Monthly Archives: October 2014

Advanced Landscape Design Course, January-March, 2015, Denver

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From The Denver Permaculture Guild:

Take your skills as a permaculture designer to the next level with this course offered by Adam Brock and Jason Gerhardt, two of Colorado’s premier professional permaculture designers.

In this 3-weekend course, we’ll be using a mix of lecture, group discussion, and hands-on activities to cover the following topics:

    • Advanced landscape techniques
    • Advanced design thinking
    • Low-tech and high-tech approaches for surveying and basemapping
    • Hand-drawn and computer-aided drafting techniques
    • In-depth site analysis
    • Strategies for working with clients
    • Budgeting
    • Developing project manuals
    • Implementation tips
WHEN:
3 Weekends, Winter 2015:
  • January 17th and 18th
  • February 21st and 22nd
  • March 21st and 22nd
HOW MUCH:
$600 for DPG members
$750 for non-members (PDC required)

Rockies Edge Permaculture Design Course, Boulder, April-October 2015

A 2015 through the seasons Permaculture Design Course is in the works for Boulder.  The class will be one weekend a month, starting in April, and ending in October.  Watch the Rockies Edge Permaculture website for updates in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, if you have any questions, email info[at]rockiesedge[dot]com.

Currently, the list of instructors includes Kelly Simmons, Avery Ellis, Tara Rae Kent, and Mike Wird, with guests.

Diploma Information from the Permaculture Institute of North America (PINA)

From Sandy Cruz of High Altitude Permaculture:

 

PINA — the Permaculture Institute of North America — officially launched its organization and began accepting members in late August at the North American Permaculture Convergence.  Much more about this new professional permaculture organization, including membership details, may be found at: http://permaculturenorthamerica.org/.
PINA is a professional organization designed to support students and experienced practitioners of permaculture in North America.  PINA’s goals are:
• To raise and maintain professional standards in permaculture design, teaching, and additional permaculture disciplines.
• To support permaculture education through a certifying process that recognizes achievement and excellence.
• To provide a structure for communication among Permaculture Design Course graduates.
The PINA Board of Directors will begin accepting applications from members for the Diploma of Permaculture Design and the Diploma of Permaculture Education on October 1st.  PINA’s professional diploma programs are open to PDC graduates as well as more experienced practitioners.  Applicants will be assigned a regional field advisor to assist them in working through the diploma process.  PINA will grant diplomas retroactively and at no cost to members who qualify as senior permaculturists, on the basis of past achievement.
I will serve as PINA’s first field advisor for the Rocky Mountain region, and additional field advisors will be added once the process has stabilized.  The first few diploma candidates will help PINA to work through any kinks in the process.
PINA is also working to establish regional permaculture organizations that span the continent, which will eventually become PINA’s governing bodies.
To learn more about PINA, the permaculture network it seeks to establish, and PINA’s professional diploma programs, please visit http://permaculturenorthamerica.org/

Workshop on Chicken Butchery: Mindful Harvesting, Nov. 1, 2014

From The Living Arts School:

Participate in the process of chicken butchery, from a live chicken to a ready-to-roast bird.  We will guide each participant through the entire process, step-by-step, in a mindful and intentional way.  Students will not only learn the practical details of how to slaughter a chicken for food, but they will also have the opportunity to connect deeper to what it means to be a meat eater.  McCauley Family Farm is dedicated to raising the most ecological, delicious, and truly pasture raised chickens in the Front Range.
Every student can take their delicious chicken home with them after the class.  If you decide you would like more than one chicken to take home, you may purchase and butcher an additional chicken at the discounted rate of $25/bird.   After two birds, the rate is $30/bird.

