Firewood, Electronics, and a Voters' Guide
Hey all! Lots to report this week, so let's get right down to it:
Firewood Fridays off to a great start!
We had a great time Friday night with our first weekly firewood potluck. Nate made pumpkin soup, Rob made fresh focaccia, and Jeff brought fresh veggies. (I brought a bag of Doritos, because they've always been my favorite picnic food.)
We're splitting cordwood down to 1" kindling so that it burns hot and fast in our biochar maple boiler in the spring. Every bundle of kindling we split now will let us make half a cup to a cup of syrup, and every 2-3 bundles we split lets us tap an extra tree. We got a total of 20 bundles done this week, so we're on our way to a productive maple season.
You can join us every Friday from 5pm-8pm down at the Artisan Market. We'll keep going for as long as the weather lets us, probably at least through early December.
Bring us your logs!
Consumers Energy is doing some tree-trimming in the area right now. If they leave you with logs you don't want, we would love to snag them for the sugarbush! You can drop the logs off at the Artisan Market cabin, or talk to us about picking them up.
Electronics recycling went smoothly
After the Market on Saturday we headed up to the Farmers' Market pavilion for the White Lake Area Climate Action Council's electronics recycling event. It ended up being smaller than the last one, so we only took in 10-15 desktops and maybe 20 laptops. Nate's been checking the newer computers to see if we can get them back on their feet, while I've been taking apart the old ones. We've already gotten through nearly all the desktops, but there's still plenty of tech-take-apart fun to be had, so stop by the workshop cabin if you want to help out. It's a great chance for kids to learn about the different parts of a computer and how they work.
The workshop cabin is open from 9am-2pm on Saturdays, and usually from 1-4pm Tues-Thursday. We'll being doing various tech takeapart projects for the next couple of weeks until we get through this round of tech.
The Latest Plarn Experiments... did not.
I've been continuing to play around with the idea of spinning plastics bags into a reasonable-quality yarn, and I've been having a fair amount of success with a drop spindle I got over at Knit & Spin on Water St. Since I only have one spindle at the moment, I did what I would normally do if I wanted to ply a wool yarn: I wound it off into a center-pull ball and put it off to one side.
Turns out, spun plarn has a LOT more spring to it than wool yarn. Basically as soon as I set it down, it started springing off the ball and turning into a giant twisty tangle.
I had a choice here. I could have thrown the whole mess away and started over. It was incredibly tempting. But apart from being a giant tangled mess, the plarn had turned out really well, and I didn't want it to go to waste.
I did something I wish I'd thought of in the first place, and grabbed some empty toilet paper tubes. I cut a little diagonal notch in each end to hold the plarn, and started working away at the tangle a bit at a time.
I detangled the plarn a foot or two at a time, wrapping it onto the toilet paper tubes as I went. Because there were two strands of plarn tangled up with each other and each strand had two loose ends, I ended up with four different tubes going at one point!
Eventually, over the course of a couple of hours, I was able to get the two strands fully separated and detangled. I learned a lot along the way, and I'm not sure I would have come up with the toilet paper tube solution if I had just chucked the whole mess into the garbage. Now I've got an easy way to keep my plarn organized while its waiting to be plied, and a vindication for my giant stash of toilet paper rolls 😂
Here's the first mini-skein of finished plarn. I think the three plies and the range of local bags available are going to make it possible to do some really interesting color variegation effects.
Hopefully as I get all these techniques more refined, I'll put together a more in-depth tutorial that other spinners can follow. We're also looking into the possibility of turning some of our scavanged hard drive platters into drop spindles so that we can offer complete learn-to-spin kits made from upcycled materials. In the meantime, feel free to stop by the workshop cabin and I can show you the basics.
A Montague Commoners Voting Guide
Ballots showed up this week, so I wanted to pass along a few recommendations for local elections.
First off, a reminder that I'm a write-in candidate for the Montague City Council! There are three spots open and only two candidates on the ballot, so I agreed to throw my hat into the ring. I'm not in this race to push any sort of big agenda. I'm running because I think the City Council's work is important and I'm willing to do my part. If I'm elected, I'll serve on the Council with the same sort of diligence and practicality that has me prepping firewood for the sugarbush and detangling hundreds of feet of plarn. So if you live within the City limits, write my name in, and pass my name along to any City voters in your life.
I also want to give a full-throated endorsement to Rebecca Amidon, who's running for State Senate. Rebecca's shown up to a bunch of our local events, and we've had some great conversations about how to make it easier for working people to connect to the nature and community around them. The state Republican party has been sending out multiple mailers every week lying about Rebecca's record and encouraging people to call her personal cell phone number to harass her. It's exactly the sort of slimebag behavior that keeps so many good people out of electoral politics, and I truly admire Rebecca's willingness to stand up to it.
Angel Coon is another candidate who's really been walking the walk and showing up around town. She's running for the State House of Representatives and I think she's a great choice to represent us in Lansing. She's a military veteran, a mom, and she grew up in Holton.
I've also got my fingers crossed for Abdul El-Sayed in the Senate race. Not only would he be a strong voice for Medicare For All in the Senate, but if he wins this race it's going to make it a lot easier for future populist candidates to break through the consultant class gatekeeping that keeps popular policies out of high-level Democratic politics.
I recommend voting no on Proposal 1. Every 16 years, Michigan voters have to decide whether they want to hold a convention to re-write the Michigan constitution. Unlike the standard constitutional amendment process, which gives voters the opportunity to approve or reject constitutional changes one at a time, a constitutional convention makes it much easier for special interests to push through the changes they want behind closed doors. Incidentally, the No On 1 Coalition is a truly hilarious assortment of strange bedfellows. Whoever managed to find language that Americans for Prosperity and the Working Families Party could agree on deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
I recommend voting yes on Proposal 2. Lots of folks here in town worked to get it on the ballot, and while it's not a panacea, it would do a lot to reduce the influence that big utilities and other government contractors have in our elections.
I recommend voting Yes on the County Parks and Trails Millage. And I say that as someone who pays a lot of property taxes 😂. Between our house and Treespeaker Woods, Nate and I pay taxes on more than 50 acres of land in Muskegon County. But the millage is tiny (50 cents on every $1,000 of value) and the benefits for the community are well worth it. The proposal would eliminate parking fees at Meinert Park and other local county parks, as well as significantly expand the local bike trail network. Having car-free access to Medbury Park would be a huge quality-of-life upgrade, not to mention all the planned improvements between Whitehall and Muskegon.
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 got a little fancy this week after several weeks of simpler color combos. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.
Stay dry in all this rain, and take some time to look for cool mushrooms when the rain lets up! If I don't see you around town, I'll see you back here next week.
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