Greetings all,
Below is an amazing collection
of upcoming springtime permaculture and sustainability events in the central
Virginia bioregion, including several events this weekend. If you know anyone
else that would like to sign up for this newsletter, they can sign up here. If you have an
announcement, email us at blueridgepermaculture@gmail.com for the next monthly e-newsletter. Click here to view this email as a webpage. Happy Spring!
Best,
Christine and the BRPN team
www.blueridgepermaculture.net
www.blueridgepermaculture.net
1.
Michael
Phillips will present an Organic Orcharding Workshop at Vintage Virginia Apples
on May 11, 2013 near Charlottesville, Virginia
Michael
is the author of The Apple Grower and The Holistic Orchard. His website is
www.groworganicapples.com.
Organic
Orcharding 101: "Understanding the underlying principles for growing
healthy fruit becomes clear when walking through an orchard with Michael
Phillips at the height of the growing season." Come spend a day filled
with lecture and time in the orchard, with plenty of opportunities to ask questions
of Michael.
10:00-4:00
p.m., $125 per person, Lunch included
2.
Local Food Hub's - Taste
of the Farm & Plant Sale
May
11, 2013 I Scottsville, VA
The
Local Food Hub invites you to spend a Saturday on the farm! Join us for our
spring plant sale and open house at the Educational Farm at Maple Hill. The
event will run from 10:00 am through 3:00 pm.
3.
Radical Roots Farm - Organic Garden Planning class and farm
tour on Saturday May 25th in Keezletown, VA
The class begins at 1PM and the cost is $10.00, which
includes your favorite heirloom tomato plant to take home with you. Dave &
Lee and the other folks at Radical Roots will share tips on plant spacing and
amendments for your existing organic garden or the start of a new one.
Pre-register for the class at Friendly City or email erin@friendlycity.coop. The farm tour begins at 2:30
and is free as a part of Radical Roots’ plant sale, open to the public from
10AM – 4PM (10% off regular market prices). The Friendly City crew will meet at
Radical Roots, 3083 Flook Lane in Keezletown VA, 22832, at 1PM. Directions to
Radical Roots are at the bottom of their website: www.radicalrootsfarm.com/
4.
Bring
your lunch and learn about the Rivanna River!
Date:
May 16, 2013
Time:
12:00pm to 1pm
Location:
Jefferson-Madison Regional Library
201
E. Market Street, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Speaker:
Kristel Riddervold, Administrator, Environmental Programs, City of
Charlottesville
Topic:
The Restoration of the Meadow Creek has been underway for a number of years and
the project partners – The City of Charlottesville and The Nature Conservancy –
are now in a position to celebrate the projects’ completion and to share the
results of the project (along with the challenges) with the community.
5.
Rustic Chair-Building Class at
Montfair, near Crozet, Virginia
Joe
Sheridan’s rustic furniture workshops leave students with one of the most
useful items we can think of—a chair! Well, it’s a bit smaller than your
regular chair, perfectly built for a young child. Each child-size rustic twig
chair is uniquely designed by the builder and can take on magnificent touches
of individualism. Even the most novice student is able to create a personal
masterpiece through Joe’s instruction and a touch of rustic creativity. But
this class certainly isn’t only for beginners; those with experience in the
woodworking arts will be surprised and challenged by the subtleties of the
rustic techniques. So, who is the teacher of this wonderful class you may
wonder…
Joe
Sheridan will be teaching this rustic furniture-making workshop series at
Montfair Resort Farm. Joe, a native of Montfair Resort Farm, has a Masters
Degree in Fine Arts and has over 20 years of experience teaching art classes of
many types at several local universities and public schools.
Students
should bring wood glue, a drill, and a hand saw if they have them.
WHEN:
June 3rd-5th (Mon-Wed), 2013
PRICE: $125 + $40 one-time materials fee for the entire class series (3 full-day classes!)
PRICE: $125 + $40 one-time materials fee for the entire class series (3 full-day classes!)
CLASS
DURATION: 9am-3pm
WHERE: Montfair Resort Farm, Whitehall, VA
WHO: All skill levels, ages 16 & up
WHERE: Montfair Resort Farm, Whitehall, VA
WHO: All skill levels, ages 16 & up
CONTACT:
montfair@montfairresortfarm.com;
434-823-5202
6.
