When we decided to be more active about living a "greener" life we were stumped. Our goal was to make personal steps towards addressing the many environmental problems created by such a large, consumerist society. We were ready to go "green" the problem was we did not know how.
There are so many "green" products today that it almost seems like "green" is its own brand. What does it actually mean to be "green"? Are organic strawberries that travel two-thousand, six hundred miles to my refrigerator really good for the environment and economy?
To answer these questions we sought out Lancaster's permaculture experts and signed up for an introduction to a permaculture workshop. Ben Weiss and his business partner Dillon Naber sponsored the class and explained the basic principals of permaculture.
Permaculture, as defined by one of its founders David Holmgren, is, "Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber and energy for provision of local needs." Permaculture addresses the needs of finding renewable resources while eliminating waste. It offered to give us, as a couple, the tools to evaluate "green" products and technologies and qualify them as legitimate or not. The foundation of permaculture is analyzing and evaluating so that one can build a sustainable system. We were excited after the workshop and decided that it would be important to send one of us to take the permaculture certification course.
I (Kyle) signed up for the course and today was my first day. It was exciting to have discussions with people who see the importance of a low impact lifestyle, some of whom. I am mentally exhausted and excited. Ben and Dillon are very excited about what they do and that energy was apparent in their teaching. Some of the subjects were tough and even depressing.
The beginning of the class discussed the topic of energy descent and all of the implications that it could have on our society. It was all doom and gloom, a world with rising food costs, lost farmland and exploding gas prices. (Basically the apocalypse.) The mood changed as we began to discuss all of the possibilities that permaculture offered. We saw video of projects that reaped amazing results in some of the most inhospitable environments. The lesson was, if we can take arid, salted hardpan and grow figs and citrus fruit then systems can be set up anywhere to provide for all of humanities needs.
This class is an important part of our decision to eat local. Both our local diet and the desire to get a permaculture certificate stem from our desire to make this world a better place for our children. We want to stop sending our money to the oil wells and keep it in our local economies.
Tomorrow the class resumes at Reed's Run Nature Preserve. It will be a day of mixed emotions for me because the property was bought from my grandmother. I lived there with my mother, father and two brothers for eight years, while I was in high-school. To me it is, "back home on the farm." Our asparagus patch lives on along with the pear trees and the chestnut trees that our grandfather planted. We still go there to harvest the abundance of wild raspberries to make preserves. It will be interesting to learn what insights Ben and Dillon have for this place.
April 22nd gets closer every day. Many people are excited to hear about our progress. From now until then you can catch random posts as we say goodbye to some of our favorite foods in favor of local fare. We did take advantage of the cheap strawberry crop this year. They were enjoyed with a batch of Kristin's hand whipped topping. Those strawberries came from more than two thousand miles away. Besides many small operations and CSAs with strawberries, there is a farm that grows several thousand bushels less than fifteen miles away.
Twelve days left and counting.
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