Legacy
23rd June Posted by Tony Deis on Jun 23, 2009 in Village Life Today our families can lead disparate lives. There's no regalia, no code of arms or crests to represent honor to ourselves and our children. There's rarely a breadth of shared history and oral tradition that stands with a timeless hearth. The other day I noted to a colleague that Trackers is decidedly secular. You won't find an overwhelming tone of cultural or spiritual beliefs at our programs. You will find great skills meant to inform the legacy and hearth of your own family and community. At least that's the theory. Yet I have to admit something, Trackers does have a culture. We do hold a set of values pertaining to havens of cultivation for healthy lands and families. I'm realizing more and more, that is the stead of my family and Trackers is the crest. My village is a growing clan of wool wearing environmental educators, grumpy old germans (my dad's side), wacky Italians (my mom's side), eclectic burning man artists, ol' sailors, DIY masters, fine craftspeople, eloquent artists and much more. There's a culture evolving at Trackers. Something that exceeds the "business" aspect of what we do, transmuting into even greater accountability. But it needs to happen naturally. As visionaries, individuals and leaders we do not create a culture. Instead we tend to our relationships and what this care yields becomes our families' legacy. Class roll... 1 year Permaculture Design Certification Portland, Oregon, 1 day a week for 9 months Permaculture is more than gardening. It reshapes all our relationships with land and people. Instructors include Toby Hemenway, Marisha Auerbach and Leonard Barret. You spend a year with Permaculture's best for the Pacific Northwest. You become the council of one of the most hands on permaculture courses ever to take place. Apply soon, application deadlines approaching. Learn more or apply online Make your own 10th century German Shoes Design and craft a pair of 10th century thin-soled german shoes. Under the expert tutelage of immersion instructor Jason Craban, you learn an exceptional level of craftsmanship and make a pair of rocking cool shoes. Learn more or register online 
10 simple things
14th May Posted by Tony Deis on May 14, 2009 in Village Life 10 simple things you can do the improve your village's relationship to the land. 1) Go fishing every other week during the summer. For every fish you catch, promise to put 2 back in its place. Don't worry, you'll find a way. 2) Gather spring greens: nettles, dandelions and other "weeds". Come back to that patch year after year. See how your harvesting affects it and help make it more abundant. 3) Make your own clothes. Ask Grandma or Grandpa how to sew. Use repurposed fabric (from ol' clothes). Turn it into high fashion (or a least try to). The latter piece is important so that you want to create more when people give you compliments. Action does not exist in an human vacuum and everyone wants to be appreciated. Here's a class to make scrap leather shoes with Jason Craban4) Make cider this year from all the feral apple trees in your neighborhood and around town. 5) Ride your bike for all these great expeditions during the summer. 6) Get chickens or a goat for your backyard. 7) Go hunting (with a hand made bow if possible). This one will cause controversy with some folks. It is not intended to offend. From my experience hunting asks you to see and feel the land in an entirely different way. I have taught tracking to people for many years and when one of them goes hunting the relationship with deer completely changes. They seem... well, sewn together. 8) Bring friends along on these bike excursions. Every time. 9) Try to only buy local then organic foods. The farmers market is a good source. If you need to do a CSA (becoming a member of a farm) I also recommend shares at Fawnwood Farms 10) Come to our wild or local foods potlucks. Plus hold your own (and invite me). The key is for the food to be both wild and local, so no one feels left out be they a hunter-gatherer or aquarian farmer. Our next potluck is May 17 (this Sunday) Class roll...
