October 31, 2006
Some quick context for you surrounding the evolution of this new website…for some of us who have spent a great deal of time in and around cyberspace, there exists a keen understanding that the manner in which interactive technologies are programmed, has a defining impact on the way people who use them, relate. In a nutshell, how we design our convivial information technologies has immense ‘democratic’ import.
As some of you may know, a dedicated ‘behind-the-scenes’ effort to develop functional and inclusive democratic protocols locally has long been and continues to be an absolutely central concern of the permie guild steering committee. This priority has not only informed an extended stewardship of the design process around the creation of this website, but the resulting technology structure itself and, we hope, the quality of interaction that will result.
Of course, virtual ambitions are simply that. As Thoreau put it, Americans must have their dreams, their castles in the clouds: but ya gotta put foundation stones under them. Show me the cornerstone, as they say. What then, of democratic analogs in local meatspace as distinct from local cyberspace? The flesh on the ideal?
Well, as it happens, the permie guild’s steering committee’s patient, long running effort to collaboratively explore the question ‘How does one hash out a democratic protocol democratically?’ is reaching a very interesting midpoint. Back in the Spring, we formally committed to the creation of a ‘process art’ group within the guild (that is, a subgroup whose remit is very simply to facilitate coherent interaction). Details of that discussion are at:
http://www.seedambassadors.org/Mainpages/consensus.htm
It’s a co-intelligent discussion about ‘co-intelligence’ itself and, as such, it affords a powerfully self-referential example of how collective decision-making can be wise indeed.
At the steering committee’s most recent meeting (I hope to have the videotape of the key proceedings on this website, soon) our exploration of process culiminated with the steering committee sending the process art group off with a clear remit to ‘formalize’ a democratic agreement for the group. The meeting was expertly facilitated by Lysbeth Borie, group facilitator, trainer and mediator with the Alpha Institute. In brief, here are the relevant instructions, from the minutes. We are seeking a protocol in which:
1) Everyone has an opportunity to be heard.
2) Avoid discussion being dominated by any one.
3) Neutral facilitation.
4) Group agreement about authority of facilitator, ie ability to stop/change discussion, time-limit constraints.
5) Need a way to resolve conflicts and differences - need a conflict resolution process.
6) May need (more and specialized) training for facilitators.
7 Group and facilitators need more skills and tools to develop common ground.
8) Need on-going body of minutes.
9) Process agreements need to be written and available.
10) Committees are still part of the group and operate by the same group agreements.
11) Intent is for the good of the group.
12) EPG has oversight of activities of committees.
13) Rule of Three (as per Lysbeth) for participation and membership.
14) Orientation for new members.
15) Clarify right, roles and responsibilities of committees and relationship to whole.
16) Training of members in consensus and facilitation.
17) Consider communication guidelines; use ‘I’ statements, no generalizations, etc.
Please don’t let the apparent simplicity of this list belie the wisdom therein. The instruction set represents the so-far culmination of a process that has been born of noble souls, deeply committed to a fair world, returning again and again and again to the challenges of a cause embracing the All.
The process art group will continue to tackle its evolving remit in time to report to the guild steering committee at our next scheduled meeting on the evening of Monday 13th, November. The issues at hand are fascinating. As Tom Atlee, one of the world’s foremost authorities on co-intelligent technes, who lives locally and who is advising our process art group, recently noted of one of our central concerns: “this is one of the most challenging challenges process folks like us find ourselves in.” We are also being advised by Tree Bressen, another local, and one who has an immense amount of practical experience helping groups consciously evolve.
I hope this gives you a sense of what the permaculture guild steering committee is quietly but assiduously striving toward.
Do, please, enjoy this website.
n.
I have a question about t-shirts. I have a bunch of old running shirts that my wife would rather I not wear in
public - even when running. 
My question is, are 100-percent cotton articles such as these suitable for sheet mulching? I am assuming that the various bleaches and other items that go into their manufacture have long-since been laundered away or leached directly into my sweaty pores. Seems like they would work every bit as well as newspaper/cardboard for purposes of a biodegradable, temporary weed barrier.
October 30, 2006
11/14 (Tues.) PLANTS FOR THE PEOPLE –A Local Materia Medica. 6:00 – 9:00 pm. BY DONATION. Upstairs at the Growers Market, 454 Willamette St. With Nome McBride (Under The Yew Botanicals) & Tobias Policha. This informal presentation will introduce basic herbal actions as well as locally adapted plants that have medicinal value. Learn when, how and why to use pervasive weeds, native plants, and common garden herbs for health and nutrition. There will be room for questions. No herbal experience required.
