Post Oil Solutions will sponsor its 3rd annual Root Cellar Workshop on Sunday, September 12, 1:00 PM, at the Brattleboro Savings & Loan community room, Main Street, Brattleboro.

The fee for the workshop is a $10/$70 sliding scale with no one refused for lack of funds. Admission fees cover the expenses of the workshop, as well as allowing Post Oil to bring these workshops to a wider audience. Thus, people are asked to be as generous as their circumstances will allow them to be.

When we bought our home in '98 all the appliances were Kenmore - the previous occupants having worked for Sears. They were unspectacular but sturdy appliances, some that atrocious avocado color many boomers have come to loath.

6 years ago something on the dishwasher broke.

We'd already had the experience of failing to find a repairman for other Sears stuff. With no other option (after doing due diligence with Consumer Reports) we bought a new dishwasher for $400. It was a Maytag and came with good recommendations from C.R.

The next in a series of Weatherization Skillshops will be offered on Saturday, September 11, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at the Windham Regional Career Center in Brattleboro. The Weatherization Skillshop is a statewide educational program created by the Central Vermont Community Action Council to expand energy efficiency training opportunities for Vermont homeowners. The Skillshops are designed to help Vermonters improve energy efficiency in their homes through hands-on skills training for simple home weatherization projects.

If anyone has a fisher stove that is taking up space shoot an email!

Continuing with the 2010 Fall schedule of its (Re)learning to Feed Ourselves workshop series, Post Oil Solutions will sponsor a Putting Garden to Bed workshop on Sunday, August 29, 1:00-3:00 PM, at the Brattleboro Savings & Loan Community Room.

Our fee is a $10/$70 sliding scale, with no one refused for lack of funds. We request, however, that people be as generous as you can to help support Post Oil's projects. Pre-registration and payment are required: please call 877.886.7397. Payment at the door is $20, firm, and only if there is room.

The Timber-Frame Shop, a small woman-owned Design Studio and Woodworking Shop specializing in the design and construction of small Timber-Framed Buildings is teaching a workshop designed to bring the community together to help a local farm!

The Workshop is entitled Introduction to Timber-Framing: The Weekend Course, and is being taught over the course of three weekends in September in order to accommodate students with a typical work schedule. This year, students will be cutting the timber-frame for a new sugar house for Deer Ridge Farm, a local farm in Guilford, Vermont.

Transition Putney's next Reskilling Workshop, Aug. 22, 1:30-3pm, at Putney Library, features Abe Noye-Hayes who will present information on all facets of the design and operation of modern composting and urine diverting toilets.

Read below for a detailed description of this workshop and a bio of Abe.

Human Manure and Sustainable Fertility

Human manure was the key that Chinese farmers used to keep their soils rich and fertile, throughout 4,000 years of intense cultivation.

A few months ago Keith Fletcher, ReNew Building Materials and Salvage store manager answered the phone. Local contractor,Josh Laughlin, was on the other end asking about ReNew's deconstruction services. His Putney clients were building a house on land that they bought and wanted the small house already there removed. The contractor thought it would be a good project for ReNew. But at the last minute, the clients decided that the house, although not what they wanted, was too lovely to tear down. Why can't they just sell it and then have it moved. What an image that would be. And indeed, that became the the image in Keith Fletcher's eye.

Friends of Music at Guilford's 10th Biennial Garden Tours, Plant Sale & Garden Party, a co-fundraiser for Friends of Music and the Guilford Historical Society, are coming up on Sunday, June 27, rain or shine.

Between 10 and 3:30, visitors can take a self-guided tour of eight Guilford gardens on a wide variety of properties: a rustically charming antique Cape, the grand homestead of an early Vermont lieutenant governor, two other expansive farm properties also built by early Guilford residents, a mid-20th century summer place now a year-round residence, a small-scale CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm, a large flower farm, and a recently custom-designed, owner-built home and gardens with many unique and artistic features.

I wonder if anyone else does this? We move our houseplants out into the yard every summer. None of them grows much in the house, so they really need it.

Fair Winds Farm and Post Oil Solutions announce their second offering of the 2010 season of their backyard animal raising workshops: two workshops on Saturday, June 5, at Fair Winds Farm, Upper Dummerston Road, Brattleboro.

The first is a repeat of their very popular Backyard Chicken Raising Workshop, from 10:00 AM to noon; the second is Managing Backyard Milk Goats on Grass, from 1:00 to 3:00 PM.

Join renowned master dry stone waller Dan Snow and award-winning landscape designer and host Julie Moir Messervy in an inspiring hands-on workshop on the art of placing stone. Combining Dan’s vast walling experience and artistic vision with Julie’s skill in stone composition, the two will instruct participants on how to arrange stone in a variety of different forms on the land.

There are a couple more community garden plots at amazing planet farm still available in Williamsville.
We're trying to keep it local (Williamsville, Newfane, West Dummerston) and have folks in the neighborhood come and grow food in the zone.

I have about five pounds of aloe plants! Maybe six or seven pounds. Can anyone tell me what to make of them? Does anyone want it to make something? Send e-mail. or call.

Six community garden plots remain open on Stockwell Drive in West Brattleboro, according to a recent e-mail from Peter Gaskill. From his message:

We have 6 spaces left in our Garden in West B. on Stockwell Drive. The plot size is 4’ x 25’. The charge for the plot is $25.00.

If any one has interest they can contact the Brattleboro Parks and Recreation Department at 254-5808 or 207 Main Street Brattleboro (across from the post office).