Output 6- Learning Review Year 1

          Hydraulic Ram Pump water storage and irrigation system.  Another addition to the demonstration site at LCCP, this project involved developing a gravity fed irrigation system driven by a hydraulic ram pump.  A hydraulic ram pump runs on the amount of pressure created by falling water.  The pump can run on as little as 2 gallons per minute or greater.  The pressure created is transferred to a compression chamber.  The pressure created in the chamber pushes water up another pipe.  A certain percentage of the water is pushed uphill to a higher point than the source.  It can be used to run fountains, fill water tanks, flood irrigate and even can be hooked up to a house to provide domestic water.

            On site the hydraulic ram was already installed and running but hadn’t been utilized other than feeding a fountain and providing domestic water during power outages.  This project involved designing a gravity fed delivery system with a storage tank.  The hydraulic ram is able to pump water in our system about a hundred feet up in elevation with no electricity. Collaboration was a big part of this project as we involved two different properties to create an integrative design for the two.  It utilizes surface water and we will be able to reduce the amount of water that we pump from our well to water the market garden.  Undertaking this project will make the Love Creek Center For Permaculture more energy independent.  We will be able to reduce our dependency on using electricity to pump water from our well and also reduce the amount of water we extract from our well.  Our neighbor will able to get good clean water delivered to his door.  By placing the storage tank on our neighbors property we are able to have it at a higher elevation and therefore have more pressure to feed the irrigation system below.

            We first had to make sure the pump was going pump enough water to make it feasible.  I estimated the use and then we tested the ram’s ability to pump water to the desired height.  At first it was only pumping at a rate of about 1500 gallons per week.  But when I tried to figure it out through the equation needed it showed that the pump wasn’t as efficient as it could be.  All it took was a little adjusting and it worked much better.  After we got the ram pump working better we were able to pump about 1/3 of a gallon per minute, which equates to about 3300 gallons per week. 

            We rented a trencher and installed all of the necessary plumbing to connect the ram pump to the tank destination.  As of now the permanent tank isn’t installed but we have a smaller temporary tank ready to start filling with water.  In the midst of winter we are waiting for fairer weather to connect this tank in early spring.  A larger one will be installed as soon as we get one later on this summer.  We are looking at typical plastic water tanks at about 2,000 gallons.  We have thought about putting a ferrous-cement tank that we can make into an art project too.  

Personal-

          This project was a collaborative effort between my dad, my neighbor and myself.  It was a good collaborative project as we set goals together and implemented plans to reach them.  We are almost finished and are eagerly awaiting installing a tank and getting this project in full working order.  

Professional-

          This is another project that has furthered the development of the LCCP permaculture demonstration site.  An appropriate technology integrated into the needs of the site will enhance the educational opportunities.  I learned a lot having studied how the technology works and calculating how much water can be pumped up a certain distance with a certain input.  After installing much of this system I’m ready to install a ram pump system anywhere it is feasible.  I’ve only seen this technology in use in a couple of places but have seen where it can be utilized on hundreds of occasions.  My goal here is to use this working model to help spread the technology to where it can be utilized.  I also want to reduce energy needs for watering by using less water that is pumped with electricity.  The majority of the water from the ram pump will go to watering the market garden, providing great water for the produce grown there, and increasing the energy independence of my business.  As an aside from the actual project I created a virtual tour of the project on Google Earth and Google Sketchup.  This was the first video that I’ve created using these software programs.  I look forward to refining my skills here.  Below you can see the virtual tour as well as a video tour of all of the elements of the Ram Pump and Delivery system.

          Mushroom Cultivation Room This output packet adds another element to the demonstration site. It is my exploration of putting a mushroom cultivation chamber on site at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture.  While attending UC Davis I took a mushroom cultivation class and learned everything I needed to know about starting a mushroom farm.  After delving into hardwood log cultivation for several years now I’ve been thinking about taking it to the next level of indoor mushroom cultivation.  My goal for this project is to increase production to be able to provide fresh gourmet mushrooms to local restaurants, farmer’s markets and my CSA on a more consistent basis. 

            This project was an exploration of the potential sites to put a mushroom chamber, potential structures, and any other influential factors.  I looked into a few different structures that I am interested in and created rough estimates for making any one of them.  The structures range from simple hoop houses with little to no technology to a cargo-shipping container with an air exchange system, air filters, lights, and insulated walls and ceiling.  I would prefer to use the cargo-shipping container but it is the most expensive.  It would be the most effective choice for the job since the climate control would help insure success by reducing contaminants and providing the right conditions.

