For hunters, homesteaders, craftsmen, seamstresses and those with a serious intent to learn the basics of home tanning leathers and furs
This second workshop will focus on the techniques used to “break” the tanned hide. We will also introduce you to working with larger hides, including: deer, goat and sheep. If you missed the first workshop “green” hides (untanned) will be available to practice fleshing, with instruction.
What: Part 2 of a 3 workshop series on tanning local hides
When: Saturday July 28th 2012
Where: 5905 Fraser Street, Powell River BC
Time: 11:00AM to 3:00PM
Fee: Free of charge*
(*donations to Skookum always graciously accepted)
We recommend: Tan Your Hide, by Phyllis Hobson (IBSN # 0-88266-101-9) if you want to preview some of the techniques we will be using.
Important: Bring your own tanning kit including:
2 old towels
Rubber gloves and apron
1 pair of utility scissors
1 skinning or fleshing knife or other tool i.e.
Ulu
spoon, shell or something with a rounded edge
1 piece of plywood 3/4 ” thick 2 X 2
Your tanned rabbit hide from workshop 1 (if you attended this)
Participants should also bring lunch and a thermos
At the Skookum AGM in April, our crack team of Event Organizers came up with some great ideas to coax out some of our members own thoughts on worthy projects for the cooperative. Each person attending was given a card with the image of a vegetable on it. Then, when the time came, we split up according to the vegetable image. And, with the tables draped with ‘scraps’ of kraft paper and pens, we got to work. Below is a transcription of those ideas collected that evening.
We welcome even more ideas (and the energy to back it up) from those who attended and from the general membership. Just leave a comment below even if you support one or a few of the projects listed here; we’d like to know.
Annual General Meeting Members’ Table Notes (April 27, 2012)
Slug-killing by frogs/workshop by Colleen (donation by laughter )
Wood-chipper, chainsaw, gas-fired cement mixer
Making fruit vinegars (workshop)
Specific fruit and vegetable selection for PR region (workshop; prepared seed collection for this)
Develop a “Skookum Almanac” with variety of tips, anecdotes, etc. on growing exotic or unusual products
Elder stories about farming, food-saving, growing in the area; invite them and others to record—maybe a lunch event; maybe salmon lunch
Bulk-buying of plants/trees;
Meat-grinder
Organic pest-control workshop
Apple Cider and Vinegar-making workshop
Wild-crafting workshop
Active involvement in edible garden Tour
Skookum Marketing board: package food, prepare food, clean food and prep for market
Market stall for co-op members at the Open Air market(s), where people can drop off produce, a few people will clean and prep and one person will sell it
Small-scale member-driven produce sales (via Abundant Pantry or via short-term announcements via email or facebook; i.e. “I have a box of chard” + cost or barter possibilities.
Relationship building with PRREDS; project where they pay for soil analysis in the area to find out what would grow well where; make this info public.
Relationship with job creation entities (Career Link/ Community Futures, etc.) to develop Food Hub (including long-term cold storage facilities for year-round storage needs)
Community cold-freeze; people can buy meat in quantity and rent a small part of a large freezer to keep this
Community smoke-house
Couple with private company (Reliable Rentals) to ensure they get a certain number of requests for a certain garden-related machine, maybe a renters’ club; benefits include that they would buy and maintain the equipment
Tool share- Nola has rototiller for proposed tool library; share use for other equipment;
Repair/Repurpose classes
Carpentry workshop—how to build stuff (for gals)
Explore possibility to partner with VIU for their asset-based community development: contact Alison Taplay
Turn the cards (our business cards) into stickers or magnets
Silke’s or another retail outlet (? Not sure what this means—buy Silke’s?- Ed.)
Click the image above to view the full flyer with full details
Hana Turtle Granny and Jacqueline Huddleston offer you FREE Home Tanning Workshops, with the first in the series on Saturday, June 9, 2012!
For hunters, homesteaders, craftsmen, seamstresses & those with a serious intent to learn the basics of home tanning leathers and furs.
Click here to see the flyer with the full details!
Part 1 Introduction and Fleshing (June 9, 2012)
Part 2 Breaking/Pulling date to be announced*
Part 3 Softening/Finishing date to be announced
*We will schedule the subsequent workshops with those who come to the first one.
Participants will get to take home a rabbit skin in their colour choice (we have white, black, grey and grey/brown with a herringbone-like pattern).
More skins will be available for sale to those interested for $4/hide. To register email Jacqueline Huddleston: jaxhuddleston@me.com
Please note this is a free event open to the general public which will require vigorous participation. Register early to guarantee your space!
