Wheaton Labs 2016 Permaculture Design Course (PDC) & Appropriate Technology Course

Chris Krueger wrote:How/where do I sign up? Thanks

In the first post on page 1 there is something about sending a Paypal payment to Howard.

Just a reminder, one thing that will likely happen during this PDC is that participants will get to build an air well on the property. This is a really great media rich thread on this age old method of harvesting water from the air!

Paul wanted me to mention, depending on the weather, these courses will likely be happening during huckleberry harvesting season!

Have you ever had a huckleberry? Because it's seriously like nature created candy plants, and put them in all of these shady, mountainous nooks for lucky foragers like us to find. Seriously, I could spend an afternoon doing just this.

If you're traveling to these courses with family, this is one of many family friendly activities they can do in the area, along with all of the wonderful attractions in Missoula as well, like the Carousel.

Here's to hoping Mother Nature doesn't disappoint with the berry harvest this year!

Who exactly should I notify about needing a ride from the airport?

Danielle Peck wrote:Who exactly should I notify about needing a ride from the airport?

You can either drop a line here in the thread, or email us at permiesATpermiesDOTcom, and we'll contact you to arrange all the details

You can also email Howard at howard.story@gmail.com, or Fred at the Lab at fred@richsoil.com.

This is probably the kind of air well we will build:

Are there openings still available for the PDC and what about the AT? I'm hoping to sign up soon but need to make sure I have enough available funds.

Sam Phillips wrote:Are there openings still available for the PDC and what about the AT? I'm hoping to sign up soon but need to make sure I have enough available funds.

There are still openings for both courses Sam - hope you can make it!

I really want to come but money is kind of tight. Do I need to pay in full to reserve or is there any way I could make a partial payment now to reserve my spot? Also are there any work/trade or scholarship opportunities available? Thanks so much.

Yes there are still seats available. If you need to, you can make a half payment deposit and balance before arrival.
best
Howard Story

Sam,
A form of work-trade could be to come here early as a gapper. When you get paid bounties for work completed, you could put that money towards the class fee.

I hope the huckleberries come ripe while I'm there! I will have to allow a day or two just for picking and pie.
I would normally think it is a little early for them, but it has been a CRAZY warm spring - our apple blossom is setting something like a month early.

Here is another form of primitive air-well: this is easily the biggest apricot tree on our mountain, and the most beautifully formed. Others are about 1/3 the size, and do not appear as healthy - or appear in crowded stands of other trees near moisture seeps and seasonal wetlands.

This example appears to have been provided with some "accidental" air-well water harvesting when it was much younger.

(Assuming the rocks were piled near the drip-line, which would be the most useful place to "water" the tree, it must have been 5x smaller at that time. But it is also possible someone just cleared rocks out of the driveway and piled them, maybe getting ready to do a fence that never happened...)

Erica Wisner wrote:I hope the huckleberries come ripe while I'm there! I will have to allow a day or two just for picking and pie.
I would normally think it is a little early for them, but it has been a CRAZY warm spring - our apple blossom is setting something like a month early.

I was thinking the same thing - I think normally around August is the time, but this year, I'd imagine everything will be fruiting a month or two ahead of schedule.

Wheaton Labs is offering a super duper discount on lodging during the PDC and the AT courses. Tent camping comes free with your course registration, but wouldn't you rather experience a night in a natural built structure? Get the full permaculture experience including rocket mass heaters and rocket cooking.

Slumber party at Cooper Cabin - Wofati with a rocket mass heater for 17 nights only $200 and 35 nights for only $380. This is a killer deal to experience a wofati and you get to socialize with other permies! (12 spots available.)

The Tipi - With a rocket mass heater - 17 nights for $400 and 35 nights for $740.

Allerton Abbey - Wofati with a rocket mass heater - 17 nights for $800 and 35 nights for $1500

The Love Shack - 17 nights for $300 and 35 nights for $560

Attend the PDC and/or the AT and you get to stay in a Wheaton Labs structure for the lowest price ever!

Lock in your reservation with a Paypal payment to paul at richsoil dot com. Specify your reservation dates and bunk of choice in the "comments to seller" box below your payment amount.

