Subject: Re: No Subject

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 07:39:17 -0500

In a message dated 11/21/96 12:28:03 AM, [email-masked] wrote:

<<To whom it may concern...

Could you send me a list of communities that are actively  practicing
permaculture, and might be open to new residents, work-study, etc?
If such a thing exists...

Thanks!
Tom Sepe
[email-masked]>>

Hi Tom:

We are at the inception point, ready to close on the land tommorow.  Contact
us in a month or two if you aren't otherwise disposed by then.  Or earlier if
you might buy adjacent land if you like the project.  We expect to have space
for someone while s/he builds as part of the community.  This will be a
community of purpose. 

The site is very high watertable--a lake that drained (sinkhole) or was
drained (land developers) and there is still a large amount of open water.
 We are looking at applying permaculture design, including aquaculture, to
chinampas and getting an order of magnitude more productivity than the most
productive food system measured.  However, we don't have anyone who wants to
deal with all that food--I'm not going to clean all those fish, for
example--so we will probably harvest very lightly unless we are associated
with someone who wants the income to do the harvest and marketing work.
 Meanwhile, we'll have a lot more life around than there is now and the
ability to go out any time of year and pick up a meal.  (Actually, I could do
that now, but I like the increases in choice.)

We are looking at a few potentially high value crops that don't require so
much fuss, or that are just a lot of work for a limited period, as well.  We
also have existing and potential profit-sharing opportunities using some of
our accumulated resources to develop mutually profitable enterprises of
intrinsic value.  Crawfish, for example, have a small but pricey market, they
are harvested by traps (so you don't have to smooth the pond bottom for
nets), they are delivered whole (so you don't have to clean them), and they
can be managed extensively until the market supports efforts to encourage
them beyond what nature provides here.  We published an article in one of our
journals several years ago on growing baldcypress with crawfish.  We might do
a lot of that because we like baldcypress a lot, not particularly for timber,
and because they have been overcut.  That's a sample design idea that we are
kicking around in brainstorming in advance of an actual design.  I won't put
a pencil to paper until I am on the land, walking it daily, and I've mowed
the open area to get a clear idea of elevations and contours.  (We will
measure these, too, but after I have a feel for them.) With the water table
so high, a foot one way or another can make a huge difference about what can
be done there unless you are growing Asian water buffalo or the like.  (We
will do that, too.)

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now permaculture
training in an email classroom. Copyright, 1996, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway.
[email-masked]  P.O. 2025, Ocala FL 3447-2025 USA.

We don't have time to rush.