Shanti Permaculture Farm was founded in May of 2015, directly after Elizabeth attended a two-week intensive Permaculture Development Course at the Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. That season, the south-facing slope of Shanti became an enormous vegetable garden, feeding a dozen volunteers at a time. A greenhouse sprang up from repurposed wood encircling the former horse arena. Water systems were improved, perennial native plants were introduced, swales were dug across the land in the pouring rain and a tiki hut chicken coop was created.
Between the spring of 2015 and the present, Shanti exploded in a flurry of new and ambitious cooperative ideas due to an untapped zest for Elizabeth’s new love : Permaculture. This continued to more livestock, a yurt from Craigslist, growing an incredible garden of everything from Gooseberries to yellow watermelon and learning so much about what’s really important in life. Now the goats and sheep mow the fields to prevent fires, Cosmo the llama protects the sheep, the chickens provide us with plenty of fresh free-range organic eggs, we re-use every drop of water from the springs, the sun powers Elizabeth’s electric car and we are a great deal more sustainable and resilient on our one-in-a-million beautiful Earth. You are invited for a weekend, a week or even a month!