Ac Baker

We have been plugging away whilst I've not been posting.  I've been dealing with a new diagnosis of IBS-D and learning how to eat again!  Our graduate, E has been making great progress on their new personal plot.  

Better still, three of E's school-age children (c. 5, 9 & 14) are very excited & getting involved.  Community Garden: The Next Generation is a go (technically I am old enough to be a grandparent to those children!).

As Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote this week, "The natural world is full of examples of intergenerational support, from mature trees sharing nutrients with shaded saplings in the forest to nurse plants in the desert sheltering seedlings."

Youth & Elders Planting Side-by-Side: intergenerational accountability.
https://mailchi.mp/plantbabyplant/youth-and-elders-planting-side-by-side

We've continued to get a lot of support, including C helping build our compost reserves, E helping with mulching, D helping with everything,and local shopkeepers & places of worship contributing too.

We've cut another hazel coppice .. well, too big & branched to be a pole .. to use as a support for the site grapevine. Hopefully this will increase the sweetness of the fruit by catching more sun.

We've set up the first of the brassica beds in our netting tunnel.  I'm pretty certain it's repurposed builders netting, in fact.  But we desperately need to keep the pigeons off the brassicas, so that works for me.

The perennial kale from N on Skye, possibly a Taunton Deane kale I think? It will need pollarding in a couple of years time, as it would outgrow the tunnel by up to a metre otherwise.

So relieved to hear this is genuinely challenging for so many of us!

Lots to think about here.  One more question: are carrot seeds so tiny that soaking for 24 hours right before sowing, just isn't going to add enough moisture to make a difference?

Thank you, all!

Ben Zumeta wrote: wouldn’t vermicomposting, or any kind of soil building where we take the fruits of soil organisms’ labor (vegetables etc), also be wrong?

Coming back to this: there's no objection to free-living animals behaving as they will in their habitats, and being part of soil and wider ecosystem health thereby, no.

Veganic growers try to live in harmony with free-living animals, with non-harmful disuasion so we get a reasonable part of the harvest for our needs.

I am at an age where these sorts of higher protein needs are coming into play. (It's not your actual body weight in these calculations, I believe, it's the weight of an active 30-something man of the same height.  Some people thus need even more protein than they think based on what the scales say, and some significantly less).

Luckily, I can eat peanuts, which are 25-30% protein.  Grazing on peanuts is my most affordable way to top up my protein (and fat) intake.

My late Mum's simple solution: tie chunky knots in each corner, which you undo in the laundry.

I give this book 11 out of 10 acorns.

Ac Baker wrote:I also give 10 (or more) acorns out of ten for Braiding Sweetgrass, which I have read twice so far.

My grandparents taught me to love foraging, gardening, being in nature nearly six decades ago.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is helping me to fall back in love with the good green world, after five decades of cynical capitalism tried to make me despair.

For all of us inspired by "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" by Robin Wall Kimmerer ..

.. and everyone else who loves the living world ..

Robin Wall Kimmerer is inviting us to widen the circle to people new to planting, grow with one another as we reimagine our shared future through acts of care for the living world, life conspiring with life, through their "new Plant, Baby, Plant" Network to Raise Gardens and Raise Ruckuses too ..

Here: https://PlantBabyPlant.com/

I'm Autistic & ADHD, late in being officially recognised.  

We have many good reasons to call for Autism acceptance, and reject the concept of "treating Autism" itself.

My peer group started to suspect a lot of us were Neurodivergent in science college, and decades later, increasingly we're being recognised as such!

Dr Grunya Efimovna Sukhavera was the Jewish Ukrainian woman scientist who in the 1920s was the first in the modern era to work with us, give us the identity of Autistic, and publish helpful studies.

Dr Grunya Efimovna Sukhavera's work was the violently misappropriated & turned against us by the man I won't mention during the Third Reich: https://avivaseigler.com/2022/05/01/autistic-history-grunya-efimovna-sukhavera/ .

It's likely there are virtually no Autistic people in the current world who are free of ongoing trauma & complex post-trauma syndrome (cPTS).

This is, fundamentally, due to Neuroableism.

"NeuroAbleism: the specific type of ableism experienced by Neurodivergent people due to systemic oppression in a supremacist-based society that values neurotypicalness as the “right” way to be, think, and act.

"The term “Neuroableism” was coined in 2019 by Julia Feliz."
http://www.neuroableism.com/

This is why so many Autistic people, and Autistic-led community, fiercely reject the concept of (medically) "treating" our Autism.  

We instead call for Autism acceptance.

We need funded, Autistic-led support & treatment to reduce the harms of Neuroableism.  

These include the complications of cPTS, and the medical challenges we do disproportionately face from systematic underdiagnosis of e.g. our hypermobile syndromes complications.

Right now, I've just been diagnosed with IBS-D, which seems more prevalent in hypermobile people as working gut collagen is vital for healthy digestion.

Aviva Seigler (FierceAutie), Autistic & Disabled parent of Autistic & Disabled children writes a lot on the actual needs of Autistic people, and debunking the people who want to erase our Autistic Neurotype e.g.

Intersection of Autism, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome
https://avivaseigler.com/2023/12/06/intersection-of-autism-ehlers-danlos-syndrome-and-polycystic-ovarian-syndrome/

Firstly, empathy with the medical trauma, you are not alone (sadly). This immediately flashed me back to reading the gruelling book, Medical Apartheid by medical historian & ethicist, Harriet A. Washington in my racial justice group: https://www.bookbrowse.com/bb_briefs/detail/index.cfm/ezine_preview_number/2558/medical-apartheid

My own situation is that I have hypermobility (chronic kneecap dislocations), a tendancy that seems to run in my family, yet none of us are diagnosed EDS.

I have chronic pain and fatigue, currently diagnosed as fibromyalgia/ME.

My understanding is that only hypermobile-trained physiotherapists are safe for hypermobile people: we can quickly, seriously harmed by being told to 'push through', even more than non-hypermobile people would be.

I'm currently dealing with a diagnosis of "extremely lax pelvic floor", and getting advice from the EDS community to see a specialist for it.

I'm told standard physio can make pelvic floor problems worse for hypermobile people!

So glad to hear you are finding therapists who can work compassionately with you to ease your challenges!

I also give 10 (or more) acorns out of ten for Braiding Sweetgrass, which I have read twice so far.

My grandparents taught me to love foraging, gardening, being in nature nearly six decades ago.

Robin Wall Kimmerer is helping me to fall back in love with the good green world, after five decades of cynical capitalism tried to make me despair.

For all of us inspired by "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" by Robin Wall Kimmerer ..

.. and everyone else who loves the living world ..

Robin Wall Kimmerer is inviting us to widen the circle to people new to planting, grow with one another as we reimagine our shared future through acts of care for the living world, life conspiring with life, through their "new Plant, Baby, Plant" Network to Raise Gardens and Raise Ruckuses too ..

Here: https://PlantBabyPlant.com/