Building fellowship and community while sharing various skills has been the focus of a Tasmanian parish’s year-long homesteading workshops. Source: Hobart Archdiocese.
Held on the first Saturday of each month last year, the workshops saw Huon Valley parishioners come together in prayer and to learn from each other.
Parishioner Elke Vidler is the driving force behind the homesteading workshop sessions, and said the idea came about from conversations with fellow parishioners.
“We live in an area where a lot of people have wonderful skills for homesteading and self-sufficiency, growing or producing food or things for the home,” she explained.
“Several of us had been talking about things like sourdough bread making and kimchi making.
“There were people who had specific skills, and others who were interested to learn those skills, so we thought it was a great way to bring the parish community together,” Ms Vidler said.
“We’ve been doing them on first Saturdays of the month, beginning with morning Mass here at St Mary of the Cross in Ranelagh, with the idea to also promote and encourage people to come along to the First Saturday Mass and Devotions.
“So far we’ve had 12 workshops, and we’ve tried to keep it seasonal – some of the sessions we’ve done are on soil blocking and seed sowing, beef tallow skincare products, sourdough, boerewors sausage and kimchi making.
“We even had a beeswax session using beeswax from our hives, that we extracted and rendered down. We talked people through that process, melted it down together and made dipped candles, rolled candles, beeswax wraps and firelighters.”
Following the overwhelmingly positive response to the homesteading workshops, Ms Vidler said the plan was to carry on in 2025.
FULL STORY
Building fellowship and community through homesteading (By Josh Low, Hobart Archdiocese)
