We had a lot of fun with last month's free permaculture and organic growing online course giveaway over at Organic Life Guru. We just sent Jamie, the winner, a free course.
At Organic Life Guru headquarters we've decided to run the Giveaway again this month!: http://organiclifeguru.com/giveaways/free-course-august-2016/
We will announce the winner at the end of the month.
You get 1 entry for signing up yourself and 10 more entries into the drawing for everyone who signs up because of you. That's all tracked through the unique link we give you when you join.
Click the link below to browse the courses you can win ...
http://organiclifeguru.com/courses/all/
Click the link below to enter the August Giveaway ...
The Organic Life Guru online learning platform is having a giveaway contest through the end of the month ...
Click here to enter: http://organiclifeguru.com/giveaways/free-course/
The winner can select for free any permaculture or organic growing course from teachers like Toby Hemenway, Scott Pittman, Jacob Wustner, and many more.
Click here to enter the giveaway: http://organiclifeguru.com/giveaways/free-course/
-spacious kitchen
-dining/rec room
-fitness/yoga room
-library
-wifi internet
-laundry
-composting toilets/showers
-hot tub or pond
-workshop/tool library
-store w/ produce and sundries (honor system)
-fenced dog park
I would also like to see
- coworking space (where I could have an enclosed quiet room for a phone/internet meeting)
- easy access to propane refill or exchange
- access to running / hiking trails
I agree with the main point here that stating goals gives a false almost subconscious sense of accomplishment,
What I find that works far better is keeping the goals private, and focus on habits that support the goal, which you can publicly announce if you want to.
So I wouldn't announce "I will write a book this year and become a published author"
but I might let people know "I'm installing a habit where I write for 1 hour in the morning as part of my daily morning routine."
A good dog can definitely stack a lot of functions.
The quality of dogs like most living things are a combination of nature and nurture.
Obviously you want to avoid inbreeding. For example if I was looking for a Labrador specifically, I would look for a hunting line where the animals were bread for hunting performance as opposed to from a pet store or some breeder puppy mill trying to make $. Personally I would prefer a not 100% pure breed.
Another interesting function you may not know about ... Did you know the presence of a dog in the home can dramatically increase the health of your gut micro biome?
If I had 10 million dollars I would invest in a combination of the following:
> Land with abundant fresh water
> Rentable structures on my land
> A permaculture development team (paid jobs) with the goal to create a system that creates a surplus of food far beyond the needs of those living on the land (The surplus would be sold in good economic times and given out in poor economic times)
> Social projects in my community that I believe in
> Social projects worldwide that I believe in
> Angel invest (for equity) in other entrepreneurs I believed in
> Travel and experiences to deepen relationships at the familial, community, and global level
In this video, Toby Hemenway describes his encounter with a food forest within an existing tropical rainforest in Belize
(Go to the 4:34 mark in the video)
Cassie, I appreciate your reframe of the question to "I figure the decision is between clearing the forest for more conventional growing methods or altering the existing forest to still provide food with minimal damage."
In my view, it is important to look at how to work with permaculture without necessarily starting with damaged land. It is of course important to rehabilitate damaged land whenever possible though.
I've dealt a lot with bad internet options. When I'm mobile or in very low cell phone signal areas, I use my iPhone as mobile hotspot and supercharge it's reach with this booster: https://jet.com/product/pdp/3458553ce6e24dec9e408e14fc30d884
If you're looking for something inspirational, educational, and about making the most of our lives, I highly recommend the Rich Roll Podcast: http://www.richroll.com/category/podcast/ Rich is an ultra endurance athlete who cares deeply about sustainability and positive culture change. He is a vegan, but not dogmatic about it. So have an open mind if you're not also a vegan.
If you have a message to share yourself, you might like my podcast for education entrepreneurs called LMScast: http://podcast.lifterlms.com/ An education entrepreneur is someone who cares about disrupting tradition education in order to bring greater impact to the world. An education entrepreneur typically cares more about impact than income, though recognizes that both are important.
There's nothing like finding a new podcast that you really resonate with. Good luck!
I live in Northwest Montana and drink Montana Coffee Traders Coffee: https://www.coffeetraders.com/ A couple years ago I travelled to Costa Rica for 3 months to develop an online permaculture design course. While in Costa Rica, part of the time I lived on an old dairy farm in the Monte Verde region.
Montana Coffee Traders has been sourcing coffee directly from the Monte Verde Costa Rican farmers since 1989. From the Montana Coffee Traders website:
This bright, crisp Costa Rican coffee is our original Partnership coffee, dedicated to conservation, education, and social programs in and around the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica. Carefully harvested when fully ripe, Cafe Monteverde is a premium coffee grown in a Cloud Forest environment. The cool temperate Cloud Forest allows the coffee to ripen slowly, developing flavors that exhibit a bright, crisp liveliness with a clean, sweet, and mild cup. Hints of citrus are in the finish.
