Cathe’s Corner

Cathe’ Fish is pas­sion­ate about Per­ma­cul­ture. She has been work­ing as an expe­ri­enced Dry­lands Per­ma­cul­ture Design­er and Con­sul­tant since 1987. She has designed ranch­es, 40 acre farms to small sub­ur­ban plots and apart­ment porches.

Cathe’ has taught hun­dreds of sus­tain­able liv­ing class­es and work­shops. She has been an inspir­ing pio­neer in per­ma­cul­ture edu­ca­tion in the US and inter­na­tion­al­ly and is a sought out instruc­tor. She was the founder and orig­i­nal edi­tor of the Dry­lands Per­ma­cul­ture newslet­ter in 1987 which lat­er became the Per­ma­cul­ture Dry­lands Jour­nal, with Bill Steen, of The Canela Project and author of  The Straw Bale House (with his wife Athena Steen and David Brainbridge.

Cathe’ has stud­ied with Aus­tralian ecol­o­gist, eco design­er, and all around char­ac­ter Bill Mol­li­son, who cre­at­ed per­ma­cul­ture wih David Holm­gren as an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to land use and com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment. In May 2008, Cathe’ spent two weeks at Geoff and Nadia Law­ton’s Zay­tu­na Farm work­ing with Geof­f’s amaz­ing swales, dams and ponds, plant­i­ng food forests and bam­boo cut­tings and doing oth­er farm activ­i­ties. In May 2008, she was also able to vis­it Tagari, Bill Mol­lison’s long term farm in Tyal­gum, NSW, Aus­tralia (aban­doned since 2001) with its amaz­ing still func­tion­ing earth­works: 43 bod­ies of con­struct­ed dams, ponds, and water har­vest­ing swales, as well as many lush food forests.

Cathe’ has also stud­ied with many sus­tain­abli­ty instruc­tors Tom Ward, David Bain­bridge, Sal­ly Fal­lon, Mary Enig, Car­olyn Jones, Elaine Ing­ham, Ian David­son, Ros­alind Creasy, Robert Kouric, Joel Salatin, Gabe Brown, Guy Judy, Jean Mar­tin Forti­er, Van­dana Shi­va, Mark Shep­ard and many oth­ers. She has  also worked with  Bar­bara Kerr who was a solar pio­neer and solar cook­ing inven­tor. Cathe’ has used and taught about  Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­able Kitchens since 1996. She has also taught about Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­able Kitchens at Quail Springs Inter­na­tion­al Per­ma­cul­ture Design Courses.

Besides being a Per­ma­cul­ture Design­er and Teacher since 1987, Cathe’ has been cer­ti­fied as a Mas­ter Gar­den­er since 1988 and has  earned Mas­ter Gar­den­er Sus­tain­able Gar­den­ing Expert cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. She is the Speak­er’s Bureau Direc­tor for the Neva­da Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers.  She also teach­es Defen­si­ble Space Land­scap­ing for the Fire­Safe Coun­cil of Neva­da Coun­ty, as well as Neva­da Coun­ty Mas­ter Gar­den­ers.  She has been help­ing orga­nize her neigh­bor­hood and many oth­ers as a Fire Wise Com­mu­ni­ty, and using  Pre­scribed Burns and Rumi­nant Graz­ing as Fire Wise tools.

Until 1999, she lived for 25 years on a 1/4 acre per­ma­cul­ture home­stead  in the high desert town of Bis­bee, Ari­zona. She says, “Wher­ev­er you live, make water catch­ments and plant appro­pri­ate trees.” She was the gar­den­ing edi­tor for the Bis­bee Observ­er for three years.

Cathe’ became a mem­ber of the Ari­zona Solar Action Team in 1980, trav­el­ing around the state of Ari­zona con­duct­ing Pas­sive Solar Green­house Work­shops. She has taught her Pas­sive Solar Green­house slideshow at AZ and CA State Mas­ter Gar­den­er Con­fer­ences, as well as many Mas­ter Gar­den­er class­es, and Per­ma­cul­ture class­es. She has also taught for 5 years at Cochise  Com­mu­ni­ty College.

Cathe’ was involved in the renais­sance of super insu­lat­ed straw­bale build­ings in 1987 with Bill and Athena Steen, and has taught pas­sive solar build­ing design at straw bale work­shops for many years.

