Common Vision | Harvest Rhythm

Permaculture/Reforestation at MA Center

2008-06-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

The MA Center is the US headquarters for international humanitarian and spiritual leader Mata Amritanandamayi also known as Amma. The Permaculture and Reforestation course with Geoff Lawton this August will be designing this property and the laying the groundwork for a broad-acre reforestation project. The below information will introduce you to the design project in words, pictures, and interactive 3-D maps.

1. Download: Client Brief for the MA Center

2. View: Photos, the Topographical Map, and Google Earth Images of the MA Center with descriptions. In the Flickr slideshow interface, click the "i in circle" to reveal the information about each image. > Click here

3. If you are really ready to get to know the site, download these google earth places.
( Don't have Google Earth? Well, it's time. > Click here )
If you open these files with Google Earth than you can fly around them and get to know the lay of the land. This is a super powerful tool for Permaculture Design.

Download: All MACenter places in a .zip file
OR
Download them one at a time:
Property Boundaries
Topo Map
Design Area 1
Design Area 2
Cow's Pasture

Reforestation with the National Forest Service

2008-06-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

As May gave way to June, most of Northern California was experiencing summer. Meanwhile Common Vision and members of the National Forest Service traveled together up to nearly 8000 ft where the last snows were just melting and where just a few short years ago fire torched the forest.

16 Volunteers from San Francisco, Grass Valley, Sacramento, Mendocino, and LA came together to replant 4 acres of the burn site and reconnect with our ability to heal ourselves and the earth. Our team planted over 1,000 red fir, white fir, and sugar pine trees to jumpstart the forest’s recovery from a 2006 wildfire.

The planting became even more of an adventure when the planters were joined by unexpected rain-clouds. Not to be deterred from reaching the day’s goal, planters donned trash-bags as ponchos and planted on!

The experience was so positive for both the Common visionaries and the Forest Service that Vicki Stoll, partnership coordinator for the Forest Service, urged the Common Vision staff to work towards inviting groups of urban youth to a planting project in 2009! We look forward to continuing stewardship of public lands and to help expand this collaboration to more organizations and tree planting enthusiasts!

Thank you to the National Forest Service and to all the reforestation participants for caring for our national treasure and for creating such a memorable experience! Special Thanks to Viki and Paul who were diligent in making this project happen. Your dedication to the forest is inspiring. Thank You!

Common Vision invites Geoff Lawton

2008-05-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

On August 8-10th, world renowned Permaculture designer Geoff Lawton, will be joining Common Vision to teach a Permaculture and Reforestation course. Geoff is director of the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, a master of harvesting rainwater in the landscape, and a frequent co-teacher with Bill Mollison. He has been invited by governments, NGOs, businesses, and communities in 27 different countries to teach, restore damaged ecosystems, and direct sustainable design projects. In case you haven't heard of Geoff's work, we would like to share the power and impact that his water-harvesting knowledge has had. Check out "Greening the Desert" below, it will boggle your mind...

Fruit Tree Tour Wins Emmy Award !!!

2008-05-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

Good thing I was at a party when I found out the Fruit Tree Tour
episode of the show Natural Heroes, had won an emmy, because it was time to celebrate! The award-winning show was based on our DVD Planting the Vision. The special episode aired on PBS across the nation. This award is a huge tribute to programs like Natural Heroes and the featured groups that are working for positive change. We hope many more people will see the show and be inspired to plant a tree in their community!

Watch a 6-minute trailer for the DVD "Planting the Vision" below.
> Order the DVD today

> Watch the Natural Heroes Fruit Tree Tour Promo on the Natural Heroes site

CV Crew Supports GreenFriends

2008-05-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

In Castro Valley, just southeast of Oakland, an international humanitarian and spiritual leader Amritananda Mayi has a center on several hundred acres of grassy hillsides. As part of her Green Friends initiative (which plants 100,000 saplings along the coast India each year) she has begun a campaign to plant trees in the United States starting with the center’s grounds. Just after Fruit Tree Tour ended, 5 Common Vision crew members brought the fruit tree grafting skill that they developed on tour to propagate 108 apple and pear trees to support the project. The grafted trees will be used as part of a fund raiser to support the reforestation effort in the Castro Valley hills.