Living Earth School – classes near
Afton, VA
May 11
Tree I.D.~ Learning the Trees in Your Backyard
Advanced Class: Useful Trees and Reading the Landscape
Tree I.D.~ Learning the Trees in Your Backyard
Advanced Class: Useful Trees and Reading the Landscape
Part one: 9am-12pm Part two:
1pm-4pm.
Held at our Afton basecamp. Cost $20 per session or $35.
Held at our Afton basecamp. Cost $20 per session or $35.
May 17, 18, 19
The Power of Mentoring
The Power of Mentoring
Friday 7pm to Sun. 3pm.
Cost: Adults $195 / Kids (age 5-15) $100.
Kid's program is for children of adults attending the workshop.
Cost: Adults $195 / Kids (age 5-15) $100.
Kid's program is for children of adults attending the workshop.
Come learn some of the most
valuable mentoring techniques to be found. Our mentoring model is rooted
in the heart of nature. It facilitates deep connection to nature,
personal growth and community. This ancient practice has been around
since humans have walked on earth, it is how we are designed to
learn. In recent times this powerful practice has been fading in
our technological age. And it has come with a serious loss to true
connection.
June 7, 8, 9
Living With the Land- The Art of Wilderness Survival
Living With the Land- The Art of Wilderness Survival
Friday at 7pm to Sunday 3pm. Cost $175.
(for adults & ages 14+)
(for adults & ages 14+)
Come learn the skills of
survival. These skills will deepen your connection to the earth, and
yourself. This weekend, you will learn about shelters, fire making, wild
foods, water, tools, and the survival mentality. You will make your own
bowdrill fire, help build a debris hut, cook wild foods over the open fire
and more. This class is very hands-on, as that is the best way to
learn. We will share stories of our survival trips, so you can learn from
our experience. These skills, well known to our ancestors, help us
provide for our most basic human needs. We will provide great food,
mostly organic, and a lot of laughs.
7.
Excellent events from our friends
at Transition Charlottesville-Albemarle
Saturday 5/11 Community Investment Collaborative Wine Tasting & Business Expo
6:30-9:30pm at Carter’s Mountain
Orchard
*******************
Monday 5/13 Webinar: Local
Economic Blueprints
1pm BST (8am EDT) online
From Transition Culture: The
local economic blueprint is an attempt to quantify the potential economic
benefits of taking a more localised approach to economic development. Does this
approach represent a leap forward in our understanding of the potential role
localisation could play as a form of economic development? Or is it a
misguided exercise, naive in its assumptions, whose impacts are at best
marginal, and at worst could potentially have a detrimental impact on local
economic futures?
*******************
Monday 5/13 Skill Share: Build
Your Own Solar Oven
7-8:30pm at The Bridge PAI, 209
Monticello Rd. Charlottesville
Capture solar energy and use it
to cook almost anything: bread, stew, casserole, meats & vegetables,
desserts. We will build simple, low-tech solar ovens
using common household materials like cardboard and duct tape. Then you can
take your solar oven home and use it to make a dish for the Transition Cville
Solar Cookout on Memorial Day! Please bring if you can: a medium size cardboard
box with flaps, 2 or more large pieces of cardboard, a utility knife, a tape
measure, a paint brush (1-2″ wide)
*******************
Tuesday 5/14 Women’s Bike Night:
bike part craft/ celebrate bike to work week
5-7 p.m. at Community Bikes, 405
Avon Street, Charlottesville
Women's Bike nights are FREE!
First 1/2 hour of class will start with a bike topic. Remaining class time will
be open shop time to women only. We will work on each other’s bikes and learn
from one another.
Questions: email shellbellding@gmail.com or call
434-882-1516
*******************
Wednesday 5/15 Cville TimeBank Member Social
6-8pm at C’ville Coffee in
Charlottesville
C’ville Coffee is one of the
first business members of the TimeBank! TimeBankers will show appreciation by
sprucing up the outdoor box planters with new plants. Bring gloves and a garden
trowel if you like, and after the planting enjoy a beverage or a bite.
*******************
Saturday 5/18 3rd Annual Tour de
Coop
10am-noon; registration 9:15-9:45
A family-friendly bike ride to
visit chicken coops around the city and learn about chicken keeping. Tour
begins & ends at Community Bikes, 405 Avon St., Charlottesville
*******************
Sunday 5/19 Cville TimeBank New
Member Orientation
2-4pm in the Jefferson Room at
Central Library, 201 E. Market St. Charlottesville
*******************
Tuesday 5/21 Environment and
Resource Economics in the Developing World
9am in Garrett Great Hall, 235
McCormick Rd., Charlottesville
A public lecture by Michael
Greenstone (MIT) - part of the Environment
and Development Conference at UVA.
