Summer 2019 Classes at Laughing Dog
Three exciting upcoming workshops on Goats, Mushrooms and Guerrilla Gardening
Laughing Dog Farm is excited to offer the following workshops in nearby Gill. Space is limited so we request an RSVP to hold yours. No one turned away for lack of funds. Questions? Details? Directions? Email us or: 413-863-8696.
"Backyard Goat Husbandry" with Farmer Dan
Saturday, June 29th, 9:00-12:00
at Laughing Dog Farm, Gill, MA.
Raising and hand milking multi-purpose dairy goats for 20+ years at LDF has been a grand adventure! We've learned a lot and grown an abiding respect for the intelligence, versatility, whimsy, hardiness, and GENTLENESS... of our caprine cousins.
Tending goats on a small scale is surely a labor of love, the ultimate rewards of which cannot be easily quantified in mere liters of milk or ounces of cheese... Perhaps therein lies the greatest potential of small-time, caprine husbandry, above and beyond their useful and delicious products, whether compost, milk, cheese or meat: the reciprocal nurturance of humans and goats through a deep, archetypal, and intuitive partnership that can't be fully described.
In this workshop we'll meet and interact with the whole herd, while covering all the practical and esoteric aspects of backyard goat care for an "entry level" audience, including housing, feeding, milking, breeding, kidding and more. We will also answer all questions and offer simple instructions on making fresh chèvre and kefir. Farm tour and snacks included.
Space limited, please RSVP here, or 413-863-8696.
Suggested donation:$25-35, no one turned away.
Tending goats on a small scale is surely a labor of love, the ultimate rewards of which cannot be easily quantified in mere liters of milk or ounces of cheese... Perhaps therein lies the greatest potential of small-time, caprine husbandry, above and beyond their useful and delicious products, whether compost, milk, cheese or meat: the reciprocal nurturance of humans and goats through a deep, archetypal, and intuitive partnership that can't be fully described.
In this workshop we'll meet and interact with the whole herd, while covering all the practical and esoteric aspects of backyard goat care for an "entry level" audience, including housing, feeding, milking, breeding, kidding and more. We will also answer all questions and offer simple instructions on making fresh chèvre and kefir. Farm tour and snacks included.
Space limited, please RSVP here, or 413-863-8696.
Suggested donation:$25-35, no one turned away.
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"Backyard Mushroom Cultivation" with Graham Skorupa
Sunday, July 7th, 9:00 AM -12:00 PM
Laughing Dog Farm, Gill, MA
Do you have an interest in expanding your food growing to other kingdoms of life? Do you find the laboratory sterility supposedly required for cultivating mushrooms daunting? Well, there's an easier way for us homesteaders and amateurs to grow delicious, gourmet mushrooms, a "dirty", more natural way.
Graham Skorupa, an ardent wildcrafter and musician from Wendell (our workshop mentor) seeks to teach and promote an alternative method for creating bountiful fungus harvests from your own backyard (or anywhere!). This class includes an introduction to mushroom metabolism and life cycles as well as hands-on demonstrations of cold pasteurization and bed inoculation in the garden.
Class includes Laughing Dog Farm tour, Q and A, and snacks. RSVP, please, space limited. 413-863-8696.
Suggested donation: $25-35. No one turned away.
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"Guerrilla Gardening Tactics" with Farmer Dan
Sunday, July 14th, 9:00 AM-12:00 PM
Laughing Dog Farm, Gill, MA
This is an intro-level workshop for any inspired food grower, chef, "foodie" or wannabe seeking to reliably produce amazing, nutrient-dense food on small, backyard plots, rooftops, in containers, passive solar hoophouses, etc., under a variety of "marginal" and "real-life" conditions. Inspired both by permaculture principles, dumpster diving/gleaning, as well as twenty+ years of organic gardening, diversified grower Danny Botkin will explain and demonstrate uniquely "opportunistic", low-tech gardening practices and shortcuts ("strategic minimalism"), including "no-till" soil building, intensive "bunch" propagation, high and low tunnel "hoophouses", as well as a variety of other, unorthodox, seeding, mulching and season-extension methods.
The class includes a walking greenhouse tour, Q and A, plus farm snacks. $25-35 suggested donation, (no one turned away). RSVP requested. 413-863-8696. (Space limited. This is our most popular workshop.)