This PDC brings together some of the best minds in the permaculture community. With a variety of backgrounds and areas of expertise, these instructors convey their knowledge during our Homesteaders Permaculture Design Course.
Tim Barker
Tim has come a long way since his days as a diesel fitter mechanic, and now spends his time between Australia and New Zealand (and sometimes the US) as a semi professional pyromaniac and mad scientist teaching people how to burn stuff and make really cool machines and devices for low carbon living. He currently teaches Appropriate Technology for the Koanga Institute in New Zealand and Very Edible Gardens (VEG) in Melbourne, to name a few.
He has previously been farm manager for the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, power station operator/mechanic, adventure guide and professional turtle wrestler. His rocket stove and char making powered hot water systems, ovens and cookers reflect his passion for elegant simple and durable combustion technologies. Other projects include gravity powered water pumps, solar thermal cookers and dryers, pedal powered washing machines, cargo bikes, hovercraft, wooden boats and aquaponics, to name a few. When he is not tinkering he can be found on Macleay Island off the coast of Queensland Australia, where he and his family live and are currently in the process of building a rammed earth house (with maybe a little sailing thrown in).
He is particularly well known for his safe and effective rocket hot water heating system.He brings practical, hands on experience with some truly fascinating projects to the table - this from the Koanga institute:
"He has the practical knowledge and skills to construct almost any project with limited resources."
We're thrilled to have him instructing at our facilities!
Paul Wheaton
Paul Wheaton, the bad boy of Permaculture, was proclaimed by Geoff Lawton in 2012 the Duke of Permaculture. He is the creator of two on-line communities. One is about Permaculture, permies.com, and one is about software engineering, CodeRanch.com.
He is a powerful advocate of Sepp Holzer’s techniques, which a recent study showed to have the ability to feed 21 billion people without the use of petroleum or irrigation. He also promotes the use of hugelkultur, which sequesters carbon and eliminates the need for irrigation, and polycultures, which reduces the need for pest control and improves the health of plants. He wrote several articles about lawn care, raising chickens, cast iron, and diatomaceous earth. Paul regularly uploads permaculture videos and permaculture podcasts.
Thomas J. Elpel
Thomas J. Elpel is an author, natural builder, educator, and conservationist. He has authored multiple books: Foraging the Mountain West, Botany in a Day, Shanleya's Quest and numerous others about plant identification, wilderness survival, and sustainable living. He has multiple videos: Building a Slipform Stone House from the Bottom Up, How to Make a Grass Rope, Build Your own Masonry Fireplace - Masonry Heater - Masonry Stove, and many more. Thomas regularly teaches classes on plant identification, primitive skills and natural building. He is founder/director of Green University, LLC in Pony, Montana.
Helen Atthowe
Helen has an MS in Horticulture and Agricultural Ecology from Rutgers University; worked at Rutgers in tree fruit IPM; studied natural farming with Masanobu Fukoka; interned at The Land Institute in Kansas; taught a Master Gardener course in Montana for 15 years while she was Missoula County extension agent; owned and operated Biodesign organic vegetable farm in Montana (1993-2010); consulted for a 2000 acre organic vegetable farm (2011); helped run her husband's Woodleaf Farm organic orchard in northern California 2012-2015; worked for Oregon State University Horticulture Department; and is now farming a 211 acre farm in eastern Oregon with her husband, where they have a mixed fruit and hazelnut orchard, small grain and dry bean production, vegetable gardens, high tunnels, and greenhouse.
Erica Wisner
Erica is a science and art educator, curriculum developer, writer, illustrator, researcher, and rocket mass heater innovator. She loves making things from scratch - anything from blueberry scones to the oven itself. Erica is a skilled educator and project coordinator, with over 20 years of experience building teamwork and leading hands-on learning. Her and Ernie have taught numerous workshops on natural building and rocket mass heaters. Erica has written multiple books on rocket mass heaters, fire making, and survival shelters. She is featured in many videos, documentaries, and podcasts on rocket mass heaters.
