06 Aug River Awareness Day Success!
The Austin Permaculture Guild played a part in organizing one of the first festivals of its kind in San Marcos, Texas this past Saturday, August 3rd. It was called River Awareness Day (RAD), and stood to inform people about one of the longest inhabited places in North America.
The San Marcos River begins at Aquarena Springs and flows out of Spring Lake Preserve, which are all a part of Edward’s Aquifer. This is the same Aquifer that runs right through Austin. This particular spring fed river has been flowing for thousands and thousands of years. It is believed humans have occupied this area as far back as 13,000 years ago. This is a very sacred and special place that needs more attention from the general public and more protection rights for the amazing life that resides there.
That is exactly what River Awareness Day has been established for! The San Marcos River is also home to many threatened and endangered species. Eight of these plant and animal species are native only to the San Marcos Springs. The most famous of which are the Texas Wild Rice and the San Marcos Salamander. This river is visited by thousands of people every year with thousands of pounds of trash and waste being thrown into it. It is up to us to inform the public how to take care of such a vital part of the eco-system and mecca for wild life in Central Texas.
RAD focused on interactive workshops and featured major organizations that helped to inform people about and preserve the San Marcos River. The San Marcos River Foundation and the San Marcos Habitat Conservation Plan were the main organizations supporting this beautiful event.
The Austin Permaculture Guild had a booth for learning about permaculture, which highlighted reducing waste and growing your own food. Immediately next to our booth was the Science booth put on by our wonderful friends at Heirloom Blooms. Their booth featured a water testing station for examining all of the tiny insects and algae that make up the spring water. That water has its own tiny eco-system in one little petri dish! They also made seed bombs made up of native flowers and grasses to repopulate the riverbanks.
There was an amazing demonstration set up as well to show everyone how to build their own easy and inexpensive aquaponics system by Green Phoenix Farms that was donated to the San Marcos Nature Center. Heritage Tree Care came out to inform everyone about the native and invasive plants and trees that line the river. RAD also featured a native plant walk, a workshop for teaching dogs how to pick up trash, arts and crafts, playtime, and story time. A night of music and a showing of an an absolutely amazing film dedicated to documenting the San Marcos River called Yakona was shown during the evening hours. What a magical night it was!
Of the many events Austin Permaculture Guild has been a part of, this one was certainly a raging success! The people really came out and represented what conservation and community are all about. Don't worry there will be another festival organized by the very same people coming up this spring called Texas Wild Rice festival!
The next event hosted by the Austin Permaculture Guild is our first Permablitz of the Fall season and will be held September 14th and 15th at Kealing Middle School in Austin. We will be building a perennial forest style garden with the classic berm and swale passive water catchment system. We sure do need some help too! So come on out and get your hands dirty building up our community of young people growing their own food!
See you out there!
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