Author: mcbala01

Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative – Week 9

The good weather lasted all week, which I am incredibly grateful for.

Tuesday we unloaded the pressure vessel, which treated the bamboo over the weekend. The poles are heavy, and often required two people to carry them. We leaned the majority in tubs against more bamboo in the quonset, but some were too tall and needed to go outside. We set them there to drain in order to recapture the solution, which can be reused as long as you can accumulate it. Afterwards, we went to set up the cow fence up the mountain. The cows get moved about every two weeks or so and are mostly used for mowing the lawn. We drove back through the bamboo plantation to double check that all the new poles were marked. In the afternoon we got a head start on the next day’s projects by propagating Hiruse bamboo plants.

On Wednesday, I weeded the nursery and patched an area of shade cloth that had a giant tear in it. Then I help propagate more bamboo plants and made coconut mulch, which involved breaking up the coconut peat blocks. In the afternoon we moved the cows, tempting them with ti leaves. The trick with cows is to not look them in the eyes and to be gentle and calm. Then we went back to the nursery, moving bamboo plants outside and composting dead ones.

Thursday we spent the whole day preparing and planting the turmeric bed. We raked grass from the freshly mown field next to it to be used as mulch. Ryan tilled the bed and some of us went in front and behind the tractor collecting large rocks. Others dug the rows for the turmeric and then we went back and amended them with sand and compost. Then some people planted the turmeric while others mulched the berms in between rows to prevent grass and weeds growing.

I worked two extra days this week again. Friday I spent weeding and mulching and fertilizing small trees and pineapples. On Saturday I mulched the ginger and planted vetiver on the gulch-edge of the garden and around the turmeric bed.

I cannot believe how fast this quarter went! I’m heartbroken to leave Maui and trying to savor these last two weeks as much as possible. Mahalo!

Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative – Week 8

The rain lasted another week, but finally over the weekend it cleared up and we have even had some sunshine.

On Tuesday we harvested black bamboo poles, which was hard work, but with six of us out there we harvested enough to fill the pressure vessel in the morning, breaking what my boss calls a world record. My job was the easiest, cutting off branches with the portable saw, but it was still vigorous leaning over the bamboo, turning it, and balancing the vibrations of the saw.

Wednesday morning we processed the pigeon pea seeds that we harvested the other week by shelling them and grading out the unmature, moldy, and shriveled. We threw in a handful of charcoal to kill any weavels that might remain. In the afternoon I went up to help move the horse fence. We climbed up the mountain with alfalfa in our hands, calling for Mana. We finally found her up by the mango tree, but she didn’t want to come without a lead so we staked out the poles and laid down the line first, and then returned with the lead. With the ocean sprawling out so round and blue, every shade of green in between, and a beautiful black horse next to you, it felt less like work and more like heaven.

Thursday morning Maria and I harvested forty pounds of turmeric to be sold for juice. Thursday afternoon I helped with the fruit harvest, where we collected chico sapotes, bananas, avocados, jackfruit, and coconuts to be sold in town.

Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative – Week 7

The bamboo bike building workshop has been happening this week, so every day people have been working down in the quonset, grinding, sanding, drilling, and applying resin. It’s been nothing but rain, rain, and more rain too, and the generator had to be restarted more than once due to the plethora of power tools. The solar panels don’t provide so much energy on a week’s worth of overcast weather. We are completely off the grid here in Kipahulu, which is one of the many things I love about this place, its independence from mainstream society, but it can also be challenging to manage your own infrastructure.

On Monday, for example, I went with Ryan up to the dream pools to fix the water line. We crossed a very slippery river over a very rocky waterfall, which was not made easier by the recent onset of rain. Then, barefoot, we continued climbing a narrow trail above the river, which at times included climbing rock faces. When we reached the spot, Ryan proceeded to climb banyan roots on a rock face thirty plus feet above the water. As much as I wanted to be like Tarzan, I decided to stay put. The pools were beautiful, a forty foot waterfall and a rope swing and rocky cliffs on the other side like mosaic faces. My job was to apply pressure to the pipe so Ryan would be able to attach the new part. After bleeding the line in a couple of other places to make sure it wasn’t clogged, we crossed the river again and flew around the property in the four wheeler to make sure water was flowing to all of the tanks. To live outside the norm you must be relentless.