Jacqueline Freeman
Jacqueline is a biodynamic farmer, author, and natural beekeeper. She is known for her gentle and understanding ways with bees. She appears in the honeybee documentary, Queen of the Sun and was hired by the USDA to work with rural farmers and beekeepers in the Dominican Republic, using historic methods of respectful beekeeping. She lives on a farm in Washington state with her husband, Joseph, where they have orchards, gardens, two big greenhouses, a small forest, rich pastures and plenty of flowering bee forage. Jacqueline also has lots of experience raising livestock: cows, goats, chickens for laying and broilers, turkeys, and horses. She has two websites: SpiritBee.com and friendlyhaven.com.
Zachary Weiss
Protégé of legendary Austrian farmer, Sepp Holzer, Zach is the first person to earn Holzer Practitioner Certification outside of the Krameterhof training program. Blending a unique combination of systems thinking, empathy, and awareness, Zach uses an action-oriented process to improve human relationships with earth. Enhancing ecosystems and harvesting natural productivity over time is the ultimate goal - with high initial input, high yield systems that will last until the next ice age.
Zach currently has projects in 11 nations on 4 continents, spanning a wide range of climates, contexts, land-forms and ecosystems. Having experience with a wide range of techniques and systems (from natural building, to greenhouses, to carpentry, to watershed restoration), Zach also graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Ecology. He has two websites elementalecosystems.com and holzerpermaculture.us
Davin Hoyt
Davin is an architect, artist, and entrepreneur. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Architecture and has 16 years of drafting experience. Davin has established two community gardens in Georgetown, Texas and he is the first to map Wheaton Labs. Davin practices architecture as a one-man firm and will soon be a small restaurant chain partner. He is the future illustrator of Paul's book on "Wofatis".
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The attendees enjoyed a wide variety of lectures and projects, and got an up close and personal tour of Wheaton Labs.
Day 1: Introduction to permaculture Session 1: Tim Barker - welcome and introduction to course
Session 2: Tim Barker - introduction to permaculture
Session 3: Tim Barker - history & context of permaculture
Session 4: Tim Barker - design framework; ethics
Day 2: Design concepts and themes Session 1: Tim Barker - permaculture design process
Session 2: Tim Barker - design process: ecosystems; holistic perspective
Session 3: Tim Barker - design principles: connections, diversity
Session 4: Tim Barker - design principes: nutrients, energy
Evening Session: Ernie & Erica - Fire
Day 3: Methods of design Session 1: Tim Barker - design principes: succession, resources
Session 2: Tim Barker - design principes: small-scale, edges
Session 3: Tim Barker - design principes: overview
Session 4: Tim Barker - design principes: summary
Evening Session: Byron Joel - introduction to keyline design
Day 4: Managing holistically Session 1: Tim Barker - history & context of holistic management
Session 2: Tim Barker - decision-making process
Session 3: Tim Barker - triple bottom line
Session 4: Tim Barker - forming holistic context
Evening Session: holistic management videos
Day 5: Climate and land form Session 1: Tim Barker - climate zones, brittleness scale
Session 2: Tim Barker - land shape & brittleness; landscapes
Session 3: Tim Barker - patterns; reading landscape; design teams formed
Session 4: Davin Hoyt - architectural & landscape drawing
Evening Session: Davin
Day 6: Water and access Session 1: Zach Weiss - ecology; water retention landscapes
Session 2: Zach Weiss - earthworks: model building
Session 3: Tim Barker - zones & strategies
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Zach - elemental ecology
Day 8: Trees & soils Session 1: Byron Joel - tree ecology; succession
Session 2: Byron Joel - strategies & techniques; zones; summary
Session 3: Helen Atthowe - soils: ecology, structure, chemistry, biology
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Helen Atthowe - creating a commercial forest garden
Day 9: Soils & crops Session 1: Helen Atthowe - soil strategies & techniques zones 1-4
Session 2: Helen Atthowe - crops; grass, herb & forb ecology
Session 3: Helen Atthowe - strategies & techniques, zones 1-4