Instructor Marcus McCauley is all about creating community through food. As manager of his family’s farm, he has brought together a diverse group of talented and passionate people to transform 40 stunning acres into a sanctuary for ecologically-minded farming and foodcrafting. In addition to the McCauley family, the farm is home to chickens, sheep, alpacas, bees and rows upon rows of food crops. Using biodynamic practices, permaculture, and sustainable growing traditions, the farm specializes in bio-regionally adapted seeds of native food species as well as Old World cultivars. Irrigated by natural high mountain snow melt, the fields turn into a verdant landscape every summer. Marcus makes sure to extend the harvest throughout the year: as a trained chef, he’s taken to filling his customers’ pantries with jars of handcrafted foods—everything from wild-fermented kimchi to pickled linden berries and chokecherry jelly—and preparing lunch for lucky volunteers and on Family Farm Days.

No experience necessary.  Please bring a cooler and at least 2 large, leakproof plastic bags.  All other materials and supplies will be provided. Minimum of 4 participants, maximum of 15.  Pre-registration is required.

Saturday, November 1st, 10am-12pm
$55.00
Register here

Local Food Distribution Training, Nov. 17-19, 2014, Denver

From Local Food Shift:

Local Orbit’s “Hub Camp” Offers Hands-On Local Food Distribution Training, Denver, Nov. 17 – 19. With the advent of autumn and the season’s harvest mostly complete, many of us are now turning our thoughts to food hubs—the infrastructure that can connect our farmers and ranchers with their larger markets.

In 2013, eight food hubs were slated for development in the Colorado Front Range, but to our knowledge only one was actually launched (by the Arkansas Valley Organic Growers). But this year, more are beginning to take shape (including the Colorado Springs Public Market which just landed a building, and Re:Vision’s stunning Westwood Food Cooperative. These are signs that the local food movement is finding its feet!

But moving to food hub infrastructure is serious business, fraught with many challenges and risks. The path forward is littered with failures. How can we do this successfully?

To help forge the path forward, Nov. 17 – 19, Local Food Shift Group is partnering with Ann Arbor’s Local Orbit to offer the “Hub Camp,” a three-day, hands-on workshop for entrepreneurs seeking to aggregate and distribute food from local farms to chefs, schools, hospitals, retailers and other wholesale customers. The Hub Camp is uniquely focused on practical skills and best practices learned from successful local food distribution businesses across the country.

As one of the attendees of the recent Hub Camp in Michigan said, “I’ve gotten more from three days at Hub Camp than from three years of going to conferences and talks about local food distribution.” The attendees are operators, or potential operators, of businesses that are creating shorter, more transparent local food supply chains and increasing marketplace opportunities for local producers. The interactive format is structured with flexibility to address the individual needs of each participant.

The workshop will feature Erika Block, founder and CEO of Local Orbit, along with her Director of Training, Noah Fulmer. The agenda will include presentations by and interaction with local professionals in food safety, legal and regulatory issues, purchasing at commercial scale, and finance.

Registration is $345. The location is Natural Grocers Market, 1433 Washington Street (Colfax and Washington), in Denver.

Click here for more information and to register. We hope you will join us in this important event!

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Front Range Bioneers Conference, Nov. 7-9, 2014

From CU Boulder Environmental Center:

Front Range Bioneers

A Bioneers Network Event

November 7-9, 2014

University of Colorado Boulder

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The CU Environmental Center, Local Food Shift Group, Naropa University, Center for Integrative Botanical Studies, Restorative Leadership Institute, Earth Guardians, Boulder County Farmers Market, and Woodbine Ecology Center with the support of sponsors and partner groups are proud to bring Bioneers to Boulder for the twelfth year.”Bioneers is inspiring a shift to live on Earth in ways that honor the web of life, each other and future generations.”

The Front Range Bioneers companion event creates community opportunities for sharing, learning and action, and brings together the region’s progressive ideas, people and organizations. The event features a broadcast of the national Bioneers plenaries and is locally enriched with:  music and arts; networking, children’s eco-activities; field trips, and sessions, workshops and keynotes addressing topics of regional importance and community solutions.