EarthCamp Village – From Dream to Reality

Posted on September 12, by Mary-Kate Carter

The groundbreaking of the next phase in the permaculture design for the CSC landscape has gone underway this summer. EarthCamp Village, an exciting development, will consist of a series of shelters made mostly out of natural and recycled materials found close to Stelle, particularly clay. These cabins, crafted with precision using clay slip, clay brick, and cob, exemplify sustainable architecture and will provide luxury camping accommodations for visitors and participants taking trainings at CSC. If you're looking for a unique experience close to nature, you can order essays online to learn more about the concept of Agraria and how these structures foster the idea of living in harmony with the land while remaining connected to the community.

Design-Build-Team-Dudley-Ernest-Randy-Hayden-Tim1 CSC staff members, interns , friends, and various residents of Stelle have all contributed to this project taking it from the drawing board to a beautiful, in-progress, structure.

Pictured is the completed timber-framing sitting on a rubble trench with a cement bond beam. Posing are 5 MIdwest Permaculture PDC graduates who took key roles in its construction.

Click here for a picture summary of the construction progress
of Earth-Shelter #1.

Midwest Permaculture (MWP) has partnered with CSC to create the various structures. Plans for developing the rest of EarthCamp Village include designs such as this “hobbit hole” among many others.

Hobbit-Root-Cellar

Click Here
More Pics of Cute Cabins
Learn more about our plans for EarthCamp Village and to view pictures of other attractive cabins and their interiors.

CSC is excited to be on this journey of creating a physical representation of blending sustainable living and community that can serve for both education and everyday function.

A New Face

Posted on July 18, by Mary-Kate Carter

Hello and welcome to my introduction to the CSC family, I have been most fortunate to become a part of Center for Sustainability as the Outreach Coordinator. I had completed my first Permaculture Design Course in Austin,Texas , and desired a hands on training with a focus in community in urban/suburban environments.

I found Midwest Permaculture, (MWP) their clear vision and opportunities for hands-on experience became apparent, so I decided to jump in.

From first arriving in Stelle for my second Permaculture Design Course and following internship with MWP and CSC, I was able to see this was a unique opportunity that had much to offer for anyone interested in community centered on ethics and care for the environment.

Upon completing my internship, I realized that sustainable community was truly my deep passion and working with CSC and MWP was where I could see my energy best utilized.

I am learning that even the best science and ethical design can only take you so far, true sustainability incorporates relationship and community as foundational elements. If we have the means to meet our physical needs, but social aspects are in poor condition, then the system of culture in place remains unsustainable.

The wonder of possibilities remains fresh and exciting as this journey has just begun for myself, there is a genuine thrill of being surrounded by mentors that even after decades of work in sustainability, they remain productive, passionate, and positive.

I look forward to not only working on current developments, and reflection on my experiences with them, but aiding in the discovery of a better tomorrow on a personal and relational level.

Upcoming Open Houses : Agraria – The Tiny-Village Concept

Posted on July 17, by Megan Krintz

Agraria

Saturday, October 5th
Saturday, November 9th

Agraria?
It’s not suburbia…and it’s not living an isolated life on the farm either.

It is combining the best of neighborly-suburban living with being on the farm. The ‘tiny-home’ concept is grabbing hold in America. It’s time to apply permaculture thinking to the ‘tiny-village’ concept.

Bill Wilson will host this talk and lead a tour of the CSC land.

Open Houses – Saturdays, Oct. 5th and Nov. 9th — 10am – 3:30pm

10:00 am: Orientation to CSC and Tour of Stelle Community

12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm- 3:30pm: Workshop on Agraria with Bill Wilson

A.M. Orientation to CSC and Tour of Stelle Community
In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, solar-powered internet company, rain gardens, a permacultured yard, and more.

Afternoon Workshop on Agraria – with Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture
What is it like to live in abundance and security? This will be an introduction to a lifestyle alternative — living close to the land, using natural building supplies and techniques, being mortgage free and having neighbors you cherish. Bill will discuss how this might work and feel for the residents of such a place.

The Permaculture Design for the CSC is an example of an Agrarian Life

Bill Wilson will host the afternoon workshop. He is a co-founder of Midwest Permaculture with his wife and partner Rebecca and has hosted and taught at over 40 Permaculture Design Courses.

He also teaches Advanced Permaculture Training and provides permaculture design services and consulting.

Join Bill as he draws from his 35 years of research and experience in community living and permaculture design centered on working with nature. Bill will discuss how it is possible to live abundantly off the land in a way that builds soil and people. It is certainly possible. It can be as simple as education, research, and the willingness to move toward the beat of a different drum.

Suggested Donation and Registration
We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop. If you are coming for just the afternoon workshop, please arrive before the workshop begins.

Space can be limited, so please call or email to reserve a spot.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (815) 256-2204

Why Plant a Food Forest? Internship Highlights Thinking Long-Term

Posted on May 29, by Megan Krintz

To read what else the internship program staff and interns have been doing, see Midwest Permaculture’s blog update.

We still have a few seats remaining in our upcoming internship sessions.