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Jacqueline Freeman - building relationships with farm animals
Day 10: Animals Session 1: Jacqueline & Joseph - beekeeping
Session 2: Jacqueline & Joseph - animal ecology, ethics, zones 1 & 2
Session 3: Jacqueline & Joseph - animals: zones 1-4
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Paul Wheaton - animals in the landscape
Day 11: Appropriate technology Session 1: Ernie & Erica - appropriate technology
Session 2: Ernie & Erica - strategies & techniques for differen climates
Session 3: Ernie & Erica - strategies & techniques for different climates
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Paul Wheaton - animals in the landscape
Day 12: Bioregions & Communities Session 1: Tim & Byron - community vs self-sufficiency; bioregions & communities
Session 2: Tim & Byron - eco villages; intentional communities
Session 3: Paul Wheaton - making a living using permaculture
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: Jocelyn Campbell - money & finance
Day 13: Botany in a day Session 1: Thomas Elpel: simple plant botany
Session 2: Thomas Elpel: plant walk; try out new identification skills
Session 3: Thomas Elpel: homesteading experiences
Session 4: student designs
Evening Session: design time
Day 14: Design time; presentations Sessions 1-3: Design time
Session 4: presentations
Evening Session: talent show
$65.00
133 hours of video: the Permaculture Design Course and Appropriate Technology Course
We have a new feature, but my forum super powers make it so that I cannot see the feature.
Can folks tell me what they see in the first post? It should be one of two things:
1) they see a lot of images and a lot of text telling folks what they will get, followed by a black screen with some purple info to buy stuff. This is what people should see if they do not own this.
2) they see the premium content and they do NOT see a lot of images and stuff in the first post. This is because they do happen to own this content.
paul wheaton wrote:We have a new feature, but my forum super powers make it so that I cannot see the feature.
Can folks tell me what they see in the first post? It should be one of two things:
1) they see a lot of images and a lot of text telling folks what they will get, followed by a black screen with some purple info to buy stuff. This is what people should see if they do not own this.
2) they see the premium content and they do NOT see a lot of images and stuff in the first post. This is because they do happen to own this content.
I especially would like to hear from group "2".
I fall into group "1". If I buy the $125 instant view HD version, I assume I can view it more than once? If so will it always be available? Or will it go offline at some point in which case you'd need the download if you wanted to see it again.
If I buy the $125 instant view HD version, I assume I can view it more than once? If so will it always be available? Or will it go offline at some point in which case you'd need the download if you wanted to see it again.
You get to see it over and over for many years.
I am reluctant to say "always" because I don't know what the internet will be like in 10 to 20 years. The current intent is "always" (with emphasis on the quotes).
And it is the same amount of time if you get the download - cuz people have a habit of downloading and then losing their download somehow and they need to download it again.
Frankly, I think "instant view" is the best way to fly. Faster, easier and it just seems like the whole world is moving toward instant view.
I purchased the $150 package and have figured out how to access all of the goodies except the 177 hours of streaming content. Is it possible to upgrade to HD download from HD streaming?
Thanks Tim
Timothy Skogen wrote:I purchased the $150 package and have figured out how to access all of the goodies except the 177 hours of streaming content. Is it possible to upgrade to HD download from HD streaming?
Thanks Tim
Timothy,
I think we have a brand new feature in this software. Just hours old. You will be the first to test it.
At the top of this page, and every page on the forums, is a link that says "my stuff". If you click on that link, it should show you all of your stuff. Does that work?
Next, if you look at the forum that has all the HD streaming stuff, you should see some threads about upgrading to what you want.
Thanks Paul
The my stuff link worked.
