Minor Mailer Mayhem!

Hey all, it's going to be another short newsletter this week, because getting 1200+ mailers printed, folded, and out the door left me pretty tuckered out this week. But I do have a few things to share:

Events on the Horizon

• Every Friday, 5-8pm at the Artisan Market: Firewood Fridays! Come enjoy a potluck picnic, good music, and the opportunity to whack a piece of wood with a hammer until you feel better about the world 😂
• Every Saturday, 9am-2pm at the Artisan Market: Both the shop and the workshop are still open on Saturdays, and will be until the Holiday Walk in November. Come do some early Christmas shopping, or see what the inside of a floppy drive looks like. We've got something for everyone 😄
• November 10, 5-7pm at the White Lake Community Library: Common Ground is hosting another of their community forums, this time on "Belonging, Group
  Dynamics, & Conflict". We'll hear from Lisa Cobb, a licensed therapist, on staying grounded during difficult conversations (perfect for the Thanksgiving season.)

Progress on our future recycling village

On Monday, the City Council approved our purchase of 3.8 acres of land in the Industrial Park! We still need to get through a few more hoops before we can get the first Mast Mini-Barn in there, but we are a big step closer to making Circularity Village a reality. (And, incidentally, getting some of the recycled materials out of my living room 😉)

Advancements in spun plarn

In between other projects, I've been continuing to experiment with turning plastic shopping bags into yarn with a drop spindle. I'm still trying to work out a few kinks in the plying process, but the initial spinning is a perfect beginner drop spindle project, so if you've ever been tempted to learn how to spin your own yarn, stop by on Firewood Fridays to see it in action.

Mailing everyone in town

If you live within the City of Montague, you got a physical copy of the Montague Commoner in your mailbox this week! (If you're in Whitehall or one of the Townships and want your own copy, we'll have extras at the Market on Saturday.) It was mostly to let people know about my City Council run, but I snuck in some info about the sugarbush and Firewood Fridays. Since the other write-in candidates have been relying primarily on AI-generated Facebook content, I wanted to focus on authenticity and community ties. So last Saturday, I walked around the Market and found local folks willing to vouch for my work through hand-written testimonials. Asking people to vouch for me felt awkward and vulnerable, but getting to read the results over and over while I was putting the mailer together was a lovely boost to my mental health 😂 Here are all four pages in full resolution:

Recommendation Corner

Becky Chambers has a new book out! Nate and I are still only about a third of the way through, because his employer inexplicably fails to recognize Becky Chambers book release dates as federal holidays. But we're loving the world-building so far, and we can't wait to read the rest.

Didn't get my nails done this week, but I'll try to make it up with a fun design next week. Enjoy the nice weather while it lasts, and if I don't see you around town I'll see you back here next week.

Pre-meme-ium Content

Now that we've got a few people supporting us with premium subscriptions, we wanted to find a way to thank our supporters without putting anything useful behind a paywall. So I've started tacking on a couple of memes to the end of each newsletter! If the paywall feature is working, free subscribers will see one meme below, while paid subscribers will get to see all five. If you're living on less than $35k/year, please do not give us money. Just let us know and we'll hook you up with the memes for free.