[Intro music] Skipper Chong Warson: Hi, my name is Skipper Chong Warson. And I'm a design director in San Francisco. Thanks for listening to How This Works. This is a show where I invite people on to talk about a topic that they know an awful lot about. I have Ben Falk with me today. And we're going to talk about permaculture and its impact on the larger environment, and how that might impact our personal lives as well. Thanks for making time and space to be here, Ben. Ben Falk: Good to be here. Thank you. Skipper: So, Ben. We start our shows -- well, the shows are all about the subject matter that you know very well; we like to start with you as a person versus the subject matter. So, Ben — let's start with pronouns. My pronouns are he/him/his, how should I refer to you? Ben: The same is good for me. Skipper: Great. So who is Ben Falk? Tell us some things about you. Ben: Well, I live in central Vermont and I grew up in western New York. And I've lived in a few different areas of the world. And I've spent a lot of time my life doing backcountry trips. I used to want to be a mountain guide. And then I found ecological design in college at University of Vermont with Dr. John Todd, who's -- Skipper: Okay. Ben: He should be more well known than he is, but he's a real forefather of modern ecological design. And then through that, I found permaculture and kind of took what I was focused on, and applied it — in the front country more than the backcountry. But I still feel like it's motivated by the same feeling and same intention and drive to try to recalibrate myself to the natural world and live in a way that's more calibrated to how the actual biological world works. And give back and not just take and be a more beneficial member of the living community on this planet. And -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: So over time, it's evolved into kind of farming and homesteading and also running this design business called Whole Systems Design, which is now almost 20 years old. And that's kind of what I do quote, unquote, for a living, but I do lots of stuff for a living -- I sell honey, I keep bees, I teach courses, and I sell plants raised in a nursery, a small nursery. I'd say maybe primarily, I do design work, help folks. plan their site, find land as well as assess a property, and then design those places. Not just mostly I'd say, privately, you know, kind of one-to-one, but also sometimes for towns and schools and larger projects. But I'd say mostly it's for families. Skipper: Okay. So Ben, what's something about you that people might not guess? And you just shared a lot of information, but something that you feel comfortable sharing -- of course. Ben: Hmm. Well, it's come up recently, I think it's some conversations with people that I've had -- and that's I had a bone infection and I was sick for about a year of my life. Skipper: I'm sorry. Ben: Yeah, no, it's fine. I mean, it's turned out to be a very good thing. In the end, I had an amazing teacher and amazing experience, as long as I don't forget the lessons that were in it, which are easy to do when life gets easy again. But yeah, I guess that's one thing, among many. Skipper: Okay. So, what is the thing that we're talking about today that you know an awful lot about? Ben: I would say it's site planning or promoting a regenerative relationship with a place and it's also, you know, management of the systems involved in that, you know, running of a modern homestead, if you will, or a small farm. Skipper: That's great. So one of the terms that, you know, before our conversation today, I was able to get your book and dive a little bit into it. But one of the topics that's talked about is this idea of permaculture. And I looked it up in several different ways. And I have to admit that even after doing some preparation, I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. When I was talking to my wife about this topic, she latched on to the structure of the word and she said, Oh, is it like permafrost? You know, how there are microbes and plants buried in the rock, soil, etc. Can you give us a definition of that word? Ben: Yeah. It is a difficult thing to describe but Bill Mollison and David Holmgren who coined the phrase -- Skipper: Okay. Ben: They were inspired by systems that are ages old, but you know, mostly native -- traditional indigenous land, for lack of a better term land management strategies, but really just cultural strategies because they were and are inseparable from land management. Skipper: Okay. Ben: The way we think of it in our modern context, meaning like permanent culture, permaculture, you know, the kind of approaches, not just physical approaches, but mental patterns to and design approaches that tend to lead toward the ability to sustain human presence and culture in a place over a long period of time to be highly sustainable, which begets the need to be regenerative, because pretty much everywhere is damaged. So you can't just sustain a damaged situation, a damaged status, we have to, you know, heal and do regenerative work to then get to a place where we have something worth sustaining. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But you know, sustainability, and it has an implicit and explicit need to also regenerate. So it's a design approach, primarily in that it's not necessarily a set of strategies, although that's how it's often interpreted. I like to think of it as you're doing permaculture if you're engaging in a place, which includes a community in such a way, that you're being a beneficial member, and you're also garnering your needs from the place in a way that the place is improved. So you're not just extracting your needs. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But you're doing so -- your needs come out of your relationship with your place, as a side yield to your work in regenerating the place. Skipper: Okay. Ben: You know, it's almost like you're living on the interest of your relationship with a place not solely on the principal. Skipper: Yeah. I really like the distinction that you're drawing because I think many people have heard the term sustainability, as it pertains to things like recycling and other kinds of measures to conserve but indicating that we're already at a point with our relationship with our natural ecosystem that we need to think beyond that -- just conserving, but more about how do we regenerate? What how do we focus on these regenerative and holistic practices that can help to rebuild the environment? Ben: Sure, yeah. We have to -- the restoration imperative is throughout, you know, any pursuit that seeks sustainability has to do restoration. