2024 Kent Workshop Descriptions
2024 Kent Reeds & Roots Workshops and Schedule
Saturday, August 24th, 2024
10am – 10:30pm
Fred Fuller Park
497 Middlebury Road
Kent, OH 44240
2024
Schedule
Subject to change – Pre-register to receive latest updates
Click on Workshop Title for teacher, photo, description, etc.
Volunteer opportunities available throughout the day! Sign up here.
All Day Experiences
Join Uncle Mud and Family for a “Hands In” exploration of building with local natural materials including sandy clay and straw and branches. Children of all ages are invited to build their own fairy house to take home from earth and sticks and other found objects.
Kyotē Youst
Take time in this cozy space for rest, renewal, and healing.
10:00 am Registration Opens
Workshop #1 - 10:30am - 11:15am
Carla and Chris Kirtley
In this workshop you will learn simple recipes using the only all-wild nut tree grown in the United States, and one quite prolific in Ohio. Cooking with black walnuts dates back to the late 1700’s. Recipes and sampling of condiments and beverages using black walnuts will be discussed.Randy Ruchotzke
The key to a healthy garden producing nutrient-rich food is healthy soil!
This workshop will delve into the research regarding soil health and soil biology and present methods for improving soil fertility, health, and tilth, and then present simple means for attendees to put these methods into practice.
James Matalik
Ever wanted better facilities for camping, cabins or anywhere utilities are not accessible? We’ll be covering the basics of composting toilets and simple shower setups to small scale solar/propane systems for pumping and heating water.
Workshop #2 - 11:30am - 12:15pm
Josh Philipps
Learn the basics of grafting fruit and nut trees with demonstration and hands on practice. Topics covered will include species suitability, scion collection, grafting methods.
Emily Hall
Working together to create a better world takes courage, resilience, and strength. We are nourished by our connections with each other and with the earth. Join with Emily Hall, Director of Music Ministries at Kent UU, to learn and sing songs to lift our spirits, unite our voices, and fuel our collective action towards a more just, healthy, and engaged community.
Renee Ruchotzke
With power outages being more and more common, keep some of your harvest on shelf instead of in the freezer. You’ll learn the basics of both water bath canning and pressure canning, and how to set up an outdoor kitchen where you can set up your canning operation during the hotter months.
Kelly Clark (Kelly’s Working Well Farm)
Inspired by the concept of BioRegional Learning Centers first proposed by systems thinker Donella Meadows, a group of us has been working on a plan to develop a strong symbiotic network in our bioregion, the Great Lake Erie Southern Shore. We hope to create the conditions necessary for the emergence of cooperative projects and initiatives that will regenerate our bioregion and the life support systems needed for transitioning through the challenges we are increasingly facing. In this sharing session Kelly will present the proposal and hold a brainstorming session for how we can each contribute to developing this network.
12:30pm - 1:00pm - All Community Circle
1:00pm - 2:00pm - Potluck Lunch
"Deep Dive" Workshop #3 - 2:00pm - 3:30pm
Lenore Novak
$5 Materials Fee
Build your own worm habitat using a plastic shoe box, learn how to care for the worms, use food scraps to feed them, and use worm castings and worm tea as fertilizer for your plants and gardens. After building your own habitat, you will receive your own red worms to begin your own worm farm.
Tom Rapini and Valerie Garrett A’s and O’s Farm
From lighting a path, to powering your entire house, there are all levels of ways you can bring solar generated electricity into your life. Doing so will not only save you money in the long run, it can provide you with measures of energy independence while also helping the environment and the planet ! This workshop will give you ideas and knowledge that you can take home and apply to energy-demanding tasks around your home or farm. Need to light a shed? Power a remote water pump? Open a door on a hot greenhouse? Automatically turn on a fan to cool the garage? Or how about installing (or having a professional install !) an array large enough to power your entire home, farm or business? All these will be discussed conceptually and practically. Most importantly, you will have a chance to go hands-on, wiring up solar panels yourself so that you can learn enough electricity fundamentals to possibly tackle a do-it-yourself solar project, or at the least converse intelligently with a solar installer.
Tom Lacerda
Hike part of Fred Fuller Park as we discuss uses for plants found on the trail.
Peter M Hoffman
As a main focus, workshop participants will use flint and steel to catch a spark, create a coal then blow the live coal into a flame via a tinder bundle. Instruction is being given on on creating a Tinder bundle, fire building, as well as other forms of fire creation.
Meet Gabriel Odhiambo Oduor and Boniface Mango, musicians from Nairobi Kenya. They perform music and dance from the Luo tribe of Kenya with their group Kenge Kenge band.
Sabrena Schweyer
"Deep Dive" Workshop #4 - 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Kelly Clark (Kelly’s Working Well Farm)
this workshop we will learn how to ferment with honey to create 3 different products: short mead (low alcohol and quick), carbonated soda using fruit, herbs of flowers, and honey fermented fruit or garlic (very medicinal). Each participant will have the opportunity to make and take their own fermented fruit.Don King (The Mushroom Hunter)
Learn how to find, identify, prepare, and preserve the many different edible wild mushrooms we have here in NE Ohio.
Join Uncle Mud and Family for a “Hands In” exploration of building with local natural materials including sandy clay and straw and branches. We will be covering the basics of building with cob and how to design and build a rocket stove.
A rocket stove is an efficient and hot burning stove using small-diameter wood fuel. Fuel is burned in a simple combustion chamber containing an insulated vertical chimney, which ensures almost complete combustion prior to the flames reaching the cooking surface. Rocket stove designs are most often used for portable stoves for cooking but the design is also used for large, fixed stoves in institutions, and to make rocket mass heaters for heating. – Wikipedia
Dr. Sara Koopman
Would you like to have more healthy connections with the people in your life? Would you like more tools for navigating conflict? Nonviolent communication offers ways to listen deeply to, and ultimately meet, our own and other’s needs.
Kofi Khemet (Blackfacts)
*$10 Materials Fee
Most people have no idea how fragrances are used for pleasure, healing and spiritual edification. This workshop seeks to demystifying the most mystique that has left people confused and mystified, when it comes to the fragrances we all know and love and even some which we may not like at all. This will be an introduction to fragrances from around the world, their uses, origins and historical significance using games based on Japanese Incense listening games. At the end of the workshop participants will be able to take some of the items used in the workshop with them to prolong the experience beyond the “classroom.”
5:30 – 7:00 pm Chili Cook-off Dinner
6:45pm - Closing Circle
7:00pm – 8:30 pm - Community Song Circle
8:30pm – 10:30pm - Campfire/Music
