Hi
Thank you for taking the time to have a look at the more accurate Register Guard article. Bless the Guard for interest in the topic of being more green and resilient. The article had needs for a number of tweeks. So here is Jan's edit of the Guard Article.
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When you drive past Jan Spencer’s house off River Road, you might just miss it. Only the crevices of a metal roof and the leaves of a palm tree peek out behind a tall wall of berries.
Walking through a small gap between the greenery, visitors eventually find themselves on the steps of Spencer’s pale blue 1950's ranch-style house. But the property looks more like a jungle than a suburban home. Butterflies and bees buzz around a giant lemon tree and heads of cabbage.
After 17 years of planting and building, almost completely on his own, Spencer, 65, has created a suburban permaculture that he said is unlike anything else in Eugene.
“This is a small part of what a very different kind of culture and economic system would look like,” Spencer said. “It’s about, how can we take what’s already been here and rework it in a positive way?”
Permaculture, a term coined in 1972 at the University of Tasmania, is agriculture that produced crops in harmony with nature, not against it.
Suburban permaculture takes this idea and brings it home, into the front yard and backyard gardens. Instead of tending to a patch of lawn, suburban neighbors are encouraged to grow food — a step beyond buying locally to producing food right at home, thus reducing their carbon footprint.
“Sustainability is living within our ecological means,” Spencer said. “The ideal is not taking more from the planet than the planet can sustain.”
Spencer bought his house in the River Road neighborhood in 2000, intending to create a sustainable eco-space. He replaced all the grass with gardens, fruit and nut trees and berry canes.
He installed a metal roof for catching rainwater so it could be recycled for irrigation. He has solar hot water heaters on his roof, and he renovated a room as a solarium to help heat the rest of the house in the winter.
Seventeen years later, and Spencer has something growing in every corner of his property, nearly all of it edible. He said that neighbors come by to pick berries from his front yard. And he shares lemons with the neighborhood when they ripen in January. (Yes, January.)
Spencer said it doesn’t take as much as you’d think to live the way that he does.
“It depends on how you do it,” said Spencer, who did nearly all of the landscaping himself. “One of the most important ingredients is just how we prioritize our time. I choose to do this. I’d rather put a metal roof on my house than buy a new stereo.”
Now the ecoculture advocate said he is working to bring his message to a larger audience, through a series of planned public events through September.
On Tuesday, Spencer is scheduled to continue his Green and Resilient Neighborhood Initiative. Working with the River Road Community Organization, he will encourage city neighborhood associations to incorporate green and sustainable living into their platforms.
Spencer said city programs such as Neighborhood Watch and can benefit from encouraging front yard gardens. If people spend more time tending their front yards, they’d see more of what’s going on in the street and the houses around them, he said. Safer for everyone.
Suburban permaculture can do more than help preserve our planet, Spencer said: It can help put the neighbor back in neighborhood.
“One of the main reasons these programs, such as Mapping Your Neighborhood and CERT training, are so important is they give neighbors a safe way to meet their neighbors,” Spencer said. “Once the neighbors meet each other, they can do whatever they want. They can share tools, what they know take their fences down — literally and figuratively.”
Spencer’s neighborhood in north Eugene is scattered with solar panels and lawns that look like Japanese gardens. He said that there are 20 other suburban permaculture properties within biking distance of his house.
One street over, Ravi Logan and Michelle Renee host Sunday meditation sessions on a fully sustainable straw bale studio they built on about three fourths of an acre of land. The fences between the houses behind them have been taken down, and Logan roams freely around his neighbors’ yards.
The couple, whose property will be featured in a site tour Spencer is leading on Saturday, have solar water heaters, more than 100 edible crops, food forest, green house and a variety of fruit trees.
Neighbors come and use their yoga studio for movie nights and meditation. In their wooded acreage, scattered with picnic tables, there are potluck meals and Fourth of July celebrations.
“What we’re hoping for is not an intentional community, but an intentional neighborhood where we deepen our relations and take care of more needs closer to where we live. ” Renee said.
Spencer said that a core ideal of permaculture is to design systems that lead to multiple positive outcomes.
“This is healthy, you’re out in the fresh air, and you are more likely to meet and make common cause with your neighbors."
The Green and Resilient Neighborhood Initiative. Link to more info.
Events
Jan Spencer is giving a presentation about creating green and resilient homes and neighborhoods at 7 p.m. Tuesday at River Road Recreation Center. Spencer also is leading a site tour at 1 p.m. Saturday, beginning at Rosetta Park, Benjamin and Evergreen Streets in the River Road Neighborhood.
