CANCELLED GOING VIRTUAL! October 24–25, 2020 9am–5pm PST Historically the largest vegan food festival in the Pacific Northwest, Portland VegFest celebrates its 16th year by going virtual! Explore and chat with new vegan brands and learn about new products from your old favorites. Get your ingredients ready in advance to cook along with our nationally renowned vegan chefs. Hear from vegan activists, entrepreneurs, health experts, award-winning plant-powered athletes, and more. Stay tuned for vendor and attendee registration – coming soon! For more info: https://bit.ly/3iNwfPG
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SOLAR OREGON Go Zero Virtual Tour 2020
Wed, Oct. 14th @ 4-6 PM Wed & Oct. 21st @ 4-6 PM Residential buildings account for almost a quarter of all energy usage in the state of Oregon. Zero energy home design is an important strategy in climate adaptation. Join Solar Oregon for two premier virtual explorations of zero energy homes across the state. At the Go Zero Tour 2020, part of Sustainable Building Week you can explore a mix of new and retrofit homes all from the safety and comfort of your home. Learn all the surprisingly simple, accessible, and innovative strategies that homeowners use for getting to zero. This is a two part event–all ticket types get you…
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3rd Annual Sustainable Building Week
October 12- 23, 2020 Virtual Morning, noon and late afternoon events will include tours, discussion panels, product showcases, virtual happy hours… and more! SBW 2020 will be virtual and expanded to a 2-week format with three events per day. This will provide for rich content and meaningful connectedness while not overburdening our stamina for “screen-time.” Several key events are locked in, including: AIA Oregon COTE’s Green Champions Summit Solar Oregon’s virtual building tours AIA happy hour ReBuilding Center’s Salvage Showdown Education forums from Portland Green Schools, Build Local Alliance, Portland Materials Transparency, ILFI Collaborative, OSU, and Carbon Leadership Forum For more info: https://bit.ly/2Fp14fa
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House Fires
Greta Thunberg gets it: our house is on fire. This is the second time in my lifetime that our house has been on fire. I was only 3 years old when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, thus starting WW II. I was too young then to remember that day, but I do remember the cold day in February of 1946 when my father came home from the Philippines. Our family was lucky, others weren’t, as more than 400 thousand didn’t come home. It took more than 16 million Americans (out of a population of only 140 million) serving in the military to put that fire out, plus…
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Regenerative Agriculture
for the Herb [and Home] Garden More and more farmers are switching to Regenerative Agriculture principles. One main reason for the switch is to take better care of topsoil, so less carbon is released into the atmosphere. The methods used increase soil water holding capacity, stop erosion, protect the purity of groundwater, and create conditions for more disease and pest-resilient crops. These worthwhile approaches to taking care of the planet can be incorporated on farms large or small, as well as home gardens. Maybe you are already using some of these practices but didn’t realize what an innovator you are. We do, and we’ve found that most of the methods…
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Soil My Undies
Measuring Soil Biology with a Pair of Skivvies Healthy soil means hungry soil. With proper management, the ground beneath your crops should teem with millions of tiny lifeforms—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, earthworms—all busy transferring nutrients, eating, and decomposing organic material through nutrient cycling in processes that help plants thrive. So how do you measure the biological activity of your soil? Enter the “Soil Your Undies” test. Simply bury a pair of white, 100% cotton undies beneath your soil, come back two months later and dig them up. Sterile, lifeless soil will keep your tighty- whities clean and intact whereas busy, organically thriving soil will eat away at your briefs,…
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The RE-Generation
During our class, Less is More: Getting to One Can of Garbage a Year, we talk about the three familiar Rs – Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. After we discuss these three in order of importance, we ask folks to identify more Rs to move their thinking further upstream. Their suggestions include: Repurpose, Resist, Restore, Repair, Refuse, Reconnect, and Reimagine. Practicing any or all of these behaviors can rehabilitate our planet. Choose the actions that appeal to you and work them into your daily habits. We can all be part of the RE-Generation, no matter when we were born! Another R that is getting more attention now is Regenerate. According to Wikipedia, “the term “regenerative” describes processes…
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Pacific Women’s Herbal Conference 2020
6th Annual Pacific Women’s Herbal Conference on Vashon Island, WA An inter-generational, nourishing, engaging, integrated weekend for women. Coming to the Table September 25-27, 2020 Over 30 Hands-On Workshops, 20 Experienced Teachers, HerbWalks, Opening & Closing Spirals, Story Telling at the Fire Circle, Talent Show, A Lively MarketPlace, 400 Acre Forest Reserve, 1.5 miles of beach on the Salish Sea, Hiking, Walking, Gigong, Engaging Social Time at a Distance Pre-Conference Intensives & Workshops September 24-25, 2020 Thursday 9/24/20: Pre-Conference Intensive with Susun Weed: A Cancer Diagnosis: Help Yourself the Wise Woman Way Friday, 9/25/20: Pre-Conference Hands-On Workshops with EagleSong Gardener: Health From the Ground Up & Keya Kai Guimaraes: Healing Hawaiian Lei…
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Regenetarians Unite
Regenetarians United Can Change the World “The whole world is a garden, and what a wonderful place it would be if we each took care of our part of the Earth, our garden.” ~Voltaire As eaters, we are all farmers deciding what kind of farming system exists in the world that feeds us: our plate is our farm, our fork our pitchfork, our knife our slaughtering knife. One- third of the Earth’s surface is covered in arable farm and range- lands. Regenerative practices can restore soil health and organic matter relatively quickly, within five to ten years. If we each take responsibility for our section of the garden as consumers, at…
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We Are All Corn People
When does the health of a society and a planet become more valuable than bargain food and deals at the grocery store and fast-food chains? When do we start paying the true price for the abundance of cheap food we are consuming? When do we admit that the rise in Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity isn’t an accident but a direct result of the type of food we are eating? And when do we decide to do something about this? These questions have been on my mind for many years. As a musician who spends a lot of time on the road, my wallet is always pleased when…