Reforestation Weekend Retreat

2008-05-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

After returning from our fifth annual tour planting 1000 fruit trees in urban schools across California, we asked ourselves, “How else can we be in service to the planet?” Plant more trees, we concluded! Join Common Vision to bring this tree planting energy from the cities out into the National Forest to plant 1,500 trees on five acres of fire devastated land. The weekend will be a festive celebration of life, spring, and stewardship of our beloved planet. Forest base camp is in Alder Springs, less than 3 hours from the Bay Area, Ukiah, and Grass Valley, located southwest of Chico. Weekend Includes: Organic vegetarian meals, Forest camping, Campfire singing, Yoga classes, and Tree planting! Sign up.

Permaculture Hillside Transformation

2008-05-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

In the eastern hills of Oakland, Common Vision joined forces with three classes at Merritt to transform a steep hillside into a permaculture food forest with 108 fruit trees! Before trees were planted a team of pickaxers and shovelers built swales, long on-contour ditches, designed to harvest 1000’s of gallons of rainwater and store it deep in the hillside. Over 75 Common Vision crew and Merritt College students worked all day, accompanied by the drums, to plant the widest spread of tree varieties in Fruit Tree Tour history. Jujubes, almonds, chestnuts, pluots, figs, apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, nectarines, and persimmons will soon watch the sunset over Oakland. Video created by Annapurna.

1000th Tree Planted Celebration

2008-05-05T18:58:00.000-07:00

With the most packed schedule in Fruit Tree Tour history including more schools and community collaborations then ever before, the Common Vision crew successfully planted over 1000 fruit trees on the 2008 tour. In this short video, Professor Dingledorf, (a character in this year’s performance) leads the celebration of the 1000th tree going in to the ground at Hillside Elementary in the East bay. Students from Hillside support the celebration by writing and performing an eco-beats rhyme for the occasion. Video by Annapurna.

Emmy Nomination for Common Vision !!!

2008-04-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

Get out your cameras!

Common Vision will be on the red carpet at the Northern California Emmy Awards, May 10th 2008 at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, CA. The Fruit Tree Tour segment on Natural Heroes, a national television series of independent films on the environment, is nominated for an Emmy in the category of children/youth-program special. The episode “Fruit Tree Tour” was based on Common Vision’s DVD, “Planting the Vision”. Order the DVD here to see what the academy is talking about!

1000-Tree Fruit Forest in a Box

2008-04-02T22:49:00.001-07:00

2008 is the year for variety in Fruit Tree Tour's veggie oil powered refrigerator truck! Because of local nurseries like Rolling River in Orleans, wholesale nurseries such as Dave Wilson Nurseries and Sierra Gold who support planting fruit trees in school yards and community centers, our tree stewards have worked with over 65 different varieties of fruit trees. It's a tight squeeze getting all those bare-roots to fit in their winterized box-truck home! Luckily they move out quickly as we plant on average 20 trees per school. Trees of Antiquity surprised us with heirlooms like Tydeman's Late Orange Apple while SolMan Nursery in Encinitas donated our first 6 bananas in Fruit Tree Tour history! Through a large donation of fruiting vines, chain link fences surrounding many city schools will soon be dripping with Ruby Red and Monukka Grapes and Heyward kiwis. Having such a wide variety of trees allows for each school yard to experience fruit harvests throughout the school year. A school might have Loquats in April, Earlitreat Peach in May, Dapple Dandy Pluots in August; Emerald Beaut and Elephant Heart Plums in September, Fuji, Pink Lady and Granny Smith Apples in October, Fuyu Persimmons in November, Satsuma Tangerines in December, White Sapotes in January, Cherimoyas in February.. well, you get the picture.

Biggest Planting in Tour History!

