80 ~ Tracking maple syrup through the kimchi garden of delights (and you can join!)
Happy New Year, dear readers! (from my view out the window of the glorious Swiss Alps). May the year 2023 find us all moving more deeply into joy, and prosperity – especially prosperity of the spirit.
Tapping in to tell you about some talks and classes I’ll be giving in 2023 - all ways to perhaps support touching some of that prosperity.
First up will be two talks I’ll present at this year’s Wisconsin Garden Expo (firsts for me), in February at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison:
“Reflections on a three-year hiatus from grocery shopping”: Friday Feb. 10 at 4 pm and again on Sunday Feb. 12 at 10:15 am. In this talk I’ll share some things I’ve learned, or remembered, and am still learning and remembering, from living more closely with the land.
“Gardening with spirit”: Friday, Feb. 10 at 12:15 pm, and Sunday, Feb. 12 at12:45 pm. One of the most common (and important) benefits people report from cultivating a garden is enhanced emotional and spiritual well-being. Yet it’s also something that’s not talked about much. I’ll offer some ideas on why gardening has benefits for the spirit, and ways to cultivate this in your garden.
For more information, see: www.wigardenexpo.com.
This year I’ll again teach two courses through Folklore Village, near Dodgeville, WI, and host another Folklore Village course.
First will be “Maple sugaring basics” on Saturday, March 11, 1-4 pm (with a special guest assistant instructor from Switzerland, Corina!). This class was a lot of fun last year, and we’ll again start by gathering around the fireplace to talk about the history and the alchemy of maple syrup. We’ll then head outside to learn to identify, select and tap suitable trees, collect the sap, and boil it down to syrup. Registration is available here.
Later the same month, on Saturday, March 25, I’m honored and pleased to host something very special, which is not often taught in the Midwest. Expert wildlife tracker Matt Nelson will teach an all-day wildlife track and sign identification workshop in the woods around my house. Matt is a senior instructor with CyberTracker, a global network that has made wildlife tracking a discipline of focused study, and learning. We are most fortunate that Matt lives in Wisconsin, and is available to teach this course here. This workshop is limited to just 13 participants, and you can find more information, and register, here.
Finally, on Saturday, September 9, I’ll again teach a half-day, hands-on workshop on making sauerkraut and kimchi, in the Folklore Village kitchen. More information and registration are available here.
Hope to see some of you amongst the syrup, spirits, tracks and kimchi!
What I’m reading and can recommend:
Please Be With Me: A Song for My Father, Duane Allman, by Galadrielle Allman (2014)
My brother Tom gave me this book this Christmas, and I dove right in, and was hooked.
When the brilliant guitarist Duane Allman (“Skydog” to those who knew and loved him) died in 1971 at age 24, he left behind a two year-old daughter, Galadrielle. This is a moving and insightful biography, and also a lyrical autobiography of Galadrielle’s search for connection with her late father. Through my musical older brothers, I grew up in an ‘Allman Brothers Band family’, and so the book and its story means a lot to me. But I think anyone will enjoy it – Duane Allman was one brilliant shooting star, who did a helluva lot of living, and giving, in the short time he was here.
A Bookshop in Algiers, by Kaouther Adimi (2017)
I got this by way of Corina’s brilliant daughter, Laura. It’s a novel wrapped around the true story of publisher Edmond Charlot and a bookshop, Les Vrais Richesses, he opened in Algiers in the 1930s. The shop became something of a north African version of Paris’s legendary Shakespeare and Company. Among others, Charlot was a friend and early publisher of Albert Camus. The book is a beautifully entwined homage and love letter to literature, and a ground-eye view of 20th century Algerian history.