Wild Thyme Permaculture Design Course

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2008, Living Mandala
creative services by: 360 Degrees

Reduce Your Ecological Footprint.

Learn Permaculture, Food Production

& Energy Efficiency for Your

Home & Community

In Association With

Herb’n Wisdom

Wild Thyme Farm

Divine Earth Gardening Project

Terra Phoenix Design

Instructors

Marisha Auerbach

Dave Boehnlein

Kelda Miller

Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski

Jenny Pell

Rick Valley

Leonard Barrett

Mark Lakeman

John Henrikson

Kirk Hanson

And More...

Course Description

Globally, we are experiencing unpredictable changes in climate, economy, and resources. Through intentional design, we can anticipate what adaptive skills will be necessary for a joyful and abundant future. In this permaculture design course, students will be immersed in strategies to build community resilience and respond to uncertainties of the future. Our stellar teaching team will offer a 144-hour permaculture curriculum with a focus on hands-on skill-building in food production, plant propagation, and energy systems. The Wild Thyme Farm, a premier permaculture demonstration site, offers an immersion in examples of beautiful and productive polyculture gardens, a 100 acre FSC certified forest, and strategies for rural revitalization. Through presentations, slides, games, lectures, field trips, and hands-on opportunities, this permaculture course will offer diverse learning styles to emphasize ways that students can design their lives and engage their communities in strategies for a sustainable future.

Course Topics Include:

Permaculture Philosophy

Permaculture Ethics

Permaculture Principles

Concepts \ Themes in Design

Permaculture methodology

Pattern Understanding

Reading the Landscape

Climatic Factors

Large Property Design

Edible Landscaping

Biomimicry

Trees and their Energy Transactions, Tree Crops

Organic Gardening

Water, Water Harvesting

Soils

Composting

Organic Agriculture

Earthworking and Earth Resources

Natural Building

Livestock Raising

Urban Permaculture

Appropriate Technology

Intentional Communities

Observation Skills

Site Analysis & Design

Sustainable Forestry & Agroforestry

Ethnobotany/ethnoecology

Plant Propagation

The Humid Tropics, Drylands and Humid

Cool to Cold Climates

Ecosystem Restoration

Native Plant Restoration

Mycology

Erosion Control

Energy Conservation

Windbreaks, Hedgerows

Medicinal Herbs

Wildcrafting

Seed Collecting & Distribution

Aquaculture/ponds

Integrated Pest Management

Permaculture Networks

Bioregionalism

Local Economics

Ecological Design

Ecovillages

And more..

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is not just about growing gardens and the plant world. It also encompasses buildings, energy systems, economics, and relationships within human societies. Permaculture offers a huge storehouse of strategies and practical techniques gathered from all around the globe and throughout history. Permaculture is an international network involving tens of thousands of people. Permaculture provides tactics and strategies for working towards sustainable livelihoods where we can make choices to support the lives of all beings on this planet. Permaculture is both permanent agriculture and culture combined. Permaculture is the art and science of creating community ecosystems in which plants, animals, and people interact to produce a fecund, ecological system that has the means to support itself indefinitely.

Certification Applicability

Participants who successfully complete the course will receive a Permaculture Design Certificate. Design Certification has been valued for course credit at many colleges and universities.

Contact

For questions and more information regarding the course

email: queenbee@herbnwisdom.com

phone: (360)273-7117

To register for the course click here.

Tuition & Registration

Course tuition is $1950 including lodging accommodations and prepared organic meals.

Early Bird registration: $1800 by January 15, 2011

What is a Permaculture Design Course?

A Permaculture Design Course explores sustainable human habitation. We begin with the ethics and principles of permaculture which support a philosophical reverence for life and provide a framework for making healthy choices. You will learn a design system that is based on the natural world and can be applied in many ways to your life. You can expect complete immersion into creating innovative and healthy plant and social communities for urban and rural areas. The instructors are skilled growers and activists familiar with social justice and thousands of plant species. The course will impart permaculture principles and methodologies which can be applied anywhere in the world.

The objective of a Permaculture Design Course is to provide a comprehensive overview of sustainable futures, based on permaculture philosophy, techniques, and strategies that one could incorporate into their everyday life, or enhance their career. These courses provide diverse hands-on experience. The intention is to facilitate a systems approach to thinking about different issues, encouraging care for the earth and its inhabitants as a diverse community. A Permaculture Design Course includes readings and visits to network with others using permaculture principles in their lives and careers.

