2018 brown and purple schmoozaroo at allerton abbey

C. E. Rice wrote:But it isnt clear about the 9:30AM "first half" of the tour.  Is this refering to the one we did today? Or is that 9:30AM on Sunday? Thanks!!

Good catch!  I edited the post.  The tour starts sunday at 9:30am.

I should also add that people are welcome to come the day before (or even friday) and pitch a tent as part of the schmoozaroo.  And morels are on right now.  Here is a pic that one person harvested on the lab:

C. E. Rice wrote:Paul, can you clarify for everyone?

Looks like the second half of the tour starts on Sunday, May 27th.

But it isnt clear about the 9:30AM "first half" of the tour.  Is this refering to the one we did today? Or is that 9:30AM on Sunday? Thanks!!

From Paul's post (though I've separated for emphasis):

paul wheaton wrote:
A full tour will start at 9:30 am Sunday, May 27 - meet in the classroom at basecamp (the door is in the back of the shop at the lowest part of the property - folks can park in "arrakis" which is behind the shop/classroom).  

Morning half - base camp

paul wheaton wrote:I am thinking that we start the tour at 9:30 and do the basecamp tour.  

lunch (??) - cooper cabin at the lab

paul wheaton wrote:And then we can all mozey up to the lab and maybe there can be a collective lunch with the peasant pdc students and whoever happens to be around.  Sunday is a day off, so a lot of people might be off doing something.  Sunday is also a day for people that have workee jobs to come to the schmoozaroo - so there might be more people here.   So this lunch thing is entirely ad hoc - i have no predictions on what all will happen with this.

 
Afternoon half - the lab

paul wheaton wrote:When folks are ready (1pm?) we will start the second half of the tour up at the lab.

I'll lead the tour.  

 

Note that I am pretty certain there will not be a way for you to join the tour late at this time - due to lack of staff, a locked gate, and no address for the lab. If you want the tour, Paul starts promptly on time - 9:30 a.m.!

Edit:  Ah, Paul edited his post just before I created this one, though I think I'll leave this up since this has overflowed to another page of the thread any way.

I plan to come for the tour Sunday and bring my wife and a friend or two. I knew Mike Oehler, so I’d like to see the WOFATIs along with all the other things.  
 Hopefully I’ll get the fiberglass yurt built this summer that I bought from Mike’s estate.

Jeff, have you been here before?

As Paul posted here:

paul wheaton wrote:

This might be a good time to point out that this tour and all of the schmoozaroo is free to everybody that has been here before.   If you have never been here before and you wish to be here for the schmoozaroo, you need to pay "the gapper fee" which is $100 for the first person and $20 for each person after that.


If you are into bitcoin: 177pNU2a9iCpUXQwXX9EbtA2UwZpgeqcMT

Once we receive payment, we will contact you to start sorting out the particulars.

I’m waiting to see if my two friends want to go before I pay since I didn’t know if there was an option to add people to the party later.
 No, I haven’t been to Wheaton Labs before.  Though I know it’s not a requirement for this event, I have listened to almost every podcast with the exception of the one you have to pay for to find out Paul’s political viewpoints and a few others.
 I recently completed a Geoff Lawton PDC and my wife is doing her Master Gardener internship.
 We live off grid and hope to get a 700 sf yurt dried in this summer. Mike Oehler came out to my place and gave me some ideas, but I decided to go with the yurt (which originally was his) as I can get the materials for free from work to build the roof and the interior.

Sent the money yesterday.

We're glad to have you join, us, Jeff!

Just a quick reminder that it's pack your own lunch / might be sorta potluck-ish picnic lunch on the lab.

Weather looks like it might be pleasant with a low chance of rain.

Sounds good, we’re looking forward to it. I haven’t seen an email with directions yet, I might need that before I get to Missoula.  Directions or not, I’ll be headed your way early in the morning. I trust I’ll get them before I arrive. Ha ha  
 I waited a bit late to pay, right when y’all are very busy, so sorry about that.  We look forward to seeing everyone.
 We’ll pack our own lunch.

Jeff Higdon wrote:Sounds good, we’re looking forward to it. I haven’t seen an email with directions yet, I might need that before I get to Missoula.  Directions or not, I’ll be headed your way early in the morning. I trust I’ll get them before I arrive. Ha ha  
 I waited a bit late to pay, right when y’all are very busy, so sorry about that.  We look forward to seeing everyone.
 We’ll pack our own lunch.

Jeff, Paul copied me on the directions he replied with to your PayPal address so I think they went out. Scroll through that last reply to see them.

It was in my junk folder. Thank you!  We'll see you soon.

Jeff

The tour starts at 9:30.  Meet in the classroom (come through the door from the arrakis parking lot).  We will tour basecamp first and then head up to the lab for lunch.  Lunch is not provided.  Although folks can use the rocket kitchen if they like.  And I did hear a rumor about some food stuff, but I'm not certain what the exact story is ...

It sounds like it will be a pretty big crowd.

