New Project: Making Bitters

...I’ll share the recipes I develop as I follow this path. In the meanwhile, making your own bitters is really easy. You may be able to throw a few experiments together just using things you find in your spice cabinet. Since these are flavoring, not medicine, you don’t have to be as careful with the quantities and timing as you must be when tincturing herbs for medicine. Yet at the same time, it’s a great introduction to that essential herbalist’s c...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: #FlyingLess, VHS Making a Comeback and Alanis Morissette Impressions

The #flyingless movement is gaining traction! It’s time for organizations to get on board. It’s not a huge ask: simply encourage members to fly less and support this behavior wherever possible. @AmericanAnthro @theAGU @TyndallCentre @KevinClimate @jasonhickel @Malena_Ernman https://t.co/144QP2UG8M — Peter Kalmus (@ClimateHuman) March 22, 2018 Manhattan Beach beekeeper pushed aside by city in favor of pest control contractor https://t.co/Upwrz5Erx...

Read…

Seat Weaving for Fun and Profit

...2-pound rolls since I correctly anticipated making some mistakes the first time and I’m planning on making more of these chairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkE05DD9_Y I found a helpful seat weaving tutorial on YouTube by Ed Hammond a.k.a. Peerless Rattan. Hammond has sixteen videos on how to weave and cane a variety of chairs. Please note that in addition to ladderback chairs there’s a lot of mid-century Scandinavian chairs that have a sligh...

Read…

Big List of Earth-Friendly (homemade, compostable, recyclable, no-plastic) Holiday Decorations

...reconnect with nature. This alone can be enormously calming at a stressful time, and may help us back into a more expansive state of mind. The holidays can be so loud and jangly and rushed. Just stepping back and spending some time admiring the geometry of a pine cone or the cleverness of an acorn helps cleanse the mind of all that noise. Seasons come and go. Holidays come and go. Ornaments which reflect the seasons should come and go, too. The fa...

Read…

The Wonder of Worms

...n this is “why bother?” Just put the dry castings on or in the soil. Every time you water your plant, the castings will release nutrients. Making tea is just extra work for you. Humans like to complicate things. Worms leave their castings in or on the soil. We should, too. (Leave the worms’ castings, that is, not our own castings. We needn’t alarm the neighbors.) Third, there’s aerated compost tea (ACT), as popularized by Elaine Ingham. This is ma...

Read…