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E-Treats Newsletter
Upcoming Events
| Sat Aug 14 @03:00PM - 05:00PM Creating Fermented Foods and Brews! |
| Sat Aug 21 @10:00AM - 03:00PM Rain & Greywater Fed Urban Oases |
| Sat Aug 28 @10:00AM - 03:00PM Food Preservation: Canning and Drying the Bounty |
| Sun Aug 29 @10:00AM - 02:00PM Greywater with Gusto |
| Sat Sep 11 @10:00AM - 04:00PM Water Harvesting in a Permaculture Paradise |
| Mon Sep 13 Workshop Series: 5-Day Greywater Installer's Course |
| Tue Sep 14 Workshop Series: 5-Day Greywater Installer's Course |
Sustainability Series
Event: 2nd Annual Eco Fashion Show
Thursday, July 29th, 6:30pm-9pm, Free with RSVP
Come experience the beauty of Indigenous Fair Trade fashion and support Daily Acts, Go Local, Transfair USA and Leadership Council for Ecology & Sustainability!
Event: Transition US Heart and Soul Virtual Speaker Series
Wednesday, July 21st, 11am, Free
Our friends at Transition US are proud to announce their first annual Heart & Soul Virtual Speaker series. Trathen will be featured on July 21st with his talk "Reverence and Resilience: The Ecology of Awakened Action" His talk is in addition to renowned eco-philosopher and Buddhist scholar Joanna Macy (July 7) and Kit Miller of the MK Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence (August 18)
Read more: Transition US Heart and Soul Speaker Series: Trathen Heckman
Evening Greywater Presentation
Wednesday, July 14th 7:00pm to 8:30pm; Free to Petaluma Residents, $10 non-residents
Not ready for the full five-day Greywater Installer Training? We welcome everyone interested in greywater to an evening presentation Wednesday, July 14th, 7 to 8:30 pm. It’s free to Petaluma residents, $10 non-residents. Please register in advance for directions and location.
During this lecture, we'll give an overview of the new greywater code updates and provide overall context for why greywater is such an important and cutting-edge technology. Come network with other greywater enthusiasts, find out about greywater resources, and learn about ecological design principles. You'll come away prepared to take action towards realizing your greywater goals.
Workshop: EZ Mushrooms
Saturday, October 2nd, 10am-2pm, $30
With the autumn rain comes mushroom season… and time to uncover the bounty of benefits they provide as medicine, food, and ecosystem support. We’ll look at integrating beneficial mushrooms into our garden landscape and discuss different sources of obtaining specimens. We’ll learn about low-key, easy propagation techniques, apply pre-prepared mushroom substrate in a garden onsite, and discuss the best application options for the different microclimates on your property. Learn how to reuse potential waste by-products to help your mushroom garden thrive! You’ll go home with local resources for obtaining specimens, and a headful of know-how for introducing mushrooms into your world!
Workshop: Living in Place
Sunday, September 19th, 10am-1pm, $35
We live and move fast - it’s easy to forget about our bodies. We watch our energy run astray and our emotions go up and down. Tending to our minds and bodies is important now, more than ever. Join us for a morning as we cultivate our awareness together.
Workshop: 5-day Greywater Installer’s Course
Monday, September 13th - Friday, September 17th, $595
Learn to install greywater systems to rehydrate our landscapes. We’ll cover basic plumbing and landscaping skills needed for four types of common greywater systems. You’ll learn to conduct a site assessment, determine which systems to install and how to maintain them. Explore what plants do best with greywater and the ins and outs of greywater reuse. By course end you’ll know about proper installation of code-compliant washing machine and simple systems under the new California state code. Plus, we’ll have 3-5 new systems in Sebastopol households with professionals and citizens trained to install more.
Tour: Water Harvesting in a Permaculture Paradise
Saturday, September 11th, 10am-4pm, $45
In this tour we will visit two incredible sites and inspiring, visionary leaders. We’ll demonstrate how soil building, earthworks, water harvesting and landscape design are all critical components of water conservation. First, we’ll visit the inspiring Occidental Arts & Ecology Center, an 80-acre nonprofit education center, organic farm & nursery, and water institute. Brock Dolman, one of the most well respected teachers of watershed health and hydro-literacy, will amaze us with his fountain of knowledge. We will explore gardens containing over 3,000 varieties of heirloom annuals and 1,000 varieties of edible, medicinal, and ornamental perennials.
