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Save the Date!
2nd Annual
BING + CRAFT
Young Farmer Gathering
at Angelic Organics Farm and Learning Center, Caledonia, IL
August 25-26, 2012
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Want more news and info about biodynamics? The Biodynamic Association publishes a monthly general e-newsletter as well as a quarterly Farm-Based Educators e-news. If you're not receiving them, click the "join" link above to update your preferences.
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New Book: A Biodynamic Manual
A new, very practical book by Pierre Masson offers detailed insights into biodynamic growing. This is a useful resource for both new and already practicing biodynamic farmers and gardeners.
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Know someone else who would like to get our monthly updates?
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Support the Biodynamic Association!
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Pick dandelions!
The Josephine Porter Institute has asked for volunteers to pick dandelions to make one of the biodynamic compost preparations. If dandelions are blooming near you, and you want to help, read their instructions here.
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Thanks for subscribing to the BING e-newsletter! Have something you'd like to share with others? Send it along to me at bing@biodynamics.com and I will include it in a future issue.
- Thea Maria Carlson, BING Coordinator |
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 The Study of Life of Bees from the Standpoint of the Soul
 | | Anise Swallowtail on Echium (�The Melissa Garden) |
By Michael Thiele, The Melissa Garden:
Historically, living with bees was ritualized, ensuring harmony between bees and apiculturists. In our de-ritualized world, we face the challenge of finding the means to reconnect with core aspects of life and of finding guidance for being with the bees. In his bee lectures, the Austrian philosopher and spiritual scientist Rudolf Steiner describes the bien (a term defining the bee colony as one being) as being permeated with life based on love. To meet the bien on that level and be touched by it will bring forth a new way of living with bees. Read more....
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Biodynamics Now! Podcast
 Want to know more about plant breeding, holistic orcharding, soil or olive oil? Check out the Biodynamics Now! podcast, which features weekly interviews on topics related to "investigative farming and restorative nutrition."
You can listen to the interviews online or download them from iTunes, as well as submit questions for future interviews.
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Free Culture! Free Columbia
From Seth Jordan: "Every man and woman is an artist. If you want to take a year off cultivating the culture of the earth (agriculture) and get dirty with paints instead, check out Free Columbia in upstate New York. Good friends of the BD movement and radical social thinkers trying to work with new understandings of money and how to cultivate the seed in each human being... (the year-long course is FREE!). Pass it on to a friend too."
 | | Free Culture! Free Columbia |
For more info go to www.freecolumbia.org |
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JPI: Recommendations for Working with Crops, Sequential Spraying, and Ashing
The Josephine Porter Institute has published their calendar of recommendations for January-June of 2012:
The year 2012 is far and away a record breaker as far as occultation and eclipse events (29 total) are concerned. Although the planet Pluto (10 occultations by the moon for the year with additional events in 2013) has been discounted by astronomers as a genuine planet, it nevertheless may still impact the etheric (life) realm of being (that is, the plant kingdom in particular). An initial reading of the occultation effect (Jupiter 8 events, Mercury 4, Mars 1, Venus 1 plus transit in June) suggests that the world
wide drought situation may be enormously exacerbated during
the year, especially after April. Read more...
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Rudolf Steiner Library
 Have you explored the Rudolf Steiner Library?
Director Judith Soleil says "Our library is a great resource for farmers and apprentices: have a look at our online catalog to get an idea of the scope of our holdings. The library has all of Rudolf Steiner's work in English and German (in many instances, multiple copies, a great support for study groups); books and DVDs on biodynamic and organic agriculture; as well as works on botany, biology, zoology, anthroposophical medicine, Waldorf education, etc."
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The Guide to Financing the Community Supported Farm
 The University of Vermont has just released a new guide for alternative farm financing.
More and more Vermont farmers are using creative ways to acquire capital for land acquisition, start-up and operation. At the same time, increasing numbers of individuals are exploring alternative investment vehicles and ways to help finance small businesses within communities.
The Guide to Financing the Community Supported Farm details options and considerations for crafting unconventional financial arrangements that have been used in other sectors of the economy, but might be new to the agricultural sector.
The 62-page guide addresses legal, accounting, environmental and social considerations relevant to pursuing customized financial agreements, and contains examples of farms who have used alternative financing.
