Happy Solstice to everyone!


SALISBURY, UNITED KINGDOM – DECEMBER 22:  A So...
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I started the day greeting the dawn at home, in the garden, planting shallots. It’s traditional to plant them on the shortest day of the year and harvest them on the longest. Despite being generally an unconventional kind of person, eschewing tradition in favour of trying out the new, I decided to give it a go. After all, it’s probably good for the shallots. It will certainly help me to remember when they’re supposed to be ready for pulling up.

Our foremothers and fathers had considerably more sense and practical knowledge than most of us today can lay claim to. I never dismiss so-called old wives' tales out-of-hand, either.

Shallots
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Sunday, December 21st, 2008

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2008: a new home, new ways of living, new thinking


2008 was the year I predicted, somewhat casually at some point in the previous 12 months, that the proverbial shit would hit the fan with regard to the world economy, climate change, and fossil fuels. It gives me no pleasure whatsoever to have been right, but the end of rampant, unfettered consumerism—or at least its death throes—affords us new opportunities to learn how to work with, instead of against, the natural world. We spend less, we cut back on usage, we make less waste, we recycle more. That’s the hope, and it makes sense financially now as well as environmentally.

Saturday, August 30th, 2008

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