Eager to develop some useful skills readily applicable to your own life? Care to share your own practical know-how with others? Ready to enjoy a potluck picnic with family, friends and new acquaintances at Sooke’s Inishoge Farm?
Everyone is welcome to a Reskilling Share Fair and Community Potluck Picnic from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday (Aug. 9) at Steve Unger and Mary Coll’s farm at 6698 Helgeson Rd .farm.
The family-friendly day presented by Transition Sooke begins with a series of mini reskilling workshops from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Topics include cheesemaking techniques (led by Mary Coll), small-engine maintenance (Steve Unger and Tony St-Pierre), tool sharpening (Mike Downey), bear-wise strategies (Debb Read), sauerkraut essentials (Stephen Hindrichs), pressure-cooker basics and permaculture principles. Dante Chicano and Tom Kral will lead a wild-food foraging walk around the farm and the day’s MC, Lee Hindrichs, will demonstrate how to prepare a herbal first-aid kit.
Once the workshops are complete, a potluck lunch will begin at 1:15 p.m. . Bring a dish to share, your own cups, plates and utensils, and a picnic blanket.
Picnic attendees are invited, if they choose, to informally share some of their own skills once lunch is over – be it seed saving, water conservation, vegetable fermentation, cloth repair, wood carving, sock darning or perhaps shared songs, stories or jokes, you name it.
As the day winds down, Transition’s Michael Tacon will lead a mid-afternoon meditation and then Andrew Moore will distribute his array of percussion instruments and noisemakers before leading a drum and dance circle – a highlight of last year’s first Transition Sooke summer picnic at Inishoge.
This is both a Zero Waste (i.e., take home whatever you bring) and alcohol-free family event. Parking is limited on site. Participants are urged to walk, ride a bike or carpool.
For more details on Transition Sooke, please go online to transitionsooke.org.