#and I take the shredded paper home and compost it

[the-habitat-ring]

I’m out weeding and I see that my plants are learning to communicate with AAC!

Yes, Nasturtium, you are alive! Good job! 😆

[beardedmrbean]

TILOS, Greece (AP) — When deciding where to test green tech, Greek policymakers picked the remotest point on the map: tiny Tilos.

Providing electricity and basic services, and even access by ferry, are all a challenge for this island of just 500 year-round inhabitants. Its most recent problem has been dealing with plastic.

But authorities this week announced that more than 80% of Tilos’ trash is now being recycled. A landfill where untreated garbage was once buried in a hillside has been permanently closed.

The island has already been producing most of its own electricity since 2019, using a solar park and a wind turbine hooked up to trailer-sized batteries that maintain an uninterrupted supply.

S-shaped and slightly larger than Manhattan, Tilos is a far-flung member of an island chain in the southeast Aegean Sea, where most beaches are empty, goats roam next to centuries-old churches and the sawtooth mountains smell of wild oregano. Self reliance is a necessity here and a source of pride.

So is embracing technology.

At the main port, electric vehicles hum past tourists, transporting goods. Solar panels power bus stop information boards and a ramp that gives people with disabilities access to the sea.

Mayor Maria Kamma-Aliferi said Tilos’ dwindling population added urgency to making changes. “In the 1990s there were 270 people left on this island. There were very few births. The school was in danger of closing because it had so few kids ‒ I was one of them,” she said.

“And the island came close to being fully deserted.”

But the mayor stayed on the island and took university correspondence courses to put herself through business school and learn about public administration.

“We came close to the brink, and I think that is what motivates us now,” she said, standing at the site of the old landfill where flowers have now been planted.

With tourism in the Mediterranean set to rebound this summer after the worst of the pandemic, many Greek islands face an urgent strain on their resources: a lack of drinking water and a reliance on diesel to produce electricity as energy prices continue to soar.

Greece has about 200 populated islands, many of which still experience rolling blackouts in the summer and struggle to cope with overflowing landfills, normally hidden in the hills.

Tilos is expecting 30,000 visitors this summer, while the nearby island of Rhodes is set to receive more than 2 million by air alone.

Starting in December, Tilos piloted a home trash pickup scheme, with residents handed recycling kits and asked to wash and separate household waste.

“It’s working. We started with 10 houses and we’re now up to more than 400,” said Athanasios Polychronopoulos, who heads a Greek recycling firm, Polygreen, that offered the service for free, hoping to expand its model.

“This is an island community that’s open to change. It volunteered to take in refugees and held Greece’s first same-sex partnership ceremony. We had other options but we knew we had to start here,” he said.

The old landfill site has been replaced with a recycling plant where trash is separated on steel sorting tables to produce powdered glass, cement mix, compost fertilizer, compressed cardboard and paper drums, and plastic twine that an art gallery uses to make 3D printed couches and furniture.

The plant currently processes around 2 tons of waste per week, most of which is fully recycled. Roughly a third is composted, and 15% — classed as “non-recyclable” — is sterilized and shredded to be used in construction.

The company uses a proprietary app to prepare for incoming waste weighed at each house pickup. It has not released financial details of the scheme.

“We’re still making mistakes and learning,” Polychronopoulos said. “To our surprise, older people are the best at separating the waste. It makes sense, if you think about it: They can remember what things were like before there was plastic.”

Some residents can also remember when spotting a passing ship off the coast of Tilos was a rare sight. Rhodes is still two hours away by ferry; the Greek mainland is 15.

“We always wondered where all the plastic would go. And in the back of our minds we always felt we should do something about it,” says seaside restaurant owner Nikos Atsiknoudas.

Between meal prep, waiting tables and clearing them for new customers, staff tip everything into color-coded bins.

“It is extra work but no one can argue about the long-term benefit,” he says. “We have a lot of foreign visitors. They are more used to recycling than we are and they love it.”

Official visits to Tilos are rare and greeted with fanfare, with children in traditional costumes assembled at the harbor. The most recent was Greece’s energy and environment minister, Costas Skrekas, who arrived Tuesday with aides from the prime minister’s office to tour the new recycling plant.

“Our small islands face difficulties due to the distance from the mainland and the (environmental) burden from tourism,” he said after meeting schoolchildren at a recycling awareness class.

“Once again, the beautiful island of Tilos is a pioneer.”

[urban-homesteading]

How to make money from a Mini Farm: a series

Due to the popularity of my post on how to make money from your mini farm, I’ve decided to go point by point and expand on each one.

Raising Red Wrigglers

1) Give ’em a home

Tumblr user NRDC has an excellent guide on how to make a worm composting bin.

2) Acquire ’em

It’s often hard to tell worm types apart, so it’s best to purchase worms for your compost rather than trying to find them in nature. If you don’t have a local supplier, you can order worms online. It takes about a pound of worms, which is around 1,000 individual worms, to process a half pound of food a day.  I have heard quite a few good reviews about Jim’s Worm Farms, but have not tried them myself.  Otherwise, it is simple to buy them from your local pet store or bait shop.

3) Feed ’em

Here’s a quick chart by NRDC on what you can feed your worms.

You feed your worms with your kitchen scraps. However, that doesn’t mean you can give your worms everything that comes out of your food. You should stick to organic leftovers such as fruits or veggie scraps, grass clippings, bread, beans, and more. Worms don’t have teeth, so chop these materials into chunks that are easier to process.  You can also blend or place the foods in a food processor.

Put in the Worm Bin:

Fruit Scraps

Vegetable Scraps

Paper

Squash and Pumpkins

Eggshells

Coffee

Tea Leaves

Bread

Pasta Grains

Animal Manure (not dog or cat!)

Lawn Clippings (make sure it hasn’t been sprayed with pesticides)

Don’t Put in the Worm Bin:

Salty Foods

Spicy foods

Oils

Foods with Preservatives

Meat

Dairy

4) Breed’em

It is easy to cultivate a massive worm population in a very short time period. An adult red wiggler worm can produce 2 to 3 cocoons every week, and each cocoon can hatch up to 20 baby worms.

When there are too many worms in a particular space, red wigglers tend to slow down their breeding so that their home does not become overcrowded. This helps them to avoid depleting the available food supply.  But, if there are too few worms in an area, the mature breeders will have difficulty locating each other, and reproduction will be hampered.

The best population is a half pound of worms for every square foot of surface area in your worm bin. A bin that is two feet long by one foot wide would have a surface area of 2 x 1 = 2 square feet. One pound of worms would be the perfect amount of worms to stock in this bin if you are trying to breed your worms.

Worm cocoons have the ability to survive in conditions that would kill off the rest of their colony. By focusing their efforts on cocoon production when death may be near, the worms ensure that the colony will carry on into the next generation even if none of your living worms are able to make it through the dangerous conditions.

You are able to harness this natural instinct by allowing your bin to become “slightly” dangerous for a short time. That means you can let it dry out a bit more than you normally would, or you could temporarily move the bin to a less insulated location.  Once you notice an increase in baby cocoons, return the bin to normal conditions so the babies have the best chance for survival.

5) Harvest ’em

The vital job of composting your organic waste and turning it into soil is really all your worms need to do to earn their keep.  But if you would like to make money off of them, there are two ways.  One, you can sell the worm’s compost and casings, or you can sell the worms themselves.

If you just created a worm compost bin, don’t expect castings to be ready for harvest immediately. The worm bin needs to get established, and be routinely fed and fluffed for a few months first. This gives the worms time to eat, turn things over, and break down food and bedding into worm castings – their poop.

A week or two before you want to harvest the worm castings, stir and spread the contents of your bin out in the bottom. Next, feed the worms exclusively on one side of the worm bin during that time. Bury the food (and if needed, any new browns/bedding) in one far corner, with plans to harvest worm castings from the opposite side. The worms should migrate there to eat, leaving the other side of the bin hopefully worm-free. If there is a lot of existing food matter and worms spread evenly throughout your worm bin, it may take a little longer to accomplish this.  (If harvesting large amounts from a bin that is 4-8 months established, you can also dump the whole thing on a tarp.  The sun will warm the pile and the worms will go as deep as possible to escape.  You can then scoop off the top.)

Using a small trowel, scoop out the finished castings from the “resting” side of your worm bin into a bucket.  However, depending on how well broken-down the material in your worm bin is, or how well the worms migrated to the opposite side of the bin, you may need to pick through the material a little by hand. Sift through the castings and throw back large pieces of food matter, lumps of shredded paper or other bedding, and as many worms as you reasonably can. If the worm castings are clumpy, break up the large chunks.  You can also harvest and then sift them with the aid of a simple screen.

6) Sell ‘em

As always, your best chances of selling your worms and worms casings are going to come from your marketing (Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace), farmer’s markets, and small businesses.  Call your bait stores, your small gardening shops and greenhouses, and exotic pet stores.  Even if they don’t want to sell your products directly, they may allow you to hang a flyer on their poster board.

