Welcome to the Friday open thread for the Living Simply group. If you are not familiar with our group, the basic idea, from our profile, is:
A group to explore and share sustainable, simple living ideas among fellow progressives. For the urban, rural, or wannabe homesteader, this is a place to share information to simplify everyday life. Sustainable skills such as gardening, food production and storage, do-it-yourself projects for the home or farm, and backyard chickens and other livestock, as well as eco-conscious philosophies such as cooperative living, eco-cities, the Slow Food movement, and being a mindful consumer are but a few potential topics of interest here.
Happy Friday, folks. To round up the diaries posted to the Living Simply group this past week (all were republished), I'll start with Got a Grip's A Tornado is Coming at YOU! What Should You Do? With the recent tragic storms across the south, this is an incredibly timely and important diary. I felt fairly confident that I knew basic storm safety--until I read this piece. I definitely learned a few things. Everyone should read this, either as a refresher or as a basic primer, for good, basic safety tips in the event of a tornado. You might think it doesn't exactly fit within the description of this particular group, but I would disagree. Disaster preparedness skills are the most essential sustainable living skills to have!
Ahem. Ok, lecture over. Promise. Just check out the diary and be safe, agreed?
Other diaries republished to the group this week include Want to retire comfortably? Build your own house! by pollwatcher, Mushroom Foraging: Morel Madness by wv voice of reason (originally published to Foraging), and A Seed Catalog Must-Read on Food, Farming and Socialism by lao hong han.
As for living simply here in my own little corner of the world, my cold-weather veggies are on a mission to take over the world. Just a couple of weeks ago my lettuces and greens were itty-bitty, spindly-legged things in plastic flats. Well, it's amazing what some room to grow (and liberal amounts of horse poo, gifts from my 4-legged pasture potatoes, applied to the raised beds) will do!
We went from this:
To this:
To this! We've been eating wonderful salads for over a week now. I've also been able to pick enough not only for us, but for the chickens, ducks, and peacock (that would be pesky Homer, pictured in my profile, who would sell his soul for a hand-fed leaf of lettuce. Simple creature, that one).
Also, for anyone who read about my foray into fermentation, in which I outline the steps I took to attempt to grow my own kombucha starter (with which I hope to brew my own kombucha), I have a mother! I have successfully started a SCOBY from a bottle of commercial kombucha. Here she is:
The SCOBY is that white-ish disk floating in the tea. It's about 1/4" thick, and is actually separating and starting to form another SCOBY on top of the first. Now I just have to brew the drink itself. Stay tuned--I'll post a diary with instructions, pictures, and the results (hopefully successful) of my adventure, once I brew my first batch of kombucha.
Thread's open. What are you doing to live more simply?