Permaculture Observations: Cycling through Eastern Canada

Permaculture Observations: Cycling through Eastern Canada

Our world today moves too quickly. The velocity of transactions, vehicles, information, all have hidden repercussions, principally the inability to take in feedback and adjust. This velocity results in new cycles that are instantaneous, financial systems that rapidly shuttle money from local economies to multi-national banks, and a pace that deteriorates our quality of life. The ability to observe systems and gather feedback is drastically enhanced by a lower velocity of action. The speed at which one chooses to move through the world affords different vantage points of observation.

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Permaculture Due Diligence Workshop

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Permaculture Due Diligence Workshop

A few months back a series of clients began asking me questions that I didn’t have the answers to. I knew just enough about the topics to know what I didn’t know. One client wanted to know about building restrictions around a small body of water, another needed information about opening up land for a road through an existing forest, and a third was seeking support to enroll in the FONAFIFO Environmental Service Payment program.

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The Basic Pantry Analysis

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The Basic Pantry Analysis

Cuisine is diet that's unique to a physical place and a human cultural group. We can taste the patterns of modern cuisine in the melding of characteristic ingredients into characteristic forms. Wheat noodles with tomato sauce points us in the direction of Italy. Fermented spiced cabbage leads us to Korean kimchi. Even amid tremendous variation, and even as these cultural foods are exported, appropriated, and evolve in different ways in different places, we are still able in many cases to recognize a cultural and geographical narrative embedded within relational patterns of flavors and forms.

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Getting the House in Order: Prioritizing Decision Making and Goal Setting in Project Development

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Getting the House in Order: Prioritizing Decision Making and Goal Setting in Project Development

Every project starts with a goal in mind. Regardless of scale or time line, the inception of a project revolves around achieving a goal of some sort. Despite how seemingly simple it is to set a goal for a project, even the best of plans are often sidetracked, delayed, or made overly expensive because of a lack of clear vision for the completed project. Purposeful planning that steers projects in the right direction, coupled with accurate goal setting, is one effective way to avoid hiccups and get from point A to point B faster. Goal setting and a matching planning process also circumvent potential future problems.

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Porvenir Design: Dry Season Progress Report

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Porvenir Design: Dry Season Progress Report

Six months ago Porvenir Design SRL became an official corporation in Costa Rica. Since then our time has been full with a diversity of projects. As we sit in the middle of the Pacific coast dry season, we felt it was an opportune time to reflect on our progress and where we are heading this year.

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How Mentorship will Help our Permaculture Community Grow

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How Mentorship will Help our Permaculture Community Grow

Mentorship may be one of the biggest opportunities for growth in our fledgling permaculture movement. There is interest in professional careers as permaculture designers, but the field lacks quality mentoring opportunities. By these I mean mentoring in a specific field, by a professional who has years of experience, with the goal of developing a specific skill set and livelihood.

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Honoring the Hierarchy: Water as a Priority in the Dry Tropics

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Honoring the Hierarchy: Water as a Priority in the Dry Tropics

I live in a visually stunning part of the world. The landscape here is a tropical blend of rugged hillsides and steep valleys, ridges extending haphazardly into dense jungle, white sand beaches pock marked by rocky outcroppings, and bizarre flora and fauna adapted to this chaotic climate. There are no cool months; heat pervades everything. Humidity, however oppressive at times, ranges significantly in its intensity. The ebb and flow of water throughout the year dictates nearly everything