Creating Conditions Conducive to Life

This afternoon was my first chance to really take a break in the last week. I spent much of the afternoon reading Lord of the Rings in a hammock out in the woods. It was delightful, and it was a nice break from what feels like a very long week.

Last Wednesday, I was given the long-term project of restoring some of the gardens at Yestermorrow. Unfortunately, Yestermorrow had to give up their Edible Landscape intern this last year. Consequently, their gardens have become overgrown with weeds and little to nothing survived made it through this last year.

On Wednesday, I focused my efforts on trying to recover some of the strawberry plants. I also managed to find some rhubarb and rosemary in the mix.

So the reason I'm going to all this trouble to recover these plants and manage these raised beds is because there is hope that these beds can be used for some much smaller gardens. Also, I hope to transfer some of this to a garden that has been started over by the kitchen. We already have some great looking basil, oregano, and greens over that way, and we're hoping to expand it a bit more to supplement some of what we need for the kitchen.

I left early Thursday for my conference, so I was not able to return to working on the beds until Monday. I have been rained out of working ever since, so I have focused my efforts indoors.

The last two days I have been working closely with Susan on nonprofit work. My primary job has been updating the address database so that we can send out the Fall/Winter Yestermorrow course catalog on time. Yestermorrow relies heavily on this catalog for advertising its courses so it's of great importance that we get this catalog sent out on time to everyone on the mailing list in a timely manner. As assiduous as updating addresses is, I have found the work to be a nice break from pulling weeds and risking sunburn. I'll be ready to return to the garden once this rain clears up.

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Last Thursday, I boarded a bus in Burlington, and rode for four hours to Boston, MA where I was to attend the first ever Global Biomimicry Summit. I was overly excited to be able to hear from Janine Benyus, meet with professionals in the field, learn about the newest innovations, and just be around people who were interested in the same things as me.

I stayed with my dear friend, Janice, during my trip. She has been in Boston the past eight weeks doing an internship with Harvard. She was actually just about ready to pack up and leave for India the following weekend. We could not believe how well the conference timing and my prearranged visit with her had worked out. I am thankful for her for being such a wonderful host and making sure I got to everywhere I needed to be during my few days there.

The conference began at 9 AM on Friday with an opening keynote from Janine Benyus.

There's something about the way this woman talks about her connection with the natural world that just really speaks to something deeper in me. The way she speaks of other living organisms as though they were her best friends is admirable. Her talk focused on the natural world as a much larger network. I don't have my notebook in front of me to reiterate all that was said, but she spoke of mutualisms as being the underworkings of natural systems and how an ecosystem should be seen as a mutualistic society that relies on every other organism within it rather than a competition.

I also had the privilege of meeting her...twice! Once was at her book signing that took place just outside the conference hall. The second time was in the bathroom where she engaged me in conversation while we were washing our hands. She's a delightful woman to speak with, and I learned quite a bit from her, both on stage and in the bathroom.

This picture was not taken in the bathroom.

The conference was really neat in its structure. Much of our time was open to meet and discuss with others interested in biomimicry. I met professors, biologists, writers, government workers, mathematicians, etc. All of them were interested in sustainability and the applicability of biomimicry and other types of ecological design. I think one of the most surprising talks came from a biomimicry professional, a cradle-to-cradle type, who said that the one thing that separates biomimicry from bio-inspired design is its ethos and reconnect capabilities. In other words, we are capable of emulating nature through Velcro or swimwear, but we are not actually creating biomimetic products because we are not using sustainable materials to do so. We can design just about anything from another organism, but if we are using materials that are going to require more extraction processes and create more pollution, than we are not reconnecting with our ecosystems and therefore we are just adding into a progressively unsustainable cycle. So how do we create a truly create biomimetic innovations? Honestly, I do not know...but I'm determined to spend more time trying to figure it out.

Not surprisingly, biomimicry has been on my mind ever since the conference. I have been speaking with the professors and students at the University of Akron's biomimicry program and its applicability. I really would love to make this form of design work in with my plans of restoring ecosystems. It has components that fit with my interest in biology and design, but I also would love nothing more than for it to truly be a sustainable practice. If we could really model ecosystems and still live within our means, I think this planet would be a much more comfortable place to live for all life.

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I returned to Yestermorrow late Sunday evening. I was pretty well exhausted considering I did not have a break this weekend, nor the weekend before with the Tiny House Fair. My body began feeling pretty achy halfway through Sunday, and I took about two hours off Monday morning to recharge. The entire team encouraged me to take my time resting, but I really just wanted to get back to work. I also spoke with the class director about my classes and what direction I wanted to head in during the rest of my time at Yestermorrow. I realized that while I love the ecosystem component in the Living Roofs course, I wanted to take a course that had some more design work in it. He directed me towards the course in Regenerative Design and Development. He told me that is one of the best courses they offer, and I will be able to do more ecological restoration type work with this course. I will still be taking Constructed Wetlands, which starts in just less than two weeks! One of the benefits of being an intern is that I get to work closely with instructors teaching the courses. That being said, not only will I will taking Constructed Wetlands, but I will be assisting the instructors and the preparation of it!

