We live very near San Luis Obispo, Art and Brad,
so are not candidates for your Santa Barbara Workshop which you are currently seeking sites to hold it.
However, I suspect there is a need for a workshop in the San Luis Obispo and possibly somewhere on your planning calendar.
We have lived on this farm small for over 35 years. It is less than two miles from SLO. We have three solar systems which have been operational for 6 or 7 years, two are roof top and one is a field installation.
Our daughter purchased the farm from us several years ago and lives here in the main house. My husband assists our daughter, Dawna in the office. We agreed last evening, and that I would write you. As this might be an ideal and convenient workshop location for you to use for an eventual SLO class. We have heard both of you talk here in San Luis Obispo and Brad at least a couple of times at Bioneers. I talked to you Art at some length at Betty and Tautahcho’s Spirit Pine Ranch and I helped build the 11,000 tank and both of us worked on the bath house.
Bill and I now live in what we speak of as the cottage. In the past, our place was an intensive integrated farm. As we get older the garden gets further and further ahead of us, tho we still raise much of our food. We have a couple wells, one with a windmill. The wells are currently adequate, however we know that will likely change as many new wells have been drilled near us. Also, the neighbors in the last couple of years installed their septic system within just a few feet of our main well. We have personally planted all the trees on the land except for those that grow along Davenport Creek which is one of our property boarders.
We have three major buildings, a barn/office, the cottage and the main house, each possibly would be an interesting candidate site for a catchment as well as grey water system. We are located on a nice slope that for the most part allows for an easy gravity flow.
You are welcome to come look at the site any time. My cell is 440-9346, often emailing is the best way to connect as my cell seems to delay messages. We sometimes miss checking the house answer phone but will eventually get a 549-9346 message.
Looking forward,
Phyllis Davies
Watershed Management Group will hold its first Water Harvesting Certification course in Santa Barbara, from August 19-28.We are still seeking locations for some of the course workshops. Please read more below. Site visits need to be done this week and next so we need to hear from you as soon as possible if you are interested.
The WMG Water Harvesting Certification provides a unique, hands-on 65-hour curriculum in water harvesting systems design and construction, with an emphasis on retrofitting urban areas while working in concert with the local environment. The course teaches design, implementation, and installation of greywater systems, water harvesting earthworks, and plastic and steel cisterns.
The WMG Water Harvesting Certification program provides the highest quality and greatest depth of training in integrative water harvesting offered in the nation. In the last two years, WMG has trained over 80 people through our Water Harvesting Certification from throughout the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
This Santa Barbara course will feature sessions taught by a variety of experts including Santa Barbara’s Art Ludwig and Tucson’s Brad Lancaster.
We are seeking locations for our hands-on workshops, including integrated design, earthworks, a steel culvert cistern installation, plastic rain tank, and laundry to landscape greywater system. We would like at least some of these sites to be in the public eye, so the community as a whole can see that they can happen, that they can work, and how they work. We ask that sites used for our workshops be available from time to time in the future for educational tours such as the one we are having at the beginning of our course. There are some possible costs involved in hosting a WHC workshop, including costs of materials, contractors if needed, such as a plumber for a greywater system, and labor fees, but we have found that installations done during our courses typically run 30-50% less than comparable commercial work.
The first step to hosting a workshop is to schedule a site visit with Barbara Wishingrad. The next step would be a second visit confirming your residence as a workshop site for the course. This would be done during the third week of July. We are scheduling second visits this week. The homeowner or property manager would need to be available during these visits as well as the time of the workshop during the week of August 19-28. I can give you more details and answer any questions in a follow up email or phone call or when we meet in person.
To learn more about the program, please visit our curriculum <http://watershedmg.org/certification/curriculum> or program details <http://watershedmg.org/certification/details> pages or contact Barbara Wishingrad, Santa Barbara Green Living Co-op Program Manager at bwishingrad@watershedmg.org or 805-403-4566.
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Barbara Wishingrad
Program Manager, Santa Barbara Green Living Co-op
805-403-4566
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