            The main reason for developing a mushroom cultivation chamber is for business purposes first.  Secondarily it will work as an educational tool.  I can also use the facilities that I create to conduct mushroom cultivation classes.  And finally I would eventually like to employ people as I expand my production even further. While I didn’t get any actual physical building constructed I have positioned myself to be able to move forward with this project with little more research.  I am basically waiting for the funding to make this project happen. 

Personal-

          This project brings something I have grown to love to a professional level.  Being able to do something I love as a livelihood will make me very happy.  My passion will grow with further involvement.  With all of the health benefits that mushrooms have to offer, my health will benefit from this project too.

Professional-

          Again dealing with the subject of mushrooms, this project adds another professional element to mushrooms for me.  While not as easy as planting a seed and watering it there may be many challenges along the way.  It takes some understanding of fungal biology as well as preventing contamination to get a crop in.  There may be some failures along the way but I’m sure that I’ll be able to refine the process of growing mushrooms.  One of my goal is to be the local mushroom supplier.  While I have the local wild harvest down and meager amounts of cultivated shitake mushrooms on logs, an indoor mushroom cultivation chamber will help secure my role in the community as the local mushroom guy.  A consistent supply of fresh mushrooms will allow me to further develop my mushroom business and set it on course for great success. I hope to generate a good income from this endeavor and then eventually hire some people so they can do the same. Another goal is to promote mushrooms as a nutritious and delicious food source.

Seed saving- Project for dry pea/bean production-  I grew several patches of peas and beans this summer.  My goal was to create seed stock to plant for larger production of dry peas and beans.  Here is a list of the seed stock I increased this summer.

1-    Blue Podded Pea (Blauwschokk)- is a Dutch soup pea- 5 pounds

2-    Indian Woman Yellow Bean- 4 pounds

3-    Ponte Blue Bean (local heirloom) – 5 pounds

4-    Magpie Bush Bean- 1 pound

5-    Hopi Pinto Bean- 1 pound

6-    Anasazi Bean- 1 pound

7-    Ireland Creek Annie Bush Bean-  1 pound

Grain Project growing corn at a neighbors plot. –

            I planted about ½ acre of corn at one of my neighbor’s small ranch.  They raise chickens and have several fields that have been fallow for several years.  The goal was to have a dry staple food to eat throughout the winter and to give some to their free-range chicken production.  A late spring barely gave us enough time to plant and harvest the dry corn this year.  We risked not getting any harvest at all with such a late planting, and several ears didn’t ripen before hard frost hit.   I harvested over 20 pounds of dried corn after eating lots of fresh corn.   Not nearly the dried production I was hoping for but we hope to increase production to several hundred pounds in the coming years.

Permaculture Design Course Design-   I have wanted to hold a Permaculture Design Course on site at the Love Creek Center for Permaculture for several years now.  I have taken the teacher training but have never been a teacher for a PDC.  In the last several years I’ve been adding several sustainable elements to the design of the site.  I’ve also given several workshops to refine my skills.  I have been working on teaching the PDC creatively through the development of an exam that covers the entire Design Manual.  While I spent some considerable time developing several multi-faceted questions to help students explore the text thoroughly in the beginning of last year, my time invested in this endeavor waned with my busy schedule.  Also since this approach is relatively unheard of in the PDC realm I’ve felt a little apprehensive about trying to pioneer an approach to certifying permaculture designers.  I intend to keep working on it but I’d like to co- teach a PDC first.  I may test the technique out on a couple of students before I try to market it to a wider audience.

Professional-

I continued my pursuit and development of several professional endeavors throughout the year.

1-    Writing-                                                                                                                Monthly article in the Mountain Chronicle called Permaculture Perspectives.  This is a great opportunity for me to reach a greater audience and spread permaculture in the region.   I barter an 800-word article for a bottle of local wine.  I’m now in my third year of publication and I’ve gotten a lot of positive response from the community.  Many of my articles were about the projects I’m working on through Gaia University.  It is available online as a .pdf but I’ve also posted some on my blog, usually a month after publication, for easier access when I post links on my website or within my output packets. 

2-    Growing food-                                                                                                           I grew food for my CSA, farmer’s markets, and restaurants and succeeded in producing more and doing less.  I farm at a high elevation so I have a short growing season.  I’ve been experimenting with several crops throughout the years and am honing in on the best crops for my area.  As a permaculturist I have been adding more perennials over time and I’m beginning to see increased production with less amount of labor.  Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, pears, apples, currants, gooseberries, rhubarb, asparagus, artichokes, cardoons, various types of scallions, and several herbs are all crops that have been incorporated in the last few years.  Greenhouses on site have allowed me to start all of my vegetable starts.  Even with snow and frost outside I’m able to get things started in time to plant out in the ground by the time the weather is ideal for planting.  

