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Present at the 2016 NOFA/Mass Winter Conference! Deadline: Sept 16

If you have a great idea, technology or set of practices to share with a community of farmers and food systems activists, please propose a workshop for the 2017 NOFA/Mass Winter Conference. You can fill out the online proposal form here: http://www.nofamass.org/content/winter-conference-workshop-presenter-form

The event takes place on January 14th at Worcester State University; honorarium is $50 plus registration and an all-local lunch! 

More info: caro@nofamass.org

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Apiary crane

Hi, Just found this wonderful site. I'm in need of an apiary crane to lift heavy supers. I am envisioning a crane that could wheel under a hive stand and have an adjustables crane pole and pulley system where I could have pre-set eye hooks drilled into my hive supers (four, one near each corner) that I could hook onto a pulley that would lift the super by motor. I'd like to build something that would drop one side (not each corner but whole sides) at a time, so when the supers go back on I can brush bees out of the way as it slowly lowers back into place.

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DIY Solar water heater

I thought this was kind of a cool product idea and am kind of gathering input and experiences on it - a solar hot water heater.

http://www.permies.com/t/57410/energy/Solar-water-heater-plans-safe

We raise chickens (and a toddler), and hot water is just something we gotta have access to around here. Has anyone ever built a system like this?

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Enclosed Aerated Composting -Shipping Container

Enclosed aerated composting vessels are efficient in processing organic wastes, but expensive and site specific. Given the glut of shipping containers (thanks to trade deficits) why not re-purpose these and convert them into mobile enclosed aerated vessels. And why stop at just replicating the typical vessels, when a few further simple mod's could capture all the products of aerated composting - namely heat and CO2 production.