A Photography Show, and More Upcoming Events

June 2, 2012 | Nathan Carlos Rupley

I am excited to announce that I have another photography show coming up.

The opening will be from 6-8 pm on Friday June 8th at The Shoppes on Main
in Mount Joy.
Come see my work, enjoy some refreshments, and check out the other great art and crafts in the store.
If you can’t make the opening, my work will be hanging until the 2nd week of July.

There are a lot of other events in the near future that I am pretty excited about too:

Saturday June 16th is the Hunt, Gather, Rewild Class that I am teaching with Wilson Alvarez.

Friday June 29th Musician Douglas Thomas is celebrating his debut EP release at the Millport Conservancy.
Mount Gomery will also be playing (and releasing an EP).
Chef Nicholas Furrow will be crafting all locally sourced artisnal finger foods, hot off the grill.
Ben Weiss will be sampling his homebrews, including a beer brewed with wild-harvested spring herbs.
Artist Marisa R. Smith will be displaying her sculpture and paintings,
and I will have an array on hand crafted primitive tools.

And finally

Saturday July 7th I will be teaching a small part of a class on perennial foods that Susquehanna Farm School is putting on at the Horn Farm Center.

Hope you kept that all straight, and hope to see you at these events.

Nate

Upcomming events, and an early spring.

March 20, 2012 | Nathan Carlos Rupley

Photo of bloodroot flower blooming. — Booldroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) flower blooming. Bloodroot is not edible, but is one of my favorite woodland flowers.

It is now officially spring, but as far as the plants are concerned, it has been spring for a while already. Before we get into that, let me mention some of the up coming events that will make this a really busy spring for us.

First, We will be attending our first permaculture class this Saturday March 24th (10am – 6pm). The class is called “Design Your Organic Home Garden Sustainably” and is being held at The Horn Farm Center and is presented by Susquehanna Farm School & The Rewilding School. I assume the class is full at this point, but check out the Susquehanna Farm School website for more upcoming classes and workshops.

Also on Saturday the 24th, I will be giving a talk called “Exploitation, Anarchy and God’s Ecology”. I will be discussing hunting, gathering, and Permaculture solutions to our ecological problems from a Biblical perspective, as well as demonstrating some simple Earth skills and tools. It starts at 7pm at
351 N. Mulberry St in Lancaster.

Then on Sunday the 25th, we will be going to the 2nd Susquehanna Permaculture meetup. It is from 2pm – 5pm at Chickies Day Use Area off of 441 on Long Lane. There will be child care available.

The next weekend we will be taking our hunting classes. Hopefully after that we can take some time to relax and go foraging and fishing.

Photo of part of a small colony of ramps (also known as wild leeks). — Part of a small colony of ramps/wild leeks (Allium tricoccum).

This past Saturday my wife, son, and I went to a workday with some friends who are doing pretty much what we want to do. We inoculated mushroom logs, toured the land they are farming, and did a little foraging in the woods.

Spring weather arrived so early this year that many plants are appearing about 3 weeks before they did last year. One of these plants is bloodroot, with it’s beautiful flower. We also got to try ramps for the first time.

Yesterday, we went to hang out with some other friends who live across town for super. The weather was warm so we cooked over a fire in their back yard. We had some excellent mountain pies, and also harvested and cooked a bunch of garlic mustard, curly dock, and garlic, with bacon.

What a wonderful time of year.

I will be announcing some more wild food and Permaculture classes and events in the near future, so stay tuned if you live in the area. If not, let me know, and I can try to help find people closer to you.

Nate

Hand Tools Part 1: Human Hands.

January 12, 2012 | Nathan Carlos Rupley

I am hoping to diversify a little this year in terms of what I cover, don’t worry there will still be plenty of plant posts, but I think that covering some other areas of simple living could help put my love of plants in context for people.

I have been experimenting with some primitive skills and doing some simple woodwork, as well as preparing to learn how to hunt. I plan on writing about some of the hand tools I use, and some of the ones that I make.

This is part 1 of a series on these tools. It is a photo essay on the most basic of tools, the ones that harvest, and process most of the wild foods that I eat, and the ones that make and use the other tools.

Human Hands.