May 3 & 4: 165: Finding Excitement Creating a Life-Sustaining Society

Lavender farmer Dana Illo and her partner Catherine Johnson will infect you with enthusiasm. They’ve turned their initial response to resource declines from “it’s horrible and overwhelming” into “we can create new ways of doing.” Dana is bringing Dragon Dreaming to her community. This organizing model starts by having a group totally buy into a specific dream, like being locally food self-sufficient. Then in every cycle of implementation, members Dream, Plan, Do and — just as importantly — Celebrate! Why not have fun while we build community and security?

May 10 & 11: 166: The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

“The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty… We’ll face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity.” So opens Chris Martenson’s much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he tidily sums up our economic problems: Too Much Debt. Chris discusses the implications if we continue the status quo, and ways to prepare. He believes that “if we manage the transition elegantly we can actually improve things.” www.chrismartenson.com.

May 17 & 18: 167: Bag It! Packaging Bulk Foods with Nitrogen

Nevada County locals Jim Wray and Loraine Webb demonstrate the how and why of packaging bulk foods with nitrogen. They’re using equipment available for community members to use at minimal cost. Jim demonstrates packaging: make plastic bags using a heat sealer, fill with foodstuffs, suck out the oxygen with a small vacuum, then replace the air with nitrogen and seal. Loraine, organizer of The Neighborhood Readiness Project, has arranged with several locally-owned grocery stores to sell 25 pound bags of grains, beans and other bulk foods at just above cost. Loraine’s vision is our having food caches in every neighborhood in the county, so that, if the trucks stop rolling in an emergency, we’ll have food for ourselves AND to share with our neighbors. www.NeighborRP.org.

May 24 & 25: 168: Four Acres and Independence – A Self-Sufficient Farmstead

Take a tour of Mark Cooper’s self-sufficient small farm in Rough and Ready. Over several years, he transformed a rundown house and hillsides covered with berry brambles into pasture and gardens where he produces and preserves most of his family’s food. Visit the Goose Grotto in a constructed pond, a heritage fruit tree orchard, oak logs producing shiitake mushrooms, and a cheap-and-easy container kitchen garden. All with the basic how-to’s for producing this abundance. Mark gives us a closeup tour of the solar dehydrator he constructed from salvaged materials, along with his tips on food drying.

May 31 & June 1: 126 A School Garden Brings Learning to Life

Come along on a tour with team-teachers Glenda Berliner and Jeralyn Wilson, as they show us their elementary school garden bearing many fruits. It’s an important part of the curriculum: children make mason bee boxes, grow colonial medicinal plants, learn of other cultures, and put science to work. It builds community: parents work together, students form a bucket brigade to transport wood chips. It’s a site for celebrations like a pumpkin harvest or a play. Whether it’s the flower and vegetable beds, or the restful Zen garden, the garden.

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.