Ashley Colby

I have this very funny neighbor who will just go on and on if you ask them an open ended question like "how are you." On the one hand I think she's lonely and also kind of just has one of those personalities where you like to complain. On the other hand I think it's nice for me to at least give her a little space to talk each time we see each other.

An underestimated aspect of relationships is how much energy they take. And one only has so much attention and energy to give. With my homestead, 3 kids, husband, siblings, parents, part time work, I feel my attention stretched thin. So if I have had a particularly taxing day I just let myself avoid people like my neighbor. No reason to overtax oneself at the detriment of your sanity!

Tj Dellinger wrote:Rizoma Field School looks very interesting. Food preservation where I live, in the deep south can be tricky, things want to grow mold, bugs or both. All the information is needed and welcome.
Are your courses scheduled regularly throughout the year? Are gift certificates available?

Hi TJ! Right now this is the first time I am running it, so I don't know if I will run it again - depends on demand and enrollment, which has been on the lower side than I thought it would be. In other words, if you want this class you should take it now, not sure if it will happen again! I do have the option to purchase the course as a gift for someone else. Thanks for your interest!

In general I find it to be useful to really build up health communication skills little by little. Too often people jump into relationships (like intentional communities) that require deeply shared values and very close ties. It's not a surprise that many intentional communities fail and many that succeed can often have hierarchical social order that determines who gets to decide what.

An alternative is just to loosely associate with people: neighbors, friends, colleagues. I try to work together with others and sort of see how it all goes. If they are nice to work with, I come back again for more, maybe work with them on something that requires more complex buy in. In general I think lots of us try to reinvent too much of the wheel too quickly. Slow and steady is the way!

It seems to me what we consider "normal" can change so quickly, especially with rapid social change. Just look at more and more food shortages in grocery stores, something that was basically unthinkable in the US can become commonplace. This is both a good and bad thing, if you don't know where you stand morally.

Some people might go along with more authoritarian social measures to just "go with the flow" and others might see rapid negative social change and use it as a cue to get their life more aligned with their values. On the upside I've seen a LOT of people really re-evaluating things (in a good direction) during and post covid.

Hi All! Very excited to be involved in this promotion with Permies! This community is such an amazing resource, very inspiring. I look forward to getting to know more of you this week!

This is really cool. I know a man Neal Spackman does really good work on this topic

https://regenerativeresources.co/