I recently aquired a large amount of domestic wool top. From mixed sources it's tough and springy and spins up in a jiffy! I made four 100 yard skeins (~4oz each). Two of which I dyed a cherry red/pink and one I left as a sweet bubble gum pink. The fourth I have left as pictured in natural white/cream. I'm working on a fifth skein and hope to open my Etsy shop soon with a group of nuetral, dyed by me and dyed by others (but handspun by me) yarns.

I'm torn between leaving them single ply and having a larger number of the same type of yarn (better for people wanting to make a larger project), or plying them together, reducing my stock but making better yarn. I suppose single ply is also pretty good for knit felting projects as well, though for straight knitting I like double ply. It's just a personal preference I guess.

My little drop spindle is a work horse! But man I would LOVE a wheel. I love the iPad, but I think asking for a spinning wheel for Christmas/Birthday, might have been a more practical way to go. Oh, boy... you know your a geek when a SPINNING WHEEL, seems like a practical gift! I enjoy reading and web browsing on the iPad though so I'm glad I got it!

Plans for the Holiday: Write an iPad/iPhone app, spin my 5 lbs (!) of wool, make my crocheted flowers into hair pin christmas gifts for my girl friends, find christmas like beer for my guy friends and maybe do a bit of skiing. Looks like I need multiple weeks for all of this and not just one!

My new climbing shoes and Daisy the cat! These were great fun today, though I haven't been climbing and my muscles couldn't keep up with my feet in my own pair of climbing shoes.

I Voted!

Off to VOTE!

Now mobile blogging!

Post-Carbon

As our conference speaker Daniel Lerch from the Post Carbon Institute iterated yesterday, our problems are following an exponential pattern of growth. While his point that renewable energy and high tech solutions is not sufficient to handle our environmental and energy problems, this graph gives me hope. And it a relief to know that, despite the recession, PV installation is following that exponential growth. If our problems are growing fast, at least it's good to know that our solutions are growing fast also.

If our political system is broken, or simply not meeting our needs, it's uplifting to see that communities are taking up creative solutions to get their needs met. People coming together to help each other. I like the idea of distributed PV because it provides some of the resilience that Daniel talked about. A home or community that produces and manages it's own energy needs is one more step to being sustainable and resilient. It can withstand stocks to the entire system more readily. Energy is one component of a community that needs to be resilient - other areas are food and waste.

Here perhaps is where I can get on board with biodegradable products. From an industrial perspective, we want the larger system to be able to recapture reusable materials and biodegradable materials are not reusable - they are broken down and used as nutrients to life. However, if a community needs to handle it's own waste, or is cut off from the larger industrial system, it's products must be able to degrade and not pollute the environment that the community depends on.

Other good news...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2010/09/why-solar-will-make-or-break-its-own-future?cmpid=rss

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25565/

Birds!

It must be a mocking bird. I cannot imagine that there are a dozen species of birds in the same tree outside my apartment window, but I've heard at least a dozen bird songs. The sun has just set and the cool air is filtering through the window. Much more comfortably than air conditioning. Comfortably cool nights and humid summer days - if it stays like this I will be so happy!

My glasses came today from Warby Parker. They are fantastic. They are by far the best glasses I've ever had. I will be posting pictures on facebook soon. I also finally arranged a big get-together for my friends at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the USA vs. England World Cup match. I hope lots of people come and that it turns out to be mad fun! I am hoping to set up my laptop and Skype my English boy-friend during the game, as BWW has free wifi. We'll see how that goes.

Just relaxing. Craving a cinnamon bun... listening to the mocking birds and dogs barking and people laughing. Reading. Good Night.

Why I Love My Bike

Breaking the speed limit with peddle power
Thighs like what what what
15 minute shorter commute
Passing cars that are stuck in traffic
Smelling the flowering trees and fresh cut grass on my way to work
No more parking lots - or long walks from the parking lot to the office
Saves on gas money
Cheaper to maintain than a car
300 Calorie Commute: get to skip the gym

Save the planet and your health - ride a bike!

What I'm reading now

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michale Pollan

http://poptech.org/popcasts/michael_pollan_sustainable_food

SUV=

Selfish-Useless-Vehicles

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Think I've heard this before, but heard it once again in the previous post's video. Made me laugh.

xoxo

Douglas Adams: Parrots, the universe and everything | Video on TED.com

Douglas Adams: Parrots, the universe and everything | Video on TED.com

Gardening

I am starting a garden in my apartment! The goal of this experiment is to see was is possible with limited space and access to the outdoors. I want to grow as much of my own food as possible and see what an ambitious apartment dweller is capable of. I think I'm channeling my grandmother who passed away this past December. She was an avid gardener and until January, I've had no interest what so ever in gardening.