In regards to food for the events - just a reminder that food will not be provided, and there is no refrigerated food storage available at the Lab (where most of the lodging and camping will be taking place).

However, I know many of you may be wondering what the heck you're supposed to do, and so I'll drop some pointers in here

-bring a cooler if you can, pack it full of ice just before you get here, put your perishables inside, and try to open it as little as possible. It's amazing how long things will keep cold in a well placed cooler
-bring lots of food that doesn't need to be refrigerated. Here are some tasty suggestions:

dried meats, jerky
nuts, dried fruit
soup (I like to make big batches of tomato basil soup, jar it up, and reheat it in my cast iron sauce pan, yum!)
heaps and heaps of fruits and vegetables - most convenient thing to eat when you camp! A salad goes a long way, especially when you boil some eggs to go with it
protein bars
baked goods (whip up a batch of cookies before you leave and take them with, so worth it!)

-bring a great outdoor cooking pan (cast iron if you've got it), as well as some oil to keep it seasoned and clean
-there are some camp stoves/propane devices available for use, but be prepared for the possibility of cooking over a fire and/or outdoors - a grill grate is extremely handy to have, and can be purchased at outdoors stores. I myself have balanced a wide flat rock on a fire and cooked my steaks on it before - a little dirt don't hurt

I'm currently working with our resort staff to see if we can get some coolers out to those areas at the Lab for those that may be flying and unable to bring one - just be prepared to bring lots of ice.

For perishables, try to store your cooler in a natural "frost pocket" - in a shady, low spot, and open it as little as possible.

My husband's been staying out at the Lab these past couple weeks doing some work, and he packed his cooler full of ice, beer, bacon, and steak the duck eggs are sitting in his basket of dry goods.

Howard invited me to teach about solitary hole nesting bees at the PDC via Skype. It would be best to do this in person, but I'm running short of time. So... my hour with you will be restricted to a face on a big screen in front of you.

Permies, and especially the PDC, is a wonderful environment to learn. I truly wish I could be there.

What we'll cover in this session:

I know a lot about pollination and how to make food pollinated. I've worked with researchers and commercial mason bee and honey beekeepers. It may surprise that we're doing things wrong. Monoculture started the whole honey bee mess...

here's a rough outline:

Outline honey bees... why we use them today as pollinators. Small history and digging into "why the bee gathers honey, stings, and how it operates." You're going to lose some assumptions you made here.

Introduce you to solitary bees. In particular, hole nesting bees that are super-pollinating bees. No honey, but great pollinators. Again... we'll look at the "why's" of the insect, not just "how to."
And some how-to's on both mason and leafcutter bees.

Why should you know about different types of bees? Less problems, they're native, and once you understand how and why they live/pollinate, you'll be able to use them in your gardens to produce more food.

How to live with the land and how to work with the land is important. How to get the most food from your land involves working with bees.

Dave Hunter, Crown Bees

Hmmm, still sounding a little "Naked and Afraid" experience for those flying in...hopefully no dengue fever to take back home on top of it.

Cooking over a campfire...that has been one thing that has puzzled me about ants/lab... it seems that you see and read about them cooking over a propane stove (and now a campfires?) in basically the hot bed of rocket stove technology. Is there not an outdoor kitchen at one of the abbeys with a rocket stove available? I am no expert, but I think I could build a 16 brick rocket stove in a couple of minutes. Of course needing the bricks....maybe whoever picks me up in town will stop at Lowes or Home Depot and I can get the bricks, I would rather get fire bricks (but I don't know where to get those there) but the regular ones or concrete blocks will work for a long time. I think I would want a bucket with a gamma lid too...I am anal about rodents and food...

Rob

Rob,
plenty of rocket stoves for people to cook on here. no need to bring bricks or blocks.

Thomas Griffin wrote:Hmmm, still sounding a little "Naked and Afraid" experience for those flying in...hopefully no dengue fever to take back home on top of it.

