Spring Planting Fest

Transylvania Shares and Moving to Conservers Spring Planting Festival at the Cedar Mountain Canteen 10771 Greenville Highway, Cedar Mountain, NC 28717 March 19th 2 - 4 pm Let's get ready for planting food! Transylvania Shares will be onsite with equipment from their library and expertise from their members to help you get ready for Spring planting! Moving to Conservers will host their annual seed swap and a plant-based zero-waste potluck. Bring your seeds to share and a plant-based dish to share.  Please bring your own re-usable place setting. Shares will be grinding corn and dried beans if you have anything you would like turned into grits or flour. Farmer Phil will kick off his Just For Kids Mini-camp series that will be held every Saturday from 2 - 4 pm for children. They will enjoy everything from planting and tending a garden to a music jam.  The mini-camp is $10 per child.  The rest of the event is free.  

Harvest Fest was wonderful. Thank you

Thank you to everyone who made Harvest Fest an heart warming community event. What a special evening. It was so wonderful to share a potluck dinner with everyone. Transylvania Shares was onsite and brought their grinding mill. I brought in corn I had grown and it was milled into grits and flour. We made cornbread on the spot and shared it. It was a wonderful experience. What a wonderful, loving community we live in. Thanks to all the Moving to Conservers members who attended. After a (public) house full of people we had almost no clean up. Zero waste is such a gift.

Join us for Harvest Fest on October 28th, a zero-waste potluck and festival

Join us for a community pop-up kitchen October 28th.  We will have a grinding mill onsite if you have things you want to turn into flour like corn, beans, grain.  We will have our fire pit going and be cooking food.  It is a great way to celebrate fall and the harvest and help the community process food together.  Looking forward to a wonderful evening together!  Transylvania Shares will be onsite sharing their stuff and answering questions on their sharing library! This is a potluck.  Please bring a dish to share if you are able and your own non-disposable place setting.  We strive to be waste free.  

Our gathering with Leif was wonderful. Thanks everyone for an amazing meal and loving friendship

Leif Olsen treated us to an incredible discussion about mycology.  Wow, the stuff is everywhere, thank goodness.  We had an amazing turnout and the food was divine.  Thank you Leif for sharing your time and knowledge and thanks to everyone who shared their time and delicious goodies.  Over 40 people enjoying the evening and our trash can didn't even notice.  Thanks everyone for supporting zero-waste events.  It is so kind to not leave a lot of garbage for folks to clean up.

By |2021-06-22T07:38:39-04:00June 22nd, 2021|Categories: Composting, Connecting with nature, Food, Food preservation, Gatherings, Growing food|

It is time for our annual seed swap! We are doing this one remotely.

Our last gathering before the lock down of the pandemic was our annual seed swap. I enjoyed growing some of those seeds last year. I always enjoy shared seeds and plants. They have a story and I smile when I tend to the plants and remember the soul who shared them. We have beautiful Cardinal flowers and Green and Golds given to us by friends and they warm my heart every time I see them. It is like they are in our garden, beautifying it. Noel of our Eating Consciously team, sent me some seeds out of the blue last year and we have been enjoying the Arugula and Collards since. It was so nice to receive a surprise in the mail with a handwritten loving note. Noel and I were recently discussing seed swapping and we both were thinking of how to do it during a pandemic and she suggested using the US Mail. I loved it! I think hand-written letters sent in the mail are a [...]

By |2021-02-15T09:10:19-05:00February 15th, 2021|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Food preservation, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Noel Thurner|

Free fermenting classes

This is something that is near and dear to my heart and I have discussed with the Shockey’s, my fermenting gurus and friends. So in spite of their world being turned upside down with COVID they are still walking the talk and trying to connect with those folks in most need. Scroll down to the bottom paragraphs and you will see what I mean.   We hope this finds you well. For the last few months we have been working on getting two special fermentation classes up. One is a Master Class that includes 7 techniques, a number of videos and a full color workbook with recipes. This class has so much for both a seasoned fermenter as well as brand new fermenters. The other class is very basic fermentation and is 100% FREE. FREE? What you say? Why? Let us explain.  Microbes are everywhere and key to nearly every natural process. They were on the Earth first, long before our farthest common ancestors existed, and they will likely be here [...]

