Hi Landcarers

In terms of article content this week, I have a bit of a mixed bag.

Obviously, we have a focus on our upcoming workshops and dinner and April, but we also have Barry Sampson back in the area in May to provide a weeds workshop. Any of you who have been to his workshops before, would know what a character Barry is. He has a passion for weeds!

Dick Richardson will also be back in the area on Tuesday, 1 May. His last workshop at Trundle was well attended, but due to the impending ABBA mania hitting the town that week, the workshop will be held at Tullamore. More details will be available soon.

It has been a huge week for Landcare preparing for our Celebration Dinner on Friday, 6 April. Thank you to those who have already booked tickets! We have been overwhelmed with the response already. There are still more tickets available.

We are also hosting two workshops on Thursday and Friday, 5 and 6 April in the lead up to the Celebration Dinner.

We are bringing Dr Ash Martin, from Australian Microbe Labs who has developed the Transition to Soil Health workshops. These workshops equip growers to understand all the aspects of soil health, identify the key constraints particular to their situation, implement a practical action plan for improvement, and measure the outcomes to assist ongoing practice change.

They were developed to help people put the information gained from soil health projects into practice. It seems people were gaining good information, but there was often a link missing. The program equips agricultural land managers to understand soil health and identify the constraints to soil health on their own land, develop an action plan to improve it, scientifically measure the outcomes and plan for ongoing practice change.

We were pretty excited to have Ash join us for the two days and started thinking about how well a dinner would tie in with these two days to finish off the week and celebrate not just Landcare, but regenerative agriculture and the fantastic part of the State that we live in.

Whilst our dinner is being held in Forbes, it will be highlighting both the Forbes and Parkes areas that we work over and also the beautiful Central West! We have heaps to celebrate and this will be the night for it! After our speakers have entertained us through the evening and guests have the opportunity to throw a few Q and A’s there way, the entertainment will continue, with The New Normal band rocking on into the evening.

We would love to see the rural community out enjoying the evening. Even if you haven’t had anything to do with Landcare, or have never heard of Landcare (yes, there are some), we would love to celebrate with you! Individual and groups of up to six can be booked in one booking.

I am working from Forbes on Wednesdays, based in the Forbes Shire Council building. Whilst I am regularly between the two Shires, it has been good to have a base to work from rather than just my car or the Library and I have been made to feel very welcome and it is lovely to be sharing an office with Andrew Rawsthorne, a Landcarer from way back! If you would like to catch up with me on a Wednesday, please give me a call to organise a time.

For more information about anything in this article, please contact Central West Lachlan Landcare on 02 6862 4914, cwllpo@hotmail.com, facebook or our website at centralwestlachlanlandcare.org

Until next week, happy Landcaring!