Happy New Year!
Recently I was having a conversation with my friend, Amy Leigh, and she was telling me about expanding her business. I turned to her and said, “Don’t you think this is a horrible economic time to be expanding a business?” Amy said something along the lines of “Endeavors that are in tune with a better world, a green world, will find increasing demand for their products and services. And those businesses that are bad for the earth will decrease.”
So may all your endeavors based on right livelihood and for a greener world grow and prosper in 2011 and beyond.
Michael Pilarski
www.friendsofthetrees.net
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Latest News
Dear friends,
Here’s my latest news, links to my recent articles, and information on my 2011 permaculture design course.
I have a lot of endeavors in the works for 2011 and every one of them is contributing to a greener earth. It is one of my biggest workloads ever and so once again I am relying on the goodwill and help of hundreds of friends.
One of the ways you can help is by spreading the work about the gatherings I am working on this year.
It is exciting to be restarting this event after a 5-year hiatus. We are looking for team members..
This is an exciting new event for the Inland Northwest. If you live in Montana, Idaho, Eastern Washington or Oregon and are interested in permaculture, please get in touch.
YOU ARE INVITED ! WHICH ONES WOULD YOU LIKE TO PARTICIPATE IN ?
There is further information about all of these events in this newsletter and on our website. Contact Michael Pilarski
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Farming Opportunity
? . . . . Looking for a Farming Opportunity . . . ?
Check out the Okanogan
I am farming on three sites so far and am leasing a 4th site in 2011. Small-scale. There is virtually unlimited acreage available for lease. Anyone want to come on board? Is anybody interested out there? I can really use several pairs of hands this year, if you know anyone that might be interested in one of the following positions.
- Farm manager to work with Michael Pilarski on Okanogan Biodiversity Farm. Growing, harvesting, processing and shipping vegetables, medicinal herbs, berries, seeds. I would love to mentor a young farmer this year. Someone with several years of farming experience already and who wants to learn about intensive, mixed crop farming, agroforestry and medicinal herbs. Must be capable and have good people skills.
- Form a farming and wildcrafting cooperative.
- Intern(s) for the 2011 growing season – farming and wildcrafting.
Contact Michael Pilarski for details.
Okanogan County is the largest county in Washington state.
Okanogan county has many assets:
- Natural beauty and lots of space. Farmland, sagebrush steppe, bunchgrass meadows, forests and mountains.
- Only 40,000 residents. A diverse population of 10% Native American, 15% Hispanic, 10% counter-culture, 50% tea party and/or Republicans, ranchers, farmers, orchardists, loggers, miners, townies, etc.
- One of the longest-running and most famous, counter-culture events on the West Coast happens here. The Okanogan Family Faire (aka The Barter Faire) attracts 10,000 people each fall. 38th year in 2011.
- Agriculture is the primary economic driver with apples, pears, sweet cherries and beef cattle (grazing and hay) accounting for almost all of the farm acreage.
- The farming areas include plant hardiness zones 5, 4 and 3.
- There are opportunities for hard-working, community-minded people.
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Russia's Anastasia and Permaculture
On the international level, perhaps the biggest news for permaculture is the widespread adoption of permaculture by the Anastasia movement in Russia which is inspired by the nine books in the Ringing Cedar Series written by Vladimir Megre. If you haven’t heard of the Anastasia movement, here is a nutshell sketch. more information...
See full article (PDF 93K)
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Inland Northwest Permaculture Conference
The Inland Northwest Permaculture conference will bring together permaculturists and people working on sustainability issues from around the Inland Northwest to share information, ideas and inspiration. Permaculture is about ecological gardening and farming, natural building, renewable energy, local self-reliance, local governance, local economic systems and other initiatives leading to a healthier society and environment. Early November 2001. more information...
See full article (PDF 87K)
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A Proposal for A Green Tea Party; Putting Together a Winning 3rd Party Coalition
A couple months ago I started talking about the idea of building a coalition between the greens and the tea party. A friend suggested it be called the green tea party. more information...
See full article (PDF 46K) |
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Rooftop Greenhouses and Gardens
Working Session at the
Cultivating Regional Food Security Conference
Seattle, December 4-5, 2010
Rooftop gardening is only one of a wide number of food production strategies to meet a goal of 20% of Seattle’s food grown within the city and peri-urban area by 2020. more information...
See full article (PDF 61K) |
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Report on a Seattle conference, “Cultivating Regional Food Security”
I attended this two day conference for a number of reasons.
I am one of the coordinators for Slow Food Okanogan (a local chapter of Slow Food) which is working toward localizing the food system in Okanogan County. more information...
See full article (PDF 54K)
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Permaculture Design Course at Skalitude July 10-24
Confirmed instructors are Michael Pilarski, Andrew Millison and Josho Somine.
The course covers the traditional Mollison permaculture curriculum as well as local knowledge. The species and techniques will be aimed at the Inland Northwest which includes Eastern Washington, Eastern Oregon, Idaho,Western Montana and southern Interior British Columbia. Participants from other bioregions are welcome. The main focus is learning permaculture principles and design methodology. The principles and methodology, once learned, can be applied and adapted to any site.
www.skalitude.com
more information |
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Back to the Garden Television Premiere
"Back to the Garden: Flower Power Comes Full Circle" has its broadcast television premiere on Northwest PBS affiliate KCTS 9 as part of the new independent film series Reel NW on Thursday, Jan. 27 at 10PM.
In 1988, filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson filmed and interviewed a group of "back-to-the-land hippies" living off-the-grid in rural Washington State, completely insulated from the fast-paced mainstream culture of the decade. Now in a poignant examination of this community over time, he tracks down those original interviewees and their grown-up hippie kids to reveal what the glories and sufferings of living off-the-grid may truly entail.
Contains interviews with Michael Pilarski and footage of the Fairy & Human Relations Congress
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Flashback: 1982, 32 years old. Wearing a Tilth Permaculture T-shirt. My friend Larry Korn just sent me this old photo. Thanks Larry!
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