Available for free download in its entirety or by individual chapters.
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Job & Internship Opportunities
For more details, additional openings, or to share an opportunity, please visit our forums.
Biodynamic seed growing apprenticeship at Meadowlark Hearth - Scottsbluff, NEAt Meadowlark Hearth, our main focus is the development of biodynamic seed out of a whole farm organism. We grow, select, process and distribute a wide variety of seeds grown organically and biodynamically. We also strive for social and ecological outreach in a conservative rural agribusiness based region. We are in the first years of restoration and development of this prairie farm that has suffered from forty years of chemical based extraction agriculture. All this together provides a unique learning opportunity which we share with whoever works on the farm, including field history records showing how the farm has evolved from conventional to biodynamic and organic production. Whole Farm Apprentice sought at Hawthorne Valley Farm, Columbia County, NYHawthorne Valley Farm, a diversified, Demeter certified Biodynamic farm, is looking for one whole farm apprentice, starting now through at least Thanksgiving, 2012. Our apprentices work with and learn about the interrelationships between our milking herd of 60 grass-fed cows, our rotational grazing system, the twelve-acres of mixed vegetable fields, and get an overview of the administration of our 285-member Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Our apprentices are expected to work well with others, to have some patience and a drive to get things done. A sense of humor is always useful! Seeking Farmer - Hawk Circle, Cherry Valley, NYHawk Circle, located on 200 acres of woods, fields and streams in Cherry Valley, NY has been offering transformative wilderness programs for the Waldorf community for over 23 years. We are looking to expand our small community and would like to develop a farming component. We have a number of old, heritage apple orchards and fields for animals and/or for growing grapes. We are looking for a farmer or farm family with substantial experience in biodynamic farming methods that would be interested in developing their own farm and need land to do so. Intern at Black Bear Farm in Mendocino, CAWe are a micro-Farm in Mendocino foothills in between Willits and coast. Seeking couple or single person that can take direction but also work independently. Organic vegetable/herb/flower production for farmers markets and local businesses. Activities are propagation, (starting trays of seeds, grafting, planting), infrastructure (irrigation, greenhouse management), animal husbandry, compost, biodynamic preps, permaculture, weeding, watering, and other chores of a working farm. Our goal is to grow, eat and sell the most delicious, wholesome organic food and working to sustainability by practicing different farming methods such as Biodynamics and permaculture. We view our farm as a harmonious and integral part of nature and wish to cultivate our soil with that intent.
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Upcoming Events
For details on these events and more, or to share your event, visit our calendar.April 21: Community Earth Day Gathering in the Pfeiffer Center Garden, Chestnut Ridge, NY April 21, 28, May 5, 12, 19, 26: Establishing a New Garden, Hygiene, CO April 21: Film Screening and Lecture on Building the Compost Pile (Biodynamic Workshop Series 2), Salem, OR April 21: Springtime: Growing Plants, Managing Weeds, Fair Oaks, CA April 26-29: Impulse Festival: Metamorphosis, Placerville, CA April 28: Towards Saving the Honeybee: Principles of Sustainable/Biodynamic Beekeeping Practices, Floyd, VA April 28: Introduction to Biodynamic Agriculture, East Troy, WI April 28: Conscious Beekeeping: Practical Holistic Approaches for Beginning and Advanced Beekeepers, Spring Valley, NY April 28: Seeds and Sustainability: The Basics of Biodynamics in Your Backyard, Copake, NY May 5: Awakening Nature Perception - Flowers (session 7), Fair Oaks, CA May 11-13: Pfeiffer Center Plant Sale, Chestnut Ridge, NY May 12 and June 9: Gardening Tips from a Biodynamic/Organic Perspective, Nashville, TN May 19: Use of the Two Main Biodynamic Sprays (Biodynamic Workshop Series 3), Salem, OR May 20: Ashing Workshop - Chitinous Insects, Woolwine, VA May 26: Expanding the Apiary Naturally: Swarm Management and Working with Naturally Raised Queens, Floyd, VA
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Biodynamic Initiative for the Next Generation
www.biodynamics.com/bing
BING is a program of the Biodynamic Farming & Gardening Association
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