Final Days & New Beginnings

I have had a hard time sitting down and actually writing this final blog. Partly because the last few days of my internship and the weeks following have been quite busy. But I still want to give justice to my final days and give a bit of a reflection on the experience as a whole.

The last two weeks of my internship were a blur to me, mostly because I was working day in and day out on my final project. Dave, Kate, and I agreed that my time would be well spent on designing some raised garden beds for the septic tank area. These beds would cover up the unsightliness of the area, provide access to the septic tanks for regular maintenance, and allow for lawn mower access.

This area would act as the site for the raised beds.

The process started off with Dave and I sketching out some basic designs. Then, I took these sketches and sized the pieces of wood we would need for each bed. The beds would be different in appearance due to the accessibility of the septic holes and the spacing between them.

After the wood was ordered, Dave instructed me on the basics of drawing up a design plan. I had the opportunity to use a drawing desk and tools to outline my plans. These plans were referred to throughout the building process, and were great to have on hand if I wanted to describe my project to any passerby. This was a valuable skill for me to learn, because it helped me visualize my project. As a visual learner, everything is just easier for me to comprehend when it is drawn out on paper. And since I was the designer, the drawing process informed how the wood would be cut and assembled.

I spent an afternoon drawing the plans to scale.

The building process was equally as enjoyable as the designing process. It had been about two years since I had the opportunity to work with power tools and wood, so I was eager to immerse myself in building. Dave gave me some excellent woodworking tips that will help me with any kind of future building I decide to do, and I cannot thank him enough for his patience with me as I worked with tools I had never used before. I feel like with a little more practice, I could make woodworking a hobby.

Safety first! Goggles and eye protection became a normal part of my attire.

After a day and a half making all my cuts, I was ready to move into the construction phase of my project. However, since the ground at both of these sites was uneven, I had to clear away dirt so that the beds would be level with the septic tanks. This required quite a bit of digging, but I managed to do all of this and complete the construction of the beds in two days time. For the most part, the beds were constructed atop two sawhorses, but the pieces were secured to one another once the beds were placed in their holes.

I finished the construction portion just as Dave was about to leave for vacation. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to work with such an experienced builder and great instructor! Thanks for everything, Dave!

Once construction was complete, I moved onto filling the beds with soil. Since we wanted to keep the cost of materials low on this project, we decided to source as much of the material as possible from Yestermorrow. So I took soil from an onsite mound, and used this to fill the garden beds. It was some pretty fertile, organic stuff, too! It smelled great and it was full of life. I also decided to use some onsite flowers to fill the beds. Yestermorrow has plenty of onsite flowers, so I had plenty of options to choose from. I was able to successfully transplant a variety of different flowers, and the end result looked great! And almost immediately after I put my tools away, it began to rain, so the transplants got a nice welcoming drink in their new home.

Ta-dah!

I was incredibly pleased with the outcome of my final project. I felt an overwhelming sense of accomplishment as I put those last plants into their holes. I had only just drawn up designs for the project a week beforehand, and now I was putting the finishing touches on my own design/build project. Not only was I filled with pride, but I felt determined to do more projects like it. Since then, I've drawn up a few concepts for a bookshelf and even a small table that I will hopefully get the chance to work on during Christmas break!

I finished my final project on my final work day at Yestermorrow. Immediately following packing up my tools, I began packing up my campsite. It was truly a bittersweet moment. Even though Yestermorrow had only been a part of my life for two months, I found that being immersed in this culture left me feeling unwilling to leave. Yestermorrow is a community a lot like Berea; in that, the people living there make it a home for all those that are visiting. I met some of most hospitable individuals that really took pride in the work that they were performing. It was uplifting to meet so many amazing individuals partaking in work that was improving the environment and steering us towards a more regenerative future. I miss Yestermorrow, but I also know that my work with them isn't in any way complete. I'm going to find my way back there someday and I'll do something to give back to the community that gave so much to me.

