Exactly how this gets done is a little beyond me. I’m just a farmer after all. But for those interested in reading more about this amazing discovery you should check out this article from MIT’s website.

Unfortunately, this technology is still a few years away from actually getting implemented, which, I guess, explains why it’s not on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Meanwhile, the demand to open up our country’s coasts to offshore drilling continues by those too short-sighted to realize the folly of such a plan, further proof that we are the dumbest animal on the planet. The answer to the world’s energy problem was right there in the sky this whole time, but none of us had the brains or vision to simply look up.

“I, as one of millions, will cherish and spread his memory as far and wide and well as I can for as long as I can,” Dick Pierce wrote in a recent email. “I know that people we teach will teach others, and others… so that the flame will grow, not wither. Truth is eternal. He humbly spoke the truth to all that would listen. In his passing, let us pray and work toward the day when all will listen.”

I take solace in these words because I know that, despite the fact that I will never learn directly from the man, I still have a chance to learn from those who learned from him. Fukuoka only entered my consciousness for the first time a month or two ago, but I now have a feeling that he’ll ever leave it.

While I have been working in relative isolation, there is a vibrant community of permaculture enthusiasts in Central Texas, and they are more than happy to share all the knowledge they’ve collected over the years. I can’t tell you how enjoyable it was to sit in a room full of people who shared the same enthusiasm about creating a sustainable society from the ground up. In fact, the discussion was so inspiring I am planning on attending the Guild’s 10-day permaculture design course that starts in late September.

If I am unable to attend the workshop at Esalen, any money that gets donated to this project (and I’ve already received a donation; muchas gracias!) will go towards paying my entry fee into this design course. If I only attend this course and not the one at Esalen, I will hardly be upset. In fact, it makes sense that I learn how to farm my urban plot from people who live right here in Austin, people who understand the seasons and the soil.

This is the great conundrum of the Inner City Farm. In my effort to extricate myself from the clutches of the greater market economy, I often become completely dependent on that economy. For example, photovoltaics. I would like nothing more than to slap some solar panels on the roof of my house so that I could generate my own energy and not have to rely on Austin Energy, but solar panels are freakin’ expensive!

Here’s another example. I would love to attend the workshop on urban permaculture being held at the renowned Esalen Institute in three weeks (and featured in the flyer above). It’s right up my alley. I’m sure I would learn a ton about urban sustainability and could share that information with those who follow this blog, but like solar panels the workshop requires a hefty investment. Esalen ain’t cheap.

To keep the dream alive, I added a DONATE button to this site today. It’s over there by the cheesy ads (which, if you click on them a hundred times a day, would help me keep my chickens in feed). I figure if everyone who reads this blog donated between $10 and $20 I could attend the workshop. The fee for the workshop ranges between $535 and $1,120, depending upon your accommodations. I would be happy to sleep on the floor just like the hippies who made the place famous in the ‘60s did. If I’m able to raise the money in the next ten days or so, I promise to write about the workshop every day I’m there. If not, no biggie. There will be other conferences (In fact there’s one in Austin this fall).

The good news, I guess, is that the average in this country is 246.41 acres so I am doing much better than most, but, still, 121.91 acres! You have got to be kidding me! How can this be? As you might imagine I have an incredibly small housing footprint but my carbon footprint is through the roof. Why? Mostly because of air travel. If you take even a couple flights each year, you’re basically offsetting all the good you might be doing by biking to work and eating from your garden. Air travel as we know it is unsustainable, and I foresee it becoming a luxury in the very near future in the same way taking a cruise across the Atlantic was at the turn of the last century.

Despite my horrific score, I’m glad I took the quiz because now I know exactly what I should be working on around here. I challenge you to do the same. It takes less than five minutes and only stings a little bit.

I had envisioned using cob to make my interior walls, but was set straight during a conversation with Tony Beurskens, an itinerant cobbing guru and natural building artist I met at the Natural Building Colloquium. He suggested I attach lathe to the exposed studs and use cellulose or denim as insulation behind it. On top of the lathe I could smear an earthen plaster just like stucco. This immediately made so much sense to me. It will provide the same look and feel as cob with less work and waste of interior space. I can still build in niches and it will be healthy and affordable.

Meanwhile I dream of building soil and planting shrubs and trees. As much as I want vegetation that I can eat, I also wish to be surrounded by plants that lift my spirit. I am particularly looking for bushes that flower during this time of year when the oppressive heat is trying to drain your will to live. Texas Sage is a native shrub that really comes to life during the summer. This one, at the intersection of Nelray and Chesterfield, is going off right now. It makes me want to plant a row of them on my front lawn….

The most effective remedy I’ve come up with is the brother-sister cat combo I adopted two years ago. Thanks to Zephyr’s incredibly logical system of naming things, they are named Brother and Sister. Compared to his skittish sister, Brother is quite a showman. Here you can see him proudly showing off the rat he has just eaten three-quarters of.

Like most female cats, Sister is actually the better mouser. They become particularly efficient, I have found, the less I feed them. Unfortunately, their utilitarian value dips every time I discover that mice and rats aren’t their only prey. I used to have far more birds and lizards visit my backyard before I decided to adopt two kitties. Oh well. Everything in life is a trade-off, isn’t it?

As much as I can, I try to use building materials that are locally sourced, which here in Texas means using mainly oak, cedar, and mesquite. Ideally, I would be felling and milling the trees myself. Cutting out the middlemen, in this case the lumberyards, would cut down on the total amount of embodied energy expended in the process as well as the monetary costs, which is how Matt was able to trim his entire house several years ago. His uncle harvested thousands of square feet of wood from his property in Ohio and gave enough to Matt to allow him to redo the trim on all 44 windows inside his house. Oh, what I would give to have such an uncle right about now.

On the Austin Permaculture listserv I did hear of a woman in East Texas who was offering to let anyone come to her property and harvest trees that had been downed by Hurricane Katrina. Unfortunately, hauling that much wood to Austin would require the use of an ungodly amount of gas. Would the procurement of that much sustainably harvested wood offset the amount of energy I would spend hauling it all the way to Austin? I don’t know. When it comes to building materials, there are no easy answers.