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For those who were not so fortunate as to make it to the FRESH Book Festival, you have my deepest sympathies!!

But there will be an opportunity again next year, and in the meantime you can partake of many festival highlights and learn about the various authors via the website http://www.freshbookfestivals.net

Lots of photos and videos were taken (maybe more than in all previous years combined lol I don’t know), and I doubt very strongly it’s all been uploaded yet, so do bookmark the website and check back often!

Also follow the FRESH Book Festival Facebook page.

Literacy is power! Books change lives!!

PS. Yes the sewing kit is relevant, it’s part of my eco-themed display and fiction character.

Solar oven reached almost 350 F at one point today, even though the temperature of the air outside was just a little over freezing. In my experience the air temperature doesn’t have all that much effect on the solar oven’s performance, it’s all about the sun angle and clear sunny sky. Lower humidity seems to be an advantage also.

Of course, the window for solar cooking is wider in summer because there are simply more sun hours. But it’s perfectly doable in winter too, you just have to be a bit more organized and on top of time window.

See pics here on my deep Green book page. Which is just about to reach 1300 followers, woo hoo!

I wish solar ovens would become as popular as other great outdoor cooking methods such as propane stove, charcoal grill, and smoker.

#SolarCooking

Added later: Part 1 of today’s solar cooking was combining and heating up a few snippets of leftovers into a delicious hot lunch.

Part two, now in progress, is melting down candles that have become unburnable because of uneven melt, wick issues etc.; and making them into new candles. This is a sort of DIY upcycle micro skill I started here a little while back. I’ve gotten better at it over time.

This is one of those low-risk, repetitive household tasks that could become low-stress micro cottage enterprises, or what I call “happy chill stoner jobs of the urban scavenge-punk future.”

OMG OMG!!! Just two more followers and I reach 1300! Thank you guys so much!

Every new follower of my “DEEP GREEN book by jenny nazak” facebook page helps me to get more & more essential info resources out to the people who need them.

Because I have been very fortunate in life, I am in a position where I do not have to monetize my page. However, every single new follower helps me widen my reach, and share the life-saving tips and info that I compile and create. From many sources.

From transportation, to home heating and cooling, to scrap leftovers cooking tips, upcycling suggestions, the most high-value online communities offering liberation from the consumer treadmill, exhilarating financial content, feats of gonzo stitchery, and much more, the information I provide as my mission is not only life-saving to individuals and households and communities, but also to the planet that is our only home!

Help me, help you, help Mother Earth and all of Her creatures by following my page.

And thank you!

DEEP GREEN book by Jenny Nazak! Bringing you Deep-Green Living, Decolonization, Degrowth, Doomer Home Ec — all day every day!!

Update!!! We did it!!! I am officially at 1.3k. Thank you all so much.

Even in Florida, we are having historic (for us) cold temperatures. Temps were in the 20s for almost 12 hours last night here. Very unusual for it to dip that low, and for it to stay that long.

Thank you to the Volusia sheriffs office for checking on unhoused people, usual locations of camps etc., and offering people transportation to cold-weather shelter.

And also, this is a reminder that many of our unhoused neighbors for whatever reasons do not feel safe or willing to accept cold-weather shelter. There’s only so much we can do, but one neighbor put out a lovely blanket, another neighbor verbally checks on people they pass by, etc. Oh and another neighbor purchased a hot cocoa for a person sitting in the cold. Who was not willing to go to the cold weather shelter.

Please feel free to add any resources you know of, in the comment section. Cold weather will continue for a few more days.

We (Daytona Beach Permaculture a Guild; starshine house / jenny’s corner) are engaged in ongoing research to help everyone (housed as well as unhoused) stay comfortable & safe in cold weather and all other extreme weather. We publish various tips and resources on our blog and page.

As a tree trimmer’s comments in this thread demonstrate, we will get nowhere unless people (Landscapers, tree trimmers, etc.) can make a steady living without having to do harmful things to trees and ecosystems.

Besides the ecological aspect, a very important issue regarding occupational stability, is that the landscaping and tree trimming industry is one of the very few paths available to returning felons. This is something I feel very strongly about, we need to be able to offer meaningful livelihoods and a path back into society to people who have served their time.

