Events

Come join us at our next Transition Sebastopol Movie Night at the French Garden Restaurant!

We are inviting members of the local electric-powered vehicle community to join us in our post movie lively discussion!

Guests will include:

• Ross Randrup of eMotors and possibly other electric vehicle business owners from the Blue Sky Mall, the former Ford dealership in town (read an article about it here!),
• Dan Smith of the French Garden Farm and its electric tractor conversion project
• and Transition Sebastopol's own Nancy Goddard, electric bike enthusiast and rep for Electric Star bikes.

Who Killed the Electric Car? is a 2006 documentary film that explores the creation, limited commercialization, and subsequent destruction of the battery electric vehicle in the United States, specifically the General Motors EV1 of the 1990s. The film explores the roles of automobile manufacturers, the oil industry, the US government, the Californian government, batteries, hydrogen vehicles, and consumers in limiting the development and adoption of this technology.
(additional synopsis details below).

Watch the trailer here.

You can also visit the Sony Pictures informational site offering facts and figures about electric vehicles here.

FREE EVENT
~donations appreciated

Location:
The French Garden Restaurant
8050 Bodega Avenue, Sebastopol (map)

Take the grand 10-mile tour of Sebastopol circling the town past parks, historic locations, and including all four loops: Laguna, Ragle, Burbank Gardens, and Laguna Uplands. The walk beings and ends in the Plaza.
Leaders: Richard & Brenda Nichols.

Download the full 2009 Sebastopol Walks schedule here.

Like to excercise & create community at the same time? The Sebastopol Walks series is a great way of doing both!

You can also visit the iWALK site which lists other scheduled Sonoma County walks and allows you to add to the calendar, too.

Join us for our 2nd Seed and Plant exchange. Please bring clean seed or plants you want to share. Sara McCamant will teach a  Seed Saving Part 2 class from 10:30-11:30, which will review the basic protocol for growing out clean seed to share. Seed and Plant exchange and Local Food potluck will follow class.

What you could bring:
… Plants or seeds to share
… Coin envelopes
… Books or resources for sharing with others
… Local food potluck item!

Location:
Salmon Creek School Garden
1935 Bohemian HWY
Occidental

View Larger Map

West County Community Seed Library

Vision:
To create a grassroots community seed bank that supports Sonoma County gardeners with locally grown, open pollinated, pesticide and GMO free seeds. Anyone can become a member of the West County Seed Library, we ask for a donation of $5.00-$20.00 and a commitment to grow out and donate back seed following the library's protocol for growing clean seeds.  No on is turned away for lack of funds.   The West County Seed Library will be housed at the Salmon Creek School Garden and will be open to the public monthly for classes, resource sharing and a seed and plant exchange. The West County Seed Library will have resources available to members on growing and processing seeds.
 
Why save seed and why a local seed bank?
Our rapidly changing world gives us all the more reason to strengthen our local resources and our ability to be self-sufficient.  Local seed saving allows us to cultivate plants that do well in our region, with each generation adapting more to the local environment.   It also lets us preserve heirloom seeds that are being lost as the seed industry is being concentrated into fewer and fewer large corporations.  Seed banks are a great investment; with some plants one seed can return up to 40.000.  The abundance seed savers experience should be shared with the community and helps to model a different economic system.    We hope to cultivate a network of seed savers in the region to support each other and the seed library, which will be a resource for the expanding community of gardeners and help strengthen our local food system.

For more information contact Sara McCamant 829-5234 or saramc@emeraldearth.org

$35

http://www.dailyacts.org

A day of fowl exploration leads us to three thriving backyard chicken coops and flocks. Chickens lend a unique permaculture edge to your garden, providing eggs, fertilizer, soil aeration, pest control and a lively soundtrack while happily composting your kitchen scraps.

We’ll start the day at Happy Hens in Petaluma, the project of Stacey Evans and Rachel Kaplan, two Permaculture moms who decided to share the project of building a coop and caring for chickens. Learn about proper coop siting and construction, chicken care, egg management and surviving the winter without farm fresh eggs.

Next stop is Troy Silveira and Tina Wilder’s home in Penngrove, always a tour favorite because of their recycling ingenuity. Amidst natural building marvels such as their light straw clay meditation hut and living roof, we’ll visit their happy chicken house made almost entirely out of recycled materials. Tina will discuss sharing garden space with free-range chickens, general chicken care, and fertilizer application.

Last but not least, we’ll caravan to Catchtail Garden in Sebastopol, a three-acre parcel of pure wonder being revitalized from years of sheep grazing to a lush Permaculture food forest by owners and visionaries, Deborah Grace and Djubaya. They’ll reveal some of the myriad layers of ingenuity and insight packed into this small farm and show us their fifteen chickens taking turns in their homemade rotational chicken run!

Even small yards can accommodate one or two chickens. This fun tour will leave you inspired to give some hens a home!

"Community Impact Reports” will be the focus of open house meetings
hosted by Sebastopol City Councilmember Guy Wilson on
Tuesday, June 30,

• from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. and
• from 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.

at the Public Library
at Bodega Avenue and High Street.

Mayor Sarah Gurney will join Guy for the evening session and, her schedule permitting, the afternoon session as well. 

Questions to be discussed include: 

Should Sebastopol require a Community Impact Report before approving a new development, project, or commercial activity that may affect the community? 
What should the report cover?
How does the community feel about future development in Sebastopol? 
The public is encouraged to provide input to the City Council at this important meeting.

Be there. Be heard.

Council Member Kathleen Shaffer and Sonoma County Conservation Action's "Know Your Neighbor Program" will help you do the math to reduce your water and electric bills at home. We know what a gallon looks like, but do you know what a therm is? They will host a meeting on Monday, July 13 at the Sebastopol Library, 6:30pm to demonstrate how to save gallons and therms. This will help you save money and reduce your carbon emissions every day. Sebastopol has asked for a voluntary 15% reduction in water use and Sonoma County has set a goal of 67.5 gallons per person a day. For electricity, the goal is 2.05 therms a day.

Bring your water and electric bills to the meeting and we will determine your usage. Then we will make a plan to reach new conservation goals. For information call: 829-0669