Life and Career Review OP1A

Upon returning home I began a farming internship on Feb 9^th 2008 at Sunrise Ranch which satisfied my desire to become closer to the land and orient my activities toward what I considered to be truly virtuous work. During this internship program I completed three independent study projects while being mentored by a Prescott College graduate, Sara Purharich.

Also during this first season as an intern I wrote two articles for the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor (see attachment 6 for one of those articles), gave a presentation at the Loveland Library (see attachment 7), volunteered to teach Japanese to students at Big Thompson Elementary, and eventually organized my own Japanese class to whom I gave free Japanese lessons every Wednesday afternoon for about 4 months in exchange for their occasional help building compost heaps. Attachment 8a and 8b is a statement of purpose, articulation of my philosophies, course description, and a contract of agreements I presented to the governing group of my community requesting permission to host the class.

Section 4-- Sunrise Ranch 2009

After working a full season in 2008 as an intern, I committed to another season and became the Garden Manager in 2009. I hosted an informal Permaculture Design Course, for Sunrise Ranch community members and open to the public. Every Wednesday morning I would give a short lecture on permaculture, host a discussion around a permaculture related topic and lead a work project that emphasized, utilized, or demonstrated various permaculture principals, ethics, and techniques. I created a checklist for those who completed various projects with me with the intention that the hours they participated in the program would eventually count toward a formal Permaculture Design Certificate (see attachment 9). I did not actually certify anyone as I did not feel comfortable to do so having not actually had a formal course myself.

When I realized that many of the interns participating in our internship program were receiving college credit for their work on our farm, including one graduate student attending Prescott College named Chirs, I began to wonder about what it would take to give our interns the same opportunity I had to travel to Africa and study sustainable agriculture. I proposed the idea of an internship in Africa to Addy Elliot, Co-Coordinator of the Organic Agriculture Program in the Soil and Crop Sciences Department of Colorado State University (see attachment 10) and the idea was supported (see attachment 11). Students would receive one credit per 40 hours of work/study completed.

Section 6-- Sunrise Ranch 2010

In 2010 at Sunrise Ranch, in addition to co-managing the garden and the internship program (see attachment 22), I co-founded a state certified residential summer camp called Camp Sunrise which brought children ages 8-11 up to the ranch to camp out and learn about nature, leadership, and permaculture. Registration fees were small and we awarded many scholarships. This was made possible by a fundraiser event we hosted called “The Very Vivacious Variety Show.” We hired local talent, and sold tickets to the public and also hosted a silent auction with goods and services donated to us by local businesses.

We also partnered with an organization called the Cottonwood Institute who brought a group of 12 at-risk high school students to camp on our land, learn leadership and outdoor survival skills, and participate in hands on, permaculture oriented, activities on our farm. The Cottonwood Institute is a program directed by Ford Church, a Prescott College Masters graduate. Attachment 21a is an excerpt from their day-to-day agenda and 21b-c is a review of the program written by one of the co-facilitators of the group.

In 2010 I offered a permacuture session to Paige Doughty’s class at New Vista High School—a connection I made through Ford Church. I mentored a high school student named Stone Hunter who is a participant in Pouder High School’s International Baccalaureate Program (see attachment 18). Stone’s original proposal was inclusive and ambitious (see attachment 19) but eventually he earthed his project in the form of a rainwater catchment system installed on our duplex home. Another student I also mentored, Hans Guillies, attends Thompson Valley High School and is pursuing a Permaculture Design Certificate.

Section 7-- Sunrise Ranch 2011

At the end of 2010, the managers who had been coordinating the internship program here at Sunrise Ranch announced that they had intentions to step away from this role and focus more on the livestock operations of the farm. Up until this point I had been working in the vegetable garden not only with the help and support of these two managers, but also with the help of all the interns that they brought in. This meant that if I was indeed interested in continuing to work in the garden and produce a reasonable amount of food, I was going to need help. Luckily a woman named Susannah had recently moved back to the community and was interested in co-managing the garden with me. To the right is a video of Susannah in one of our greenhouses in mid-February. Now that we had our core management team I began to design the social structures that I was going to implement to serve the function of providing much needed help in the garden. I also saw this as an opportunity to incorporate my passion for teaching permaculture. The basic design was to market a work study program that lasted from April to November and gave participants a season of experience on a farm, room and board, and certified them with a Permaculture Design Certificate. Throughout the winter I sent out many emails which included the following two attachments: A flier promoting a Permaculture Design Course as well as a document which described our Residential Work Study Program. I also marketed these programs at a local video screening of a newly released permaculture video called Permaculture the Growing Edge. Here is a link to see the flyer for that event. I was really quite motivated to get the word out about our newly designed programs and also coordinated with CSU an introductory presentation on Campus. Here is a link to see a flyer for that event. I brought with me to all of these events a three fold brochure that conveyed all the information about our programs.

