Here's your opportunity to either strut your stuff or see what others have made and learn some new tricks. This is a practical sharing afternoon with others from Central Victoria to broaden our horizons and get fermenting. We got a big buzz from the Sandor Katz visit...let's see what others are making. Town Hall, this Sunday 29th June between 12 midday and 4.00pm
Demos & tasters: ** Clare O'Bryan .... Kraut & kimchi Demo **. Dora Berenyi......Bulgarian yoghurt sample **. Raia Faith Baster.....carrot ginger ferment demo **. Marita. ..... Kefir cheese demo and beet kvass demo **. Su Dennett.......sourdough starter... How to start it, feed it and use it.
Haven't learnt how to make your own miso yet and add great ferments to your diet for better digestion for the whole family, not to mention the pampering of the taste buds?
Well, here is your opportunity to do a workshop with our resident miso master, Rick Tanaka. Book now for Sunday's workshop that starts at 10am and finishes at 12.30pm with a bowl of miso soup and sour dough bread. You will get koji and soy beans to take home to make your own batch as well as learn the history of miso and how to make it.
Cost of the workshop is $45. Book now and join us for the fun!
Nicole Foss and David Holmgren with Strategies for a changing economy –
survive and thrive
at the Daylesford Town Hall July 11th at 7pm
Over the next several decades we face many challenges as a consequence of the approaching many limits to growth. Finance, energy, environment, resources and climate will all impact on the single-minded, one-dimensional trajectory human society has been on in our present era of growth imperative. Our current path is unsustainable. It cannot and will not continue, so we must adapt our societies in order to build a new future.
The first challenges are being presented by the on-going global financial crisis, which is far closer to its beginning than its end, and by the geopolitics of energy. Events in Europe, particularly in Cyprus, Detroit and latterly the Ukraine, represent a major wake up call that financial crisis is about to resume in earnest and that energy issues are moving towards criticality in many places. We must anticipate and navigate a period of rapid economic contraction and increasing risk of resource conflict, punctuated by the emergence of geopolitical wildcards.
Building Resilience in an Era of Limits to Growth
Nicole Foss will explore the links between the converging pressures facing us – economic contraction, peak energy and geopolitical stress.
She will outline the implications for our everyday lives and share practical solutions she has observed from around the world.
Permaculture Surfing the Property Bubble Collapse
Drawing from 30 years of permaculture teaching, designing and demonstrating rural and urban agriculture food production systems
for sustainable living, Transition activism and personal example,in David Holmgren will outline practical strategies to help households
and communities survive, thrive and contribute to a better world.
Permaculutre co-founder David Holmgren toured the country with Richard Heinberg in 2006 informing the public of the threats of imminent peak oil and the permaculture responses. Eight years on, more people have installed insulation and solar, started growing food, raising chooks, and buying from local producers.
Only eight years on, the peak of conventional oil is already in the rear view mirror and the first stage of the second Great Depression is pulling apart economies and nations around the world. The mining boom has allowed Australia to dodge the worst, but the signs are not good. Government plans for austerity highlight the need for households and communities to increase their self reliance.
David’s updated presentation uses permaculture design principles to interpret the signs and show how getting out of debt, downsizing and rebooting our dormant household and community non-monetary economies are the best hedges that ordinary citizens can make. The idea that these household and community economies could achieve unprecedented growth rates if the monetary economy takes a serious dive is a good news story you won’t hear from mainstream media. The shift of metaphor from ‘retrofitting’ to ‘surfing’ suggests a stronger role for positive risk-taking behaviour change without the need for expensive changes to the built environment that few will be able to afford. Returning to Aussie St, David shows how the permaculture makeover and behaviour change is progressing through the Second Great Depression. Aussie St is not only surviving but thriving through the “dumpers” that property bubble collapse, climate chaos and geopolitical energy shocks have unleashed on the lucky country. An endearing, amusing and gutsy story of hope for in-situ adaptation by the majority of Australians living in our towns and suburbs.
On this tour Holmgren is joined by Nicole Foss, leading system analyst, who explains how the deflationary dynamics that always follow finance and property bubbles, will rapidly impact individuals, families and communities, while the longer acting forces of Peak Oil and Climate Change will determine and limit the nature of any economic recovery. Nicole will paint a comprehensive picture of where we stand today globally, how our human operating system functions, how and why it is acutely vulnerable, and what we must do about the predicament in which we find ourselves. The focus will be financial, social, and geopolitical, reflecting the priority of impacts likely to be felt in the relatively short term. The critical factors for change will be highlighted, with an outline of the possibilities that exist within the scope of the emerging reality. We must plan to restructure our societies from the bottom up, so that both the transition period and our eventually recovery from the coming upheaval can rest on a solid foundation. That foundation requires the resurgence of resilient communities and the development of true human capacity.