Free taster days, May 16 or 17
Wild & local foods potluck May 17, 6:30-10:30
Butcher a buffalo and sausage making, May 30-31
Beyond a Sense of Place
23rd April Posted by Tony Deis on Apr 23, 2009 in Village Life As an outdoor educator I've had the slogan "sense of place" drilled into me years ago. But I've learned that sense of place is not enough. I know plenty of people that can identify tracks, spot a bird, measure water quality and even make a bow drill fire. What this leads to is a willingness to help enact policy or an appreciation that your greenspaces exist, it rarely results in the fervent passion that comes with knowing life and death. We need a better definition: sewn into place, tied to place or inextricably integrated into place. We need a mantra that means "our food, shelter and drink come from the dirt we walk barefoot in". Living in place is what shifts our relationships, making them more sincere. Let's take it even further then backyard farms and valley CSAs (which is great). If all we do is grow vegetables, that's all we'll show regard for. If we harvest nettle, hunt deer and fish for salmon, we'll care intensely about these fellow inhabitants of our land. And it must happen with our own hands. Not with boats made of fiberglass or steel, rigged with motors that have more to do with proving our manhood then our relationship to the water. Am I suggesting everyone in Portland become a hunter-gather? I can hear the sustainability, carbon traders and leave no trace guardians crying fowl. Absolutely not... Well, not yet. The irony is when we gate off wild nature with asphalt and fences we see it as a theme park, a luxury to be cut as times get tougher. Let's start simple. Be like your great-grandpa and grandma collecting dandelions for wine. Take after your friends with backyard chickens (and an occasional raccoon stew when they're killing your chickens). And for goodness sake, go fishing with the neighborhood kids! When you harvest these things this year you'll expect them to return the next. That expectation leads to the true nature of sustainability. Its not simply a "sense of place", instead you live and breathe by your home and where you live.
Buffalo Butchering and Preserving, May 30-31
Nature of Village, September 6-12, 2009
Experts and critics: no difference
16th April Posted by Tony Deis on Apr 16, 2009 in Village Life When we first started TrackersNW many people told all of us to get a real job. Now those same people look at Trackers as a leader in the field. To them we were simply scrappy kids trying something silly and different then what they do. To us we were desperate to find a way of doing things that actually took care of our family and the families we work with. To us it was a matter of survival. When I was a teen with my three-quarter acre market garden all the experts said you had to get rid of grass this specific way, or that winter mulch will keep your ground cold and make your crops late. I tried what they suggested and got bored with mediocre results. I eventually always did what my heart told me. Listening to the land instead of the experts. No till, different plants living as neighbors with a gentle and more subtle way of gardening. Especially be careful around tracking and wilderness survival experts/critics. They tell you to measure this animals footprints this way, build a shelter in this manner or mentor kids with these routines. At Trackers we have a saying, "All models are wrong and some are useful." Remember, your way is the best way for you because every experience carries its own lesson. We are not here to tell you to get a job, only to support you as you fly in the face of the experts (or critics).
1 year permaculture course
A new buffalo butchering
Also, check out our new webpage design, just don't be a critic or expert:) Yes, I like nature
9th April Posted by Tony Deis on Apr 09, 2009 in Village Life The other day I had a conversation with a friend who's life is dedicated to tending to our phenomenal greenspaces. He told a story about a city leader who recently made a bold statement, "We need to find less ways to say 'no' and more ways of to say 'yes'." Of late, this is not the first tale I heard of intelligent relationship building overcoming jaded skepticism and the status quo. In the age of failed corporate duplicity we hear more leaders talking about transparency. We find more individuals dwelling on the meaning of accountability. And more people examining the real results of their livelihood as opposed to "going about proper procedures". There is less faith in dogma and more in the revitalization of family relationships. When is reality going to shatter the religion of cynicism? Now and throughout history, economic challenges do not bring out the worst in people. On the contrary, these "hard times" are when we truly shine. With our current stretch of sunny weather, far more than the normal nature nerds seem to comment on how happy they feel with the arrival of Spring. For an outdoor educator like me, that's exciting. Maybe our currently simplified lives (less work) can lead to walks around town to visit our neighbors, sitting at the flowers to watch hummingbirds and nothing better to do but go fishing with our own kid or someone else's. These remarkable things are tangible. For now, let's enjoy how much naysayers are out of vogue and revel in the current trend of intelligent discourse and simple pleasures. And while your at it, let my friend know you appreciate his life's work. Visit our greenspaces. Walk in the park. And maybe you'll be the one to say, "yes" to more green and wild.
Come together with you family and others, Nature of the Village
1 year of permaculture design
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