Sustainable Living in August: Hand-dipped Beeswax Candles

 A short introduction to making candles with beeswax a few years back was an inspiration enough to dabble with my own candle dipping project on a hot August day. Honey harvest of the season is in progress, with some coming in July, and the final collection in mid August after which point bees will be left to rest and get ready for winter. Mid August in cold climate is the time when most blossoms will be finished and despite balmy weather, with few feeding options left for the bees to explore. With each honey harvest there will be beeswax (that is if using topbar hives - more on them later), a substance important to the bees but often discarded by the busy beekeepers.

Radical Home-making: Sewing and Knitting for Children

Pattern here.

A photo gallery of clothing-making inspiration - for parents, grandparents and unattached adults - reclaiming another lost skill of working with fiber arts, making clothing with love and meaning - sized and tailored and envisioned and imbued with love just for that special person - to keep them warm, to dress them up, to cheer and to make feel special. Above is a girl's dress made for my God Daughter - woolen dresses are so good to keep the little bottoms warm while looking feminine and lovely. Knitted dresses are also great for long time - as the child grows, the dress becomes more of a long top, still functional and much loved!

Sustainble Living in October - Replenishing

The air ringing with blue and golden light, first frost on its way - and harvest is all around us.  And what we take from the land, must be returned and replenished - so as squashes, tomatoes, tomatillos, beets and potatoes are leaving the ground, compost and mulch are coming it. In gardening we depend on animals to bring fertility to the soil - and it is impossible to maintain fertile soils sustainably otherwise. Manure and feathers bring nitrogen and phosphorus and other micro-elements needed in soil. Organic matter comes from animal bedding. What comes out after cleaning the shed goes in the garden - mostly in the fall and winter months, to have a good long time to decompose and integrate in the soil in time for the growing season. For those who live without animals, it is worth figuring out how to bring in an occasional load of goat (or lama/sheep/rabbit) manure - other manures may be very weedy (i.e. horse manure) or event contain salt (i.e. commercial cow manure is quite toxic to soil). Attracting song birds to your garden is another approach, though of course their contribution to manuring your garden will be rather small.
Worms are good creatures to have, of course, and to encourage worms we occasionally put our kitchen waste under the mulch in the garden, cover it with large metal lid (such as trash can lid) and place a heavy rock on top - to discourage skunks and racoons from exploring. Earth worms get a very good in-situ meal that way, and all nutrients are delivered directly to the garden, none are lost to leaching like they are in a typical compost pile.

Storing garden bounty is another seasonal challenge - and we just happily converted a vacant corner in the well house to  root cellar. Not an ideal setting, but good enough with stable temperatures (currently in the low 50-s) and moderate humidity (70%) it is adequate for potatoes, squash, pumpkins, onions and garlic. A bucket of water is readily available so it can poured on the cement floor to increase humidity to a more desirable 80+%
Now is also busy time for knitting and sewing - all the warm things needed for winter, especially for children! Woolens, a European invention, lovely, very pricey, oh-so-wonderful warm and thin - this year are to be home-made from scratch using merino wool fabric - a project a bit too ambitious but hopefully doable. Sweaters for early morning forays to the goats, to the wetlands, to the clothes line... Mittens, felted for added warmth - and knitted thick wool pants to keep the little one shielded from the wind and nippy temperatures. A wealth of free patterns for knitters from Drops Design; including wonderfully warm and practical children patterns.

Parenting and Sustainable Living

Gardening, canning, harvesting.... knitting, sewing, building.... working, taking care of the land, animals, plants... keeping creativity flowing, making things and meeting needs. From such creativity arises the basic knowledge on how to live life independently from manufactured objects. Life happily disconnected from much shopping, from looking outside of one's microcosm for fixes such as new toys, new things. Creativity and work keep us able to meet our needs with what is available, what is around us, making our own world "enough".

Sustainable Living in July - Laundry Goes Outdoors

 

A recycled double sink, an old outdoor-appropriate shelf, a nice location in shade of an olive tree, a drain to the garden - and voila, a garden laundromat is borne! The decision to wash by hand at least some portion of our clothes came when our three year old son developed a fondness for mud and water play. There is no way his clothes could go inside of the house, much less directly into the washing machine! At the same time it became abundantly clear that most of this clothes (and some of ours) don't really need any kind of vigorous, best-performed-by-highly-specialized-and-very-professional washing machine wash. A good number of things needs simple refreshing or spot cleaning.

Candlemas, Imbolc - Life Force is Rising! (Making Beeswax Candles)

Hard to believe on this -18F (-27C) night that transition from winter to spring has begun. We have to trust our ancestors, who saw the signs much more clearly than we can, with our senses protected and dulled by running hot water, central heating systems, space-age fabrics and such. Because our ancestors saw that on this day, February 2nd, a struggle between winter and spring, old and new, death and life took a definite turn towards rebirth and restoration of life force.