*******************
Tuesday 5/21 350 Central Virginia
Meeting
6:30-8:30pm at Charlottesville
Friends Meetinghouse, 1104 Forest St.
350 CVA, the first officially
recognized Virginia chapter of international 350.org,
meets on the third Tuesday of each month. At least one hour of the monthly
meeting is set aside for activist program work. Everyone is welcome, from
high school students up to adult seniors. Light refreshments are
provided. We seek to grow in numbers and effectiveness, specifically effectiveness
for changing our future to one that is safe from the looming, catastrophic
amount of climate change that science predicts, unless we quickly and greatly
reduce or replace our use of coal, oil and gas for energy.
*******************
Thursday 5/23 “Our Town
Charlottesville” Meeting for Martha Jefferson/Little High neighborhoods
6pm - 8pm at Herman Key
Recreation Center
"Our Town
Charlottesville" brings town hall style meetings to every City
neighborhood throughout the year so that residents may discuss emerging issues
and voice concerns and preferences about their respective communities. Each
meeting is attended by citizens, City Council and many other City officials,
giving everyone a chance to talk personally in a relaxed, informal environment
about the things which matter to them most.
*******************
May 23-27 Age of Limits
Conference in PA
*******************
Monday May 27 Solar Cookout
1-3pm at Booker T. Washington
Park, Preston Ave. & 10th St.
Join us for a Fossil Fuel Free
Feast and summer party with good old-fashioned activities like a 3-legged race,
acoustic music, frisbee, and of course food! We’ll have solar cookers
demonstrating how to bake outdoors using the sun’s heat. Bring a potluck dish
to share, and challenge yourself to creatively prepare food without fossil
fuels - sun-baked, wood-grilled, pickled, fermented, fresh from the garden etc.
Look for recipe ideas coming soon on the Transition Cville Blog.
** Note - we will not hold our
regular 4th Monday Transition Town meeting at the library in May**
*******************
Monday May 27 Charlottesville
SOUP
6:30pm at Charlottesville Day
School
A seasonal public dinner series to
support creative projects in Charlottesville. Stay tuned for more details: https://www.facebook.com/CharlottesvilleSOUP
*******************
This is Your Grandmother’s
Kitchen: summer 2013 classes from Leni Sorensen
*******************
Edible Yards
is a team effort to replace local lawns with edible abundance! Contact Stevo
Johnson, genuinesmile29@gmail.com.
8.
Welcome
to Project Grows in Verona, Virginia
Project
GROWS is a community farm where children and youth grow, eat, and enjoy. We
inspire younger members of the community and teach them about healthy living
through many hands-on experiences. Youth grow food from soil to seed to
harvest. They find this same food in their meals and have the opportunity to
prepare it together. We teach them why fresh food is healthy and help them
develop business skills to market and sell it. Local growers share with them
their approach to producing healthy food. Youth bring family and friends to
farm events and celebrations. Finally, participants take pride in what they
accomplish and enjoy what hard work can produce.
Project GROWS is happy to
announce community focus nights to be held one day a month in conjunction with
our Thursday volunteer days.
This month will feature
"Yoga on the Farm" on May 30 at 5 pm with special guests Chakra
Khan. Future themes will include Squash Pest Fest, Bikes and Kites Day, and
more!
9.
Permaculture talk with Andrew Faust
on June 1st in Charlottesville
Did
your fancy new clothesline come from China? Has your brain been green washed?
Go beyond the "green" with Andrew Faust, renowned New York based
Permaculture Instructor and Director of the Center for Bioregional Living.
Andrew will be talking about the Economics of Bioregionalism and why we also
need more regionally specific sets of ideas, approaches and techniques for each
region to be offered in the teaching of Permaculture Design processes. A
stimulating, challenging dialogue is sure to be had!
Saturday,
June 1rst
Random
Row Books
315
W. Main St, Charlottesville
$10.00
donation suggested. Sliding scale available
Contact
Jessica Hoffa for questions: 434-466-1466
10.
