Glacial Lakes Permaculture

Announcing the Formation of Transition Initiatives, LLC

February 7, 2012

Ecopreneur Karl Schmidt has recently launched a new business designed to assist others in making the transition to a relocalized and sustainable economy.  A for-profit business, Transition Initiatives, LLC, offers permaculture-based design and consulting services, conducts research, and serves as a parent company for the following for-profit, land-based micro-enterprises:

Glacial Lakes Permaculture – A five-acre organic eco-farm focusing on growing perennial tree and shrub crops, Glacial Lakes Permaculture serves as a demonstration site for cold climate permaculture design, and is the host site for the Prairie Coteau Folk School.  It is also home to Schmidt & Sons Woodcrafts.

Prairie Coteau Folk School – Based at Glacial Lakes Permaculture, Prairie Coteau Folk School is the educational branch of Transition Initiatives, LLC.  Its mission is to create opportunities for intentional community-building through a progressive workshop-based curriculum in the arts, earth-centered skills, and practical wisdom derived from the world’s many cultures.  Its vision is to provide a venue for teaching and learning the arts and skills needed to lead a sustainable life.  Starting in spring 2012, courses at the school will include half-day and full-day participatory workshops in the following broad categories: arts and artisanry, ecological horticulture, traditional skills, and health and wellness.

Schmidt & Sons Woodcrafts – a small, family-owned business that makes practical wooden household and garden items, including children's toys.  Schmidt & Sons builds upon a German tradition of practical wood-working in crafting its hand-made items.  All of its products are made on-site at Glacial Lakes Permaculture, using mostly hand-labor and tools, with minimal machinery.  Schmidt & Sons uses the model of the home-based cottage industry as a means of producing both a sustainable product and income.

Schmidt’s launching of Transition Initiatives, LLC, follows his 20-year career in higher education, serving as both a teaching professor and university administrator. 

For media, a printed press release is available as a PDF.

NPSAS 2011 Summer Farm Tour began at Glacial Lakes Permaculture

July 14, 2011

A dozen participants in the Northern Plains Sustainable Agriculture Society's first summer farm tour of the 2011 season arrived at Glacial Lakes Permaculture yesterday to get an introduction to permaculture design principles and to tour the farm's Food Forest and hoophouse.

Participants came from three states: South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

Karl Schmidt gave the introduction to permaculture design principles and led the tour of the property.  Jacquelyn Schneller, GLP's permaculture apprentice, acted as official photographer.

Glacial Lakes Permaculture's First Apprentice Starts June 23rd

June 4, 2011

Jacquelyn Schneller, a Canton, SD native, will be Glacial Lakes Permaculture's first apprentice, starting June 23rd. 

Jacquelyn was born in Sioux Falls and raised in Canton, where she graduated from Canton High School in 2003.  She attended South Dakota State University, graduating with a double major in Global Studies and Psychology and a minor in Journalism.

Jacquelyn studied abroad in India in Fall 2007, taking courses in Indian religions and Hindi language.  In August 2008, she attended a two-week eco-workshop focused on sustainability and rural traditions at the Ecocentre ICPPC in Stryszow, Poland, which ignited her curiosity about permaculture and related environmental issues.

In 2008-09, she taught English as a Second Language to students in South Korea.  After teaching overseas, she moved to Portland, Oregon, where, surrounded by environmentally creative and progressive young people, she strengthened her interests in issues of sustainability.

In the Fall of 2010, Jacquelyn began a master's degree program in Human Ecology (Culture, Power, and Sustainabilty) at Lund University in Sweden.  Her thesis emphasis will be on "Perceptions of Nature and Consumption/Environmental Education."

Jacquelyn is "extremely excited" about her summer apprenticeship at Glacial Lakes Permaculture.  Her work at GLP will include all aspects of the demonstration farm, focusing on practical applications of permaculture.  She will also receive formal training in permaculture design, leading to a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC).

Her blog on her apprenticeship experiences can be read here:

http://thefarmwhisperer.blogspot.com/

New All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course starts July 30th!

May 24, 2011

GLP's second offering of an All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course begins on the weekend of July 30th & 31st at Glacial Lakes Permaculture in Estelline, SD.  The course will take place over eight weekends.  With its focus on cold climate permaculture, students will learn first-hand about the design, techniques, and tools to make a successful permaculture in the northern plains.  More information and a registration form are available here.

Glacial Lakes Permaculture gets a New Sign

September 25, 2010

Glacial Lakes Permaculture has a new sign near the roadside.  We're official now!

