Community Sustainability Immersion Program: July 31 - Aug. 20

Another world is possible!  How do we create it, grow it, preserve it, share it?  How do we come into relation with ourselves and the land, nourishing our bodies, minds and spirits with the food and wisdom we create together?

These are the questions (and answers!) explored by TLC Farm's Community Sustainability Immersion Program - a dynamic experience of community learning and sharing.

Located at TLC Farm's unique seven-acre community farm in Portland, Oregon,  this program immerses participants in a wholistic approach to  sustainability and permaculture systems.  The program combines theory, practice, innovation and adventure to introduce participants to the principles of permaculture, natural building, community process and organic gardening, with a focus on local food and plant medicine. 

TLC Farm's immersion program consists of a three-week summer session, from July 31 to August 1, which will immerse ten participants, 18 and older, in a hands-on, holistic approach to sustainable living and community.  Read about last year's program in their awesome blog: www.tryoninternship09.blogspot.com 

Interns will tend, harvest and preserve food from the animals and garden, learn to make medicine from wild and cultivated plants, visit urban & rural sustainable farms, and much more! Tuition, room & board: $1,600. ($1,500 if signed up by June 15). Courses will be taught by TLC Farm teachers and local experts.

Each program participant will come away from this program with a set of skills which will be increasingly useful in our changing climate and economy and will a personalized action plan, supported by community mentors. A limited number of work-trade scholarships are available. Please contact intern@tryonfarm.org or call 503-245-3847 for more information about the program and registration. Application instructions are available at http://tryonfarm.org/share/node/687.

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More Details about TLC Farm's Sustainable Community Immersion Program

1. Community living: Program participants will experience communal life on two levels. You will create a community and be responsible for collective decision-making, meal preparation, conflict resolution, etc. In addition, the community of interns will interact with, and be supported by, Cedar Moon, the intentional community at TLC Farm.

2. Outdoor living: The program is an immersive, outdoor experience. You will live in tents, wash in outdoor showers, cook in a outdoor kitchen, and have most classes and work experience outdoors. There will be an indoor space for reading, research and chill time with computers and a library. While Portland has a well deserved reputation for rain, summers are often quite dry especially from July through September.

3. Hands-on work and Theory:  The program includes a balance of lectures & discussions with hands-on experiential learning and field trips. Over time, the hands-on work will become increasingly self-directed.

4. Food preparation and sharing:  You will be provided with ingredients and suggestions as needed, and will collaboratively create and implement a cooking and cleaning schedule. TLC Farm is primarily a vegetarian community: we have chickens and dairy goats for eggs and milk and grow much of our own food.

5. TLC Farm location & history : A unique seven-acre farm surrounded by a 700-acre state park in Portland, Oregon, TLC Farm demonstrates how sustainable living techniques can further goals often perceived as contradictory: urban density of human habitat inside the growth boundary, combined with not only conservation of natural resources and public greenspace, but actual enhancement of native ecosystems. TLC Farm was born out of a community effort to save the land from development and turn it into a community space for sustainability education. This land now functions as a gathering place, sustainability education facility, community center and retreat – all within a bike ride from downtown Portland.

6. Work Study positions:  There are four work-study positions provided for the program. Food coordinators will help the  create menus for each week based on food available at the farm, coordinate cooking and cleaning schedules, and manage the community kitchen. Scribes will take notes and photographs of all aspects of the program and use these to create a blog during the program. Work trade positions will require approximately 10 hours of work per week.

Keywords: permaculture, sustainability, sustainable, garden, food, plant spirit medicine, summer internship, summer internship, camping, Oregon, PNW, NW, Portland, farm, forest.

Mother Earth Summer Camps

Mother Earth School Summer Camps for children ages 3-6 and 7-9
Camps run from the week of July 6 to the week of August 24
Each camp is Tuesday- Friday, 9am-2pm

This camp is taught by Waldorf and Waldorf-inspired teachers on the land at TLC Farm and in the surrounding forest of Tryon Creek State Park. Each week children participate in exciting nature-based crafts and empowering activities such as gardening, food harvesting & preservation, cooking, herbal medicine making, crafting, natural building, woodworking, forest exploration, etc. They spend time each day with the farm animals, in the gardens and immersed in the forest, hearing stories and singing about the native plants, animals and cultures indigenous to this landscape.

Children can sign up for one week, or multiple weeks.

