Spokane Potluck August 2, 2025

At Nick's!

1841 e 9th Ave

Nick will be grilling some wild caught alaska salmon to share.  And grilled zukes.

Anybody want me to bring some walking onions or sunchokes that you can take home and plant?

We start at 4pm.

Sounds great!!!

Awesome!
We will be there
Are we able to bring our kiddos? Ages 10,9, and 6
Thanks
Kate

I’m planning on attending. Will bring a vegetable salad.

Kids are highly encouraged to come. hoping to get people together to start doing some Permaculture projects, including composting, cob, RMH, food forests -- with a focus on working together. I have been too isolated the past eight years,(mostly my  fault, or covid hangover), but I have decided to reach out, with Paul's enthusiastic encouragement and offer to come hangout in Spokane one a month or so for a meet-up. "Dirt Church" is officially a thing. Hope to meet once a month for planning, more often than that for project implementations, but just get a good core group of Spokanuts together to build a better world in our front yards. Kids are a key component partly because they already get all of this and then they grow up in a world that beats it all back into nice and neat borders, partly because they are the future in most schools or media not teach a ton of permaculture etc. they are so good at the hands-on stuff and it's also critical to get all of us off our screen addiction  and get our hands dirty! on a sidenote, if anyone is good at organizing, planning and networking, I am absolutely terrible, The main reason I have not started this group until now. If anyone in Spo is willing to partner with me, I would be most appreciative! I would love to work with other groups locally as well.

I have a private guest room with bath in the basement so If Paul needs a place to stay he is welcome here. Meals included! We are about 22 miles west of Nicks house

Would love to have some onions and sunchokes to plant!

I get the impression that nick has a really nice spot for me to stay.

I’ll be there and will bring my 2 kids ( 5 and 10) as well! I’d love some walking onions.

I’m hoping we’ll have ripe blackberries to share! I may still have some jostaberries. We’ll bring a gluten free/dairy free dish as well (maybe a pesto pasta salad?).

Usually I just come to the permie forums for ideas because we are so new to permie culture. But this one is one I had to respond to. Hubby,  our son, our daughter and I will be there. I don't know what I will bring yet. Maybe my home made potato salad.

We are in South Perry neighborhood. Bring a swim suit, kids. as it will definitely be hot weather, we do have an small above ground pool (10'x6.5'). The kids are welcome to swim, or the adults for that matter my yard is shady past noon, but it's still biscuit hot.

paul wheaton wrote:At Nick's!

1841 e 9th Ave

Nick will be grilling some wild caught alaska salmon to share.  And grilled zukes.

Anybody want me to bring some walking onions or sunchokes that you can take home and plant?

We start at 4pm.

I would love to plant some walking onions Paul! I don't have any for some reason. If anyone has any blackberry suckers I am trying to plant blackberries once again.

nicholas thomas wrote:
If anyone has any blackberry suckers I am trying to plant blackberries once again.

I can share some in the fall! I have a thornless blackberry that produces large berries. No idea beyond that, it was already at my house when I bought it.

Hi folks hope ya'll are excited to hang out this Saturday! If you park on 9th Ave be sure to fold your side mirrors in or they will probably get knocked off. There will be a seed swap too, if ya have seeds or cuttings that need to be planted. Paul may leave around 6-7ish, right Paul? But folks is welcome to stay till like dark or lets say I'll wrap things up by 9 or 10ish at the latest.

I suspect that I will begin to fizzle at 6 (which is 7 my time) and will be fully asleep at 7!

Enjoy yourselves!  I am a bit of a recluse, but I am with you in spirit.

We will make sure the kids bring their suits and we will bring some mushroom/meat balls to share and likely some Fresh picked berries.  If alright would also love to invite my friend and her two children as well.  
Looking forward to connecting and getting some group projects started at each other’s properties to help each other out with ideas

Stay cool and see you all Saturday
Kate

Kate Statz wrote:  If alright would also love to invite my friend and her two children as well.  
Looking forward to connecting and getting some group projects started at each other’s properties to help each other out with ideas

Stay cool and see you all Saturday
Kate

if you know someone that would definitely be interested in permie culture style gardening, and other natural building projects, by all means please invite them. Looking forward to seeing people tomorrow. I think we're gonna have quite a good crowd.

