Curious about how to see a landscape as a whole system? Do you want to understand and track the impact of grazing and land management on soil health, watershed function, soil carbon, and public health? Join us at Howling Wolf Farm - a diversified, grass-based livestock farm.
These participatory daylong workshops will give you detailed theory in whole-systems landscape function, soil health principles, and the work of biology in creating the soil carbon sponge. You will also learn hands-on skills to monitor the health and function of your farm and other working lands. These include visual assessments of soil health, biological work, and water infiltration, as well as how to record repeatable geolocated observations in the open source www.atlasbiowork.com database to track changes over time and space.
Through these workshops we aim to create "communities of practice"—working groups of closely-connected people in a region, with shared skill sets, data maps, and goals of regenerating landscapes and improving watershed function--with an interest in continuing to learn together.
We will cover:
Connections between plants, soil microbiology, and carbon and water flows.
The impact of those relationships on public health, local economies, watershed function, weather, and climate resilience.
Soil health principles
Why the soil carbon sponge is the basic infrastructure that makes life on land possible
Basic hands-on skills for mapping and monitoring changes over time in soil health and watershed function
Group facilitation skills to maximize participation, connection, and learning
Details on our free atlasbiowork.com open data platform and monitoring network can be found on the Soil Carbon Coalition website, here: http://soilcarboncoalition.org/pages/atlas/.
Free community learning/teaching resources on soil health and watershed function are here: http://soilcarboncoalition.org/learn.
Facilitated by Didi Pershouse and Cat Buxton of the Soil Carbon Coalition, with support from the Grazing Lands Coalition.
LOGISTICS
Free to attend. Bring your own lunch, place setting, and water bottle. Please bring a chair for the classroom portion and dress appropriately for field work: proper shoes, sun protection and tick prevention.
To arrange possible carpooling or if you have questions about any of these workshops, contact Cat Buxton at CatDuffyBuxton@gmail.com.
REGISTER
Join us for a free workshop at one of three grass-fed beef and dairy farms throughout Vermont.
August 17, Robinson Hill Beef Farm, Calais
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/land-listeners-workshop-calais-vt-tickets-47906655095
August 18, Howling Wolf Farm, Randolph
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/land-listeners-workshop-randolph-vt-tickets-47222411504
September 20, Butterworks Farm, Westfield
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/land-listeners-workshop-westfield-vt-tickets-47906221799
INSTRUCTORS
Didi Pershouse is the author of The Ecology of Care: Medicine, Agriculture, Money, and the Quiet Power of Human and Microbial Communities and Understanding Soil Health and Watershed Function: A Teacher's Manual. After 22 years of clinical work with patients, she now travels and teaches, helping to connect the dots between soil health, human health, and climate resiliency. She is the president of the Soil Carbon Coalition, and a co-founder of the "Can we Rehydrate California?" Initiative. She was one of five speakers at the United Nations-FAO World Soil Day in 2017. You can learn more about her work at www.didipershouse.com
Cat Buxton is a community organizer, compost consultant and soil health educator. She runs Grow More, Waste Less in Sharon, VT and is founding director of the Vermont Healthy Soils Coalition. She serves on the Board of Directors for Rural Vermont, the Soil Carbon Coalition, and Upper Valley Food Co-op. To learn more about her work visit www.growmorewasteless.com.