97 ~ Announcing a Bird in the Bush raffle!
As you know, dear readers, I keep our Bird in the Bush blog community free of ads, and I will never sell or share your email addresses. No spam here, not even in the kitchen. Instead, on occasion I invite and welcome your direct support to help keep the blog going, and I am most grateful for your response.
It’s that time again, and I thought we would have some fun with a raffle, with several prizes I think you’ll enjoy. Here’s how it works:
- Raffle tickets are $10 each. That is, for each $10 you donate to the Bird in the Bush blog, I will enter your name into the raffle. So for example, a $30 contribution will get you three entries to win.
-You can make a donation for your raffle tickets through Venmo (account: @goshawk99), PayPal (williamrobichaud@yahoo.com), or by check to 7537 Lakeview Road, Barneveld, WI 53507. Thank you!
And, drumroll… here are the prizes:
Two Grand Prizes:
The first winner drawn will have his or her choice of the following two grand prizes, and the second name drawn will win the remaining one:
1. Lunch for two at the Bird in the Bush farmstead (north of Barneveld). To be used at an agreed date anytime in the year ahead (by Dec. 31, 2024). The main course will be your choice of wild trout, venison or a vegetarian dish (please BYOB). For a sense of the type of meal on offer, please see this recent post. If you get lucky and hit the right time, you might benefit from some fine culinary influence from Switzerland or Laos...
2. A 2-hour guided tour for two of Frank Lloyd Wright’s residence (and UNESCO World Heritage Site), Taliesin, near Spring Green, Wisconsin (value: $116). May be used on any Friday, Saturday or Sunday through December 3 this year.
I recently started earning some extra $ as a part-time tour guide at Taliesin. The experience has been both eye-opening and deeply rewarding. For the thousands of years that we humans built dwellings for ourselves, until Frank Lloyd Wright came along, houses and their walls had one principal purpose: keep nature outside. Wall us off from the bears, tigers, trolls, weather, etc. In contrast, Wright started to invite nature inside – uniting, through his designs, the occupants of a house with nature, rather than seeking to separate us from it. This was revolutionary. If you win and pick the right day for your tour of the myriad ways Wright invited nature into his own home, it will be my pleasure to be the one to show you!
Additional prizes (the food items are all prepared by me from the land here; any of the following prizes can be either picked up here at the farmstead or mailed to winners in the US):
A package of three applewood-smoked Driftless trout.
A package each of dried morels and dried puffball mushroom (about 1-2 oz each).
‘Yin & Yang’ package of an 8 oz jar of maple syrup and an 8 oz jar of organic salsa.
Finally, something from my other work in nature, a copy of an extraordinarily beautiful book by photographers and writers Bjorn and Fanny Olesen: Asia’s Wildlife: A Journey to the Forests of Hope. The book includes a section of my writing and photos from Laos (and so I’ll sign the winner’s copy).
Raffle entries close on Sunday, October 22 at 5 pm Central. On Tuesday, October 24 at 6 PM Central I will draw the winners live on Zoom (you need not be present to win). We’ll have some fun, draw the winners, and you’ll have a chance to ask about life without grocery shopping here on the Driftless land.
Please help support the arts and this experiment in sustainable living, and by doing so get a chance to win something special for yourself. Thank you!!