Acorns are approaching!

Hey all, quick housekeeping note: there won't be a newsletter next week because I'm taking some time off to rest. (More on that later.) In the meantime, here's an abbreviated version of the newsletter, and a picture of a cool turtle to tide you over 😉

Coming Up Next Week

Wednesday - 6-7pm @ Book Nook: WLACAC is hosting an author talk with Dan Broersma, author of Practical Sustainability.

Friday - Noon @ the Weathervane: Dance for Democracy protest

Saturday - 9am-2pm @ the Artisan Market village: Come browse our goods and learn about our current projects

Food of the Week

I spent some time this week checking on some of my favorite oak trees around town, and I think we're in for a good harvest this year. Acorns usually start falling in late September, so this is a good time to start keeping an eye on which trees are likely to drop a "mast year" bumper crop. These acorns are still small, but they'll keep growing over the next couple of months and should double or triple in size before they start dropping.

One I get back from my break, I'll be starting a series of newsletter entries about how to identify different local oak species, how to harvest and store acorns, and how to process them into flour. Starting in September, we'll be grinding stored acorns from last year into flour at the Artisan Market, and once this year's acorns start dropping, we'll be taking donations of acorns and showing people how to process them from start to finish.

In the meantime, take a look at the oak trees in your own neighborhood and see if you can spot any acorns on the branches. They can be hard to spot, so don't get discouraged if you can't find them right away. Once you've found them a few times, your brain will start key into what they look like, and they'll start jumping out at you more.

Solidarity Steps

Want a chance to meet and network with other Michigan folks who care about the environment? Our friends at the Michigan Climate Action Network are holding their annual summit in a few weeks! It's a great chance to see what various organizations are doing around the state, and there are probably going to be opportunities to carpool with other local environmental folks.

Recommendation Corner

I've learned how to tie a lot of new knots over the past ten years, and I've learned many of them from Animated Knots By Grog. If you stopped by the booth this past week, you might have seen Nate or I bundling paracord using a modified version of this method we learned from Animated Knots. Not only is the website great, they also have mobile apps that let you download everything so you can look up a knot when you need it whether or not you have signal.

This Week's Nails

You made it to the end of the newsletter, and that means you get to see this week's nails! I tried the "half and half" effect again this week, with higher contrast colors this week. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I look forward to playing around with this effect more in the future.

As another bonus for the all-the-way-to-the-end readers, I wanted to offer a little more info about why I'm going to be taking a break this week. I've been feeling increasingly burnt out over the past few weeks, and I wanted to make sure I got that under control before acorn season got underway.

I live with chronic suicidal ideation, and have for nearly all of my life. It's something that I've gotten very good at managing, and I want to be clear that I'm not in any danger. But part of that is keeping a pretty close eye on my emotional health, noticing when things are getting tougher, and taking action before I start spiraling into the danger zone. It's been a long summer with a lot of difficult interactions and not a lot of downtime, and I can feel myself starting to fray.

So I'm going to take a week or two to do make some art, read some books, and generally spend time doing what I want to do instead of what it feels like the community needs me to do. Nate's going to be holding things down at Dance for Democracy and the Artisan Market, so go easy on him and lend him a hand if you can. I'll be mostly ignoring my email and phone, but I'll try to give them the occasional skim in case any real emergencies crop up.