Turil Cronburg's Blog – April 2010 Archive (30)

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Yesterday had me working on the maple sap problem. Turns out that you do in fact need freezing nights, and warmer days, to get sap to come out, because what happens is that overnight the sap in the branches of the tree freezes, and then during the day, when things warm up, the sap defrosts and comes rushing down the trunk and back to the roots. (The tree's sap is like animals' blood, it gets nutrients from one spot and then delivers the… Continue

(Note: this is actually my Quest. I'm posting it here because Ning kept cutting off the text halfway through for some unexplained reason. So here it is, in it's full, brave, glory!)





The thing I believe in most of all is my unconditional love for my husband. I know that doesn't sound all that exciting, but trust me, it is, if you know our story. I believe that unconditional love for a person is crucial to their healthy growth and development… Continue

Yesterday, I was feeling quite a bit more of a human, and had enough energy to go out twice. Bright and early, I headed out to do some trashpicking (a more modern version of foraging, I guess) and found some wonderful structures for a garden I've helping create down at the awesome and unique Sprouts space down the hill from me. I found a large bamboo papasan chair seat and a small wire garden fence to… Continue

Simplicity runs head first into complexity!



I am still enjoying my wild and free diet, however today has been rather more of a fasting day, not because of any lack of foraged food, but because I spent the past 24 hours dealing with my cantankerous tooth. It flared up last night to the point where I realized that enough was enough and it was time to let the professionals do something about it. Which, in this society either means… Continue

In my continuing quest to utilize nature's own economy to get my food needs met, I was checking in with an old friend of mine who's an urban naturalist and he mentioned that there was a website that listed the larger urban wild spaces in the city of Boston. And when I went to the Urban Wilds | City of Boston site I discovered that there is actually an official city program to protect and preserve urban wild spaces in the city. Which… Continue

I walked down to one of the local libraries to get some more books on wild foods (because I only had four already, and that simply wasn't enough! I really am a book-aholic, aren't I?), and scoped out the slim wild food pickings on the way there. I found a reasonable amount of the usual spring "cleansing tonic" greens (dock, dandelion, clover, etc.) periodically, so I know I won't starve, at least, and I should be extra healthy with all the tonic! :-)



I was surprised to find my favorite… Continue

My camera and I took a long walk today along a recreational path near where I'm staying, to scope out the potential wild foods for my week 5 action mission to take advantage of the gift economy inherent in nature. I'm starting officially on Sunday, but I'm doing some experimentation already, because I'm so excited. However, today's walk was a bit depressing, as the path is afflicted with monoculture, and the aim of the… Continue

For this week's act mission, I had an extra difficult time finding something to do that I'd "NEVER" done before, as Alchemy insisted in the mission brief. I already do live on less than $2 a day, in the Boston area. I already am a member of a time trade group. I already do barter regularly (most notably for housing). I already have had a Google checkout processing thingie on my website for people to pay me for my work. I already do work on a sliding scale basis (you can pay me from $0 to… Continue

Biomimicry!



In solving problems that one individual or species is having, use the solutions that another individual or species has already come up with.



It works.



It works even for complicated things like economics.



In fact, it works even better for complicated things like economics, because nature is the most experienced systems engineer in our universe.



And while it might not immediately sound easy to use… Continue