Join us for one or all of these inspiring events!
Saturday April 27, Tour Big River Chestnuts Farm! (Sliding Scale Ticket Fee)
Saturday Morning April 27th, 9:30-12:00
Big River Chestnut Farm In Sunderland MA, 9:30-12:30. Bring a picnic lunch or buy lunch at nearby cafe.
- 9:30 Morning Tour of Big River Chestnuts in Sunderland MA ~ This is where Jono Neiger, co-founder of Regenerative Design Group and author of the book 'The Permaculture Promise' is developing a commercial agroforestry system based on chestnuts, small fruit, and small livestock. There are ample hands-on learning opportunities at this farm that you can also pursue!
~ Please contact us if you would like to register at a different sliding scale amount :)
~ If you can contribute more to support the Sowing Solutions Educational Program BIPOC Scholarship Fund, please go back one page and select the 'Sponsorship Ticket Rate' of $35 instead of this one :)
Spring Permaculture Design Certification Course Registration ~ Deposit towards Tuition!
Secure your seat at the upcoming Spring Weekend Series Permaculture Design Certification Course : April-July!!!
*WAITLIST* for Learn to Build an Earth Oven with Kiko Denzer!!
Build Your Own Earth Oven ~ Natural Building Event!!!
Saturday April 20th from 10am-4pm/5pm
*** THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL ~ SEND US AN EMAIL TO JOIN THE WAILIST and TO RECEIVE UPDTES ABOUT MORE NATURAL BUILDING EVENTS***
Want to build your own wood-fired oven? Feeling daunted by cost or lack of experience? Want to learn more about building with natural materials (aka cob, or adobe)? Join us on the 20th when we'll gather with friends and neighbors to go through all the steps involved in building a wood-fired oven out of the earth underfoot.
We will meet at Springs Farm in Guilford Vt, and will send you all details after your registration. Please note, it is a suggested $40-$60 for the day, and *you can email us to ask for a sliding scale*.
The materials and process make it inexpensive, but the design and performance equals a custom-built or pre-fab brick oven. We will work together, hands on, to identify good material, use simple tools and fun exercise to mix it up, (barefoot, yum!), then shape it, insulate it, plaster it, and heat it up for cooking! From fuel to fire to storing heat, we'll also cover all the basics of burning -- not only for cooking, but also for increasing the comfort of your home. Each small team will have the experience of making a complete mini oven. Then you can go home and your own!
Kiko Denzer learned to build with mud about 30 years ago, from Ianto Evans (aka "the cob-father," and author of The Hand Sculpted House), who launched a first world revival of earthen, or cob building, and helped shape what is now called "natural building." The root work, however, seeks to free people from their dependence on our destructive culture of consumption, and re-connect them to the land and to each other. Kiko went on to build his own oven, home, and life, wrote Build Your Own Earth Oven as a little how-to manual, and continues to try and help people remember their creative birthrights, so we can engender cultures that feed the beauty that feeds us.
Songwriter's Workshop with Luke Concannon! 'Happy songwriters change the world'
Thursday May 9th 6pm till 9pm 'Happy songwriters change the world'
Songwriting workshop with chart topping activist songwriter Luke Concannon
‘‘I’m still so influenced by what they did for me it sparked a huge flame in me’
Ed Sheeran
“If you want a place to crack open your soul and sing it out, this is the safest place to do so”
Sarah Irougbe (retreat participant)
Welcome to this evening of songwriting hosted by world class chart topping song writer Luke Concannon. This workshop helps songwriters of all abilities and total beginners, to grow and learn as creatives making a positive difference in the world. This is a supportive hospitable environment, in which you are invited to explore sound, melody and words and enjoy creating. Luke has hosted workshops and coached songwriters for twenty five years; this is a fun way to connect with self, and others.
*** This is the early bird tuition cost! (Regular cost is $65)
Saturday April 27, Tour Big River Chestnuts Farm! (Sponsorship Ticket Rate)
Saturday Morning April 27th, 9:30-12:00
Big River Chestnut Farm In Sunderland MA, 9:30-12:30. Bring a picnic lunch or buy lunch at nearby cafe.
