Only 23 more sleeps until the most amazing event of the summer!
By now you might be thinking how great this
weekend sounds with all the warm fuzzies and evening fun stuff but where’s the
meat and potatoes, where’s the learning and hands-on stuff?!
We’re here today to lead you through
what a day at the 2013 Convergence might look like…
We’ll start each day with your choice of either a barefoot
boreal forest nature walk, or a yoga session with our local Yoga For Life Studio.
Once you have grabbed some breakfast and met a few new
people, you feel like your brain might be up for something new, so let’s check
out what the morning conversation topics might include…
·
Food Forest vs Annual Gardens: A new type of early retirement?
· Humanure Compost: Is human feedback into the soil essential to the evolution of healthy food?
·
Solar Electricity: Is it sustainable, and can we rely on
it?
·
Off-Grid Log Cabins: Fresh ideas for cozy, efficient,
sustainable homes.
·
Solar Air Heating: The most efficient, simplest, form of
solar.
·
Chickens: Food and manure and entertainment? Oh My!
·
Rock Stoves: Can it really be that easy? A welder’s version…
Each of these
conversations will take place three different times throughout the weekend, so
that you can pick and choose a few favorites.
Now that
your brain is rolling some new information and ideas around, you’re ready to
get your hands dirty and learn a new skill, build something cool or let your
creative side out with a cool art project, or go build something with your
kids. It’s time for hands-on activities!
Hugelkulture
Crop Circles: Turning swamp land into
garden paradise. We will be
assembling a large hugelkultur bed in a lowland area that is generally too wet
to garden. This will not only
increase the surface area available for food production, it will store water,
build soil, and it gives us lots of options for really cool designs.
Door screen heater: Assembling a handful of
cheap materials into free heat for life.
This project will involve building a device that collects heat from the
sun (rather than electricity).
Collecting heat, it turns out, is way easier and more efficient way of
using solar energy, so at the end of this activity, you will have a firm grasp
on how you could heat your buildings very, very inexpensively in the future.
Bats houses: Are you getting tired of listening to that low
hum in the air as you squint to look at the tornado of mosquitoes that is
swirling above you (I’m referring to the Gull Lake PDC’s from past years)? Bats could put a big dent in that
swarm, but they like to have a house first! You get to build them.
Grout house art project: When a new building goes up, it’s always
exciting to see how it looks when it’s finally finished. We combined the ideas of Greenhouse and
Outhouse, so all that’s left is to paint and decorate the Grouthouse!
Song writing workshop: Charlie MGee wrote a whole CD of songs
about permaculture principles, and now he wants to help you get your musical
ideas down on paper. You’ll come
away from this activity with your own type of “Yield”. Watch Charlie’s new video!
All the while your kids are busy discovering their own
permaculture world with some amazing projects:
Permie kids will
rock this year! We will be walking
in the forest, wild foraging and then creating green smoothies, building mason
bee houses, painting a community mural, mudding seed bombs sprinkled with
heritage and organic seeds interspersed with games, story-time and laying in
the sun. Families are welcome and encouraged for all activities.
Kids’ Activities
are faciliated by Chris Guilbeault of LadyBug Permaculture and Lakech EcoLodge and Ranch. Chris hails from just around the corner,
in Pigeon Lake and is an alumni from Verge Permaculture, Michael Becker Teacher
Training (Calgary), and the Permaculture Institute for Children (Portland).
Chris is currently the Coordinator for Little Green Thumbs CentralAlberta and designs gardens and activities for schools, hospitals and senior's homes as
a horticultural therapist.
Lunch will be a time to sit down together, try some local
organic food, and see what food is really supposed to taste like! We’ll have our friend Denia at Creative Cuisine Catering preparing everything including vegan and gluten-free options.
Alright, now that we’ve had a chance to let our stomach settle
from lunch let’s get busy again. Jeff
& Juli are very excited to give you a tour of Rancho Relaxo. There are too many projects to list, but
it’s safe to say that it will blow your mind to try and think about that many
projects at once.
After a spectacular supper including a naturally raised and
hormone free roasted pig from Fisher Farms, the evening entertainment will
begin.
Charlie Mgee, the
Australian Permaculture Ukulele Guy will rock the stage first with his
hilarious collection of songs about the permaculture Principles. Watch his hilarious new video! After his set, it’s time to get your
open mic song ready to play! There
may even be a surprise appearance by the Garden Variety Rockstars.
Sunday, let’s finish up those last projects and meet the last
few people before we say our good-byes…but wait there’s still more after lunch….
The Business of Permaculture: Can we make real money? YES we can! You’ll
get new ideas for choosing a viable business, writing a business plan,
establishing fair pricing, and of course, how to effectively market a new
business.
A panel of current permaculture businesses owners will speak a
bit about their business and then take questions regarding what they do. This is an industry of huge potential
that is just barely being tapped, and you could be in on the ‘ground
floor’. Meaningful work is in your
future!
There will be a MarketPlace space set aside where there will be
room for a few people to display their Permaculture-related business. This will be on a first come first
serve basis. You could also have
the opportunity to give the lunch crowd a 60-second commercial for your new
venture.
Then just when you thought you had to go back to the hussle and
bussle of the city, you can stay Sunday night to help eat leftovers and have an
outdoor movie night! If you have
Monday off, why not hang around for a bit, enjoy a movie on theatre-quality
screen and sound system, and let those ideas sink in a bit before diving back
into real life.
We hope you are licking your lips and tuning your guitars.
Cheers for now.
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