I'd especially like to give my thanks to Heidi, Dave, Kate, Dan, Mark, Luke, Susan, all of the interns (both new and old), my instructors, and all of the classmates and friends along the way. You truly made this experience wonderful for me. I'd also like to give thanks to my Berea advisers, Dr. Paul Smithson, Dr. Nancy Gift, and Dr. Richard Olson for being so supportive of me from afar. Thank you for allowing me to participate in such an unforgettable experience. I learned so much about myself over these past few months. I cannot wait to share this opportunity with others! I'm sure my successor will gain just as much, if not more, from this experience, and I cannot wait to hear about Yestermorrow will change their lives and others to come.

Goodbye for now. We will meet again soon.

Observing Nature's Patterns: Thoughts on Regenerative Design & Development

I've been brainstorming all week about how I wanted to write this particular blog. It would be easy to just write a day to day summary with a few reflections on my latest class, but I do not believe that would do this particular class justice.

When I told Dan, the Curriculum Director, a few weeks ago that I wanted to take Regenerative Design and Development, I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into. I thought it would be great to some kind of design course under my belt, and the word regenerative intrigued me. Since I have an interest in ecological restoration work, and regenerative is synonymous with restoration, I thought this course would greatly assist me in this manner. I was right. It did. But this course did so much more for me than show me the value in nature. It helped me see the value of myself in nature.

I know this all sounds ridiculous. I spent a week in a classroom and I come out talking like I have found the deepest meaning in life or something. But it is the nature of the course. I did not just learn about regenerative design, but I partook in the process of regenerative design and in turn something inside me was regenerated. Now this definitely sounds like a blog written by someone who has completely lost their mind. Fret not. I haven't completely lost mind. Yet.

To make this easier on everyone, I'll backtrack to just after dinner on Sunday night when the class met for the first time. Joel Glanzberg introduced himself to the class as the sole instructor and member of a desgin group called Regenesis (http://www.regenesisgroup.com/). Rather than have us go around the table and introduce ourselves like a class normally would, he first made us turn to the person next to us and talk about what really mattered to us. Wait, I was supposed to have a personal conversation with the stranger next to me and tell them what I valued most? Well, okay? I guess I can do that. Following that exercise, he than asked many questions of us and asked us to define, "regenerative," "design," and "development." I can honestly say that from the beginning I was feeling uneasy about what I had gotten myself into. Why was this guy asking questions of us rather than introducing us to some PowerPoint on regenerative design? I didn't understand. And I wouldn't understand until about three days later, but be patient, I'll get there.

We were to meet every morning at 7:30 AM for morning exercises. These exercises were a combination of yoga, tai-chi, and other meditation exercises. I had taken a class in tai-chi during the Fall semester, so I thought it wouldn't be much different. I was of course wrong. These exercises felt more like stretches than the tai-chi I was use to, and many of them involved movements I was unfamiliar with. Every morning I heard different parts of my body crack and creak as I stretched in ways that up until last week I did not think I was capable of. Yet is was strangely relaxing to me. Joel taught us all about proper breathing and movement, and after an hour of twisting, I found myself not needing my usual morning cup of coffee.

He began day two by discussing the five types of capital and the relationships among them. After this talk and the one the day before, I wasn't sure if we were ever going to get to discussing how to to incorporate regenerative design into our work. That was until he began talking of Wendell Berry's work "Solving for Pattern." This was more in line with what I had hoped to learn about in class. I wanted to understand natural systems thinking and how to design for such. That brief moment over Wendell Berry lasted for a split second when he then asked us to, "look for the difference that makes a difference," and that difference will solve all of our dilemmas. Okay. He lost me again. How am I supposed to be able to find "the difference that makes a difference" if I don't actually learn a single thing about regenerative design by the end of this class? I'm embarrassed by my impatience and ignorance now. This all seemed like "fluff" at the time, and all I wanted was meat. What was it that Joel was teaching me that I wasn't seeing? Why was he telling me all these tales of warriors and writers rather than telling me about how to regenerate systems?

