Events in partnership with:
Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center, Vermont Wilderness School, the Nature Museum at Grafton, and Vermont Museum of Natural History
July 19 | 6pm
Falling in Love with Nature: Nice Idea or Survival Strategy?
With the Nature Museum at Grafton
Falling in love with nature is often framed as a nice idea, something soft or optional. This talk offers a different perspective: that our connection to nature may be one of the most practical and urgent survival strategies we have. It invites us to rethink how we learn, lead, live, and to rediscover our relationship with nature not as a luxury, but as something essential, something worth loving, and something worth protecting.
August 15 | 9:30am
Fire By Friction
With Vermont Wilderness School
Come learn and practice various traditional fire making by friction techniques. Folks will have a chance to practice bowdrill, flint and steel, and other fire starting techniques and learn how to create tinder bundles off the landscape to nurture embers into flames.
Meet at the Retreat Farm Market. This is a free event but registration is appreciated!
September 1 | 5:30pm
Psychedelic Renaissance
With Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center
The Psychedelic Renaissance - Hope or Hype? Join a panel of experts to explore the potentials and the realities of psilocybin and other plant medicine to heal people and impact Vermont's economy. Have questions about neuroscience, therapeutic uses, legal issues, dangers, and indigenous perspectives? Come get them answered.
Panelists: Katherine Maclean, PhD, Adriana Kertzer, Justin Garner, Kurt White
September 11 | 5pm
Sketching Vermont Wildlife
With Vermont Museum of Natural History
In this nature journaling exploration we’ll tackle drawing wildlife: animals rarely stay still long enough for us to draw them, but fret not! This is why we practice. Come with keen eyes and open minds as we meet some live animals from the Vermont Museum of Natural History, observe their movements, and learn some tips and tricks for how to sketch them in nature. We’ll finish off our journaling by writing haikus about our observations. No art experience needed! Just bring a willingness to learn, observe, and create.
This is a free event but registration is appreciated!
September 19 | 10am
Chocolate Walk
With Tavernier Chocolates
Enjoy a guided chocolate walk led by Rich Holschuh of the Atowi Project, and Dar Tavernier-Singer and John Singer of Tavernier Chocolates. Each participant will receive five delicious chocolates and a small sweet drink featuring flavors of the forest: white pine, spruce, birch, maple, and more. On the walk we'll learn about these trees, edible plants and fungi, and ingredients Tavernier uses to flavor their delectable Brattleboro-made chocolates.
What to Expect: Please allow 90 minutes for this family-friendly walk on the Morningside and Bailout trails.
Register here.
October 22 | 6pm
Wildlife Tracking 101
With Vermont Wilderness School
Join expert Wildlife Tracker Bob Etzweiler for a brief presentation and hands on exploration of the tracks and signs of local wildlife. Expect to leave with more understanding of how to track on your own as a first timer or with some more advanced knowledge and skills if you have already begun this exciting adventure into getting to know the natural world around you more deeply.
Held in the North Barn at Retreat Farm. Free event!