A flurry of shovels as we learn about digging swales

Apologies, Gentle Reader. With the end of the course coming up, I’ve been staying later at the school to work on the final assignment which we’re doing in small groups: to create an overall design concept for the Blockhouse School property itself, so haven’t had enough time for posting here. Tomorrow is the last day of the course. After that, I hope to catch up with my reader’s digest version of my course notes.

Designing the Blockhouse property seemed impossibly daunting when the course started, but we got our feet wet, so to speak, coming up with designs for a new community park in Chester Basin.

Because that park-to-be is a smaller piece of land, and we had less information, it was easier to take the plunge and put the concepts we’ve been learning to work – on paper at least.

So now we’re old pros – not! Let’s just say that it is most reassuring to know that our ideas will be going into a pool from which Graham and the project’s directors will be drawing the best to create the final design.

I am amazed at how things I would never have thought of by myself emerge out of our group’s discussions. So I’m really excited about hearing what the other groups have come up with.

It has been a very, very engaging course. The course material itself is paradigm-shifting.

The people involved: our talented instructor Graham Calder and his partner Marie-Claire Gagnier who helps keep things organized and teaches yoga and goal-coaching on the side, the students with their wide and deep range of backgrounds and talents, the volunteers who have been helping with food and keeping things going; everyone has been united in getting deep into the material and bringing it forward into our new project. The energy has been awesome.

While some are soon going home to Newfoundland or Montreal, several others live in this area and will want to stay involved with the project, so we’ll have a core of people to carry the design forward, lead work days, and show others what we’ve learned. So if you’d like to be involved just let us know and we’ll keep you in the loop.