That morning, Joel also introduced us to ecological succession. This was a concept I learned briefly about in Botany back in my Freshman year. But rather than giving us a textbook definition of such, he told us about its importance in an ecosystem. According to Joel, this system is successful because of disturbance. A disturbance breaks up the older trees so that new ones can come through. He then related that concept to us, saying that people need to be disturbed so that newness can come from it. Now, we live in a two force world. We have a force that drives us (an activating force) and a force that prevents us from achieving our goals in nearly ever case (a restraining force). These forces constantly push up against one another and are often result in a compromise where no one on either side is happy with the end results. We, as environmentalists, often witness compromises where no one is pleased with the final decision. At this point, we are used to forfeiting or agreeing to something we don't like in order for the outcome to be "less bad." Joel proceeded to introduce us to another type of force, a "reconciling force." In such, everyone would walk away pleased and a system would find its balance. But in order to find this force, we needed to fully understand what each side valued and work from there.

Finding the value of something that opposes you is just as hard as it sounds. We see something in opposition to us as a burden and often overlook its driving force. Why should I care what it values? It limits me! On the other hand, we also devalue our restraining forces. For instance, I could say the only thing coal companies value is financial capital and not look farther that. In this instance, we overlook the other kinds of capital this establishment might value like social, built, or maybe even ecological capital. Or maybe they only really do value money; I honestly don't know. But if you do not take the time to observe what a restraining force values, you will never move beyond compromise. I digress; I'll come back to this more later.

Before lunch on Monday, Joel introduced us to the concept of "a purpose statement." He wrote down  the following purpose statement for the class:

To develop a coherent way of seeing and working
in a way that enables evolving awareness and practice
so that we can be effective and useful in the world.

He then proceeded to say that we would achieve this task by the end of the week. Once again, I was quite confused as to where these words came from and how we were supposed to go about achieving this goal when I didn't even yet understand what regenerative design fully was. Immediately following this, Joel asked us to pick a task for ourselves and develop a personal statement from there. This would become our focus for the remainder of the week. So with a bit direction, he told us to split up into teams of two and discuss our tasks for the remainder of the afternoon. So for an hour or so, I sat down with Shawn, a student I took Constructed Wetlands with, and we discussed our tasks. Shawn and I both had big dreams of improving our respective regions. He wanted to improve the culture of his hometown, and I wanted to revive areas of Appalachia that were plundered by extraction processes. We talked for a long while about our interests, and jotted down a few words for what we believed would be our purpose statements. Easy enough, right? Well, when regrouped, Joel posed more questions for us and we found that our statements needed to be refined. They weren't really tasks, but long term goals and dreams. How hard was it really to write a purpose statement? And what was the significance of doing so?

The class spent a lot of time outdoors. We had many discussions inside the Yestermorrow treehouse.

Tuesday morning, following our morning exercises, Joel told us we were going to be doing a different kind of exercise. After opening up a discussion on how nature works in patterns, he brought us outside and told us we were going to learn a bit about tracking. I like to think of tracking as really immersing yourself in nature. It involves using each of your senses and slowly taking in your surroundings. It's a really neat, calming exercise. I found myself being less distracted and more on point with my thoughts immediately following. Which was ideal because Joel proceeded to question us and add more elements to our tasks at hand. In order to fully develop a statement of purpose, we were to break down our task a bit more to make it more approachable and more so achievable. It had to have a clear process as well  as products. Which forced Shawn and myself to sit down and really rethink our tasks. I brainstorming a few ideas of tasks I could do in Berea and then went through another round of discussing what I valued in each of them. At this point, I was beginning to feel a little unsure of myself and this class. I loved the nature exercises, but I could not see how they related nor could I see how developing a task cycle was useful. This felt like a "personal ecology" class where we had to sit down and analyze our values. I didn't understand why any of this was important until I went to town to get some groceries.

As I was opening the trunk of my car to set my groceries down, my eyes rolled across my GRE prep books. I groaned over their existence, and started to shut the trunk to my car when something Joel had said crossed my mind. Joel had introduced us to the idea of disturbances, which are things that often repel us or shake up our way of thinking. I reached back into my trunk and pulled out my books, and immediately began to ponder what was causing this disturbance inside me. Why did I detest studying for the GRE? Why did the sheer thought of it disgust me? So I sat there on the trunk of my car for a minute and began thinking about everything Joel had been talking about with us this past week, and that's when my eureka moment hit. Suddenly all his talk on disturbances, systems ecology, and tasks clicked. I proceeded to go to my notebook and began to write down a new task for myself.

