."

We were impressed with McCain's concession speech, and sad that his supporters were so ungracious in defeat. But then, the Republicans have been trying to win based on fear and hatred, so I suppose it's not much surprise that their crowds are a bit ugly. McCain showed some real statesmanship on the podium. Good men like him deserve better supporters.

We noticed in Obama's speech, that by using a 106-year-old woman's life story, he also laid out a 100 year goal. Have we ever had a present ask us to think that far in advance?

I am filled with hope and gratitude right now.

Later we joined some of the rowdy people dancing and hoorah-ing on the streets.

Bicycle Permaculture Tour 2008

Seven years ago I had a vision: to bring what I saw at SolFest into the urban environment, and to share it. I didn't know about permaculture at the time, there was no "sustainability" movement, and "green" meant a color of crayon (or the Green Party). The fact that I now live in a place that is part home and part demonstration space, is a testament to the power of life coaching (thank you, Nika Quirk!) and God's action in my life. On the one hand, it's been a long haul, and on the other, it's been a blink of an eye.

The day after we returned from Utah, Josh Shupack's Bicycle Permaculture Tour rolled through. Still high on vacation, I got to share Mariposa Grove and Willow House with a group of about 40 interested people. I recognized a few of them, but mostly it was new faces. They'd already been to a half-dozen projects, but there was still excitement (or perhaps that special, spiritual glow people get when they see that the future might not be so grim as the doomsayers want us to believe?) in their faces and questions.

Hank and I fielded questions at the start. I really like talking to people who have pierced the veil of our over-consumptive, pre-packaged society and are eager for the kinds of solutions that will become part of our lives within the next five to twenty years.

"Why are your raised beds different heights?" asks one person.

"Because one of the unnatural aspects of suburban design is that the developer comes through and levels the place and then plops boxes on top of that. Natural places are full of elevation change. Even Walt Disney knew this, and designed small rolling paths throughout DisneyLand. "

"It looks nice."

"Well, sure, because it's more natural and more familiar with the landscape cues embedded in our genes."

Questions came fast: "How well do you get along with your neighbors? Where are your bees? Is your gray water system hooked up? How does the rain catchment work? Is that an electric car? What's guild planting?"

Aaron, Jori and Caitlan pitched in and helped as everyone divided up into smaller groups. Jori scared a few people as he opened up the vegie-oil bus. I guess they weren't expecting him to pop out as they were peering in. Caitlan showed off the herbs garden planted all over the deck. Some people got to look at Aaron's vegie-oil settling system. Others toured the common house and asked questions about the differing economic models between the adjoining properties. I talked about physical systems and some of the integration among those, Hank talked about the social aspects. We touched on small, slow change, problem as the solution, and earth care. I suppose at the background of much of the discussion was people care and and fair share, but I don't think we got explicit about those. Several of the cyclists were clearly reluctant to leave, but they eventually all went on, some home, some to the next stop on the tour.

"Why do you think people were so interested in this?" I asked Hank, waving my hands to indicate our homes. To me, this looks like a barely begun patch of potential paradise, hardly warranting the joyful response we received.

"They'd seen a few places already, true, but I think they saw something unique, here," he said. "We have several people working on different parts of sustainability and community. I think that's the exciting part, for people who come here: they see something that's more diverse than any one person's vision can be."

That's something we certainly do have, here: a diversity of ideas and practices, of concerns and abilities. In all my years' worth of notes about building up a demonstration project, this is an aspect that I'd assigned to a far future project: having it be village-like. What a wonderful, unsuspected surprise for me, to have leapfrogged the singleton effort and landed in community.

Building with urbanite

The elevation change between the two yards, all of about a foot, used to be held in place with a great chunk of concrete. The willow has broken it into chunks weighing from 500 pounds to well over 1800 pounds. We used 5 men to move the first, smallest piece about 8 feet.