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: For sure. Skipper: You talked about in your introduction of yourself doing mountain country trips growing up in western New York, the notion of front country versus backcountry, what got you started in this work? Is that sort of where it started? Ben: I think so. I mean, I think where it started is -- you know, impossible to pin down, right? Because a hurricane comes from a butterfly flapping its wings initially, right? And there's no discrete source of anything, I think, but maybe in a more obvious way, I think maybe the place it started was that I spent a lot of time growing up outside, actually spending a lot of time in trees, like climbing trees. Skipper: Okay. Ben: Those were very pivotal experiences falling in love with trees, because so much of my work now is based around trees and tree systems, you know, permanent agricultural systems, which are perennially based, but also my folks, I was very lucky to have parents who instead of taking us to Disney World and amusements like that, they took us to national parks. Skipper: Oh, wow. Ben: And, you know, we didn't like it at the time. Skipper: (Laughs) You would rather go to Disney World. Ben: My sister and I -- Yeah. I think, at that point, in the beginning anyway, we certainly would have rather gone to Disney World, like our friends and stuff. But you know, in the end, or even after just a little while, I think we realized that it was way cooler, way more interesting than just some amusement park. So I think that was pretty pivotal. I mean, I went to Yosemite. My parents actually -- I was born in California. Skipper: Oh, okay. Ben: In Palo Alto and I owe my credit -- some of my path to them taking me to Yosemite when my mom was pregnant with me and being at the base of El Cap. An exceptional cathedral on the planet. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: You know, when I was in utero and I think that's probably true, to some extent. And then I was way into rock climbing for -- besides for permaculture, I'd say rock climbing was the other thing I've given 10-20,000 hours of my time to, and I don't much anymore, but that was a huge focus for a while. Skipper: One of the things that you get into in your book, and we'll get into that very shortly, is the idea of natural resilience. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Ben: Well, depends on the context, but when I do use the term resilience a lot, and it has to do with system, the way I tend to focus on it is systems that support us -- food, shelter, staying warm, having water, and those kinds of basic needs being met in ways that are robust, less brittle, less prone to failure, and if they fail, easier to fix, and to keep functioning. So they tend to be like passive systems, they tend to be technologically less complex and legible. And oftentimes, not high tech, deliberately quite low tech. I like the term appropriate technology, like levels of complexity in a technology that are manageable. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And aren't dependent on highly complicated exchanges of materials and energy and, you know, parts and things that come from China, and energies that come from, you know, the North Slope of Alaska or wherever it may be -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: To have basic needs met. And so in terms of a resilient homestead, for instance, a resilient house, you can see how those such systems are -- we see certain examples of such systems, I'm standing front of a wood stove right now. Skipper: Okay. Ben: This piece of technology doesn't know if there's electricity coming into the house or not, it functions either way, it doesn't matter when the power goes down, which is a function of spaghetti string of cables going thousands of miles, and then lots of complexity as far as that power being generated. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And coming into this building. And the wood stove doesn't know the difference and keeps providing heat, just based on the stored sunlight in the wood being released from, you know, this chain reaction of combustion. And it's a beautiful thing. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And it comes oftentimes those resilience systems come at at an expense of convenience or our own time input -- Ben: Sure. Ben: But then they can yield a certain meaning and a certain value on that front. That can be valuable. But we have to kind of get over the lower convenience is pretty much consistently a part of that exchange that we're making to get something more resilient. Skipper: Yeah -- Ben: We have to play a role in it, you know, we have to be a participator versus just, Hey, Alexa, turn the heat up to 72º or whatever people are doing right now. I don't know. I've heard Alexa is a thing. But -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Talking to your appliances in your house. Skipper: That's right, the heating systems and whatnot. Yeah, I was going to draw that distinction between the notion of setting a thermostat through voice or a physical device. And that being some level of convenience. We've been sold that as a promise, right, it's more efficient. It saves energy, less mindshare, less attention. But the notion of a wood stove, which as you point out is a device and a process that has been utilized for centuries. Maybe not the stove itself, but the notion of burning wood for heat. Ben: Sure. Skipper: But then it also depends on things like having a supply of wood, stoking the fire, maintaining that over time, you know, when it's cold, and I imagine right now in Vermont, it's pretty cold. So that requires a certain mindshare and physical exertion to maintain that heat source for your home. Ben: It does. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where I think it's easy to miss the values in that -- I have never been to a gym and I mean, I've never really been to a gym to exercise quote-unquote, in my adult life. Skipper: Okay. Ben: Because I process all the wood -- I log, I dropped the trees, the wood I'm looking at right now, you know, I first encountered when they were standing in a tree, you know, 20, 30, 50 feet off the ground and I fell the trees every winter. Skipper: Okay. Ben: And I dragged the trees out, then I cut the logs up and then I split them and then stack them and then bring them into the house and then stack them again and then put them in the wood stove and now they're providing the heat. So that's all a very physical thing. I mean, that's my gym and then everything else, you know, the gardening and the soil preparation and the planting trees and harvesting. So, you know, there's a lot of these other yields that I think it's easy to realize after you engage in them -- that we end up having to fill these holes that are left by these lifestyles of quote-unquote, convenience, by having to do all this other stuff, because we're not doing the things we're kind of evolved to do, which is being very physically tactile in the world around us, you know, in large part to meet our own needs. And we've created these systems where our needs are being met by so many other means, other than our bodies and our minds, and then we have to try to fill these voids that are part of that kind of relationship, or just kind of plugged into a drip of needs being met, automatically. And then we're like, Oh, but I have to move my body and I have to challenge my mind. And yeah, it's an interesting conundrum. And so, you know, our question is, people that are trying to plug