r ransom

Hand manipulated weaving was big with vikings.   Warp weighted loom was common, but the coast salish weaving frames have the same technique but easier to transport and set up.

Glad you are on the mend.  Keep getting better please

All regions
POSTED: Jul 24, 9:51 a.m.
LAST UPDATED: Jul 26, 11:08 a.m.
Customers across the province may experience flickering lights, brief power interruptions or fluctuations in power due to wildfire activity across the province. Smoke and ash from the wildfire are causing short, temporary interruptions in the flow of electricity. Our electrical grid is operating as expected under these conditions and we continue to work closely with BC Wildfire Service on our response. Thank you for your patience.

https://www.bchydro.com/power-outages/app/outage-conditions.html#All_regions

Still ongoing.  

Not unusual to have happen during wildfire season.  

Thankfully we had some unseasonal rain near my home.  Not much, but any at all this month is unusual.  It's help bring the three fires within reach of my house to "contained" and might even be able to extinguish them as they are all about 1ha or less.  

The workshops they have for wildfire management here (free) focus on landscaping and storing water in the soil as electricity based prevention is unlikely to work here.  

Here's an example of one of the many free workshops they give in Sothern BC.  (note most of the people they hire to give these have permaculture based expierence like this one).

https://hcp.ca/event/wildfire-resilient-gardening-2026/

The Saanich Fire Department presents a free workshop, part of the FireSmart Program, on how to create more wildfire-resilient gardens that don't sacrifice beauty or biodiversity. With Instructor Bethany Couture.


Fee: No charge


As wildfires grow more frequent and severe, understanding how to design wildfire-resilient gardens is essential for homeowners living near wilderness areas. This practical and engaging class teaches participants to mimic nature's protective strategies through soil and water conservation practices and how to make informed choices about plants, mulches, and groundcovers. This class empowers participants to adapt to climate challenges, take proactive steps to reduce wildfire loss, all while enhancing the surrounding environment.

What You Will Learn
Selecting wildfire-resilient plants
Choosing fire-resilient mulches and groundcovers
Water and soil conservation practices for fire-smart landscapes
Designing resilient gardens to protect your home
Ongoing maintenance tips for resilient gardens


Who This Class Is For
Homeowners and residents near wilderness areas
Gardening enthusiasts interested in sustainable practices
Environmentalists and conservationists
Landscapers and landscape designers
Community leaders and neighbourhood groups


About the Instructor: Bethany Couture
Bethany is a sustainable horticulturist, permaculturist, and educator from Victoria, BC. She holds a Diploma in Permaculture Design and Education, is a certified FireSmart Landscape Professional and Local FireSmart Representative. She is the instructor of permaculture at the Pacific Horticulture College and of landscape design to the Master Gardeners Training. Through her business, Garden Alchemist, she consults and designs beautiful, resilient and ecologically functional landscapes.

Oh noses,  you poor thing!   Please get better.

Can you talk to your pharmacist today?  Meds usually work in 20 min or less.  But different brands have different active ingredients.  Some are good for some allergies, others different.     This is an area the pharmacist knows better than almost any doctor as they are not only trained in it, see it almost daily, but have the time to listen to people and can see trends doctors miss.

In the mean time, these are my thoughts on seeing things through the distance of the internet.

1. Make sure each human in the house understands symptoms of shock (the medical kind) and that word i can't spell for allergy can't breath (an-o-phil-lax-ixs?).  Let them know in an age appropriate way and when to call 911 (or local emergency number).

2. As it's likely from a topical thing, I would avoid putting more things on the skin as it can aggravate or combine (unless doctor recommends it).  Instead, another bath or shower with a clean (not used for anything else and put directly in laundry after) cloth.  And water.  Just cloth and water.  No soap.

They recommended 20 min of flowing water with mild rubbing or none for a similar issue I had - but stop if it causes discomfort or worse symptoms.

3. It could be a sudden allergy to a carrier in cream as I know I do very poorly with anti-allergy creams (swell up like a pumpkin at the fall fair then start to ooze).  I find it's easier to let the skin alone and focus on the rest of the body - like focusing on soil to improve plant health.  The more I put on my skin, the worse the problem gets.  But that's my body.  Everyone is unique.

(And now i notice, this is basically the same as 2, oh well.)

4. Mild foods that keep your system calm.  Foods that agree with YOU and your body.  Lots of liquids to detox and make sure liver and kidney have low stress while they remove the toxins.  Focus on inside and soothing.  Personally, I find it's good to avoid new things when my body is already overreacting, but your body might be different.   If all else fails, chocolate for raising endorphins and other body calming chemicals.

5. If symptoms remain same tomorrow or get worse, seek aid from a doctor or non emergency medical phone line.  If get much worse, hospital time.


edit to add: these are things that work for me and generic advise.  Please adjust for your body and situation.  You probably already thought of all of this, but mostly I wrote this for myself because I often check back on permies when a medical situation comes up and this is what I would want to read.  Everyone and situation is unique.  Do what works and ignore the rest.

Cara Cee wrote:Interesting. If it only got to 80 inside, what was the outdoor temperature? Apology if I missed that.

It's usually less than 30C in the summer.

But even at 25C, the room gets over 80 or 90F (inside temp still has F in much of canada) depending on how long the heathas been around.  

We had a few 35C days this week.  The room stayed about the same temperature,  maybe as much as 75 on the day when it was over 37c.  It would normally be well over 100f with that outside temperature pre-drapes.

These flimsy drapes are making such a huge difference.

But also, I suspect the modern windows have an r value of something like 9 vs the r value of 4 the wall has.  The energy audits focused on windows, but it was the wall all along causing the problem.

There is an episode of Time Team where the put gold in a manuscript the authentic way.  I cannot remember the episode but most of them are free on yt.

Something in my head says gold looks better when glued onto red.  So paint all the gold places red so you know where to put it.

Yesterday was some weird power fluctuations.   I thought it was the wind, unplugged the expencive electronics, and got on with my day.

It turns out, the wind was innocent.

We got a note from the power company
The wildfire over 15 hours drive (one thousand kilometers by road and boat) from my house is making our electricity unstable.

I think that's something people forget about wildfire planning - wildfires ars really hard on the power grid.   A grid already overstretched from people trying to keep cool in the heat.

When planning for wildfire season, remember that electricity may not be an option...which means city water might also be unavailable.  

A small window solar charger for phone and communication devices is extremely useful.

Found it!

It's got extra spf protection.   I'm told it's okay to use as an umbrella for rain as the sun protection is on the inside, but try not to get it wet for more than an hour.

It's bigger than I remember.  

Personally, uv protection was never something that interests me.  I'm more after the shade as i usually wear linen long sleves and skirt to keep the sun off my skin in the summer.  But this is worth a try.

Back when I was knitting, I really wanted to make this handkint parasol



I suspect there are different levels of sun protection.

Shade is infinitely better than no shade.

Some fabrics like linen and cotton have their own natural spf.  Same too with different dyes like indigo and kakishibu.

And then there are the parasols (sun umbrellas)  my friends use from japan, china, korea...and other pacific asian countries that have extra layers of spf blockage.  They all seem to be two tone, with a light shiny outer layer and a dark inner layer.  They say they work for rain too, but are designed for sun by being smaller, lighter, and fold up smaller than a rain umbrella.  Someone gave me one once and it's smaller than a modern cellphone when folded up.  I've been trying to figure out where it is for this weekends experiment.