Tuesday I spent the day preparing bamboo poles to be made into tool handles. I selected the poles, which had to be solid enough to withstand pressure from shoveling and thin enough to comfortably fit your hand around, and then matched poles to tool heads. There were twelve tools in total: shovels, pitchforks, digging forks, rakes, and a hoe. Then I cut the poles using the chop saw to the right length, a little over four feet. Then I used a grinder to take off the silica skin and any extra material on the nodes, and then used a small saw blade to roughen up that area so the apoxy resin will adhere (it’s all about maximizing the surface area). It was a time-consuming and tiring process, particularly using the grinder for long periods of time, but a lot of fun and a great skill to learn.

On Wednesday I spent the morning planting papaya seeds and righting all of the plants that had been knocked over from the wind. Afterward I worked on the tools for the rest of the day, finished grinding and cutting the remaining four tools I had left and then worked on preparing the inside of the poles. Some of the tool heads were hollow so the poles could fit inside of them, but others were filled with gunk or screws or were solid so I found poles that were wide and thick enough for the tool heads to fit inside of them (ideally with a taper towards the other end so you could still hold and use them comfortably). For those, I used a drill bit to roughen up the inside so the apoxy resin will adhere there as well. The next step will be preparing the tool heads themselves by scoring the metal with a grinder. Then we will be glueing the pieces together with the apoxy resin, then sanding that down, sanding the whole handle down, and finally applying clear resin to finish. It’s an involved process, but absolutely worth it to be able to make your own tools out of material you grew yourself.

Thursday I harvested and processed turmeric all day. There was an order for forty pounds and then another for ten, but we ended up harvesting seventy pounds in total. To process the turmeric you soak it in water, wash it, cut all the roots off and break it into fingers (this turmeric is going to bemade into juice, so it doesn’t matter if it’s not whole, and it’s easier to wash without having to go in between all of the crevices). By the end it is very waterlogged, so you cannot get an accurate reading on weight until after it’s processed and dried.

I worked two extra days this week, Friday and Saturday, up at Ryan’s garden. I weeded and mulched a grove of papaya trees, edged, weeded, and mulched several smaller banana, avocado, and guava trees, edged and weeded the garden’s border, planted comfrey, and cut the grass back from the pumpkins and vetiver.

Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative – Week 6

A front is blowing in to Maui and it’s been pouring rain the last few days. February’s a month of storms. After the program ended, I had a paid gig in Haiku for a couple of days helping to establish a food forest (already that Permaculture Design Certification is paying off). I repotted noni trees and planted ground peanut, a nitrogen fixer and erosion control plant. Then I successfully hitchhiked the road to Hana and made it out to Kipahulu, where I’ll be for the next five weeks. It’s the most remote part of the island, an untamed jungle.

On Tuesday we cleaned out the quonset in preparation for the bamboo bike building workshop next week. The quonset is a barn structure that houses most of the bamboo and the bamboo treating machinery. There was a thick layer of dust and rust over everything, but with six of us working hard sweeping, scrubbing, and organizing, we managed to get it done before lunch. I spent the afternoon propagating macame, a tree whose leaves sell for a high price. Somebody ordered five hundred of them and there were none potted up, so we very gently separated the seedlings into four inch pots.

On Wednesday I finished potting the macames, as there were still about two hundred more to go. Then Maria and I went up the hill to harvest pigeon pea seeds. We planted about four hundred of those into yellow seedling tubes before lunch. In the afternoon we went to the upper nursery to tend the bamboo plants. We weeded, fertilized, and mulched them, in addition to weeding the weed cloth around them.

On Thursday I harvested thirty eight pounds of turmeric and three pounds of ginger. We dug, cleaned and processed them and laid them out to dry in the greenhouse. Afterwards, we planted about four hundred more pigeon peas. I spent the afternoon weeding the lower nursery, a seemingly unending project but very meditative.

It has been such an incredible learning experience to be a part of a successful, mature farm even in this first week. This community is paying its bills by growing food and lumber. The work is unceasing, but leaves you feeling a strong kind of tired. It has been great to put what I learned in the design course to use in the real world: I propagated vetiver and lemon grass at Ahimsa Sanctuary Farm, I propagated macame and pigeon pea here; I harvested turmeric at HAPI, I harvested much more turmeric here. Looking forward to what the next four weeks will bring.

Mahalo!

Week 5 – Last Week of Our PDC

The past five weeks have flown by faster than I can believe. This last week in particular has been nonstop and disappeared right from out underneath my feet. We were at Hale Akua Garden Farm and Permaculture Center where we had inside beds and access to a hot tub that overlooked the ocean. Finally our nomadic clan of farmers has dispersed like a puff of dandelion seeds, but happily most of us are staying on the island for a while longer, so I’ll be able to see them around.