In addition to promoting the design course and word study program I also began to get involved with Gaia University through conversations with Kirsten Liegmann. I learned that there was quite a contingency of Gaia students in Colorado and that the time was right to organize some gatherings. One event that I hosted in February was to introduce the Gaia students in Colorado to my community and my community to them. The biggest learning that came from this gathering was in the process of organizing it. For the first time I explored using Google documents as a public, interactive, invitation. Here is a link to see that document. Since then I have become even more familiar with Google documents and I am constantly being impressed by what can be done with such versatile media. None the less, I was working very hard at the beginning of 2011—oh by the way, did I mention that two months earlier, my partner Stephanie and I had our first baby girl together. So as one can imagine I had my hands full. The video to the right labled "February 2011 Video Diary" is a diary blog I made while on vacation at my parent-in-law’s home in Michigan—a trip we took in the midst of promoting all our events.

Section 8-- Work Study Program 2011

The Work Study Program in 2011 was so jam packed with learning—both for the 6 participants who were new to the field of permaculture as well as for me seeing as it was the first time I had ever managed such a dynamic program and the first time I taught a design course. The program was organized as follows: On the last Tuesday of every month we had a potluck dinner (sometimes accompanied by local talent such as guitar and vocals), followed by an hour and a half of Edutainment (which I will describe later on this page). The following Wednesday morning we would gather for a period of morning meditation/yoga or some other way to sanctify the day and connect with our bodies and to our natural environment. Throughout the rest of the day we would cover the required course content through a combination of classroom time, which included lectures and stories from me as well as other guest speakers, and hands on physical activities. There was homework and reading assignments from a variety of sources including Bill Mollison’s Permaculture a Designers Manual which many students chose to purchase since I was able to get them a discounted bulk rate. This is a link to the Google doc that I used to organize my course agenda and communicate assignments to my students. The video to the right entitled "Classroom Technology" shows how I used technology to provide a platform for one of our guest speakers named Todd Jones who could not come in person but gave us a presentation on the topic of Alcohol Fuel via video Skype.

In addition to our once a month Permaculture design course sessions, we also had weekly Wednesday Morning Permaculture Work Parties that were free and open to the public as an opportunity for the greater community to get their hands dirty with us and do some permaculture related work. The work study participants also had one shift a week to work on a project of their own choosing. This was called their independent study project and from the feedback I have received, was a favorite component to the work study program for any of the participants. They were required to submit a proposal of what they desired to do, a list of goals and objectives, possible resources, and what they intended on accomplishing. The requirement was that they choose a topic that they were passionate about and that would make a positive contribution to the community. Here is a link to a document that articulates the assignment. Examples of projects that our work study participants completed include: organizing farm field trips for elementary students, researching preservation techniques and putting up a variety of food to be used by the community in the winter, researching composting techniques and building compost heaps, cultivating mushrooms, and researching how to build an horno/cob pizza oven—a project that was actually implemented by our design course students as you can see in the video to the right entitled "Building a Cob Pizza Oven." At the end of their projects students were required to submit an “output package” that included all the documentation and learnings gained from this particular project.

Perhaps the most unique thing our work study program offered to its participants this year was the opportunity to live in and experience an intentional community. Here is a link to a handbook that was distributed to the participants to orient them to the program and community. There are 70 people who live and work at Sunrise Ranch and the ways in which we communicate, the way we structure our departments, and even the way we govern ourselves is just as much a part of the permaculture experience as is building swales and harvesting food. This is why I deliberately designed the program to integrate with the rest of the community. Yes, most of their work was concentrated in the garden but they were also required to participate in dish shifts, kitchen duties, landscaping duties, and were even given an opportunity to help care for the children on the ranch. Some of the participants even helped out with Camp Sunrise leading farm tours or playing the role of camp counselor. This radio interview conveys some of my ideas about permaculture as being about permanent human culture. To further connect the work study participants to the community for one of our evening sessions, I arranged for a council of elders composed of people who have been on the ranch for many years to speak and tell stories to us. Here is a link to an invitation I composed and gave to the various people who I thought would like to be on this council.

In order to receive their Permaculture Design Certificate, each participant had to create a final design of a portion of Sunrise Ranch. Here is the document I used to articulate this assignment. Perhaps the most important thing I learned from instigating this program was about the tender dynamic between managerial authority and work study participants. Working in a production garden is not easy and because participants in this program are challenged both mentally and physically, new and sometimes challenging opportunities for learning are readily available. Without a doubt this is a transformational program. Below and to the right are some videos that capture a bit of the feeling of the season as well as demonstrate some practical permaculture application.