While the people at Yestermorrow pride themselves on work well done, they do like to have "Fun Days" every once and awhile. Previous fun days include bowling and a visit to Ben & Jerry's. This Fun Day consisted of all the staff and interns taking the afternoon off to go "nerd-out" over Vermont's granite industry. As builders and architects, the people at Yestermorrow love their local materials, and Barre, VT happens to be the granite capital of the U.S. We visited the Rock of Ages Corporation which is the site where they mine much of the granite in Vermont. While I cannot help but frown at any kind of mining practice, it was quite a site to see the operation firsthand.

Immediately following this photo, a blast went off. They use more drills than explosives these days. Even still, the aftershock of the explosion caught me off-guard. In fact, each explosion at this site will register at the National Earthquake Center.

The weird blue-colored stuff at the bottom of this quarry is actually water. It's a stagnant pool that travels roughly 50 ft down and its filled with granite dust. Granite dust, like coal dust, has a nasty habit of irritating the alveoli (and any part of the lung for that matter) if breathed in. As far as lung issues go, granite miners ran into many of the same problems as underground coal miners back in the day.

The tour guide expects that they'll be using this hundreds of years from now. I sure hope we think of something better to do with our time than mine granite 400+ years from now. Anyway, this was the basic layout of the site. This is one of two of the last remaining sites in this area. The granite industry has been in decline, and this granites value has dropped over the years. This granite is used primarily for statues. The type of granite used for headstones and countertops comes Quebec, Brazil, or China.

But they still do much of the polishing, sculpting, and sandblasting work in Vermont!

Is it ironic that they mostly manufacture headstones?

 In some ways, it reminded me of much of the mining that we see in Appalachia. There's much community pride in the work that's being done here. "Granite keeps the statues up" or something like that. At the same time, I wonder how long this kind of thing can go on. I understand having pride in a resource that comes from your area, but the environmental cost is not factored into any of this. Which brings me to my next point...

The last keynote speaker at the Biomimicry conference was a woman by the name of Amy Larkin. While I don't know much of anything about her, she just published a book called "Environmental Debt: The Hidden Costs of a Changing Global Economy." The book looks at some studies done by companies where they compared their gross revenue against the cost of all their materials use to find out how much money the corporations were actually making. While I don't know if I'll read this book for myself, I cannot help but think about in a financial sense what all of these mining practices are costing us. I already have a pretty good idea of the emotional and physical pains it causes, but that's just because I study and read up on it on a daily basis. Maybe money will have a way of speaking to corporations the way feeling cannot. I honestly don't know.

Anyway, I digress; I was really happy to join the Yestermorrow gang on their trip. It was a nice to get off campus for awhile and just hang out together outside of an office environment. I learned a lot in just one afternoon, and I wouldn't have passed it up for anything. The community here is really great and supportive. I feel like we will learn a lot from one another in the next few weeks. Next week will be my last work week for quite some time. I'll be in classes from 7-19 of July so I should be take some more time to rest before then. That being said, I believe there's a Berea alumni with an interest in aquaponics up in these parts. I think I may need to pay him a visit and go fishing on one of the many rivers up in this area.

Making Home & Tiny House Fair

The first thing Kate Stephenson said to me prior to my arrival at Yestermorrow was, "prepare for the experience of a lifetime."

I left my home in Ohio at 9 a.m. on Saturday, June 8th only somewhat prepared to have my life changed. At that point, the only thing I was concerned about was making it to Buffalo, NY in one piece and whether or not I could get along without my cat for eight weeks.

We're managing the separation the best we can.  We Skype and talk on the phone.

The trip was long and tiresome. I managed to make it to Buffalo by Saturday afternoon and even made some time to go sightseeing. I ended up traveling up to Niagara Falls, which was not nearly as exciting as I had imagined it might be. I think I would have enjoyed it more had it not been so commercialized and crowded. But it was neat to see the ferocious waterfall firsthand.

After about five attempts, I managed to get a picture that did not have a Canadian casino or hotel in the background.

I spent the entire following day traveling through the Adirondacks to the home of SENS alumna, Celeste Beyer. While I did not get to see her due to her busy work schedule, I was warmly welcomed by her family for the night. The following morning I packed my things and drove down to Waitsfield, Vermont, where I would be spending the next eight weeks of my life.

Vermont is a place unlike any other. My first indication of its uniqueness were the half dozen moose crossing signs I saw within half an hour of entering the state. My second indication were the towns I passed through on my way to my destination. Just about every town I passed through was full of local businesses and free of franchises. It was so surreal to see a place free of Walmart, McDonalds, Shell, etc. But it was surreal in the very best way; I knew from this alone that I was going to fall in love with this place and its towns.

Now back to Yestermorrow. My car pulled into the Yestermorrow campus at around 10 a.m. on Monday, June 10. Whereupon I was greeted by the enrollment director, Mark. He told me the team had been expecting me all morning and that they were all very excited to see what Berea had to offer them this time around. Those that remembered Celeste, Eva, and Erin had wonderful things to say about them and the work ethic of Berea students. There's also a portrait of Jessa Turner in the kitchen. It is no surprise that I felt pressured to live up to their greatness right from the start. You could say I am fully determined not to let the Yestermorrow team down and shame the good name of my college.