Creative Children's Clothing - 2

 Another life for an old wool sweater - children's pants + vest. Try buying pure wool pants for your child and you find the price tag at around $45-50.  Wool is not only warm but it is water resistant - a good option for snow play, or active outdoor time in cold weather. 

Creative Children's Clothing - Repurposing Old Sweaters

Ever thought about how many items of clothing each young child has, between all the gifts and purchases from inspired loving parents? Lots and lots. Multiply that by number of children nationwide, and an image of a very, very large mountain of clothing may emerge in your mind's eye. All of that stuff needs shipping (think carbon footprint), storage (think pesticide applications), packaging (all new materials) and handling (at minimum wage).
Solutions? Buy used, make your own, pass it on. Pictured above is a second-hand woman's lamb's wool sweater, size Small on a 2.5 year old child. Wind protection - check. Water-resistant - check. Butt covered from cold air - check. Space to grow - check. Natural material - check. Can be put over and under other things - check. It even has a hood!

Eating In Season - Green Living in January

What is January all about if we want to live in tune with nature? What lessons would you learn in this season when earth is resting and life is nearly invisible? Staying warm, staying connected with our tribe/ our family, staying well fed, acknowledging dark and light  - no matter what era it is, these elements define our lives in the cold and dark months of winter time. And how do we create green living in January?

Herbal Teas - Winter Harvest

 

  

Hot tea, anybody? Not the dry mix that sat in some warehouse and was shipped around the world, packaged and stored, and handled. (Photo left to right: homegrown mint, lemon balm, horsetail, stinging nettle)

Herbs are easy to grow even in smallest of places, and with minimal gardening experience. Planting a batch of herbs makes a good first step in learning to grown your own food. It does not take too many plants to produce enough fresh leaves for herbal teas - even a balcony-sized garden can be quite productive; and those of us with more sizable gardens can produce enough to make fresh aromatic teas that last until the next season. 

Disconnecting - Whole Life Redesign (Part Two)

A boy of seven years age came by to visit. We made a fire in my Russian stove and sat there watching it burn. "Burning trees is polluting to the environment", he said. "But I think it is still better than the other, regular, way to heat your house". Why young children are burdened with this information at an age when they don't have the power to do anything, to make decisions or implement changes in their lives, I don't know. Perhaps it makes parents feel good to have these politically correct conversations with their children.

Is there a better way to introduce sustainability/ ecology/ environmentalism into your life; such as through real practice?

Goat Cheese - Winter Harvest!

 

Mozarella (pictured above) is a good summer cheese - easy to make, fast and highly enjoyable with all the stretchy cheese strings and braided designs. It tastes great with tomatoes, and basil - and I have already written on this blog about my profound realization that many of our beloved classic dishes are actually made not just with components that go well together, but these ingredients actually occur in nature at the same time! 

Mozarella-basil-tomato salad is one of those dishes that speaks about a particular moment in the season, ripe tomatoes, juicy basil leaves, and of course lots and lots of fresh sweet milk. 

In the winter, a much more appropriate cheese is a hard wheel of Gouda, Monterrey Jack, or Cheddar - cheeses that take months to ripen. 

Calm and Quiet Work – Inner Life and Living Green in December

How do we meet the cold and the dark of the year in a permaculture way; what goes on with ourselves and our gardens, houses, kitchens and landscapes?

This dark time of year commands slowing down, nesting and conserving energy. The soils are resting under the thick blanket of mulch, leaves and twigs that were brought to the garden earlier. Orchards silently receive weak sunshine and strong night frosts. There are hardly any eggs in the chicken house, and goats are giving less milk.

Celebration with the Pumpkin Patch Fairy

Dinner tonight was served by the light of my very own home-made candle - bees' wax from the hives next door; diligently dipped two candles at the time with my toddler drifting in and out of the kitchen.
Herbal tea from alfalfa blossoms, nettle leaf and strawberry clover, served cold. Bread fresh from the oven, dough mixed by my 2 year old son.

Natural Dyes, Easter

Dyed with geranium petals, black-berry juice, marigold petal tea, onion skins tea - these eggs are edible and lovely. Shine is created by rubbing with a little olive oil.

Broom Making!

I made a broom! Short introduction - my son likes to copy everything I do and sweeping is one of the favorite things for many toddlers. Most commercial brooms are too big, and some are even dangerous (http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07309.html - look here for children gardening toys recall due to lead content violations). In addition I am really sick to keep shopping every time I identify a need or desire! I found some "eco-friendly" brooms - those made with appealing materials by some appealing people, with high price tags and which need to be shipped (read - a large UPS truck in our driveway, driving who knows how many extra miles to get here). Or else I can drive to town and spend 3-4 hrs combing large box-stores in search of lead-free (ha!) child-friendly brooms.