Packed weekend coming up!
Hey all, it's going to be another quick one this week because I've been busily getting ready for our two big events this weekend:
Tomorrow from 5-8pm at the Artisan Market is our first Firewood Friday of the year. We'll be using Kindling Crackers, like the one above, to split cordwood into kindling. We'll also be breaking up smaller sticks by hand, so all ages and ability levels can contribute. Potluck picnic food will be available, and it's a great chance to come hang out, get some good food, and contribute to the sugarbush.
On Saturday from 2-4pm at the Farmers' Market pavilion, WLACAC is having their twice-a-year electronics recycling event. We'll be there collecting computers, shredders, scanners, and networking equipment for our Computers for the Commons program, and we'll be disassembling computers down at the Artisan Market for the next few weeks. I've been using my notes from last time to get the workshop ready to sort everything that comes in. This is a fun project that requires no pre-existing tech knowledge, and I invite everyone who's interested to grab a screw driver and pitch in.
This Week in Nature
Black Walnuts and acorns are both starting to fall! We aren't doing an organized harvest of either of them this year, but it's a great opportunity to try processing a small batch of them yourself. There's nothing like making a batch of acorn flour by hand to make you treasure the ability to buy food at a store 😂 But it's one of the most abundant sources of wild calories in our area, so it's a good skill to have in your back pocket.
Autumn Olive berries are also starting to ripen. They have a pleasantly tart taste, and they're invasive so there's no such thing as overharvesting. One of these years I want to see if I can turn them into fruit leather and scratch that "sour gummy worms" itch with local ingredients. They'll reach peak sweetness after the first frost, but they make a nice "out and about" snack in the meantime. Make sure you know how to distinguish Autumn Olive from Honeysuckle, since the two can look similar to a beginner. If you stop by the Artisan Market, I can show you examples of both plants and point out the differences.
Lastly, milkweed seeds are starting to be ready to harvest! If you don't know my trick for collecting milkweed seeds without filling your house with fluff, I wrote it up for the newsletter last year. This year I'm going to try to record a video version.
Recommendation Corner
Katelyn Burns
Katelyn Burns is a journalist who I've been following for a long time. She's one of the hosts of the Cancel Me, Daddy podcast, and I really appreciate the depth of context that she brings to her analysis of cancel culture and moral panics.
In her newsletter post this week, she goes into the way that gender-affirming care for kids has been severely mischaracterized by right-wing and mainstream media. (TLDR: no one is doing surgery on kids, and the backlash is being used to ban things like nicknames and haircuts that the government considers gender-nonconforming.)
Enjoy the fall weather, 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.