11/21(Tues.) FOOD NOT LAWNS: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community! 6:00 – 9:00pm. $0-50. Walnut Room @ the EMU (UO-13th & University). Sponsored by the Survival Center. Book signing and workshop by Heather C. Flores, author of Food Not Lawns, How to Turn Your…. This interactive presentation will explore the possibilities for self-sufficiency, and community with limited resources. Topics will include: Free the land / free yourself, soil fertility, water stewardship, plant polycultures, seeds, ecological design, community organizing, & gardening w/ children. There will be books available for sale.
12/9 (Sat.) WINTER TWIGS. 1:00 – 4:00. $10 - $30. Meet at Amazon Parkway and 24th. With Tobias Policha. Learn to identify your favorite trees and shrubs in the absence of leaves and flowers. Winter identification requires observing many unique characters that are often overlooked, discover hidden beauty while learning a new skill! We will use the book Winter Twigs by Gilkey and Packard. OSU Press, 2001.
Coming in January:
FROM PROTONS TO POLYSACCHARIDES: Basic Concepts in Biochemistry Dates & Location TBA (Four 3-hr, evening classes; $50-$150). With Tobias Policha. *PREREGISTRATION REQUIRED* This four class series is intended to provide a basic understanding of biochemical concepts and enable students in further learning and research in herbalism, botany, etc. With a grasp of the basics, a wealth of information becomes much more accessible. We will cover molecular structure, chemical reactions, metabolism, solubility, families of compounds, as well as using phytochemicals as the building blocks of whole plant medicine. No prior chemistry experience required. Call/email for more info.
Also: Plant Walks, Botanical ID Workshops, Field Trips, Ethical Wildcrafting, and more!!!
ICE Director, Tobias Policha is a gardener, botanist, herbalist, and writer. He co-founded the educational nonprofit Cascadia Food Not Lawns in 1999, and has been studying our local flora for over five years, including assisting the botany programs at L.C.C. and the UO, and graduating from the Columbines School of Botanical Studies. He is currently working on a B.S. in Biology at the U of O.
Contact:
Tobias at 541- 513 – 8263, or
contemporaryethnobotany@yahoo.com
www.foodnotlawns.com
This website, while simple in aesthetics, is amazingly user friendly, and simply grand….I give utter kudos to your work on this!
So that being said, as you requested just popping out random thoughts that come to mind as i filter through the portions of the website….
Under categories, perhaps adding categories for energy, natural building, and perhaps even one for permaculture work (for those looking for work, or workers…)
Adding in links to regional web sites…i believe i read something about that in one of the emails, but can’t quite recall what was said about…
that is all for now, I will continue to look it over and give general feedback…..and by the way, the calendar element…elegant, simple to use, and just awesome…KUDOS!!
WalkingTree
aka…Stefan Meyer
October 27, 2006
Join us for this interactive and comprehensive workshop that will offer a clear understanding of Water Harvesting, Storage, Conservation and Usage.
There will be lecture, discussion, slides and hands-on participatory learning.
November 18, 2006, with Heiko Koester and Jude Hobbs
Times: 10:00 - 4:00
Cost: $40-50 sliding scale
Location: Dharmalaya Center, Eugene
Rain or Shine
Topics to be covered:
- Site assessment
- Small-Scale Mapping/Surveying
- Swale Design and installation
- Appropriate Plant Selection
-
- Roof Water Catchments
- Grey Water Systems
For more information
541- 485-7245
hobbsj@efn.org
Class is space is limited so sign up early!
insulated drapery material can be purchased at factory fabrics on 6th near chambers, next to midgely stoves
the material is a sandwich of materials, a good explanation can be found at http://www.warmcompany.com/wwhdwr.html
then, how to make the drapes, go to: http://www.humboldt.edu/%7Eccat/energyconservation/index.html and from the menu of energy conservation articles and how to’s, choose Making your windows warm, a 140 kb pdf file by sean armstrong. the article includes plenty of useful info on constructing different kinds of insulated drapes. incidentally, they recommend the warm windows material made by warm company- see the website above
i bought a bunch of material at factory fabrics. a yard 45 inch wide is $19, 60 inches wide is $25 a yard
call the fabric store to make sure they have material. the fellow who works there reports the material is popular and has good reviews
my intention is to make my own drapes
a btu saved is a btu not bought
jan
anyone have suggestions for good ways to store apples over the winter? so far i’ve been wrapping them individually in newspaper and keeping them outside in a box.
i’ll bring them in when it gets cold. other than that, i haven’t heard of any other ways except for root cellaring, which is not an option for me!
thanks,
jenya
October 24, 2006
I have a limited number of perennial wheat and perennial rye starts to share. These starts are grown from selections from perennial material made this year. The plants like it rough. Alongside a driveway, for example.
What are perennial grains? Why grow ‘em? You can find a photo and link to a description at bullet four on:
http://www.seedambassadors.org/Mainpages/still/seed.htm
I’m located at the FFLC youth farm in north Springfield.