Wendy is waiting for you to pick up your bulk food...
Exciting news! After many months of planning and hard work, Skookum’s Abundant Pantry Bulk-Buying Project is ready for prime time! The coordinator Wendy Pelton and her husband Barry Bookout have created a fantastic website for Skookum members to place their bimonthly orders for bulk food and all members of Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative are invited to sign up and check it out.
Here’s how it works:
In the odd months (January, March, May, July, September, & November), Skookum members who have signed up with The Abundant Pantry will be invited to shop for bulk goods, using the new website;
Members can work together to split bags or cases, using the splits page;
The deadline for each order will be the second Sunday of the month;
Once we have closed the website and received the orders for that month, we pass our collective order to Melissa Call at Sunshine Organics/Ecossentials, who acts as our local distributor;
Ferries permitting, our order will come in on the following Wednesday and be ready for members on the Thursday of that week to come up to Melissa’s warehouse in Wildwood and get their food.
We currently have access to the catalogue from Horizon Distributors and plans are afoot to get other distributors’ catalogues into our online ordering system. Stay tuned.
The project's mascot, Skooky, created by Giovanni Spezzacatena
Beyond that, one of the most exciting aspects of this online ordering site is that we can list local producers and their products there for our members to buy in bulk quantities. Currently, our only local distributor is Skookum member Mischa Brooks-Thoma, the Powell River Natural Soap Lady, but Wendy is hard at work finding more local food other products for us. If you have suggestions, contact her. (Local producers whom we buy from do not need to be members.)
We’re also thinking ahead to frozen refrigerated products, but we plan to run a few simple orders before we start complicating things.
In February, we ran a small test run, and everything (well, almost!) went off without a hitch. And so we are now ready to try a larger order with more members involved. The order deadline this time around will be 11:00 PM on Sunday March 11, and the pickup day will be Thursday March 15.
You can check out the current catalogue here. (Please note that the full catalogue might take some time to load if you’re on a slow internet connection.) Information about joining The Abundant Pantry Bulk-Buying Club and getting your own secure online login information is here.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email Wendy or phone her at (604) 485-6664.
On behalf of all our members who will benefit from having a simple accessible online bulk ordering system, the Skookum board would like to acknowledge the contributions of the ‘guinea pigs’ of the pilot order, as well as Melissa Leigh, who has helped with invaluable advice on bookkeeping procedures financial sanity; Mischa Brooks-Thoma, for being the first local producer providing so much useful feedback; and above all, Wendy and Barry, who have given us so many hours of hard work trying to get the website all the procedures in order. Thank you, all!
We’re happy to introduce a new project open to Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative members only. It’s a bulk seed-buying club that will start off small with a selection of some 30 seed types from a local provider, Eternal Seed. As you know, the more seed one buys, the cheaper the cost, but seeds don’t keep too well past a couple of years… so stocking up is not a great option. If we buy together, it’s better in many ways:
It’s less expensive to buy seeds this way (if you still have too many seeds, you can donate/barter them at Seedy Saturday, or share with neighbours/friends);
With a percentage of the cost of buying seed through this project, you get to support Skookum, the community, and a coordinator for the project;
We can support a local certified organic seed company, Eternal Seed.
If we manage to order 10 packs (or more) of any of the varieties listed here, we get a substantial discount from Eternal Seed. Then we tack on a small percentage to support Skookum projects (5%)the community fund (5%) plus another 15% for the project coordinator. Your seed packet will then cost on average 25% less than buying one packet via a normal retail outlet.
How it works
(Remember, this is MEMBERS ONLY. Not a member, but would like to join Skookum? Click here).
Skookum will not be held liable for the quality of seed or results from use of the seed, although Eternal Seed does have its own guarantee that can be found on their web site; download their catalogue as a pdf file here (please use Internet Explorer for best results). All seed descriptions below are from the Eternal Seed catalogue.
I chose about 30 types of seeds from the Eternal Seed catalogue (see here) ; In picking the seeds, I tended toward earlier, cooler temperature varieties, as well as a mix of good storage crops in a few cases.
10 packs of each of the c.30 seed varieties are offered to Skookum membersonly to purchase (note that you will be able to buy more than just one pack of any one seed variety as well) — first come first served;
The varieties of seeds that do not reach that “10 packet minimum order” threshold by the deadline of February 14 (Valentine’s Day!) 2012, will be dropped;
Click here to see the list of seeds on offer (with prices, descriptions, etc), and instructions on how to order.
