Welcome!
We are going to start a new series here on Mondays introducing you to the core members and founders of the NWI Society for Sustainable Living. This is an opportunity for you to find out a little more about what has brought this group together and what makes us tick.
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Today, we'd like you to meet ::
Andrew Gillies.
Andrew Gillies.
Tell us your background.
What path led you to the work you do today?
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The path that led me to the work I do today was an odd one. My parents both grew up in a small town called Walkerton, Indiana. I was born in Bloomington and lived there until I was 2.5 years old. I can still remember having solar panels that Mom and Dad talked about on the roof. That would've been '83-'85 I suppose. They moved with my older sister and I to Merrillville and then to a small rural area in Virginia called Madison. So I arrived, a "yankee" in rural VA at age 5.5. It was interesting to say the least. I spend my childhood through teenage years in public school there and my parents went from running a general store/post office/deli in a small obscure corner of Madison County Virginia, to running a 70 seat restaurant. I began working there at 9 years old... a busboy, then a cook. By the time I was almost 17 they divorced and sold the restaurant to a new owner in the process, I began managing the kitchen for 14.75 an hour while finishing up high school and then went to college at James Madison University. By then, I had a taste for non-corporate restaurant scenes-much more fun than corporate controlled zombie factories. I started working for a restaurant called Dave's Downtown Taverna, a large privately owned restaurant in a decently sized college town and got further into the food world. I began kitchen managing, dealing with food distributors, etc. Oddly enough, at 17 years old, my freshman year at a University, I was still idealistic and romantic enough to think I would make a living selling poetry and published works. That didn't happen.
Some 7 years later, I had not completed a degree in English and was managing Dave's Express, (a sister restaurant owned by the same owner of the Downtown joint) and was completely burnt out on the late night delivery, convenience store, and mid-management/salary
screwed lifestyle in a insanely fun party school town.
In 2008 I booked it for California. Outside of Redding, way up north to be exact.
Those entire 7 years I spent in Harrisonburg, VA, I had become familiar with everything inside myself that responded to music, Mother Earth News, gardens (which my mother always had growing up, Dad loved plants too-he was just always busy with work), fresh food, local food movements etc.
A dear friend of mine, Rich McDonough, owns and operates a small business called Wildwood Gardens. He helped to fill my head with bee keeping talk, permaculture/edible forestry knowledge, and regenerated my enraptured love for the Earth. He re-started my Whitmanesque sensibilities that is to say. So when in 2008, things didn't pan out, I blew my bank acct. which was very small anyways and ended up in the midwest after a short 3.5 months in NoCA. I then saw all the potential in the midwest and in a small 3.4 acre property my paternal grandparents live on and began trying to hammer out a life I could love from nothing. Been doing that ever since.
I began working in a woodfired artisan pizza place, a 10,000 square foot organic/biodynamic garden and greenhouse operation, as well as a super cutting edge hydroponic tomato farm in the following three years. One terrible relationship/failed engagement later, I returned to university life to finish that English degree and get re-careered away from restaurant hours with the idea of a garden to table bed and breakfast project on family property in the back of my mind.
Gardening, Food and Holistic living practices all in one place-but it is a lot for one person also trying to hold down working world responsibilities. So, I began looking for like minded individuals and one thing led to another... I found some friends knew some people getting ready to do some project, went to meet them and viola! NWISSL was birthed and rolling.
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What's your greatest craft/art skill,
and what's something you'd like
to learn more about?
to learn more about?
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My greatest craft is probably wordcraft. Natural story teller and smiler. I love to write even if it's a poem here a scribble there. I have yet to tackle it seriously beyond finishing up a degree at PNC. I want to learn everything I can about simple day to day meditation methods that work for me, holistic living/food/medicine, and wildcrafting/foraging.
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How else have you been/are you involved in the community?(volunteer, work, teaching...)
How else have you been/are you involved in the community?(volunteer, work, teaching...)
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I work in Career Development at PNC so I do a lot of networking and help with resumes, things like that. Picking up a HR minor too, so that helps me be motivated/geared towards organizing people and working on team projects.
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How does your garden grow?
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My garden is a combination of a no-til version of a french intensive vegetable garden and raised bed ideas. It tends to grow out of control because I am never around enough to fulfill my commitment to it. I have soft fruits:gooseberries, currants, saskatoon (native) and hybrid blueberries, wild blackberries and a few mulberry trees. I am working on turning about 3/4 of an acre into a combination of an edible forest and permaculture/intensive
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What are some things you practice now to live a more sustainable lifestyle?
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I try to recycle, definitely reduce, I'm a pescetarian and am really working on reducing any meat consumption. When I return to eating more than fish or eggs, it will only be locally sourced meat that is organically and intelligently handled and raised-and on a very limited basis. I also am a member of a local organic dairy near me and used to milk for them in trade for my dues, now I am working elsewhere and no longer have the time but am still a member. In the future I plan on getting all food, water, and fuel possible through barter or self-production. I am aiming, and this is an arbitrary figure, but aiming for 80% in the next 2 years.
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Do you have any pets/raise any animals?
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I raise rare and endangered breed chickens. I have two types that I am sticking with for now. Buckeyes and Barnevelders. Both are fairly gentle dual-purpose type breeds. I have roosters of each and am working on organizing both a crossbreeding and true breeding strategy. I plan on returning to having Flemish Giant rabbits and possibly crossing them with a more food oriented breed, but after my two "stud" Bucks died one summer of heat exhaustion while I was at work, I have refused until habitat logistics are completely reworked to avoid that again. It was the saddest day. I live and learn though. ( Recently, Andrew has taken in two foster goats. You can read more about that adventure on his blog http://www.ermagherdd.blogspot.com/ )
{ Andrews foster goats, Zoey & Luna }
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What classes or projects do you plan to be involved in or offer with the Society for Sustainable Living?
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I plan on teaching some guerrilla gardening type of course, some seed starting/saving courses, as well as anything involving permaculture and edible forest gardening at the Society for Sustainable Living Learning Center. It seems like "lazy gardening" but it is actually one of the most efficient and effective ways to secure food with the least damage to the Earth. Modern/Western agriculture is, especially on a large scale, a destructive mistake. Studies are now showing that the Amazon's abundance of medicinal/edible plants and animals comes from 1000yr+ old civilizations creating edible forest gardens and then disappearing to other areas, etc.
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How do you spend your downtime?
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I don't have downtime in which to replenish. Getting out to the property is my getaway from other things... occasionally I get a cheap bottle of red wine and horribly unhealthy "chinese" food and watch all the ridiculous cartoons I am into. That helps, otherwise, it is the random hours I get to immerse in books of all kinds...few and far between when working 35-45 hrs a week and schooling full time. So...yeah, a weak point in my holistic living scheme, which I am working on.
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Favorite books:
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Fiction- Dune series, Wheel of Time series, anything by Tolkien, The Dragonbone Chair series, Stranger From a Strange Land by Heinlein for sure...
Gardening/Education: The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It by John Seymour, Everything I Want to Do is Illegal: War Stories From the Local Food Front by Joel Salatin, Grasp the Nettle by Peter Proctor, Rodales ultimate encyclopedia of organic gardening, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig. And a ton of others!
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Favorite websites:
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OURS!!! and www.xkcd.com, and most sites that have stuff on gardening, alternative building, and super psychedelic artworks!
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