We enjoyed the tour!  Thank you Paul for taking the time to show us all around, it’s quite impressive what you’ve accomplished!  I must say that I felt like I was walking with a walking encyclopedia!  Your depth of knowledge is quite impressive!
 Jocelyn, thank you for being a wonderful hostess. When I heard about your injury I was concerned that meant I wouldn’t get to meet you, but I’m glad you went on part of the tour with us.
 Erica Wisner, thank you also for being a wonderful hostess.  I was impressed with your humbleness and “down to earth” attitude.  My wife and I really enjoyed talking to you. I forgot to ask where Ernie was, I wish I could have met him as well. Our condolences on the loss of his mother.  Excellent well illustrated book by the way!  Nothing less than the quality I expected with y’all’s depth of knowledge. I’m glad you had a copy on hand I was able to purchase.
 Jeremy The Ant, it was a pleasure to meet you as well!  You’ve got a lot of work ahead of you but you have abundant natural resources there to do it with. Go get em!
 C.E. it was a pleasure to meet you!  I’m sure you’ll have Wheaton Labs on the list of eco vacation spots to go to before long. I know I wouldn’t mind spending a night in a WOFATI some time in the future. I often thought Mike Oehler should have done that.
 Phillip, I enjoyed our conversation afterwards. It was a pleasure to meet you.
 I reckon I could keep going down the line naming each of you and I don’t mean to leave anyone out but all in all an awesome tour and it was great to meet everyone.
 Now if y’all will excuse me, I’ve got to replace the axle on my skid steer today so I can get busy on some earthworks before the inspiration wears off!

Jeff (and Mary)

Hi this is Mary, Jeff's wife, and just adding to his comments above of our tour to Wheaton Labs nestled in the beautiful mountains of Montana. The first words that come to mind would be "inspirational and informative". And did I say "beautiful"? We were taken along smooth, frequently trodden winding paths kicking aside a rock or two now and then. Thankfully it did not require the fitness level of a marathon runner to make one's way up the hills where we visited a variety of well built structures interspersed throughout the land. There were clean, cozy cabins made of cedar with neatly made bunkbeds that would pass the inspection of any drill sergeant. Homemade curtains and dried lavender tied with ribbon dispelled any looks of a barracks, though, and more reminiscent of light touches of romantic country decor I would say. Chic without the shabby. This city girl from New Orleans had no qualms using the bathroom facilities better known in these parts of the country as outhouses. Quite the upscale in outhouses I might say and I've been in a few since moving to the Pacific Northwest. You can even visit an outhouse with a picture of a pig doing a jig fashioned by a former artisan - "The Dancing Pig" facility. Although we brought our own lunch, we were treated to freshly baked pizza hand rolled by Erica and topped with fresh vegetables and mushrooms to name a few of the toppings. The pizzas were baked in a rocket mass heater which has nothing to do with the aerospace industry! You will have to see it for yourself as well as so many, many interesting sights and experiences as well as friendly people. Live entertainment was provided by Paul with his informative explanations and if you were having a particularly bad day he would throw in a few cuss words for you at no extra cost. I could go on and on here, but if you're thinking of a second honeymoon retreat, a walk in the woods to restore your health, or to try out your hand with various homesteading and permaculture projects, Paul graciously shares his land at a minimal cost with those who'd like to experience and experiment. So pack up your work ethic and integrity if you plan to do the latter and leave any delusions of grandeur at home with the chickens unless you have permission by the landowner to bring Henrietta along. Down South some people like to put fake pink flamingos in their yards and so maybe a plastic chicken could be your own personal imprint to leave with Paul as part of his next tour. Thanks Paul and company for the great time!        

Hi friends,
The Peasant PDC has optional Saturday field trips that are open to Schmoozaroo folks, on the condition that you sign up by the previous Wednesday so I can confirm expected group size with our hosts.


This weekend (June 2) we are going to the Bitterroot valley: ABC Acres and Dunrovin Guest Ranch, for a tour of animal, paddock-shift, and food forest systems (for-profit commercial/family farm), and a picnic by the river.

Next weekend (June 9th) we are going to Orchard Garden Farm for a 4-hour volunteer session, on a low-tillage orchard, CSA, and market garden system with educational and not-for-profit support networks.

The following weekend (June 16th) we have a choice of Free Cycles (human-powered tech), or an in-depth re-visit to ABC Acres to talk finance and farm business with farm manager Matt.

The final weekend of our course I believe will coincide with the opening weekend for the Homesteader PDC, so there should be a Wheaton Labs tour for those interested.



Please contact me or C.E. if you are ready to sign up for a field trip or tour - we can add your name to our paper signup.
If you don't hear back from us, please try again.  We have intermittent internet access in the earth-sheltered hollows up here, and may be missing some messages during busy class days.


Yours,
Erica

Erica Wisner wrote:
Please contact me or C.E. if you are ready to sign up for a field trip or tour - we can add your name to our paper signup.
If you don't hear back from us, please try again.  We have intermittent internet access in the earth-sheltered hollows up here, and may be missing some messages during busy class days.

