Amie’s woodpile / my woodpile Yesterday I signed up for several MeetUp groups related to Permaculture, Organic Living, Peak Oil and Climate Change. One of them is a Mom’s group. Their first question was: What makes you despair the most? I answered: Waste, greed, soulless consuming, willful ignorance Their second question: What gives you the …
Author Archives: kaat
A Transition Event! Here!
Enough of this vacillating and lamenting! I’ve placed a notice for a Meeting on the Transition US and Transition Massachusetts websites, and will send it to several sustainability and Permaculture Meetup groups I know of. I’ve got one speaker already and plan to invite many more. Join us to discuss resilience and sustainability for our …
Holiday Homeschool, Eggs and Solar
Amie plants her onion sign Our latest guests have left and Amie and I have settled back into the-two-of-us routine. What with all the commotion of guests and visitors and extended playdates we have seriously slacked off on our “schooling”. August, I’ve decided, will see some school every morning. Amie so far has been enthusiastic. …
Trelisses and Potato Bins and Dinner
Last week “big hail” was predicted, so DH and I ran out and covered most of the beds with row cover. We also managed to drape some over the tomatoes in the pots, but by then it was too dark to take a picture. I don’t know what good it would have done, since no …
Soil Test Results
I know. It was a bit late that I had my soil tested, but – apart from it being too clayish – we’ve always had a good feeling about the soil of our veg garden. The catalyst for sending the soil in anyway was the loam I bought for filling up the terraces we built, …
Riot for Austerity – Months 7, 8, and 9
Months 7 – 9, that is, May to and including July. So I’ve been slacking a bit, not on the practice – I hope – but on the monitoring and recording. Then again, if your practice isn’t wholly a routine yet, monitoring and recording may well be essential (not sufficient, of course, but necessary)… Let’s …
Growing Children in the Garden
A couple of days ago Amie was helping me in the garden. She was raking away the weeds I had just hoed – though raking around is closer to the truth. There was a lot of chopping with her little rake, too close to my face. There was also yelling – “Go away, weeeeeds, go …
Nipples, Mammals, Camels
DH is changing into this PJs, Amie looks on and asks: – What are these? – My chest muscles. – No, these. – Nipples. – What are they used for? (Snicker from Mama in the other room.) – (Laughs too) Nothing. On me they’re useless. – Then how did they grow there? – They grow …
Garden News
The rain barrels were finally installed, all four of them, on Sunday, and for once I looked forward to the rain on Monday, which filled them all up in 15 minutes! We have a fifth (metal) barrel, a well-made one which we got from a neighbor, but before I use it I want to ask …
Garden Bounty
These are today’s pickings: green beans (mostly Provider), some mint and thyme, snipped onions tops and some more Swiss Chard. In a few weeks I’ll be laughing at the amounts in this picture (I hope)… Amie was picking too, buckwheat flowers in our patch up front. Some of the buckwheat has gone to seed, so …