Workshop: Food Preservation: Canning and Drying the Bounty
Saturday, August 28th, 10am-1pm, $35
As our gardens overflow and friends and family run at the sight of another garden zucchini, we’ll explore how to preserve this abundance. In this workshop we will cover water bath canning and flip kettle canning and we’ll make our own applesauce. We’ll also cover other forms of food preservation including solar drying with a homemade, low-cost solar dryer. Learn how to make one yourself.
Tour: Rain & Greywater Fed Urban Oases
Saturday, August 21st, 10am-3pm, $45
Come visit the home and garden of Trathen Heckman, director of Daily Acts. We’ll explore Trathen’s backyard oasis, featuring the first single-residence permitted greywater system in Sonoma County, a constructed wetland, and rainwater catchment. Learn how it is possible to grow over 1,000 lbs of food annually using low-water growing techniques. We’ll tour this abundant city garden hosting bees, chickens, an apple-tree fence and over 200 varieties of edible and medicinal plants.
Workshop: Creating Fermented Foods and Brews! 
Saturday, August 14th, 3-5pm, Recipes for Health and Vitality, $25
Join fermentation enthusiasts Usha and Sam Ruark as we dive into the health benefits and delicious expressions of fermented foods and beverages. In this workshop participants will learn how simple and satisfying it is to make our own life-enhancing ferments. Come explore the medicinal qualities of live foods and gain insight into their history and roles in human culture. During this workshop we will create batches of kraut, kombucha, and mead, and there will be ample opportunity for Q&A and sampling.
Workshop: 5-day Greywater Installer’s Course
Monday, July 12th - Friday, July 16th, $595
Learn to install greywater systems to rehydrate our landscapes. We’ll cover basic plumbing and landscaping skills needed for four types of common greywater systems. You’ll learn to conduct a site assessment, determine which systems to install and how to maintain them. Explore what plants do best with greywater and the ins and outs of greywater reuse. By course end you’ll know about proper installation of code-compliant washing machine and simple systems under the new California state code. Plus, we’ll have 3-5 new systems in Petaluma households with professionals and citizens trained to install more.
Tour: Backyard Feather Revolution
Sunday, July 11th, 10am-2pm, $35
We’ll bring you to two rockin’ chicken coop sites in Petaluma and Penngrove and spend the afternoon sharing information, resources, and a potluck lunch revolving around the wonders of chickens in suburban settings.
Raising your own chickens lends unique advantages to any organic garden site: chickens provide eggs, fertilizer, and pest control while happily clucking away as your personal backyard kitchen scrap composters. Learn about appropriate chicken coop siting and building for your backyard, care and feeding of chickens, and managing egg production.
Workshop: Eco-literacy in Action
Saturday, July 10th 1pm-4pm, $35
As we become more ecologically aware, and more present with the opportunities and challenges facing our world, how do we convey these struggles and discussions to our children? Children have an innate love of nature. How do we cultivate and preserve this? This workshop will present examples of how individuals, community organizations and schools can be nurturing in spite of obstacles like meager funding of our education institutions.
Tour: Bees, Bees, Bees Galore
Saturday, June 19th, 10am-3pm, $35
This tour appreciates the pollinators that make it all happen! Our first stop is the sweeeet local business Beekind, owned by Doug and Katia Vincent, experienced beekeepers committed to protecting the health of honeybees. We’ll spend the morning discussing Beekeeping 101 and take an intimate look at what’s going on inside these locally-built bee boxes filled with happy humming honeybees.
Tour: Greywater with Gusto
Sunday, August 29th, 10am-2pm, Free for Cotati Residents $25 non-residents
In this tour, we’ll visit the new, single-fixture Greywater System of Neil Hancock and Jenny Blaker. This system, installed under the new CA greywater code, is located just feet away from Laguna de Santa Rosa. We’ll talk about site selection and system design, pollution prevention, and the new regulations––and how to keep greywater safe for humans and our watersheds.
Workshop: Transform your Thirsty Lawn
Saturday, June 5th, 10am-4pm, Free for Cotati residents, $10-20 non-residents
In this class, we’ll delve into the details of gardens, explore design charettes of potential future plantings, and address how maintenance of a food forest differs from maintaining other types of gardens. Permaculture is an evolving process of creating perennial cropping systems that mimic a forest ecology. As the layers we’ve planted expand and mature, we’ll revisit them to see how they’ve changed.