Glacial Lakes Permaculture Farm Tour and Skill Session

September 22, 2010

Students in Dakota Rural Action's Farm Beginnings program and farmer-mentors gatherered at Glacial Lakes Permaculture on Saturday, September 18, to learn about home-processing of chickens for meat, and the basics of food canning.  Karl Schmidt of GLP taught participants the finer points of chicken butchering.  Rebecca Terk, the Land Stewardship Project's Healthy Foods Coordinator for Big Stone County, MN, discussed canning methods.  She also wrote a blog about the experience.

Additional details and photos are available at Dakota Rural Action's Facebook page.

The First All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course begins in South Dakota

April 12, 2010

Students from around the Dakotas gathered in Brookings, SD, on Saturday, April 10, to begin a year-long All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course.  The course is offered through Glacial Lakes Permaculture, in collaboration with Project Sustainability @ SDSU and members of the SDSU Cooperative Extension Service.  Apprentice teachers include Elaine Zarzana from Marshall, MN, and Becky Schnabel from Bismarck, ND.  The lead teacher and convener is Karl Schmidt, Estelline, SD.

Students getting to know each other at the first meeting of the All-Seasons PDC

Karl Schmidt to teach Food Forest Design Workshop at Plain Green 10 in Sioux Falls

March 28, 2010

Karl Schmidt will teach a full-day pre-conference workshop on designing a home-scale food forest at Plain Green 10 in Sioux Falls, SD, on Wednesday, April 28.

Designing a Home-Scale Food Forest will provide an introduction to permaculture, a design system for ecological and sustainable living, as well as the steps needed to design, create and maintain a home-scale food forest in the northern plains.  Participants are encouraged to bring details of their own properties for help in determining what the possibilities might be for their own food forest design.

A food forest, also known as a forest or woodland garden, is an edible, multi-layered woodland landscape, based on fruit- and nut-producing trees and shrubs, as well as perennial and annual vegetables and flowers.  While its main purpose is to provide for human food needs, a food forest also serves as a wildlife habitat, forage for bees and butterflies, as a carbon sink, and as a source of beauty and natural inspiration.  Food forests can be the size of an urban backyard, a suburban lot, or even larger.

The workshop costs $65 and includes learning materials.

For more information, and to register: http://plaingreen.org/workshops/

Glacial Lakes Permaculture receives grant from Permaculture Activist magazine to develop coppice woodland project

January 25, 2010

Glacial Lakes Permaculture has received a small grant from Permaculture Activist magazine to support the development of a one-acre mixed coppice woodland demonstration project for the northern plains.  The purpose of the project is to show how land could be devoted to coppice woodland, providing a sustainable source of firewood, polewood, basket willow, and other valuable materials (including food), as well as acting as a source of additional farm income and wildlife habitat. 

Although the initial demonstration site will be relatively small, the idea will be to show that it can be scaled to any size, allowing for the creation of farm-scale coppice woodland.  The project will use commonly available trees obtained through the local conservation district.  The design includes 10 different tree species and 6 different shrub species native to South Dakota, including False Indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), a nitrogen-fixer, which will serve as a fast-growing nurse shrub.  Coppice tree species were selected on the basis of their suitability as firewood, as well as their ability to withstand both drought and short-term flooding from seasonal snowmelt.  Consideration was also given to their suitability for wildlife habitat, including bee forage.

Work on the project will commence in spring 2010.  More than 325 trees and 250 shrubs will be planted as part of the overall design.

Permaculture Activist magazine, based in Bloomington, Indiana, is the leading permaculture publication in North America and has been publishing the best in permaculture design and thought for 25 years.  For each issue mailed to subscribers, 25 cents is placed in a Tree Tax fund to support reforestation and forest preservation projects.  The grant GLP received is derived from those funds.

Permaculturist Toby Hemenway to speak in Twin Cities

November 2, 2009 

Well-known Permaculturist Toby Hemenway will give a public lecture and two workshops in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, 7-9 January 2010.  Hemenway has more than 20 years of Permaculture experience, including teaching and design.  He is the author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (2nd ed., 2009).  The events are hosted by the Permaculture Research Institute--Cold Climate.

More information on the public lecture and workshop registration details.

Learning Permaculture in Brazil

August 13, 2009

Karl Schmidt just returned from a three-week Permaculture Design Course in Brazil, sponsored by Living Routes, and hosted and taught by Lucy Legan and André Soares of IPEC (Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas do Cerrado).  The PDC covered the standard permaculture design curriculum, but with the added advantage of students being able to live on-site at a functioning ecovillage, laid out according to the best in permaculture design.  There were many hands-on practicals incorporated into the course, including compost-making, laying out contour lines with A-frame and dumpy level, and the implementation of a children's permaculture garden design at a local school.

Planting out an herb spiral in Pirenópolis, Brazil