I’m doing my first challenge! Over at Casaubon’s Book the Independence Days Challenge has started. The challenge is to increase your ability to be independent from food and energy systems and infrastructure as they are currently set up. This year there are seven categories: planting, harvesting, and preserving food, reducing waste, preparation and storage of stuff you need, building community food systems, and eating the food. I really like that eating the food is a category, I think it’s a... Read more

I’m so excited, my Dwarf Mount Royal plum tree came today in a very tall and skinny cardboard box. I’ve never ordered a tree through the mail before so I didn’t know what to expect. Right now it’s planted in a big pot until the rain lets up and I can dig it a proper hole in the yard. The description says that it is self fruitful, so I shouldn’t need two. I already planted a Profusion crab apple on... Read more

These are my hardy, wonderful Iris reticulata that I planted 3 years ago. The snow covered them yesterday and today they bloomed and brought a much needed bit of color to our bland early spring landscape.The girls and I went to my mother’s for the weekend and while we were there we dyed Easter eggs. Ailee had a lot of fun arranging them on my mom’s egg plate. We are celebrating the spring holiday on Easter this year, rather than... Read more

These are my hardy, wonderful Iris reticulata that I planted 3 years ago. The snow covered them yesterday and today they bloomed and brought a much needed bit of color to our bland early spring landscape.The girls and I went to my mother’s for the weekend and while we were there we dyed Easter eggs. Ailee had a lot of fun arranging them on my mom’s egg plate. We are celebrating the spring holiday on Easter this year, rather than... Read more

So here is Jerry’s finished birthday present. There’s a yellow spot in the bottom of the shirt in the picture that isn’t there in real life. I’m assuming it’s because the flash didn’t reach there. I’m not sure what to do about that yet. I got the idea for this tee-shirt from a shirt my friend Bill got at his baby shower. His was much tidier though. To make it, I masked off a portion of the front with construction... Read more

I am in love with my new camera. It is a Canon PowerShot and it is so far and away better than my old camera. Even with my point and click mentality I’m taking better shots than I ever have. I’m really looking forward to exploring altering my own shots in photoshop. I’m taking pictures of things that I’ve been wanting to for years. I’m so looking forward to that late July light shining on that old rusty fence up... Read more

I have discovered the wonder of jersulem artichoke, otherwise known as sunchoke. We have a large and healthy patch of them that I planted by going to the grocery, buying a couple, and sticking them in the ground with the vague idea that perennial edibles were a good idea. I planned to learn to cook them later. When later arrived I roasted them with some other veggies in the hope that they would blend in. It was bad. Very bad.... Read more

I was listening to Explorations in Permaculture a podcast that showcases various people involved in the permacuture movement. They had Jenny Pell, a permaculturist from Washington State who started the Wilder Institute on. The interviewer was talking about how she used to hang out with the alternative, organic people at college, and Jenny interrupted her and said that those kinds of people are not the alternative, not the far left, instead she said that they should be called, “the sane... Read more

I just recently painted this, I like it pretty well. I’ve been experimenting with painting with my left hand. Though I write with my right hand and think of myself as right handed I am finding that I express myself much more easily and elegantly when I paint with my left hand. Actually I started out painting with my right hand and then got frustrated and stopped. It was later that I switched hands and then I started to like... Read more

I’m so geeked! I just won Peak Oil Hausfrau’s valentines day contest! I chose Insulate and Weatherize: Expert Advice from Start to Finish. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from it. I’m finding that I really like doing home improvements. The careful measurement and planning and executing a plan to create something new for our lives. I really like working with my hands. It’s funny, in school I was in the smart kid track. Doing things with my hands... Read more