Site Details - Wild Thyme Farm

Wild Thyme Farm is a private eco-retreat near Olympia Washington wit 150 acres of forests, pastures, gardens, orchards and streams, showcasing an evolving model of wild forest management, permaculture, agroforestry, diversity. Wild Thyme Farm has 15 buildings including the main house, several guest cottages, three barns, meeting rooms, sauna, large greenhouse, organic flower, herb and vegetable gardens and several orchards. Wild Thyme Farm represents an evolving model of permaculture, visionary forestry and biological diversity. It is known as an educational center for permaculture and sustainable agroforestry and participates in a US Government program for innovative wetland habitat restoration.

Things to Enjoy at Wild Thyme Farm

The Wild Thyme Farm has been implementing stunning examples of permaculture in the landscape since 1990. Throughout the course, you will be able to observe mature food forests, as some of our fruit trees are from the original homesteaders. Our design is focused on both useful plants for humans as well as enhancing habitat. View wild ducks and birds visiting the ponds and fields, deer roaming the forests. Hear evening crickets, frogs, and coyotes softly howling at night. Enjoy miles of beautiful nature trails in the property's private 100 acre northwest rainforest. Hike wide walking trails and roads from the farm meadows winding up hillsides, over canyon streams, through rich and diverse fir and cedar groves to the tranquil and sunny high pasture with a view of Mt. Rainier.

Cancellation Policy

Full refunds minus the $250 non-refundable deposit will be given up to 2 weeks prior to the start of class only. Refund requests made less than 2 weeks prior to class will only be honored, less the $250 non-refundable deposit, if the space is able to be filled by another paying student. There are absolutely no refunds once the course has begun. If we experience low registration by February 11, this course will be canceled and all funds will be returned to the payer.

Payments for the remainder of the tuition are due on the day the course begins. Payment must be paid in full to receive certification at completion of the course.

Instructors & Facilitators

Marisha Auerbach

Marisha Auerbach has been practicing, studying, and teaching permaculture in the Pacific Northwest for the past decade. She is involved with many communities around Cascadia including Lost Valley, Tryon Life Community Farm, and City Repair. As an itinerant permaculture designer, Marisha calls the greater Olympia area home, especially the Wild Thyme Farm, a 150 acre permaculture demonstration farm and FSC certified forest in the northern Willapa Hills. Marisha encourages sustainable futures through sharing knowledge with others on a variety of topics including: permaculture, polyculture gardening, seed saving, flower and gem essences, local economics, community building, ethnobotany, herbalism, edible landscape design, and organic gardening among others. She is enthusiastic about creating perennial forage systems and building local community. Marisha’s interest in local economics and creating useful items using her resources has manifested as several projects: past work on local community marketplaces in Olympia, Queen Bee Flower and Gem Essences, Herb'n Wisdom for permaculture consulting and herbal products, and Growing Greetings which produces plantable greeting cards and other products. Marisha has a small plant nursery which focuses on edible flowers and other gourmet specialty food items. Marisha graduated from the Evergreen State College in 1998 where she focused on ethnobotany, ecological agriculture, and sustainability studies. She continues to interact with students from the Evergreen State College by offering internships.

Lead Instructor

Dave Boehnlein

Dave Boehnlein serves as the principal for Terra Phoenix Design. He received his B.S. in Natural Resources & Environmental Studies from the University of Minnesota. Dave is also the education director at the Bullock's Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island where he has lived for over five years. With varied backgrounds such as organizational leadership, internship/apprenticeship program design, and trail work Dave brings a unique set of skills to the Terra Phoenix team. In the rainforests of Central America Dave learned about permaculture and tropical agroforestry systems. From there he went on to learn a wide variety of design and implementation skills with the Bullocks. While fine tuning his permaculture lenses Dave has also organized and taught at over a dozen permaculture courses & workshops. Dave is particularly interested in education, the mainstreaming of sustainability, and keeping things organized.

Lead Instructor

Kelda Miller

Kelda Miller is a permaculture designer and teacher based in the south Puget Sound. She grew up in a cul-de-sac consumerist suburbia and has a passion for reaching out, destroying asphalt, and creating beauty in in some of the worst landscapes created by humans. She likes to bring hope, and a sense of global responsibility, to places that need it. She has studied and taught at the Bullock's Permaculture Homestead, Seattle Tilth, the Wise Earth Ecological Landtrust, MetroParks Tacoma and various permaculture courses in Bellingham and Vashon Island. Kelda co-originated the Seattle Permaculture Guild into founded Sustainable Puyallup, and later on, Sustainable Puyallup. She is busy on many fun permaculture projects through her design and teaching business- Divine Earth Gardening Project.