Great!
Excited to meet everyone
🌱🌻🌿

I want to hand out this flyer to anybody that wants one .....    will try to find a way to print this here, but my guess is that I just won't have flyers.

We were wanting to come so much!  Unfortunately, the Lord had other plans, I guess.  We have had an urgent situation come up that prevents us from coming today.  There were so many things we wanted to learn today and questions we wanted to ask as well.  Rats!  We are there in spirit, and I hope more of these get togethers will be scheduled because by golly, we will keep trying to get to these.

the pool is a bit..um...green at the moment. enter at own risk. i can turn on sprinkler in sideyard though!

i am the brick house with all the sunflowers!

Thanks for hosting Nick. That was a great time had by all in my family!

Thank you all so much for coming out and being part of this new Spokane area club. thank you for bringing all the delicious food and veggies. Samantha and cedar thank you so much for driving all the way up from Yakima.

Part of this groups point is I want to do better and make things better that are more appropriate. And work much better working with nature and natural systems instead of against. and learning from each other's mistakes as well as our successes.


What projects would you guys like to work on? Together? And when?
1. Gardening/planting day
2. Mulch Day
2. Canning/dehydraying/preservation day.
3. rocket day: either cooktop-canner/
Rocket mass heater day/ rocket oven/ hot water heater. As we are moving into fall and winter. I would LOVE to put my Rocket stove hat on and get ONE of these up and running in the Spokane city area as a functional example before its too cold for Cob to cure.
4. Compost/soil/mycelium Day
5. Appropriate technology Day  (solar cookers etc)
6. Build a willow feeder day
7. Other ideas?

Who would like to host the next meeting?

Paul suggested a project work day, followed by a potluck. Folks could come to either or one or the other.


AND a big thank you, Paul, for coming and sharing your knowledge, experience and refocusing the Permie perspective. Check out the new kickstarter for a Willow Feeder Documentary (one week left to fund stretch goals). Thank you for the new SKIP  book donations. I definitely encourage folks to look into the WL Boot Camp program as well, and if you know any young people or anyone in a period of transition where they are not tied down to jobs or mortgages yet or if they were trying to get out of that for a while, be sure to mention the amazing opportunity at Wheaton Labs. Wheaton Labs is only a reasonable drive from Spokane and I encourage folks to contact them to arrange a visitation experience (sepp) or as a boot (one week minimum). We also could arrange a group visit whenever there is a good time for that for people or something going on there already preplanned. (Please do not go by unannounced, and do not share WL exact locations, for privacy reasons.)

also, if Samantha would be willing to share her contact info, I would like to order wheat.  Her vegetables were delicious!!
my email is : mcshim@msn.com

I would like to second Nick's comments.  A big thanks to Paul and everyone for the great food and conversation.

I would be willing to host the next soiree.  I live in the Deep Creek area, near intersection of Wood Road and Euclid Road.  I live on 6 acres or so, mostly wooded.  I have many "work in progress" projects and many dreams.  I have 2 hugels that have some things growing in them.

I will propose one of the following days of September:  6,7,13 or 14.

I will propose a Mexican Food themed potluck, I will supply shredded beef and tortillas.

I will propose a mid morning start, and eat around 2pm.

I will propose the following for doing:
  get real dirty and finish another half built hugel
  take a forest walk for plant id, plant collection, and seed collection
  roast and can green chiles
 make a compost pile and/or make some compost extract and apply it
  also, I have taken Elaine Ingham's class and teach the Who, What, When, How, Why and Where of the Soil Microbiome.  I can also teach what I learned from Elaine about making compost.  I can also demonstrate use of a microscope to identify soil and compost organisms.

I would also like to spend some time on learning more about each person's interests, current projects and areas of expertise.  Maybe compose a  bio with contact info to share.