If you would like some more in depth details on creating a worm colony, please check out this excellently written article.  

[kinningnessie]

A post on compost

spaw day one 3/8/20

Hello fellow gardeners! If you live somewhere with shitty terrible no good very bad soil, then this is the post for you!

What is compost?

Compost is a pile of natural, biodegradable materials that will eventually become delicious soil.

How do I make delicious soil?

Well first you start by making a pile. Pick any old spot in your yard and just start dumping scraps. Scraps can include

-parts of fruits/vegtables you dont want (strawberry stems, that spinach in the back of your fridge growing mold)

-egg shells

-paper (preferably shredded for faster decomposing) or cardboard

-any unwanted plant material/clippings you might come across while gardening

If you do not have a yard you can dump all of this in a bin or bucket. Though it works better if its outside so it can fill up with bugs.

Why should my compost be filled with bugs?

To help break down the compost into dirt, of course. All bugs are good bugs when it comes to compost, so nows the time to get over any squamishness you might have.

We all know that worms help make dirt, but this applies to most bugs. They eat up and break down everything in the compost pile/bin and in its place leave wonderful fertile soil.

Some bugs you might find are

-fruit flies

-beetles/beetle larvae (Side note. Dont be afraid of beetle larvae. They look nasty and some can get VERY big but they mean no harm)

-worms

-pincher bugs

-rolly pollies

These are all your friends when it comes to compost. They get a home and food and as thanks they give you dirt to grow things in.

If you are composting in a bin you can go around and pick up bugs to put in it, bugs are ESSENTIAL to compost. Once you place bugs in the complst it is probably a good idea to leave it outside on a porch or patio. Unless you like bugs in your house.

How do I take care of my compost pile?

This all depends on weather you want your compost hot or cold.

A hot compost pile means that everything breaks down into soil much faster. In order to achieve this you must regularly water the pile, and turn it. If its outside you can turn it with a pitchfork or shovel, if its in a bin you mught be able to get away with slapping a lid on it and shaking it up.

Doing these two things makes it so the bacteria and whatnot that break down the compost are moist and agitated, which makes them break things down faster. I dont know the exact science behind this, but faster decomposition generates heat, which is why its called a hot pile.

A cold compost pile is much more low matinence. You just do nothing. Let it sit and everything will eventually biodegrade on its own time. The only thing is this kind of compost takes a lot longer to break down.

A hot compost pile can be made into soil anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the size, but a cold compost pile takes anywhere from a couple months to a year.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. Now go forth and create dirt.

[sunlitneon]

The Ultimate End to Junk Mail

I am no longer my nearby place's best patron yet they continue to send me direct mail. I'm not inquisitive about double glazing,  Custom Made Jewellery splendor packages or my new regions pizza parlour. Yet I become with coupon offers for own family sized pizza offers and spray tan programs.

It doesn't count how an awful lot green manipulate you have got at the inside of your house, unsolicited mail will discover its way to you.

Don't worry, you may considerably lessen it.

(To highlight you can't a hundred% forestall direct mail and I'll give an explanation for why further down.)

Firstly, you are probable thinking why I am talking approximately direct mail right?

In a nutshell, forests are reduce down and worked right into a water pulp mixture that when manipulation, creates the lovely factor we name paper.

The paper is then shipped to companies who print on it after which ship it to you.

Did you already know that Junk mail produces extra greenhouse fuel emissions than nine million vehicles?

HOW TO STOP RECEIVING JUNK MAIL

We all understand the significance that bushes should maintain our ecosystems and international temperature. If we forestall the call for for direct mail, we will lessen further environmental effect.

It is so smooth to pick out up the undesirable mail and throw it straight into the recycling bin.

Yes, it'll be recycled however the company who despatched the mail would not recognise you probably did no longer need to obtain it. And if they may be never advised their ability customers do now not want to acquire their mail, they may hold to ship it and retain to purpose environmental destruction.

First, you want to pick out the 2 sorts of direct mail you could receive, named and non-named.

Named mail is what comes thru your door addressed to a person in your own home.

And non-named, yes, you guessed it, are the letters that are not addressed to all people.

They likely kingdom something along the traces of 'To the Owner', 'To the brand new proprietor of a exceptional brief net company.'

HOW TO STOP RECEIVING NAMED MAIL

*Opt out of advertising lists

If you sign on for whatever that asks for your own home deal with, make sure you're taking out a magnifying glass and search for any statistics that explains the advertising phrases.

Usually, with out you confirming so, agencies and companies will upload you to their marketing mailing lists unless you country in any other case.

If you don't opt-out for advertising and marketing records, to procure your self a massive heap of direct mail. Imagine it like the scene from Harry Potter... "NO POST ON SUNDAYS."

*Register without cost with MPS (UK simplest)

MPS will get rid of your call and deal with from the UK enterprise lists of income promotions, marketing and direct advertising.

Take notice, it is able to absorb to 4 months till you note a discount in any undesirable named mail.

*Contact your nearby electoral roll register office

Ask you nearby register workplace to take away you from the open check in.

The open sign up includes your complete name and deal with and can be purchased by using a member of the public, businesses and advertising administrators.

*Swap all of your paper billing to online

A simple piece of recommendation, however you will be surprised at how often that is neglected.

*Contact the sender at once

Contact the sender through e-mail or cellphone and inform them you want to now not obtain any mail from them with on the spot effect.

*Return the junk mail without delay to the sender

Cross out your cope with and write 'junk mail, please return to sender' on the envelope.

You don't ought to pay any postage for the return, but the sender might get hold of a return price.

The return fee makes it much more likely that motion will be taken to dispose of you from their advertising and marketing listing.

HOW TO STOP RECEIVING NON-NAMED MAIL

Have you ever puzzled how direct mail not addressed to anyone in your home falls through your letterbox?

E.G Domino's commercials and your local window glazing enterprise?

*Notify Royal Mail

Thanks to Royal mail, they have got the job of delivering leaflets to every residence.

You can opt out via sending them an e-mail that informs them you no longer want to get hold of advertising mail.

They will send you a letter which you need to sign and ship again to them.

Take word, it could take in to 6 weeks before you noticed a discount within the marketing non-named mail and the opt-out carrier simplest lasts for 2 years.

*Make a signal or a poster

Get innovative and make a poster that states you do not need to receive junk mail.

Stick it in your letterbox, make sure it's especially close to the doorway of the letter container. (Not everyone will notice the sign inside the backside nook of a window.)

*State precisely what mail you do not want to acquire.

Not all people will think their commercials for their newly opened beauty salon is taken into consideration junk mail to your household.

Remember- Try to make your own poster earlier than you print one.

*Contact the sender directly

Contact the sender by way of electronic mail or phone, inform them you wish to no longer receive any mail from them with on the spot effect.

*Return the unsolicited mail immediately to the sender

Cross out your address and write 'direct mail, please return to sender' at the envelope.

You do not should pay any postage for the go back, however the sender would acquire a go back fee.

The go back charge makes it much more likely that motion may be taken to do away with you from their advertising and marketing listing.

BUT, I'M STILL GETTING JUNK MAIL?

Okay, so let's consider you're nevertheless getting junk mail.

Unfortunately, humans (especially those who are spreading the phrase approximately their nearby commercial enterprise) will forget about your no direct mail poster.

Don't worry, there are approaches to reuse your unsolicited mail earlier than you positioned it on your recycling bin.

Here are some thoughts to get your brain juice going.

Note-paper - Use the returned of direct mail letters as word paper

Card layout - Reuse the designs to make Celebration playing cards and gift tags

Compost - Add brown envelopes and white non-glossy paper in your compost pile.

Remove - Any plastic home windows and tacky glue strips first

Recycle - Add the paper to your recycling bin

Stuff things with it - You could make draught excluders and pin cushions in case you package the paper tightly and overlay a thick cloth

Animal bedding - Hamsters and gerbils need bedding, save yourself a few pennies by means of shredding your junk mail

Paper mache - Get innovative and build structures along with your kids of for yourself

Paper baskets - You can fold and coil paper strips to make baskets or any length you fancy

Jewellery - Just as above, you may coil the paper into any form you need and put on it as an excellent looking piece of jewellery.

Seed pots - You can make a container and use that as an opportunity to plastic plant pots. Better yet, the self-made seed pot can be positioned immediately into the floor.

[the-lovely-little-witch]

Some small tips for sustainability and saving money.

As I become more grounded in my path in witchcraft I am finding connecting to the earth and protecting the environment more and more important. I want to give to the earth as it gives to me. Become less dependent on the cycle of waste and over use and be happy in my own ability to provide. Becoming more sustainable and eco friendly was one of my goals for the year. I am still just beginning this path so I dont pretend to be an expert by any means, however I thought I would share some small tips I’ve I’ve found useful so far. I understand everyone is different and some of these will not be possible for some people, and that’s ok! I’m simply sharing personal experience in the hopes it might encourage others.