The next morning, the class gathered to discuss regenerative design on a wider scale. In order to understand the importance of regenerative design and how to apply it, you have to understand how the system is working. Nature functions in a self-organizing, systematic way. In order to see how nature engages and exchanges information, you must be able to view its patterns. The whole of nature works in patterns of forces working off one another and growing together to form a successful living system. No one part of nature is in dominance, and all disturbances created by its functioning parts lead to the development of the system. There is value found in each part of system, and the other functioning parts recognize this, and develop accordingly. It's miraculous, really. The ecological system doesn't make compromises because its a system of reconciling forces, and it meets the needs of every organism living in it.

Here in lies the human problem. Our society has set itself apart from the natural world. Our system tries to exist outside the realm of nature, and this is where it often fails. Conventional design makes up most of the system, and it is just one step above the law from being uninhabitable. LEED, or green building, initially started off with a great mission, but has since become a standard that is "less bad" but still not great. And sustainability is just scratching the surface. We are not going to make this Earth habitable if we are all living sustainably. We will just slow down the our degradation. No; this is why we must aim for regenerative design, which calls for us to live as nature, and co-evolve with the rest of the ecological system. Mostly because our current system rots, and we cannot live in a system that has set a course for degradation. In terms of ecological succession, conventional infrastructure has climaxed. Since its initiation, it has slowly began to fall apart while natural systems continue to grow and thrive just as they always have. So after accepting these realizations, you might ask yourself, "how do I become a part of this natural system?"

We must "find the difference that makes the difference, and act." This requires us to create a task, find the forces that drive and restrain it, discover the values in those forces, and then come up with a reconciling force that makes a difference in that system. It turns out, all the exercises we were doing, were actually foundational to the process of regenerative design. We were learning about regenerative design all along, we just didn't understand all of its different processes and parts. I say "we" because all of us taking the course felt quite lost to begin with, but the more we began discovering the values of the tasks we assigned for ourselves, the more we began to see value in ourselves, in the course, and in its purpose statement

"To develop a coherent way of seeing and working
in a way that enables evolving awareness and practice
so that we can be effective and useful in the world."

The final day of the class, Joel had us present our task and own personal statement to the class. I stood up, and presented my own task:

To take the GRE
In a way that my anxiety does not hinder my perception of my capabilities
So that I can apply for graduate programs that will allow for a continued education in ecosystem development.

The other day when I pulled my textbooks out of my car, I realized the disturbance was mainly caused by my anxiety. I've found over the years that my anxiety issues are my greatest restraint. It has adverse effects on my test taking skills, social skills, and development skills. I find my anxiety attacks often leave me emotionally and physically drained to the point where I am left incapable of completing some of the simplest of tasks. And a full college load has not helped lower my load any. Thus, I began to not only analyze the value of the GRE, but the value of myself and the system I functioned in. My anxiety does limit me, but even it has its values, but if I cannot be a functioning member of the system I wish to be a member of than I am not performing my ecological niche. The system I chose to be a part of cannot reach its fullest potential without me. So I decided I needed to start somewhere. Choose a small task that was manageable and wouldn't overwhelm me to the point of me being ineffective. So I chose to sign up for and begin studying for the GRE. And in order to successfully to accomplish this task, I had to understand that my perceptions of this exam would overall affect how I would perform. I could study for hours on end, but if I didn't believe in the value of my studying and myself; I would not be serving myself to the best of my abilities. Being able to study for the GRE and relearn some of these concepts again is a privilege. It can only help me become a better version of myself. With this in mind, when it comes time to take the actually test at the end of August, I will be ready to take it no matter what. My perceptions are the difference that makes a difference, and I'm pleased to report that since laying out my task, I have successfully studied for the GRE each and every day since. I find myself learning more and more by the day, and I have a completely positive perception of myself and the work I'm doing. It sounds almost too good to be true, but by partaking in the regenerative process, something inside of my was regenerated. Only growth can come from what I took away from this week.

