Hey everybody, this is Jared Stanley and welcome to the Permasapien Podcast. As you are no doubt aware, this is my first podcast. If you have come over to join us from J&J Acres I would like to thank you for doing so. If you have not heard of J&J Acres and still found our […]The post Episode 1: Introducing The Permasapien Podcast appeared first on Permasapien Podcast - Wisely Employing Permaculture.
Hey everybody, this is Jared Stanley and welcome to the Permasapien Podcast. As you are no doubt aware, this is my first podcast. If you have come over to join us from J&J Acres I would like to thank you for doing so. If you have not heard of J&J Acres and still found our new podcast then I would like to invite you to head on over to J&J Acres on YouTube where you can follow along with some of our family farm activities, DIY projects and many other things. The point of this podcast is to provide a focus on permaculture. While J&J Acres speaks more to our transition of a large family trying to become self-sufficient, Permasapien will focus only on topics specific to permaculture – be that activities at our home site, other sites I am designing or classes I am teaching. To start with, new podcasts will be available weekly and will be kept to approximately 15 minutes. However, as we become more busy there may be more than one episode per week and there may be exceptions to the time limit from time to time. But what does Permasapien even mean? Well, you are likely familiar with the origin of the world Permaculture – it being formed from the words Permanent and Agriculture. I took this idea one step further and combined the words Permaculture and Homo Sapien to form Permasapien. Homo Sapien can be translated as “Wise Man”. By joining these words as a portmanteau I intend to imply the concept of “Mankind, Wisely employing Permaculture.” You can find out more about Permasapien, the story behind our logo and more by visiting permasapien.com. Let’s talk for a moment about how I even became interested in Permaculture. My wife and I purchased our land with only a few desires in mind: First, to see the stars. We were tired of living in or near the city and not being able to enjoy the full beauty of the night sky. Second, to do what we please, when we please, with our land. We did not want to be subject to a homeowners association or to the more strict ordnances typically found inside of a municipality. We wanted animals, gardens and we didn’t want to have to get approval for them. In fact, we had chickens on our property before we had a driveway – but that is a story for another time. My first garden was a single raised bed grown in the square-foot garden method. While I am sure there are thousands of people that love that method, it just wasn’t for me. That caused me to do some extensive research on gardening methods. In the process of this research I watched the “Back to Eden Film”. Now allow me to inject something here – when our home was built the contractor stripped the land of the top soil. What was left behind was something even the invasive grasses were not happy growing in. That said, the idea of rebuilding the soil as seen in the “Back to Eden” film appealed to me. I set off to repair the soil for a garden using the methods shown in the “Back to Eden” film. But… while that was working way over winter, a word that was mentioned in the film caught my attention… Permaculture. I started learning more and more about permaculture. If I could find a video, I watched it. If there was a newsletter to subscribe to, I did. If there was a podcast to listen to, I did. I even started making some videos on my own over on J&J Acres. But the more I learned, the more I felt like I need formal training – something to tie everything I was learning into something useful. Like many others who have reached this point, I started looking at Permaculture Design Certificate Courses. But it seemed hopeless that I would ever get to take one. There was nothing nearby, so travel would have to be involved and most courses were taught for 2 straight weeks, and there was no way for me to be gone from home for that long. Then I ran across Geoff Lawton’s online course. It wasn’t ideal, in my opinion, as I like in-person learning and hands-on examples, but it fit my scheduling needs perfectly. Also, with Geoff having taken his PDC with Bil[...]