Kitchen and food-

• buy cheap boxed rice and beans, not only is the packaging recyclable, you get a ton of food and it’s super easy to cook and dress up for any meal.

• eat less red meat and processed meals. Red meat is expensive and not very eco friendly. Save it for special occasions. Processed meals like hamburger helper and the like, and not only pricy, they are very unhealthy, you are better off eating simple home cooked things.

• if you can, buy local! Find someone who sells fresh eggs, they are the best! Farmers markets are also excellent for fresh produce. If those aren’t an option, try to buy from stores that sell local produce and meats.

• grow your own! Raise some chickens, garden as much as possible!! ( this is more of a long shot goal not a tip) but even just a small pot of herbs on the kitchen counter is a step in the right direction.

• leftovers are your friend

• invest in a lunch box and some tupper ware containers. This cuts out the need for plastic sandwich bags and one use lunch sacks.

• wash out your recyclables!! Seriously most recycling plants will not take cans or plastics that contain food residue.

• compost even just a little. Left over tea leaves, coffee grounds and eggshells make great soil additions for a healthy garden. Most plant based waste can also be composted.

Shopping and buying-

• thrift stores, seriously, thrift stores my dudes. If you can try to avoid chain thrift stores like goodwill and Salvation Army and buy from local organizations. However any preowened item is better than new, from goodwill or no. Restores are also fantastic! And sell everything from clothing to building supplies.

• use reusable bags or paper bags.

• try to buy products with the least packaging or at least the most sensible packaging.

• shop less, like just don’t buy as much stuff or as often. Limit clothing or luxury purchases to special occasions.

• if you must buy soda, buy cans, they can be recycled for a small amount of money in most areas.

Daily life-

• get a reusable water bottle! And use washable silverware/plates instead of paper or plastic.

• try to shower and bathe one day less a week

• keep the thermostat lower(or higher in the summer) when you are gone or sleeping.

• turn off the lights while gone or in another room. Same thing with electric devices like tv and radio.

• use less laundry detergent! Omg the recommended scoop is a big old lie. You can use a fourth of that and get just as clean clothes.

• unplug occasionally. No tv or phone or any electronic devices. Enjoy nature or a book or hobby.

• reuse or repurpose if possible. Jeans with a knee hole, bam! They’re shorts now.

• shredded paper ( like old documents and stuff) makes a decent mulch for gardens.

• try not to throw away as much as possible. Donate clothing, recycle plastic , paper and cardboard and reuse items like glass jars and old furniture as much as possible.

This is just a very basic list of things I’m currently trying to work into my life. Hopefully there are some things others haven’t thought of! If you have any suggestions or tips to share please do!

[heeroyue]

As a custodian, yes all of this. Also recycling and compost are not the same thing. Try not to mix them. At my job if there's one thing in a compost bag that isn't compost is becomes trash. Same with recycling. Sometimes we can save it if it's one thing at the top of the bag but I'm not digging through to pull something out that's not supposed to be there. That's a safety rule not just me being a dick. I don't know if someone put broken glass or other sharps that also aren't supposed to go in the trash/recycling in there. Food and paper towels are not recyclable but may be compostable. definitely food. Iffy on paper towels. Where I work we have brown and white. Brown are compostable but the white ones aren't because of the chemicals used to make them white.

Also in most places I've ever been plastic bags aren't recyclable. Yes that includes the bag you may use to get your recycling to the can. Yes a single plastic bag in a can makes it trash. Again is a safety thing. This is why I typically use paper bags for recycling at home.

Pizza boxes are hit and miss if they're recyclable. Some places I've worked they were. Where I work now they aren't. If you can, ask before putting them in a can.

If you have large boxes, collapse them and set them to the side of the can or tuck them behind. If they get shoved in the can they tend to shred the bag and I get a trash juice shower. I do not like trash juice showers. Collapsing them helps us and saves space. Boxes typically go to either a recycling dumpster or a compactor. A flat box takes up less space in a dumpster and while a compactor CAN crush boxes down it works better and tends to hold more if they're flat.

[ramblingandpie]

Gen, 1348 words.

---

Emails from Addison were always about something either really good or really bad, and somehow, Addison never gave it away ahead of time.

But Ryder had to bring the crew to the Nexus anyway, and Addison would be nigh unavoidable. She just hoped it would be something good.

As she approached Addison's office, the women's expression was as serious as ever. "Ryder," she said. "I'm glad you were able to come quickly. I know the email said it wasn't urgent, but I like to get things done when they come to my attention."

Ryder still had no clue if something good or bad had happened.

"We have news from Prodromos that their agriculture program is going quite well. They are producing enough that they are ready to take the next step."

Oh! Good news, then.

"They are going to celebrate with a fair, and I would like you to bring the Tempest to deliver the guests of honor."

Ok. Bigwigs on the Tempest. Bad news.

"We brought several hundred viable chicken eggs aboard and have thawed a few dozen from cryo. They are in a special incubator that does everything until they hatch."

Baby chickens! Eggs that would require no maintenance, even! Good news.

"That's great news," Ryder said. "We'll make sure they get safe to Eos."

"And you'll also be guests of honor at the fair, of course. I understand they're going to have some carnival games. Try to have some fun." The tone in her voice belied a complete unfamiliarity with the concept.

By the time Ryder got back to the Tempest, the cargo hold had been loaded with the incubators, which were hooked into local power. Gil, Suvi, and Liam were admiring the bounty.

"We're going to have chickens again!" Suvi happily announced as Ryder came in.

Gil laughed. "She won't stop, Ryder."

"Can you blame her?" Liam asked. "Delicious little beasts."

"They're great for terraforming, too," Suvi said. "They eat just about everything. Their manure is great for the plants. I can see why they decided to have chickens as our first livestock."

"And," Liam chimed in, "super delicious."

Gil nodded.

"I, for one," Ryder said, "am interested to see these carnival games that Addison mentioned."

The group nodded in agreement.

PeeBee came in and pressed her nose to the glass. "So these are the chickens you all keep talking about?"

"Yep," Ryder replied.

"How long until we get to eat them?"

"About six months," Suvi replied. The translators they used automatically converted it to the time system PeeBee had grown up with.

"And the… eggs? You eat the eggs, right?"

"Also six months."

PeeBee sighed. "Why can't we just eat these ones? I mean. Not all of them. Just a few."

Gil laughed. Suvi patiently explained about eating only unfertilized eggs, and these were all definitely fertilized.

When Suvi finished, Liam announced, "So basically it looks like meat's back on the menu!"

Gil raised an eyebrow at him. Liam sighed. “Man, you all really need to watch the classics. Ryder, is it too late to turn back around and pick up some more films?”

That earned him a light punch to the shoulder from nearly everyone involved.

*** They were one day out from Eos when SAM rang the alert.

One of Addison’s assistants had warned them that they weren’t exactly sure how thawing from cryo might affect the incubation period. It turned out to be well-deserved.

“C’mon, Kallo,” Suvi said. “Put her on auto. You’re the one with the most experience on eggs.”

He sighed. “I hatched from one. That’s it.”

“But you remember it, right?”

“Yes.”

“So c’mon!”

She practically dragged him to the incubators.

Cracks were beginning to form on a few of the shells. Suvi began unpacking the temperature-controlled brood boxes.

“Okay,” she announced to Kallo and to the others who had begun to filter in. “We let them hatch on their own. Tempting as it is, no touching. They have to dry off first. Liam, Jaal, help me get this out of the crate.”

“Wait. How do you know so much about hatching chickens?” Ryder asked, rubbing sleep from her eyes. The alarm had clearly woken her up.

“Did anyone read the instructions? Honestly. Lexi, tell me you read the instructions,” Suvi pleaded as Lexi came in.

“And several books while we were in transit,” Lexi said, as she began to fiddle with the uncrated brood box. Suvi brought Liam and Jaal over to the next crate to begin opening it.

“Also, my parents did a ton of science experiments with us when we were kids. We did a few rounds of chickens and ducks.”

“So why did you need my help?” Kallo asked, arms outstretched in the universal gesture of uselessness.

“I didn’t know who else would come, and these things are awful heavy. Plus, this is the best part. Everyone quiet for a minute.”

A hush fell over the room except for the tiny peep peep noises coming from the incubator.

“They’re calling the other chicks.”

Lexi nodded. “Hearing the other chicks cues the ones still in eggs to begin hatching.”

Suvi’s cheeriness did perk the crew up, and soon enough everyone around was taking turns working on the brood boxes, and checking on the chicks from time to time.

“I wasn’t expecting them to be quite so goopy,” Liam said. Suvi assured him that the chicks would fluff up when they dried.

“Were you so awkward and goopy when you hatched, Kallo?” PeeBee asked as she opened a vacuum-packed bag of shredded paper, all recycled from Nexus use.

“Worse,” Kallo assured her. “My fins were tiny.”

“Fins?”

He shrugged. “We grow out of them. These look like they stay in place, though?”

“Wings, not fins,” Lexi corrected as she peered into the incubator to check the progress, and began to scan the eggs that hadn’t hatched yet.