We ended the class with an exercise we had been doing every single morning. Joel referred to it as "the snake," and it involved us weaving in and out of one another in a line. The beauty of this exercise is that it fully tied together everything we had learned in regenerative design. Each person in this line used the others force to push the other along in the line. We were a line, or a system, of reconciling forces that used the others force to push and move forward. Just like in our ecological system, we were moving parts that required the strength of others to grow and develop.

This was a phenomenal group of people.

 In sum, I would say the lessons from this week were some of the most rewarding. I dove into something completely different than what I had anticipated, and found myself with more rewards than I expected. These lessons will stick with me, and now that I have an understanding of the regenerative process, I'll be able to apply it to more aspects of my life. The beauty of this process is that it can apply to just about anything. Any process can be regenerative; thus, the final products can also be regenerative. And we can all afford to learn and grow throughout ever step of the process.
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I'm sad to say that my time at Yestermorrow is coming to a close. This being my last full week, I've started working on my final design/build project. I really feel like I just got here. I haven't even left and I'm already trying to think up ways in which I can make my way back here in the near future. I love everything about this place. The people are fantastic, the environment is rejuvenating, and the learning experiences are invaluable. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend my summer than here at Yestermorrow. I know these next seven work days will be some of my most informative, but I cannot help but be a bit saddened over them. But at the same time, I'm already aware that leaving Yestermorrow doesn't mean that the things I learned will be left behind. These experiences are going to stick with me wherever I may go. And I only hope to repay them someday in the time they invested in me.

Have a regenerative week! I'll update again soon!

Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment

I am writing this blog a bit later than I had originally planned. Last past week has pushed me to my limits both physically and mentally. They were not understating how much work went into classes. I'll give a semi-quick breakdown of the class to help both myself process it all and to help you easily follow my last week.

Sunday

This class was the second class in a series on water held at Yestermorrow. Due to funds and timing, I was only able to take the Constructed Wetlands class, which turned out to be a more detail oriented class than the other two offered.

We spent Sunday reviewing some of the concepts covered in the previous class, Redesigning Wastewater, which was helpful for me seeing as I was the only one in the class that had not taken it. Much of the review was on basic water chemistry, so I felt pretty at home with the stuff we were covering. After the review, we went into a discussion over the history of wetlands followed by a discussion on nitrification and denitrificaiton.

 The two hours I spent in the classroom were very information heavy.

Monday

I ended up reviewing my notes again Monday morning before class to make sure that I had completely followed everything that was thrown at me. This ended up being to my benefit because we dove into more information on wasterwater the following morning. I learned about the different types of wasterwater, its components (chemical, energy, pathogens, etc.), and basic wetland construction all before lunch.

Immediately after lunch, we took a tour of the Yestermorrow septic system to better understand it and understand what needed to be set in place to make it better. Seeing as Yestermorrow's main building is a repurposed motel, there are many design difficulties. One of these design difficulties is the septic system, which was not designed for its current purpose and there are several different drainage problems existing with it. This and many other reasons are the reasoning as to why Yestermorrow is currently developing a new campus plan.

Tuesday

Yestermorrow is currently working on a twenty-five-year design and development plan for their new campus. While the current campus is charming and still inhabitable, the current design of the building prevents it from functioning at the level it could work at. There is limited classroom studio space, sleeping space, and working space for the students. Yestermorrow also wishes to open its doors to more students, and they cannot do that at this moment due to these limits.

Several of the most recent classes have been involved with working on this master plan. Yestermorrow would like for its students, who are the main users of this facility, to be an integral part in the design and function of its future campus; hence, the intense amount of focus on it in the classes.

Our class spent a great deal of time developing the wastewater treatment for the campus. We started off sizing the system based on the estimate of people that would be using it. This involved a quick introduction to Excel and a late-night calculus lesson that helped us size for the different water quality parameters.

We spent the late afternoon portion of Tuesday learning how to survey a site. It was quite a unique and informative experience. I have a whole new appreciation for the people who did the original surveying of this area.

