This workshop covered three days. The intent was to build, at the very least, one pond, one hugelkultur bed and one swale. We accomplished that plus several other things. And a lot of emphasis should be placed that we want to build a pond WITHOUT a liner!

everybody got a chance to drive the excavator

After looking over all the footage, the plan is to squeeze three days of workshop into three information packed DVDs of workshop concentrate (just add water). The whole thing will be in chronological order, so we can convey the actual workshop experience as closely as possible.

DVD 1: Sealing a Pond Without a Liner

At the high point of the property, water is rushing in whenever it rains. This water is cutting a deep channel through the property. The idea is that we would like to capture this water and use it to create an oasis! Of course, water coming off of a road will probably contain some heavy metals and petroleum residue. So we need to clean the water first. A pond is dug so that the heavy metals will sink to the bottom of the pond, and gross stuff that floats (like oil) will be caught by the vegetation. We then do some minor re-shaping to the road so the water will enter the pond.

some of the stuff to plant around the pond

DVD 2: Ditches and Swales

Several ideas are mapped out about where to put in some swales. The land owner would eventually like a natural swimming pool, so we decide to put a finger on the pond to route the water to the natural swimming pool. And just in case we get an exceptionally heavy rain event, we extend the finger to a swale. The swale is designed to soak the excess water into the land. We demonstrate the use of laser levels to make sure our finger runs downhill and the swale is level.

DVD 3: Hugelkultur and Terracing

Now we talk about food production. This location gets frost in the winter and can be really hot in the summer. A lot of the surrounding area looks very desert like. We decide to make a hugelkultur bed shaped into a sun scoop. And the angle of the slope is optimized to the level of the sun in winter. We also talk about how swales are excellent at creating frost pockets which works to your advantage in the summer. What type of wood and different variations for hugelkultur are covered. A terrace is constructed to hold the hugelkultur bed.

some of the wood to go inside the hugelkultur bed

Just like the last kickstarter, Bart will add in lots of animations to help drive the points home. So in a lot of ways, this will be even better than the original workshop!

We're putting a lot more emphasis on the streaming this time. Last time, streaming was added in about halfway through the kickstarter and we didn't encourage it. This time, we think streaming gets you higher quality; product delivery several weeks earlier; no plastics involved; no packaging to fill dumps; no petroleum burned in delivery.

Micro Documentary on Hugelkultur for Gardeners for $1 and up

Bart and I are going to create a micro documentary for all of the supporters. It is being created now. It will be animation rich and a very polished, professional creation. Topics covered will include: How to shape your landscape to be warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer; encouraging diversity inside the hugelkultur as well as outside; organic vs. permaculture.

While the full 3-DVD set is for urban gardeners as well as people with acreage, and the full 3-DVD set will contain far more information on hugelkultur, this micro documentary will be focused on gardening and have no focus on projects with larger acreage.

As an added bonus, if the project hits 3000 or more supporters, we will put it out for free to the world!

Hot Dog! We're funded! Time for stretch goals

We'll get right to work on the editing and creating the animations. In the meantime, we've come up with some ideas for stretch goals:

if we raise $30,000 - WE DID!

We will return to the site to take more video and interview the land owner, Alden, to see what he thinks of the work we have done.

if we raise $40,000 - WE DID!

Bart has some ideas for extra super fancy animations to add. You can see me point at some soil and TREES LEAP OUT OF THE GROUND! Zowie! So this will be BETTER than the actual workshop!

if we raise $50,000

We will repeat the whole workshop using my excavator (which is MUCH larger than the one in the video) plus we will rent a super, freaky big jumbo excavator. And people can come and participate and even drive the excavators. This way we will have lots more footage to choose from to make a more thorough video experience.

if we raise $60,000

We will create a 15 foot tall berm to reduce the wind, complete with trails so we can harvest from it. Plus we will create the foundation for growing a lemon tree outside in Montana. And the footage from both of these will be in the video.

World Domination

Bart has completed the first draft of the world domination animation. First, here is the world domination animation from the rocket mass heater 4-DVD set:

pyronauts keen on world domination

And here is the current status of the new one!

charmers of nature keen on world domination

Thanks!

I want to say thanks to Jack Spirko of TheSurvivalPodcast and BrinkOfFreedom for supporting this kickstarter. His generous push has brought a lot of funding here! Thanks Jack!

Heaps of thanks goes to Diego Footer of the Permaculture Voices conference for arranging the workshop and the raw video footage! Plus to Alden Hough for giving us a place to play.

This workshop and this video are born from the community interactions at permies.com.

The amazing kickstarter video and all the real work for this project is done by Barthélémy Glumineau of greenhouseprod.com.