As for my credentials, I am an ecological landscaper and land repair specialist for 20 years. Including not only thousands of hours of classroom training in permaculture design, rainwater harvesting, food forestry, urban revitalization and more, but also land-based apprenticeships in multiple bioregions. All entirely self-funded.

My original post (with photos of some of the worst mutilation I’ve ever seen) that prompted comment backlash from (predictably) a tree trimmer:

Before and after. Lush beautiful healthy palms, and now mutilated. Absolutely disgusting! Anyone who does this to a tree never deserves to touch a tree again. I would say they need their license removed but the licensing restrictions are so lax it’s moot. And anyone who allows this to be done to their trees is seriously not playing with a full deck. Notice what these mutilated sticks resemble — I call it flipping the bird at mother nature.

Respect trees or stop working with trees, period!!! Learn your job or find another line of work.

Aw snap! I knew it was coming, the only thing I don’t like about the brand-new house nearing completion next-door, they are now delivering a truckload of sod to “pave” the yard.

One of the first things we learned in Permaculture design class was: What looks very smooth and tranquil outdoors is often very violent and intrusive, requiring steady inputs of huge inputs of fuel and human energy and other resources to maintain. And what looks messy to the human eye is actually the consummate order of nature and all living things. The self-organizing property of systems.

Not that there’s anything wrong with adding our human touch to the system; just that working so against nature creates work for us in addition to disrupting necessary habitat for other species.

I knew it was coming. It’s almost as bad as paving, in a way. But I can still hold out hope that the homeowner will not opt for the hard-core chemical maintenance. Please send good vibes for the protection of my sweet little food and native plant and wildlife refuge yard!

It always twists my heart to see a big sod truck on our beachside yards, But really at the end of the day, Starshine House / jenny’s corner / Trailhead 501 is a laboratory and we operate with the understanding that we’re in an urban area and we meet the surrounding circumstances with creativity and low tech ingenuity. And, we will love our neighbors! I know we will. Because loving our neighbors is what we DO!

PS. Here on the beachside, unless people opt for seriously chemical intensive landscaping and extreme irrigation, the wildflower + other native plant seedbank does survive in the soil and eventually manages to come back through!

PPS. This is copy pasted from a post I made on my deep green Facebook page the other day, regarding buzzcut sodgrass medians in the road: Can we pretty please maybe someday stop having mini lawns in the middle of the street? While buzzcut sodgrass may have its place, certainly it shouldn’t be on islands in the middle of the street. It’s a good surface for playing ball, walking, playing golf etc. but otherwise we need real plants. Eliminate non-functional turf grass! Bring back lush vegetation! Give mow and blow businesses other ways to earn good income! De-normalize noisy intrusive “landscaping”! Make landscaping landscaping again!

#RethinkLandscaping #SodOff

Someone in the homesteaders group made a post wondering if the lifestyle of someone calling himself off-grid was really valid. The person she was talking about lives in his car

I commented:

For some of us, at the current stage of society, living off grid or nearly off grid includes utilizing resources that would otherwise go into landfill. This includes clothing that people are throwing away; food that people are throwing away that is still perfectly good — not to mention public buses, bicycles, taxis, industrially produced materials & machinery; etc. And yes even one’s personal automobile or van.

So it can seem like a contradiction in terms that we are still using things from the industrial society as we transition to remembering more of what people in pre-industrial societies did. BTW a big mistake for a lot of people is trying to live alone and off the grid. Yes, some people suit that lifestyle but for most of us, being in network with other people – a social grid, if you will – is not in contradiction with being on the path toward off grid or grid light living. Hope this helps, and thank you for your post. And thank you to all who are commenting. Everybody’s perspective is valuable.

(You can check out the post here; it’s a public group.)

BTW the group itself is called homesteaders looking for helpers, helpers looking for homesteads.

There are a huge wealth of valuable experience of being shared in there. Almost 145K members and counting!

Note, in other groups I’m part of, such as the permaculture design community and bioregionalist circles, many of us who are on an anti-racism and decolonization path have ceased using the word “homestead” because it has racist & genocidal antecedents. Many of us prefer homesite, smallholding, or just dwelling, sustainable household, etc. Incidentally (nit), a lot of what us EAs are calling “homesteads” are basically an aspiring plantation! Yikes. We don’t need to go down that path again please.