Friday, May 10, 2013

Upcoming Events

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  


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!)
CLASS DURATION: 9am-3pm
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
Part one: 9am-12pm Part two: 1pm-4pm.
Held at our Afton basecamp. Cost $20 per session or $35.

May 17, 18, 19
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.
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
Friday at 7pm to Sunday 3pm. Cost $175.
(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

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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?

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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)

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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

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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.

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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

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Sunday 5/19 Cville TimeBank New Member Orientation
2-4pm in the Jefferson Room at Central Library, 201 E. Market St. Charlottesville

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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.

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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.

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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.

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May 23-27 Age of Limits Conference in PA

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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**

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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

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This is Your Grandmother’s Kitchen: summer 2013 classes from Leni Sorensen

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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!