2008-04-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

In a historic planting day, Common Vision teamed up with members of Serna Village to plant a record-breaking 105 fruit trees! Serna Village is a thriving community that serves as long-term housing for families that have struggled with homelessness. With master gardeners, Village community members, and organizations like First Five of Sacramento, the day of planting and celebration yielded an amazing nutritional resource for the over 200 kids living at the village. After a powerful day of working, learning and laughing together, fruit trees now surround the co-housing units.

In a few years this place of growth and new beginnings for the 83 families who live there, will have the beauty, health, and abundance of a wide variety of fruit trees. Leo Buc, veggie mechanic and mathematician estimates in six years, the trees will produce 2 and ½ tons of fruit, roughly equivalent to the weight of 875 gallons of vegetable oil or 1 unloaded veggie-powered soil-hauling dump truck. In this video Annapurna shows the planting, planning, and celebration that went into this momentous collaboration.

Workin at the Bus Wash

2008-04-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

After traversing half the state, from Santa Cruz to Joshua Tree to San Diego and up to L.A., Common Vision’s veggie powered caravan needs a good scrub down. Now that our 175 feet of caravan has passed our 17, 231st mile, the Fruit Tree Tour crew is becoming experts not only at planting fruit trees and writing rhymes with kids, but also getting the murals shining on all sides of our buses and homes. Working at the carwash has never been this much fun….or this much work! The parking alone was a work of art!

Green Theatre 2008 Slide Show

2008-04-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

The 2008 Fruit Tree Tour “Green Theatre” performance has inspired over 8,000 students this year. The story follows two urban students on there journey to find out how the food they eat is interrelated to the health of the environment. Their adventure includes a magic book that come to life, an old grandmother who shares how the birds, animals, and cycles of nature taught her about how to grow her food, and a crew of rhyming street kids who transform trash in a littered lot into instruments and music. With colorful veggie busses as backdrops, intricate puppets, drumming, and dancing, the performance engages whole school assemblies with messages of cooperation, earth stewardship, and community action for positive local and global change.

Drum Group

2008-04-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Common Vision brings enough drums for all the students in the workshop to play a variety of rhythms together. In the drum group, facilitators bring to life the importance of communication, respect, and recognition of interconnectedness. Students learn about traditional and contemporary cultures that use music and rhythms to celebrate seasonal cycles, to accompany farming work, and to remember that all people and animals share the common rhythm of the heartbeat. The drumming group marks time for their classmates to pickax, plant, and transform their schoolyard. Click Here to hear from Pranav, lead facilitator of the 2008 Fruit Tree Tour Drum Group.

Nature in the City

2008-04-02T09:15:00.000-07:00

The Fruit Tree Tour crew is dedicated to helping urban students and community members renew a relationship with the Earth. Acknowledging the challenges of connecting to Nature in city environments, the crew sometimes needs a little inspiration to remember the interconnectedness of the plants, animals, and human kind. Thanks to the 10-year-old nephew of veteran tree-planter and eco-hip-hopper Koral Delatierra, Fruit Tree Tour received two fuzzy-golden bears suits for this year’s Green Theater. The inherited costumes quickly became a favorite accessory for the earth-loving, adventurous crew of Fruit Tree Tour 2008.

The making of a Schoolyard Orchard

2008-03-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

What does it take to transform a schoolyard? This video created by tour veteran Annapurna takes us on the journey of planting an urban orchard at Jonas Salk Tech High from the perspective of the Fruit Tree Tour behind the scenes team--from the soil donation yard to planting site. Common Vision had the honor to work with a dynamic urban agriculture educational project, Soil Born Farms, on this planting. Catch a glimpse of how Common Vision joins forces with local organizations to meaningfully connect with students, schools, and communities.