This photo is just a glimpse of one of our late night site planning session.

Funny enough, one of the instructors, Barton Kirk, told me on day one that he was involved in the planning of the Ecovillage living machine. He had heard it had been switched over to an aquaculture facility, but had wanted to hear more up-to-date information on the program. This led to an impromptu presentation on our aquaponics facility complete with pictures, diagrams, and a system history since its switchover from a wastewater treatment facility.

Wednesday

We dedicated all of Wednesday morning and afternoon to field trips of wetland treatment systems. I got a firsthand look at how these systems functioned in working environments. Both systems had been put into place by the instructors of the class, so they were able to give us a full report on how each system functioned as well as some of the design challenges they faced during construction.

We did have a brief late night session that focused more on sizing for chemical parameters since we were not able to cover all of that information the night before. At this point, we were all beginning to feel the mental stress and made the executive session to remove designing individual wastewater treatment systems from our list of things to do. While it was hard to cut out that portion of our syllabus, we all felt it necessary because keeping our focus and sanity was more important to our overall goals of understanding these systems.

Thursday

We began the morning with a lecture on rethinking wastewater. This lecture covered many of the projects that one of our instructors, Pete Munoz, had worked on. He has worked on well-known wastewater treatment systems at the Omega Institure, Chahtam University, Sidwell Friends Middle School, Baltimore Healthy Harbor Initiative, and many more institutions. This led into a discussion on the individual components of a wastewater treatment system, which led to us developing the ideal treatment system for Yestermorrow's new campus.

(Note: I'll have more photos of the field trip, the design processes, and our system design soon. I'm waiting on my instructor to send them to me.)

Friday

Our final day of class took place almost entirely outside of the  classroom. Here we put all of our theory and knowledge into practice by building a small model of a constructed wetland. Previous Constructed Wetland classes had the opportunity to build an actual functioning system, but there were not any construction projects set up, so we built a demonstration model.

First we cleaned up some different sized media. Our media consisted of pea gravel, gravel, and light-weight clay pellets mixed with a different type of pea gravel.

Gravel needed to be washed three times over before it could be put in the wetland.

After that, we worked on lining our "wetland." Our "wetland" was a box that had three wooden sides and one glass viewing side. We worked the lining so that it would allow for visibility on the clear side, and we sealed the glass side with silicone and bolts to prevent it from leaking.

Lining this wetland wasn't much different from lining a hydroponic unit.

After the construction of our base, we assembled a level control that would allow us to control the level of water in the wetland at any given time. After we had all of our pieces and parts glued and put in place, we were then able to fill the wetland with rocks, plants, and water.

The final product!

We finished the construction of the demonstration model just as the class finished. We celebrated our victory and then we all went off to rest after a hard week of work. This system is pretty low-maintenance, but it does need a few more days of observation before we can call it usable. It has been left to my care for the next few days to make sure its roots establish and to make sure it does not leak all over its new home in the Yestermorrow library.

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After a long week of work, I spent the weekend with Finn and his family up at their farm. It was a nice break, and I was able to rest up plenty before entering another week of classes. I started Regenerative Design and Development on Sunday night. I'll be writing another blog to cover all of the happenings in that class. After one day, I know I'll have plenty to talk about then!

In other news, it seems Yestermorrow has taken a break from its rainy summer. The past few days have been full of sunshine, swimming, ice cream eating, and late night gatherings under the stars. It feels weird to think that I just started my sixth week here. Time is ticking away on my internship, but I know that I can still expect to learn a lot with the 17 days I have left.

Lessons in Humility

As of today, I am now halfway through my Yestermorrow internship. I can hardly believe it has been four weeks since my arrival on campus; I feel like I have only been here for such a short time. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around how I'm going to be able to do all that I want to do with such little time left.