Cathe’  loves trees, par­tic­u­lar­ly rare fruit trees in food forests, and she has plant­ed 1000s of trees. She was the pre­vi­ous direc­tor of Cochise Coun­ty Glob­al ReLeaf. She has helped sev­er­al cities cre­ate tree pro­tec­tion ordi­nances, and was instru­men­tal in start­ing Chico Cal­i­for­ni­a’s Tree Action. She believes the future is tree and peren­ni­al farm­ing and water harvesting.

She has been a mem­ber of the Cal­i­for­nia Native Plant Soci­ety, NAFEX North Amer­i­can Fruit Explor­ers, Cal­i­for­nia Rare Fruit Grow­ers, and the Local Food Coali­tion, and has been a many year chap­ter leader of the West­on A. Price Foun­da­tion, Gold Coun­try Chap­ter in Grass Val­ley, Cal­i­for­nia- Wise Tra­di­tions in Food, Farm­ing and the Heal­ing Arts.

Cathe’ holds a Pro­fes­sion­al Diplo­ma of Per­ma­cul­ture Design in the dis­ci­plines of both Site Design and Edu­ca­tion. She is a Course Teacher for the Per­ma­cul­ture Insti­tute of  North Amer­i­ca and  is known for well orga­nized, prac­ti­cal, high ener­gy class­es. She reg­u­lar­ly teach­es Per­ma­cul­ture Design Cours­es, and will cus­tom teach an Intro to Per­ma­cul­ture class or PDC for your group.  She has been to Mex­i­co many times to work with local peo­ple. In July 2009, she went to Mex­i­co to help low income fam­i­lies start a per­ma­cul­ture demon­stra­tion site. She has also taught in India with Wom­en’s Earth Alliance, as well as at the Inter­na­tion­al Per­ma­cul­ture con­ver­gences in  Jor­dan, and Cuba.

In the ear­ly 1970s, Cathe’ lived in San­ta Fe, New Mex­i­co where she start­ed a nat­ur­al foods cafe called the Coun­try Kitchen (now Har­ry’s Road­house). She built a lit­tle green­house out­side the cafe, where she grew the cafe’s toma­toes and greens. To this day, she refus­es to eat dis­gust­ing  cor­po­rate taste­less food, espe­cial­ly tomatoes.

As a per­ma­cul­tur­ist farmer, Cathe’ was select­ed as a del­e­gate for the Wom­en’s Earth Alliance India Learn­ing Exchange Del­e­ga­tion in Oct 2009. She saw first hand the dam­age of the Green Rev­o­lu­tion in India, vis­it­ed organ­ic farm­ing pio­neers, exchanged per­ma­cul­ture infor­ma­tion, and pho­tographed ancient water har­vest­ing sites. She was hap­py to vis­it Van­dana Shiv­a’s broth­ers farm Nav­dan­na in North­ern India.

In Sep­tem­ber 2011, Cathe’ was a del­e­gate and speak­er at the Inter­na­tion­al Per­ma­cul­ture Con­fer­ence and Con­ver­gence in Jor­dan. She vis­it­ed per­ma­cul­ture sites in Jor­dan, Pales­tine and Israel after the Con­ver­gence. In Novem­ber 2013, she was a speak­er and del­e­gate to the Inter­na­tion­al Per­ma­cul­ture Con­fer­ence and Con­ver­gence in Cuba. In August 2014, and Sep­tem­ber 2016, she attend­ed the North Amer­i­can Per­ma­cul­ture con­ver­gence. At all of these, Cathe’ gave a well received pre­sen­ta­tion on Prac­ti­cal Sus­tain­able Kitchens and oth­er topics.

Cathe’ lives and works at the Prac­ti­cal Per­ma­cul­ture Farm School  on her  organ­ic cer­ti­fied per­ma­cul­ture farm  “Sun­shine Works” in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia.  She is the direc­tor of the Prac­ti­cal Per­ma­cul­ture Research Insti­tute where she  teach­es per­ma­cul­ture and solar design cours­es, gives per­ma­cul­ture con­sul­ta­tions,  and cre­ates per­ma­cul­ture designs. Cathe’ grows organ­ic food and has a sheep, pigs, lay­ing ducks,  worms and rais­es Old Time Scotch Farm Col­lies who  work with  her around the farm.  She was  the co-orga­niz­er of Sier­ra Har­vest’s Sus­tain­able Food and Farm Con­fer­ence for 10 years in Grass Val­ley, California.

Check out her Face­book: Prac­ti­cal Permaculture.