William Morris is the Marie Kondo We Need

...l dazed at the thought of the immensity of work which is undergone for the making of useless things. It would be an instructive day’s work for any one of us who is strong enough to walk through two or three of the principal streets of London on a weekday, and take accurate note of everything in the shop windows which is embarrassing or superfluous to the daily life of a serious man. Nay, the most of these things no one, serious or unserious, wants...

Read…

When it’s time to remove a tree

...le. The garden feels more lively or, conversely, more peaceful. It’s as if energy which was blocked by that ailing or misplaced plant is now flowing again. It’s an almost physical sensation–like a fresh breeze blowing through your yard. But when a plant, especially a tree, is removed in a thoughtless or untimely way, though, it feels like a wound. The empty space looks haunted. The wrongness is deep, and it takes a long time to fade. There are pla...

Read…

Tips on growing great garlic

...f they appear. The flowers pull energy from the plant that is better spent making big cloves. The flowers are also edible: some farmers are actually making more money selling the flowers as culinary exotics. Growing garlic in hot climates I’ve had mixed success growing garlic in Los Angeles. It turns out I was growing the wrong varieties. Most garlics appreciate cold weather, including some time spent under a blanket of snow. For hot climates you...

Read…

De-Cluttering for DIYers, Homesteaders, Artists, Preppers, etc.

...sely, you have a steady core interest which takes up most of your creative energy. I believe there are two basic types of creative people. There are those who commit to a skill and practice it the rest of their lives. I call those people the Masters. And then there’s the rest of us, those of us who love learning new things and who are always changing interests. I call us the Dabblers. (Fondly) Masters might accumulate too much stuff around their c...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Don’t Fear the Green Reaper

...the light relentlessly pierced through even the tiny slits in the shades, making it difficult to fall asleep. Thanks goodness I moved from that area. pic.twitter.com/ECmbRPxz4h — Robert Kwolek (@RobertKwolek) January 31, 2019 “The internet’s emphasis on metrics and quantity over depth and quality has engendered a society that values celebrity, sensationalism, and numeric measures of success.” – #TeamHuman, #39 Get the manifestohttps://t.co/QCJ0Ng...

Read…