Liam added that the wings were “also known as the most delicious part of the bird.”

This spawned an argument amongst the entire human crew about whether white meat or dark meat was better, and when eating wings, if the actual wing or the drumstick was best. Ryder and Liam came down firmly on the side of flat wings; Gil apparently loved drumsticks; Cora fondly remembered the baked chicken breast she used to eat as a child; and Suvi declared that they all had wonderful, delicious merits.

Jaal asked Lexi about the nutritional qualities, and she elaborated at length about the protein, fat, and vitamin contents of chicken meat. She offered to send him some of the studies she had found; he declined the 122-page biochemical nutritional guide. Still, though, by her analysis, chicken meat would be incredibly healthy for angara to eat, even if it might take some trial and error to figure out what combination of spices would make it palatable.

After several hours, Suvi and Lexi declared that the surviving chicks were ready for transfer to the brooding box. There, they would stay warm and have everything they needed. Several crewmembers had wandered off, but Ryder and Jaal helped gently scoop up the cheeping chicks and place them in their new home. Lexi did final scans on the last few eggs, and declared them destined for compost.

Ryder collapsed backwards onto a chair. “Phew! They are cute, but I am ready to hit the hay.”

Jaal got up and wearily walked towards the brood box. “Remind me, Suvi. Which part is the hay? And why does it need to be hit?” Shortly thereafter, “Why are you laughing?”

Ryder explained the translation error.

“Seriously, though,” Lexi said. “You are all chronically sleep deprived. The automated brooding system will take care of the chicks. Off to bed, all of you.”

She accepted no excuses.

Suvi whispered to Ryder as they walked out, “Next thing you know, she’ll make us all wear matching brightly-colored t-shirts to the fair so she can easily find us if we get lost.”

“I heard that!”

“If only all diplomats were small, fluffy, and peeping!” Ryder said to Suvi as they said their goodnights.

[sleepingfancies]

Guess tumble just sucks eh. It was about tog. I made the mistake of buying the whole series at once(cuz dedicated reader here) and then I realized what a load of sexist, racist, porn filled crap it is. I did not buy the books for whatever that bull is, but I have a younger sister and I do not want those around her. Selling them it's too much of a pain and idk how, but donating them feels like giving my garbage to somebody else, and I really don't want to spread that message. Any advice? XD

As far as donating goes, this website re-sells your donated books to support non-profit organizations funding schools, libraries, and other learning facilities in impoverished areas. Any books that are too old or damaged to be re-sold are recycled, so it also promotes reforestation.

This website sponsors a unique way of re-distributing books, where they release your donated book “into the wild” so that anyone anywhere could find them and take them home if they choose.

This website is about how to make DIY crafts out of old books! Provided you don’t mind ripping apart and destroying a book, it’s actually a very neat little page full of things to make out of books. I rather like the idea of making a bookmark out of a book’s spine, and there are a ton more ideas listed than just that. This is probably the best alternative to not donating to a library or non-profit like those listed above (and let’s be real, no one is really missing out by not reading a SJ/M book anyway).

And lastly, the most controversial of them all: compost, compost, compost. Mixing shredded paper with nitrogen-rich nutrients (vegetable peels, coffee grounds, orange rinds, etc.) can give you one hell of a strong fertilizer for houseplants or garden plots, though the results will take a few months. Burning paper is a faster process, and the ashes can raise soil pH levels when mixed with water. You can use these on practically any kind of vegetable (do not use them on fruit plants, they will absolutely die if their soil pH is even slightly tampered with. Fickle things), as well as decorative flowers like crocuses, poppies, daisies, and irises. As a bonus, paper and wood ash are deterrents to pests like Japanese beetles and diseases like club root. Paper and wood ash are completely chemical-free too, so you don’t have to worry about contaminating the plant.

I hope this helps a little! I totally understand your situation, I’ve had so many books where they were just *too* awful to donate and subject some other poor soul to them. In the past I’ve always turned them into fertilizer since I used to have a fruit and vegetable garden of my own. My new house doesn’t support that kind of land, so in the future I’m sure I’ll have some DIY projects to do!

[rocketrobinprints-blog]

March 28, 2019

It’s officially Spring Break week for me so I’ve been taking the time to focus myself on some projects and get things settled around the house. Among those projects is getting my plants settled and getting ready for the growing season!

Our apartment has nearly all South facing windows, and a South facing balcony, so I decided I wanted to turn our balcony into a food garden using containers. I started some seeds (minimally successfully) back at the end of February for early Spring crops and then later for a spread of flowers. 

My kale seeds came up easily, and so I transplanted the four best seedlings into larger containers. After growing a little more in front of our big window that opens out to the balcony, I moved them outside. It’s still getting pretty cold at night, even as we’re starting to have some days in the 60s. We’re still having frost warnings too. But Kale loves it! I have one in a 10″ terracotta pot, one in a mushroom plastic container, and one in a gallon milk jug out on the balcony, and after the temperature dipped down, the plants look even more happy and resilient than before. 

The spinach, not so much... From the seeds, I only had 2 of 8 sprout, and of those two only one survived transplanting. I put it outside with the kale, but the cold seems to have withered it significantly. However! I have a volunteer spinach plant that is doing fantastic! How do you get a volunteer plant, Kecheri? No idea! Last year I dropped lettuce seeds into a glass coke bottle just for fun and the lettuce grew as well as can be expected. Then I pulled it out, used it, and put the bottle away somewhere. Then this year, I happened to leave the bottle I assumed was empty sitting out while surveying my different planting containers for this years garden. Well, a few days later, something sprouted in my SUPPOSEDLY EMPTY bottle! It’s been growing very nicely since the bottle makes a sort of miniature greenhouse, and the leaves are pretty spectacular! It’s definitely a spinach plant by the shape of the leaves. I have no idea how it got there, but I’m definitely not complaining. So that spinach plant  has continued to grow really well outside on the balcony and started filling out the little stem of the bottle. I’m not sure what the effect the confined space will have on it’s growth, but we’ll have to just wait and see. 

Also successful is the German chamomile (the kind used to make the tea) seeds I bought in February. I’ve had close to 100% seed germination and the little stalks are looking pretty strong. I have some sprouted in my seed starter, pending a transplanting into a more permanent home, and some started in a mini greenhouse I made from a plastic clam-shell salad bar container. The ones in the salad container are doing particularly good, look strong and healthy. I’m excited they came up so quickly and so successfully, but I’ll have to figure out what I’m doing with them as e enter warmer weather. I don’t think they take particularly well (according to some google searching) to transplanting and would rather be planted in their final containers later in the season, but we’ll see! I still have plenty of seeds so I can always do that once the weather is warmer and I’m ready to do more work outside. 

To no surprise, the catnip I planted in the seed starter and a salad bar container greenhouse like the chamomile has sprouted fairly successfully as well. Mint plants are particularly easy to grow and spread, so I’m not too surprised, but as this is the first year I’m trying to grow catnip, and my first year with a cat, I’m excited all the same. 

I’m growing a number of other herb plants as well this year. In addition to the chamomile and catnip, I’ve picked up some starter plants from our small, local plant nursery. I have Italian oregano and a rosemary that I’ve transplanted into gallon milk jug containers, and a lavender still waiting to be re-homed. As much as I use spices in my cooking, the herbs are a must. (Even though I can get good herbs at the spice and tea shop where I work, nothing beats fresh.) Once weather gets a little warmer and I can start moving things outside, I think the herbs will really take off. So far, they’ve really been thriving in the big window. 

I’m also focusing on growing vegetables this year since we’re in such a nice sun situation here. Already I have some potatoes that sprouted in our cupboards growing pretty well in five gallon buckets. My crop last year ended up rotting out after we got so much summer rain, and I’m not entirely positive the buckets have sufficient drainage. The first year I grew potatoes and had a really successful crop, I had mixed my soil with a lot of moderately sized rocks, which I didn’t do last year or this, so we’ll have to see how it goes. Good news is that if these rot similarly, I know how to correct the problem and will still have plenty of growing season to correct the problems. 

Vegetables I have seeds for this year are cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, and bush beans. Some of the seeds are a little old, so I’m unsure about germination success, but others like the cucumber, zucchini, and beans are new. My mom is moving houses this year and has offered to lend me her self-watering planters for this summer, which will be great and I think will be enough room for one of these big vining plants. I also want to try my hand at tomatoes in buckets, but haven’t taken steps towards starting them yet. 

I still have our living blue spruce Christmas tree outside on the balcony. I picked up a couple 15″ pots, one of which I plan to transplant the spruce into. Then, I can transplant my avocado tree (that I started from a pit two years ago) into the spruce’s current pot, and stick something else in the avocado’s pot. 