By |2020-08-24T11:07:15-04:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food, Food preservation, Gatherings, Help a Neighbor, Use Food Scraps|

Honoring my Lebanese heritage: Harvesting grape leaves, remembering grandma and grandpa

My grandpa Coram was born in Lebanon. His family moved to the United States when he was an infant. Grandma’s family moved from Lebanon and settled in Jackson, Ohio, where she was born. Grandma always told people grandpa was born in Camel, West Virginia. When I asked her why she said their courthouse had burned down and all the records were lost. She feared he may be deported someday if folks knew where he was born, even though he was a legal resident. I thought she was being ridiculous. I don’t think that anymore, sadly. Anyone who knew them assumed their wedding was arranged. Grandpa was a practical joker. He lived life with joy. He was a great man. I have so much love for him I took his last name after my divorce. Grandma approached life differently. Some of my greatest life lessons came from my close relationship with her. I miss them both deeply and feel their presence at interesting times. My mother took on more [...]

By |2020-05-25T13:15:23-04:00May 20th, 2020|Categories: Food preservation, Growing food, Moving to Zero-waste|

Online classes from NCSU on fermenting and making things you may not be able to find in the store right now.

Susan Sunflower sent this our way to share.  We have learned a few of these tricks thanks to Noel! (shown above).  She has given us many classes on fermenting and I for one have started fermenting as a result.  Thanks Susan for passing this on. Having problems finding yeast at the store to make bread? Have you thought that this might be a good time to learn how to make cheese? Check out this upcoming webinar series all about fementology! Appropriate for the home cook / wildlife explorer / high school student. I am just sharing this information... please visit the web site for more information and to find contact info for questions. Sessions begin April 16. ~~~~~~~ The seminars will be online and will be recorded. The first one also happens to launch our new sourdough project. Take a look. We have bakers, cheesemakers, archaeologists, evolutionary biologists, chemists, paleontologists and more, all talking about the wildlife in your kitchen. https://cals.ncsu.edu/applied-ecology/news/fermentology-mini-seminars/ [cals.ncsu.edu] These will be intelligible for a [...]

By |2020-06-16T08:12:58-04:00April 6th, 2020|Categories: Eating Consciously, Food preservation, Moving to Zero-waste|

Growing soil, feeding our community family

Five years ago at this time, John and I were not cutting seed potatoes getting them ready to plant on St. Patrick's Day. We were not adding coffee grounds from the local cafe to our compost facility. We did have a small compost pile but we were not working it. Now it is a part-time job for John. Well, maybe not but my husband makes a darn good soil, something I would not have appreciated five years ago. I didn’t think much about soil. I have gardened for years but didn’t understand the value of good soil. I do now. Almost 3 years ago we started having zero-waste potlucks with 8 or so friends and studied the Post Carbon Institute’s online video course Think Resilience. It focused on life after fossil fuels. It was thought-provoking. As part of the study, the course had the group answer the question, “What do you wish you would have learned to do in school?” Almost all of us said we wanted to [...]

Waste Less. Save More. Poster Unveiled!

Thank you everyone who shared their ideas in our Use Food Scraps Essay Contest.  Thanks to Althea for analyzing the essays (she said she teared up when reading them) and creating this fantastic poster AND presenting it to the Transylvania Natural Resource Council today.  Thanks to Jinx for funding the printing!  What an amazing community we have and how awesome it is when we come together and share our love.

By |2019-09-13T15:20:30-04:00September 13th, 2019|Categories: Composting, Food preservation, Growing food, Help a Neighbor, Moving to Zero-waste, Use Food Scraps|
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