The link to upgrade PDC to download from streaming was available but I did not find a link to upgrade ATC to download.
I see something called the evening sessions and tour is this part of the PDC or is it a separate purchase?
Thanks Tim
I'm off topic here, but it seemed fitting to reply under the freebie presentation which caused it.
Funny, after so many years I hear that name again. Viktor Schauberger. Shit, remember that?
I'm a nut for the golden ratio, so much so that when I thought I understood the bestest most awesome representation of it, I went for it as best as I could, despite feeling repelled by the appearance counterintelligence science fiction and fantasy - something about a golden sun and Gnatsies in flying saucers. I couldn't forget about it though, because there's golden ratios and golden shofars in the Himalayan Blackberry. It's literally poking me and pulling my hair. But I can't be caught doing anything but rolling my eyes and scowling at such nonsense. But...but...Operation Paperclip is verifiable, and Schauberger's place with in it. Just what the hell were they up too? Schauberger was just helping the Third Reich move some logs down some novel flumes, Silly nut. Thus his selection for Paperclip by the central smarts bureau after the war. Wait, what did Adolph and the central smarts bureau want with a forester again?
It seemed straightforward enough once I had settled on the geometry, make the damned thing, rig it in into an insulated system and spin some some water through it that is a little warmer than 4 Celsius, make sure that after moving the tank of water through it at say, once per second, no cooling towards 4 C occurs. Sounds kind of insignificant, but giving a closed system kinetic energy and than having the temperature fall, that's against the 2nd ler of thermodynamics. Impossible nonsense. Thus all official channels replying more or less, GFY. The wild guess: move 'some' water through it 'pretty quickly'... Oh hypothesis and shots in the dark.
As a 3rd year physics student about to fall away from academia, I was looking at Culoumbs law, and then at Newton's law of gravitation, then at the Biot-Savart law, and reading something about dark energy and dark matter in astronomy. Hey professor, how do they know there isn't a reflection of the Biot-Savart law? just like Coulomb and Newton are mirroring each other? "That was researched decades ago, it can't be true because it would violate Parity Symmetry." Says the professor, like duh. Oh, I say. Keep you stupid mouth shut.
Then years later after college, I'm reading about how some German university experiment apparently violated Parity Symmetry. It seems there are conditions in which Parity Symmetry does not apply. I think I should find an official channel and ask, why not a novel force based on mass current, again, but I don't get around to it before the tale of Viktor Schauberger comes along.
I'll go ahead and throw a bit of my life away at some shot in the dark. It's not like I have anything else I'm compelled to toy around with, and it's not like I have to actually tell anyone what I'm trying falsify. It's just a turbine.
A few hundred hours of apoplectic focus later, I kind of had a thing. Turns out, I can has 3-d fibonacci spirals in clay and copy it with silicon rubber molds and wax.
Then it turned out, I fail hard at metallurgy. I doped that damned wax surface with a dozen different things, the smaller test run with some pricey and very noxious smelling silver paint seemed to work. But then the real run of the electroplating project failed hard. Oh the effort I put into making a copper disc case to surround my weird sculpture, to be submerged in so many gallons of copper acetate bubbling away with the air pump, a few hundred dollars for the power supply, and current is flowing. Is it working...? How low my spirits sank when I pulled that thing out of it's poisonous blue bath days later. Worthless nodes all over the near points, almost no copper deposited on the inner curves. Damn it all to hell, why did I ever start wasting my time with this shit.
Don't give up! You only failed the electroforming step. You've spent too much time and minimum wage labor money to just give up. Okay. I suspect the electroplating is mostly failing because of the complexity of the spiral. We are about as far away from a simple plane as we can get after all. A few hours of research later, I decide electroless electroforming is the way to go. Wait, that's an oxymoron and not a thing, I mean electroless copper forming by solution deposition, I think (still pretty new to metallurgy.) I'm trying to find out, just how long will it take, just how many times would you have to change the bath to get say, a copper surface 1mm thick. It's looking like, a lot of times. It's going to cost, thousands dollars. I work part time for minimum wage. I can't throw most of what I earn in a year at silly shots in the dark. I ask lots of people before I drop it, but nobody in anything resembling an official channel with resources whom I happen to email seems to want to hear a damned thing about 3d Fibonacci spirals. Sigh. Looks like I better move on.