I’ve gotten into researching and trying out regrowing plants from kitchen scraps this year too. I regrew a bok choi from the base in January or February, but killed it by harvesting leaves too quickly and not actually planting it in dirt. Even so! It lets me know that I can grow a bok choi NEXT time with some precautions. I regrew and transplanted carrot tops for the carrot greens, and those have been growing really happily in the kitchen since planting. At the moment, I’m going to try and regrow some leeks, and be sure to transplant them when new growth comes up. Growing from scraps is pretty exciting because I’m really into sustainability, and have been since I was a kid, and limiting food waste by replanting and growing more food is excellent. 

Speaking of limiting food waste, I also have a compost going in the corner of our balcony. Eric’s sister gave me an empty, locking-top kitty litter plastic bin that I’ve been throwing shredded paper scraps, exhausted dirt, and food waste into for a few months now. It needs to be turned, and is pretty full since we eat mostly whole foods and generate a fair amount of scraps, but I think it’s doing what it’s supposed to, which is super exciting! It doesn’t smell much, and the food does seem to be breaking down. My mom has kept a compost since I was a little kid, and aside from the lack of grass cuttings that always made up a lot of her compost piles, my little kitty bucket compost looks like proper compost! I’ve been adding it into a few of my plantings already, like the potatoes that are heavy nutrient feeders. I think when I have the proper planters, the compost will really come in handy. 

Some background here, my mom is a big gardener and I’ve been helping her in the yard and with the vegetable garden since I was a kid. We were part of a neighborhood sustainability club that focused on community beauty through gardening, sustainable practices, and environment friendly projects and events like Sweep the Creek. In high school, I helped to found a gardening club at my school in senior year, and we dug up a courtyard to install a vegetable garden to be used and maintained by the home ec and horticulture classes. I’ve always had strong beliefs in the value of food gardens and I have a significant love of plants in general. SO the fact I have the opportunity to take advantage of all South facing windows has been thoroughly utilized and my indoor plants have thrived through the winter. Now that it’s almost warm enough to star utilizing the opportunity to use a take advantage of a South facing balcony, not obscured by trees and the like? I am itching with excitement to start laying the garden out in my small space and planting things. I really want it to be successful, and we’ll just have to wait and see, but I have a good feeling about it. 

April and May are really when planting season starts where we are, so I’m jumping the gun kind of significantly, but once the weather warms up and starts staying warm, I will really be able to launch into this project. 

Stay tuned for more updates and some pictures! 

-Kecheri

[blizzweirdo]

No Omen, No Country’s Cause Ch. 9

You’ll LOVE this POV, guys. LOL.

AH HA HA HAH HA HA HA!

And you’ll have to wait for... stuff (no spoilers).

DON’T PUNCH ME.

Also, sorry this is late.

     Troy Reeves walked purposefully across the deck of the hangar bay, carefully composing himself. The crew must not see any shred of weakness or a lack of decorum. He straightened his jacket and set his cap. Talking with Stukov disturbed him. He was the last person he had expected to see here, or again, and one of the people he would want to least want to see ever. It had made him perversely happy to see his old rival disfigured and tainted by the race he had closely studied, but disturbing to learn that he now wielded their power. Stopping in the hallway, he pressed the button to call for a lift. Groups of soldiers, captains, and crew walked past him, their loud talking amplified by alcohol. Reeves tipped his hat to them and gave them a grit-teethed smiled. As he got in, a young ensign followed blithely behind him. Once he realized who he had boarded the elevator with, he clearly had tried to turn heel to walk out, but stopped, realizing it was too late. Reeves smiled at him. At least he registers my authority.

     “I won’t bite, ensign. What floor do you need?”

     “S-seven, sir.”

     “Seven? Crew quarters?”

     “Yes, sir. Not one for parties, sir.”

     “Good boy. Neither am I.”

     The ensign stepped off the elevator and Reeves continued to the bridge. When he got there, it was empty; they had celebrated briefly earlier, and he had given them the night off. He walked into his office. All was silent.

     Silence. He enjoyed it. Too much of his job was either loud with the sounds of war or with the sounds of mass humanity. Reeves took his meals in his office or in his quarters. With the end of their first battle and after dealing with Stukov, he needed the solitude—and he also needed to compose a message to Henri, his husband. He didn’t want to seem upset, especially when he had good news. He was alive, one, and they had taken Tarsonis. Of course, if Henri registered he was upset, he couldn’t tell him about Stukov—he couldn’t tell anyone. If Stukov’s true fate was widely known, he couldn’t imagine the fear that it would engender that someone as distinguished (it wasn’t the word he wanted to use, but he couldn’t think of another) as Stukov had been overtaken by the zerg. It would demonstrate just how dangerous the zerg were.

     He had to stop thinking about it. Reeves sat at his desk and turned on his console, positioning himself in front of the screen so that he was in range of the video feed. But then he saw he already had a message from Henri. There was no way for them to speak in real time. They would be passing each other endlessly for the entirety of the conflict. It would be an ongoing call and response conversation. Henri had gotten the first word in. Reeves opened the message. In the study of their home in Charleston, Henri sat, his arms draped over his cello on a leather chaise lounge. He was wearing the silk shirt Reeves had gifted him for his birthday last year.

     “Troy, honey, hello! I hope this gets to you before you get into Tarsonis. If not, well, you know me… Always fashionably late. Sometimes even missing the party!”

     Reeves snorted with laughter. He had missed the “party.”

     “I don’t know what to say. I miss you? I’m definitely afraid for you, and I pray for you, even though I know it won’t do any good. Since I’m at a loss for words and I’m pretty sure we’re being monitored by whatever censors are on this channel, I thought I’d play you something… Here goes…”

     Henri began to play, his long arms languidly crossing his cello. Reeves had always been captivated by the sensuous way he moved. As the tune began, he recognized it. It was one that he had played before but not often. It was faster than much of the music that he played and darker. He searched for the name of it, but only came up with the composter—Stravinsky. A Russian. Reeves anger suddenly returned.

     Reeves’s XO, Commander Gorman, appeared at his door. Reeves turned off the recording. Gorman took a step back, reading the anger on his commander’s face. Reeves demurred.

     “Come in, what is it?”

     “There’s been an… incident… in the brig. We’ve had to restrain one of the prisoners.”

     “Which one?”

     “A ghost? Did you know about this?”

     Reeves stood up so quickly his chair fell over backwards. Gorman jumped at the sound.

     “Was he harmed?”

     “No, but he took out all the electronic equipment on the cell block and even some above and below. Some sort of telekinesis.”

     “Was it an escape attempt?”

     “If it was, it wasn’t a good one. He could’ve walked out, but he’s still down there. We put an external psi dampener on him but…” Gorman handed Reeves a datapad. “There are some irregularities in his file… I thought you might want to take a look. Why was he being held? I didn’t see…” Reeves interrupted him.

     “Gorman, don’t stick your nose into this. From this point forward, I alone deal with this ghost. Any inquiries go straight to me. I want no one to speak of him. There’s no ghost in our brig, and there never was. Is that clear?”

     Gorman went white. Reeves knew he understood. He generally allowed him more freedom than others of his staff—he had known him the longest of any of the crew—but because of this Gorman also knew how quickly Reeves could turn on someone. And when he turned, the relationship was soured forever.

     “O-of course, Admiral.”

     “Dismissed.”

     Gorman left quickly. Reeves read through Gregory Stukov’s file at his desk. He was young—22 biologically but 27 chronologically—and had entered the UED’s ghost program late either because he had been shielded by someone or because he was a late bloomer. His psi index was midrange and he had no reason to have been brain panned—no covert missions or erratic behavior. This appeared to be his first major mission.

     On brain-panning, Reeves aligned more with the Terran Dominion’s view of the practice than with his own government. Degenerates with psionic powers, he felt, needed to be tightly controlled. Brain-panning, he believed, made them docile. They knew no better than to follow orders and could do nothing for themselves if the practice was used judiciously. It had been standard operating procedure until around the time when Reeves had just begun maturing into his military career. Reeves’s first choice of posting had been a ghost “academy” in Montreal. He had already begun living there, and it was where he had met Henri. But the door to that opportunity had suddenly slammed shut. The same year a paper had been put before the UPL Council written by a group of anonymous military officers. It was titled “The Treatment of ‘Degenerate’ Psionic Assets in Training and Combat: An Analysis of Statistics and Subsequent Recommendations.” In it was a scathing deconstruction of many of the academy’s training methods and processes, the most notable of which their usage of “brain-panning” or memory erasure. Common wisdom was that eliminating an agent’s past made them more loyal. This paper, with statistics, case studies, and even some experiments, seemed to prove that it didn’t. One rhetorical question always stuck out to him, and it was the one that was his career’s undoing: “How can soldiers be loyal to a country they don’t remember?” Of all the arguments—that soldiers who were brain-panned could not relate to their commanders, that not being able to remember their families made them unable to form familial bonds among their comrades, and that making them unable to care for themselves in any practical sense put them at a disadvantage in survival situations—the question was the one that shut down the academies temporarily until they could be reformed. Reeves had sided against the paper and the revisions it would make. But the paper’s ideas had just enough patriotic spin on them. The regime changed and was out. And he was out with it.

