NEWS
Applying Permaculture Principles and Methods for Building Community Abundance
This weeks 2018 session leader feature is on Johnathan Dodd. Johnathan resides with his family at New Earth Farm & Goods, a 5 acre polyculture farm that boasts diversified perenials, fungi, and multi-species grazing. He has taken root and planted in Papillion, NE for the past 6 years, alongside his spouse and three children.
How Permaculture Changed My Life, and How It Could Change Yours
When I was five years old, in 1976, my parents moved our family of five from our safe, stable and economically viable lives just outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to a 140 acre farm overlooking the rolling hills of Western Wisconsin's Driftless region where we threw safety, stability and economic viability out the barn door. What I got in return was a tremendous sense of self reliance, which is not self-sufficiency, a conversation we could have at the convergence coming up in September. My family also got to meet and learn from our new neighbors and others who recently moved to the area, because in those days, and in those parts, there was no Amazon and no one had every piece of equipment or every bit of knowledge required to cultivate the land and care for livestock. This is a long way to say that little did I know our move introduced me to my first permacuture community and principles and I didn't even know it.
Past Convergence Highlights
As we plan for the fifth Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence, I’ve also enjoyed thinking about the previous four. I love that the convergence offers many different types of activities; homesteading workshops such as how to make yogurt or raise chickens; construction skills such as how to make your own cooking gas or build a rocket stove; or social skills such as how to conduct a World Café.
For this blog post, I’ll share highlights from the last four years. The first year the convergence was held at the same location we’re holding the 2018 event, near Rio, Wisconsin. That year we organized several earthworks projects. The first was digging a pond by hand, lining it and getting it ready to add aquatic plants. The other earthwork project was on a much larger scale. Convergence participants used both a water level and laser level to identify keylines, after which we hired an excavator to create a water catchment system. It was great to turn ideas into an actual permaculture design.
The second permaculture convergence was held at Bur Oak Farm near West Bend in Eastern Wisconsin. The highlight for me that year was our main speaker, Pandora Thomas. Pandora co-founded the Black Permaculture Network, and spoke about the importance of diversity in and around permaculture.
The third convergence was held at Kinstone Megalith Garden, in Wisconsin’s driftless region on the west side of the state. While I didn’t stay for the whole thing, I think the coolest workshop was learning how to butcher a hog. People got to see many of the steps and techniques to prepare a pig for consumption and freezer storage.