iPermie! by Bob Waldrop

I came across this book when I was looking into the writings of Bob Waldrop. He was a Permaculture Designer living in Oklahoma City. He created a set of flyers called the Better Times Emergency Notes, which I republished on this site. He passed away in 2019.

In 2013 he wrote a tome on permaculture called iPermie!. Its subtitle: How to permaculture your urban lifestyle: a good-life design guide for Millennials, Boomers, and Generation X.

I originally downloaded the sample from his archived website. It only contains the first three sections of the book and already runs at a whopping 416 pages!

Recently I came across a notice of republication by James M. Branum. You can now get iPermie PDF released under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial share-alike license. I put a copy of the PDF on my website.

This book runs for 891 pages. I will note that there is a lot of internal repetition. This makes it easy to start reading from most anywhere but makes the work seem somewhat unapproachable at first sight.

The introduction talks about the why of the book and who its intended public is. It wants to explain the permaculture design system to people of low to moderate incomes living in a city. Permaculture at its core is action coupled with reflection, a praxis for empowerment and hope. Using a succession of small steps the book guides us to create a good-life design.

A sensible approach is to start with the Introduction and 00 Basics and then pick any topic that interests you and start reading from there.

The book covers these sections:

• 00 Basics,
• 01 Invisible Structures,
• 02 Food,
• 03 Energy,
• 04 Shelter,
• 05 Water,
• 06 Geography, Access, Transportation,
• 07 Community,
• 08 Economics,
• 09 Constancy, Persistence, Resilience,
• 10 Health
• 11 Education
• 12 Family, and finally
• 13 Putting this together

If you choose to follow along, and I highly recommend you do, it will guide you to make a permaculture design for your (urban) life. What you will end up with is an ever-evolving design that helps you get clear on what you value in life and ways to bring these values to life.

If you're interested in permaculture and are looking for a practical, hands-on guide, I highly recommend downloading it, printing (parts of it) out and working through it at your own pace. Or study it with a group of friends by designing and creating a Learning Community (See section 00081, from page 34).