Education Center

The core strength (and reputation) of LV is its learning center on permaculture, cob/adobe works,  and related topics.  After I discovered LV through the GEN network, I signed up for their events mailing listThe only issue as with all PDCs is – what happens afterward.  While one gains invaluable learnings and lessons, unless one has their own gardens/farms there aren’t many jobs out there (yet) that require a PDC certificate.  The permaculture learnings and future usage will have quite a positive impact.

From LV's web site:

Permaculture Internship Program

Lost Valley Permaculture Immersion Internships offer training in the practical application of sustainable living skills.  The program is focused around learning by doing, especially organic gardening and green infrastructure projects.  It also has a conceptual learning component.  Interns are rewarded with education through action in an intentional community setting — they become part of the community and play a crucial role in co-creating sustainable systems on-site.

Annual Winter Permaculture Design Intensive Course

This is the second longest continually running permaculture course (PDC) in North America, taught by career design teachers and contractors Jude Hobbs, Rick Valley, and Marisha Auerbach.  The two-week course covers all the main elements of permaculture, set in a sustainability-minded intentional community.

Three-Month Permaculture Design Course

Interns, Lost Valley residents, and commuters from the surrounding area have the option of taking a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course at Lost Valley, with one class session per week for 12 weeks.  This is an add-on for established international standard of 72 hours of contact time with qualified instructors, including a group design project that brings together everything the students have learned.  The course runs once each in the spring, summer, and fall.

My arrival @ LV

LV ecoVillage (Lost Valley)  has been on my ‘To Do’ list for over 4 years -  ever since I discovered GEN (www.gen.org) at my stays in Sieben Linden (www.siebenlinden.de) in Germany. There had to be a closer community!  (I'm not into glorified condos (aka co-housing), or small (<20) communities).

I searched the GEN directory for closeby ecoVillages and the only listings on the West Coast were LV and the LA condominium. I was going to visit here (LV) last year but car troubles precluded that. So this year,  I finally decided to combine it with my annual Mt. Shasta backpacking trip, doing a weekend drive-by in October. I was so taken by the land and the people here (along with meeting a friend I’d known in the Bay Area) that I decided it was worth a much longer stay: hence a 12 day stay in November.

I arrived fully loaded with food, cooking+camping supplies, not knowing what to expect as far as accommodations + food goes.

There’s no coffee served at LV and I am a coffee ‘addict’. I gotta have my 4-6 cups every morning!