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Writer's pictureBarbara Belger

Whangaroa-Kerikeri: Catching Lightning in a Jar...

Or rather "Baking - and preserving - Bread in a Jar" Read on to find out what that was all about!


It is heartwarming to see what members of our Whangaroa-Kerikeri rohe have been enjoying

by means of their Timebank credits:

  • Attending workshops & Presentations

  • Receiving Yoga tuition

  • Personal care and massage in times of great need

  • Exchanging fruit and herbs

  • Gifting of a rooster


Do check in on our website to find out what your fellow Timebankers are offering and see if you wouldn't have that skill or something that someone has been desperately needing!


So, what has been happening in our area in April so far when we all held our breath, cancelled Resilience Month events (most of them) and are slowly re-orienting ourselves.


April's Cherry Park House workshop was all about Preserving, canning, dehydrating...

So much fun was had with our VERY inspirational super-whizz-preserver&canner Chrissy

who had us all spellbound with her samples, her stories, her ideas.




"And it tastes Sooooooooo gooooood"




Click on the arrow to view all the slides, see the tools you 'll need, the amazing preserves (I could write a long blog just on those), our bread dow in a jar and the finished products.


Some of the participants tasted and smelled the 'samples' our tutor brought along: dehydrated scrambled egg (yep, you read that correctly), left-over greens (dehydrated and shredded and preserved), pumpkin soup... there was also fish stock, ready-to-go Lasagne. Nothing gets wasted, either it gets preserved or recycled on the farm, fed to the chooks etc

Look at the surprised (positively so) faces of the tasters!




The importance of getting it right with the jars in the correct canner is a story I'll share further down, if I still have the keen reader's interest.


As part of Resilience Month we then listened to Robina McCurdy who gave us a presentation on

"Taking down the fences"-gardens, on "That-little-extra"-garden on council land, how resilience mapping could work up here. Personally I felt very hopeful and see the need to connect all of our existing great little (and big) projects in a much better way. There is talk about 'Sociocracy' and I've been devouring every bit of information I can get about this.


For you who want to follow Robina's journey across Aotearoa, New Zealand, please check out these websites www.localisingfood.com and www.earthcare-education.org

I hear that the 2 full day workshops in Kaikohe and Whangarei were very well attended and people absolutely loved it. Isn't it amazing what this Timebank whānau has been able to put together?



Robina at The Merchants of Kerikeri, where FNRCCT's new room / eco hub AND also Kerikeri Repair Café is happening.


Another Timebank / Resilience Month event that did happen was the "Garden Guru Talk" at the Procter Library... and just like that, a bunch of exchanged Timecredits later a group of people learned what growing mushrooms in gorse can be like.










Speaking of Library and other future possible collaborations: There have been rather interesting meetings and talks and plans and I'll be duly reporting as soon as I have more.

Let's just say your Timebank rohe will be 'food resilient' par excellence !


Let me finish for today, but not without telling the story I mentioned earlier: One of our TTT members spent many years sailing around the world and living on a boat. In one incident a fellow sailor left the neighbouring mooring (somewhere in the Pacific?) and a "maydaymayday" distress messaged was sent out shortly after: the skipper of the boat that had left the day before had opened a damaged can of food and - to cut a longer rescue story short - subsequently died of botulism. Hence, the importance of 'knowing what you're doing' in the preserving arena. There was, however also an addition to that story as to what to do when you have nothing BUT a damaged can of food on board to eat. Talk about sailors and being so resourceful!


Enjoy the rest of this beautiful April autumn - keep exchanging those Timecredits and look out for emails landing in your inbox soon with some questions from 'moi'. Until then ...

Ngā mihi aroha,

Barbara


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