The first hard frost made the bed for a dusting of snow on our little hill this week. These long, cold winter nights feel familiar, made for nostalgia and memories of holidays and family. At the same time, it’s also a time of hunkering down, dying back, while some of us on the farm are experiencing it all for the first time. Our chickens and new puppies, Axel and Robin, are all new this year and in many ways they get the most intense experience of the shortening days. We’ve had changes in our community too, so we also enter the holidays with at least two new comunardi around the table.
We’re also excited to share some upcoming opportunities to learn at Borgo Basino this winter and spring, specifically a Permaculture Design Course with local experts Andrea Minchio and Pietro Venezia who’ve been working with us on a new permaculture design plan on the farm and a 6-part course from the Italian group of the CLIPS ecovillage incubation program.
The Permaculture Association-certified PDC course provides the required 72 hours needed for certification with a particular focus on systems design and mapping, led by the Armonie Animali network with co-sponsorship from WWOOF Italia. The PDC is a foundation course for permaculture practitioners and students as a baseline for future work and practice in regenerative agriculture. We are exploring the possibility of scholarships for migrants and refugees in partnership with the Permaculture for Refugees network as well.
The second course is an ecovillage immersion course, hosted at 6 different ecovillages in Italy and at ours for the third module in May. The course covers useful tools, techniques, facilitation and support for ecovillage projects with expert facilitators living in ecovillages. Those who complete the course will be offered CLIPS accreditation through CLIPS Italia.
We are excited by these new possibilities that build on years of groundwork for us, hoping that as the days grow longer in the coming week they illuminate new possibilities for us and you into 2023!
