Darnetta

Homework Journal

Darnetta Lee Friday 08/26/2011


 * Sara & John Anderson Phone Interview for Design Project --- Very good. Concise and most main points there. Well done. 91% **
 * Clients Desired Points: **
 * Home Design/Sthapatya Veda Home on 5 acres/$120.000 Budget
 * Self-Build - One Story - Small Building -32 x 32/900 sq. ft.
 * Main Entry – North/Porch Double Doors - East
 * Porch 42X42 around Home
 * Fence 60X60/900 ft.
 * Pole Beam/Straw Bale Fill in Beds/R-value 42 (but needs 60)
 * No Concrete
 * Sustainable/Off Grind
 * Energy Efficiency/ Type Undecided
 * Heating In-floor water Tubes
 * Rain Water Catchment
 * Home on Eastern End of Property (Second Ridge), West Entry to House - Common road between Neighbor Susan on Northwest side. Curve to North Entry (Road 14 ft.)
 * Small Carport/Barn/Storage Detach 10X10 ft. on Westside on Home
 * Windows on Southside on Home with Greenhouse attached/Seasonal Gardening
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Garden on Southern Side of Vestu Fence
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">1 Milk Cow Grassing Western End of Property
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Windbreaks (needed)

Darnetta Lee Wednesday 08/24/2011


 * Introduction to Permaculture**


 * Identifying resources** – Walking site and observing it in every season, discovering its limitation and its resources (Appropriate plants, animal species, water, windbreaks, etc.)

Patterns and processes- How vegetation provides information for grow moisture and microclimate- soil fertility, boggy soil or clayey soils. Natural fire indicators- the frequency and direction.
 * Landscape indicators**- Using maps, notes drawings that reveal waterways, vegetation, soils, geology and access.


 * Landform Topography** – Sun-facing and shade-facing slopes; cliffs or rocky outcrops; drainage lines (watercourses); rough terrain; good and bad views; hill heights, gradients and access; boggy area, susceptible to erosion areas.

Where are 12 keys principles to always inhere too: > By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation. > By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need. > Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the working you are doing. > We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well. Negative feedback is often slow to emerge. > By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go. > By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other. > Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and produce more sustainable outcomes. > Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides. > The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.
 * 1) **Observe and Interact** – “Beauty is in the mind of the beholder”
 * 1) **Catch and Store Energy** – “Make hay while the sun shines”
 * 1) **Obtain a yield** – “You can’t work on an empty stomach”
 * 1) **Apply Self- Regulation and Accept Feedback** – “The sins of the fathers are visited on the children of the seventh generation”
 * 1) **Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services** – “Let nature take its course” Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.
 * 2) **Produce No Waste** – “Waste not, want not” or “A stitch in time saves nine”By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.**Design from Patterns to Details** – “Can’t see the forest for the trees”
 * 1) **Integrate Rather Than Segregate** – “Many hands make light work”
 * 1) **Use Small and Slow Solutions** – “Slow and steady wins the race” or “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”
 * 1) **Use and Value Diversity** – “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”
 * 1) **Use Edges and Value the Marginal** – “Don’t think you are on the right track just because it’s a well-beaten path”
 * 1) **Creatively Use and Respond to Change** – “Vision is not seeing things as they are but as they will be” We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing and then intervening at the right time.

Darnetta Lee Tuesday 08/23/2011-Homework Field Trip Interesting expression. 95%


 * The Leopold Experience**

Today we when on a field trip to Burlington to experience a view perspective of the world of Aldo Leopold. Most people know him as educator and author of A Sand County Almanac, but he also wrote Thinking like a Mountain. Leopold was a philosopher, ecologist and advocate of the wilderness, most of all a reader of signs in the landscape the nature laws with relationship to people and the land. To understand the connection between our human communities and their surroundings of the natural world around them, to inspire a personal sense of responsibility of love and respect for the land.

Leopold gives a deep clear and refreshing view of the world with nature and self, within the inner most part of self a knowing of true connection with purpose.

Learning from our host and guide Steve Brower, about Aldo Leopold for the first time was a delight, because I learned from view of pure insight of the man and not just the educator and author. His ideal of Geology and time with the perception on natural landscapes, the patters in the land time defines the designs and natural art of living on the land.

Take the Aldo Leopold middle school, landscape it will be the front drop of a natural outdoor classroom as time develops, even though man made it. It will become a natural part of the surroundings, catching the natural mystery of the site. The Landscape Metaphor, a comparison of life in relationship between self and nature. The landscape perception, the outward is what we see but how we react to it is another response. The overall trip was rewarding and looking forward to many more in the future of learning.


 * Patterns in Nature** – I notice when man plans with his/her environment the pattern of art and music begins to resonate from all around, nature is the longing soul of man with its colors of browns, greens and oranges. The sounds of rushing trees in the wind with the sun or moon peering through, playing peek a’ boo with lower vegetation and animals below. Stand and listen and you will become the essence of one feeling at one with nature. This is how I felt when eating lunch without the group.

Darnetta Lee Monday 08/22/2011-Homework Readings Interesting the way you express yourself. 93%


 * Think Like a Mountain**

Opens up the hidden that dwells on and within the mountain, the spirit of life that is not seen, but maybe heard or see traces in the land. The perspective of something bigger and without understanding the history or source, than the complexities on why comes into play. When the answer is before you, only when you take time to see relationship in land and animal, then you find the answer in relationship with human and life.


 * Marshland Elegy**

Leopold talks about how nature and life emerges with one another; how not one source be it vegetation or animal survives without one another. He talks about the crane and without it how unbalance the nature environment would become. My favorite part of the reading is when Leopold states, “Our ability to perceive quality in nature begins, as in art with the pretty. It expands through successive stages of the beautiful to values as yet uncaptured by language.”


 * Personal Presentation on Favorite Place - Thanks very much Darnetta. Great selection. **

The International Riverfront area extends from the West Ambassador Bridge to East Belle Isle. 5 ½ miles and 8.8 kilometers.
 * One of my favorite places is sitting at Detroit Riverfront watching the water and seeing Canada across the river.**

I was raised by the water it became an anchor in my spirit. When I was concern over a situation in life I sit by the water at Belle Isle, or take a trip through the tunnel to Canada and over the bridge back to Detroit it was my way of cleansing the problem or a spiritual Mikveh.

Detroit from Belle Isle View of Detroit Riverfront from Canada side Riverfront Marina of Detroit River with Ambassador Bridge to Canada and the Canada side of Riverfront




 * Denver’s Platte River – I love sitting on the steps or bench watching the rush of the river with the Mountains in the back ground.** **It's a Spiritual Flow that fills me.**


 * //You may have seen this area in the movie Imagine That with Eddie Murphy//**