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| a part of Positive News International |
A Hood with Goats and Permaculture |
| Communal building of a shed |
by Emily Shumway
On the 500 block of Dameron Street, near downtown Prescott, Arizona, a goat named Juanita bleats in Jessie Pursley's EcoHood backyard. The Prescott EcoHood is a collection of 10 active households and some 40 affiliated people trying to live more sustainably in this city of 38,000 within the arid mountains of Arizona.
Three and a half years ago Joseph Miller became involved. He bought a home in the low to mid-income Dameron Street neighborhood, and began digging up the concrete and gravel covering his backyard. He says the work is rewarding and neighbors sometimes help, too.
"People are happy to come over and dig holes. They want to get connected to the earth. We are putting sweat and labor into changing something that's rundown, breathing life into it.
" The EcoHood is a constant work in progress. Among the households there are several organic gardens, chickens, two goats, and dozens of fruit trees. Andrew Millison, a resident of the EcoHood, built a rainwater catchment system on his property. Rain that falls on his roof is directed down the rain gutter and stored in an aboveground cistern. The water is then distributed to his gardens through the power of gravity. As water usage increases in this region and underground aquifers are drained, alternatives like this may be essential to maintaining human habitation.
Residents of the EcoHood, like Millison, are changing their lifestyles to create a culture of harmony with nature, through the use of permaculture. "Permaculture is a design system based on the sustainability of natural systems and applying what happens in those natural systems to a human-occupied environment," says Scott Pittman, co founder of the International Permaculture Institute in New Mexico. The use of permaculture within city environments is becoming common in cities from Havana to London.
Contact: EcoHood
www.ecohood.info
On the 500 block of Dameron Street, near downtown Prescott, Arizona, a goat named Juanita bleats in Jessie Pursley's EcoHood backyard. The Prescott EcoHood is a collection of 10 active households and some 40 affiliated people trying to live more sustainably in this city of 38,000 within the arid mountains of Arizona.
Three and a half years ago Joseph Miller became involved. He bought a home in the low to mid-income Dameron Street neighborhood, and began digging up the concrete and gravel covering his backyard. He says the work is rewarding and neighbors sometimes help, too.
"People are happy to come over and dig holes. They want to get connected to the earth. We are putting sweat and labor into changing something that's rundown, breathing life into it.
" The EcoHood is a constant work in progress. Among the households there are several organic gardens, chickens, two goats, and dozens of fruit trees. Andrew Millison, a resident of the EcoHood, built a rainwater catchment system on his property. Rain that falls on his roof is directed down the rain gutter and stored in an aboveground cistern. The water is then distributed to his gardens through the power of gravity. As water usage increases in this region and underground aquifers are drained, alternatives like this may be essential to maintaining human habitation.
Residents of the EcoHood, like Millison, are changing their lifestyles to create a culture of harmony with nature, through the use of permaculture. "Permaculture is a design system based on the sustainability of natural systems and applying what happens in those natural systems to a human-occupied environment," says Scott Pittman, co founder of the International Permaculture Institute in New Mexico. The use of permaculture within city environments is becoming common in cities from Havana to London.
Contact: EcoHood
www.ecohood.info
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