It's been a few days since I've written a blog and I hope you all can forgive me; I've been at work on something quite large and exciting which has consumed most of my writing time. What is this fabulous something, you may be asking yourself. Well I'll gladly tell you, we have decided to start a non-profit! Yes, it's going to be a non-profit permaculture urban homestead model home. Whew, that's quite a mouthful isn't it? But the idea, really, is quite simple. We want to create a living breathing model, that follows average size limits, and building codes, for city dwellers to create their own sustainable eco-systems. By showing them that we did it, basically laymen, just with a vehement passion, they can too. Permaculture does not have to be difficult or complicated, in fact I find it to be quite intuitive, but it can be quite overwhelming for people. We want to create change in ourselves and our community, so what better way than to become active participants for change?
This idea came about a few weeks ago when my partner came home from his job and told me that everyone had been laid off. We had been kicking around the idea of doing something big permaculture wise for a little while now but we hadn't settled on anything. The Denver County Fair was not too long after that, and as I walked around the fair one afternoon it occurred to me that, although there were a few urban homestead and community garden groups and projects, no one was focusing on permaculture. Now if you are a regular reader of this blog you know how I feel about permaculture. Why waste your time and energy creating an eco-system only to destroy it a few months later? Every action we take should be purposely propelling us toward a more sustainable tomorrow, permaculture being the foundation of those actions. It seemed only natural for us to create a model of a permaculture in this tough Denver climate, short growing seasons, cold winters, and dry dry dry.
Now, we are not professionals, though one day I would like to call myself a permaculture professional of some sort, so we still have a lot to learn. Our ideas begin with books (my favorite is Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway, but there are many others, Attack on the front lawn and One Straw Revolution are also fantastic), and then evolve into something more organic. When we are out in the garden we think about how we affecting the soil, the plants, the insects, and the little micro-climates that are being created. By being open to the possibilites, we are engaging in what we feel to be, practices that will become second nature to future generations. We want to take our potential for learning, and share it with others to create more sustainable communities for us all.
Community is the key to this project, The Permaculture Project. The community is the reason for the project, as the only way to true sustainability and viability as communities is to work together for the betterment of us all. We want to share what we know and learn from others, documenting and sharing with the greater community the same time we share with our own. We plan on having donation-based classes, sliding scale priced workshops, community building days and bi-monthly tours. This is a living, evolving urban farm, with new challenges everyday. Taking on those challenges as a family is something we are greatly looking forward to. The series of events that have led us to this point have been incredible but I feel they were very purposeful. I want to make sure I am doing everything in my power to share what I know and teach it to others.
If you would like to help out with this project, please check out the indie go-go site we created to get it off the ground. Here's the page, http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Permaculture-Project. Please share, share, share, and donate if you can, anything helps. There is one big thing I didn't put on that site that we really need for the project, I just figured it wasn't the best place for it. We need a house! We need a house in Denver County in order to properly fulfill this dream. Denver is a city, with city codes and smaller lots than outlying areas. We want to show people a realistic view of all they can achieve with their smaller sized lots and restrictions on animals and water containment systems. These are not the only codes for urban homesteading they were just the first ones I thought of. I have a much more detailed proposal for the non-profit but we need to specify the land so I can be super specific about our plans. If you know someone who wants to donate land to the project, please leave me a comment so we can get in contact. In order to benefit all we must work together, and in order to do that we must take the steps necessary to make sure mother nature is there along with us.
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