Gull Lake Permaculture Design Certificate Course

Ravis Sustainable teamed up with Pacific Permaculture to offer our inaugural Permaculture Design Certificate Course in central Alberta.

It was an amazing experience - in fact hard to put words to. I will default to feedback and comments received from our students:

"Fantastic Experience. Life Changing. Thanks!" Martin Scholz, Red Deer.

"I knew that this would be a life changing course going into it and it hasn't disappointed. I will carry this energy, memory and community into however I practice permaculture. I have valued the ethical emphasis and commitment, the intensity of the overall course. Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!!" - Ken MacLeod, Saskatoon.

"I absolutely feel like I learned enough to warrant the fee. The food and site was fantastic too."

"Thank you, this was the boiled down, simple, straight forward specific path to sustainable living and development" Maurice Samm, Camrose.

"The PDC was incredibly well organized and the level of education, amazing. Thanks for the experience!" - Carissa deJong, Edmonton.

Clean Calgary Introduction to Permaculture

We are very excited about our new partnership with Clean Calgary and the first Introduction to Permaculture course that Rob facilitated for their organization.

Clean Calgary is an urban environmental organization with a mission to empower Calgarians to create healthy homes and communities through environmental education, products, and services.

The course spanned six Thursday evenings, with the last evening of theory a hands on lecture in our back-yard (pictures shown above).

We also replaced some lawn with a food forest in one of the students front yards; I'll have photos in a subsequent post.

Overall, the course was a grand success and Clean Calgary has requested that we continue the partnership for next summer.

I'll think that you'll agree based on the feedback we received from our students:

"Rob is a very good presenter, knowledgeable, articulate and organized"

"The course was exceptional value, 6 two hour classes plus homework plus a food forest instal day. I think it was a great deal [...] I am thinkin about my yard and gardens in new and exciteing ways and am already trying new things. Thank you, this course was a great experience."

"GREAT COURSE"

"Rob was amazing! His knowledge and his presentation was impeccable. It was also great that we had an implementation project! It was great way to get to know the people in the course and to implement what we learned."

Wildcrafting with Blaine Andrusek

Wildcrafting is the fusion between an indigenous survival skill and modern botany. Southern Alberta boasts hundreds of wild edible and medicinal plants right outside our front door that we all take for granted. Some of these plants are on the verge of extinction while other plants have just been forgotten. The indigenous people of southern Alberta not only survived in Southern Alberta - they thrived.

Rob and I took an Introduction to Botany course at Wild Rose College here in in Calgary in the Fall of 2008. We enjoyed the course and the instructor Blaine Andrusek so much that we decided to bring him on for a week-end wildcrafting and herb walk session. Although we did post the course on our website, it almost filled up immediately with 20 of our friends family who all agreed it would be fun to learn more about the native plants right in our backyard.

We started the herb walk right in Calgary, in Edworthy Park, where we learnt that you don’t need to go far to find wild edible and medicinal plants.

On the Sunday we traveled out to Ghost River to explore a whole new eco-tone and the different species that exist within a very short drive from the city.

Another fantastic course - Blaine has already been reserved for next year!