     Years later, a few months before the Expeditionary Fleet was about to leave, a memo was forwarded to him by a friend who had survived the change in leadership. It was from Vice Admiral Stukov. His friend had written a note with it saying, “Notice anything?” In his memo, Stukov had sent along Admiral DuGalle’s call for the number of ghosts that they needed to accompany them to the Koprulu sector. With it, he had sent his own qualifiers since they would be directly under his command. He “under no circumstances” wanted any ghost that had been brain-panned for any reason—and he explained why. In his explanation, there were several sentences that were worded in almost exactly the same way as the paper that had made its way to the UPL Council years ago. Either Stukov kept a copy around or he had written at least part of it. Reeves looked up the paper and read it again. Sure enough, in the passages where the language was the most heated and blunt, there he recognized Stukov’s voice. He had sidetracked Reeves’s career from afar—and it hadn’t been the first time.

     But now, as he read Gregory’s file, he wondered how Stukov had been so prescient. How had he known his son—who wouldn’t have shown signs before Stukov left—would be a degenerate? Unless his father was. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake, Reeves thought. The bad egg. The spoiled apple. DuGalle’s pet a psionic. Gorman had been right about there being something fishy about the file. His psi index was rated at 5.5—too low for telekinesis and for the damage done to the brig. There were ghosts that were exceptions, but not many. His other scores were above average but not exceptional—as if he had been purposefully lowballing his tests or someone had changed his scores keep attention away from him. He would make some discrete inquiries to see who might be the culprit, but some of the information he was hoping the boy himself would divulge. A high psi index, holding back his powers, being too connected, or behaving erratically—all of these circumstances could potentially warrant brain-panning if presented the right way.

     A brain-panned son would be just what Stukov deserved. Gregory needed it, he thought, all ghosts needed it. But if Gregory had any loyalty to his father—and if he had been trying to escape—it would be necessary regardless of how he felt about Stukov. He couldn’t lose him, and the look on Stukov’s face when he realized his son no longer knew who he was would balance the ledger that Reeves had been tallying of his misdeeds.

     Reeves looked up the name of the chief ghost wrangler and trainer on board. He had seen several messages about a “missing ghost” from him but he had been ignoring them. He found his name—Special Ops Chief Shin. Shin picked up immediately when Reeves called. A weathered man appeared on the screen with close-cropped silver hair and one eye that was all white. In another place, he would have a prosthetic, but in the UED, such things weren’t allowed.

     “Shin!” He said curtly as a greeting. Reeves didn’t like that.

     “Chief Shin, this is Admiral Reeves…” He said, waiting for his authority over him to sink in. It never did.

     “Yes? What do you need?”

     “I have a recalcitrant ghost that needs to be re-educated.”

     “You mean brain-panned? A drastic measure. I would need to evaluate them.”

     “That will not be necessary.”

     “Yes, it will. Is this about my missing ghost?”

     “That is not your concern.”

     “Like hell it isn’t. Where is he?”

     “If you don’t have that machine ready in an hour, you’ll be in the same hole I put him in.”

     “What? This is out—”

     Reeves cut him off. He knew what he had to do, but he wanted to speak with the boy first.

     The lights had been restored in the brig by the time Reeves entered. A tech was still working on the guard’s surveillance terminal, her head in an access port under the desk. The guard looked on, standing nearby, bored and helpless. An ensign was still sweeping up the glass in the hallway of the cell block. The guard quickly stood at attention when Reeves entered. The tech hit her head on the desk, but also stood at attention. Reeves barely acknowledged them.

     “I want both of you to still be here when I come back out. Talk to no one, let no one leave, and send anyone who comes in away. Do you understand?”

     “Yes, sir!”

     Reeves skulked into the cell block, gripping the datapad Gorman had given him in his hand. He stopped at Gregory’s cell and looked in at him. When Gregory saw him, he quickly stood, his large green eyes meeting his fleetingly and then darting away. There was a thick, white metal collar around his neck—the external dampener they had fitted him with. Most ghosts had a failsafe surgically implanted in their brains, but they were calibrated to the psi index in their files. If he had one, it would be incorrectly fitted if his file was wrong. As he looked at him, Reeves saw little of his father in him. Maybe the eye shape and the body type, but the rest was his mother, whom Reeves had met infrequently but vividly remembered. That made it easier to talk to him. If he’d looked like Stukov, he thought, it would have been a lot harder not to kill him there in the hangar. But it would be harder to brain-pan him, and, if it came to it, kill him later, When his father inevitably pisses me off.

     He briefly thought about how hilarious it would be if it turned out Gregory wasn’t actually his son, and his wife had already been halfway out the door that long before their divorce. But he knew that wasn’t possible. The mandatory DNA screening most children went through to predict psionic ability would also have established paternity. Gregory had avoided testing—officer’s family privilege—until he most likely began to show signs of what the UED saw as an affliction. That was the first of many oddities of his file, which he would discuss with him.

     Reeves held up the datapad for Gregory to see. “I have your dossier right here, Gregory…” Gregory’s eyes followed it nervously. “There are a few items I think you’d better explain.”

     “Okay…” Gregory murmured.

     “First, your file says not a thing about you being a teek. That’s a little odd, don’t you think?” He said, his voice raising with the question.”

     “I… guess?”

     “You guess? Any idea why that pertinent information was kept out of your file?”

     Gregory was silent for a moment.

     “Clerical error?” He finally said. Reeves’s eyes narrowed. He saw more of his father in him now. That was exactly the kind of flippant remark his father would make.

     “Are you trying to be funny, son?”

     “No, sir,” he said quickly. Reeves watched his face. He was obviously afraid of him. The remark had been guileless if a bit stupid.

     “It also says your psi index is five and a half—and we both know that can’t possibly be right.”

     “Why not?”

     “Don’t play coy with me. We both know a human must have at least a PI of at least eight to be telekinetic. Tell me what your real number is.”

     Gregory was silent again, looking away.

     “Boy, if you don’t tell me, I’ll have it beaten out of you.”

     “Eight point two,” he said wearily, “What does it matter?”

     “Because one of my most powerful ghosts is exhibiting ‘erratic behavior,’ and may need some more permanent restraint than that psi dampener.” Gregory took a step back, the back of his leg hitting the bench behind him, causing him to lose his footing and fall against the wall.

     “No, that’s not necessary…”

     “You tried to escape.”

     “I didn’t!”

     “That’s enough!” A voice said from down the hallway. Dressed in a greying, threadbare ghost’s uniform covered by a long, black duster, Shin marched towards Reeves. Gregory stood up when he saw him. Shin ignored Reeves.      

     “Finally, I found you. I thought you’d gone AWOL. But that wasn’t right.”

     “I’m sorry. I’ve been in here since we got here…”

     “Don’t apologize. What have I told you about that?”

     “I’m sor… I mean…”

     “How did you get in here?” Reeves said, blustering.

     “I’m a ghost? How else? You’re not hard to find. All I did was ask the computer where you were. You really should have your whereabouts clearance-locked.” Reeves fumed. “They didn’t hurt you, did they?” he said, turning back to Gregory.

     “No, but he put a gun to my head.”

     Shin turned quickly to Reeves, “You what?”

     From down the hallway, another prisoner had woken, hearing the three of them talking. He began banging on the wall.

     “Hello? Who’s there? I am a Terran Republic citizen, damn it. I demand due process and a lawyer.” It was Marcos Marinakis. Reeves had almost forgotten about him, but he needed him later.

     “Shut up!” he yelled at him. Reeves’s rage was about to get the best of him. He turned back to Gregory.

     “I sense your anger, Reeves,” Shin said calmly, “But this boy is not his father.” Reeves became irater at the imposition of Shin on his thoughts. He had accessed what amounted to classified data. Shin had not been privy to any briefings on Stukov and his appearance in the Koprulu sector.

     “That thing is not my father!”

     “What?” Reeves said, taken aback.

     “It is a zerg-infested zombie and an abomination.” Reeves never considered that Gregory would not see Stukov as his father anymore. It hadn’t even occurred to him that Stukov may not be Stukov but instead a reanimated version of him. But the way Stukov had spoken to him, the stunt he had pulled—he had been more vicious than usual, but it wasn’t out of character. He had been his same, sardonic self. It had to have been the real Stukov; he felt it. His body may have been tainted by the zerg, but his mind was still there. Gregory had not been able to speak to him. He had only seen what he had done and had to believe that he had not betrayed and abandoned them all those years ago. Reeves realized that brain-panning would be a kindness to Gregory and to his father. He would not use it on him—not yet anyway. Down the hallway, Marinakis began making noise again.

     “You can’t do this! I am a presidential candidate!

     “You’re right, Shin. He’s not his father. His father is dead. We should be more respectful of that. Of course that thing we’re allied with is an abomination… But we must play along, right?”

     Gregory nodded slowly, suspicious.

     “There’s no reason to punish him, Reeves,” Shin said quietly.

