Registration opens Friday at 3 p.m. Day of registration is available through the weekend but does not grantee meals.
Join us for our Midwest Permaculture Convergence to learn from leaders and connect with community members from across our region to build our Permaculture future!
For about as many years as I have been going to the summertime Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence, I have also attended in the wintertime Wisconsin Garden Expo.
In February 2018, I attended my fifth Expo. On Saturday, while talking with someone who stopped by the Madison Area Permaculture Guild booth about the books we had for sale and what the Guild does, I discovered many similarities between both annual events.
I came to learn of permaculture following my third year of graduate studies in a rural Vermont community. The concept entered my consciousness at a community meeting of farmers bitterly devastated by the August 2011 tropical storm Irene. Families had lost everything. Our community writhed in the reality that such destruction was likely to be the new reality unless society were to abruptly change the course of its relationship to the natural world; many community members were also coping with the profound reality that insurance companies would fight their settlement claims at every opportunity. While this alone precluded numerous farms from planting crops ever again, the several feet of newly deposited toxic sludge on their soils secured the same fate for many more. Yet, at this meeting one older gentleman, who had grown food crops for local coops for far longer than I had been alive, spoke passionately of hope. This man declaimed of endless opportunity as if he had just harvested a record bumper crop securing his own retirement. Yet his farm, too, had suffered the wrath of Irene.
https://yestermorrow.org/blog/post-irene-update
From behind this aged but sturdy man’s quintessential Vermont beard came concepts of regenerative design, resilience planning, and water reticulation. Fascinated, I connected with my community to learning more about the both the vision for their future and also the specifics of what a transition must look like to take a community from devastation to regeneration. Purposefully attending the meeting to inform folks of their possible legal strategies for recourse against their insurance companies, I left intrigued by a seemingly powerful ecological approach to community restoration of both the land and the economy. Further, I left profoundly inspired by the hopeful energy of so many in the face of such hardship. It wasn’t until a full year later shortly after completing my studies, when my own family faced losing our Wisconsin family farm to the socially contrived malaise that is the destructive economic storm of urban sprawl and development that I circled back to the memories of that meeting. If permaculture was to rebuild that community network of farms, then couldn’t it also stand to defend our family’s farm from this looming threat? Now with family on board, I dove into the permaculture rabbit hole excitedly gathering information and engaging with what I now realize is a global community of regenerative agriculturalists. With my brother, who is now running the family farm with his remarkable wife, we began to feverishly take in as much as we could on the subject. We would read for days, run out to the fields to build a hugelkulture bed, return sweaty, tired and ready to read some more. We literally stuffed our minds with as much information as we could, constantly toeing the line of analysis paralysis. Alas, the third-generation farm remains in the family and supports while being supported by his family and our community is myriad ways.
Looking back with new words to place in context, I see that what my family was engaged in at that time is embodied in the principles of permaculture. In 2002, David Holmgren, co-founder of Permaculture, published a book that concretely articulated twelve working principles for permaculture design.
In Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Holmgren synthesized what for many years stood as a list of amorphous speculations, loosely developed theories, and sometimes euphemistic words that served to loosely guide the designer towards a cohesive work product. This new set of principles has, with time, become the new “conceptual lens” focusing the work of designers and the greater permaculture community on better design. Observe & Interact is the first of these principles.
As Peter Bane writes in The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country (2012), “[g]athering information is the beginning of any design, design the beginning of any responsible action.” This is the essence of Holmgren’s first principle. Through observation of and interaction with a landscape or social structure, the designer is able to pick up bits of information, discover clues, and begin to understand the natural indicators and metrics that will inform good design. A “protracted and thoughtful” relationship with a system, as Bill Mollison points out, is one that requires an ethical awareness that the observer is both a part of the system and a means of intervention with that system. It also, quite powerfully, acquaints the observer with the presence of pattern. The awareness of system patterns opens the door to increasingly effective system intervention.
Season's end at Three Brothers Farm
A thoughtful and protracted relationship with a system inherently results in a heightened awareness, and even a spiritual connection with one’s place. It is a relationship that not only forms the foundation of good system design, but also enables an ongoing and deep understanding of the health and wellbeing of that system. One might even say that observing and interacting with systems is what causes one to fall in love with and then actively nurture love for a place.