Hayden and Ernest walk along newly planted berm, where, in 10-15 years, a fruit overstory will shade the same place.

Hayden and Ernest walk along newly planted berm, where, in 10-15 years, a fruit over-story will shade that same spot.

Our spring interns, along with the internship staff of Ernest, Hayden, and Megan, have been busy digging into Permaculture ideas — literally. Over the course of three weeks, we have designed, ordered, prepared, and planted a linear food forest, a multi-story edible patch of groundcovers, shrubs, fruit/nut trees, and companion plants placed along a water-catching swale. As the forest grows, these perennials will be a lasting contribution to our yearly local harvest and provide us with tons of extra raw materials such as firewood for rocket stoves or our own living mulch.

But why plant a food forest, when it won’t truly be a forest until 10-15 years from now? Food forests are the ultimate in slow food; in our fast-paced and mobile culture, this design doesn’t appear to work for us as individuals.

In my (humble) opinion, it isn’t working today simply because we haven’t recently been thinking long-term. Imagine if your parents had planted a few trees for you at birth. By age 20, you’d have raw materials at your disposal. Sure, it’s not a new car, but even if you just chop up the trees for firewood, your effort is minimal. Nature did most of the work.

Besides the estimable value of raw materials growing out of thin air, our interns brainstormed other ways in which food forest planting is useful:

If you are an orchardist whose wish is to maintain a healthy and productive orchard, a food forest design is insurance. Also, with multiple harvest-able products, you aren’t putting “all your eggs in one basket.”
Learning to design and start food forests is a learning experience in itself, and is best learned through doing. You learn not only how to plant a food forest, but how to work with others, and how to imagine how a place can change over time.
In 5-10 years when the forest does start producing, the harvest will be much more meaningful and will less likely go to waste.

Permaculture isn’t about designing something to be unchanging and final–nature doesn’t work like that– but it is about designing something that will be useful through multiple stages of growth, and not only to oneself, but to all beings sharing the same environment. We (the intern staff) hope that this exercise in thinking long-term will, in itself, have a long-term impact.

Click here to read more about our food forest design and why we are using it in our Permaculture Design for CSC’s 8.7 acres.

Come visit our newly-planted food forest (and see other exciting innovations!) here on June 8th.

June Open House: Permaculture Design Tour and Cob Building Intro

Posted on May 20, by Megan Krintz

What’s it like to live, work, and play every day as a permaculturist? See our design updates and learn to make some cob!

This one-day Open House will be on June 8th, 10am-4:00pm.
In the morning, we will take a walking tour of town and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. In the afternoon, we will feature an introductory tour highlighting some of our recent work on the CSC landscape and including a cob-making tutorial. And . . . stay overnight to take Midwest Permaculture’s Rocket Stove workshop on June 9th!

Schedule:

10:00 am: INTRODUCTION

11:00 am: WALKING TOUR OF THE TOWN

12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm- 4:00pm: PERAMCULTURE DESIGN TOUR AND COB INTRO
WITH MARY-KATE CARTER & HAYDEN WILSON

(meet at the Stelle community center)

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop. If you are coming for just the afternoon workshop, please arrive before the workshop begins.

Space can be limited, so please call or email to reserve a spot. For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

Aerial-Master-CSC-Land-Midwest-Permaculture-Design

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Afternoon Workshop:
What’s it like to live, work, and play every day as a Permaculturist?
Our introductory tour and cob building intro will give you a glimpse into this world.

Mary-Kate Carter is a current intern who has been working to implement features of the permaculture design on the CSC property. She will share our progress in the garden, pond, and chicken production, as well as her perspective in the continuing journey of building permaculture systems in the Midwest. Mary-Kate is using her design skills from Austin Permaculture Guild (as well as Midwest Permaculture) in creating everything from chicken coops to food forests.

Midwest Permaculture’s resident intern Hayden Wilson will join us for the afternoon; Hayden has worked extensively in permaculture design and holds a Permaculture Teaching Certificate (more about Hayden can be found here).

Get an insider’s perspective on our internship and survey the giant leaps we’ve made in making our design a reality.

We will tour CSC’s 8.7-acre landscape that adjoins Stelle, focusing on our new developments, including our newly-planted linear food forest, water harvesting via a solar pump, new mobile chicken tractor, and more! We will also have a hands-on cob-making tutorial to show how we made our earthen oven from the ground beneath our feet!

Stay updated on what our interns are designing & building via our blog.

Integrated Gardening Techniques and the Garden Co-op

Posted on April 8, by Megan Krintz

This growing season marks the beginning of stepping-up our integrated techniques in the community garden on the CSC property, just west of Stelle. It is part of our Permaculture Land Design.

Some quick background: The community garden is a celebrated part of CSC’s history. Each year, residents of Stelle (and the nearby neighborhood) can choose to become part of CSC’s Community Garden Co-op. It works differently than most community gardens; rather than renting plots, the garden is planned and managed by a Garden Manager.

A past year’s garden planning meeting, where the “what to plant” and “who will be planting” is decided.