     “No, there isn’t. But he’ll have to stay here for his own safety…”

     “Fine. As long as we don’t have need for the operation room…” Shin began. Marinakis bellowed in the background.

     “Hold that thought, Shin. I think I still have use for your machine…”

[humongouscatkoala-blog]

Beginners Overview of House Composting

Composting your cooking area and garden waste is an excellent way to decrease the amount of waste you get rid of in your rubbish bin. By composting your waste you can create a totally free source of rich garden compost to help improve your garden, as well as help to lower international warming at the same time.

How does home composting aid to minimize worldwide warming?

When sent out to landfill natural waste is compressed under tonnes and tonnes of other waste types. The natural waste for that reason does not have sufficient access to air, which restricts the waste from having the ability to break down properly. Instead of breaking down, methane gas is produced which contributes to international warming.

The Compost Bin

The initial step to start composting in the house is to get a compost bin. You can either acquire a compost bin or you can make your very own. Garden compost bins can be bought from most of garden centres. The federal government moneyed Recycle Now Home Composting Campaign likewise sells reduced compost bins.

The next crucial step is to choose where to position the compost bin, which can affect the general quality of the compost that is produced. For best results position the bin in a well drained pipes area which has good access to sunlight. The drainage will allow excess water to drain pipes out of the garden compost and putting the bin in a warm area assists to speed up the composting procedure.

What waste products can I put in my garden compost bin?

There are lots of daily waste products from your garden and cooking area that can go into your compost bin. Greens are the type of products that offer wetness and nitrogen and are fast to rot. Items classed as Greens consists of:

Yard cuttings Veggie peelings Leaves Fruit Tea bags Weeds

Browns are waste products that take longer to rot however offer pockets of air, along with fiber and carbon. This consists of products such as:

Cardboard boxes Newspapers (scrunched up). Toilet roll tubes. Egg shells (crushed). Shredded paper. Twigs and hedge clippings.

How do I make a good quality garden compost?

To make a great quality compost it is essential to utilize a great mix of both 'green' and 'brown' wastes. It is merely a case of monitoring the compost and adding more waste depending on the look of the garden compost. If it looks too dry include more? green? waste, and if it looks too wet add more? brown? waste. Every so often it is also a good idea to blend or turn the contents of your garden compost bin to include air.

For how long will it consider my garden compost to be ready to use?

This will differ depending upon the mixture of waste that is positioned into the garden compost bin, the surrounding conditions and the weather condition. In basic it must take in between 6 and 9 months for your ended up garden compost to be ready to use.

The federal government moneyed Recycle Now Home Composting Campaign likewise offers reduced compost bins.

The next crucial step is to decide where to place the garden compost bin, which can affect the overall quality of the garden compost that is produced. There are lots of daily waste products from your garden and cooking area that can go into your garden compost bin. To make a great quality compost it is essential to use a great mix of both 'green' and 'brown' wastes. It is simply a case of monitoring the compost and including more waste depending on the appearance of the compost.

[threebeansplaytime]

Today, we made a Wormery! Or, three, actually - one per Bean! As part of our at home learning, we’ve been looking at life-cycles and the natural world. So, we decided to take a look at the life-cycle of an Earth Worm too and to make our own DIY wormeries so that we could study these amazing creatures in more detail. I set this up as a Tuff Tray activity with some printed fact sheets from @twinklresources / @twinklparents and a copy of the life-cycle so that we could discuss this and talk all about worms as we set to work, constructing our wormeries. Earth worms are one of the world's unsung heroes. They loosen and mix up the soil, break down and recycle decaying plant matter and fertilise the soil by bringing nutrients closer to the surface. Earth worms burrow through the soil creating channels that add oxygen to the soil and allow carbon dioxide to escape. The channels also allow rain to drain away. All of this helps contribute to a rich and fertile compost that helps other plants, flowers and vegetables grow to be strong and healthy. They are a vital part of the ecosystem. So, what do you need if you want to try making your own wormery too? Equipment needed: 1. A clear, plastic bottle (1.5 or 2L) 2. Safety scissors 3. Compost or soil or a mixture of both 4. Sharp sand 5. Some small stones/pebbles 6. A few worms per bottle 7. Water sprayer to dampen layers 8. Worm food – grated carrot, vegetable peelings, dead leaves, shredded newspaper 9. Some dark/black card or paper You can see step-by-step instructions on our Facebook page (@ThreeBeansPlaytime) #threebeansplaytime #3beansplaytime #wormery #eyfs #eyfsideas #learning #learningathome #homelearning #homelearningfun #lifecycles #twinkl #twinklparents #learningfromhome #learningfromnature #youtuberkids https://www.instagram.com/p/B_yVX3mnv7A/?igshid=ni53p3l827gz

[thecoroutfitters]

It only takes one blizzard, excessive ice on power lines, or a computer board failure in the furnace system to leave you without heat at time when you need it most. And if you look around these days, you can easily imagine what a holiday at the North Pole feels like, so heating is the last thing you would want to lose.

Here are some things you can do to make sure you stay warm in a time when it may be difficult or impossible to use your primary heating system method.

1. Understanding How Heat Moves Around Your Home

Before you begin planning how to heat your home in a crisis, find out what kinds of advantages and limitations you are dealing with first: oddly shaped rooms, hallways, doors, and other structures can change the flow of air, and thus heat through your home. In some cases, the answers may surprise you and lead to changes in how you get the most out of alternative heating method placement.

Here are some things you should know about and experiment with:

If you have central heating, make sure that you know which order heat is delivered to the registers. Usually, the registers closest to the furnace will receive hot air first, while those further away may receive cooler air, si take advantage of register order. Instead of closing off a room that is very close to the boiler, use it more and close off rooms that are further away.

Take temperature readings at different heights, around corners, and in other odd room or hall arrangements, to make a good idea of how air enters and exits each room, then you can see how the temperature changes are affected by that air current. In some cases, using a small fan in one area will push the heat further into the room instead of building up in a corner. If you have cats, check where they are inclined to nap that aren’t directly related to air registers: these will be warm spots or have warmer drafts that you can take advantage of.

Find out where and how cold drafts influence the way heat moves through so you would know how to use alternative methods that may not supply as much heat. If the drafts are pushing air inward, put your heating source in front of the draft so that it moves the warmed air in along with the cold. You should still try to limit these drafts because the supply of colder air coming in is endless, while the heat produced by your system is limited.

2. Electricity and its Role in Winter Heating

Maybe you have plenty of oil or other heating fuel, you made sure all furnace heating system and maintenance needs were taken care of, and even have a “smart” thermostat or other “smart house” technologies that ensure is at an optimal temperature every room.

All this can lead you to believe you can’t lose your primary source of heat, but you would be wrong.

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  The more complicated your heating system is, the more likely it is the system relies on electricity. The amount of electricity required to run blower fans, pump fuel into the furnace, ignite the fuel, and carry out other activities may be more than you provide.

If you don’t already have a tested system in place for generating power off-grid, then blizzards, ice storms, and other events will lead to serious power disruptions. Unless you can generate sufficient power, or your heating system does not require electricity, you must take into account alternative heating methods.

3. Preparing for an Electrical Outage

It can take years of trial and error, plus a range of equipment to generate enough electricity to live off the grid.

If you are especially low on funds, and need to prepare for winter power outages now, buy a generator, or household scale  batteries that can be charged and stored away for use during a storm. Your best option will be alternative fuels and heating devices, as well as good information on how to make the use of it.

4. Alternative Fuels to Have Onhand

If you are already reeling over the cost of home heating fuels such as wood, coal, oil, and gas, then you might wonder how to afford alternative fuels.  You can make some from household junk and you can buy other in small quantities and store away for a time of need.

Here are three alternative fuels that will work in just about any situation so long as you have adequate ventilation and can safely manage a fire.

Newspaper Logs

This is one of the easiest and cheapest to make: take newspapers, junk mail, and just about anything else made of paper (try to avoid glossy, plastic, or heavily dyed pages as they will smell bad when they burn) and tear it up into shreds. Next, soak the paper in water for a  few days to make it as soft as possible.

To make the brick shape, set the papers into a pan and squeeze the water out.  Once the bricks are dry, you can burn them just as you would wooden logs.

Candles

It is best to buy a wide range of candle sizes that can be used for different locations and needs. For candle heaters and similar radiative devices, you can use tea lights and votives. If you want to heat up a smaller area and get more light at the same time, use a taper.

Seven Day Candles or the larger jar candles may not offer much in the way of heat or light.  Aside from the fact that many of these candles are made with thinner wicks that don’t work well, the heat from them is usually trapped by the jar itself.

You can also make candles from just about anything that has fat or wax in it. This includes tubes of chap stick, cans of vegetable shortening, sticks of butter, crayons, or anything else that you can get some kind of wick into.

For smaller “candles” you can use toothpicks or other splinters of wood.  Rolled up paper will work well for shortening can candles and others that are larger in size.