3-    Nursery work-                                                                                                           For several years I have srarted my own vegetable starts for my market garden.  I also practice several forms of propagation with perennials, including, divisions, cuttings and seed starts. I propagate edible and/or useful plants that are either hard to find at most nurseries or plants that I really like.  The  perennials I plant on site but I also have them to offer people interested in edible landscaping.  Here is a small list of perennials that I propagate.  Rhubarb, Artichokes, Cardoons, Nanking Cherries, several herbs, various allium species, figs, currants, gooseberries, and strawberries. 

4-    Mushroom hunting-                                                                                            I’ve been picking wild edible mushrooms for more than a decade now.  My experience has led me to be a subcontractor for Far West Fungi in San Francisco.  Since the fall of 2010 I’ve been helping to coordinate some local mushroom harvests to ship out to them in the city.  There are two major mushrooms seasons that I concentrate on.  In the spring there are morels and some porcini and in the fall there can be massive amounts of porcini and a few other types of boletes.  This past year wasn’t as good as the previous year.  I made about $3,000 less than I did the year before.  This wasn’t due to lack of time invested but rather the conditions present. This was just what nature had to offer.  I was still able to sell some fresh and dry a decent amount.  I learned a little bit about the effects of the weather on wild mushroom flushes. Every year my overall knowledge of the conditions required for each type of wild mushroom increases whether I find a lot or not.  I also learned that this is part of my professional career that I can’t always count on.  I am however developing a network of collectors and distribution to be able to bring gourmet mushrooms to the people that want them when they are out.

Personal-

Personally I set out to continue enjoying the things I love to do.  Some of them happen to be professional endeavors while others are just part of enjoying this great adventure called life. 

            The winter of 2010/2011 was particularly heavy here in the Sierra Nevada and I made sure to get out and enjoy it as much as possible on my snowboard.  I live about 45- minutes to an hour from the local resort so it is relatively easy for me to just go up when the conditions are perfect.

            I got a few rafting trips in but not nearly as much as I wanted to, many of my other projects didn’t allow me as much free time to get out as much as I would have liked to.   But I was able to go down two of my local rivers so I was grateful. 

            A short stint of clear warm weather allowed me to get out to coastal California in Mendocino County for a small vacation.  I went up there to quell my curiosity of the wild mushroom harvest there.  It not only satisfied my personal quest it also augmented my professional life a bit too.  I spent several days there with another Gaia University associate, Wes Temby, and taught him about picking gourmet edible mushrooms.  His time spent with me allowed him to go home with more mushrooms than he expected.

            Another goal of mine for the year was to design my life to move more fluidly.  I run my business through my home so the organization between my life and my business tend to get blurred sometimes.  A lot of it has to do with just having a place to put stuff.  So I have been developing more storage space for myself.  This has made it much easier to be organized.  Not only in my physical space but also in my time management.   I’ve made some progress in reaching this goal but I will continue to refine my skills here.

          I have been very excited about my first year at Gaia University.   The process of creating my own pathway for my Master’s program has been very liberating and empowering.  The process of identifying an overarching goal and several projects to help support that goal was a good experience for me.  I have never planned my year out like I did for my Learning Intentions and Pathway Design and I can see that refining the process can be very beneficial. Implementing several projects to add to the permaculture demonstration site I’ve been developing has also developed my own expertise and has helped to plant the seed of permaculture deeper into my community. Many of these projects would have gone forth with or without me being enrolled at Gaia University but Gaia has helped me add so much more to the projects than I would have done on my own.  My documentation skills wouldn’t have been tested and improved on as much, including writing, photography, video, and other forms of media that I integrated into my Output Packets.  

            I’m very pleased with the scope of projects that I included in my pathway for the past year.  Even though some of them aren’t completely finished at this point I have furthered my pathway to become closer to reaching those goals. 

The people that I have met through Gaia University have been more than inspiring to me.  Reconnecting on several occasions throughout the year has kept my inspiration high.  I’m constantly amazed by what Gaia U. associates are up to.

I’m looking forward to creating the next learning intention for my final year at Gaia University.  As well I’m excited about planning an excellent pathway and reflecting on it through my Learning Review of my entire Gaia University experience.  I plan on refining these[ processes beyond my time at Gaia University.