The Eco Learning Center Gets Powered Up for Another Growing Season

By Susan Kohler

I had wanted to learn how to live more gently on the earth for some time when I first drove up the hill for an interview with Jayne Leatherman-Walker. I was writing a series of green built/sustainable living articles and The Eco Learning Center, which Jayne had founded, seemed like a good place to begin my research. It was Mother’s Day, symbolic as I was about to learn a lot about the greatest of mothers—the earth. The sun was out, but there was still a chill in the air when I first peered at Jayne’s dwelling, a dome tent. I was aghast! Here was a petite, fair-haired woman nearing 60 years of age living in a tent in Northern Michigan. I barely brave the winters in my gas heat driven tri-level. Not only did she live and survive in a tent, but she lived “off the grid!” Her energy for everything came from a couple of solar panels, and she explained that she fit her lifestyle around the energy she was blessed with from the sun versus fitting energy consumption around a lifestyle.

It’s been a few years and I’ve witnessed the growth and flourishing of The Eco Learning Center. This year they’ve been awarded a $60,000 grant from the State of Michigan to upgrade their solar energy system, which will provide a better infrastructure, a firmer foundation, from which to create further research designs. The additional six solar panels will allow the Eco Learning Center to upgrade a new pump. Jayne says, “The new pump will give us the capacity to irrigate the gardens on a more timely basis. The small system we had in the past was a slow flow—it would take the better part of a day to draw enough water without pressure. We will be able to fill the tanks faster, allow us to put in irrigation hoses, and make it work more efficiently, allowing us to be involved in other projects—just watering won’t use up so much time!”

The Eco Learning Center supports a CSA (a Community Supported Agriculture farm), which provides organically grown food for community families, friends, as well as Eco Learning Center program attendees. It’s all natural, all organic from seed through harvest. The farm not only provides fresh, chemical-free food, but also provides CSA members an opportunity to learn how to do it for themselves. The following year, I who had never gardened in my life, joined the Eco Learning Center’s CSA. My children and I made the trek out to the farm a couple of times a month throughout the summer. We first learned about soil, about composting and earthworms. As the plants began to sprout we learned about pest management and spent time picking potato bugs off the potato plants. We finally harvested the fruits of our efforts, knowing that what we took home in our bag to serve up for dinners, we had witnessed and assisted like a midwife in its growth from the earth. It began to help us form a connection between our bodies and the earth. What comes from the earth, fills our bodies and provides us health. It’s a cycle and the seasons on the farm help one to more fully connect with the cycles of life.

Food is only one part of sustainable living. What we live in is another big part, and Jayne had been researching and living green building methods for years. Her farm is a model of green built development from her straw bale storage shed and green house to her hearth oven. Each year, the Eco Learning Center holds workshops for community members to learn about green building methods like straw bale, and the buildings on the farm have been partially built by workshop attendees. Jayne’s life itself is a model of instruction on sustainable living and teaching. Jayne calls her farm a “place for constructing your knowledge.”

Michelle Moore, a volunteer at the Eco Learning Center, took a course a few years ago in solar design and installation. Moore will not only assist in the installation of the panels, but the installation itself will serve as a demonstration, a learning opportunity for those in the community interested in learning more about how they can utilize the power of the sun for themselves. As Jayne says it, she explores how we can all make “improvements in our lives within the green perspective.”

I learned at Jayne’s farm that green living was more than recycling, turning down the heat to 68 and driving a gas-efficient vehicle. The Eco Learning Center helps me to visualize how I can revamp my own life starting with the very basics of what I put into my stomach that will not only help me be a healthier person, but will also help the world community be healthier. If a petite 60+ year old woman can live gently on the earth, teach and encourage others to as well, then maybe I can also apply a few of the things I’ve learned and continue to learn whenever I meet and converse with Jayne and her friends at the Eco Learning Center.

For more information about the Eco Learning Center, call (231) 620-4775.