Expression Session Video Part 1: Regroovables

2008-03-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

When Fruit Tree Tour comes to a school, tree planting is only part of the picture. There are three workshops that make up the day of tree planting and community building, aiming to give students a whole new set of experiences about their environment, and their place in it. This movie is part 1 of a close look into Eco- Beats, a self expression workshop that teaches kids, they can use creativity to express themselves, clean up their neighborhood, and have impact on the greater environment. Thank you Fruit Tree Tour veteran and bus driver, Doug Fuller for sharing the vision of Regrooveables and to returning crew member Anna Purna, tree-planter, eco hip hopper, artist, and photographer for editing this great video piece.

Check out another video about Regroovables.

Compton Planting Celebration Video

2008-03-17T12:47:00.000-07:00

Compton Unified School District brought Fruit Tree Tour to 4 schools in Compton this year to work with 1850 students and plant 75 trees. In this video made by return crew member and MC, Jah Sun Williams, school board member Marjorie Shipp explains why the program is important to her and to the City of Compton. George Washington Carver Elementary Principal Dr Jacqueline Sanderlin shares how Common Vision has inspired a whole new direction the landscape and integrated learning of the school. The video highlights the one of the most celebratory after-school drumming-dancing-tree planting school-yard transformations in tour history! Special Thanks to UrbanFarming.Org for sponsoring scholarships for Compton area schools for the second year in a row.

The Sweetest Oasis

2008-03-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

We’ve always seen the Sugar Shack as a miracle oasis in the heart of the asphalt desert of Los Angeles, and this year their status as urban miracle makers grew even more. This intentional community of artists opened an invitation to share their home with the entire crew of 27 during a full week of tree planting events in the city. Imagine 27 people getting their morning cup of coffee in your kitchen! Then, after graciously hosting the tour for a week, they didn’t flinch at our phone call that we needed an emergency landing site after a series of small scale catastrophes at our next campsite. Our heroes hosted the caravan for two more days making it possible to fulfill another two planting events. Fruit Tree Tour in Los Angeles would not be possible without the Sugar Shack. Thank you for being the sweetest oasis. We love you Sugar!!

The Best Day Ever

2008-03-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

It is so important to remember at every tree planting on tour, what a special and unique experience that tree is for each child. If we ever forget for a moment the kind of impact a day of Fruit Tree Tour has for its participants, we are quickly reminded by the heartwarming letters and pictures we receive from the students themselves! 4th grader Robert lets us know, he is proud to tell his mom, dad and 20 month baby brother, “I know how to plant a tree”.

Santa Cruz Celebration Event

2008-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

This Thursday, March 20, Common Vision is excited to celebrate in Santa Cruz with a Fruit Tree tour benefit that is going to rock!
at the Vets Hall- 846 front street, Santa Cruz, CA
Doors open at 7:30
Music starts at 8:00
$15 donation at the door
Join us for music with Youssoupha Sidibe and members of Sila and the AfroFunk Experience, and Love Eternal. Story telling with ChoQosh Auh-Ho-Oh, and a special theatre production and slideshow with Common Vision.

20 out of 20 common vision crew members could be found dancing to music by Kora virtuouso Youssoupha Sidibe at Common Vision’s benefit in San Francisco, last fall. After that most amazing event, Common Vision asked Youssou to bring the band and his unique musical style
and help us lift our spirits and our feet to benefit Fruit Tree Tour 2008!

Performance Tune-Up

2008-03-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

At each school program the 27 Fruit Tree Tour educators put on a 35-minute theater performance that includes colorful puppets, drumming, dancing, earth-conscious hip-hop, and a message about community, earth stewardship, and positivity. In this video, veteran tree planter Brian Flynn shows a behind the scenes look at the crew in performance practice. Special thanks to Blair Phillips for developing the storyline, to Xylem Larla Dey for pulling together and directing the script, and to George Martinet our costume designer and on-tour director.

