We have our January meeting coming up in a couple of weeks. Thursday,
January 19th.

6:30-7:15 pm is a casual potluck (bring your own dishes, silver,
napkin, glass and a dish to pass).

At 7:15 we will have announcements and then our Guest Speaker will do
a presentation on Carbon in relation to growing, soil health,
sequestering, energy, etc. Rob is wonderful to listen to and learn
from. Below please find his bio. It’s worth reading and connecting
with his blog even if you can’t make it to the meeting.

We need to be out of the room by 9 pm, so lots of time for questions
and discussion afterwards.

We will be meeting at St. Stephens Church, 5700 Pheasant Hill Rd.,
Monona, 53716. Come to the back parking lot and in through the double
glass doors. We will be in the Fireside Room immediately to your left
as you enter. This is an incredible opportunity for us to learn from
Rob’s experience and knowledge base.

Rob grew up in the Chicago area and received his BA in Philosophy and
History from the University of South Dakota in 1996. He now lives in
Johnson Creek WI, with his wife of 13 years, Meriah, and two children
8 and 10. In 2004, Rob and his family purchased a newly constructed
home in a new subdivision. The fact that he was, literally,
contributing to urban sprawl was the impetus for Rob to challenge
himself to reduce the impacts of his new home to at least no worse
than the conventional grain field that the farm had been 2 years
before he moved in. He began to study sustainable gardening and
‘green living’, and soon discovered edible landscaping and
Permaculture. Permaculture- the idea that we could live in
partnership with nature- completed revolutionized his thinking. It
became clear early on that the goal of ‘Better Than Conventional Ag’
was too low and Rob removed the set goal to see what was really
possible in a Suburban Permaculture System in Wisconsin and now grows
2000# of food, collects 75,000 gallons of rainwater, and produces over
5 yards of compost on his .5 acre lot each year- with lots of room for
growth. Over the past 8 years, Rob has become convinced that healing
and building soils is one of the single most important actions we can
take to Be the Change We Wish to See in the World as the future will
be limited by natural capital and the soil will be, once again, what
gives us our food, fiber, energy, and resources. Rob began part-time
market farming potatoes and lettuce in 2008 at Prairie Dock Farm and
is now in a new farm partnership in Watertown, Wi that allows him more
room to experiment with linked biological energy/food systems and low
input / high output soil building on larger scales as he seeks to put
his ideas into practice. You can stay updated with Rob’s projects and
thoughts at www.onestrawrob.com and on Facebook search pages for “One
Straw Rob”.

Yippee! Rob is coming, Rob is coming!!

See you soon.
Kate