Most of this week was dedicated to working on our final projects (there were other activities planned for the afternoons, but thanks to pouring rain and thunderstorms, that time was available for our design teams – I would have loved to spent time working in the gardens at Hale Akua, but I’m very grateful we had the extra time – I pulled several late nights as it was). My group designed the Kuleana Cooperative, a worker owned cooperative with a permanent farmer’s market, a food hub with aggregation and distribution zones, an education center with legal and financial offices for farmers, and incubator farms. Our group spent a long time debating the flow and layout of our design, both overall and specific attributes. We talked with Jenny how Americans in general are bad at working in groups; we have not yet mastered collaboration over competition. It was definitely a process, but I’m grateful for it. I believe our project was better for the multitude of perspectives and passion. My individual element was the permanent farmer’s market, which Jenny (our client) wanted as an Ibuku structure. Ibuku is a premier bamboo design and construction company. My biggest challenge was how to balance aesthetics with functionality. Eventually I came up with a design that fit 60 10 by 10 ft vendor booths, a kava bar, an area for food trucks, a loading and unloading zone, a kombucha cafe (on the second floor), and a meditation space with a view out to the ocean (on the third floor). The outside featured a jasmine trellis, canoe crops, and flow forms. Forrest designed the plants for the entire property. Melo designed the energy systems, which included solar panels in the parking lot, several rainwater catchments, and a permeable parking lot. Foot designed the human interactions, a very important part of our project because we want this to be an example for other food hubs and for the community. We want people to see our herb garden or composting system and think, “Wow, I could do this.” We got great feedback on our presentation, Evan said he was ready to donate $1 million and was impressed at the cohesiveness of our team. Jenny said it was incredible and is taking our posters to her board. Nothing beautiful in life comes without a struggle. I’m incredibly proud of my team and our final design.

That evening we had our talent show, which Jenny said we were required to participate in to receive our Permaculture Design Certification. I played a very poor rendition of Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind on harmonica. Some highlights were Melo’s rap about the program and Mahalellujah, Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah rewritten with a Hawaiian vibe, performed by Jenny, Bloom, and Anahata, and Taryn’s chocolate cake.

The next morning we had our graduation ceremony. One by one we got up and shared our emotions and experience with the group, and then everyone called out compliments of the person standing, and then we received our certificates. There were more than a few tears.

I’m blown away with gratitude and love for this program and the friends I’ve made in the last month. Such a surreal and epic experience. Now I’m transitioning to Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative in Kipahulu, where I’ll be doing an internship for the next five weeks.

Mahalellujah

Permaculture Design & Theory – Week 4

This last week we went around the east side of Maui to Kipahulu, the land of love-snatching winds, to work and learn at Whispering Winds Bamboo Cooperative. Most of our time was spent doing hands on activities and working with our teams on our design projects.

We had another lecture on water by Evan Ryan. When designing for water on land it is important to remember permaculture principle 11: Use edges and value the marginal. We talked about how ponds can be used as a pollinator attractant, a home for fish and frogs, and a mulch and nutrient source. The deeper ponds are dug, the less evaporation will happen. Ponds can be lined with geotech-style fabric, used carpeting, or high density polyethylene. During one of our hands-on afternoons this week, we mucked out the pond by bucketful. I hauled the buckets from the pond up the liner and into the tractor.

We also had a lecture on natural building from Evan. Green building includes an energy efficient design, recycled building materials, sustainable choices, less toxicity, and standard building practices. Natural building includes an ecological design, regenerative materials, earth-based local materials, and appropriate technologies. Examples of natural building include cob, straw bale, urbanite, earth bags, earthen plaster, adobe, hemprete, rammed earth, stone, green roofs, earth ships, cordwood, wattle, ferro cement, bamboo, and timber.

My design group is working on the Kuleana Cooperative, a Food Hub in Haiku that will feature a permanent farmers market, an aggregation and distribution zone, an education center, fiscal and legal resources for local farmers, incubator farms, and more. I am focusing on the permanent farmer’s market, which will be an Ibuku bamboo structure with booths, food trucks, and a courtyard on the ground floor and a kombucha cafe and kava bar on the second floor.

Permaculture Theory – Week 3

This week we have been at Ahimsa Sanctuary Farm on the north shore of Maui, 14.5 miles down the road to Hana. We mostly dived into design methodology and approaches in preparation for our final permaculture design project.