Since 1989, Montana Coffee Traders has been working successfully with coffee farmers of the Monteverde region of Costa Rica. Our long term partnership with the Café Monteverde farmers affords a direct impact to improve coffee quality as well as a way for consumers to connect with their coffee farmers. The premium price MCT pays directly to the farmers has allowed these farmers to not only grow exceptional coffee, but give them the opportunity to expand their farms, businesses and knowledge in a rapidly changing economic environment. Through the financial support of our Monteverde dollar back program the MNTV Coffee Lab was built and is connecting farmers to taste coffee quality and for travelers to experience the unique coffee flavors the Monteverde region of Costa Rica has to offer.
You might also try "bulletproof coffee." This is coffee with healthy fats like grass fed ghee and coconut oil. Personally I like it organic black with about a tablespoon of coconut oil.
Here's an example of what Michael Pilarski did creating a food forest on 1/8 of an acre starting with a field. The video below is taken 4 months after planting.
Thank you for your sage advice, and for helping us understand what's happening. You know, I naively thought being insanely passionate about bees to the point of spending a year with 6 other people creating a totally new technology to help save them would be enough to get everyone else excited! It's a great learning experience nonetheless.
I would love to submit a guest post for Organic Life Guru, that would be really wonderful! Thank you so much for your offer of support!
Also a fantastic idea to create the online course - I had a quick look at the course tool, and it looks really interesting, I'm going to share this with our team.
Thanks again for your advice Chris, I'm really happy to have connected with you!
Best,
Kelton
Nice to meet you too Kelton! I wish you and your project all the best.
In this video lesson, Jacob talks about organic beekeeping. He talks about the challenges of keeping honey bees organically as well as the reasons why it is so important. Jacob also introduces the idea of tuning into nature’s patterns and talks about why this is key to successful beekeeping.
How to keep bees and plan for winter feeding (Natural Methods)
In this video lesson, Jacob talks about how much honey the bees need to get through the winter. He talks about to know if they have enough. Jacob also shares his thoughts on best practices regarding saving honey in frames in case the hive needs more honey at some point during the winter or spring. In addition, Jacob talks extensively about the whys and hows of insulating hives for the winter.
Great job with this piece of technology! I wish you all the best on the Eyes on Hives Kickstarter campaign.
It's great to see the overlap of digital technology and sustainability.
Getting more honeybee data through apps like this will be valuable for the beekeeper and the activist.
Hey Chris,
Thanks so much for your encouragement, it really means a lot to the team and I! We really hope we'll get the crowdfund across the line for the next 30 systems, even if we don't, we're determined to keep chipping away at this project locally because it's what we believe in, and we're helping connect our beekeeping community.
I read through a few of your posts and found that you have some kickstarter experience yourself! We have just 18 days to go, but that's enough time to make changes to our approach. Could you please share any advice on what we might do better? What do you think is stopping the project from being more successful?
Thank you for any feedback you're comfortable sharing, I really appreciate it!
Kelton
Hey Kelton,
They key with Kickstarter is great incentives. I think your rewards are actually pretty solid. You might consider an even more premium offer than the 2K (Like 5K) where you or someone on your team flies out and does a done-for-you set up of your system. If you're down for that reward, make it priced high enough to afford the overhead of that and the travel.
The challenge with permaculture type things on kickstarter is that many of the permaculture community are not on or aware of relevant crowdfunding action without a lot of help finding out about the campaign from leaders or publishers with a lot of reach in the community.
If you want to send us at Organic Life Guru a guest post about your EyesOnHives, your story & vision, and the campaign details, we will publish it on the Organic Life Guru Blog and send a message to our email subscribers.
If you'r not having conversations about EyesOnHives, on other popular beekeeping forums, you might give that a shot.
Also I would recommend making a free online course about your product to help get the word out and build your email list and start laying out online courses that support the customer on boarding to your hardware and app. We have a tool for making online courses with WordPress called LifterLMS. At a minimum keep doing what you're doing on your Youtube channel, and either you or have someone on your team read my post with a special emphasis on the video marketing part: http://blog.lifterlms.com/engagement-success/
You should get on Product Hunt too: https://www.producthunt.com/
If you're looking to start with just raised beds, check out Samantha Langlois's videos on raise bed production: http://organiclifeguru.com/lesson/raised-beds/
Check out this video where Jacob Talks about how to handle the honey beehive
He sets you up for success when opening up a hive. He talks about how to approach and work around the bees so as not to anger them. He talks about how to do a hive inspection and what to look for. Then Jacob walks you through the process including use of the smoker, taking the top of without crushing bees, pulling out frames and how to recognize capped brood, green brood, honey, nectar and pollen in a frame.
Missoula's Jacob Wustner just released an Organic & Traditional Beekeeping 101 online video course: http://organiclifeguru.com/course/beekeeping-101-organic-natural-traditional/
Beekeeping 101 was created over the course of a summer in order to capture a full season with the bees including lots of hands-on time in the hive. The course is intended to be a thorough introduction to keeping bees so that upon completion, you can confidently start your own treatment-free honey bee hive. Taught from a permaculture perspective, this course will teach you a wholistic approach to beekeeping that considers the natural ecology of honey bees and agriculture.
