Permaculture

While traveling during the last two months I have been talking to people about this handbasket that we are in; the picture that is developing is it seems that focusing on what to do with the next economic depression and pointing out that sustainability is security

In a few cases people asked quite directly what they should do and my first set of talking points is around intensively localizing the economy which both saves energy and builds up the local infrastructure; the next set of points is about learning permaculture and (then?) grow some of your own food, raising chickens (or ducks)....

Now that I have the four fruit trees finally planted, I updated my the basemap for my yard. I've attached the PDF version of the map, but here is the screen shot of the vector drawning.

I haven't quite figured how I'm going to map the various 3D guilds that I'm going to be setting up, but that will give me something to think about other then Oracle the next three weeks.

The following graphic is copied from David Holmgren's website. As I have mentioned the permacultue design principles to half the people I know, I figured I should post them. While permaculture is clearly focused on sustainability and beyond (sustainability = ecologically treading water) I have used the permaculture principles at work on database design and project management and have had great success.

			1. Observe & Interact			7. Design From Patterns to Details
			2.Catch & Store Energy			8. Integrate Rather Than Segregate
			3. Obtain a Yield			9. Use Small and Slow Solutions
			4. Apply Self-regulation & Accept Feedback			10. Use and Value Diversity
			5. Use & Value Renewable Resources and Services
						11. Use Edges and Value the Marginal
			6. Produce No Waste			12. Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Before using the permiculture design principles for designing my yard, putting together a list of elements to include in my yard and/or the surrounding area.

trees: cherry, fig, pear, walnut, plum, apple
gardens: annual veggie, perennial garden, insect & bird food garden,
shrubs: huckleberry, blueberry, salal, thimbleberry, ...
human: reading bench, seasonal louging/reading areas, hammock, firepit, sweat lodge.
dog: house, wood chip paths, 'bathroom' areas, seasonal resting areas
bird: baths, houses, feeders, roosting areas,
water: rain chains, bioswales, rain barrels, soaker hoses
other: shed

While I'm no where near complete yet, here is what I have managed to do with the yard mapping project. Using the following base image which came from Portland Maps I traced some of the key features and came up with the vector drawing on the right.

There are still several features that I haven't included in the vector drawing, but this has still been very helpful. I never realized how...