A Beginning

February 1, 2011: We're launching Sustainability School as a space for people to gather and exchange ideas, knowledge, and experiences that will make them better able to sustain themselves in a quickly changing world of limited natural resources. The school is based from our homestead in Petroli,a CA, a beautiful four acre strip of land on the Mattole River, four miles from the Pacific Ocean and start of the Lost Coast Trail. Classes will be held here, or at other locations throughout the Mattole Valley. We believe that everyone has knowledge, experiences, and skills to share. This school taps into community knowldege and facilitates the sharing of skills ranging from natural building and permaculture design to beekeeping and homebrewing. The ultimate goal is to help others, and ourselves, to be more self-reliant while respecting the Earth and other living beings.

February 6, 2012: We were thrilled that the first Sustainability School workshop in August 2011 was filled to capacity with 20 students plus instructors and a few local dropins attending to learn natural building first hand. The slide show we hosted with Michael G. Smith at the Mattole Valley Community Center was also a well-attended event with many local community members, as well as students from afar. The enormity of building an earthen house while raising two young children and starting a homestead has sunk in. While we intended to have more courses offered by now, we are realizing that it will take the involvement and energy of others to make this happen. For now, we plan to continue offering opportunities for education around the building of our family home out of local and natural materials. We welcome interested teachers with sustainability skills to get in touch and host or lead a course. Until then, keep checking back to see how things evolve with the Sustainability School project. If you have a skill to share, please consider submitting a course proposal.