Foss’s succinct and riveting presentation sets the scene for the positive permaculture strategies. More than just an affirmation of what many are already doing, Foss’s systemic perspective is a wake-up call for those concerned about environmental and social issues, to understand how their own exposure to financial collapse will determine whether they can shape a better future for themselves, their children and their communities.
The two will inform Australians how it’s possible, although not inevitable, to weather the coming storms with grace, rebuild community solidarity and provide a bulwark against the worst expressions of fear, blame and zenophobia that naturally arise in times of hardship. Most importantly, it will highlight how a small but significant minority following a path of enlightened self interest, and informed by permaculture design principles, may have a more powerful and positive influence than mass movements demanding their rights from weak and ineffective governments.
Humanity stands on the edge of a precipice, and where we go from here is in our own hands. There is both considerable danger, and the opportunity to address what is arguably the most challenging situation in human history constructively.
Our next film showing at the Savoia Thursday June 12th7.30pm is
The Chikukwa Project
Where once the people of the Chikukwa villages in Zimbabwe suffered hunger, malnutrition and high rates of disease, this community has turned its fortunes around using permaculture farming techniques. Complementing these strategies for food security, they have built their community strength through locally controlled and initiated programs for permaculture training, conflict resolution, women’s empowerment, primary education and HIV management. The Chikukwa Project - Trailer from Gillian Leahy on Vimeo. Now they have a surplus of food and the people in these villages are healthy and proud of their achievements. Their degraded landscape has been turned into a lush paradise. A brother and sister team travelled to Zimbabwe and made this film which shows why this project has been so successful.
Last year, John Seed and David Holmgren did a fundraiser for this remarkable project that has existed for the last 20 years. The villagers wanted to replicate their programs in further villages with the help of Ulli & Eli Westermann and now this is happening. HRN is fundraising for Permaculture Aid Yolanda in the Phillippines so your $5 donation will go towards the people trying to rebuild their lives post typhoon Click to enlarge the report
Just as we are feeling safe and comfortable with the bushfire season over for another year, now is the time to be out and about, reducing bushfire risk. With winter just starting, we have the months ahead to prepare for what is shaping up to be a fearsome summer with a very severe risk of fire. Let this be a motivator and empowerer for us to prepare and be confident. Joan Webster can certainly continue to be our guide. Here is her bulletin Winter preparation for summer bushfire safetyto remind us
Come and visit the gully below Melliodora to see the work I have been doing with the goats to reduce vegetation for fire protection and make it more inviting. It is looking lovely. Let us know if you would like to join the gully crew in a working bee to cut a track up Doctor's Gully between the fire trail below the swing bridge and the confluence of Spring Creek. Date tba
Remember, HRN has rake hoes, loppers and slash hooks that you can borrow to do work at home for yourselves or out and about on the public land.
Go visit the gully work that Peter Sagittarius and others have done at the bottom of third street. It is park like and much safer for summer. Could we manage to make more of the areas adjacent our homes safer? Hand clearing is a great social activity, fun and gives a good work out; much safer than burn offs! Let us, hrn@internode.on.net know.
Permaculutre co-founder David Holmgren toured the country with Richard Heinberg in 2006 informing the public of the threats of imminent peak oil and the permaculture responses. Eight years on, more people have installed insulation and solar, started growing food, raising chooks, and buying from local producers.
On this tour Holmgren is joined by Nicole Foss, leading system analyst, who explains how the deflationary dynamics that always follow finance and property bubbles, will rapidly impact individuals, families and communities, while the longer acting forces of Peak Oil and Climate Change will determine and limit the nature of any economic recovery. Nicole will paint a comprehensive picture of where we stand today globally, how our human operating system functions, how and why it is acutely vulnerable, and what we must do about the predicament in which we find ourselves. The focus will be financial, social, and geopolitical, reflecting the priority of impacts likely to be felt in the relatively short term. The critical factors for change will be highlighted, with an outline of the possibilities that exist within the scope of the emerging reality. We must plan to restructure our societies from the bottom up, so that both the transition period and our eventually recovery from the coming upheaval can rest on a solid foundation. That foundation requires the resurgence of resilient communities and the development of true human capacity.