The Wall of Great Past Interns has a familiar face on it.

So when they asked if I wanted to start work on Tuesday, I insisted I could start working immediately, which they were pleased to hear. So they put me to work.

For the sake of length and time, I will just list what I did in my five days.

• Updated the Yestermorrow address database
• Helped mail nearly 150 letters
• Made apple-cinnamon peanut butter bars
• Cleaned out all the storm gutters
• Cleaned and organized the storage area
• Weeded three garden beds
• Became acquainted with the compost pile woodchuck
• Learned the ins and outs of the kitchen
• Organized and assembled about 120 folders, registration paperwork, and Yestermorrow pamphlets for the tiny house fair
• Delineated camping area for tiny house fair
• Laminated signs for tiny house fair
• And assisted in just about every other task for the tiny house fair

 As indicated by the last few tasks on my list, Yestermorrow was scheduled to hold their first ever Tiny House Fair from the 14th to the 16th. Not only was this their first ever Tiny House Fair, but it was the biggest event they had ever planned in the history of the school. And I had arrived just in time to help them in setting up for about 100 participants and 20 presenters, including Dee Williams, the face of tiny houses.

http://youtu.be/A47JaOMDH4c  <- Here's a link to Dee's TED Talk.

I had the pleasure of not only meeting Dee, but talking to her about my own life. She was ever so kind and we laughed a lot about our Yestermorrow experience thus far. She was ever enthusiastic about my goals and encouraged me to pursue them to no end. It was encouraging to say the least. Her passion for tiny houses made me want to build one of my own someday. In fact, all of the enthusiasm of the participants and the presenters made it hard not to want my very own tiny house.

Want to build a tiny house? Here's a tiny book instructing you on how to do so!

Of course, not being an actual participant, I was not able to attend the full Tiny House Fair. But I was able to see the main presentations and participate in some of the workshops. In fact, most of my time was spent working in the Yestermorrow kitchen and helping prepare food for 120+ people. I had the opportunity to work with the head chefs, Taylor and Heidi. Taylor is a laid back kind of guy with a love for local food and adequate nutrition. Heidi is a firecracker that works to no end to satisfy all of her hungry students. Their passion for local, healthy, organic food is unmatched. And it was delightful being able to work for them this weekend by serving food, washing dishes, and keeping everything running smoothly as possible.

Heidi was beyond pleased with my work. She told me she would be upset with me if I did not give myself credit for doing an awesome job this weekend. I put a lot of effort into this weekend, and it paid off, literally. I got 24 dollars in tips, which I ended up donating to the Yestermorrow kitchen anyway. Since Heidi would not openly accept it, we just put it towards a weeks worth of meals during the week of my first class. To say the least, all the staff is very impressed with my work so far; as am I. Over the past month, I have been reflecting over my sense of self and what kind of person I want to be when I come out of college. With only a year left, I feel as though I am running out of time to really make something of myself and my capabilities. I realized that I have spent the last year in neutral and have only been doing what is needed of me to get by and not living up to my fullest potential. I am smarter than I give myself credit for and capable of doing great things if I really set my mind to it. And it took a break from school and a week at Yestermorrow to make me really see that. I am beyond honored to have this opportunity and everything that comes with it, and I can already feel myself changing as a person after this week. I feel less frantic, stressed, and at ease with myself.

This week showed me that hard work pays off in not only a monetary way, but more importantly, a self-fulfilling kind of way. I am happier than I have been in quite some time after being here. I feel like my work is beneficial to a great cause, and that pushes me to continue working hard and pursuing my overall goals.

Yestermorrow has been a great experience thus far. Tomorrow I will continue helping my fellow intern, Leah, build the banisters to one of the outdoor cabins. Later this week, I will be leaving for Boston, where I will be staying with fellow Berea College student and friend, Janice D'souza. There I will attending the Global Biomimicry Conference. After reading Janine Benyus' work and the work of others in the field, I am thrilled to be able to network with professionals in the field and listen to the latest updates on how nature is inspiring our future. Rest assured, you can expect a full brief on the conference and an update on another week at Yestermorrow soon.

Here's a link to the conference page which includes a full layout of the schedule and presenters: http://biomimicry.net/educating/summits-workshops/education-summit/

So for awhile I have been researching the concept of objects that degrade after they live out their use and purpose. One of the things Janine Benyus stressed in her original book was that we create materials that live out their creators when they do not need. For instance, why on do we continue to manufacture so much styrofoam when the stuff is going to outlive all of us? One of the neat workshops I got to participate in at the Tiny House Fair was one held be the company Ecovative. This company manufactures a styrofoam-like product that is actually made up of mushrooms and hemp. Their current tests are showing that this material can insulate a home and even replace particle board. When composted, the material breaks down in about 30 days time.

It starts off kind of pulpy and becomes hard as a rock after about 3 days of sitting in a mold.

To sum it all up: Yestermorrow is great. I am super honored to have this opportunity. Tiny Houses are really fantastic. And the future looks bright on this side of Vermont.