When working on permaculture designs, the first step is to draw a base map. This is not to add anything new but to show all the existing elements and sectors on the land. “Design by elimination,” Jenny calls it. Examples of what can be included on this are: buildings, trees, topography, hydrology, boundaries, roads/access, utilities, ponds, archaeology, waste, wildlife corridors, easements, wells, fences, neighbors’ locations, wetlands, parking, geological features, and sacred sites. Base maps must include a compass rose, scale, legend, name/address/designer’s name, coordinates, sector analysis, and the date.

The next step is where the design work comes in: adding in elements. These typically fall into five categories: food, water, waste, energy, and natural building, but can include anything you can dream up. Examples we came up with in class are: a greenhouse, community space, windmill, orchard, compost, nursery, hearth, solar panels, composting toilet, outdoor shower, biodigester, swales, pond, farmstand, meditation space, worm bins, hot tub, art studio, kombucha/fermenting station, woodshop, forge, yoga space, sauna, office/library, chickens/goats/alpacas, bees, flow forms, dog house, recycling, shed, barn, and a makery/workshop. The possibilities are really endless.

It is important to consider how we can design the land to make money and support itself. The best (most cost-efficient) ways to do this are through design and consulting work and agrotourism. Other ways we discussed are value-added products, teaching, row crops, lotions and body care products, specialty crops, wellness programs (like raw food, yoga, and specialty education, u-pick, ferments, woody crops, hosting events and weddings, summer camps, recovery programs, natural building workshops, and mycology. Follow your passions and get creative! What unique service can you bring to the table?

From there we moved into design methodology and approach which has five main steps.
0. Have a contract signed, sealed, and delivered before you do any work.
1. Community Engagement: Learn the history, current story, and future outlook of the people. Source this information from the people in order to ensure you are in harmony with your surroundings.
2. Data Gathering: This includes ecological, social, cultural, material, and economic resource assessment, client interview, aerial photo, topography map, soil sampling and tests, geology, land capability, land use history, and local knowledge and context. The most important aspect of this step is the client interview, in which you should meet with all the stakeholders and board members, land owners, and community to gather information on the history of the project and people related to the land, the skill sets available, and the timeline and budget for the project.
3. Observations of the land.
4. Analysis of elements, zones, and sectors.
5. Feedback loop: in which you engage with the client to hone in the design.

This week we were assigned to our design teams and chose our final design project. My group consists of myself, Forrest, Foot, and Melo. We have chosen to design one of Jenny Pell’s projects that has been put on hold: a Food Hub for Maui farmers. This will include aggregation and distribution zones, a community space, incubator plots, a permanent farmer’s market, worker co-op, two commercial kitchens, poi-pounding factory, and more. By next week we are going to establish a team name, goals, a mission statement, branding, and a base map with sector analysis.

A less obvious part of permaculture is invisible structures, also known as social permaculture. This can be broken down into financial, legal, governance, social, land access, and community systems.
Financial: Examples include credit unions, conscious banking, green investing, tithes, higher minimum wage, alternative currencies, cryptocurrency, bartering, universal basic income, universal health care, and free university.
Legal: Examples are free legal services, mediation services, recoding groups, and co-ops.
Governance: There’s a wide range of governmental systems. Examples that include both poor and benevolent systems are: liquid democracies, authoritarian, dysfunctional democracy, corporatocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, intuitive wisdom, grassroots, consensus, sociacracy, wholacracy, dynasty, council, anarchy, theocracy, capitalism, marxism, nepotism, democratic socialism, and dynamic governance.
Community: Includes co-ops for housing and food, intentional communities, shared housing, spiritual, cohousing, community land trust, condo associations, eco villages, agrihoods, permaculture developments.
We did not talk about social and land access invisible structures yet. Land access relates to who can access the land and how, and would include national parks and forests. Social permaculture relates to the principle of integration over segregation, building resilience by building community.

Maui is absolutely glorious. It was rainy the last couple days but now it’s cleared up, and we’re hosting a Maori water ceremony and gathering tonight at Ahimsa. Last night I went to my first ecstatic dance church and tomorrow we’re going whale watching!

Mahalo!

Permaculture in Theory: Week 2

This week we were at Evan Ryan’s farm, Pono Grown Farm Center, just upland from Haiku Aina Permaculture Initiative. We delved deeper into the factors we need to consider when designing.