This piece we used two men and my wife, Xena. Aaron provided excellent supervisory support. This block was heavier, and we moved it about three times further. It is now a nice little sitting bench at the end of one of the raised beds.

"The difference," said Karl, "Is this time I knew we could do it."

Yeh.

The difference is this time there was a girl on the team.

(She's camera shy, so in the photos she's the one behind the camera. Karl and I are just posing. We really can't move that 600 pound chunk of urbanite on our own, even with the rollers made from the plum tree trunk)

Old-growth Forests and Atmospheric CO2

Steve and I are in a punctuated discussion. Not long ago, he posted this comment:

"Developers use an awful lot of lumber, all sustainable. In fact, if you believe Al Gore's tripe about carbon footprints, (I don't) wasting lumber is a great way to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and lock it up in solid form."

I'm less interested in sustainability and more interested in permaculture. Sustainability seems to have been co-opted by the reductionist viewpoint: "How much money can be made from this resource without losing the ability to make future money?" Permaculture seeks to mimic nature's methods so that we end up in a spiral of increasing abundance.

I read a fascinating article by Sharon Levy about trees and CO2 over at onearth.org. Beverly Law, a professor of global forest science at Oregon State University, is using new techniques to study the interaction of forests and the atmosphere:

"Global warming has forced foresters to address the impact of logging on the flow of carbon between forests and the atmosphere, and many in the industry have insisted that stands of young, fast-growing trees capture carbon more efficiently than do older forests. Using a recently developed technology called the eddy covariance method-more commonly known as eddy flux measurement-Bev Law and her colleagues are showing that those assumptions are wrong."

When Steve writes that all lumber is sustainable, I suppose that could be true, in a really well managed forest. One of the difficulties in discussing this is that humans have short memories; the fact that London had to pass a moratorium on new buildings because England was burning up all its trees for firewood (before they discovered they could burn coal) is a fact known only to those who have studied the rise and fall of energy economies. Is a lumber industry sustainable? Trees do, in fact, grow back. Ecosystems, however, take much longer to recover (if they ever do). A lumber industry following permaculture principles would be more than sustainable; it might also reap rewards in improved water quality, better camping/sightseeing, sale of under-canopy food products (such as "wild" grapes, strawberries, currants) in addition to participating in the carbon-offset market.

Designing the Space Under the Willow

"Zones and Sectors" are Permaculture postulates used by a designer to decide where to put what. For instance, you'd need a really good reason to put your tomatoes on the shady, north side of a building. Similarly, you probably wouldn't set the main entry of your house towards whatever direction your winter storms come from. You'd get cold blasts of rain coming into the house whenever you opened the door.

Urban permaculture expands the idea of Zones (from Zone One, the places you are in the most to Zone Five, the places that are left alone and from which you find inspiration) to include "Zone Zero," or the care of your self. It also allows Sectors (those things you can't control, such as the fact the sun rises in the east and sets in the west) to be re-defined as wind tunnels between buildings, areas of greater or lesser crime, freeways and aqueducts, and in the case of my backyard, the cold trap created by the willow tree. I've got an area some 30x20 feet which is simply too shady to grow anything. Cut down the tree? No!

So we're breaking up the concrete paths and buried slabs from past owners' outbuildings and using this "urbanite" to create a fire pit, gathering space, and stage in that spot. It'll be a cool place to sit when the temps get high and it'll be a great spot to roast up indigenous vegetables. We also hope it will become a gathering spot for responding to neighborhood emergencies. It's part of our disaster preparedness strategy. We've transformed an apparent negative (we can't grow anything there!) into a nice Zone Two gathering space.


I am so sorry I didn't get a picture of the five strong men working on moving this chunk of retaining wall from under the willow over to the urbanite bench we're building. We did use levers and rollers, but the effort of it was nowhere near as elegant as Timmer's Stonehenge table I got to help assemble out in Citrus Heights.

Great Steaming Mulch!