Chicken Tractor Mimics Wild Turkeys

A Food Forest Begins

Youth Programs Slideshow

Edutainment Explained

2011 Work Study Program Slideshow

Our Garden

Annotated Resource Review

Berthoud Weekly Surveyor is the newspaper in which I published my first article on permaculture (attachment 6)

Blume, David, R. Buckminster Fuller, and Michael Winks. David Blume's Alcohol Can Be a Gas!: Fueling an Ethanol Revolution for the 21st Century. Santa Cruz, CA: International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, 2007. Print. Todd Jones cited this book multiple times during his Skype presentation to our class

Colorado State University is where I received my undergraduate degree and interdisciplinary certificate

Colorado State University’s department of Soil and Crop Sciences is where Addy Elliot is based and is who I was trying to establish a memorandum of understanding with to create an exchange program with WITS.

Denzer, Kiko, and Hannah Field. Build Your Own Earth Oven: A Low-cost, Wood-fired Mud Oven, Simple Sourdough Bread, Perfect Loaves. Blodgett, OR: Hand Print, 2007. Print. This book was used as a reference during our cob oven construction

Food And Trees For Africa is a non-governmental organization that supported the Siyakhana Food Garden

KRFC is the radio station that I did my first on-air interview on

Mollison, B. C. Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Tyalgum, Australia: Tagari Publications, 1988. Print. This book was used as a text book for our Permaculture Work Study class

Norbel Credit Union is where I applied for a scholarship

Salatin, Joel. Pastured Poultry Profits. Swoope, VA: Polyface, 1993. Print. This book was referenced when building our poultry program, chicken mobile, and movable fencing.

Savory, Allan. Holistic Resource Management. Washington, D.C.: Island, 1988. Print. The way Sunrise Ranch manages their beef cattle draws mainly from the work of Allan Savory and Holistic Resource Management

Stella Natura: 2011 Kimberton Hills Agricultural Calendar. Kimberton, PA: Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association, 1997. Print. We used this calendar as a planting guide in our Sunrise Ranch Garden.

The Cottonwood Institute was an organization that brought a youth group to Sunrise Ranch

The Siyakhana Food Garden, a project supported by Food And Trees For Africa and WITS University is where I got my first taste of Urban Permaculture

University of The Witwatersrand (WITS University) is the institution that supported the Siyakhana Food Garden—specifically the department of Public Health

Wright, Hilary. Biodynamic Gardening: For Health & Taste. Edinburgh: Floris, 2009. Print. This is another book that we (Susanna, my garden co-manager, and I) used throughout the season for tips and techniques on biodynamic preparations and methods.

Precess Reflection

I wrote this output package in three distinct phases. The first phase I completed at the end of 2010 as part of an application that I submitted to Prescott College. The second phase I completed in October 2011 before heading out to Bolinas California. I basically polished it up my Prescott application and added all the Gaia requirements including a specification, process reflection, and self-evaluation, with the hopes that I would be able to submit it early at the orientation. Of course at the orientation I learned that there was much more I ought to include. So the final phase of this output package I have been working on for the last month and a half or so. I tricked myself into thinking I was ahead of the game by what I had already produced but the fact of the matter was that there was so much more, specifically all the documentation and learnings from this past year, that I wanted to include in my OP but didn’t realize how much time was going to be needed. As a result I missed the original due date of December 1^st. However, I am very happy with the way it has turned out and glad that I took the extra time to go the extra mile to include everything I wanted to and organize it in a fashion that I believe will be the most user friendly. Specifically the process of linking all my supporting evidence into the body of my life and career review section through Google documents is something I am very happy about. The most time consumptive aspect of this output package has been learning the technology. This was the first time using a site like Mahara and at first it did not come naturally to me. I relied upon some group calls with peers to overcome some of the inertia needed to get moving on actually posting my OP. It was also the first time for me to work with digital video. I learned how to upload videos onto Youtube, how to cut and edit videos using Windows Live Movie Maker, how to save a power point slide show as a WMV file and upload it to Youtube. The different formats in which digital video can exist in was a bit overwhelming at first but eventually I learned to interact appropriately.

The total word count for this document is 4,400.

