Greetings Sustainability folks in Graham!

I am happy to be coming up to Issaquah in mid-March to present two events on local food production on the household and neighborhood scale.  Can you please share the following event announcements with your friends?  Terry Phalen (terry.phelan@livingshelter.com)  is the local contact and information can also be found on the Sustainable Issaquah website:  http://www.sustainableissaquah.ning.com.  Of course, I would be happy to answer any questions as well.

Many blessings on your upcoming springtime!

Marisha Auerbach

How to Grow All Your Own Produce in 2.5 Years: A (r)Evolution Disguised As Organic Gardening

Presentation by Marisha Auerbach

Friday, March 16, 6 pm – 8 pm King County Library Service Center 960 Newport Way NW, Issaquah, WA

Free

In the Maritime Northwest, it is possible to grow all our own produce year-round with limited time to establish a system and limited effort. As petroleum becomes more expensive, this sort of system can provide an example to support our evolution to a more sustainable society. Marisha Auerbach specializes in converting properties from grass to to a perennial forage system. A perennial forage system functions much like a natural ecological system, and yields year round produce with minimal work. These systems are developed to meet the needs of the inhabitants on site. Marisha provides most of her diet and income from her garden and has surplus produce and crafts to give away and trade for other supplies.

This presentation is an invitation for you to visit Marisha’s gardens through slides and lecture. She will be discussing how you can work towards self-reliance in produce if you have property to work with as well as guerrilla tactics to grow more food and flowers in the greater community. This lecture offers an opportunity to create cultural change through gardening.

This slideshow will be an updated version, including Marisha’s experience and reflections on moving to Portland this year in mid-June and her tiny yard. We hope you can join us…

This presentation is sponsored by Sustainable Issaquah and the City of Issaquah Resource Conservation Office

Marisha is also teaching an 8-hour permaculture class with hands-on in Issaquah on the day following this event. For registration or more information, visit http://www.sustainableissaquah.ning.com

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Basics Of Permaculture Design

With Marisha Auerbach

Saturday, March 17, 9 am – 5 pm Gibson Hall, 105 Newport Way Northwest, Issaquah, WA

Marisha Auerbach visits Issaquah to teach a day-long hands-on Basics of Permaculture course that includes soil building, plant guilds, and creating a foraging landscape. A tour of local pea-patches to observe what is coming in early spring will top off the day. Participants will leave with seed starts, recipes for building soil and inspiration to maximize food production in their gardens and communities. Brown bag lunch. Event co-sponsored by Sustainable Issaquah and the City of Issaquah Resource Conservation Office.

More info and tickets at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/222308

Wayne, you are truly an inspiration to us all.

…… and that, my friends, is why the chicken crossed the road.

Graham Self Reliant Community meeting, Wednesday February 1st, 2012, at the 70th

Ave. Graham Fire Station.  

Our meeting will revolve around the following questions:
- How did the recent storm affect you?   – What preparations or lifestyle choices helped you during the storm?   – What areas of weakness did you discover in your own self-sufficiency?
Come prepared to discuss all aspects of how this storm affected you and those you know, and share what worked, what didn’t, and hopefully we’ll all be a bit more prepared for next time!  If there is a large enough group and enough areas of conversation, we may divide up into groups to discuss different topics of concern, such as alternate power, heating, damage control, etc.
Bring along any items that really helped you for “show and tell”.
As always, bring something for the raffle!!

Happy New Year!!! Our monthly meeting is Wednesday, January 4th at 6:30pm at the Graham 70th Avenue Fire Station.
It is that time of year to be thinking about and planning this year’s gardening.
To quote a portion of an email from Deej:
“ Lastly, it is time to sit down with seed catalogs and decide what we will plant this coming spring.  I have some things I stick with from  year to year, and then I always want to try something new.  Most of  those new things don’t work very well, but a few work well enough that  they later become part of my yearly seeds.  It would be nice to  cooperate with a few other people on the “experimental” seeds…then  we can each try several new things at once instead of only one or two. Maybe we can ask everyone to bring their seed catalogs for comparison  and cooperation?”

And so it will be!! Bring your seed catalogs if you have any, and join us!! This meeting is for everyone, even if you’ve not gardened in the past. Or rather, ESPECIALLY if you’ve not gardened in the past, as nothing shouts out Self-Reliance like the ability to grow some, most, or all of the food you eat.
We will also be showing a short video on Open Sourced Blueprints For Civilizations.
As always, bring anything you’d like for our monthly raffle, and as we have no formal speaker for this meeting there may be time for any “show and tell” you might like to bring.

“Our went off yesterday without a hitch. If you could not join in we missed you. Andy Anderson told wonderful and interesting new history stories of the greater Graham area and the food was delicious. Our 2011 volunteer sign in has almost 100 names! If you were not able to pick up your volunteer award certificate I can e-mail it Or if you want to join these forces let us know as there is a lot of work that needs to be done.  Statistics show WA state volunteers are worth $22/hour. Recognizing that many of you contributed more than 10 hours each you can think of this as a $22,000 contribution to south Pierce Cty. Sadly I read in the TNT one day last week that 1/2 of the Tac. security fource is in jepardy of loosing their job but the new coach at WSU was awarded an $11,000,000 contract! YIKES!”

Holly adds: This is great-Carol always goes above and beyond!

Celebrations are in order for this month so everyone is invited to bring a dish for our HOLIDAY POTLUCK. Remember to bring your own plates, utensils, and drinks.

Don’t forget to bring something to raffle off. The money goes for much-needed supplies (mailing, printing, etc.).

“Thousands of Americans have begun affirming a new direction for the economy.  It’s called Slow Money.”

“Inspired by the vision of Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing As If Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered, published in 2009, the Slow Money Alliance is bringing people together around a new conversation about money that is too fast, about finance that is disconnected from people and place, about how we can begin fixing our economy from the ground up… starting with food.”

The “Slow Money” Movement May Revolutionize the Way You Think About Food