Get Excited About DOS Year III - Career Pathway Planning

On Friday the production team and I traveled to Seattle to interview Karina Walters. Her interview is the second to be recorded for our current Discovering Our Story (DOS) project series, focused on career pathway planning.

The first, recorded back in August at the annual Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP) meeting, was with Dr. Kevin Goodluck - an MD from Albuquerque, NM. Check out the AAIP's website - http://www.aaip.org/ - for updates on next year's meeting in Anchorage, Ak.

Karina Walters, PhD (Choctaw), is the Director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute (IWRI), which is based out of the School of Social Work at the University of Washington. the IWRI vision is to support the inherent

rights of Indigenous peoples to achieve full and complete health and wellness by collaborating in decolonizing research and knowledge building and sharing. Check out some of their awesome research at www.iwri.org. Among their many projects, Karina is currently working on an investigation of heart health across generations in native communities and the Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training program, which aims to increase the number of AI/AN health researchers to successfully garner major grant funding for health issues that are tribal priorities.

Get excited for the third year of DOS, being produced this spring!

On a bus

Hi folks,

A minor update from the Wisdom VISTAs world. We've been attempting to get out in the world as much as possible. Pictured is Isobel and Emma on a bus to a Talking Circle on Indigenous Sustainability put on by PSU for their Social Sustainablity Month program, this is fitting since November was also Native American heritage month throughout the country. It turned out to be a great talk with Judy Bluehorse Skelton speaking with great articulation on the subject. A number of the VISTAs went to the Confederated Tribes of the Umitilla Indian Reservation for Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) facilitation. This too was a wonderful event, with lots of new insight on CBPR and facilitation in the Native community. Well that's enough for now, I hope everyone is enjoying the sunny (but crisp) days this week. Until next time. -Jacob

Sheet Mulching

Have you over wintered your garden yet? Sheet mulching or cover cropping your garden bed for the winter is one of the best things you can do for your garden. During our rainy winters, a lot of soil erosion happens. Sheet mulching or growing cover crop helps keep precious top soil where we want it. Additionally, after a whole season of growing, it's good to plant cover crops that will help bring nutrients back to the top soil. It is getting a bit late to plant a cover crop, but adding soil amendments, like gypsum and agricultural lime are great ideas. Then, you can sheet mulch right over the amendments.

We recently sheet mulched a new bed that we'll use to grow even more veggies this coming spring! Before sheet mulching, it's good to cut down the grass & weeds - no need to pull them up. Also, if you prefer clean edges around your new sheet mulched bed, dig a small v-shaped border. Then you're ready to go! Here are the layers in our sheet mulch:

layer 1. a weed barrier, often cardboard or newspaper (14 sheets)

layer 2. goat poop (or another sort of manure)

layer 3. leaves

layer 4. compost

layer 5. straw mulching, to hold in moisture and protect compost from astray weed seeds

We then reused some rocks from another part of the yard to border our new veggie bed. A quick and useful afternoon project.

Also, if you're interested and located in the Portland area, please consider taking our Wisdom Gardens survey. Wisdom Gardens is an initiative of Wisdom of the Elders, to provide gardening experiences and education to the urban Native community. The survey is to gather community feedback to help shape our program. Your voice is important and the survey is a short one. Thanks!
Happy Monday!

Goats!

Meet Ebony!And...Ivory! Guess which one's which!

Yes, that's right. We traded in the rabbits for a couple of goats. Way less work right??

Actually, we are just borrowing them from a women a few blocks a way for a few weeks so they can deal with our blackberry situation. What does the tongue feel like of an animal who prefers to munch blackberry stalks above many other, less jagged plants you may ask? I have no idea!

Speaking of removing malevolent foliage, we are having a Garden Work Party next Friday, November 18th from 2-6pm at our office: 3203 SE 109th Ave in Portland. There will be delicious spiced cider for the sipping, and you will get to learn about sweet permaculture techniques like sheet mulching! You can RSVP if you like on the Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159413794154980

The goats and I are excited to see you there!

Thank You Portland Nursery!

Hi All,
Last week we planted some winter starts in our backyard garden space. It was a nice day to be outside, tidying up the backyard before our Elderberry Harvest Event.
Also, all the straw and plant starts were donated by Portland Nursery. We're really grateful for the community support and resources! Every time I visit Portland Nursery, it's such a fun experience and everyone there is so helpful and friendly. I hope you all, readers, got a chance to enjoy their Apple Tasting Festival, these past two weekends.
Also, we'll be going over a permaculture plan for the backyard soon with students from Tryon Life Community Farm, who recently finished their certification (way to go!). We're looking forward to harvest huckleberries, Oregon grapes, and elderberry from our backyard one day!

Post Festival Reflections

Hello again wonderful viewers in internet land.

The NISA festival has come and gone and in my humble opinion was a smashing success. We had great attendance every night, and the storytellers were as amazing as we could have hoped for. I met many wonderful people this weekend and have made new friends that I hope to stay in contact with for a good while.

The NISA Advisory Council decided to institute more structure within its ranks and elected a chair and vice chair to give direction to the council. The role of the advisory council was fleshed out better so that the members now know what role they play for NISA as well as what role NISA plays within WISDOM. The Advisory Council elected three new members including a youth representative as well as Toby Joseph and myself.

Emerging storyteller workshops went fabulously. There was a lot of heartfelt sharing by all and many of the attendees found the inspiration to tell their story at the emerging storytellers matinee after expressing their own feelings of "being too shy" or "not being a storyteller."

The responses and feedback I heard from people at the festival has made all the chaos and stress of planning this festival worthwhile and I can't wait until next year!

Post NISA

Whew! We're all due for an extended nap.

The NISA festival was AWESOME. A big thank you to everyone who made it out for one or more of the four days of storytelling and especially big kudos to everyone who helped to make it happen, from volunteers to master storytellers and from kitchen crew to production team.

This was my first Storytelling Festival and I had a blast. If you didn't get the chance to attend you can hear some of the master storytellers who presented share some of their personal and tribal stories on our website: www.discoveringourstory.org. Check out Woody Morrison, Elaine Grinnell, Ed Edmo, Toby Joseph, and Roger Fernandes. Also on our website is Joe Cantrell, whose photographs from the festival should be uploaded to our facebook account soon!