Bonus Video 1--Potato Harvest Reflection

Bonus Video 3-- Snow Day

Section 1-- Greater Context

During a trip to Hungary in 2005 a Hungarian friend told me that I have adventurer blood in me. She went on to explain that all Americans in her eyes have adventurer blood in them because at some point in their family history they made the choice to leave Europe (in many cases), cross the Atlantic Ocean, and settle in an unfamiliar land. As I considered this concept further I recognized that this pattern of westerly movement has continued on this continent too. Whether it was gold in California, work on the railroads, or the simple search for prosperity, people have been migrating, searching, and exploring ever since the first Europeans landed on the East coast. Evidence of this can be found in the simple fact that most people you ask in the United States will tell you they indeed have an ancestral link to someplace east of where they have settled. When the age of most modern cities in the United States is compared to other places in the world, it can be deduced that this particular movement west is a relatively recent human migration. This concept has been such an important realization for me because it has given me a historical and geographical context in which to view myself and my society. My Grandfathers’ fathers came from Europe; my father was born in Minnesota; my older sister was born in Indiana, I was born in Colorado, and my child hood was spent in Hawaii—just about as far west in the Unites States as possible. Alaska actually has land farther west than Hawaii, but for this purpose I think it is clear; my family has been moving farther west with each generation and I whole heartedly agree with my Hungarian friend that I have adventurer blood in me.

My experience in Hawaii put me in touch with the Japanese language and culture thanks to the large population of Japanese people there and a wise decision on my Mother’s part to put my sister and me in an after school Japanese language program. Eventually my family returned to Colorado but I still felt the pull to the West. On a number of different occasions throughout high school and college I made the journey over the Rocky Mountains to explore what lay beyond. Between high school and college I took a solo journey to Japan and returned again three years later to study abroad my junior year of college. Not surprisingly I met a woman from South Africa who I would later visit on my first trip to Africa. To sum it up, Hawaii connected me to Japan, and Japan to South Africa.

In the stories that follow, I will describe the activities and learnings that have impacted me the most during this time of travel and articulate the transition I have undergone from being a traveler to a farmer to a family man.

From 2002 to 2006 I attended Colorado State University. The academic and extracurricular activities that I participated in while at Colorado State University often carried a tone of internationalism (see CV). I graduated with a degree in Philosophy, a minor in Japanese language and an interdisciplinary certificate in Asian Studies.

Oddly enough I had no real interest in environmentalism, earth stewardship, or gardening, nor had I ever even heard of the word permaculture. It wasn’t until the fall of 2006 after I had graduated college and traveled to California that these interests began to surface. I attended a festival called Earth Dance in Laytonville, CA where a council of Elders was speaking to the youth. One Grandmother in particular said something that I will never forget. She said, “If I were you now, I would be saving seeds.” She went on to explain how our seeds were in jeopardy of being owned by corporations and that in order to maintain our true freedom, we must have access to our own seeds for he who controls the seeds, controls the people. The true impact of what this grandmother spoke I could not grasp at the time and indeed had no way of knowing what “saving seeds” truly meant. Now I know that saving seeds is not simply starting a collection—for seeds only last but a couple years at best; saving seeds in fact means to cultivate food and be actively involved with the propagation, harvesting, and selecting of important food seeds. After this festival I met a man named Mike who introduced me to the concept of permaculture, pointed me toward the works of a man named Bill Mollison and forever changed the course of my life.

Section 2-- Africa 2007

Between February and December of 2007 I toured in Southern Africa visiting and volunteering at various organic farms, gardens, and communities. One project in particular, the Siyakhana Food Garden Project impacted me immensely. A community of local South Africans was being supported by a professor named Michael Rudolph from University of the Witwatersrand (WITS University), to apply permaculture techniques to convert an old dumpsite located in a city park into a food garden. The below labled "Siyakhana Slideshow" is a slide show that was presented to the British Council on November 23, 2007, by members of the Siyakhana Garden to convey what the project was about. During my time in this garden I helped organize a group of student volunteers to come to the garden and participate in the construction of a straw bale and cob structure as well as helped to host a festive community gathering in the garden. Attachment 1 is a flier we used to promote the event. The professor was pleased with the gathering we created and asked me to submit a write up that highlighted the points of success and that could potentially be used to recreate another similar event (see attachment 2a-2d). In collaborating with this professor I learned how poor nutrition is a primary factor in the degeneration of many facets of South African life—HIV/AIDS, dental health, early childhood development and even social problems such as domestic violence can be all attributed to poor nutrition. The video entitled “Patrick wants to be a Doctor” is not referring to myself but rather is an interview with a member of the garden named Patrick. What I love most about his response is how simple his approach to health care is. Good healthy food= healthy people. At the Siyakhana garden I also learned how university involvement in community gardens is a mutually beneficial relationship for both the students of the university and to the community surrounding the garden. I also became familiarized with the techniques of growing healthy food naturally—independent from costly machinery and harmful chemicals. In fact, I was so inspired by what I encountered in this garden that to this day, I am working to build relationships between the community garden I am working in and surrounding universities-- namely Colorado State University, University of Colorado and now Gaia University. Professor Michael Rudolph offered me a position on the staff and wrote a letter to the South African Department of Home Affairs on August 10^th, 2007 requesting I be allowed a work visa (see attachment 3).

