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Global Student Experience Abroad
GSE offers summer, quarter, semester, and year-long study abroad programs in Europe, Australia, and South America.
Acorn Overseas
Acorn overseas is a project abroad organisation and we are here to try and make a difference. We will arrange your volunteer trip for you, whether you are looking for a 2-week get away or a 1-year trip, what better way to see beautiful Thailand than to volunteer here? Acorn overseas was formed when we had 6 final year students from the Acorn School in England come over to volunteer. We arranged everything for them, and one evening while holding a group meeting we came up with the idea of Acorn Overseas. The Acorn School students were so happy with everything we had arranged they thought we should do it for everyone. Natural Farming
Masanobu Fukuoka was born in 1914 in a small farming village on the island of Shikoku in Southern Japan. He was educated in microbiology and worked as a soil scientist specializing in plant pathology, but at the age of twenty-five he began to have doubts about the "wonders of modern agriculture science."
While recovering from a severe attack of pneumonia, Fukuoka experienced a moment of satori or personal enlightenment. He had a vision in which something one might call true nature was revealed to him. He saw that all the "accomplishments" of human civilization are meaningless before the totality of nature. He saw that humans had become separated from nature and that our attempts to control or even understand all the complexities of life were not only futile, they were self-destructive. From that moment on, he has spent his life trying to return to the state of being one with nature.
At the time of his revelation, Fukuoka was living in a Japan that was abandoning its traditional farming methods and adopting Western agriculture, economic and industrial models. He saw how this trend was driving the Japanese even further from a oneness with nature, and how destructive and polluting those practices were. As a result, he resigned his job as a research scientist and returned to his father's farm on Shikoku determined to demonstrate the practical value of his vision by restoring the land to a condition that would enable nature's original harmony to prevail.
Through 30 years of refinement he was able to develop a "do-nothing" method of farming. Without soil cultivation such as plowing or tilling, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, weeding, pruning, machinery or compost, Fukuoka was able to produce high-quality fruit, vegetables and grains with yields equal to or greater than those of any neighboring farm.
Homesteading
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to ‘glorify God and enjoy him forever’."
Hobbit House
Converting a mountainside into a viable agricultural system doesn't have to entail a big investment, however. The reduced use of mechanical equipment can actually offset some of the costs of terracing. And if there's timber, it can be harvested for construction or sale.
But trees hold 80 percent of a forest's carbon, so when you log, you remove most of the system's growing capacity. That makes soil-building and terracing (to prevent erosion) urgent.
When I cleared my mountainside of timber, I wanted to be sure that I caused no erosion -- I needed every bit of dirt for my plants! The forest floor had about two inches of soil packed with small rootlets. I knew that as soon as I cut through this layer, it would open the door to erosion. So before planting, I raked the leaves into contours and scattered grass, wild lettuce, clover and other seeds, plus fertilizer, several times. It worked! Many of the seeds sprouted, creating a cover crop of legumes before any erosion took place.
After clearing the land, I had a huge pile of small limbs left over. I used them to create rows on the contour, helping form terraces. I also arranged some big logs along the terraces, secured with stakes made of highly rot-resistant black locust.
If the goal is to create an orchard, each tree or shrub requires only a small swale behind a short log. Essentially, you're creating a series of separate raised beds.
Agriculture Websites
Here is a collection of websites on agriculture in general and on sustainable agriculture and permaculture in particular. Also listed are websites having to do with agribusiness.
Taoist Food For Thought
If you want to live, you must eat wisely. But eating wisely in the manner described in the previous pages may not prevent you from becoming sick. Something is missing from the grocery-bought or common, regular foods. Yet if these inadequate or “weak” foods can support life, then “strong” foods must be able to strengthen and protect life. This kind of reasoning has driven Taoists to investigate the jungles, mountains, flatlands, and bodies of water in search of these strong foods and to test every plant, animal, and mineral for properties that will benefit mankind. Their discoveries and findings produced other dietary wisdom teachings which became the right arm of Taoists. Taoism exists because of these strong foods (called herbs in the West). (Because the term herb is limited in meaning to plants and inadequately depict the scope and meaning of this Taoist science, the original Taoist term will be used). All Taoists depend on strong foods, just as we depend on food.
Wild Food
What Are Mushrooms?
A mushroom is the fruit of a fungus. Its purpose is to disperse spores, microscopic single cells that can grow into new fungi.
The fungus looks like a series of branching threads infiltrating the soil or leaf litter, or in the wood of living or dead trees. (These higher fungi, which produce mushrooms, consist of many cells. Single-cell lower fungi, which don't produce mushrooms, aren't covered here.)
Mushrooms in different groups take different forms because they have diverse strategies for disseminating spores. These basic forms, many of which you'll find on the Mushrooms Home Page, let you take the first step toward identifying mushrooms you find to species, which is essential before you eat them.
Shamans Wisdom
This site is dedicated to sharing the knowledge and wisdom of shamanic traditions from around the world in an effort to preserve it for future generations. Our work with the shamans has shown us that we are walking a razor edge between destruction and ecstasy. The choices we make in the next few years may well determine whether or not we survive as a species. Our work to discover our true selves, our connection to everything in our experience, can take us on an ecstatic journey without boundaries.
Seed Savers Exchange
Seed Savers Exchange was founded in 1975 by Diane Ott Whealy and Kent Whealy, after her terminally-ill grandfather gave them the seeds of two garden plants, Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory and German Pink Tomato, that his parents brought from Bavaria when they immigrated to St. Lucas, Iowa in the 1870s. Seed Savers Exchange is a nonprofit organization that saves and shares the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage, forming a living legacy that can be passed down through generations. When people grow and save seeds, they join an ancient tradition as stewards, nurturing our diverse, fragile, genetic and cultural heritage.
Future Primitive
It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community – a community practicing understanding and loving kindness, a community practicing mindful living. This may be the most important thing we can do for the survival of the earth.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddhist teacher
Thai Natural Farming
Since 1980 the agricultural and rural development efforts among the government , non government organizations and the farmer’s associations in Thailand have been seeking solutions to address the negative side effects of the Green Revolution in Thailand -- essentially, production using high – technology and chemical fertilizers, insecticides and herbicides.
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HTF Home School