I found Amie’s Map Book. It had gone missing in the move. The Map Book, or Place Book, is a collection of maps, pasted in or drawn, of where we have been living and traveling (you can see some more scans here), with anecdotes and journal entries addressed to Amie. Amie became very interested in …
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Poll: Why Do/Don’t You Simplify/Prepare in the face of Peak Oil/Global Warming?
{This is a second attempt at this poll. I deleted the first one: the polling service wasn’t working properly. My apologies to those who already voted; please vote again.} I am curious about how my readers think about Peak Oil / Global Warming. Do you think the threat is real? What do we hope/fear for …
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Water Bottles in the Freezer / Fridge
This is a neat idea to save energy on your fridge and freezer. It was suggested in the Riot 4 Austerity discussion group. I’m happy to have found it because our inherited fridge-freezer is an old one and we could definitely use some KWH savings there. It makes sense that it takes a lot of …
My Joy in the Present and My Fear for the Future
I am preparing two bags; 1) A field bag, containing compass measuring tape pencils and pencil sharpener paper/journals for Mama and Amie eraser watercolor and water bottle, brushes baggies for collecting clear tape camera I might add a baggie with Plaster of Paris for capturing animal tracks and a mixing tin. 2) A run-out-of-the-house emergency …
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Back with Promises
When she unpacked the glove: “It’s the Earth! It’s the Earth!” We’re back from our trip and I am finding it difficult to get back into things with the blogging. But here’s what you can expect soon: I’m preparing an update on our second Riot month (December 2008), so that might get me started. DONE. …
Thoughts on our Compost Bins
While lying in bed, surrounded with a lot more books now (so I’m feeling better!), what better things to do than dream, despair over how little we’ve done (as a prod), and plan our next moves. One of our priorities is our compost bins. The Starbucks coffee grounds and the neighborhood orphan pumpkins have filled …
Home Made Christmas
I’m not going to give too much away. I’m going to try. If you know us, please look away, or not too closely, or don’t look at the pictures (okay, I won’t put any pictures). Sigh… We are making all our Christmas gifts this year ourselves and out of materials we already have (most of …
The War of Consumption and What to Say to Friends about “the Good Life”
Yesterday one of the headlines in Google was “Economy Contracts as Consumers Retreat“. There is a nice rhythm to that phrase, don’t you think? And, also like a good line of poetry, it says a lot in the most subtle of ways. The bellicosity of this phrase reveals what we all really know about consumption …
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In Sharon’s Defense: Reaction to the New York Times article
I have been a daily reader of Sharon Astyk’s blog Casaubon’s Book for years now and I am rereading her book, Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front, with pencil in hand. Sharon was the one who made me conscious of the opportunity for a different, more sound kind of lifestyle, like I’ve …
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Global Disaster
Ok, very very depressing post here… I repeat: very… Who hasn’t seen that old tv-movie, The Day After? I watched it, on Belgian television, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. I don’t think my parents knew what it was about, and they probably weren’t paying much attention as it unfolded, because otherwise they would have …