'Oh, hi everyone,' said autumn.

Apis meet up this Friday

Do you love bees, honey and pollination? Do you have a hive but would like to know more? Have you always wanted to keep bees but don't know where to start?

Then you might like to come along to Apis: natural beekeeping group - Hepburn Shire's first free workshop:

Intro to good beekeeping 

Friday March 13

6pm - 9pm

6 Tierneys Lane Daylesford (near the Mill Market)

Please bring a potluck dish to share for dinner, your own cup, crockery and cutlery. 

No single use packaging please.

The workshop will be facilitated by the wondrous Angela Enbom from Enbom Honeys. Ange is passionate about healthy living and caring for the environment and has discovered that keeping bees fits perfectly with this ethos. Ange believes that all good beekeepers are natural bee-keepers, working with nature & the bees, caring primarily for the bees & their wellbeing & genuinely valuing the honey, the beeswax & the propolis.

If you are a member of the Hepburn Wholefoods Collective, you have most likely bought and tasted Ange's honey - deeeelish!

Pic of Ange via @BallaratFood

No need to RSVP, just come along - but if you are on FB and you feel like it you can RSVP here.

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Let's grow food together shall we?

So you have a million rolls of loo paper and now you don't know what to do with all your spare time?

Gardening collectively is not just good for soul and soil but it also helps strengthen community resilience and wellbeing by ensuring chemical-free, nutrient dense food is available for everyone.

The Daylesford Community Food Gardeners are having their monthly working bee this Saturday from 10am - 12pm at the garden beside the library. If you can please bring hand tools, bales of straw and seedlings. Not sure what's good to plant at this time of year? Don't forget the excellent Sow What When guide the gardeners created for this specific climate zone.

This is a free event and everyone is welcome to attend.

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Saving seeds

The Hepburn Seed Savers are gathering at the Glenyon Hall this Sunday March 15 from 2pm to help our local seed bank grow and thrive. There will be cake and tea and seed lovers and seed saving tips.

Ripe tomatoes 🍅!! Now’s the time to save your seeds.

Just spoon the seeds from a ripe or over-ripe tomato with some jelly and a bit of water into a jar and leave to ferment for a few days, then take the foam off the top and wash and dry the seeds. If you collected some from the seed library you can place the dry seeds back into the same packet (or jar or paper bag) and pop them in the donation box at the Daylesford book library. If you have others they would be very happily received at our beautiful living seed bank.

If you need help saving seeds please email Seedy Brenna - she is always happy to help and have a yarn about seeds. Or you can bring some tomatoes (and any other seed saving questions) on Sunday - where Brenna will be doing a how to.

* * *

Mending busted things

The Daylesford Repair Café is on this Sunday March 15 at the pavilion at Victoria Park in Daylesford.

Volunteer helpers and fixers will be onsite, ready to help mend your items from 1pm till 4pm. There will be tea, coffee and cake available too. Gold coin donation for repairs and refreshments.

Repair stations on the day include:

• Knife and tool sharpening 
• General repairs
• Sewing 
• Electrical 
• Bike
• Small Engines and Fire Fighting Pumps

Image from here

If you or someone you know would like to help out, please email daylesfordrepaircafe@gmail.com


See you on Sunday! FB event here.

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Wild Fennel: change of date

Did you know that most of the pharmaceuticals the world consumes are made in China? But what happens when global supply chains are severed? What does community resilience look like when supermarket and chemist shelves are stocked? And what does it look like when they are empty? How do we care for ourselves and each other in the face of pandemics and crises?

At the March Wild Fennel gathering, herbalist Rosie Cooper will discuss personal and community immunity and how we can remain healthy and vital as we head into cold and flu season.

Sunday March 22

9.30am - 12.30pm

Senior Citizen's Hall (rear Daylesford Town Hall)

You might like to bring:
- a notebook
- herbs, seedlings, seeds or homemade remedies, etc you would like to share or trade
- stories to share

This is a free gathering and everyone is welcome to attend.

Wild Fennel FB group is here.

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Growing Wild

* * *

Earth Fever: comedy from the brink of catastrophe

Tickets here.

So much good stuff!

Hi everyone!

Just a reminder that the Wild Fennel herbal group is having its very first gathering this Friday the 23rd of August.

6.30pm - 8.30pm
6 Tierneys Lane, Daylesford
BYO dish to share for dinner (with as many local ingredients as possible) plus a plate & cutlery.
Please note this is a waste free event so no single use plastic please.

No need to RSVP, just come along!

* * *

Community food is serious business!!

Thank you once again to Serge, Jacques, Brenna, Charlie and everyone else involved in growing, picking, and sharing the amazing Captain's Creek organic veggies with the local community.

