Bureau / Program: Maine Forest Service
Date: October 12, 2025
Time: 1:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Location: 85 Edgecomb Road Belfast, ME 04915
Event Type: Workshop/Training
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1:00 PM: Festival opens at the Possibility Alliance where Ethan Hughes welcomes all to explore history and initiatives of this 20+ year educational and service community, which operates in the gift economy. Autumn Jade Fitch gives consideration of right relationships, and we are guided through a forest walk to the Little River Land Trust by Allyssa Gregory, District Forester for Mid-Coast Maine region. Here we learn health of this local forest, how that impacts human well-being and simple ways we can all steward and enjoy the endless nature of our connections. We'll discuss how to identify a "good" (for eating) acorn from a bad one, and some tools and techniques for gathering efficiently with a light footprint, and touch on culinary and medicinal mushrooms that favor growing near or on oaks, as well as other items you can gather, make, and enjoy from oaks, acorns, and the ecosystem they keystone. The walk brings us from the Possibility Alliance to the Little River Land Trust. For those who cannot walk the trail, there is also parking at the LRT: 3 Adney Place, Belfast Maine 04915
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1:30-2:30 PM: Demonstrations of acorn processing and storage methods, using equipment found in most households. Festival participants are invited to add fabric to Maggies acorn dye pot. Safe sterile acorn tattoos for the brave by Jillian
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2:30-3:00 PM: Sacred Connections ~ Autumn Jade Fitch speaks of medicinal and cultural practices and understandings of oaks and acorns in this region, and connections throughout the world.
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3:00-3:30 PM: Acorn Food & Beverages tastings prepared by Allison Pyo, include fresh dotorimuk, acorn noodles, bread, cookies, crackers, pudding, acorn coffee, and various acorn gravies for seasonal feasts. The Golden Acorn Hunt commences, and all are invited to view and vote for their choices in the Acorn-Oak Art Exhibit, as well as to submit entries for the Biggest and Littlest Acorn contest, calculated guesses for the acorn cache box ... and an Open Mic for those oak inspired to bardic arts.
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3:30 -3:45 PM: Maggie Haaland offers experience making natural acorn inks and dye, and a community acorn ink art making activity (if interested in participating/taking something dyed home: please bring one small natural fiber: cotton, linen, silk, wool, paper item to ink/draw on or dye in the pot).
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4:00 PM Closing remarks, gifts and thanks to our PA/ Little River hosts, Oaks, Acorns, and all they connect.
Registration is free but required.
Bureau / Program: Maine Forest Service
Date: October 15, 2025
Time: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Location: Wayne, Maine
Event Type: Workshop/Training
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Harold Burnett, Forester, Two Trees Forestry;
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Julie Davenport, District Forester, Maine Forest Service; and
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Amanda Burton, District Conservationist, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
The public is invited to tour an active sustainable timber harvest on October 15 in Wayne, on a woodlot that is adjacent to Kennebec Land Trust's (KLT) Besse Historic Conservation Area. Forester Harold Burnett and the landowners will review the rationale for and the expectations of the selective harvest. Julie Davenport will answer attendees' forestry and forest management questions and Amanda Burton will provide information about landowner cost share programs.
Ron Dostie will also be present to describe how to efficiently harvest trees without damaging residual ones and their underlying soils. As Burnett said, "This will be a great opportunity for other landowners to see ways in which they can support our communities and ensure that Maine’s forest products economies remain vibrant, while also generating income and protecting the forest itself and wildlife habitats."
Over the next 25 years, Burnett expects that these landowners will rotate additional harvesting while setting aside a block of the woodlot's oldest trees as an ecological reserve. There’s a lot that can be done on a property like this, and none of this is particularly unique, which is why I think it is a wonderful demonstration site, he added.
Date: Friday, October 10, 2025
Join MOFGA’s Low-Impact Forestry Program and the Maine Wood Banks Network for this day of learning about the importance and function of wood banks and supporting resources in local communities, wood selection and safety while burning wood, firewood processing, and stay for the afternoon work session to learn how to build a Holzhausen (German-style circular firewood stack).
This workshop will be hosted in two alternate locations at the same time to accommodate more registrants. In the event we have low registration, the event will be condensed into one location.
Bureau/Program: MOFGA & LWW
Date: Friday, October 17, 2025
Event Type: Workshop/Demonstration
Join MOFGA members and friends and our Local Wood WORKS (LWW) partners for a day in the woods in Wayne to observe an in-progress 25-acre sustainable timber harvest and sawmill demonstration. The family will build a small year-round cabin with eastern hemlock, northern white cedar, and white pine milled from the woodlot and using income from the timber harvest.
The cabin could be used to house a future farmer/caretaker on this 70-acre family land. The landowners are also working with a Maine land trust to develop a conservation easement on the property that will protect the property’s prime farmland soil, forestland, and important wildlife habitat. The woodlot is a short walk from the home of the landowners who are longtime MOFGA supporters.
The landowners (Jim Perkins and Theresa Kerchner), their forester (Harold Burnett, Two Trees Forestry), logger (Ron Dostie), and carpenters Ryan Bear Stone and Dave Paradis will be represented by Ryan. Helen Watt, author of The Pretty Good House, will speak on lumber drying and grading. Olivia Nicolarsen from Maine Woodland Owners will talk about NRCS cost-share programs and other resources available for small woodland owners and Mark Gordon of East Dixfield will be operating a portable sawmill.
You can also join us for an afternoon tour at Dimension Lumber in Livermore Falls to learn about and see how medium-scale lumber mills purchase, process, and sell Maine wood.
Please indicate in your registration whether you plan to join us for the first part of the event only or for the full day.
Dress for a day outside in the woods, and wear closed toed shoes. A bathroom is available at the landowner’s home.
Tours in the Forest Tour Series are kept free, with support from participant donations and grant funding. You can make a donation in the “checkout” form when you register for this tour, or in-person at the tour.
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