With my academic background in environmental law and policy, I find myself thinking about and studying the subject through the conceptual lens of the principles of permaculture. Instead of looking at a law and/or policy on its face, I am far more interested by the trends of movement of the law and policy; I am interested in where the contemporary legal frameworks are situated in the historical context over time. By understanding where the law has been you can more accurately understand and anticipate where it may be going. This reveals, in a sense, a hierarchy of potential intervention. If, say, one legal doctrine is trending favorably towards environmental health, community sovereignty, and independence, while another is trending divergently towards subjugation, dependence and degradation then perhaps more resources ought to be directed towards intervening in the trend of the latter doctrine and fewer towards the earlier. It is true that similar to a protracted and thoughtful relationship with a visible landscape, an engaged kinship with our social, or invisible, structures yields analogous results.
So how does one observe and interact? Naturalist John Muir Laws articulates three prompts to facilitate deep observation and thoughtful interaction in a student new to the idea. He proposes one articulate their observation verbally to themselves as “I notice… I wonder… and it reminds me of…” Using these prompts, Laws suggests, “keeps observations in conscious working memory long enough for your own brain to convert them to long term memories.” It is those long term memories the serve as the basis for pattern recognition. So whether we are applying the skill of observation to our social systems, our physical systems or both, it is critical that we bring a curious, open mind willing to learn intellectually, emotionally and spiritually as we engage deeper with our context. It is curiosity after all, that brought formulaically minded third year law student to embrace a new and deeper relationship with not only the law, but also the entire natural world.
Going on seven years after the community wreckage of tropical storm Irene in Vermont, reports from my former community are positive. There are several new locally owned businesses that vigorously support the regenerating network of farms and collectively work to build resiliency both ecologically and socially.
The community rallied behind farmsunsuccessful in their struggle with rapacious insurance companies and many have rebuilt to remain as integral threads of that community’s vibrant fabric. My own protracted and thoughtful engagement with that community has gifted me the resonant feeling of home when I think of it, even six years after relocating.
I would like to conclude with words Vandana Shiva shared at the 2017 International Permaculture Convergence in India where she professed to a room of designers “our work will become more relevant the deeper the greed becomes. Our work will become more relevant the deeper the ecological crises becomes.” I share, with the same hopeful vision of the hardened, quintessentially bearded Vermonter who stood in the face of havoc and despair to enunciate to powerful vision for moving forward, that we ought, then, to boldly embrace a shared goal of our own work’s future irrelevance.
Chris Gutschenritter is a member of the Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence Planning Team. He currently lives on his family farm in Oconomowoc, Wi and employs his legal, planning and teaching experience to support his community's growing local food network.
During the last few years, I have found myself noticing sustainability practice in action, and in many cases where a little thought could have gone a long way to help something be more sustainable. Before I get into a couple of these examples, I thought it might be a useful thing to define sustainability. We throw this word around a lot, but what does it really mean?
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.
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.
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.
Hello and welcome... my name is Effie and I have volunteered for the Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence for the past three years and am entering my fourth. If you have attended the event, we probably met at the welcome tent for event registration. I have had a great experience meeting so many different people interested in and purveying permaculture. It is inspiring to listen to and learn of your stories and adventures.
It is a gift to converge with others in our local region and I find experiencing this event completing fulfilling. It renews me to be around so much good energy working towards the common goal of creating and building sustainable environments. The event itself continues to fuel my passion for permaculture and the planning helps me stay connected with my permaculture peers.
The schedule for the 2017 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence has been posted. You can view all of the sessions and times on the schedule page of the website. We are hoping to add some additional sessions as we get closer. Click on the link below to start planning your weekend!
The Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence is a yearly event that brings people together to network, build community, skill share and celebrate life.
We are are currently accepting session proposals for this years convergence. If you are interesting in leading a session please read and fill out the google form found at the link below.
Each year we strive to make the convergence a low-cost event in order to make it accessible to as many people as possible. We offer scholarships and partial work trades for attendees. Financial sponsorship and donations are greatly appreciated. If you are interested in sponsoring or donating to the convergence please click on the links below.
Date: Wednesday, August 3, 9am – 5pm
Instructor: Wayne Weiseman, Permaculture designer, consultant and author
Cost: $40 with Convergence Registration or $50 for non-Convergence attendees, lunch included
Description: In this one-day immersion class, take a walk on the wild side! Learn about extending your food sources by harvesting from the wild spaces in your yard, in your neighborhood and beyond. Some basic techniques to help you identify trees and plants will be presented. Ways to use wild plants in your daily lives will be discussed. We’ll then walk the land. The focus will be on identifying, finding, harvesting and using common Wisconsin wild plants for food, medicine and utility. This will be fun and informative! Bring your hiking boots as we will be out exploring the local plant ecosystems of field, prairie and woodland here in the Driftless region of Wisconsin.
