EarthSong Retreat

Our new place has a name! We're calling it EarthSong Retreat! This is in keeping with our plans, both ours and Merry's (the owner), to do workshops, retreats, classes, etc. out here. Plus, with my flutes, and her teaching music, and the Permaculture and Magickal elements, EarthSong seemed a natural! We are also in negotiation to become a cooperative project with the Vajra Azaya community. All to the good!


As for our moving here, we are almost done. The portable buildings are finally here, we have only cleanup to do at the old place. It is proceeding a bit slowly, as the heat has been a roadblock. For more than a month we've had temperatures of 107 degrees or so. Cat has begun doing some of her woodwork out of the carport until our studio is finally leveled and wired. That should happen soon. My office trailer is here and leveled, so I can get back to finishing out the interior. No more wasps to deal with! Finally we'll be able to put stuff back where it goes instead of stepping over it!


A bit of great news! I'm traveling again! I'm leaving August 19th to go to a Permaculture Teacher Training Course with Scott Pittman and Larry Santoyo with the Permaculture Institute. The class is being held near Santa Fe, NM. A friend paid for my tuition and Cat paid for my flight. I am so grateful to both! Another giant step toward my being able to teach Permaculture. 


There's a lot to do before I go, so, back to work!

New Permaculture Design

My partner Cat Dancing and I recently attended a Meetup in Austin for a new intentional community. The group, Vajra Azaya, is seeking to obtain land in Williamson County to build a community that will serve as a teaching center for Permaculture, alternative building, alternative lifestyle, health, and so on. It seems to be a really exciting group.  I signed up for several of their committees, Permaculture, Sustainable Agriculture, and Alternative Building (I think.)

We also made a new friend at the meetup who has recently acquired six acres of land near Bastrop and would like to achieve a permaculture design for it. It's very promising. We're meeting with her this weekend to talk over what she wants to accomplish. 

In preparation for that, I visited the place last Monday and looked it over. It's an interesting L shaped piece of property near Lake Bastrop. It has a medium sized house and outbuildings, along with quite a few well established trees of many types. The long portion of the property is running north and south and borders on a wet-weather creek. Some research on the Bastrop Tax Office website netted me the "official" outline of the property as well as the legal description. With Google Earth and an add-on that shows contours, I got the topography of the property and the satellite picture of it. 

Inserting these different resources into my drafting program and accurately scaling them to useful overlays took part of an afternoon, but it gave me a really good overview of the property involved. 

This has generated several maps I can use when I talk to the owner this weekend.

I suppose we can call this Stage One of the design process. Next will be the interview with the owner, and more detailed inspection of the property to accurately lay out all the existing features. I'll take you along for the ride.

Also, if you haven't checked out Meetups, you should. It's a great way to find like minds in your area. There are groups for literally every possible interest. Check it out!