October 23, 2006
For those of you interested in a highly readable account of the place of pollinators in sustaining the web of life, Gary Paul Nabhan’s ‘The Forgotten Pollinators’ has emerged as a cross-discipline classic of recent years. Pollinators interconnect everything.
On Thursday, October 19, 2006, the San Francisco Chronicle published the following:
Loss of Species that Pollinate is Cause for Global Alarm, Researchers say
by Juliet Eilperin
Birds, bees, bats and other species that pollinate North American plant life are losing population, according to a study released Wednesday by the National Research Council. This “demonstrably downward” trend could damage dozens of commercially important crops, scientists warned, because three-fourths of all flowering plants depend on pollinators for fertilization.
‘CAUSE FOR GLOBAL ALARM’ Bees feed on pollen from a wild flower in Amman, May 31, 2005. Bees and other important pollinators such as birds and bats may be on the decline in the U.S., putting crops and other plants at risk, experts reported on Wednesday. (Ali Jarekji/Reuters)
American honeybees, which pollinate more than 90 domestic commercial crops, have declined by 30 percent in the past 20 years. This poses a challenge to agricultural interests such as California almond farmers, who need about 1.4 million colonies of honeybees to pollinate 550,000 acres of their trees. By 2012, the state’s almond farmers are expected to need bees to pollinate 800,000 acres.
Gene Robinson, an entomologist at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and one of the 15 researchers who produced the report, said U.S. farmers had to import honeybees last year for the first time since 1922, underscoring the extent of the problem.
“The honeybee industry is at a critical juncture,” Robinson said. “The time for action is now.”
A number of factors have cut pollinators’ numbers in recent decades, the researchers said. Pesticides and introduced parasites such as the varroa mite have hurt the honeybee population. Bats, which carry pollen to a variety of crops, have declined as vandalism and development destroyed some of their key cave roosts.
John Karges, a Nature Conservancy conservation biologist who works with the federally endangered Mexican long-nosed bat in west Texas, said the bat’s U.S. population fell from 10,000 in 1967 to 1,000 in 1983. The species feeds on nectar from the agave plant, which can be used to produce a sweetener as well as tequila.
“This bat is rare and suspected of declining rangewide,” said Karges, noting that it can now be spotted only at one protected cave site in Big Bend National Park. “I don’t think anyone’s looking at it annually or closely.”
The declines have been gradual and in some instances are hard to quantify, the committee concluded. But the panel’s chairwoman, entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, said in a statement that there is already cause for alarm.
“Despite its apparent lack of marquee appeal, a decline in pollinator populations is one form of global change that actually has credible potential to alter the shape and structure of terrestrial ecosystems,” Berenbaum said.
Animals carry pollen, which they pick up inadvertently while feeding on a plant’s nectar, and transfer it from one flowering plant to another, sometimes over significant distances. The process not only boosts plant production but increases species’ genetic diversity.
Animal pollinators fertilize more than 187,500 flowering plants worldwide. Scientists believe these plants, called angiosperms, gained ecological dominance more than 70 million years ago in part because animals help them disperse their pollen so broadly. Other pollinators include hummingbirds and butterflies, as well as wild bees.
In many ways pollination works as a chain, said committee member Peter Kevan, a professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, in which even the largest animals depend on small insects.
“Canadian black bears need blueberries, and the blueberries need bees” for pollination, Kevan said. “Without the bees you don’t have blueberries, and without the blueberries you don’t have black bears.”
Despite this crucial link, Robinson said, many ordinary citizens fail to grasp how important pollinators are to food production.
European researchers also have documented serious declines: The diversity of bee species has declined by 40 percent in the United Kingdom and 60 percent in Holland since 1980. Europeans have more detailed records of pollinators than Americans, said University of Arizona entomologist Stephen Buchmann, partly because they have more amateur taxonomists keeping track of them.
October 21, 2006
The Institute of Contemporary Ethnobotany 10/21 (Sat.)
FALL WOODS WALK. 1:00-4:00 pm. $3-$20 ss.
Meet at the Ridge Line Trailhead at Fox Hollow Dr. (Across from the Cascade Raptor Center) Led by Tobias Policha.
Come explore the ecology, evolution, and ethnobotany of the Fall landscape. Learn about the adaptations, and characteristics, as well as the medicinal and cultural uses of the plants that thrive in the autumn. We will focus on the conifers, ferns, mosses, and lichens. Come prepared to be outside, it may be cold and wet.
Walk guide, Tobias Policha is a gardener, botanist, herbalist, and writer. He co-founded the educational nonprofit Cascadia Food Not Lawns in 1999, and has been studying our local flora for over five years, including assisting the botany programs at L.C.C. and the UO, and graduating from the Columbines School of Botanical Studies. He is currently working on a B.S.in Biology at the U of O.
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