Two-Day Workshop: Earthen Oven Sculpting
Saturday, May 29th - Oven Sculpting Building Techniques, 9am-5pm
Sunday, May 30th - Creative Design & Weatherproofing, 9am-5pm
$80 for one day, $145 for two days
Learn the valuable skill of building your own cob pizza/bread wood-fired oven in your backyard from Miguel “Micah” Elliott of Living Earth Structures (www.livingearthstructures.com). Cob ovens can bake a pizza in just three minutes, and retain heat for up to twelve hours! We’ll talk about key techniques: installing the foundation, insulating the floor and walls, sculpting the oven, and creating adobe bricks. Join us to sculpt a cob oven at the home of George and Ellen Beeler, incredible Daily Actors!
Two-Day Workshop: Earthen Oven Sculpting
Saturday, May 29th - Oven Sculpting Building Techniques, 9am-5pm
Sunday, May 30th - Creative Design & Weatherproofing, 9am-5pm
$80 for one day, $145 for two days
Learn the valuable skill of building your own cob pizza/bread wood-fired oven in your backyard from Miguel “Micah” Elliott of Living Earth Structures (www.livingearthstructures.com). Cob ovens can bake a pizza in just three minutes, and retain heat for up to twelve hours! We’ll talk about key techniques: installing the foundation, insulating the floor and walls, sculpting the oven, and creating adobe bricks. Join us to sculpt a cob oven at the home of George and Ellen Beeler, incredible Daily Actors!
Two-Day Workshop: Seaweed Harvesting!
Lecture, Thursday, May 27th, 7pm-9pm
Workshop, Saturday, May 29th, 6:30am-10am, $65
Spend a morning with Daily Acts at the shore! In this workshop, we’ll get a salty taste of harvesting this sustainable sea resource! The workshop begins with an evening lecture covering the nuts n’ bolts, safety, and the whys and hows of environmentally sound and savvy seaweed collection!
Two-Day Workshop: Seaweed Harvesting!
Lecture, Thursday, May 27th, 7pm-9pm
Workshop, Saturday, May 29th, 6:30am-10am, $65
Spend a morning with Daily Acts at the shore! In this workshop, we’ll get a salty taste of harvesting this sustainable sea resource! The workshop begins with an evening lecture covering the nuts n’ bolts, safety, and the whys and hows of environmentally sound and savvy seaweed collection!
Event: The 350 Garden Challenge
Saturday, May 15th and Sunday, May 16th
Join in! Register your garden or volunteer at www.igrowsonoma.org or call Beth Dadko 707-565-6681
Workshop: Transform your Thirsty Lawn: Sheet Mulching 101
Sunday, April 18th, 10am-2pm, Free for Cotati residents, $10-20 non-residents
Annually in the US, millions of pounds of pesticides are used and billions of gallons of fuel consumed in lawn care. But there’s no need to rip out your lawn, transport it to the landfill, buy more soil, and waste time, money and emissions! By composting your lawn in place, it mimics a natural forest’s process of soil building and provides a host of benefits – saving water and money, building soil, suppressing weed growth, reducing herbicide and pesticide use and much more.
Workshop: Connecting to the Holy Ground of the Garden
Saturday, April 10th, 1pm-4pm, $35, no one turned away for lack of funds
The garden provides us with so much: good work, good food, good moods, good relations. Compost is compost, but it’s also a moment to turn over what we don’t need anymore and return it to the earth. Seeds grow into plants, but they also help us reflect on what we hope to sow and reap in our personal lives. The harvest is abundant, in the earth and in you. Enjoy a contemplative afternoon in the garden cultivating the soul’s metaphors of a life with the earth. Generate personal practices for living in place in the sacred container of community.
Workshop: Transform Your Thirsty Lawn
Saturday, April 3rd, 10am-4pm, Free for Cotati Residents, $10-20 non-residents
In this incredible hands-on workshop, we’ll kick off the gardening season and our Cotati Water Conservation Education Series by completing the lawn transformation we started in 2009. Patrick Picard, award-winning landscape designer, will revisit the Permaculture principles incorporated in this 5,000 square foot neighborhood park. We’ll cover topics such as fruit tree guilds, insectory and habitat producing plants, and the soil-building and earthwork techniques that Cotati residents and Daily Acts implemented at the park last fall.
Tour: San Francisco Dune Homesteads
Sunday, July 26th, 2009, 10am to 3pm, $35
Urban Homesteading on the margins…Once covered in windswept sand dunes, the Outer Sunset and Outer Richmond neighborhoods of San Francisco are covered with square homes on grid streets, divided by an enormous forested parkland and dotted with courageous pioneers of sustainability and abundance. On this tour we’ll visit three of the most inspiring garden homesteads in San Francisco and walk and talk wild foods foraging and Westside watersheds in between.
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