For easy access..... that is:
cerice@richsoil.com

:-)

I've just returned from a wonderful long weekend at Wheaton Labs.  I want to thank Jocelyn and Paul for their warm hospitality - I stayed in the Red Cabin, which was lovely (it has electricity and WiFi) and there were even a couple of evenings cold enough to justify firing up the compact rocket mass heater, which was fun.  I got to record a podcast with Paul, so there's something off my bucket list. . .

My last evening I delivered pizza makings up to the peasant PDC on the lab, and with Erica's expert help we went from a cold empty rocket oven to the first 8 personal pizzas in less than 30 minutes, (!) using less than 6 pounds of wood. (!!) (Coming soon to a Kickstarter near you - how to make your own rocket oven, which is so much faster and more efficient than a cob oven there's no comparison!)  We made a LOT more than 8 pizzas - most people had more than one, but we were making them 4 at a time after we got the oven to 500 degrees.  It took some more wood to keep the oven at temp - we didn't weigh out that wood so I can't say precisely how much.

I've been out there a couple of times before: 2-3 years ago and about 5 years ago.  It's wonderful to see how much more green and growy things are (it also helps to come in early June versus July or August).  The giant hugelkultur berms that block Paul's place from prying eyes are lush with greenery, to the point that I spent some time doing chop and drop of two foot tall grasses, using it to mulch things like walking onion and berry bushes and rhubarb.  Oh, the rhubarb.   Also, Sepp Holzer grain, thriving here and there on the berms, not only in a cage this year.  I could go on, but I need to run

I encourage anyone that's been there before to go.

Hi All,
Thought I'd review our visit to the Labs during the schmoozaroo this past week.  All I can say is WOW, the labs far exceeded my expectations in both environment and progress.  

We chose to stay in the Tipi ... in hindsight the perfect choice for us.  Surrounded on three sides by a hugel sun scoop, it is in a private setting overlooking a series of meadows punctuated by young stands of trees.



The Labs are under stewardship.  Previously logged (likely more than once), what was thicket is being selectively thinned and alleyways cleared to increase edge, create meadows between the young trees, and thin the overly dense stands of evergreens




The diversity of plant and animal life in the Labs is impressive.  I'll only show a few illustrative photos, but on both the macro and micro scales we reveled in the wide array of species









Morels!  Thanks for the morel hunting expedition Cara!!


From the starting point of raw land 5 years ago, the quantity of systems already installed is incredible.  Almost every structure we saw was made from logs and lumber milled from the Lab property.  Here's just a few and don't even include the wofatis (wofatii?)






Ant Village is a wonderment and has arrays of smaller earthworks designed to slow and infiltrate water on it's way downslope






We had a wonderful time and were able to actually relax (putting down the responsibilities of our dryland "labs" is a rare occurrence!)
Thank you Paul and Jocelyn!  More thanks to Fred (the backbone of the labs), CE Rice (a fountain of knowledge and wonderful host), Erica and Ernie (who were in the middle of conducting a PDC), Cara for teaching us about morel hunting, and everyone else who helped make our visit a highlight of the year!

Hi all!!!  First I would like to thank Paul & Jocelyn for inviting us and being such gracious hosts! I'd like to apologize to Erica, Ernie, Paul and Jocelyn for having completely missed the invite texts that came in on our last night there - inviting us to additional  'doings' - our cell phone is, well, a dinosaur. Bill Kearns and I were much embarrassed when we got home and found all the invites on our email. When we got home we dove right into the MANY photos we took and sat around in the after glow of the trip talking about the whole deal. I've had a course (or two) in geology, but I turned Bill onto the incredible geology of Wheaton Labs and surrounding region, so last I heard, he's elbow deep in researching all about that subject with hopes of a future map sans the address and boundaries.

I've kicked out a couple of blogs (two more to go) about our trip and I'd like to share them. I don't blog for $ so there's no promotional 'thing' on my end, and we do very much support what Paul & Jocelyn are doing. There are only two of us here, and I'm the only one updating what we do, so in other words, when Bill has time he'll show me how to post pics on Permies and in the mean time this'll have to do.

A huge thanks to Fred for his incredible pictures of the place and C.E.'s consummate generosity of time. I wish we could have stayed longer and spent more time with all of you! We badly needed the rest and beauty offered and I'm already hearing about "when we go back..."

http://columbiabasinpermaculture.com/?p=8807   Title: Redemption and a trip to Wheaton Labs
http://columbiabasinpermaculture.com/?p=8853   Title: Trip to Wheaton Labs part 2

cheers,
Sheila

Bill and Sheila, THANK YOU for the awesome posts and pictures and your support! It was such a delight to have you visit!

And everyone else who visited, too, it was SO awesome to have you here! Please come back again soon.

And, I'm wondering....did any of you leave behind one of these items?