The first idea we discussed was Yeoman’s Scale of Permanence, asking ourselves what the most important things to work with are. These are broken down into climate, geography, water, access, forestry, buildings, fencing, soils, economy, and energy. If we begin by observing and understanding these components, we will establish a solid foundation for further developing the land.

Next we talked about zones and sectors, which are a crucial part of permaculture design and also help us become ecologically connected to our sense of place. Zones are the areas around our living space, and they are relative to each person. They depend on the distance from the center, frequency of use, access needs, and daily schedule.

Zone 00: Your body and own physical space, self care. This includes sleeping, eating, and drinking.

Zone 0: Your home and living space. Includes kitchen, water, bathroom, temperature control, hearth, studio, pets and family.

Zone 1: Places you are visiting multiple times a day. Can include an herb garden, composting toilet, pathways, communal gathering spaces, outdoor shower, fire pit, tool shed. There are also seasonal zone 1s, such as when a certain fruit tree is in season and you are harvesting from it multiple times a day.

Zone 2: Typically areas 25-75 ft from your house (although that can fluctuate). These are areas you are visiting less often, normally once a day. Can include chickens, orchards, food forests, compost, nursery, greenhouse, or in an urban environment cafes, library, school, or temple.

Zone 3: Often areas 75-100 ft from your house. Includes grazing animals, wind break, erosion control, beehives.

Zone 4: Can include food forest, orchard, perennials, gray water or water purification systems, ponds, firewood, agroforestry, hiking trails, meditation yurt.

Zone 5: Wild and undeveloped land.

Sectors are the outside influences on the land. When designing land, we can decide if we want to repel or attract them. They include sun, wind, water, frost, people, noise, smells, fire, energy, microclimates, urban, disaster, view, plants, and wildlife.

Water is one of the most important sectors in permaculture and life. Our bodies are composed of 73.7% of water; without it, we would not survive. Of all the water on the planet, only three percent is freshwater, and only a quarter of this is usable (that is, not locked up in the glaciers). We are depleting our aquifers and lowering our water availability at an alarming rate. We are polluting our rivers and watersheds and chopping down our forests, so our freshwater is getting poisoned and less water is getting transpired into the atmosphere and recycled. Meanwhile the freshwater in the glaciers is melting into the ocean. It becomes essential in permaculture design to maximize the use of water in the landscape. Our motto for water this last week has been “slow it, spread it, sink it,” so water is returned to the aquifers and the soil instead of running off the surface. Ways to store water that we have discussed are: dams and reservoirs, Swales, chinampas, rain catchment, water harvesting off roadways, plants and trees, soil, mulching, sediment traps, water generators, cloud harvesting, aquifers, terracing, and aquaponics. It is key to find the simplest solutions and to have back-ups in order to be resilient.

Evan defined soil as minerals in active biological processes in process. There is an infinite number of best practices to alchemize soil to our needs, but ultimately it comes down to how we can capture free carbon energy to build our soil. Soil can be broken down into nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and trace minerals. Nitrogen supports leaf growth, and can be increased by nitrogen fixing plants, animals, and blood meal. Phosphorous supports flowering and can be built up by animals, bones, and fish bonemeal. Potassium supports vigor and vitality and can be increased by wood ash and green sand. Calcium helps the shell or skin of the plant and can be increased by eggshells, sand, lime, and oyster shells. Trace minerals support the overall health of plants and can be added with seaweed, saltwater, cinders, kelp meal, and rock dust. It is important to keep a balance of all these components, although you can increase specific minerals based on the plants’ needs.

The key to creating good heathy compost is to have the right ratio of carbon to nitrogen, or brown/dry matter to green/wet matter. A good ratio to aim for is about 15-20:1 carbon:nitrogen. It is important to keep the compost aerobic instead of anaerobic so there is enough oxygen to break down the matter and prevent it from smelling too bad. On the other hand, having too much carbon makes the breakdown very slow. The goal is to reach a temperature of 135-140 degrees in order to burn out dangerous bacteria and promote decomposition. The most successful compost piles are a minimum of three feet by three feet by three feet.

The mismanagement of animals is inhumane and leads to factory farming, water pollution, overconsumption, deforestation, and abuse of workers. In permaculture, we can strive to be a part of a cycle that creates a harmonious impact. The benefits of having and caring for animals are: manure, fertility, companionship, food, fiber, fuel, warmth, soil building, pest management, protection, therapy, education, habitat, contributions to the ecosystem, pollination, reclaiming marginal lands, and indicators of change. Caring for animals is about building a relationship in exchange for mutual benefits.