i built a compost bin out of free pallets from the neighborhood and compost my household’s food waste as well as yard waste from family members. i also follow the lazy compost “method” of collecting kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, and etc and adding them to my pile. my in-laws regularly contribute lawnmowing scraps and leaves. i look forward to really putting it to work in the spring!

i check in here pretty regularly but am largely a lurker; if that’s okay, i could take on moderating c/composting. i’m no expert but i am an enthusiastic amateur…

oh yeah, the Praxis test! I remember that from back in the day when i was in school to be a teacher. that’s the subject-matter test, right? like, if you’re going to be a math teacher it’s the test that proves you can do math?

i’m no expert, but what we ended up using as mulch were wood chips from a tree we had to get removed from a fenceline. it seems to have worked for us.

that’s a good question! my understanding is that praxis means the practical application of a theory; like, for example, if you’re a socialist then praxis could involve sharing those ideas with friends/family, creating socialist spaces like community gardens or little free libraries/etc, or organizing your workplace. and it doesn’t just have to be socialism, though that’s the context i’ve heard it used in the most. for me, solarpunk is the theory and these practical application questions give me ideas about praxis. does that help? hope i don’t come off as too mansplain-y!

I’ve never heard of coffeeberry, but I’m intrigued! I’ll need to look it up.

for me, since i live in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, i have hooked up the first rain barrel of the season to start catching moisture. my plan for this coming weekend is to lay down more cardboard and mulch on our front “lawn” to suppress weeds and allow for the growth of native cover cops we’re planting. i also got a decent gift certificate to a local nursery for Christmas so once they open, soon, i will be excitedly acquiring a Mormon tea bush for my native pollinators garden.

on a different front, my wife and i are practicing living with one car. it should be easy for us, but we’ve never had to think about some of the implications of the single-car life until now, so we are trying a practical experiment in February and March, and if we can make it okay we plan to sell our second car in the late spring or early summer.

it’s so handy. 99% of the time I use it to clean my glasses, but if I’m with someone who’s crying, if I need to clean off a screen, if something’s dusty or gross but I need to pick it up, if I get sweaty and need to wipe my brow, if something gets spilled and there are no napkins handy, etc I can use it. when my dad passed I got all his; he was a high school principal most of his career and carried one every day.

Ascent for business, Outback for pleasure, lol. the Ascent is the car I drive for work, the Outback is my personal car.

good eye! my own car is an Outback (2018) and my work car is an Ascent (2022).

I think it’s designed for outdoorsy stuff as it also has a firestarter component. but it definitely works well for basic networking stuff too!

lol, yes it is! I got my glasses from there ages ago before I knew there were cheaper options. I like my glasses and need lens cleaning cloths all the time, so it works.

DIY book scanner project part 6, “Distribution”, might have a few leads on how to do this. https://annas-blog.org/blog-how-to-become-a-pirate-archivist.html

dang, cloth diapering is no joke. good for you!

To answer my own question, a couple things. Today my wife and I mounted two cat shelves to give our boys a way to get to a high and inaccessible place - my wife got a couple of carpet squares from her workplace and glued them onto two shelves, which we mounted today.

i also recently built a really basic compost bin. baby steps, right?

finally finished my compost bin - just three pallets in a U shape, but it worked! added PiHole and Unbound DNS to my home server setup to keep ads and other nonsense as out of our lives as possible. more to come!

just wanted to update that i’ve added PiHole and Unbound DNS to my running stuff. thinking about doing a Wireguard VPN now… but that’s a 2024 project now.

good night and happy new year!

this is rad. i live in western Colorado, a desert part of the state that has a lot in common with the climate of the Middle East. if i could afford to build a house i’d definitely try to do one with these features. how gorgeous, and relevant!

i am not sure - that’s why i installed Rustdesk, which is remote help tool. I’m IT in my daily life for an organization and also IT in my personal life for friends and family, so it’s helpful to have something like TeamViewer for personal use.

lol, fair. we did Thanksgiving this year so Christmas is at my mom’s. ha!