Suzanne Mackey

Graduated from: Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course, 2006

Our house was built in 1907 on a 6,000 square foot urban lot amongst other Victorians and Bungalows. It's just a short walk to our wonderful old downtown. Two years ago we got our friends to leave Oakland and buy the house behind us. We had looked for rural property together before coming here but the long drive to jobs and amenities seemed crazy with the coming end of oil. We wanted a small, tight community that could support itself in a crisis. We are working towards that end.

So my neighbor Betty Li and I decided to take the Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course this past year to re-design our two adjoining urban lots into a Permaculture food forest. We aim for "an overabundance of abundance" as Permaculture teacher Penny Livingston-Stark says. That's the plan. We'll post our progress at www.petalumaurbanhomestead.blogspot.com so you can learn with us as we make mistakes, jump for joy, and hopefully live more lightly on the planet.