The Great Steaming Mulchpile of 2008 has arrived! All hail the living Mulch!

The TreePeople came through for us, again. This time, with a full truckload of pear, California bay laurel, and redwood wood chips. I am constantly amazed at how quickly fermentation/rot/composting begins. Look how this pile of fresh chips is steaming! Even the girls took a turn getting up on it and digging their bare feet into the warm microbial feasting.

The smell of the bay tree filled the entire area between and around all the houses.

Inverted Hugelkultur

We're getting most of our ideas for the garden out of Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture. Aaron, Kevin and I were standing around looking at the nearly 2 yards of fill dirt Aaron got delivered (free).

Aaron said, "I ordered mulch, too, but the arborists put us on a two-week waiting list. What should we do? Should we use this dirt to just fill all the bed a few inches?"

"Let me get the book, and see what Toby says," I said. I found this: Hugelkultur is a central European technique of piling up dead wood and brush, stomping it down, adding some compostibles on top, and then topping it off with a bit of compost and an inch of soil. The stuff on the bottom decomposes slowly and acts like a sponge, releasing nutrients as well as providing water.

When I trimmed the willow, much of the wood was already rotten and spongy. We decided we'd use the dirt we had so far to make a sort of bathtub shape in one of the lobes of the raised bed, then we broke up and soaked down a fair amount of decomposing willow woood, and buried it under some more dirt. We've now got a bed that's a couple of feet high, with a reservior of water and nutrients sequestered within.

"Wow," Aaron said, "all that dirt didn't make much of a bed. I think I'd better get 10 more yards."

Raised bed gardens

It is springtime, and our hearts turn to... gardening! While you can plant year-round in this part of the world, we are taking a break from our normal projects and we're getting the raised beds built. And planted.

We pruned two plum trees, and are using the wood to build woven sides for our raised beds. I also trimmed the willow a bit, so we have quite a bit of nice bendy wood for weaving.

"Hey, won't the willow branches sprout and become a grove?"

"Maybe, but if they do, the fence will then be self-renewing, so that's less work for us, right?"

Ages ago, Mariposa Grove had quite the food garden back here. The soil has been fallow and chicken-enhanced for a couple of years. While I'm a big believer in no-till gardening, it did seem prudent to scoop away the topsoil, build up the bed, and put the soil back. So that's what is mostly happening.


Over here you can see the chicken tractor in action. These beds are more typical of a sheet mulch. We pretty much left the ground alone, and added layers of material on top (there's a reason topsoil is called "top" soil). We soaked cardboard in rain water to use as our weed-block layer. I sowed a dense cover of plants, mostly in the lettuce and brassica families. I included some deep-rooters, which will draw nutrients up and be slashed to compost in place. The plan is to thin entire plants as the bed becomes crowded, until we have a few dozen really star performers giving us leaves to eat.

I also tucked strawberries into the spaces between the woven sides. It should get very pretty. And full of food.

The chicken tractor is in place, on top of the next bed.

Our current system of composting is to toss kitchen scraps to the chickens in the morning. Over the course of the day, they pick through these and render them into eggs and poop and scraps too small for rats to bother with. When the soil under the tractor is good and rich, we'll move it again and finish building this bed.

The Great Honey Harvest of Autumn '07

Julia Roll came over to teach us a thing or two about beekeeping. Since capturing this swarm back in April, I've helped harvest perhaps 5 gallons of honey. I've had some anxiety ever since my two children did some midnight beekeeping a few months ago; the bees got very aggressive for a time (in response to my whacked out energy, certainly, as well as having their home ripped apart at 1 in the morning). But they were very docile on Saturday. No one received a sting!

Julia, above without a bonnet, explained why we blow smoke on the bees. "The smoke triggers the 'flight' part of the flight or fight response. If there were a real fire, they'd flee the hive. What we're doing is causing them to fill their honey stomachs, so they have energy and honey to start up a new hive if they have to leave."