Lead Instructor

Leonard Barrett

Leonard Barrett is a permaculture designer, consultant, and teacher based in Portland, Oregon. Leonard teaches at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR and at other Permaculture Design Courses in the Pacific Northwest; writes for the Permaculture for Renters blog, and runs his permaculture design and consulting firm - Barrett Ecological Services. Leanord’s designs are featured in the #1 best selling permaculture book: Gaia's Garden: A Homescale Guide to Permaculture by Toby Hemenway.

Guest Instructor

Mark Lakeman

Mark Lakeman is a founder and sustainer of numerous world-changing initiatives and organizations, including The City Repair Project and many of it’s inventions including Intersection Repair and the Village Building Convergence, Communitecture Incorporated, Dignity Village, and the new Planet Repair Institute. Each of these entities is an aggressive and collaborative, multi-disciplinary creative culture, working in partnership with numerous others. All of this work engages and inspires place-based communities to creatively transform the social and environmental infrastructure of the public commons and private realms where people live. Often featuring permaculture or natural building techniques, each local initiative builds relational networks and engenders systemic transformation while leaving gorgeous footprints on the path to a better world.

Mark is also the designer of numerous beloved architecture & planning projects in Portland, including The ReBuilding Center of Our United Villages as well as many innovative village-based communities.

Guest Instructor

Jenny Pell

Former tree planter, helicopter pilot, carpenter, and yurt builder, Jenny manages many of the Permaculture Now! projects. Based out of Seattle, WA Jenny works in Washington State, Central America, Hawaii, and Europe organizing design courses, recruiting students, managing business details, and fundraising for scholarships, curriculum development, and our nursery projects. Her slideshows and presentations inform, inspire, and motivate people to make changes that help move us towards a sustainable future.

Guest Instructor

Michael “Skeeter” Pilarski

Michael Pilarski is founder and director of Friends of the Trees Society. Michael is a farmer, educator and author who has devoted his life to studying and teaching how people can live sustainably on this Earth. He has extensive experience in organic farming, seed collecting, wildcrafting medicinal herbs, plant propagation, horticulture, teaching, and international networking. Michael has personally worked with over 1,000 species of plants. He founded Friends of the Trees Society in 1978 and has authored many books on forestry, agriculture, agroforestry and ethnobotany. Michael has been involved in the permaculture movement since 1981 as a writer, teacher and networker. He has taught over 20 full Permaculture Design Courses in the USA and abroad.

Guest Instructor

Rick Valley

Rick has been practicing Permaculture, Forest Gardening and Sustainable Forestry in the foothills of the Cascades for more than 17 years and carries the expertise of a master nurseryman form one of his previous incarnations as the owner of a nursery business. From an interest in new crops and ethnobotany, Rick began his study in Permaculture starting at a bamboo nursery in 1981. He took his first Permaculture Design Certification course with Bill Mollison in 1986 and began teaching with the first Permaculture Design Certification courses in Canada offered at Linnea Farm, Cortes Island, BC. Rick taught regularly with the Linnea Farm Community for 10 years, co-taught the first permaculture design courses in Canada, Oregon and Belize, and introduced Permaculture to the Lost Valley Ecovillage & Educational Center in Dexter Oregon, where he began teaching in 1990. Rick moved from Portland, OR to the S. Willamette Valley in 1997, and has been the primary land steward and lead permaculture instructor at Lost Valley since 2004. His special interests in Permaculture include hands-on education, tree crops, earthwork for water harvesting, and broadscale design for farms and communities. Rick holds a BA in anthropology from Antioch College, an MA in teaching from Reed College, and a diploma in Permaculture Design in teaching and site implementation from the Permaculture Institute of Australia.

Guest Instructor

Affiliate Organizations & Sponsors

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For details email: affiliates@livingmandala.com

For Upcoming Courses, Workshops, & Events Click in Permaculture, Ecovillage Design, Sustainable Living Skills,

& More Click Here.

Permaculture Design Course

at Wild Thyme Farm

February 27 - March 20, 2011

Wild Thyme Farm, Oakville, WA