Prmitive Skills

There three primitive skills i want to learn over the coming months. The first is basket making, using flexible twigs. I look at the trees in my yard and imagine what it will be like to do what i've read.

The second skill, is cordage, finding out what plants for making useage cordage. i do have a starting point of a couple plants that work, but i'm sure I can find others as well.

Fire, is the third skill, where sticks and stone, can hurt you, used correctly they can create fire. Fire, the one thing we need to heat and feed ourselves. Not that we need to cook all of our food, but some tastes better that way.

I checked my peat pot greenhouse just minutes ago, and have the beginnings of sprouts! I'm so excited! How could I not be? I spent what would cost me a lunch out, on seeds, and will have food that will feed me for more meals than that, for free.

I just have to get my fishing license and then go catch some more free food. I have to say, that I had bought a fishing license about a year ago, with the intent of going fishing. it was wishful thinking and never went. Getting the ball rolling has been half the battle. Now I feel like I'm just trying to keep up to the ball as it builds momentum.

Getting ready for Spring

I bought some 5gallon buckets for my water re-use efforts. It seems a little weird, when i think about it, but I forget all the reasons not to do it. The water I use to bathe with, turns out to be almost 1gallon, but barely. If i told people i knew, I was re-using the water from bathing and now the water from my washing machine to flush my toilet, I'm sure I'd get the same reaction i always do, when i suggest doing something unheard of. i don't think they realize that washing clothes uses almost 20gallons of water...I won't talk about the wattage required to wash and dry clothes here. I will say, I would look like to wash my clothes in tubs full of rainwater.

Below are my 15gallons of water from one load of clothes...machine set on medium load.

I always run into people in my life, who find it easy to question me. They always go,"why would you do that? etc. I say, why not? Whether it be reducing the amount of TV I watch or collecting cans, it all gets me closer to where i want to be. The only person i need to fight with, is myself, the inner struggle is the hardest of all. I had a coworker ask me if i was turning into the unibomber, when he saw me watching a homesteading video, about raising rabbits. Really? I told him, that I wouldn't waste my time. Then i couldn't help myself, because he eats HotPockets every single day. I said something like, easy there HotPocket blah blah...of course, all i jest. It is almost like, anyone who thinks outside the box is a crackpot...as much as being pagan is devil worship. It makes me wonder if it is 2010 or 1600. Thoreau had the same type doubters, as did all the others who thought outside the box.

I keep wonderig why i see people with "green homes" the size of mansions? Green should also mean less of a footprint on the land, not just green products.

Anyways, today I bought a small Blueberry plant and seeds. It would be nice to be able to grow my own food and have enough to store. I doubt I'll have fruit this year, with proper care I'm sure It will return the favor as it grows.

Square Pegs In Round Holes

I've always thought Japanese style was attractive. The space is used visually and the many uses one room can take on. Last year, some time i started looking more into small spaces and tiny houses. My current house, is small but, I have to admit, i haven't been very productive in the way i use it. i sleep in one room, bathe in another, cook in another and so on.

It was after I found http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ and bought jay's book, that i truly began looking at how i used my space. I also visit http://tinyhouseblog.com/ on a regular basis for new ideas, plus the stories of people living small already are inspiring. I have been on a mission to de-clutter and reassess how to use my space, out with the old in with the new or new to me.

I'm not sure what type of dwelling I will end up in, in the future. It could be a yurt or fiberglass camping trailer, but it will be far from traditional. the process has made me ask myself why on earth, would we put roud dishes in a square cabinet? it just doesn't seem to be an efficient

use of space. Hand-me down dishes, mixed and matched. Teacups that don't seem big enough for any kind of tea, except that of imaginery with stuffed animals sitting around the edges of my tiny table. i do appreciate what I was given, but i think the purging process will see the very things i was given to get me started, donated to those more needy than I.

I have come to understand my space and others space and how we value it. I'll let you sit in the corner with me, as long as you don't yell in my ear. Remember the childs toy, a square or ball withdifferent shaped holes? The object, being to fit the shaped blocks in the right holes? Some of us fit in one shape but not the other. While others would like to be one shape and not the one we are. Then there are those, who pretend to be one shape and quite visibly another. We just need to fidn where we fit...even if we are square.

Somewhere around a new beginning

Welcome to my very first post, to whoever may wander ontot this blog. I' beginning this new journey, finding myself at anther crossroads. I have travelled so far to get here, trying to grow and consider myself a seeker.

How did i find myself here? What does the Washing bowl mean to me? The answer to the first question...I have always thought about blogging, have done some, but never thought I would want to dedicate a space to it. Life changes...well mine has, that's the way I like it. How can we grow if we don't strive to be more than we are? The washing bowl, seems so simple, I mean look at it, but even as i moved the two vessels around, to take the pictures here. I noticed how the perspective changed with the angle of light. It marks a point of my life, that will give me a way to work towards self sufficiency, to fill and empty the vessel over and over again.

If it were just about personal growth, the blog may become a bit stale. My hopes, are to share, the lessons i learn from others and on my own. I'm very interested in homesteading and doing what I can to make my urban home self sufficient, solar, wind, rain water harvesting, etc. I began this part of my journey, cutting down on TV watching, with hopes to eliminate it all together. Which seems simple enough, for those willing to change...books are wonderous things if you know how to use them...they have no on'off button and require no cords. I then became curious, about how to live off the grid without running water. Thus, the search for a vessel to wash myself from, once i found the bowls shown above, they sat unused for over a week. Taking the first step to make a change, can be scary, it is something i face with every new thing I try.

There is something to be said about bowing to a bowl of warm water, cleansing yourself from head to toe. It has been a week bathing this way and it has brought me here.