By PAUL WHEATON
When you are bonkers about permaculture, your friends and family tend to think you are crazy ….
Your fictional friend trying to escape your crazy talk:
At the same time, the season has come where we are expected to give gifts to our friends and family.
I suspect that all of you reading this are not as evil as I am. When I give gifts, rather than giving people stuff that they might like, I tend to give them things that I like them to have. Usually a book that I would like them to read, or a weird tool that I would like them to have so that I’m not the only person with that tool.
The ultimate gift would be something that would help them understand me better – so I might seem less crazy to them. And fit in a stocking.
I spent a year and half working with Alexander Ojeda on making something to fit this tiny, once a year niche. We made a deck of cards where each card contains a cool piece of permaculture information. The idea is that somebody would open the deck and take up to nine seconds looking at the cards. So we have nine seconds to get them hooked onpermaculture, but we don’t know which card they will look at first. So we spent enormous amounts of time polishing each card. All this work so that we might seem a little less crazy to our friends and family.
We did a kickstarter and raised $70,853! So, apparently, other people might be needing this niche filled too! I think the cards turned out far better than I thought possible:
The idea of the deck of cards is that people might browse it like a book — but this is all pictures and just a few words. Much easier to browse, and hopefully convey a bigger picture in a smaller package.
On 26 of the cards we hid the names of people that were big supporters of the kickstarter, or friends and family that helped with the project. If you look on this card, you will see a name hidden in the image … near the bottom …
The Hugelkultur Ace
If this devious plot works:
You can purchase them here.
Discuss this more in a thread dedicated to this blog at permies.com:
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See the entire Paul Wheaton archive.
Paul Wheaton is the tyrannical dictator of Permies.com, the largest permaculture forum on the web. As a certified master gardener and permaculture designer, he’s built an empire around what he calls, ‘infecting brains with permaculture’. His forums are full of rich information, and there are a number of great free resources, guides, and articles that can be found on his sister site, Richsoil.com as well.
Most recently, he has worked with rocket mass heater experts Ernie and Erica in developing a DVD set on making your own rocket mass heater, and has produced another video series on permaculture gardening, which detail how to use hugelkultur, swales, and natural ponds to capture and utilize water without irrigation. His recent work with natural buildings based on Mike Oehler’s designs have resulted in the creation of the Wofati, a semi underground natural home design.
Crowned the Duke of Permaculture by Geoff Lawton and the Bad Boy of Permaculture by the Occupy Monsanto movement, Paul continues to educate and inspire at his property – dubbed Wheaton Labs – in western Montana, where he conducts experiments in permaculture and natural building, hosts workshops, and entertains the curious passerby. More information on stays at the property can be found here.