Reed Creek Cleanup

Help us clean up Reed Creek. Join our group of friends, neighbors, and volunteers in an effort to remove litter and junk from the creek banks and surrounding area.

Time: 9:30-2pm

Location: Meet at the Reed Creek Greenway, next to the Eblen Short Stop on Broadway. Look for people and garbage!

Bring: Gloves, grubby clothes, garbage bags, water, and snacks.

For more details or to RSVP (not required) contact: Justin Holt: justinveazeyholt@gmail.com

Tour the Ashevillage Institute - An Urban Permaculture Demonstration Site!

The Ashevillage Institute creates sustainable living solutions through education, demonstration and action.
The Ashevillage Institute promotes urban sustainability through:

Hands-on sustainability workshops for local leaders & citizens

An eco-demonstration center that serves local needs

Community outreach, organization & advocacy

Educational documentation & presentation

When: The tour will begin at 4:30 (just after the workparty at the edible park) There will be tea, Q and A, and an open discussion afterward

Location: 80 Buchanan Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801 (next to the MCcormick Baseball Stadium)

Make your own locally grown medicine!

In this indispensable class we'll learn how to make healing salves from plants that are easy to recognize and grow. We’ll discuss herbal action terms and ID some common medicinal plants that thrive in our area. Each salve-maker will take home a salve made from locally gleaned plants. Beginners welcome. Please RSVP to khevjy@gmail.com.
Keri Evjy is a teacher, herbalist, and ecological designer. Her business, Healing Roots Design, creates, installs, and maintains edible and medicinal landscapes built for resilience and harvest.

Time: 10-12:30pm

Location: 42 Highland St. Asheville, NC 28801

What to Bring: 2 oz jar to fill with salve and $3-5 to cover the cost of materials

Questions? Call Keri at (828) 450-1836

Linking Waters: Free Training from 10:10 to 2:10pm

Linking Waters reclaiming urban water for jobs, environment and food.

Learn how to install simple earthworks solutions on your property

Join us for free training on October 10, 2010
beginning at 10:10 am to 2:10 pm.


For more information contact Michelle Smith
themichellesmith@gmail.com
www.facebook.com/themichellesmith

or visit: http://waterlinkspllc.com/home

Working together with RiverLink, Waterlinks, LLC and Urban Paradise Gardening, Linking Waters will demonstrate grassroots solutions for reclaiming urban water that people can implement on their own property, in many cases using tools no more complex than a shovel.

Please bring: your lunch, some gloves and any tools you may have that are good for digging and raking. We'll have some tools as well.

Participants will receive training in the following rain-water infiltration methods:

• Using an A-frame level
• Curb restoration and berm building
• Building diversion swales w/ gabions
• Building an infiltration berm and swale
• Building french drains and soaker works
• Sheet mulching
  
  
  
  
  
  The goals of the LinkingWaters are :
  • Demonstrate safe, effective, easily accessible methods and materials that a large portion of a community can use to increase the amount of water stored in the soil and replenish the ground water.
  • 
    
    
    Measure the reduction in storm water runoff and contaminating sediment, the increase in groundwater infiltration and the cost savings to property owners.
  • 
    
    
    Demonstrate the potential for creating green jobs and building positive relationships in the community.
  
  
  
  
  Though the first demonstration will be at Michelle Smith's home, the goal is to replicate this at 10 or more residences in the neighborhood watershed. Our hope for the LinkingWaters project is that the solutions we demonstrate and learn from will be adopted in other neighborhoods in Asheville and throughout the US. We believe real solutions for urban jobs, environment and food are possible at the local neighborhood level. As a matter of fact, we strongly suspect that real solutions will be impossible otherwise.
  
  
  Directions to the site:
• From West:
  240 East to Patton Avenue Exit.
  Right on Asheland Avenue
  3rd light - Right on Choctaw
  4th house on Right.
  
• From South
  25 North (McDowell Street)
  pass Asheville High and go under the small tunnel
  Left at next light onto Choctaw
  4th house on the Right.
  
• From North:
  26 E to dowtown exit then left onto Patton.
  Right on Asheland Avenue
  3rd light - Right on Choctaw
  4th house on Right.
  
• From East:
  240 W to Charlotte Street
  Continue across College then across Biltmore Ave
  Charlotte Street becomes Southside.
  2nd light - Left on McDowell
  Next light -- Right on Choctaw
  4th house on the Right.
  
  

Personal Energy Descent Action Plan

Transition Asheville www.transitionasheville.org

Family/Personal Energy Descent Plan:

How to Change Your Habits & Save the Earth

Sample Energy Descent Guidelines:

·         Fix or don’t replace; or if needed, buy smart (quality, longevity, ease of repair, efficiency); if possible, plan how to phase out.

·         Use less, buy less; develop sharing & barter strategies

·         Move to low maintenance & wherever possible, to no maintenance.

Stages of Energy Descent:

·         Immediate (first steps)

·         Intermediate (projects or changes that require some learning)

·         Energy Descent (commitments to change designs & behaviors)

Some Areas to Rethink:

·         Food (growing, finding/gathering, preserving, cooking, sharing)

·         Energy Management (increasing efficiency, preventing waste, developing new strategies for usage)

·         Water (multiple use strategies, preventing waste, collecting rain water)

·         Transportation (changing driving habits, planning for ride-sharing, alternatives to the auto)

·         Property Maintenance (redesign yards according to permaculture principles, develop cooperative arrangements with neighbors such as tool-sharing)

·         Acquisitions/Consumer behaviors (reduce-reuse-recycle, buy from/support local suppliers & businesses, develop ways to share items when possible)

·         Investing (investigate the ideas of the Slow Money movement, learn about socially responsible investing, explore agencies that primarily support local &/or regional enterprises)

An Example of Energy Descent Planning:

AREA                    IMMEDIATE          INTERMEDIATE          LONG TERM

Water for Garden   Use drip irrigation    build rainwater       use non-motorized

                                                             collectors                pump(s)    

     

Food-growing      Create garden beds   learn about growing       grow 50% 

                                                       winter vegetables           of food

Food preserving    learn how to can      build a solar dryer        preserve 40%  

                              & dry foods                                             of food

Lawn mowing      leave some areas     electric or hand mower     all areas in 

                            unmowed             study permaculture     garden or natural        

                                                                 

Home heating    install programmable  increase insulation,           replace 

                              thermostat                seal                    heating system                                                    

                                                                                     with solar system

                                                

(Print out and Fill-in below to create your own individual energy descent plan.)

Area	Immediate	Intermediate	Long-term goal

Volunteers needed.

We could use 5 people to help our demonstators get set-up at 9:45 in the Stephens Lee Recreational Center parking lot.
Also help throughout the day greeting folk as they arrive. 1 hour shifts beginning at 11am.
Free coffee for volunteers being provided by Firestorm Cafe and Books.

Sign up for a shift by adding a comment below.

Directions to the park: South Charlotte St. to the light at Max St. (east side, Beaumont St. is on the west). Travel up the hill, left on Carver St. and drive straight into the recreation center parking lot and park at the dumpster to your right.