Last week, we said farewell to 5 out of the 6 interns. Even though I had only met these people three weeks prior, I still couldn't help but feel some sort of sadness at their departure. They were a tough, yet loveable, group of people who knew how to leave a strong impression. I learned quite a bit from them, and their dedication to their work was inspiring. But not more than 48-hours later, two vehicles pulled up with two new interns, Owen and Steve. And not more than 24 hours after that did OJ show up from Louisiana.The other two interns, Bonnie-Kate and Charlotte, are set to arrive in the next day or two. All of these interns come from such diverse backgrounds, I cannot help but get excited over getting to know and learn from them during my remaining weeks!

Things around Yestermorrow have been pretty scrambled during the intern turnover. I found myself doing all sorts of odd jobs while the new interns were getting oriented. For one thing, the entire campus needed to be tidied up, and I found myself doing a lot of sweeping. Facilities manager, Dave, made sure I became well acquainted with my breathing mask while cleaning up the entire woodshop. Part of which included me using a chop saw for about three hours to make up kindling wood out of whatever excess lumber we could find.

But I feel like I spent a lot more of this week tiding up the Yestermorrow treehouse. This happens to also be one of my favorite places at Yestermorrow, so I wasn't completely upset; even if the work I was doing involved me cleaning out organic material and grime from various areas. I was covered from head to toe with mud afterwards, but it proved to be worthwhile.

This photo does not give proper justice as to how much better it looks inside and out.

As tiring and diligent as some of the work might be, I'm learning a lot from my workings. It has taught me a considerable amount of humility and pride in my work. In truth, a lot of my maintenance work will go unnoticed by most of the visitors to Yestermorrow. But the work I've done will help keep the facilities and its structures from future problems. Preventative maintenance is a necessity, even if it does feel a little superfluous at times.

Now, I haven't been spending all my time this week doing dirty work. I made some time for some Vermont adventures. For instance, I met  this really cool organic farmer last weekend.

He says he's even heard of Berea!

He showed me around the farm, and I got to do everything from harvesting asparagus to milking cows to collecting chicken eggs. He was even gracious enough to let me have dinner with him and his family. In all seriousness, it was great to see Finn and his family again. We shared stories, talked about where we were headed in life, and even made a road trip out to this really amazing glacial lake.

Vermont isn't lacking in sites, that's for sure.

I expect there shall be more outings in my next few weeks with him and Celeste alike.

On another note, yesterday was the 4th of July, so all the staff took off work, and the interns made time to join in on the town festivities. Wednesday night and Thursday morning, we spent a lot of time assisting a local architect in building a float for the Warren 4th of July Parade. Now, as I learned, this is not your usual 4th of July celebration. Every year, this 1700 person town grows 5x - 10x in population for this festival. People come from far and wide to see the floats, eat the organic ice cream, and dance in the streets.

I was fortunate enough to not only help build the float, but be a part of the choreographed dance that walked alongside that followed the float. The theme of each year's float is based on the current trends in the town and happenings. This year the group built a giant storm cloud complete with moving sun, windblown raindrops, and a pop-up rainbow.

And here's our lovely float! Unfortunately, I was unable to get a picture of the choreographed dance with umbrellas.

The reason we chose a storm cloud was because it has rained for about 38 consecutive days in Vermont. I believe that's a new record for this area. It's starting to make residents rather uneasy, because the Mad River is starting to rise above its banks in several locations. Rivers look more like rapids than calm streams. I'm just fortunate that I haven't had to reinforce my tent for flooding...yet.

Besides the upcoming rain forecast, things here are looking bright. This evening, I am assisting with class preparations for Redesigning Wastewater this weekend, and on Monday I start my very first class in Constructed Wetlands! The following week I will have another class, and during the remaining I will be working on a special project for Yestermorrow. On Wednesday, Dave and I sat down and generated some possible project ideas. We decided that I should focus my efforts on designing and building a small garden to surround the septic holes. This area is kind of an eyesore, which is unfortunate because it happens to provide a nice view of the pond right in front of the facilities. I'll be spending the next few days developing a site plan and consulting with Dave as to what we can do with this particular area, but still provide access to the septic area because it needs to be drained every few months. Hopefully, we'll come up with a plan in the next two weeks so that come the following week, I can start on construction of this area.

That's all for now. Wish me luck on my first class!

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.