Melton Sustainable Living Group

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by Gavin Webber I find teaching people new skills exciting and very satisfying.  Saturday was no exception.  This workshop was offered to members of the Melton Sustainable Living Group and if we were desperate for numbers, it was going to be open to friends.  However it turned out to be so popular that we had 12 interested members within a week.  I offered my services for free and each student paid $15 to cover organic milk costs and ingredients. As I mentioned in my last post, I split the workshop participants in half, and I taught two back to back mozzarella cheese making workshops, the first from 10am - 12pm, then a break and the next from 2pm - 4pm.  Both classes were fully booked, however we had a late cancellation for the first class. You can see the setup below.  This is the undercover area just at the entrance to the house.  Nice and clean and out of the weather. You can see six small camp stoves, rubber gloves, and clean tea towels to place their utensils onto.

On Saturday, the Melton Sustainable Living Group had its monthly meeting, which also included a workshop about container gardening for renters, and the yearly harvest festival.  All members were encouraged to bring along stuff they have grown, preserved or made to swap or sell.  I took along this basket of goodies. It contained 2 dozen home laid eggs, a jar of cherry jam, a jar of feijoa jam, some eggplants, a bunch of spring onions, two bags of grated Parmesan cheese, and 200gms of Komijnekass.  On the way past the garden I threw in 5 green and yellow capsicums (peppers), which filled up the basket. Suffice to say, the meeting/workshop/harvest festival was good fun, and Stacey put on a great workshop.  Once it was time for tea and scones, the food swap started.  The eggs and cheese when straight away, as did the cherry jam.  I ended selling most of it, but swapped the spring onions for some ying and yang bean seeds, and the feijoa jam for a jar of plum jam with Michael. Kim