in into a way that's mutually beneficial to the places we live, and to ourselves is just -- How do we insert ourselves into this into the landscape around us to meet our needs in ways that are beneficial to that place, but also to our bodies? And you know, some types of work like digging holes, you know, certainly is harder on the body than splitting wood or scything grass or -- Skipper: Sure. Ben: Composter you know, so some things are more mutually beneficial than others. Skipper: Yeah. So you've written a book, and it's called the "Resilient Farm and Homestead", you include some of these details in your introduction. And the book's backdrop is a terraced research farm in Vermont, where you live. And one of the descriptions that I read about it was that you even have rice paddies. Which I don't know that I realized was even possible in an area of the country like Vermont, would you finish painting the picture of your home, that scene for us? Ben: Mm-hmm. Sure. Yeah. I didn't know you know it was possible either, growing rice is possible either here until I saw a photo of Northern Japan, which has a similar climate -- there are rice paddies covered in snow and ice. Skipper: Oh, sure. Ben: And I thought, maybe that's doable here. Looking at climate analogs. Yeah, so other aspects of our home place are -- gardens and fruit trees and nut trees and ponds. And you know, sometimes animals, grazing animals, and forestry work. And you know, wood stove. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Wood-fired sauna, my family, and handmade buildings, things like that. Nothing too unusual. I mean, none of this stuff is new. You know, I didn't want the publisher to use the word innovative in the cover of the book, which they did because innovation is what sells, I guess. Skipper: Right? Ben: And novelty, but -- Skipper: It's a bit of a drinking game these days to use the word innovation in a sentence. Yeah. Ben: Oh, yeah. And we don't need to innovate at all right now. We really have no need to innovate, we need to apply what we know. Bill Mollison was famous for saying, We just need to spend the next 100 years applying what we've learned in the last 20. And then we can talk about innovating again at that point, but we're not applying what we know. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And really thoroughly reflecting on what we truly understand. And internalizing those lessons and then living them out. So to circle back that a lot of this, you know, none of this stuff is per se new under the sun and it's just trying to orchestrate them all together into a functional whole. Skipper: Yeah. So can you walk us through a day in the life, living, working, and educating on the farm? Ben: Sure. Well, this time of year, it's pretty much hibernation and getting outside for skiing. Sometimes, I'll do some foraging but there's not much to harvest this time of year. Skipper: Okay. Ben: Although there's a little, there are few things -- Skipper: What would you forage if you were going out to -- Ben: Well, this time of year I'm actually looking at the big chaga (or inonotus obliquus) right now which is a fungi that is medicinal that I do harvest in the winter but pretty much I harvest firewood in the winter -- I say try to do it before the snow really comes so I've pretty much done with my firewood harvesting for this year. Skipper: Okay. Ben: And I also have a little sawmill so I'm also logging for lumber, to actually saw lumber into boards and posts and beams for building maintenance and new buildings. But in the winter I ski a lot, try to catch up on sleep and sauna and jump in the pond and just restore our bodies and minds and try to take on more in indoor projects -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Build stuff, maintain stuff, equipment, buildings to some extent, and then, you know, the growing season is less than six months long. And a lot of ways, our frost-free season is only three months long, or a little more. So it's quite intensive. And luckily, the days are really long. And that's waking up early and being outside in the gardens, just trying to keep up with what needs to happen. Whether it's starting seeds in February, March, onions, and shallots and getting the things started that need to be started. And then pretty soon tomatoes after that, and raising all those crops up and getting them in the ground just at the right time, and then harvesting them, keep maintaining them for the growing season, make sure that water and food and then harvesting and trying to put everything up for the winter and the rhythm of what the season demands. It's all seasonal. And that's what I love about it. We don't really make our own schedule, our schedules are made by what the weather and the time of year require, which I think is a real relief. Rather than having this blank slate, What do we want to do? Or what does our work, according to schedules, like the human schedule -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Demand of us. I find that really not very compelling and compared to a beautiful sunny day now. The ground's pretty dry, it's time to pull the garlic and start curing it. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Or get this or this in the ground, because it's gonna rain for three days. And let's get those seeds in the ground. Skipper: Yeah. So adapting to what's -- not just the season, but then also what's happening in the world. As you said, rain's coming, it's going to be pretty dreary the next few days, then this kind of needs to happen. Making sure you have enough wood for the winter. Those sorts of things. Ben: Yeah. And the neat thing about that is it's a dance that's endlessly interesting because you can always get better at it. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: You know, it's not to just make this function more and more perfectly every year, per se, just for our own purposes. Skipper: Yeah. What about one of the things that you mentioned that is a part of your livelihood is teaching classes -- are you teaching classes much in the wintertime? Ben: No, we don't. We have our annual permaculture courses, our main class, and that's 10 days in the summer, in late July, August. And then we have other short courses we've done on and off over the years. And they're always pretty much in the summer/fall because people are camping and better weather for all that. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And more going on outside, you know, this part of the world. We're under a foot to two feet of snow right now -- I can see it out in the woods from where I am. And you know, it's kind of nice. There's just not much to be done right now. We get to take a big break. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But then so much has to happen in a pretty short amount of time. Skipper: Yeah. So just your description and the pictures that I've seen of the farm, it sounds idyllic. And I understand that this is a continuously evolving system and experience, but is this what you had in mind when you started? Like was this sort of the kernel of the plan, this is what you had hoped that it would become? Ben: Right? You know, it's not what I had in mind, per se. Skipper: Okay. Ben: And it's also -- I'll circle back to it, but it's not the simple life. You know, there's this funny term, the simple life. I think it's the good life for a lot of people who want to be hands-on and want to play a role themselves in their existence in the basics of their life. And who derive a lot of meaning from that, which I think are most people to some extent. Because I think it's instinctual, even if we don't know we want to do that. It comes out over time when you put yourself in those situations, but it's not simple in a lot of ways. It's elemental. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: It's instinctual. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But in some ways, it's way simpler to just, you know, go in your house and turn up the heat, you turn up the thermostat. Instead of we wake up and we're like, Oh, we didn't bring the wood in yesterday. All right. I'm gonna go outside, either in my underwear, or put some clothes on and go out and it's 5º and bring wood in. But those things are cool. I mean, it's inconvenient, but it's also really awesome. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: I mean maybe it's not awesome to do when you have a broken leg or when you're old. I mean, you want help and you need a family and/or a village to do all this to some extent. But -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: It's funny that people call it the simple life, because it's certainly, you know, dancing with the seasons and having to plan ahead and live based around the weather. That's all actually very complex. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But in that way, it's also incredibly meaningful, challenging, and there's a lot of value that comes from that. But to circle back to a part of your question, too. I mean, I didn't picture it exactly -- I had visited some people in college when I did my final thesis project in undergraduate on vernacular architecture suited -- Skipper: Oh, okay. Ben: To Vermont. Skipper: Okay. Ben: And to do that, I interviewed a bunch of people. And some of those people were what I would now call homesteading. I didn't really think of it in that way then but they were people living hands-on, being part of their own food production and heating their homes with their own wood and that kind of thing. And -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: I think that was a big inspiration. You know, I met this guy, Richard, who had this cabin, he was living in this cabin he built for $5500. And we were cracking out black walnuts at his table, made from trees that he had planted 30 years earlier, and eating bread from grain that he grew. And, you know, kind of sitting around this handmade life he had made for himself. And those moments were times when I realized you can live this way. This makes a lot of sense. And because I grew up in the suburbs. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: We didn't have a vegetable garden ever growing up, you know, I didn't know what it's like to pull food from the front yard. Skipper: Okay. Ben: To eat. Skipper: Okay. Ben: I was totally the current mainstream suburban kid. So these were all very unusual experiences for someone with my background, I didn't grow up with it at all. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: So I think, maybe those experiences set the stage. But you know, it all unfolds over time. And I try not to have too many expectations about it because I've learned, they're usually wrong so I'm gonna let it unfold. Skipper: That's fair. I want to jump into something that you just said. I don't understand the term, vernacular architecture, can you break that apart? Ben: Hmm. That's just a term for the design and kind of construction of buildings of the built environment -- Skipper: Okay. Ben: That are endemic to a specific place and culture, the strategies and approaches/techniques that have emerged in the relationship between a people and a place over more than decades, and just through architectural fads or construction fads but over, usually, you know, centuries and millennia, where there's a lot of wisdom and embodied in those systems because they stood the test of time. These are approaches that have emerged in that fittingness between people and place for long, long periods of time, many generations. And that's rich ethnography and study to look into because you start to see a lot of, you know, wisdom, in those approaches and a lot of tips and pieces of evidence as to how we can do things better. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: By looking at those adaptations that people have figured out. Skipper: Yeah, that makes sense. Just putting a little bit more vocabulary and context around it. Thank you for jumping into that. Ben: Sure. Skipper: In the intro video on your website, on the voiceover, you asked a question that I find very thought-provoking -- it's around this idea of how many designers are living in the system that they designed every day? And as a designer, a different kind of design than necessarily you work in, but this really hit me because I think this notion of designing in a vacuum or solving someone else's problem, and shipping out the solution to somewhere else, your work is removed from your life. This really impacted me. Why do you think that's important? Why is that something that was such a top-line question that, you know, when you watch that video, that's one of the things that you ask? Ben: Mm-hmm. I think it's academic. I think -- at least the field I'm in, I think -- a lot of fields are quite academic. If you're not living out the results of what you do, if you create something, like you said, and then ship it off, there's no feedback loop there. And you don't know the value of what you did. It may or may not work -- it may work for some people, not for others, and you just don't get to live with it. And with the results of your designed thing. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And certainly, when it comes to, you know, buildings, land, gardens, food production systems, agriculture, animal husbandry, any type of built systems or technological systems that we live with, you have to spend time with them because they also they work differently on day one, in year one, in year two, in year 10, in year 20 -- they don't function the same way. It's like product testers, you know, good -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: You rush a backpack or a jacket to market -- you may have some features on it that seem really awesome. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: You know, in the lab, and then only through being out in some different weather, do you realize, Oh, that actually ices up. That's terrible, right? But we didn't have ice or freezing rain in the lab. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: There's a myriad of conditions like that. So we have to live with these systems, and to really, I think, get good at designing and making them, it's in the management of them where we really learn to be good designers. I learn more about design when I'm out in the shop or I'm in the greenhouse or in the garden or in the woods. That's actually when I'm really doing my design work in a lot of ways. It's not in the design studio, you know. That's why I don't like when people say, Oh, what design software do you use? The design software I use is my brain and my body, right? The software you're talking about is the communication software, it's to communicate the content, right? But it's not to generate the content, if we let the software generate the content, you know, that's not going to be very good. So yeah, there are some really important distinctions there, I think. Skipper: Yeah, I think you're absolutely spot on -- 100% -- that people like to glom on to the process in this way of, you know, they think of architects and the way that they sketch things out, or I work in digital product design so when you're working on what a product experience looks like, or, what do wireframes look like, they really get caught up in the minutiae of the process but really, the problem dictates the solution. Figure out the problem first, and then you know, that notion of Occam's razor -- the simplest solution is the best solution, figure out the solution. And that solution is going to work for -- and think about who you're solving for. Are you solving for yourself? Or you're solving for your family? Are you solving for someone who lives down the road? Are you solving for someone who lives halfway around the world? I think there's something really powerful, but there's something really hard about that, that's a really difficult process to grok. Whereas just figuring out -- Oh, what tool do you use? And you say, Oh, I use Photoshop for this. And you say, Okay, I'll go learn Photoshop. So you get caught up in one piece of the process, but not actually solving the problem. Ben: Right? Well, I think there's a generic-ness that has a universality and a kind of global-ist mindset that's led us into this -- an industrial, if you will, mindset where we think we can get our solution from this guy who lives 1000 miles away, or in a different country or whatever, right? And it's really all of our situations are so custom and that's where if you want input from someone, you know, someone wants value from a designer to help them set up a house, you want to get it from someone who lives like you want to live. If they live very differently and they really like different things than you, it's very unlikely they'll be able to do that. So it's all very custom. I mean, I think even you can make this parallel in health care or architecture or product design in anything -- we're all very unique people and we can't find our solutions anywhere generically, like all of our situations are very custom. You know, in my field, we use the term the holistic context -- all the nuance that goes into your specific context. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Just because someone else's solution and they may also be a homesteader or a farmer or live in a rural place. But -- Skipper: Sure. Ben: Their context may be different in some key ways. And guaranteed they are -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: That whatever works for them great may actually work terribly for you. And it, you know, so it's all about context. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: I think context is just incredibly easy to forget. We tend to forget contexts all the time. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: It's really hard to remember how contextual everything is. Skipper: Yeah, that's a really good reminder. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about something that you mentioned in the book. And it's a statistic that you have, where the US Census Bureau has hashed out that the average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime. Why is that important? Ben: Well, it has to do with kind of what really what we're talking about right now, in that that lack of feedback between what you do -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And what the results are, which in living systems take years, and sometimes decades, to work through and emerge. So I think one of the reasons that's really important is, if you're moving every 11.7 years, whatever it was, when I was researching that and writing the book, or they move -- was it that people move 11.7 times or move every 11.7 years, I forget, what was the statistic? Skipper: Oh, the note that I have is 11.7 times but it could be every -- Ben: Yeah. Skipper: In their lifetime. Sure. Ben: Which is a little more than every 11.7 years. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: So it's maybe every seven years or whatever, depending on the average lifespan. But yeah, same difference. Moving around a lot means you don't get to understand a place very deeply. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Because you don't get to see -- are there less birds of this species here now than there was when I moved here is, you know, is the grass composition, the diversity in this field changing and how and what's happened with the soil and my garden? And you can't even tell if things are getting worse or better, and the never mind how your action is playing into that. Ben: Yeah, things you're doing. Ben: So with living systems, it just takes a while, I think it takes a solid 5-10 years to start getting into the rhythm of a place -- pretty reasonable, I think, a generalization that it's, you know, not in a year or two. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And then, I'm seeing things in the year almost 20 now that I never could have seen in year 5 or year 10. And so that relationship, and kind of what it demands, and honoring the complexity of that relationship, I think means that if we're going to really behave well and act with as much skill as possible and effectiveness to being a beneficial member of the place -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: The longer we have tenure in a place and the wiser our relationship gets with that place, the better. And it does take a long time. Really, it takes generations. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: When you look at it, a lot of the most brilliant indigenous systems, you know, they couldn't have come up with in 10 or 20 or 100 years, you know, they needed 50 human generations to really come upon certain strategies and manifest certain brilliant approaches that people have all around the world. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: So that, you know, the lack of rootedness -- and the kind of the mobility of our modern life is very much at odds with the ability to do great things in a place. Skipper: Yeah, I think part of what I hear you saying is that by moving around as much as we do, and after I read this piece in your book, I was having a discussion with my wife at the end of the day, and between the two of us and our situations -- I don't think we're part of that average, 11.7 times. But my father was in the military growing up, her father and mother moved around a fair amount early in her life. So the numbers we came up with were, I think she'd move somewhere between 50 and 60 times in her life, thus far. Ben: Wow. Skipper: And yeah, mine was closer to like, maybe three dozen, but I hear what you're saying, like not staying in a place cuts short your relationship with that place and cheats you out of some of the lessons of living in a place for longer, especially when you have to consider the ramifications on the natural world, on the physical world, etc. Ben: Sure. That being said, there's a lot to learn from traveling from living in different places. I don't mean to discount that for a moment. But it seems like that's not what we're lacking, right? Skipper: Right. Ben: We're doing that -- a lot. You know, my father was a doctor in a rural area for most of his career -- a relatively rural area in western New York. And one of his patients one day, said to him, he said, Oh, where are your kids? And he said, his patient said, They moved really far away. One of them's in Syracuse and one's in Buffalo. And this is near Rochester, New York. Skipper: Okay. Ben: And my dad was thinking, Well, that's not that far. I mean, you're talking 60 minutes each way. Skipper: Right. Ben: But for that person's reference point, in rural America, that reference point is moving far away. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But in the urban, more urban-suburban world I had raised in, you might go to college on the other side of the country, and stay out there. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And the kind of atomization that I think has become so common. Yeah, there's a lot, there are some beautiful benefits to it. And then there are some deep level costs that I think we've not totally reckoned with just yet. Skipper: My wife and I recently relocated from New York City, where we lived for about 10 years out here to the Bay Area in San Francisco. And one of the things that we have had to come to terms with in the last year is this notion of a fire season in California. And you have a part of your book where you talk about some of the Native American populations and how they managed the woodlands, and you know, the fire management strategies and all of that. Can you talk about that a little bit in terms of we've hit on some of these notions already -- but this idea of some of these things that are sometimes the best solutions are the things that have been done for decades or centuries beforehand. Ben: Yeah, certainly. The fire example in California is great. And that's finally after decades of plenty of people saying, you know, we should take a cue from how the original Californians managed that landscape and participated in that landscape for 1000s of years. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Interacting with the fuels and the biomass that was there. And the plants that are there. Skipper: Yeah, mitigate some of that risk. Yeah. Ben: Yeah, that mitigated that risk but got them a yield that helped them live off the place from and with the place, but also worked with the place in a way so that there were less catastrophic levels of fire. And yeah, finally that conversation is starting to get some airtime nationally, I don't know how much land area it's affecting in terms of management. But -- Skipper: Sure. Ben: Native peoples the world over are the people who know how to, quote-unquote, manage land, quote, unquote, resources -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: The best because they've had to learn those things to survive. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And they've also been there the longest, and they've been listening most carefully for oftentimes just reasons of utility. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: So yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I said before, I don't think we need innovation. Much is to apply basic understandings, and you know, with consistency and without funneling the benefits towards the few, which is pretty much the design of our current system. Skipper: So I love that idea of taking inspiration and modes of operation from past success. And this idea of, sometimes in the design space, there's lots of buzzwords, we've already identified innovation, iteration, collaboration, all of these -tion/shuns but I think that this idea of working on something consistently and not focusing on a machine or a technology to solve the problem, Hey, has this been a problem for a while? And something like fire has been, it's been a problem for a very long time. So how did native peoples deal with it? And like you said, it was in their best interest to make sure that they didn't necessarily diminish their game supply or cut down too much of the plant and vegetation layer or not to damage plants that they use for medicine, things like that. But really taking a lesson from things that have been done before that can be successful today. Ben: Yeah, absolutely. We really have to spend the next bunch of decades or longer resuscitating those lessons. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: And across the board. I don't know how likely we already do it because we are so impressed with novelty and kind of new monetizable strategies, quote, unquote, innovative, and all of these things. Skipper: The shiny object. Ben: Yeah, I think there's just something that unfortunately, seems to be missing in terms of the sexiness of systems and strategies that have stood the test of time. And, you know, I mean, no one puts this better, I think than Wendell Berry, the well-known author and farmer from Kentucky, who just does a great job of kind of studying the value of things that have stood the test of time and remarking and commenting on how those things demand our attention. And not that all those things are great. Ben: Yeah. Ben: Or should be kept. But that in and of themselves is something still around, it has been around for over a millennia. Chances are, it's probably better than the thing that just emerged, which hasn't stood the test of time at all, and we should at least put them on -- Skipper: Hasn't been tested. Ben: Yeah. We should at least put them on an even playing field. Not hold up the new thing as better. Quite the opposite really. We should be quite skeptical of the new thing. Ben: Yeah. Ben: I mean, our world is kind of the antithesis of that today, and maybe has been for a while, not a long time, but maybe hundreds of years, or maybe just a few decades. I'm not sure. But yeah, whatever it is, it seems pretty maladaptive. Skipper: Yeah. I imagine that there are some people who are listening to our conversation right now who are thinking, Well, you know, we've already done some of these things like: we recycle, we compost, maybe they have an electric car, smart thermostats like all these things, like we're trying to save as much as we can. What else can we do? What would you say to people like that, who are bristling at some of the things that we might be talking about? And saying, Well, I don't know what I can do. Ben: Yeah. Well, I think there's a world of opportunity that's very empowering for all of us to find. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: In going through the window and asking, How can we be producers? Like, how can we actually help meet some of our needs, rather than just improve a place rather than just do less bad? Or take from it a little less? Skipper: Right. Ben: And I think that route to use a poor term addictive. I mean, it's very compelling to realize that you can actually do good not just, you know, do less bad. And I think most of us know that interpersonally we're trying to add value to the people we are in a relationship with. Skipper: Sure. Ben: Not just take less. Skipper: Right. Ben: Extract or mine a little less, be a little less extractive -- Skipper: Be a little bit less shitty. Ben: Yeah, when it comes to our relationship with a place, which should be just as multilayered and as interesting and complex as a relationship with another person. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: They're all part of our relations, we tend to just accept this idea of just, you know, do a little less bad, just kind of conserve, take a little less. And rather than, of course, we should put back. In Native American terms, that's what I heard Robin Wall Kimmerer, for instance, says that it's just simply good manners to regard the world around us as your relations rather than what you call your natural resources, we call our relatives we call our ancestors, you know. Skipper: Sure. Ben: And that's hard for us to wrap our minds around. I mean, I say that personally as a displaced white person, I'm trying to understand that in my life. It's a tough one because I wasn't raised with that. And so I think, but just to get to your question, I think anyone no matter where they are, even if they're really urban or not -- with land so to speak, can improve -- I can have a positive impact on that place, it could be sowing some seeds in an abandoned lot, literally broadcasting some clover seed into an empty lot that's barren that you walk past on your way to work. That's a regenerative action. Skipper: Okay. Ben: It can be keeping the tiniest of gardens, you know, raising some salad greens on a balcony in a pot of compost or, or choosing to compost, you know, versus throwing your food scraps out -- that's both a conservation strategy and a regeneration strategy. You can have a worm bin, even in a city and, and grow like amazing potting soil, under your kitchen sink, there are endless, endless opportunities for that. And I think people who have all the solar panels in the world and all the heat pumps or whatever it is all the efficiency appliances and all that use less GPM -- Skipper: Sure. Ben: Can still make a decision to actually not just do less bad but to do good, and that's, you know, a lot more interesting. I think people will find a lot more value in that, you know, because it's not that great to just feel like, Well, I'm doing a little less bad. I'm doing less bad, it's not much to congratulate oneself on compared to, Well, I just planted flowers in an abandoned lot. And now I'm watching the flowers, you know, feed bees and butterflies, you know, three months later. Skipper: Yeah. I love the way that our conversation has gone. But I want to make sure that we haven't missed anything. Ben, is there something that we haven't talked about yet but that you want to get into? Skipper: Oh, well, there are many, many things but that's okay (laughing) -- of course, we miss things. Skipper: Of course. Ben: You're gonna miss a million things. And that's fine. I don't think we missed anything that can't go missed for now. But yeah, there's so much more. I would encourage folks to, you know, look into the world of regeneration, and permaculture if this stuff seems compelling to them. Skipper: Okay. Well, I'll throw in a question that we had down on the list that we were exchanging back and forth, you talked about how when you started the farm, that this wasn't exactly the picture that you imagined, but it is the picture that you have, and there's so much satisfaction that you receive from it, and so many other benefits -- what's one of the next challenges that you want to tackle at the farm? Ben: Mm-hmm. You know, mainly the challenges I want to tackle are not on the land that I live on, they're in the community, they're trying to convey the goodness off-site because at some point, we're almost year 20 and now, things are pretty dialed. We have our systems -- so many more times dialed in, and robust and resilient than most people's home systems are. So I could keep trying to perfect that. But that's not really getting at the weakest link, the weakest link is helping others do the most basic parts of it. Because, like anything, if you're wanting to improve the whole system, you work on the weakest links of the system, for the max leverage point to improve the whole. And the weakest links, I think for most of us are, we can often find outside ourselves. I mean, I can keep dialing in the systems here. But I think, you know, we've been trying to plant public spaces up and kind of donate and commit time to help community orchard spaces get established and planted and community gardens for hungry families. We're working on a project with that now. Skipper: Oh, wow. That's great. Ben: And trying to do that, more and more. It's hard to do that, you know, it's not that easy. I can make more of a difference in my own land -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: More easily. Because, like, I have that access -- Skipper: Right. Ben: It can be hard to access, and a lot of people don't want help or, you know, it's hard to help others sometimes. But that's really where my wife and I are trying to put our efforts, more and more. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: As far as on-site, growing food more easily and for longer amounts of storage into the dormant season and continuing to get more tree crops established. And I don't know, I do a lot with like welding and craft, you know, kind of woodwork. And always more, more goals on that front. But there's nothing too -- too dire that I'm trying to improve, you know, my own landscape now. Skipper: Yeah. So, let's get into some of the closing questions -- and these are the closing questions that I ask everyone who comes on the show. Ben, what's one of the most important lessons that you've learned so far in your life? Or in your work? And it can echo back something that we just talked about or it can be something new. Ben: Mm-hmm. Well, I think I'd say one, there's a lot but one that I'm particularly trying to focus on lately is digging into patterns of relating and also being that are old that probably come from childhood and from like, dealing with stresses that are part of life growing up and then -- Skipper: Okay. Ben: And what patterns come from that, that, that you take on that maybe you didn't intend to and don't serve you. Trying to do a lot of that more inner work, more personally Skipper: Sure. Ben: I think that's really where I've been