A New Fruit Corridor in LA

2008-03-04T10:31:00.000-08:00

Last Week, Fruit Tree Tour joined forces with the Green Ambassadors, a group comprised of 60 Los Angeles high school students dedicated to environmental leadership, to plant 70 fruit trees in a school and neighborhood in Lawndale (in LA). On Monday the Green Ambassadors learned how to plant fruit trees by planting over 30 banana, fig, peach, nectarine, apple, citrus, guava, and avocado trees on the new Environmental Charter High School campus. Over the course of the week, the ambassadors canvassed their new neighborhood to find ways to expand the shade, fruit, and oxygen of their new orchard into the surrounding residents’ lives. On Saturday, to the beat of the drums, the students and the Common Vision tree planters saw another 40 trees into the ground.

Grafting at the Schools with Brian

2008-02-23T20:44:00.000-08:00

I think I should start my first Common Vision blog by being completely honest: I've had my doubts about grafting at the schools. And it's not because I don't think grafting is cool. Grafting is way cool. I mean, we take a little stick from one tree, slice into another tree, insert our little stick into the slice, wrap it with tape, slap some goop on it, and BAM! if it heals properly we got ourselves a brand new yummy fruit tree. But I've still had my doubts as I've wondered whether or not a group of 4th or 5th graders would really find this little miracle as interesting as me, the over-enthusiastic somewhat quirky long-haired tree-planting stranger.

Well, we've including grafting in the tree planting groups at two schools so far on FTT '08: Vista del Valle Elementary in Claremont and Birney Elementary in San Diego. At both schools I had the opportunity to facilitate three grafting workshops during which we would plant a rootstock tree and then graft the scion of a desired variety onto the rootstock. And I gotta admit I was a bit surprised when the students were really into it! I told them that the green layer inside the bark contains the new cell factory (cambium) and has the tubes (xylem and phloem) that work like the veins in our bodies, moving around all the stuff the tree needs to live. And our goal is to get the thin green layer of the rootstock to link up with the thin green layer of the yummy fruit branch. Even though we don't give the students knifes to slice the scion, they were intent on watching me closely making sure I was doing a good job preparing the graft. Since the students still have a tree planting experience when we plant the rootstock, the grafting is like a fun magic trick that we add on.

So, there's a video at the top of this blog if you haven't noticed it yet. It was taken by crew member Annapurna this past week at Birney Elementary in San Diego. I think it gives a good snapshot of a grafting group, in case any of you out there were wanting a small taste of what a day of Fruit Tree Tour might look like. I'm hoping to get more video uploaded soon with more tree planting, scenes from our green theater performance, drum workshops, creative expression session footage, and, hopefully, some behind the scenes footage of "Life on Tour." So make sure you keep checking back here, ok?

Tomorrow we begin the LA chapter of Fruit Tree Tour '08!

Lots of love from the road,

Some Upcoming Community Collaborations

2008-02-21T15:49:00.000-08:00

Collaboration with local organizations is a hallmark of the Fruit Tree Tour project. This year’s tour is rich and abundant with opportunities where Common Vision will support local non-profits in their mission and spreads the message of Fruit Tree Tour meaningfully into the communities whom the organizations serve. Throughout the tour we will be sharing these stories. Here is a glimpse at two highlights coming up in Southern California:

Edendale Farm: On March 8th, Fruit Tree Tour will be planting up to 80 fruit trees at Edendale Farm and the surrounding Silver Lake (LA) neighborhood. Edendale Farm is an urban homesteading developing a replicable urban center that raises healthy wholesome food for the local community, teaches sustainable food cultivation skills, reduces waste and fosters community economics and relationships. This planting is open for the public to plant trees to the rhythm of the drums with Common Vision and Edendale Farms.

Alpha Resource Center of Santa Barbara, a non-profit organization established in 1953 that provides services and supports for people with developmental disabilities and their families in the County of Santa Barbara, California. On March 10th, Common Vision will working with the community of the Alpha Center and the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network to transform the landscape.
“Common Vision’s visit as a catalyzing moment of drawing the local community together. The clients at the Alpha Center have a great joy to share with the world and the Common Vision program is a wonderful opportunity for them to share with their local community while entering into a collaboration with the local permaculture network to create a sustainable food producing living environment.”
-Marisa Bourke, Alpha Center Outreach Coordinator