Date: Thursday, August 4, 9am – 5pm
Instructor: Wayne Weiseman, Permaculture designer, consultant and author
Cost: $40 with Convergence Registration or $50 for non-Convergence attendees, lunch included
Description: Plant guilds are the building blocks of healthy landscapes. They are indicators of soil health. Plants that work together make your own tasks more manageable! Come and learn about putting together plants guilds that are nourishing for the land and for you. In this one-day immersion course, you will define and review plant guilds, food forests, basic plant biology, basic botany, effects of weather and interactions with animals. We will explore local plant ecosystems (e.g. prairie, woodland, savanna, riparian zones, pastures, gardens, farm fields, etc) and identify existing plant guilds. We will create plans for useful plant guilds that can be established in your own yard in this cold temperate climate of Wisconsin. Wayne Wiseman is a co-author of the book Integrated Forest Gardening, a book about plants, plant guilds and polycultures. We’ll have the book available for purchase and he will sign them if requested.
The seventh video installment from the 2015 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence is a clip from Adrian Lee's presentation where he talks about his experience living in intentional communities. In this clip Little John covers fruit tree grafting basics. Adian Lee owns and runs Eldeflower Community Orchard with his partner Nicole Kloss, where they provide a valuable source of trees and shrubs used in regenerative land design projects .
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others we have released, come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
The video was recorded by Rick and Mary Larson.
The schedule for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence has been posted and it is stacked with great sessions. We are pleased to be bringing such a wonderful group of session leaders to this year's convergence. The diversity of topics is great and we know you will walk away feeling connected, energized and intrigued.
The schedule for the convergence can be found on the "Schedule" page.
For information on the specific sessions and the bio of the session leaders check out the "Sessions" page.
To reserve your spot for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence, pick up your ticket HERE.
The sixth video installment from the 2015 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence is a clip from Little John's presentation that covered fruit tree grafting. In this clip Little John covers fruit tree grafting basics. Little John owns and runs Plant Based Services, LLC, where he provides a community resource committed to sharing earth centered services and products. These services or products include handmade brooms, beekeeping, fruit tree grafting and orchard maintenance.
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others we have released, come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
The fifth video installment from the 2015 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence is a clip from Laura Poe's presentation that covered the Ins & Outs of Fermentation. In this clip Laura covers the basics of fermenting fresh cabbage. Laura owns and runs Viroqua Nutrition Counseling, where she provides integrative, holistic medical nutrition therapy for a wide variety of needs.
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others we have released, come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
The fourth video installment is the second half of a presentation covering Farmscale Permaculture led by Grant Schultz of Versaland.
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others that we will be releasing in the coming months come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
The third video installment is the first half of a presentation covering Farmscale Permaculture led by Grant Schultz of Versaland. Check back soon for Part 2.
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others that we will be releasing in the coming months come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
Thanks to permie Rick Larsen and his wife, we will be releasing video of sessions recorded at the 2015 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence. These videos will give you an idea of what to expect at the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence. These videos will be uploaded to our YouTube Channel over the coming months.
The first video is from MIEKAL AND and covers his experience in growing underutilized plants.
Please check out our YouTube channel and stay tuned for more session recordings!
If you like the video and the others that we will be releasing in the coming months come join us for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence to experience community, networking and skill sharing! You can pick up tickets here.
The location and dates have been set for the 2016 Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence. This year the convergence will be August 5th - 7th and will be held at Kinstone, a land restoration and human rejuvenation education project that sits on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. Kinstone focuses on developing a landscape rich in interdependence of all elements and provides wonderful examples of regenerative building, landscape design and social design. For more details on Kinstone please visit their website HERE.
Kinstone will be offering two pre-convergence workshops that will be happening on Wednesday August 3rd and Thursday August 4th. Immediately following the Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence, Kinstone will be hold their annual summer Permaculture Design Certificate course so do not miss out on the opportunity to further your personal education by attending this 10 day course. More details about the pre-convergence workshops and PDC offered by Kinstone can be found HERE.
