Have you heard of the Urban Bush Carpenters?

We like to see things saved from land fill and given a new life, so when a friend pointed us to the website for the Urban Bush Carpenters, we were keen to go along to one of their workshops.

These guys find discarded timber around town (mainly pallets) and teach people to turn them into useful items like planter boxes, cube shaped stools and other items. They're all about reducing waste, encouraging urban food production and increasing community reliance by teaching people basic woodworking skills. That's permaculture in action!

The workshops are held at Ceres community environment park and are free, however a $5 donation is required from each particpant to help cover the cost of things such as drills, saws, nails and other materials. There's no need to register - just turn up on the day.

Don't worry if you don't have much in the way of handyperson skills. These guys are great teachers and very friendly.  You'll get hands-on experience using different tools and get to build up your experience and your confidence, plus have some fun in the process.

At the end of workshop, should you want to take home what has been built, this is possible for an additional donation decided on the day.

We went to a couple of workshops and made:

A planter box, that we use for holding firewood kindling

A cube-shaped stool ...or box, depending on which way is up. Ours finds use mainly as an outside table/workbench but also provides an extra seat if needed.

We even took along some rounds of wood for everyone to have a go at making roof shingles using a froe. Using the froe certainly gave us all a new respect for those who are skilled at making shingles by hand.


Photo source

Check out the UBC website to see what workshops are coming up. It's also a good excuse to visit Ceres if you haven't made it there yet.