Wait & Watch

The mountains are a reminder that the main requirement is patience. And then, you also need . . .   patience.  And then, of course, some more . . . patience.

Observation is probably the most basic permaculture principle. It's difficult to know exactly how or where to start if your goal is to use permaculture design to remake, redesign, or regenerate a landscape. Your first impulse -- to do something, anything -- may be a great idea, but it could just as easily lock you into some terrible foundational errors which you will need to spend a lot of time and energy correcting. Course correction itself isn't a bad thing; the companion piece to "observe" is "interact," that is, try out a few ideas as they occur to you and observe the consequences, but on a manageable scale. When in doubt, sit back and wait it out.

And, if you're really observing and paying attention, the ideas will occur to you. Up here on the mesas of the North Fork Valley, the snows will show you how the land reacts to winter; the trees, shrubs, and grasses will slowly reveal their strategy for dealing with a frozen landscape; and the prairie dogs will pop up in January to check out what the world was up to while they were hibernating. The prairie dogs, by the way, have been observing and interacting with the landscape for a long time, and they seem to have it figured out. Wait and watch.