I encounter Schauberger's name again for the first time in something like 7 years. In a presentation by Zachary Weiss. Go figure. I hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane...
Anyways, the point, comrades and resources might have been encountered. I figured I'd ask, as Wheaton Labs has presenters bringing up Schauberger, even if it is only with reference to the water cycle. So....if any skeptical but not quite 100% certainly bogus readers of Schauberger are up for a pain in the ass metallurgy project, probably not, but you never never know, it could be worth the while.
Also I just realized, my spiral had to be large enough that I could work it into form out of clay, somewhat accurately by hand. Muh digits be big. I reckon, that iffun one was able (might not be possible because the shape is awfully wrapped around itself...) to use a 3d printer to create an itty bitty 3 dimenshy fibonacci spiral, you could make the wax whirly-pipe-spoked wheel 10x smaller, thus reducing the electroless forming and rigging/testing cost by factor of about 10. Shit! I should get on that. So busy trying to be like Sepp and live a little, I don't think I'll make it alone. If someone didn't falsify it already. Google search returns on "testing Schauberger's turbine" don't seem to return any accounts of actual tests on anything resembling actual 3D fibonacci spirals. The pure math approach photographed wasn't quite a kudu horn, if I had all the time in the world I'd try a few iterations and see them fail before I said, okay, some asshole wrote some excellent wabbit hole counterintelligence. Google seems to only supply the same old ghost stories.
Clearly, nobody wants to be caught in public with such nonsense, so anyone who can't help but wonder could express interest in a private channel. Does the project need some free labor? Applied maths degree, math modeling sculpture, can continue researching and experimenting with metallurgy process or whatnot. I would gladly throw away quite a bit of time again, just to lay the damned ghost story to rest before my own damned eyes. It haunts.
Many things last lifetimes or eons, but the only thing that's permanent is the ever-changing flow itself
But I meant to buy both the PDC and the ATC, boo. I clicked the wrong link.
Is there any way to correct this, so I can buy both of them in the delicious bundle?
It's not that the ballot was confusing or anything, I just was doing too many things at once. If it can't be fixed, I'm 101% likely to get the ATC at some point, and it'll just be a(nother) good lesson in not multi-tasking.
Thanks, and sorry for needing individual attention.
Done! Thank you, Paul, for being understanding and accommodating of my hasty clicking.
I got all three (100hrs PDC, 77hrs ATC, and 20hrs PDC Evenings), for a grand total of $220. That certainly doesn't seem that pricey for 200 hours of stuff.
Perhaps that is the correct price for all three after all? If so, then I'm doubly sorry to have taken your time for nothing.
So if you buy the thing at the top of this thread ($125) then i will refund the other three things ($220) which, all three, happen to comprise this one thing.
Attached is a screen-cap from the Pay-pal side of things; it lists the item as, "permies premium 65382 (All of the PDC evening presentations + the big tour (~20 hours) - HD instant view ) $45"
Just call me a doofus... I backed the Kickstarter and have been waiting for this but heard nothing. Then I realized that I used my second email account, which in an attempt to simplify, I shut down. Eventually, this will simplify my life, but in the interim there were several key things attached to my other email. Short of paying for content over again, can anything be done? It is winter and time to hole up and learn. Thanks, Cris
Cris Fellows wrote:Just call me a doofus... I backed the Kickstarter and have been waiting for this but heard nothing. Then I realized that I used my second email account, which in an attempt to simplify, I shut down. Eventually, this will simplify my life, but in the interim there were several key things attached to my other email. Short of paying for content over again, can anything be done? It is winter and time to hole up and learn. Thanks, Cris
You did the rare thing and used the exact same name on both kickstarter and on permies.
