Archive for June, 2007

Summer Camp info for Art-Farmers!

June 20, 2007 at 10:53 am · Filed under Calendar, journal, program

Greetings to our Art-Farm Families!

We are so looking forward to our Summer Art-Farm Camp week with you! This is a little explanation about what to expect from your upcoming week of camp.

Your are registered for the week of: (email me at the address below for week confirmation.)

We meet each day from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, at our Art-Farm Workshop and the Community Gardens near the Barns on the Old State Hospital grounds, in the Building #50 neighborhood. We are beginning to call this area the “Central Park” of Traverse City, but it is a little further southwest than central!

Driving or biking directions: You will have to enter the Grand Traverse Commons grounds by way of 11th street which takes you past Stella Trattatoria. Keep to the left. Careful, the road is kind of rough because of all the construction work. Keep heading south on this road, past the TBAISED office and soccer field. You will eventually be on a dirt road and it take you right past the famous Champion Black Willow Trees. You will then see a Community Garden sign at a big curve, follow this up to the first drive to the left where you will enter a parking lot. Ta dah! There is our Art-Farm Workshop, our wonderful Maple Tree classroom and the Community Gardens. Welcome!

This year we are implementing a ZERO-Trash program at our Art-Farm Workshop, and each week will explore the possibilities with our campers about reducing the use of packaged lunch waste. ZERO-Trash means: we will have no trash-can available. We are excited about this “experiment”as it is part of our garden composting and Permaculture curriculum!

Please plan to arrive at our Art-Farm Workshop, with the following:

• Appropriate, mess-making, hot-weather clothing.
• Shoes or sandals that are comfortable to protect your feet in the gardens
and while we are hiking on the Munson Trails.
• A good sack lunch AND an afternoon snack. We will also eat from our
garden as we are able.
• Fill out the medical-emergency release form that is enclosed and bring it
with you on the first day.

We are still not able to offer before or after care, so please plan to drop your Art-Farm Campers off no earlier than 9:45 and pick-up promptly at 3:00. We of course are willing to work with your schedule, if you have a special need or emergency.

In the event of bad weather, we will have two make-up days scheduled at the end of the summer camp schedule that you can choose to attend. We’ll keep you posted and hope for wonderful rain showers overnight on our garden beds, rather than during the day on our camping heads!

See you soon,

Penny Krebiehl
231-510-3491

penny@littleartshram.org

Little Artshram . P.O. Box 844 . Traverse City, MI 49686 . www.littleartshram.org

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Garden Journal, Dirt up my nose

June 9, 2007 at 12:06 pm · Filed under Uncategorized

I’ve been outdoors working everyday for the past month. That’s the way I like it. Since the trees have come down in front of the big house, Mary’s perennial flower garden has expanded considerably. In addition to doing that landscaping and planting work, and their vegetable garden, I’m also deep into the coordination and planting of our Art-Farm Community Garden plots in Traverse City.

I’m becoming a garden recluse. My relationship with my vegetables is very important. Not to mention the flowers, the wild strawberries and the lovely herbs. It’s sort of crept up on me and become a priority—me and my gardening—an interaction of a different and satisfying sort. Mutual. Love. Respect. I go away and spend time at one of these places I’m tending and come back breathing better.

I take my coffee to the garden and spend my early morning intimate moments with whatever is in that space which is designated as “garden”….good dirt, birds, teeny plants just breaking above, fresh green parsley, and my daily communion of lemon sorrel and arugula.

The garden feels like my room. Like the room I belong in. No invitation or special permission needed. I just remember now, that when I was a little girl I would make myself a napping place under the rhubarb leaves in our garden. There was a whole world under there. And it was a great hiding place too. With a snack.