"They have a honey stomach? Cool!" said a few of us. "I think I have a honey stomach," said Kachina.

"I know you have a honey stomach," I told her.


I built what is called a top-bar hive. Each bar of lumber has a little starter strip for the bees to use to orient their comb building. Here you can see how simple and low-tech the whole thing is. Bruce, up on the balcony, has put up with being in the flight path all summer long. I think he even got a couple of bees in his house once. So I gave him some of the honey we collected. We're slowly moving the hive to a different (better) part of the yard, so Bruce won't be buzzed whenever he's out on his balcony smoking his cigars. Or rather, he'll be buzzed, but not by the bees.

Karl said, "Bob, this is wealth. This is gold." I looked around at my friends, as we shared quality time and learned a new skill. I saw a different kind of wealth, and I also completely agree with him. We collected two kinds of honey.

"This is the best honey I've ever tasted," said Kachina.

Julia agreed, "This is really good. There is also this darker honey, full of pollen, in these combs here." She handed them over.

"We can make salves and beauty products from this," said Liz.

"No way," said Aaron and Karl. "We're going to eat it!" Karl smashed it all together, breaking the honey and pollen away from the comb. We all tasted it. All the girls didn't care too much for it, except Julia. She liked the extra kick it gave. We all started buzzing.

"This is Man Honey!" Aaron and Karl and I laughingly dubbed it.

"You know, Bob, this is what the shamans were responsible for: to go out in to the forest and to know what they things they found were good for," said Karl. "This darker honey seems more
medicinal. I'm glad we didn't combine it with the blond honey."

"Here, lick this clean!" we said, handing Aaron another caramel-colored harvest tool. He started to turn red from all the Man Honey he was consuming.

I'm really grateful to Julia for cleaning up the hive. We had some potentially serious issues in there; comb that had been built across bars and attached to the sides of the box and moldy pollen seemed to be the biggest issues. The bees had simply foraged too well, and we hadn't helped them by harvesting their excess.

But it's all good now. Aaron is going to be my bee-buddy. He'll take on much of the hive tending. Kachina feels she is up the to task of keeping her honey-stomach filled. I like that everyone feels good about the role they have.

Laney College, EcoArts class

I got to watch Paul Valva give the ClimateChange.org's slideshow. Pretty interesting stuff. I was tagging along, invited by our mutual friend Kat Steele.

I continue to marvel at the "Let them eat cake" undercurrent that runs through these presentations. I live in a town with fairly good public transit. Yet, the solution for reducing our CO2 isn't presented as ride the bus, it's presented as go buy a Prius.

In the car later, we got into a little bit of discussion around "poor people solutions" to global warming vs "rich people solutions." Giving up agri-business meat reduces an individual's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions more so than driving a Prius. But telling a person who identifies with a lower economic status that they can help save civilization by giving up their cheap, subsidized source of protein is not going to change anyone's behavior.

Bush, Castro, USA, Cuba

I reacted poorly to President Bush's insensitive remarks about Castro's poor health. So I'm glad I waited a couple of days before writing anything.

Bush might sometimes look like he's a caring person, but true compassion isn't something you turn on and off, depending on who you're looking at. I'll describe two lakes as a metaphor: the lakes look the same, wide, clear, gentle waves moving across the surface, but one is fed by a river that flows through a coal mine tailing, and the other by a river that flows through a pristine meadow. The one lake is toxic and the other good to drink from.

Bush's waters run deep, and toxic.

In any case, "opening Cuba to democracy" must not include returning them to an oil-based economy. They are doing quite well, thank you, in their post-carbon economy. Oxen plow fields, urban gardens feed people, there are more teachers per student than in US schools, and their literacy rate matches ours. Health care is still free. They've weathered their revolution and our economic embargo.

President Bush should have said, "Let's invite the economic leaders of Cuba's post-carbon economy to our nation, to teach us how to thrive and prosper without foreign oil imports."