Farm Stay 3: Day 6

Sunday, March 4, 2018

On Saturday, we all went out to Prairie Farm High School to attend the Green Skills Learning Event. It is a local event with the purpose of educating people on traditional and environmentally friendly skills for farming, living, cooking, and more.

We arrived at the school around 9:00 AM. The event was blocked in four different sessions throughout the day, each with their own lineup of classes and activities. In the first session, just about all of us went to a talk given by two Amish men who lived in the area. They went over their lifestyle and discussed common questions about Amish people. I found it extremely interesting and definitely now have a better understanding of who they are.

In the next session I went to a class on Tiny Homes and Rocket Stoves. The first half was a talk by a woman who had built and lived in a tiny home for three years. She and her husband had purchased a school bus and converted it into an efficient and cozy living space. One of the main points in her talk about this was her rocket stove, which we got a 45 minute presentation on afterwards. A rocket stove is a J shaped wood-fired stove capable of cooking and heating very efficiently. The reason it is so efficient is, because of the unique shape, it can burn wood very effectively. We learned that smoke is just wasted energy from the wood, and a rocket stove burns so hot that it emits no smoke. Learning about the tiny homes and rocket stoves was very interesting, and ideas I had never thought about.

After the second session it was lunch time. They provided us with chili and tortilla chips, and a lot of people bought delicious doughnuts an Amish group was selling.

I went to a talk about minimizing your home’s energy consumption in the third session. It was very interesting, and extremely surprising to see how much energy is wasted for no reason. However, the presentation was directed towards homeowners, so not super beneficial to me.

The final session included a class on brewing Kombucha, which many of us went to knowing that we would get samples. Two women walked us through the making of Kombucha, which included multiple samples. The live tutorial was very thorough, but not something I will be attempting anytime soon. The Kombucha we got to sample was great, and I grabbed a bit at their stand later.

We soon departed, stuffed with new information and lots of good food. It was another successful day out here in the bush - hopefully with many more to come.

-Peter