Cooking over a campfire...that has been one thing that has puzzled me about ants/lab... it seems that you see and read about them cooking over a propane stove (and now a campfires?) in basically the hot bed of rocket stove technology. Is there not an outdoor kitchen at one of the abbeys with a rocket stove available? I am no expert, but I think I could build a 16 brick rocket stove in a couple of minutes. Of course needing the bricks....maybe whoever picks me up in town will stop at Lowes or Home Depot and I can get the bricks, I would rather get fire bricks (but I don't know where to get those there) but the regular ones or concrete blocks will work for a long time. I think I would want a bucket with a gamma lid too...I am anal about rodents and food...

Rob

Fred's right that we have rocket stoves all over, but we can never have enough outdoor kitchen's. I see no reason why we can't have MORE rockety goodness!

To whom it may concern:

Is there still space available for the dual PDC and AT spiel? It looks like it'd be worth doing.

Thanks

Anybody know how the confirmation works?

I sent payment to The email on page one for Howard. I haven't received any info. Was wondering if I possibly missed something?

Thanks guys.

Sam Mertz wrote:Anybody know how the confirmation works?

I sent payment to The email on page one for Howard. I haven't received any info. Was wondering if I possibly missed something?

Thanks guys.

How long ago did you send the payment?

Jason,
Still plenty of seats open in both courses. Hope you can make it out!

Fred Tyler wrote:Jason,
Still plenty of seats open in both courses. Hope you can make it out!

I am baffled how I missed that. Thanks Fred.

We have enough students that the event is definitely happening. And there are still spots left. Destiny, Rick and I are about to roll out some more marketing and hope to fill the last seats soon!

Residents of Wheaton Labs get to attend both courses for free. But that is a limited time offer and you gotta get that all squared away in the next couple of days.

In other words, if you are an ant or a deep roots person, then you can attend both courses for free. We have two gappers here that worked long and hard, so we have arranged for those two people to get into the courses for free also - but the time is now up for that.

Sam Mertz wrote:Anybody know how the confirmation works?

I sent payment to The email on page one for Howard. I haven't received any info. Was wondering if I possibly missed something?

Thanks guys.

Hey Sam, I checked with Howard, and he said you should have received your confirmation 2 days ago - maybe check your spam folder?

If you still can't find it, let us know and we'll get it resent to you.

Some pics from last year:

Some folks showed up early and helped with building the berm shed:



Zach teaching:






The grand finale:




Nikki and Howard:

Wheaton Labs is offering a super duper discount on lodging during the PDC and the AT courses. Tent camping comes free with your course registration, but wouldn't you rather experience a night in a natural built structure? Get the full permaculture experience including rocket mass heaters and rocket cooking.

Slumber party at Cooper Cabin!
Wofati with a rocket mass heater for 17 nights only $200 and 35 nights for only $380. This is a killer deal to experience a wofati and you get to socialize with other permies! (10 spots available.)



The Tipi
With a rocket mass heater - 17 nights for $400 and 35 nights for $740.




Allerton Abbey
Wofati with a rocket mass heater - 17 nights for $800 and 35 nights for $1500



Attend the PDC and/or the AT and you get to stay in a Wheaton Labs structure for the lowest price ever!
Lock in your reservation with a payment to paypal.me/bunks. Specify your reservation dates and bunk of choice in the "comments to seller" box below your payment amount.

Hi Permies.com PDC team. I have a another quick question for you. Are you guys still looking for camera men to film the courses in exchange for free attendance? I have a friend who is a film school graduate and interested. Thank you.

Sam Phillips wrote:Hi Permies.com PDC team. I have a another quick question for you. Are you guys still looking for camera men to film the courses in exchange for free attendance? I have a friend who is a film school graduate and interested. Thank you.

I'm going to wait for confirmation from my grand supreme leaders on this one, but I'm going to say that we landed on not messing with filming the event - unfortunately I think it just wound up looking like it would be too much to put together on such short notice.

Sam Phillips wrote:Hi Permies.com PDC team. I have a another quick question for you. Are you guys still looking for camera men to film the courses in exchange for free attendance? I have a friend who is a film school graduate and interested. Thank you.

Sam,

Maybe you could have your friend post?

We already have one video guy coming - but he seems keen on having another guy.

I forwarded your note to howard. We will see what he says.

How long ago did you send the payment?

Got it right after I asked. Should have been more patient. Thanks for the response, guys.

feast night. that odd little space between the fisher price house and the office.