Paul Wheaton looking damn sharp in overalls.
paul wheaton - the duke of permaculture
In 2012, Geoff Lawton, the crown prince of permaculture, dubbed me the duke of permaculture. Damn cool.
I'm shocked by the amount of traffic this page gets. Including the number of searches. Yowza. Well, you found me. Let's see if I can give you the info you are looking for.
permaculture forums
Years ago I would get so much email that I started some forums. The forums got so big and sorta became a community of its own, so I split them off to their own domain. The permaculture forums have since become larger than all other permaculture web sites combined. If you post something there and you specifically want my feedback and 48 hours have passed with anything from me, send me an email with a link to the thread. Please do NOT send me a forum PM (private message).
I probably post to the forums about 5 to 20 times each day. A lot of that is in the tinkering forum - where I talk about what stuff I am trying to manage day to day.
- If you like the forums, please scroll to the bottom of the page and follow the instructions under "Thanks". If you are not currently affiliated with those social networks (and you like my stuff), I would like to ask that you join stumbleupon and reddit and then click on those badges. It helps the community and, besides, I think those two networks are cool. Thanks.
permaculture videos
I started making videos and they got lots of views and lots of lovely people said nice things to me about them. So I made more. And more. And I've learned a thing or two about being a youtube publisher.
- Here is my full collection of my permaculture videos and a few other bits and bobs.
- While you are there, please do the youtube "subscribe" thing. This tells youtube that my stuff is worth sharing with more people.
- For each of my videos that you watch, if you like it, please watch it to the very end and give it a thumbs up. This tells youtube that the video is worthy to show to more people.
subscribe to me!
I set up this daily-ish email thing and it has been excellent! Please sign up!
A while back, somebody set up a facebook fan page for me and I now have over 4500 fans. I try to post stuff out there as it comes up. I'm not sure, but I think that if you "like" that page, then when something new is posted out there, you get a facebook notification of some sort.
I have a twitter account and I post to it about once a day.
If you want to be my facebook friend, that's fine. I figure most of the stuff I post there is geared more toward old friends, kin and the like.
My G+ stuff
permaculture articles
You can find the full list of my rants permaculture articles here on richsoil.com.
If you like an article, please scroll to the bottom and follow the "Thanks" stuff.
Since I live in Missoula and am glad to express my arrogant and obnoxious opinions about Missoula things, I do have a Missoula blog.
radio, podcasts, newspapers and magazines
I used to keep a list here, but the list got kinda big. So now the list of stuff I've been in has been moved to this thread.
I had no less than 25 people encourage me to start a podcast of my own. Many people came out to make things really easy for me to do a podcast. I lean really heavily on the suggestion of one person that I don't need to put any effort into quality - thus making it far easier! So here are my permaculture podcasts. At the time of this writing, there are 205 podcasts. And note that my podcasts use "the full beauty of the english language" - those that fear words, might want to skip these.
I'm happy to interviewed and infect more brains with my gobbledygook. Just send me an email to get it set up.
speaking on permaculture
I've probably presented over a hundred times. I recently finished my "Symphonies in Seed and Soil" tour where I presented seven times.
I used to speak for free, but there were several times where I showed up and the organized said "Ooops, I forgot to tell anybody." My favorite arrangement lately has been to speak as part of a fundraiser for some outfit. If they get a crowd of 50 or more, I let them keep half of the speaking fee. It is currently $400 up front, plus $400 more if the crowd is less than 50 people.
I like how the press release from transition woodinville introduced me: "The colorful and dynamic permaculture icon, Paul Wheaton, will present "30 Tinkerers Technologies in 30 Minutes" followed by "Replacing Irrigation with Permaculture," Thursday night, June 21, 7:00 p.m. at the Sammamish Valley Grange, a community event sponsored by Transition Woodinville. Sensitive types should be warned that the "colorful" can sometimes venture into "off-color," though one thing is clear: this is guaranteed to be a lively, informative event." The key is that my presentation style is not for everybody.
Presentations on my laptop at the time I'm writing this:
- replacing irrigation with permaculture
- sepp holzer's permaculture
- wofati eco buildings
- raising chickens 2.0: no more coop and run
- introduction to permaculture
- making the big bucks with permaculture
- the "animals in the landscape" segment for a PDC
- carbon/eco footprint and urban vs. rural
- rocket mass heaters
I presented to 140 people in Oceanside, California and they recorded more than two hours of that. You can see it here.
permaculture design courses
Sorry folks, I have no intention of putting on a full permaculture design course. It's just not my thing.
I have been a guest instructor at some past PDC's. I've presented formally on the "animals in the landscape" segment and on eco building. And usually do an evening presentation on top of that. If you are running a PDC and would like to be a guest instructor, send me an email.
permaculture consulting
I am flooded with requests from people wanting me to answer questions via email or over the phone. It is impossible for me to please all of these people individually. If folks can post their questions in the forums, and if they don't get a satisfactory answer in a few days, send me an email and I promise to answer those questions in the forum. Free of charge.
I currently work about 15 hours a day every day. Getting videos and podcasts up, writing articles, getting interviewed, answering questions in the forums, etc. More than 100,000 people look at my stuff every day. Any time I spend helping an individual is time not spent helping thousands. At the same time, the money that comes from individual consultation is what pays for the tools to spread the word further.
I charge $1200 per day plus expenses. And this includes my travel time. So if it takes me a day to get there, a day to consult and a day to get back home, that's $3600 plus expenses. Paid in advance.
Sometimes I will be going to an area and can do some of the consulting stuff on the way and make it cheaper. Stay tuned on my daily-ish email to hear about my travel plans.
Be aware: I think that the only people that like my advice are those that already understand a lot of my positions on a lot of things. My advice is going to have a strong focus on how to get a net income coming to the land in excess of $200,000 per year. And the start is going to be to produce 90% of the food needs of the people that live on the land. All of my designs include raising animals for meat and keeping a livestock guardian dog. All of my designs also include an element of facilitating interns and other farm help.
In other words, most people looking to hire a designer are really looking for somebody other than me. I suggest that you head out to the permaculture forums, scroll down to the regional section and post that you are looking for a designer in your area.
I can also give advice on the phone at $160 per hour. But you can usually get the same advice for free over the forums.
If I am going to be in an area, I am often interested in gathering video footage of different things. When I'm headed to an area, I'll post to the appropriate regional forum on the permaculture forums. If you think you have something that might fit in to the kinds of videos I do, and I'm going to be in your area, I would like to hear from you.
Please direct questions about my articles to the forums. My email has so much traffic, that it can often take days until I can respond. But in the forums, there are lots of people that can respond. Further, if it is a question about one of my articles, I'll just ask you to post your question to the forum. If you don't like forums and want to get a response from me via email, then see the consulting section above.
If you need to talk to somebody privately about something, please try this email first:
.... that goes to somebody trying to deal with my email river. Somebody that is fully prepared to process everything and make sure everybody is happy. If you don't get an excellent response in 48 hours, then try:
I appreciate you using this as a last resort. And I have to warn you that I get so much email, that a lot of it goes forever unread.
Not so long ago I was a software engineer. In 1998 I made a web site about some of my philosophies and it grew into a rather large community about java programming. The biggest part is the java forums.