- 9:30 Morning Tour of Big River Chestnuts in Sunderland MA ~ This is where Jono Neiger, co-founder of Regenerative Design Group and author of the book 'The Permaculture Promise' is developing a commercial agroforestry system based on chestnuts, small fruit, and small livestock. There are ample hands-on learning opportunities at this farm that you can also pursue!
~ Please contact us if you would like to register at a different sliding scale amount :)
~ Thank you for supporting our BIPOC Scholarship Fund!!!
Friday April 26th, 7pm, Movie Night: Inhabit, A Permaculture Perspective
This Friday Evening at 7pm!
If you are wondering what Permaculture Design is all about (or if you are already inspired by this field of study and practice), this is the best introductory film that we have found! Plus it was made by one of my course graduates after he completed his course with us at Sowing Solutions Permaculture Design & Education!
More about this film:
Inhabit is a feature length documentary introducing permaculture: a design method that offers an ecological lens for solving issues related to agriculture, economics, governance, and on. The film presents a vast array of projects, concepts, and people, and it translates the diversity of permaculture into something that can be understood by an equally diverse audience. For those familiar, it will be a call to action and a glimpse into what's possible - what kind of projects and solutions are already underway. For those unfamiliar, it will be an introduction to a new way of being and a new way of relating to the Earth. For everyone, it will be a reminder that humans are capable of being planetary healing forces.
You can sign up here and Select the page for Community Events, or simply drop in :)
I hope you can join us! Suggested donation of around $10 goes to our BIPOC scholarship fund for the Permaculture Design Course that we offer seasonally here at The Mill.
Sending spring cheer,
Kay
Permaculture Design Certification Course
Starting April 25th SPRING 2024!
Offsite Tour: Visit a Straw Bale House
Tour the home of a family of 5 in Shelburne Falls, where they constructed their natural home out of straw bales, and heat their home with a masonry stove.
Offsite Tour: Visit a Permaculture Homestead and Demonstration Forest Garden
Tour a home landscape created by Jono Neiger of Regenerative Design Group and witness efficient energy systems, fruit production, water catchment, nutrient cycling systems.
Farming for Biodiversity
Designing Pollination Systems to Sustain Native Wildlife
A Presentation by Evan Abramson, Pollination Systems Designer at Landscape Interactions
Local Textiles, Bringing Regenerative, Non-Toxic, and Ethical Textile Production Back to New England
Nur Tiven, founding member of Western Mass Fibershed, tells the story of producing the first local and sustainable wool apparel fabric to come out of Massachusetts in decades, and discusses the need for and inspiring possibilities of rebuilding regional fiber systems and textile economies.
Mushroom Cultivation Demystified! Low Tech and No Waste Methods of Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Fungi
Various strategies to bring valuable mushrooms close to home. We will learn the mushroom life cycle, how they are produced, and how you can grow these delicious treats without waste or a big investment.
Teaming Up with Soil Life, Intro to Soil Biology & Chemistry (in relation to the plants we want to grow!)
Kaat Vander Straeten is a certified permaculture designer and a graduate of Elaine Ingham's Life in the Soil classes. Learn all about the soil food web, bacterial versus fungal soils, how to cook up some good compost and compost tea, what earthworms like to eat, and the real definition of a weed.
Movie Night! A Viewing of: ‘Inhabit, A Permaculture Perspective’ See the best film about the permaculture movement,
created by our very own permaculture design course graduate!
Introduction to Healing with the Five Elements Join us for a guided movement meditation and an informative talk with Tom Matherly of Fox Tracks Healing.
Introduction to Plant Spirit Medicine Join us for a talk with Clare Pearson of Wilder Brook Botanicals, healer and educator, who will guide us in a meditation and share about the healing power of plants. “Plants have Spirit. And Spirit is the strongest medicine.” ~Eliot Cowan
Mushroom Cultivation in Permaculture Systems with The Mushroom Forager!
Learn to create a landscape that produces a bounty of gourmet mushrooms while nourishing soil fertility and boosting vegetable yields.
An Introduction to Orcharding and Grafting Fruit Trees with a Biodynamic Practitioner Alan Surprenant of Brook Farm Orchard