Aquaponics lab

The Aquaponics Lab @ RDI

This is Orin, and his final design project which was to install the next phase of the green house design- a fish farm lab that is a closed system filtered by plant beds. the water is sent to hydroponics set ups (three examples that are designed into it) that feeds the plants and sends the clean water back to the fish tank. 

all this is accomplished via Nitrite build up by fish waste- this is sent through the different runs of hydroponics and beneficial bacteria break it down into Nitrates; which are then used to feed the plants. add a little sun and you have a fully supported hyrodponic and fish aquaculture system! or: Aquaponics!

we will be raising fish and crustaceans in the tank that can be harvested for food and used entirely to their fullest on site. 

this is the finished product to the right! don't you love what i call the cooling tower? that is filled with hydroponic medium, a puffed clay pellet. the water is pumped through that tower, and plants grown vertical! the water returns to the tank via gravity and clean. 

The Solar Showers

 In these photos there is the ultimate enclave for the bathing experience:
the Regenerative Design Institute solar showers.

Since moving in to RDI, i have only been taking solar showers in the late afternoon in the shadow of the west ridge. luckily the past few weeks since iv been here have been beautiful, and the water is HOT. surrounding the showers are wild climbing cucumbers, and the soft gurgling and echo of the water pipe for the spring overflow rain garden, and robins in song with the jays and house finch.

 These showers use copper tubing that run through a black painted box with a glass top. the water is heated and stored in a run of the mill house hold water heater. the thermal flow of cold and hot water- cold sinks and heat rises up through the pipes as the cold water finds lower ground through the copper piping to reheat. simple, yet really wonderfully crafted.
even a partially sunny day will give you some warm water.

looking out through the reed screens you can see south down the property and a little of the coast and ocean on a real fog-less day. Bolinas and this sea shore is truly beautiful along with this sacred land that has been created here at RDI. nothing better then the water from the land that you live heated by the sun, and poured over flesh to be clean. wonderful.

drakes bay esturary

drakes bay esturary, a photo by jgreenphotos on Flickr.

just north of where i moved to! I now reside at the Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas. Love this sea shore.

skylined_2

skylined_2, a photo by jgreenphotos on Flickr.

a piece from a set of 3 abstracts iv been working on. these would be printed out very large.

"1995-2012" (for trayvon martin)

"1995-2012" (for trayvon martin), a photo by liberationplease on Flickr.

My good Friend Miles Partington made this piece. very talented artist, and lately been expanding into some extensive wood carvings. simple and so well done.

 throw back to the past 20th century-

  Buckeye also contained an interesting masculinity as well as equal femininity. But the more interesting being the masculine. There seemed to be this niche filled by actual (or mostly actual, maybe more modern version) of the mountain man, frontiers fur trader, trappers, and even stone aged living. 

  I remember those 1940's and 1950's nature and national parks documentaries that Disney used to re-run all the time when i was a kid. I used to think how cool that might have been to live like that. One of those childhood fantasies. Even Tom Brown Jr. the Tracker sat on my mothers book shelf, and i used to read her outdoor survival skills books she used to have as well. But where now does that man stand in this global modern world? what does James "Grizzly" Adams possibly do in 2012? What about the famed John Colter who was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and thought to be the very first of European descent to make it into whats now Yellow Stone national park and see the Tetons? Where do they all fit into this culture that has sprung into these modern gatherings?

The 3,000+ men that used to run the Rockies, cascades, and wind river ranges, and the south west have long been dead and their profession killed by over trapping, cheaper Canadian furs, fashion trends gone south, and the quick expansion west. Many where forced south or north, and for the most part the profession and land which kept those wild men and woman dissipated into development. Nature was claimed by civilization. 

but...

who is the modern every man?

There was the Mountain Man at Buckeye. but what about the character? what about this ultimate frontiers persona that is creating a great modern puzzle? 

What if we could reclaim and protect and tend the wild to bring back a wilderness living and adventurer? 

It is possible.

Time and history don't have to exactly be linear.  It very well may be that the best relationship man had with him self and the earth might have already been in our past. 

 That man had understood his ways and means, and knew that greater respect and prayer for mother earth and her kin. 

The very philosophy that went with it has appeared now to me in the very place we once figured it was just long ago adventure stories in the wild frontiers of the west.

