Skookum Partners with The Urban Farmer to Offer Local Permaculture Course

Permaculture Design Course – Creating Community Abundance
Join us for the first ever Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) to be offered in the community of Powell River!

Based on the international 72-hour permaculture design curriculum, this course will be spread out over four seasons, with four 3-day weekends beginning November 18 – 20, 2011. This intense and inspiring program will provide the knowledge and the tools for you, your family and your community to move boldly down the path towards self-sufficiency, resilience, and community abundance.

Included in this adventure of discovery will be:

  • Permaculture design ethics and principles
  • Methods of design and ecological patterns
  • Annual and perennial food growing and preserving strategies
  • Animals in rural and urban areas
  • Soil, water and energy systems
  • Appropriate technologies and green building
  • Ecosystems and ecological restoration
  • Settlement design and community strategies
  • Alternative economies and resilience
  • And much more … !

The course will be taught by Ron Berezan (The Urban Farmer, www.theurbanfarmer.ca) and Erin Innes (Passionate Permaculture, (www.passionatepermaculture.ca) who collectively bring many years of permaculture teaching and experience to the table. We will be hosted by St. David and St. Paul Anglican church in Townsite, Powell River. All participants will have the opportunity to participate in the design and implementation of a permaculture garden on the church grounds, providing a community resource for years to come! This initiative is also being undertaken with the support of Transition Town Powell River and Skookum Food Provisioners Cooperative.

All Skookum members will receive $100 off the cost of registration.

Please download the brochure at: http://theurbanfarmer.ca/education/upcoming-workshops-events-new/.

For more information please contact:

Ron Berezan, theurbanfarmer@shaw.ca, 604 223 4800 or

Erin Innes, rin@passionatepermaculture.ca, 778 707 4848.

Ça presse!

Cider-making by the letter: Jacqueline Huddleston and Sharon Deane pouring hot cider into bottles.

Members of the cooperative were up at the Fall Fair this past weekend pressing and selling delicious fresh apple cider, using Skookum’s cider press. Thanks so much to all our volunteers and to everyone who dropped by to say hi and enjoy some hot or cold cider. Special thanks to Jan & Gary Burnikell for service above & beyond the call of duty; and to Jacqueline Huddleston for dealing with the permit and creating an organized kitchen. (Click here to see more of our pictures.)

We made a gr total of $129.86 for Skookum. This would have been more if we had not had to buy apples from Bernie — although it’s a good thing we did, because otherwise we would have run out of apples to press. Next year we’ll be hoping for more apples contributed by our members and from the community. We’ll be coming after you!

And don’t forget that the cider press is available for rental to Skookum members only. You can find out the details here, but the basic bottom line is that at $20/day, this is the best deal ever!

Buen provecho!
David Parkinson
Treasurer, Skookum Food Provisioners’ Cooperative

Skookum Needs Your Apples (and Help) at the Fall Fair

Skookum Cooperative needs local apples to press for the Fall Fair Skookum booth (Sept 24-25,2011). Learn how to press apples, make and sell cider!

Let us know if you can donate local apples (let us know how much and which day you can deliver them to the Fair (mornings only if you need to get a vehicle on the grounds) and we’ll press ’em! It’s a fundraiser for Skookum Gleaners, y’all!

Help with the Skookum Fall Fair Table RAIN OR SHINE! Sign up for:

  • Saturday September 24 from 10:30 am-1 pm /or 1 pm-5 pm

/or 

  • Sunday Sept 25 11 am-1 pm /or 1 am-5 pm

Nola’s Mushroom Log Workshop

Just a little window into Nola’s special Skookum-sponsored Mushroom Log Workshop that happened within the last month or so. Nola bought the spores online in quantity (to reduce the cost for all) and presented the workshops. It was a BYOL (Bring Your Own Log) affair. Images of the oyster and shiitake mushrooms coming soon. Many thanks, Nola! Do you have a project you’d like to lead? Propose it here: http://skookumfood.ca/our-projects/suggest-a-project/