So at the end of a long June day, I cleaned the dirt out of my nose, had a very good supper with Sister Beth and Mother Mary, with a nice remembrance conversation about our dear old Alex, who suddenly just died today. I’m thankful to keep realizing that these special, special people, our parents and friends who pass on give us the great good gift, along with love, reflection and appreciation of suspending our daily grind, our constant do-doing action. Even during a busy, busy time in this growing season, sometimes we just gotta stop.

Now it’s time for my body to lay still and appreciate everything and everybody in these gardens of potential all around me.

Here’s a picture of our Community Garden being tilled….

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Apprentice and Teacher Training

June 7, 2007 at 2:19 pm · Filed under Calendar, journal, photos, program

We are looking very forward to a great summer of offerings to the families of the Traverse City area through our unique camps for children and teens. NOW is the time that we are inviting teens through adult-age community members to consider joining our Apprentice and Teaching staff. Help us spread the word. Share this opportunity with others in our community!

It’s not too late to sign up and join in on the fun, in our Little Artshram’s Summer Art-Farm Apprentice and Teacher Training, which is scheduled to take place from June 18-23rd. Also included,by emailing penny@littleartshram.org, is additional information and the registration form for the Apprentice and Teacher training. (For information on our Beehive Program, scroll down below and check out the Summer Art-Farm Camp offerings.)

Let me clarify two items that may be confusing on the info/registration form:

The distinction between a Little Artshram Apprentice and a Teacher:
Apprentices: Have some, little or no experience in teaching art/gardening/permaculture, or, feel that it would benefit them to go through the entire week-long training camp. Designated originally for 13-20 year olds, but any and all ages are welcome. The Apprentice position is a first step approach to both learning about Permaculture and to becoming a Teacher, and, you can hang around in Apprentice-land as long as you feel you want and need to.

Teachers: Have taught with Little Artshram before (Earth Day or Summer Art Farm Camps), or through other similarly related art/environmental ed programs, have more than a basic knowledge of Permaculture and are able to (depending on registrations) teach in at least one of the weeks of Beehive Camps. Please, also provide a resume for the teaching positions. Thanks!

Training Fee/Donation:
In order to cover supply, material and instructor fees and stipends for the Training, we need to charge a sliding scale fee of between $75 and $100. We will accept half of the fee in Bay Bucks. This is a “training camp” and you will come away with a very good basic knowledge of Permaculture and participate in both individual and group, art/music/and gardening projects, as it relates to our Art-Farm and Community Gardening project.

We realize that you may be taking time off of your work schedule and know that funding is always of great concern, Little Artshram needs to value our services and time as well. Please do not hesitate to inquire about what is available through work-trade.

Penny Krebiehl has completed training and coursework and is a Beginning Permaculture Designer (–hence the title of this experience we are offering: “very begnning”…) Penny will be the lead instructor, with the special talent and assistance of DeDe Alderman a long-time Little Artshram instructor, Musical Mistress, and Earth Loving Human.

Additionally, we are inviting other guest instructors, with a special interest in art-making, music-making and Permaculture to be with us throughout the week. Once I hear from you and receive your completed application, I will forward a weekly grid and agenda out next week.

In the meantime, and, for your information:
Last year in our Teacher/Apprentice Training we took the Permaculture design principals, and after discusssion and consideration for our 1-6th grade developmental level of participants in the Beehive program rewrote them. Here are David Holmgren’s 12 design principles for Permaculture:

1. observe and interact
2. catch and store energy
3. obtain a yield
4. apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. use and value renewable resources and services
6. produce no waste
7. design from patterns to details
8. integrate rather than segregate
9. use small and slow solutions
10. use and value diversity
11. use edges and value the marginal
12. creatively use and respond to change

Recommended reading to help you digest more of the Art-Farm Curriculum:
Gaia’s Garden, Toby Hemenway
Edible Forest Garden (2 volumes—massive), David Jacke
Permaculture One, David Holmgren and Bill Molson
Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual, Bill Mollison
Last Child in the Woods, Saving our Kids from Nature Deficit Disorder, Richard Louv

Sunflower & barn

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