trying to put more time -- can you rephrase that question again, so I can just think about it in another way... Skipper: Sometimes the way that I ask this is around, What's something you wish you would have learned earlier? Ben: Right, that's a good way to put it. Probably, to do things more thoroughly, take on less but do them more thoroughly and better than to take on a lot and do them as well. One way that's kind of made real is like it's easy to try to manage, you know more acres and not do it as well and lose trees that you planted to deer because you didn't really protect them well enough for whatever -- Skipper: I see. Ben: Than to just focus on a core that you really can keep up with and you can get like a lot more food for instance. And I think a lot more enjoyably and less stressfully -- if you care really well for a small area, then take on a big area under your care and do it more poorly. I would say that's one because early on, I was quite burned out for a number of years and stressed out trying to rise to the challenge of all 10 acres and then realizing, Wait a minute, I don't have to do anything with those three acres. That's fine. They can just stay there. And nature can do her thing there. And I can just focus more effort on a smaller area. And also, I think not to forget people in the process, you know, like, I can be very focused on work, and I lost a lot of focus on certain people in my life in the first bunch of years with developing my landscape. And if I did it again, I would have carried more people along with me and be able to spend more of my attention with them, even though it would give me less attention, perhaps to the project, but I tend to be a little bit obsessive when I'm in a project and just throw myself into it. And, you know, sometimes that's what it takes. But -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: You incur a cost when you do that, for sure. Skipper: Yeah. So, Ben what are two things that you're excited about right now? And the way I am asking this question, I mean, something like, What's something that you're reading or that you can't put down? Or something that you're watching or listening to? Ben: Mm-hmm. Oh, I'd say it's everything related to my three-year-old son really. And just hanging out with him and watching him grow and learn. That's probably the biggest one that I can think of. And, yeah, otherwise, anything related to human health and wellness. You know, it's much more I think, that focus right now, for me, especially in the midwinter, then like in my landscape or buildings, you know, I've spent so many years of learning how to build this and that or fix this or that, or grow this and that. And that's really not what not where my attention has been as much or I've been compelled to focus on in the last few years as much. Skipper: Yeah. Plus one about the note about your three-year-old, my wife and I have a seven-year old daughter. And, you know, I have to say that she's the coolest movie that I've ever had the privilege to watch, right? Over the course of her life. And you know, and there are times that the movie is a tough battle of wills, or whatever it is, that's being discussed at hand, but it's just wonderful being present and getting time and space with her. Ben: Yeah, I think the energy and the motion is for the next people that are coming up. And I feel like that's kind of where my life is right now. Not that I won't go back to dive in whole hog into this or that project, right? But I've been lucky, since the age of about 25, I've gotten to focus on manifesting myself and with a place and I don't have to push on that pedal super hard my whole life, like after almost 20 years or so doing that. Skipper: Sure. Ben: You know, things are in the ground, and they're growing and systems are in effect. And yeah, it's kind of all about doing it with less stress and sharing the, the goodness of all of it with others and focusing on the next generation so they can get a head start, hopefully, be much further along than I was when I was 25. Skipper: Yeah. I'm curious, does your -- especially being three, does your -- son help much around the house or the farm? Skipper: He wants to... Skipper: Yeah. Ben: He's learning the names of all the tools and there are hundreds of tools in the shop. And -- Skipper: Yeah. Ben: But you know, he's still just three -- just passed. I don't know what point it'll be like a net help. Right now, it's certainly way more time -- Skipper: Right. Ben: Put into him than he's helping us kind of get out, so to speak, of the project. But he's learning a lot. The other day I was up on a ladder, and he was on the ground in the shop, and I was doing some wiring, I said, Oh, can you hand me the lineman pliers. And there's a big magnet board full of three dozen types of hand tools. And he grabbed the lineman pliers and brought them up to me and I was just so happy. You know, I didn't know what lineman pliers were versus another plier until way after three years old -- me, maybe 25 years old or something. And so, you know, there's so many layers like that and they learn -- his ability to learn, a three-year-old's ability to learn is just incredible. Skipper: They're sponges. Yeah. Ben: Yeah, his brain -- his brain works better than mine, you know, and a lot of ways and so maybe that's not saying much, but it's just incredible. And so I'm trying to just feed that, you know? Skipper: Yeah. So Ben, where can people find out more about you? We've talked about your book, and we'll link to that and we'll link to your website, but are there other places where people can look out for you? Ben: My YouTube channel has a lot of content on it. I'm not always putting much on it here and there, it kind of goes in spurts. But yeah, I'd say that's a big one. I'm also less on Instagram, but there's a lot of content that I have put out there. Skipper: Sure. Ben: But good info, how-to info that we're actually gonna try to put on a blog so it could be searchable. Our website too. Skipper: Yeah. Ben: Like you mentioned, website, the book, there's going to be a revision it looks like of the book, coming out in six to 12 months as well. Skipper: Oh, that's awesome. Ben: Yeah. Skipper: Well, thank you, Ben, I appreciate you making time and space for our conversation. Ben: Thank you. Happy to be part of it. Skipper: And thank you for listening to How This Works. This episode was edited and mastered by Troy Lococo. Please subscribe and leave us a review in your favorite podcast app. It would be so helpful because we're in our first season if you would tell just one other person about the show and why they should listen to it. You can find How This Works online at howthisworks.show. It's three words no dashes. Again, that's howthisworks.show. We're also active in the places where social media happens. I hope that you learned something from my conversation with Ben. I know I did. And we'll talk again soon. [Outro music] Skipper: Hi. (Sound of dog barking) Skipper: Hi, my name is Skipper Chong Warson. I'm a design director in San Francisco. We're going to try that one more time.