Personal site: http://xylemphloem.xyz
Other fediverse: @xylem@mander.xyz
The author is a little gimmicky but his advice is legit. For example, he claims his “Conscious Spending Plan” isn’t a budget - it’s a budget. He knows his stuff, though, even though he does all the usual influencer things of trying to sell courses, etc.
This looks awesome! I love the way the vine is twining around the line of the tear
I’m my experience tears like that are hard to fix by just stitching the two sides back together - if it comes apart again it might benefit from a patch, which you could put on the inside if you want to keep the current look
The cityscape looks much like Lowell, MA or Manchester, NH - I’m a big fan of the brickwork of the old mill towns along the Merrimack River. Great work as always!
I’ve been harvesting lots of kale, radish, and lettuce for salads. In hindsight I should have staggered my radish plantings a bit because they’re all maturing at the same time - and some are getting quite spicy!
Miraculously the two blueberry bushes I planted last year which subsequently got chomped down to sticks have survived and leafed out, so I’m pleased about that. Also spotted a wild grape vine growing near by which I’m going to encourage.
The corn’s starting to come up now, and it’s that fun time of year where stuff starts just taking off.
Cucumbers and tomatoes are getting nicely established, and the corn is starting to come up in the 3 sister mounds. I spotted the first snap pea flower today. Love this time of year!
I also recently tried spicebush tea for the first time, which was amazing - I will be thoroughly enjoying the 5 or so bushes I found in the woods out back!
Planting the garden is well underway, we added a bunch of new beds this year. We’ve been building tomato cages out of last year’s sunflower stalks, you can see a partially constructed one on the right. The cucumbers in the center will get something more conventional with metal stakes and netting.
I also just acquired a spicebush, which I’m very excited to put in the ground! Just gotta figure out the right location.
AntennaPod is good on android
My seed order arrived last week, planning to start at least the onions soon!
This solar powered electric cooker operates on a kind of similar principle (store up heat to cook food using minimal continuous energy input), and is a good example of one way to construct the insulation - https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2025/10/how-to-build-a-solar-powered-electric-oven/
Pests and diseases are another thing to be careful of. I’ve ended up with a pretty bad spider mite infestation after replanting some grocery store lettuce. Like any new houseplant, consider keeping it isolated for a while!
I don’t think the intent or messaging should be to shame people for their choices in buying ultra processed convenience foods - because the real problem is that they don’t have the choice. Systemic factors have made whole, locally produced, healthy foods inaccessible for too many people - food deserts and the consolidation of the agricultural and food production sectors, and the fact that people juggling multiple jobs and childcare just don’t have the time to prepare meals from scratch.
Systemic problems require collective solutions, either from government or from direct organizing. But the first step is to identify the problem and research the harms that UPF and long supply chains cause.
If you’re comfortable on the command line, exiftool is pretty flexible and can likely do what you want
This is great, and it doesn’t have to be as complicated to get started. Here’s my setup -
I cancelled my Spotify membership back in April and have been buying on average an album a month, either Bandcamp or directly from artists if possible. Bandcamp is also decent for discovering new artists, and I’ve also gone old-school and sought out music critic websites that cover the genres I like.
This is cool, and what great timing - I just spent the last half hour sewing up the seam inside the ear cups of my QC35s. The fake leather is flaking as well so I’ll definitely try something like this in the future, probably with fabric (maybe a 4-way stretch cotton knit, athletic fabric probably a good choice)
I was also thinking about crocheting a cover for the top band.
Currently enjoying a salad of overwintered kale and cabbage, beet greens from thinning the sprouts, a couple radishes, and snap peas, with sunflower seeds and fresh dill sprinkled on top. I just added grocery store cucumber and bell pepper, because I was behind on planting those. This is what we do it for!
The indieweb / smallweb community has some tutorials, like this one - https://32bit.cafe/cyowebsite/
I recently visited The Garden In the Woods, near Framingham, MA - it’s a combination botanical garden and native plant store. Wonderful place, I highly recommend it to anyone in the area. I came home with a Serviceberry bush that I planted where one of the hedge/tree conifer things on the edge of my yard had died.
In the annual garden my flour corn is coming up - planted it a bit late, so hopefully it’ll have enough time. I’m a little behind on everything except the peas this year, tbh, but it’s nice to see things finally start to take off.
Sounds like the zipper is too long - a friend was just telling me about this pitfall since I’m planning to make a pair of pants soon.
I don’t have any first-hand experience, but this YouTube channel has some great videos about tailoring jeans. Not exactly your problem, but might at least help you understand the construction - https://youtu.be/AiYmCpDKmqk
This may also help - https://youtu.be/RBN10DxjW14
I’d probably replace the blue jay with a cardinal and instead slot the blue jays in with the honk squad. Not honk, but similar volume and propensity for chaos