M Ljin

You can also sit and use it in your lap if standing doesn’t work.

And yes, it is a surprisingly loud instrument depending on how you play it! Guitar, interestingly, is the quietest instrument I have played at this time.

Oftentimes you can find scavenged greenwood—others will cut and prune limbs, or one will fall over in a storm, left by beavers, or other accidents.

When a branch is low on a tree and in danger of being self-pruned (shaded out by higher branches, becoming useless to the tree and dying) that could be another source.

I also prefer to cause as little harm as I can.

Waste paper (I only use unbleached for this purpose) can be inundated with grease, corded together, and used as such.

Anyone who lives in a climate where birches grow is blessed with a nearly infallible firestarter that is peeling off of the bark of trees!

What I typically do, is the old fashioned get a flame, add lots of little dry twigs or wood shavings, then some bigger twigs, etc.

Pine is a very good tree for small kindling, as well as dried-down herbaceous stalks. If you find standing stalks those are best because they haven’t been in contact with the ground. Taller grasses work too—if you have switchgrass, timothy, indiangrass, bluestems, miscanthus, reed-canary, etc. they often are sturdy enough to remain aloof from the ground.

Garlic mustard stems actually make good kindling as well—you could get a lot of them and bundle them together. They are very dry and aired out by winter-time.

For me it is mostly muscle memory… once you know the notes, and the chords, it becomes intuitive, because the melody follows the shape of the chord. If ot doesn’t something may sound off. (Or maybe you want it to sound off?) But usually if they want you to play chords they will say what chord. If they don’t, it is up to you to make or not make any chord shape that fits.

Everyone gives birth
To their own mother, the Earth.
How strange the world is!

Endless in its gifts
Is Dung, the savior of life
Without which we’d starve.

Many native peoples of the plains built Earth Lodges.  I didn’t connect it until now, but they  confuse anthropologists because historically, earth bermed and pit houses are normally used seasonally in winter, and probably functioned as tornado protection.

I was wondering what kind of situation are you thinking of in regards to this, if there is any?

My thought is that usually the body understands how much of every nutrient it needs and feels hungry without it, except in the case of psychological derailments like stress. So any much prolonged feeling of being hungry and specifically unsated, I theorize, would be unsustainable in the long term and lead to poor health.

What about chestnuts? They fill the same nutritional role as grains; they are easy to grow and process. I eat acorns partly because there are no chestnuts around, and they are fattier, but they do require extensive soaking. Otherwise these two nuts are amazingly simple and easy to grow and use, and fill the role of grains.