Customer
Support Position for Green Tech Company Organic Mechanic
Become
an integral part of a company with a lot of potential. Currently we are receiving
a great deal of traffic for and interest in some of our products. Over 100
leads are requesting quotes or for more information every month. This is where
your position comes in, to handle all of the interest mostly through email,
some through phone, from your own home office. You will be paid great
commissions ($3-6,000+ per month) on green solutions that people purchase with
your assistance.
Your
skills, interests, and experience ideally includes: Customer satisfaction,
service roles, or sales. Passion and knowledge about green technology. Comfort
in conversing about and finding people the right technology solutions.
Certification or experience in diesel vehicles, generators, diesel conversion
kits, biofuels. Comfort and aptitude with gmail, google docs, google voice.
Entrepreneurial, Management, and/or Academic experience in business a plus. If
you are interested, please email your resume and why you think you are the best
person for this job to Office@OrganicMechanic.com.
11.
Summer Internship opportunity near
Charlottesville
Interested
in learning first-hand how farmers markets are run? Students who complete
the Morven Summer Institute class "Farmers Markets and Applied Food
Systems Research” (PLAC 5500) will have the opportunity to pursue internships
with farmers markets in Williamsburg, Richmond, Charlottesville and elsewhere!
Administered by the Virginia Farmers Market Management Association, a
limited number of internships will be available for students in the
class. Much of the internship work can be completed remotely, there is no
requirement that students be from the area of the farmers market to apply.
Contact
Prof. Paul Freedman (freedman@virginia.edu)
or Kathi Colen Peck (vfmma.facilitator@gmail.com)
and see http://www.virginia.edu/summer/morven.html for
more information.
12.
Chickens and You Workshop series
Chickens
AND YOU™ is a project of the Gossamer Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit
organization dedicated to Global Sustainability and Local Foods.
13.
Sharondale
Farm
July 24th- Fungal Feast. Join Angel for a mushroom
cooking class at the newly renovated Jefferson Community Center
kitchen. Offered through Piedmont Virginia Community College.
14.
Hey folks@ I'm participating
in an amazing bike ride this summer, called the Fresh Forks tour! My fellow riders and I will be biking the length
of the Mississippi RIver, from New Orleans to northern Minnesota to uncover the
stories of America's farmers. We will be visiting a number of different
farms along our tour and talking to the farmers who make them run, learning how
they first got involved in food systems and sharing their stories through
weekly blog posts and video updates. We want to be having conversations
that will inspire future farmers, and we want more people to be a part of these
conversations!
We're scheduled to leave in 2 weeks, but in order to hit the
road, we need a little bit more money. I'm talking less than $1,000
total. So, if you have 20 or 40 dollars lying around that you could put
towards getting this project off the ground, that would mean the world to me.
You can donate online here: http://bit.ly/139rrcG
Of course, you can follow our progress online, and I hope that
some of y'all do! We can be found at http://www.freshforks.com, as well as on
Facebook and Twitter.
Thanks so much,
Ducky
15.
|
Solar Powering Your Community Workshop: New River Valley,
Virginia
This FREE interactive workshop, presented by the
SunShot Solar Outreach Partnership, will provide actionable information on
creating a local-level solar program in the New River Valley region.
Areas of focus will include:
•
Energy planning to facilitate solar installations
•
State and local incentives for solar energy
•
Innovative financing options for solar projects
•
And why solar is viable for the New River Valley region.
Case study examples will highlight successful practices and
lessons learned from communities that have undertaken solar projects in these
focus areas. If you have questions, e-mail solar@icma.org.
16.
Join us in Charlottesville on Tuesday, May 14th for a
lunch & discussion on "Getting to Net Zero: Cost Effective
Strategies to Dramatically Reduce Energy Consumption". This talk
will investigate several institutional buildings that are being built to the
PassivHaus energy standard.
Such as Hickory Hall (pictured above), a 40,000 square foot
residence hall under construction for Emory and Henry College. The building
is predicted to consume less than 17 kBTU/sq.ft. (Heating), which is 83% less
than a CBECs, and greater than 65% less than a code building of this type.
Pre-registration is required. Please RSVP by Friday, May
10th.
|
17. Water flowing out of the faucet in many Appalachian homes
is toxic. Mountaintop removal mining pollution has contaminated miles and
miles of streams in the region and state agencies are looking the other way.
It's time to act. The EPA holds the keys to protecting
Appalachia's health. Let's show them we won't stand by while any American is
forced to drink polluted water!