The Garden Manager holds a yearly garden planning meeting to get interested members’ input on what to grow and how much time they have to work in the garden. Members spend time throughout the season helping to mulch, plant, weed, water, and harvest. The general rule for the co-op harvest has been: work a little, take a little; work a lot, take a lot.

It has worked well for some years; however, it is still a lot of work, and plenty of members fizzle out in their volunteer hours when it starts to get scorching hot outside. What happens? The un-watered, un-weeded garden starts to give diminishing returns.

—–

Enter: Integrated Gardening Techniques! Some dedicated gentlemen (Ernest and Hayden) have begun to rethink how to get the garden watered and weeded, to apply Permaculture principles to the garden and make it even easier than before to grow more food than before. We like to call it lazy persons’ gardening. What, exactly, are they doing? Continue reading →

Stelle’s Annual Celebration of the Earth, May 5th

Posted on April 5, by ernest

Hours: 10 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Regular Tours and Events

Please join us for Stelle’s annual Celebration of the Earth this May 5th. As tradition goes, various members of our community wish to share and educate others of their gifts and talents that are recognized as being inspired or modeled after some of the wonderful patterns and processes that the Earth shares with us.

Tour of the Off-Grid Stelle Telephone Company -1:00pm
Tim Wilhelm manager of the Stelle Telephone Company and Professor of Renewable Energy Technologies at Kankakee Community College will give a history and overview of Stelle Telephone. Stelle Telephone was the first totally solar powered digital telephone exchange and the first solar powered internet service provider in the U.S.

Jon and June Haemes’ Straw Bale Home with PV tour! 2:00pm
A bit too far to walk but just 3 and a half mile drive, the Haemes’ home was the first straw bale home built in Illinois. Jon works for Trina Solar as a technical support manager. He used his solar powered work trailer to power all his tools used to build the home. About 30 residents of Stelle helped stack the straw bales in a single day. Jon will also talk abou the ARE 110 wind generator and its energy saving features.

Kids Garden and Pond Activities – All Day at the Pond
(Children should be accompanied by an adult)
This year we are bringing back a time-honored tradition of having family activities in the community garden. Here are the activities that are planned so far:

Kids’ Activities will be going on throughout the day in the garden.

Family Fishing
Seed Planting
Garden Art
Nature Hunt

Join us throughout the day in between our other programs. The activities are all simple and low key, but the more the merrier. We will request that parents accompany children 10 years and younger. (Only a limited number of families will be able to fish at one time since we are furnishing the cane poles)

Continue reading →

April Open House: Applied Permaculture Demo

Posted on March 15, by Megan Krintz

165486_10151414058102851_1770827148_n Take an in-depth look at how to build resiliency, one neighborhood at a time. We will explore both cases of applying permaculture to the landscape–backyard examples as well as community endeavors here in Stelle. We will demonstrate scaling-up:

from individual rain gardens to linear food forests
from backyard gardening plots to garden co-operatives
from backyard hens to pastured chicken production
and more!

In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. After lunch, we will tour CSC’s 8.7-acre property that adjoins Stelle, focusing on its current community use and future design aims, and will also touch upon how to design self-directed work enterprises and foster social permaculture.

Peaches2

This presentation will be a joint program by Rebecca Wilson, co-founder of Midwest Permaculture (shown right), and Ernest Rando, CSC member and permaculturist in Stelle.

Schedule:
10:00 am: INTRODUCTION TO STELLE & CSC
11:00 am: WALKING TOUR
12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm: APPLIED PERMACULTURE WORKSHOP

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop.

Join us! For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

March Open House: Chicken Basics and Ethically Raising Them

Posted on March 15, by Megan Krintz

That Spring Chicken Thing

March Open House Features “Ethics: The Basics of Raising Chickens Workshop”

It’s almost springtime, when chicks will arrive here and in many first-time chicken owner families throughout the country. Join us and discover why keeping chickens is becoming so popular.

In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. After lunch, CSC member and permaculturalist Ernest Rando (pictured above) will present strategies for raising chickens ethically in both urban and suburban environments. We will spend time handling 50 broiler chicks and three hens that live in a sustainable backyard paddock system. If you are considering keeping chickens for the first time, this workshop is for you!

Schedule:
10:00 am: INTRODUCTION TO STELLE & CSC
11:00 am: WALKING TOUR
12:30 pm: LUNCH
1:30 pm: CHICKEN HANDS-ON WORKSHOP

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop.

Join us! For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

Warren Brush Tells Inspiring Tales of “Peace in Permaculture”

Posted on February 21, by ernest

Midwest Permaculture and some of us CSC folks went up to Chicago to listen to Warren Brush of Quail Springs Permaculture talk about “Peace in Permaculture”. The MA Center of Chicago was our host at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum at University of Illinois Chicago.

It was exciting to meet some new permaculture folks from the Chicagoland Permaculture Meetup Group and it was equally exciting to see some friends that took some PDC courses here in Stelle. While the number of Permaculture folks are growing every year, the fact remains we are pretty spread out, and so it’s kind of strange to spot permaculturalists you know in public. Continue reading →