Let me know what you think.

I know we're kind of coming to an end of the prime solar cooking season however I feel this could provide supplemental low-tech heat to a dwelling as well-- so stacking functions! I'm thinking if I rearrange myself facing kitchen wall a little bit I would have about 3 ft of space potentially but I could put this or something like it in the wall.

I absolutely love the idea of having an oven on basically all the time as long as the Sun is up but keeping the heat outside when I want to and also not needing to go outside when I don't want to just to check the oven.

Thanks for doing this Nick!  I hope I wasn't too much.

I go to spokane every eight weeks to donate blood. Betweem the place in spokane and all of the places I have ever donated, I am now over 5 gallons!

My next donation will be on friday, september 26.  Might there be a potluck the next day?  If it can start earlier in the day, I can be awake for more.  (I normally get dopey around 7pm montana time, which is 6pm pacific)

if anyone is missing towels and a girls swimsuit, I left them in my driveway on the rain barrel. There is also a pair of swim trunks.

This was such a wonderful potluck! It’s so refreshing to see other gardens in real life and know it’s not all perfectly curated like the internet can make it seem. We all have bugs and bare spots and plants that just die, and also many goodies hopefully! You space is wonderful Nick.

A meet up in September sounds great, but especially the first three options!

Nick, my husband Vince who was there is very excited about being able to help with a rocket stove. He’s got some good flexibility once the kids start school again and is interested in learning about it.

September 6 works for me. Curious if anyone would prefer a set day once a month? Im then we can all plan better. Like the first Saturday of every month at 9 AM? There could be a few hours of work/project time, and and a one hour lunch,
or it could be an afternoon thing as the weather is cooling off--like, an afternoon work party with dinner after? The third option is more of a snack as you go option. I have seen work parties where pretty much not a whole gets done --other than perfectly wonderful hanging out and eating, which is fine, just not exactly the whole vision of this group, at least not every meeting, ha!.

paul wheaton wrote:

My next donation will be on friday, september 26.  Might there be a potluck the next day?  If it can start earlier in the day, I can be awake for more.  (I normally get dopey around 7pm montana time, which is 6pm pacific)

Bump

We wouldn’t be available the 6th, but are available all other weekends.

Does Sept.27 work for you guys? I think I am busy every other weekend besides the first weekend of September.  October will be much less busy. Maybe still time to do some garden stuff or definitely time to do a Rockety thing. by late October definitely time to start planning some indoor activities.

Maybe 2 things in September?  

Sept 27 works for me
Snacks sounds good, then we aren’t trying to herd cats
My offer still stands, however, it sounds like RMH is of interest. And since Nick wants to build one on his patio, let’s do that. That is if Nick can assemble material by then. I have plans from Ernie and Erica for “TheAnnex 6” diameter RMH” and the 4 dvd set for DIY RMH from Paul that I can share

Claudia Shimkus wrote:Sept 27 works for me
Snacks sounds good, then we aren’t trying to herd cats
My offer still stands, however, it sounds like RMH is of interest. And since Nick wants to build one on his patio, let’s do that. That is if Nick can assemble material by then. I have plans from Ernie and Erica for “TheAnnex 6” diameter RMH” and the 4 dvd set for DIY RMH from Paul that I can share

I have everything except stovepipe, Super Wool, and fire bricks. that is I have clay, straw, and sand and a steel 55 gallon barrel.

another option for September 27 (or earlier) is a canning party.

when you have the sep 27 event sorted out, I think it would be wise to start a new thread with details.

If I remember correctly, the thing I suggested for nick is a bit of a hands on thing followed by a potluck (or just a gathering of some kind).  And then tell people that they can come to either or both.  But I think it would be wise to have the means to chill some foody-bits for those that are coming to both.

As suggested, it could be nice to have 2 meet-ups in September! I canned a bunch of green chilies last night and I was thinking how much better it would have been as a group as Claudia offered.

I have a lot of blackberries and some raspberries I need to make into jam and syrup. I have a portable burner and canning equipment as well.