I've had my eye on the Aerogarden for a while because of my propensity to buy expensive fresh herbs only to throw the wilted rotted remains in the garbage after just one recipe. But the Aerogarden is expensive and I've heard bad things about the sound of the pump. Not to mention the energy it uses! What kind of environmentalist would I be growing my own herbs using electricity when the sun provides all the energy my plants will ever need?

I started about three weeks ago with a selection of herb seeds - basil, chives, parsley - and two packets of flower seeds - petunias and sweet peas. In little plastic contraptions call "mini greenhouses" I started the seedlings. They germinated quickly and I found that watching their changes from day to day was absolutely enthralling. When the sweet peas and basil began to push against the top of the greenhouse I transplanted the seedlings. All are doing well except for the petunias, which while they seem ok, are still quite small. The Sweet peas are HUGE!

I've since planted peppers, tomatoes, rosemary, and coriander. These are starting to germinate also. The tomatoes have been transplanted as have the rosemary seedlings. The coriander seems to grow very slowly, however it's roots go very deep - I thinned a few seedlings that looked crowed and discovered thick roots holding the little plants in place.

Addicted to this new gardening thing, I ordered more seeds from Amazon.com. Carrots, mini Eggplant, container lettuce, arugula, strawberry, cucumber and oddly a mini olive tree. The olive tree is a bit of a whim and I don't expect much from it and the carrots will be a challenge. They are baby carrots but I will still need to find a very deep pot for them and I still don't know if they will survive inside. The other vegetables are all selected for indoor container gardens.

Thinning is my biggest challenge so far. Having expectantly watched each tiny plant poke it's little head above the soil I feel so ruthless ripping it out of it's bed to make room for it's big brothers. But this must be done or the plants will suffer and not bear fruit, or strangle each other. I bought Organic Fertilizer Spikes, as these were the only organic plant food offers at Home Depot and while they are not specified for indoor container use they are specifically for vegetables. This is another experiment. I could very well kill my little crop with improper feeding, but it also, just might work.

I look forward expectantly toward harvest time when I will have herbs, fruits and vegetables to cook with!

One More Reason I Heart Solar

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/24511/page1/


also why I heart EV's:
http://gas2.org/2009/01/02/prius-powers-home-during-ice-storm/

Could we see a world in which we are nearly free from reliance on the energy grid?

http://en.afrik.com/article16124.html

A world in which most homes are powered by cheap, high efficiency solar cells, stored in our EV's rapidly improving batteries? Or perhaps a combination of our EV battery and a home hydrogen storage system?

http://poptech.org/popcasts/dan_nocera_personalized_energy

Decentralization. Less dependence on government and a delicate network of services. The recent snow reminds me of our dependence of government services. Without the skilled snowplow men and women of Michigan, Delaware was a royal mess all week. What happens if the power goes out for days or weeks? What happens if the water is shut off? If apartment complexes, homes and neighborhoods could become energy, heat and water self sufficient at a low cost, it wouldn't be such a big deal. Solar power stored in batteries and hydrogen storage tanks. Water collected from rain, snow, runnoff and gray water, reprocessed cheaply for washing and toilets and hydrogen, while purified water (waste from the hydrogen fuel cell) could be piped up for drinking. If all products (and packaging) were designed to be biodegradable and homes and complexes practiced composting, we wouldn't have to worry much about trash pick-up either. What would we even throw away if all packaging was biodegradable and products were reclaimed by the company after you used them for up-cycling?

http://poptech.org/popcasts/eben_bayer_biopackaging

What if we could be data independent also? I think about my iPhone's 3G capability and the above cellular base station idea. Apple and AT&T claimed to introduce tethering at some point. If I didn't have cable, if my cellular data offered enough bandwidth, I could tether my phone and get internet on my phone and computer anywhere that cellular signal was available. Solar powered, wireless world. Clean safe equitable profitable beautiful just transparent and diverse.

Idealist that I am I see this in the not too distant future. It may be messy, take a long time, and not look quite how I imagine, but I see some variant of these dreams just over the horizon.

Chelsea Buns!

The Chelsea bun is a type of currant bun that was first created in the eighteenth century at the Bun House in Chelsea, an establishment favoured by Hanoverian royalty and demolished in 1839. The bun is made of a rich yeast dough flavoured with lemon peel, cinnamon or a sweet spice mixture. Prior to being rolled into a square spiral shape the dough is spread with a mixture of currants, brown sugar and butter. A sweet glaze covering is added before the rolled-up dough is sliced into individual buns and baked. The process of making this bun is very similar to that involved in producing the cinnamon roll.
~Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_bun)

I better not eat any of those ...or this Chelsea's buns will get to be the size of those Chelsea's buns! I love puns... :)

This is not your parent's energy crisis

http://poptech.org/popcasts/thomas_friedman__poptech_2006

a little old but worth a look

All this for only 400 calories! Sweet Potato fries, veggie pizza with cheese, mushrooms, peppers and onion. Delicious!

http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/generating-blueenergy