Category: Skookum

Members’ Table Scraps

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)

  • Food processing for value-added projects (eg. Sundried tomatoes, blackberry chipotle sauce)
  • Stanley Darland: Sausage-maker
  • Workshop: Kitchen Aid (3hour workshop)
  • Employment for people with disabilities (NACL)
  • Nut-cracking Machine
  • Maple Syrup making
  • Pollination and Cross-pollination workshop
  • What you can do with blackberries
  • Hydraulic ram pump demo
  • 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.)
  • Mapping commercial kitchens
  • Blackberry products

Tan Your Hide: A Free Skookum-Sponsored Workshop

 

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!

 

Announcing Skookum’s Bulk Seed-Buying Project


Buying seed together, locally.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 10 packs of each of the c.30 seed varieties are offered to Skookum members only 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;
  3. 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;
  4. Click here to see the list of seeds on offer (with prices, descriptions, etc), and instructions on how to order.

Dehydrating Feast!

         Drying Foods Naturally

           Day 1                                                              Day 2

– Why dehydrate?                                         -How to wrapstore

– Using your dehydrator year round           -Divide portions

-Features of a good dehydrator                   -How dry is dry?

-Temperature, time & attention                  -What else can I dehydrate?

-Prep  work                                                    -Reconstituting

-Dry leather, fruit bars & spaghetti            -Tasting the fruit of our labor

-Marinate meatfish overnight             -Sharing more recipes

Fee: Skookum members $30
Non-members $45*

Payable to “Skookum Food Provisioner’s Cooperative”
Purchase at Kingfisher Used Books by
November 20th 2011

*(SFPC Lifetime memberships are $20: to apply, click here)