Many Detroit (and non-Detroit) natives may be familiar with Charlie LeDuff’s 2014 Detroit: An American Autopsy. Written in the wake of Detroit’s declaration of bankruptcy, which, if you have lived here for any length of time you know was only the final nail in the coffin.
It’s no secret that more and more of our kids are spending less time outdoors and more time in front of a screen on any given day. The sad news is, so are adults, and we should know better.
People are busy, there is more homework, and parents are afraid to let their kids roam around the neighborhood by themselves.
Why not kill two birds with one stone and create a dream space for the kids. Maybe when you are done, you will want to be out there more, too, and invite the neighbors over while you’re at it!
The book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, is inspiring for anyone who has ever considered a vegetable garden.
Kingsolver recounts how she, her husband, and their two daughters moved from Arizona where growing your own food is much more difficult and uses up much precious water. The family settled in Virginia on a family property in order to grow their whole food supply.
The first time I ever heard of carrageenan was when I was embarking on the Whole 30 for the first time. This is a diet – or more like a 30-day food challenge – designed to radically change your relationship to food and bring you back to a healthier place, physically.
It has become common to see pictures of people’s food on social media with a hashtag label for what Whole 30 day they are on as a mark of accomplishment. The challenge can get intense. You are not allowed to eat any grains, sugars or dairy.
Are you a fan of the Winter Olympics? It’s one of my favorite indoor pastimes in winter, even though it does only come around every four years.
One benefit of watching the Olympics is that it tends to remind you that people do have the ability to enjoy themselves outdoors in winter.
Let’s face it. Gardeners don’t always make the best winter lovers. However, here is a challenge. How can we get outside and enjoy the season despite the cold? Skiers do it. Hunters do it.
Gardeners can do it too! One pastime enjoyed by many gardeners in warm months is still available to you through the winter! Birding.
The first time I heard about building with cob, it was from a relative who was planning to go off the grid. He was going to buy a piece of land with cash, move there in the early summer, and build his cob house with his own two hands before the cold weather hit.
What are cob houses, I wondered?
He told me it was basically mud.
One of my favorite memories from childhood is of picking apples at my grandparents’ house. Neither of them would have considered themselves farmers. However, since they both grew up on a farm – in the midst of the depression – growing their own food was second nature.
Twenty or so years before I was born, they planted several kinds of apple trees in their large front yard. I can remember climbing a ladder to get to the very top branches with the sweetest apples and eating them straight from the tree.
Weed trees. Have you ever had one? I bet you remember if you have.
I will never forget the sweaty weekday I spent weeding the overgrown flower beds at a rental house I lived in with three other people. None of us had grown up taking care of our own flower beds or even doing very much weeding with our parents.
If you listened to a recent piece on NPR’s This American Life, or read National Geographic – or if you are paying attention at all to scientists’ newest predictions about sea level rise, you know that some of, or most of the biggest and most populated cities in the world are set to disappear in a permanent flood due to climate change.
There’s nothing more tragic to a lover of plants than the sight of several sad little plants languishing by themselves in a newly “landscaped” front yard or park. It may be on a small island amidst a sea of concrete, or even in a sea of grass.
I often see the beginning gardens of amateur gardener and wonder what’s going wrong with it.
Why doesn’t it please the eye? Why does it look stunted and sad?
After all, the gardener was most likely following the instructions that are given by the nursery about how best to cultivate the plant. Most instructions give placement requirements: “plant no closer than 2 inches from another plant.”