L-R: Brenna, Jaques & Charlie (Pic from Brenna's FB page)

The veggies were given away for a gold coin donation which went to HRN. Over $130 was raised. Thank you everyone!

* * *

September Culture Club

The next exciting Culture Club gathering will be an excursion to Herbal Lore Liqueurs.

Please join us on Saturday September 7 from 10am - 12pm at Lot 2 Railway Crescent Daylesford.

Owners Roger & Sue will discuss health, wellness and herbs and of course the fermentation process they employ to make their alcohols. They will also provide an enjoyable tasting of their herbal liqueurs, all of which have been crafted using a combination of carefully selected herbs to fulfil a particular health benefit.

We hope you will join us.

* * *

Planting a bushfoods garden

Community Gardener Patrick Jones with Bruce Pascoe at the Daylesford Library Community Garden, 2016

Inspired by Bruce Pascoe’s critical work, Dark Emu, The Daylesford Community Food Gardeners seek to honour, help repair and reinstate the intellectual & cultural heritage of the Dja Dja Wurrung through the creation and cultivation of a bushfoods garden along the north facing wall of the library at the Albert Street garden. They are currently looking for an enthusiastic gardener to lead this regenerative growing initiative. If you are interested in applying for this voluntary position, please email justfreefood@gmail.com

* * *

Natural Building Course

Castlemaine Community House is offering a practical introduction to the world of natural building.

Learn resourceful and ecologically-centred construction through fun building projects around the community garden and get some more tools under your belt for resilience and self-sufficiency.

Develop a confidence in building that you can apply to any backyard sustainability project or incorporate into permaculture design systems.

Such projects are many and varied and may include earth pizza ovens and outdoor kitchens, garden seating and landscaping, animal shelters, potting sheds, planters and wicking beds, solar dehydrators, compost bays and cold frames, setting up netting and shade systems, building a composting toilet, beehives or even a garden studio or summer sleep-out!

Natural building techniques and concepts covered:

Understanding the principles of passive solar, thermal mass and insulation, breathability, seasonality, building appropriately for climate, embodied energy and ethical resourcing.

Learn cob construction, bottle walling, light earth, sustainable carpentry, foundations and drainage for small structures, and natural finishing techniques such as clay/lime renders and plasters.

Throughout the 8 week course there will be information on sourcing materials, a survey of traditional and resurgence natural building, theory and demonstrations, Q & A sessions and lots of hands-on practice to really come to grips with the materials and techniques.

Dates: 7^th October – 25^th November (8 weeks)

When: Mondays 9am – 4pm

Where: Castlemaine Community House, 30 Templeton Street.

Fee: $350 (payment plans available)

Tutor: Perri Campbell

For more information and to enrol: www.cch.org.au/natural-building-course

* * *

Networks for Action

Transition Australia is hosting a convergence in Melbourne next month. Meg Ulman and Nikki Marshall will be attending on behalf of HRN and Localising Leanganook to spruik all the wonderful initiatives our region has going on, and to learn from other communities.

For more info.
For bookings.

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Goathand gathering

Brad, Vasko and Patrick from Goathand co-operative are hosting a community working bee and lunch gathering. People are invited to come and learn what goats and shepherds with loppers can achieve together. A warming forest fire with endless hot drinks will keep our late winter labours well accompanied.

The 16 co-op goats have been on this site for a few months, and we’d like to do a final chop-n-drop session to leave the site looking wonderful. This is a cultural and learning day, so feel free to bring the whole family, an instrument or two and any friends who are interested in learning about community managed forests, goatherding and ecologically sensitive weed and bushfire mitigation in a climate change era.

Saturday August 31 between 10am and 2pm
Please bring a plate of food to share for lunch and any loppers, secateurs or pruning saws you may have.
Please contact goathand co-op for the exact location.

* * *

Annual Yandoit Shindig

Once again the good folk at Yandoit Farm are hosting an annual gathering for Central Victorian permies, gardeners, homesteaders, back-to-the-landers, suburban-retrofitters, farmers, conservationists, natural builders, local food lovers, neighbours, allies, and curious minds.

This is an opportunity to spend an afternoon & evening catching up with old friends and making new ones. Kids are welcome but need to be supervised at all times as this is a working farm with the potential risks that go along with that. Please leave dogs at home (assistance dogs excepted).

You are very welcome to come early for a swim in the dam or come prepared and camp overnight! (If camping, please let Michael know) Please also feel free to invite like-minded friends to come along. This informal event was created a couple of years ago to strengthen links between permaculture communities and individuals around towns like Ballarat, Castlemaine, Daylesford, Bendigo, Ballan and other parts of central Victoria. If you know people who might like to join in, let them know!

Saturday, 16 November from 4pm
Yandoit Farm, Yandoit
BYO food & drinks, musical instruments, comfy chairs and rugs
Facebook event page