Registration opens March 1st. Please visit our website at www.motherearthschool.org for registration details.

Permaculture Design Course: June 11-27

TLC Farm will be hosting a full 72-hour Permaculture Design Course this summer. This course will be a two-week intensive that will meet from June 11th to 27th. The course can be taken as residential, or not. The fee for the non-residential option is $1000 - 850 sliding scale. The fee for the residential option is $1300 -1100. Limited work trade may be available.

More about the course: A Permaculture Design Course explores sustainable human habitation. We begin with the ethics and principles of permaculture which support a philosophical reverence for life and provide a framework for making healthy choices. The objective of a Permaculture Design Course is to provide a comprehensive overview of sustainable futures, based on permaculture philosophy, techniques, and strategies that one could incorporate into their everyday life, or enhance their career. These courses provide hands-on experience. The intention is to facilitate a systems approach to thinking about different issues, encouraging care for the earth and its inhabitants as a diverse community.

Topics Include: * Permaculture Philosophy & Ethics * Permaculture Principles * Concepts and Themes in Design * Permaculture methodology * Pattern Understanding * Reading the Landscape * Climatic Factors * Edible Landscaping & Organic Gardening * Trees and their Energy Transactions, Tree Crops * Water, Water Harvesting * Soils & Composting * Earthworking and Earth Resources * Natural Building * Animal Husbandry * Urban Permaculture * Appropriate Technology * Intentional Communities * Sustainable Forestry & Agroforestry * Ethnobotany/ethnoecology * Plant Propagation * Ecosystem & Native Plant Restoration * Mycology * Permaculture Networks * Bioregionalism * Local Economics * Ecological Design * Ecovillages * And more..

For more information about this course, please email permaculture@tryonfarm.org or call Matt Bibeau at 503-245-3847.

Instructor Bios: Marisha Auerbach will be the lead instructor of the course. Marisha has been practicing, studying, and teaching permaculture in the Pacific Northwest for the past decade. She encourages sustainable futures through sharing knowledge with others on a variety of topics including: permaculture, polyculture gardening, seed saving, flower and gem essences, local economics, community building, ethnobotany, herbalism, edible landscape design, and organic gardening among others.

Matt Bibeau is an active resident at TLC Farm and received his Master's Degree in Education with a focus on Leadership in Ecology, Culture & Learning from PSU in 2008 and is also a certified Permaculture Designer and Teacher.

Leonard Barrett is a designer, contractor, and entrepreneur specializing in productive urban landscapes and regenerative human habitats. (http://barrettecological.com/)

TLC Farm PDC Application

Full and Preferred Name:
Address:
Phone:
Email:

1. What is your experience with permaculture? What do you hope to do with
this certification?

2. Do you have any dietary restrictions or allergies that we should know
about?

3. Do you have any medical conditions or physical limitations that we should know about? (TLC Farm is not currently an ADA-accessible site, so any alter-abled students should let us know about their needs and concerns).

4. Are you applying for the residential (camping) or non-residential (commuting) option?

5. How did you hear about the course?

Rite of Passage Summer Camp for youth, ages 10-13

Father Sky Boys camps July 6-10 (ages 10-11) and 20-24 (ages 12-13)

Earth Song Girls camps July 13-17 (ages 10-11) and 27-31 (ages 12-13)

As children begin to develop a stronger sense of who they are as individuals in the world, many questions naturally arise. They begin to discover the uniqueness of their personal relationship with their surroundings and can be fraught with confusion and feelings of disconnection if they aren't fully realizing their capabilities. Our rite of passage work honors pre-teenagers by challenging them with skills that are deeply satisfying and empowering. By building respect and trust for each other and our surroundings, a reserve of strength is established which can be drawn upon later in life.

Participants are grouped by gender during rites of passage since they are becoming aware of and sometimes self-conscious of their differences (and similarities!). Our goal is to create safe and sacred space for asking questions and sharing ideas and stories. Examples of activities in this age group are shelter building, animal tracking, gardening, fire by friction, rope making, drumming, silent meditation, leadership and trust-building games, cooking, sewing, etc. The children in the rite of passage programs will sleep over at the farm on Friday night and may participate in a sauna. Camp will end on Saturday morning at 10am with a farm-fresh brunch that the children prepare for their families.

Registration opens March 1, 2010.
For more information, please visit the Mother Earth School website at www.motherearthschool.