Greetings!

We're in the midst of our second Permaculture Design Course at Quail Springs, with Darren Doherty and another group of amazing students from our region and a few from around the country.

There were a few requests to make Darren's interview with Sustainable World Radio KCSB 91.9 FM from October 5^th available on our website, so we've done just that.

Go to www.quailsprings.org/news to hear Darren Doherty (Australian Keyline and Permaculture Designer and teacher) and Guner Tautrim (6^th generation land steward in the Gaviota area at Orella Ranch) speak with Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio...

UPCOMING EVENT

Mon. Oct 22, 6:30 pm Water for Every Farm FREE TALK

With Darren Doherty Keyline and Permaculture Designer
Montgomery Hall at New Cuyama Recreation Center
Highway 166 in New Cuyama next to "The Cuyama Buckhorn"

Tea and cookies will be served
Contact Kolmi -info@quailsprings.org, www.quailsprings.org

see www.permaculture.biz for more courses with Darren Doherty

Another upcoming event hosted by the SB Permaculture Network at La Casa de la Raza, not to be missed, see below for details...

SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK
Presents:

Food, Culture, & Future Generations
With Ed Mendoza
Native American Farmer, Poet & Permaculturist
Saturday, October 27, 2007, 6:30-9pm

Food & Music, Raffle
La Casa de la Raza, Santa Barbara, CA

The evening event takes place at La Casa de la Raza, in Santa Barbara, CA, 601 E. Montecito St, on Sat, Oct 27, 6:30-9pm. Food, Music & Fundraising raffle for Permaculture de Aztlan projects with Indigenous Communities in North, Central & South America. Sponsors are Santa Barbara Permaculture Network & La Casa de la Raza. Donations welcome. For more information, please call (805)-962-2571 margie@sbpermaculture.org , www.sbpermaculture.org

Eduardo (Ed) Mendoza (Xikano-Nahuatl), farmer, author, activist, and Director of Indigenous Permaculture de Aztlan, comes to Santa Barbara to speak about his experiences in California and Mexico, growing food and growing culture.

A Santa Barbara native, Ed has been growing gardens since he was a boy, learning from his father. Working in the fields picking crops while in high school and college, he later graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, with a degree in Agricultural Science. He learned about growing blue corn from Mexico from his adopted grandfather, the late Rafael Guerrero, one of the founders of D-Q University in Davis, California.

In 1993 Mendoza became an agricultural advisor for the Traditional Native American Farmers Association and started to train in Permaculture (PERMAnent agriCULTURE), a design system based on ecological principles for creating sustainable human environments. He worked for the Gila River Indian Community, establishing an aquaculture and farming program to teach young juveniles about traditional crops. Ed helped establish the Casa Blanca Growers Cooperative which grows mostly traditional organic crops. He has also been part of the Permaculture teaching team for Indigenous Permaculture ( www.indigenous-permaculture.org) teaching at the annual Indigenous Permaculture Design Course in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

The purpose of Indigenous Permaculture de Aztlan is to assist indigenous nations in North, Central and South America learn the means to be economically self sufficient and to respect culture and ceremony, and restore lands for future generations. Part of the vision is to encourage youth to go to these countries to help, learning through cultural exchange.

Recently Ed Mendoza has traveled to Belize and Guatemala to teach about permaculture and the importance of growing and saving traditional seeds. He has worked with a coalition of traditional growers that traveled to Italy for an International Slow Foods Conference, learning farming methods from around the world. He has been invited to Columbia, Thailand and Argentina to demonstrate sustainable farming techniques, and will be going to Baja, California to teach a workshop on rainwater harvesting, while participating in a mesquite bean harvest with the Seri Indian community.

Mendoza recently won a place in the Writers Place contest for his poem, As the Peaches Come, and has a newly finished manuscript titled Mud & Blood. He reads regularly at Art in the Alley in Casa Grande, Arizona and has read in New York and in New Mexico. Poems are about family, love, the streets, the desert, growing food, life and prayer. He is currently writing a novel and is doing research on his families history in Mexico and California. Ed is a respected member of his community and considered a ceremonial leader and regularly participates in Sun Dance, Native American Church and other ceremonies.