ECO – STAYS

Imagine an off-the-grid and off-the-beaten path rural setting, mild marine temperatures, roosters crowing in the morning and the occasional comment from the horse, ducks, goats, sheep, geese, or eagles providing the day's background music.

You rise and pick berries for summer's breakfast, or stoke up the woodstove fire under winter's heartier oatmeal. There's literally wood to chop (if not water to carry), fields, garden, greenhouses, barn, coop and woodlot to work in, a large library to study in, and a couple whose knowledge, experience and research skills make for highly stimulating conversation and mutual learning over afternoon tea.

Ah, if only there were such a place to learn the skillset for sustainability!

There is.

Talamh Caladh (Earth Haven) is home to Caren Black, Christopher Paddon, some two to three dozen fellow creature inhabitants, and the nonprofit Titanic Lifeboat Academy education center.

Come for a weekend and a crash course in self-sufficiency. Or, settle in for a month of intensive study and preparation. You may also study with us online before, after, or in place of visiting. We can introduce you to a community of others who are in transition.

Carbon Offset: Every person who studies here lowers their carbon footprint. Every person who contributes to our scholarship fund lowers someone else's footprint.

For information and rates, email LifeboatAcademy@aol.com or phone 503-325-6886.
Now taking reservations for August, 2010.

"Best time to plant a tree: twenty years ago. Second best time: today."
~ adapted from a Chinese proverb