 What about the modern Masculinity/Femininity?

Does being empowered by your masculine or Feminine mean understanding why those men and woman adventured and longed for the wilderness? That they understood nature on the most full level,  respected and adored it.

My whole point here is the very fact that i suddenly appreciated the old ways and the skills, talents and artisans that lived this life and where we ultimately came from long long long ago. 

That even today seeing people live like this, and master these skills is a Honor. 

It showed how much 

 knowledge and harmony we once lived in thousands of years ago.

That humans once had everything they needed.

They understood their rolls in every fashion.

And lived naturally by every means necessary in a partnership. 

for some great reading-

 Tend The Wild

the bay area forager  

Well RDNA (thats the 9 month Regenerative Design and Nature Awareness program i'm taking) just retreated from buckeye primitive skills gathering, in Forestville Ca. due to some sickness. but while partaking in 3 out of 5 days of reskilling in primitive skills such as fire making, archery, bow making, animal skin tanning, making things with those skins, and various other symposiums, talks, and classes, something occurred to me- the current model of economics- that is the industrial blitzkrieg  infinite growth model of the 19th and 20th centuries is coming to a close. this festival promoted both cash transactions, trade and barter, and almost everything in terms of materials (not including the huge carbon foot print of all the people getting there) was wild crafted, harvested, hunted, or gathered.

The Era of Growth is over. The non-nature conscience un-natural expansion of the industrial revolution which collided in a break neck pace with the modern and post modern Eras, has now reached the global Era. meaning that- the desires, dreams, and wants of the the select few that have in the western world due to the exploitation of the rest of the world (cheap labor, cheap oil, cheap resources, etc.) will not become true for the "have-nots." (ultimately these eathlings who have been allowing these cheaper resources to be, will want them all the same eventually- this is the rising global middle class such as China and some of the middle east- where people who were the cheap labor and cheap resource givers/workers now desire those very things they were being exploited for)

The Arab Spring was a perfect example of people rising up asking for better lives, jobs, resources, and luxuries, which was sold to them by the west. Powered by mobile phones, internet, and all around western technology (and democracy so to speak) it was a bitter sweet irony that 21st century technology and want for its better living aided and caused such revolution. After all, the great enlightenment not nearly 300 years ago was exactly that- freedom of man for freedom of life.

Well the truth is that the whole world cannot have what its unfortunately  has been sold. Consumer based anything cannot be sustainable unless it is regenerative. one example of this is the production of organically produced food, or sustainable agro-forestry for the continued harvest of food and fuels. The high concentrate carbon fuel century is nearly over, and will be the better parts of history that only post-industrial science fiction writers have been geekily writing about for almost the same amount of time.

side note and tidbit fact-
The combustion engine has stayed unchanged for nearly 100 years-except for a few more modern electronic add-ons that have brought some efficiency but not much- it is still a soon to be dead technology if we dont figure something else out. At least not for the whole global human population.  thermodynamically speaking, the combustion engine is only usually at its golden and ideal state 37% efficient- and on average with all the day to day variables and constant maintenance that would be needed for that 37%, the steel built engine is only around 18-20% efficient.
good thing we have cheap and easily procured fuel for it!!!!


in short the question(s) of the day is:

How long do we have before the line in the sand between the post-modern-industrial era technology and its finite resources come to a tipping point?

What does a globally conscience earthen population do on a whole, when their model of trade and society based on infinite growth suddenly is not so infinite?

Finally, Where do you see your self in this picture? what are your basic needs? how will you meet them? and what skills will you want to have inevitably to deal with this future?

mind you-

this future i am certain will take place in my life time albeit maybe later in my life time....

the picture above is my garden 3 years young. in a 35ft x 68ft plot (it now is fenced in equal to a 5th of an acre, but not fully cultivated. fruit and nut trees, as well as berries, have been added to this new expansion) we grew enough fresh food through the late spring and through to the early fall, to feed around 6 people. granted the work 3 of us put in was maybe 15 or less hours per week. if it were a full time job, we could process, grow and even sell enough food to possibly last us through the winter or even subsidize our bills substantially....

 yes people, it is possible to start and maintain a profitable, locally based, and regenerative designed cottage industry here in America.... go forth and grow!