Still Water co-director Joline Blais trades a 45-minute car commute for an hour and a quarter on an electric bike.
Tags: athletics, bicycle, energy, GreenHouse, hardware, life, New Media, orono, Still Water, sustainability, transportation
The Still Water Permaculture Guild, located at 5 Chapel Road in Orono (LongGreenHouse), is inviting anyone who is interested to come to their “field days” this Friday (April 22) and next Wednesday (April 27), from 12 noon to 4pm. The Guild has been working to transform a normal residential yard into a perennial garden with edible fruit, vegetables, and herbs, using permaculture techniques.
If you would like to see a model of “edible landscaping,’ want to learn about permaculture gardening, or just want to get your hands in the soil, this a great opportunity.
Please send a e-mail to william [DOT] giordano [AT] umit [DOT] maine [DOT] edu, or just show up. For more information about the Stillwater Permaculture Guild, visit PermacultureUMaine.wordpress.com/events/
Tags: education, GreenHouse, orono, permaculture, sharing, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine
The permaculture philosophy of dynamic preservation turns out to have ancient roots in Sicily. Last December Joline Blais surveyed a Permaculture site near Caccamo founded by noted Australian sustainability gurus Julia and Charles Yelton, as well as a reconstructed citrus garden originally cultivated by the ancient Greeks of Agrigento.
Tags: europe, GreenHouse, history, network, permaculture, Still Water, sustainability
It almost seems like cheating for Italians to declare Castelbuono an ecovillage. In this medieval town in the mountains of northern Sicily, the houses are already made of heat-exchanging stone and residents already walk everywhere through winding cobblestone streets. A donkey picks up recyclables and food compost headed for local farmers.
Tags: europe, GreenHouse, network, permaculture, sharing, sustainability
One of the coldest weeks of the year didn’t stop attenders of Aurono Borealis, an outdoor performance at LongGreenHouse this January. Intermedia MFA students in Joline Blais’s LifeArt class organized a “council of beings” that attracted a variety of faculty, students, and members of the Wabanaki community.Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: art, event, indigenous, intermedia, LongHouse, orono, sustainability, Wabanaki
Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito presented models of open governance on November 12 at U-Me’s Promise and Problems of Transparency conference. Organized by Desiree Butterfield-Nagy, the event featured a “hyperblog” organized by Blais and Ippolito with help from Still Water Senior Researcher Craig Dietrich.
Tags: Belfast, cohousing, governance, GreenHouse, law, New Media, orono, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine
At the 2010 ESTIA conference “Ecovillages Redefined” on 22 October, Still Water’s Joline Blais gave a presentation on the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage and conducted a discussion on the role ecovillages might play in a sustainable future.
Also presenting at the conference were Roger Kelly of the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales and Daniel Greenberg of Living Routes at the University of Massachusetts. Local luminaries featured at the conference included farmer extraordinaire Mark Fulford, LongGreenHouse veteran gkisedtanamoogk, and Belfast Cohousing Equity Member Jeffrey Mabee.
Tags: Belfast, ecovillage, GreenHouse, presentation, sustainability
Anthropologist James Leach presents the Cross-Cultural Partnership as an example of a social “prototype” at “Prototyping Cultures: Social Experimentation, Do-It-Yourself Science and Beta-Knowledge.”
The Cross-Cultural Partnership, a legal template for encouraging ethical collaborations across cultural divides, was the brainchild of Leach, Wendy Seltzer, and othe members of the Connected Knowledge working group organized by Still Water. Leach’s talk at this two-day conference organised by the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid from 4-5 November 2010 is entitled “Prototypes of Engagement: Trust, Transaction, and Digital Partnership.”
Tags: collaboration, Cross-Cultural Partnership, europe, law, presentation, sharing, Still Water
This fall, five UMaine students will practice sustainable living as part of their education in a permaculture homestead at the south edge of campus .
Inheriting a greenhouse, coldframe, swaled garden beds, perennial gardens and the planting of food forest trees along a corridor into campus from former student projects onsite,these students will model green living as an education option.
Tags: education, food, GreenHouse, orono, permaculture, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine
Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais plants the seeds of sustainable gardening at the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage in midcoast Maine.
Tags: Belfast, GreenHouse, sharing, sustainability, Wabanaki