Thank you for taking the time to have a look at the more accurate Register Guard article. Bless the Guard for interest in the topic of being more green and resilient. The article had needs for a number of tweeks. So here is Jan's edit of the Guard Article.
================================
When you drive past Jan Spencer’s house off River Road, you might just miss it. Only the crevices of a metal roof and the leaves of a palm tree peek out behind a tall wall of berries.
Walking through a small gap between the greenery, visitors eventually find themselves on the steps of Spencer’s pale blue 1950's ranch-style house. But the property looks more like a jungle than a suburban home. Butterflies and bees buzz around a giant lemon tree and heads of cabbage.
After 17 years of planting and building, almost completely on his own, Spencer, 65, has created a suburban permaculture that he said is unlike anything else in Eugene.
“This is a small part of what a very different kind of culture and economic system would look like,” Spencer said. “It’s about, how can we take what’s already been here and rework it in a positive way?”
Permaculture, a term coined in 1972 at the University of Tasmania, is agriculture that produced crops in harmony with nature, not against it.
Suburban permaculture takes this idea and brings it home, into the front yard and backyard gardens. Instead of tending to a patch of lawn, suburban neighbors are encouraged to grow food — a step beyond buying locally to producing food right at home, thus reducing their carbon footprint.
“Sustainability is living within our ecological means,” Spencer said. “The ideal is not taking more from the planet than the planet can sustain.”
Spencer bought his house in the River Road neighborhood in 2000, intending to create a sustainable eco-space. He replaced all the grass with gardens, fruit and nut trees and berry canes.
He installed a metal roof for catching rainwater so it could be recycled for irrigation. He has solar hot water heaters on his roof, and he renovated a room as a solarium to help heat the rest of the house in the winter.
Seventeen years later, and Spencer has something growing in every corner of his property, nearly all of it edible. He said that neighbors come by to pick berries from his front yard. And he shares lemons with the neighborhood when they ripen in January. (Yes, January.)
Spencer said it doesn’t take as much as you’d think to live the way that he does.
“It depends on how you do it,” said Spencer, who did nearly all of the landscaping himself. “One of the most important ingredients is just how we prioritize our time. I choose to do this. I’d rather put a metal roof on my house than buy a new stereo.”
Now the ecoculture advocate said he is working to bring his message to a larger audience, through a series of planned public events through September.
On Tuesday, Spencer is scheduled to continue his Green and Resilient Neighborhood Initiative. Working with the River Road Community Organization, he will encourage city neighborhood associations to incorporate green and sustainable living into their platforms.
Spencer said city programs such as Neighborhood Watch and can benefit from encouraging front yard gardens. If people spend more time tending their front yards, they’d see more of what’s going on in the street and the houses around them, he said. Safer for everyone.
Suburban permaculture can do more than help preserve our planet, Spencer said: It can help put the neighbor back in neighborhood.
“One of the main reasons these programs, such as Mapping Your Neighborhood and CERT training, are so important is they give neighbors a safe way to meet their neighbors,” Spencer said. “Once the neighbors meet each other, they can do whatever they want. They can share tools, what they know take their fences down — literally and figuratively.”
Spencer’s neighborhood in north Eugene is scattered with solar panels and lawns that look like Japanese gardens. He said that there are 20 other suburban permaculture properties within biking distance of his house.
One street over, Ravi Logan and Michelle Renee host Sunday meditation sessions on a fully sustainable straw bale studio they built on about three fourths of an acre of land. The fences between the houses behind them have been taken down, and Logan roams freely around his neighbors’ yards.
The couple, whose property will be featured in a site tour Spencer is leading on Saturday, have solar water heaters, more than 100 edible crops, food forest, green house and a variety of fruit trees.
Neighbors come and use their yoga studio for movie nights and meditation. In their wooded acreage, scattered with picnic tables, there are potluck meals and Fourth of July celebrations.
“What we’re hoping for is not an intentional community, but an intentional neighborhood where we deepen our relations and take care of more needs closer to where we live. ” Renee said.
Spencer said that a core ideal of permaculture is to design systems that lead to multiple positive outcomes.
“This is healthy, you’re out in the fresh air, and you are more likely to meet and make common cause with your neighbors."
The Green and Resilient Neighborhood Initiative. Link to more info.
Events
Jan Spencer is giving a presentation about creating green and resilient homes and neighborhoods at 7 p.m. Tuesday at River Road Recreation Center. Spencer also is leading a site tour at 1 p.m. Saturday, beginning at Rosetta Park, Benjamin and Evergreen Streets in the River Road Neighborhood.