Siyakhana Slideshow

Patrick Wants to be a Doctor

Section 5-- Africa 2009

In October of 2009 I departed to Africa for three reasons. One, to propose my internship idea to Michael Rudolph, Head of Public Oral Health and the Health Promotion Unit in the School of Public Health at WITS University. Two, to attend the international Permaculture Design Certificate Course in Harare, Zimbabwe and three, to attend the international Permaculture Conference and Convergence in Lilongwe, Malawi. With a hope to get funding from a local Credit Union (Norbel) in the form of an academic scholarship, I assumed an academic tone to my travel intentions and presented it as furtherance of my education. Attachment 12a and 12b make up an excerpt from that scholarship application in which I articulate my intentions for the trip, propose a budget, and reveal some of my most passionate academic and career goals.

In Africa I achieved my goal of proposing the idea of an international internship program to Michael Rudolph. Attachment 13 reveals how Professor Michael Rudolph supported me and my pursuit of establishing an MOU between Colorado State University and WITS. Attachments 16a and 16b make up the actual proposal that I submitted to Professor Rudolph. In addition, I was invited to attend two workshops which addressed food security and nutrition in Africa. The first was put on by Michael Rudolph and highlighted food security in relationship to public health (see attachment 14) and the second was put on by a Swiss organization called Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition or GAIN. This workshop addressed food fortification in relationship to public health (see attachment 15).

Although the prospect of an internship at the WITS University Siyakhana Garden was put on hold due to the fact that their hands are already as full as they can manage, other potential venues were found and relationships established. At the Fambidzanai Permaculture Center in Harae, Zimbabwe where I received my Design Certificate (see attachment 17), they already have an internship program that hosts local university students and are very interested in the idea of hosting foreign students too. In my next output package I will describe how I intend to utilize this valuable connection.

Susannah and Charlotte in the Greenhouse

February 2011 Video Diary

Classroom Technology

Building a Cob Pizza Oven

Permaculture Slide Show

Abundant Harvest

Section 9-- Edutainment and Youth Programs

Edutainment is a word I came across in South Africa and it means exactly what it sounds like—a combination of education and entertainment. It is my belief that we learn best when we are fully engaged with a teacher which is why I use a variety of entertaining components mixed into my lectures to try to captivate my audience. I also believe that when someone learns something new, or recognizes a new pattern, or even just witnesses something that they have never before seen, they create new neural connections enabling them to be susceptible to learning other new patterns, or acquiring new bits of wisdom. This was the foundational philosophy behind the evenings of edutainment that I offered to my design course students and was the philosophy I held so dearly to my heart when interacting with all the various youth groups that came through our land this year.

In addition to hosting another fantastic session of Camp Sunrise (see slide show video to the left labled "Youth Programs Slideshow") we also hosted a number of different farm field trips. Here is a flier we used to promote our farm field trips to various schools and youth groups. The video directly below labled "Getting Ready...." was a video diary I did just before a large group of students came to Sunrise Ranch. Below that video are three videos labled Farm Field Trip 1, 2 and 3, that show the variety of activities students participate in when they come to Sunrise Ranch. The video labled Farm Field Trip Reflection is a diary I made moments after completing our time with 60 fifth graders.

Getting Ready...

Farm Field Trip 1

Farm Field Trip 2

Farm Field Trip 3

Farm Field Trip Reflection

Bonus Video 2--Root Cellar Insurance Policy

Bonus Video 4-- Le Grand Finale

Comments

Patrick Padden
18 November 2014, 12:13

Attachments (2)

Self Review and Peer's Review of my OP1a (1).xlsx [45.5KB]
Extended Review of OP1a by Valerie (1).doc [32.5KB]

1 comment

Updated on 11 February 2013, 11:50; 4596 page visits from 28 October 2011 to 12 September 2025

Output Package 1--Life and Career Review & LIPD

Specification

Table of Contents

Complete OP1a Self Review

Self Review and Peer's Review of my OP1a.xlsx Details

Extended Review by Valerie Seitz

Extended Review of OP1a by Valerie.doc Details

Section 3-- Sunrise Ranch 2008