I think you should check your current, working email ....
Someone asked about signing up for an online pdc. Here is what I wrote in response as I recommended this video series. :-)
(Thomas Elpel taking 2017 pdc students out for plant identification with his book, Botany in a Day.)
Yes, it is possible to learn the basics of permaculture online, though I've heard mixed reviews from many different folks. (I talk to a lot of permaculture people.) One thing they miss is actually meeting and visiting with like-minded folks in person. IOW, even though lot of in-person pdc's are also primarily classroom time (typically not a lot hands-on), the 'meat space' exchange is pretty powerful and often inspiring.
As for online course content, a friend told me that he signed up for one based on all the cool project videos that were used to advertise it. Then the course itself was mostly the instructor rambling in front of a whiteboard. He was sorely disappointed. To be fair, another friend paid for the same course and raved about how wonderful it was. (Shrug.)
Note too, whether online or in person, a pdc is an overview of the massive tool chest that is permaculture. There is not enough time in a 72-hour course to go into depth in any one of the many, many aspects of this design science. It's not just landscape design, as some people think...there is SO much more to it than that. This is why a pdc really can't be as much of a foundation for a lot of (singular) things that folks wish it would be. Though most folks I've talked to, and myself, think it is still highly valuable. Even life-changing.
QuickBooks set up and Bookkeeping for Small Businesses and Farms - jocelyncampbell.com
I bought day 10 in the kickstarter and I was enjoying the videos until they just recently disappeared. Did my videos that I received from the kickstarter campaign have an expiration date. I saw in the comments that the videos for $125 are good ostensibly forever.
Seth Gregory wrote:Any idea if there will be a PDC & ATC for 2018? 90% sure I would be able to attend and the whole thing at that, so I am particularly eager.
There definitely will be.
The PDC and ATC instructors are lined up. We are now working on the guest instructor list.
I was planning on doing a PDC close to me in Europe until I saw this!
However, I really want to go on and do teacher training at the end of this year and while the organisation has said an online course is fine as it meets the 72 hour requirement, they've said I can only be eligible for the teacher training if I have a certificate!
Is this something that can be obtained after the 177 downloaded videos just to say I've completed it, or is some kind of assessment available? I was thinking that the online course would save me a lot of money which I'd then be able to invest in a specialist practical course.
Hi! Are you looking for 'grand praise' for these videos still??
I watched the middle video, where Zach Weiss tells of great things to be accomplished with water works and flow. What has been produced seems a miracle! Don't you just love nature? Here I am in my little borrowed corner, trying to green it up a bit, and grow just a bite of my own food, and am amazed at what beauty others have created!
Thank you so much for this glimpse into real life size permaculture! His presentation was interesting, lots of information, a beautiful visual of great properties, some flourishing, some beginning, and also, added drawings to clarify...what a great teacher, Zach! I hope he has heard a lot of good things from this time of sharing.
May God bless you all, the great things you are doing to sweetly steward our earth. Thank you.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for making these video sets available.
My org, Life's Collective, is doing more and more permaculture and only one of us has a PDC. After a fire burned our place last fall we have been rebuilding all aspects - including our library. We have temp workers and wwoofers sometimes and we'd like to teach them more than we have been. If you're cool with it I'd like to use the videos as searchable reference material before we start on a new project - probably watched on laptops or a projector; As well as general education for our whole staff and wwoofers, particularly those who cant attend a PDC - probably watched on a projector with a few people watching at once.
Questions:
How do you feel about us using this a general education tool on our farm for staff and wwofers (about 10 people per year)?
How do the HD or non-HD video versions look on a projector?
I see there are sections with different topics. How are the 170ish hrs of video divided up? How searchable are topics and subtopics?
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