Rubbing Alcohol

Even though it takes a lot of experience to make wood, or rubbing alcohol, you can still buy it at a fairly low price.  Just purchase a bottle or two each time you go shopping and store it away for a time of need.

5. Easy Devices You Can Buy or Build

You should have one kind of stove for each fuel that you are setting aside. Paper logs may be the easiest and cheapest fuel to make, but they will be useless if you have no safe place to burn them. Burn them in an outdoor open barrel, or set up a wood stove indoors with a proper chimney system.  Even though you can do quite a bit with lengths of stovepipe, they must still eventually attach to a suitable chimney.

Remember, down drafts and other problems can truly make burning these kinds of fuels indoors an art form. While dampers in the stove pipe may alleviate some of the problem, it still takes a bit of work and maintenance to use these systems safely and to the maximum benefit.

Here are some smaller, easy to manage devices that you can make or purchase for other kinds of alternative fuel:

Candle Heater

You can purchase prefabricated heaters made of clay flower pots, or you can make your own. If you decide to assemble your own, be sure to use zinc free washers, nuts, and bolts.

When heated, metal hardware with zinc in it can give of toxic fumes.  Since the candle heater can raise temperature of the metal to several hundred degrees, it will not be worth your safety and well being to use fittings that have zinc in them.

During the winter months, it is also very important to periodically dry out the ceramic pots in an oven.  This will reduce the moisture content and ensure that heat will flow through the pots more easily.

If you choose to make your own candle heater, do not forget to include a saucer cap on top of the flower pot array. Once the candle heater is going for about an hour, you will have more than enough heat to warm up food and beverages in heat safe bowls.

I do not recommend large, or heavy cookware. Anything light and thin that transmits heat easily will suit your needs better.

Rubbing Alcohol Stove

As with candle heaters, you can also purchase prefabricated rubbing alcohol stoves. Or, if you have some soda cans onhand, you can make one from those.  Since rubbing alcohol stoves are very efficient, do not be surprised at the amount of heat you will get from such a small device and a relatively small amount of rubbing alcohol. Do not forget you can also put a metal tripod over the rubbing alcohol stove and use it for cooking.  Overall, the rubbing alcohol stove will be more efficient in this area than the candle heater.

Propane Stove

Even though propane bottles cost more than rubbing alcohol, propane devices are very useful for emergency situations.  Propane stoves or heaters can be used for cooking meals, as well as providing heat.

Depending on the cylinder size and the setting of the stove or heater, you may get just a few hours from each cylinder or much more.

6. Backup Systems to Consider

If you have more time to work with, devise other systems that can be used without burning various kinds of fuel. You will also need to find a way to transport the heat into each area  of interest to you.

Compost Pile

Did you know that a medium to large compost pile can produce enough heat to warm up water in pipes buried in the pile? All you need to do is take a coil of plastic pipe and fill it up with water.

Regardless of the temperature outdoors or the weather conditions, your compost pile will always be producing heat at the core level. To get some of that heat into the house, continue the plastic line into your home and then pump the water around the room and back out to the compost pile again.

You can also add water radiators with metal fins to disburse the heat more readily as the water is piped around your home.  Try to limit your pump size to ones that will run on a 12 volt battery.

In an emergency, just keep a fresh and fully charged car battery or other deep cycle battery on hand to run the pump.

Solar Can Heater

If you have a sunny spot on a rooftop or in your yard, then you can generate a good bit of heat with a solar can heater since these devices only require an insulated box with a glass covering. Inside the box, set up series of plastic pipe, and then encase the pipes in cans.

After the main system is built, you can either run water through the pipes, or simply let hot air from the pipes vent into your home.

As with the compost pile, pumping water in will also give you the advantage of having hot water on hand in a time when none may be available because of the weather situation.

7. Managing Your Woodpile

When it comes to managing your wood pile, make sure the wood stays as dry as possible. If you are concerned about being trapped indoors during a blizzard or other severe weather, keep as much wood as possible near the house.

Keeping enough wood chopped and ready to burn for at least three weeks will always be to your advantage. You can also try to find a place in your home to supply at least one weeks worth of heat so that you can stay indoors as much as possible.

Many people don’t realize that you can burn less fuel without losing out on a lot of heat efficiency. Bank the fire every few hours so that the existing heat has a chance to circulate. Once the fire is burning well, don’t add other materials such as paper or cardboard.

If you are going to burn these materials, do so when you aren’t planning to burn wood until the embers from the other material are in a condition where they can be banked.

You can revive them easily enough with wood, however mixing fuel types can make the fire burn too fast or too slow and cause it to be less efficient.

8. Managing Oil and Other Fuel Lines

If the temperatures get cold enough, fuel lines might freeze up. Make sure that you know how to thaw the lines out safely, as well as how to tap the main tank so that you can keep some fuel onhand indoors.

Have a valve installed so that you can cut off the main fuel line, and attach a line inside the house that will draw from a bucket of fuel. Just be sure to monitor the system each time it is burning for the sake of safety and fire prevention.

9. Passive Methods for Pacing Fuel Consumption

You can block off windows at night, and then open the shades during sunlight hours to let heat in. Running ceiling fans can also help push warm air back down into the room where you need it most.

In the most extreme situations, you can also pitch a tent in one room of your home and stay in it to conserve as much body heat as possible. Take the time now to practice using candle heaters and other devices outside the tent, as well as how to get the most from them in a time of need.

Remember that hot food and beverages can also go a long way to preserving your core body temperature. Even if you cannot heat up a whole room using alternative methods, you may still be able to warm of food and beverages that will help you avoid freezing to death.

10. Emergency Survival Kit

Overall, building an emergency heating survival kit is not especially difficult. Here are the most important items to have onhand:

candle heater and candles

rubbing alcohol stove and fuel

hair dryer or other heat source for thawing water pipes

additive that can be mixed with heating fuel to prevent freezing in the first place

matches or other means of starting a fire

emergency heat retention blankets

tent

plenty of water for hydration

foods and beverages that can be heated up

solar powered coffee mug or other devices that  can be used to heat up water or soup without using electricity or a fire.

At this time, there is more debate than you might expect about whether or not the planet is heating up or cooling down. If you have ever seen the way ice melts in a beverage, then it may be easier to understand why some data points one way, while other studies indicate the opposite.

Regardless of how or why, the fact remains weather patterns are becoming more extreme, which means that you need to all you can to prepare for extreme cold and situations where your primary heating system fails.

Having a few devices and alternative fuels onhand may not seem like much, but it is more effective than doing nothing at all, or simply hoping for the best!

This article has been written by Carmela Tyrell for Survivopedia.

from Survivopedia Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[garbagebinrentals]

Tips on How to Increase Waste Management Efficiency for a Small Business or Corporate Office

Every business creates waste. Even companies who plant trees create waste products in their efforts. Your average Toronto corporate office generally fixates on other priorities above management of their waste. That doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

A lot of offices in Toronto want ways to reduce waste, increase recycling, and manage the waste they have to create. As a waste disposal company, there are two pieces of advice we give on this – properly dispose of the waste you’re already creating and use alternatives to reduce the waste created.

Where are there opportunities to purpose and reuse your office business waste?

An office that wants to be smart about their waste needs relationships. A lot of larger multi-national corporations launch initiatives based off these relationships that focus on recycling and/or repurposing waste.

As a small business or independent business, the biggest opportunity there is to develop relationships that allow you to repurpose waste is by hiring a waste disposal company. Waste disposal, junk removal, dumpster, and mini bin rental companies all have partners in waste management and recycling facilities. They do this on a daily basis. They also know where to take things like electronics and furniture which can be donated.

How do I make a waste management strategy for my business?

Every corporate office, small business, or commercial establishment of any kind should have some sort of a waste disposal plan in place. A business can’t get by without it. If you want to control your office waste better, get to know the waste you’re creating and where it’s going.

A key component of a waste management plan is where you’re going to put the waste. Dumpster rentals and mini bin rentals can be advantageous for this reason. If you don’t have space for a dumpster, consider assigning a room to be your ‘waste room’ ensuring it doesn’t conflict with fire safety standards.

Throughout your office, you want to have the necessary garbage cans to collect and keep separate the waste and recycling as well.

What is the value of a waste disposal service for my business?

Core Mini Bins is a top Toronto waste disposal service with dumpsters, mini bins, junk removal, and other business-friendly services. There are several benefits to working with a waste management company like our own.

 Convenience.  Find better ways to manage your waste.  Reduce your impact on the environment and get the numbers to show it.  Have a way to separate hazardous materials to ensure proper disposal.  Have strategies to safely dispose of or recycle electronics, metals, and chemicals.  Cost-effectiveness.  Receive customized suggestions on a waste management plan that prioritizes landfill waste reduction.  Get more space in your office to work with, after removing broken equipment and instituting a waste collection area.  Ensure no fines relating to waste disposal are assigned to your business.

How can I maximize the affordability of a waste disposal plan for a business?

If you find that it’s going to cost you more to successfully manage waste through a dumpster rental, one strategy is to try and split these costs between other businesses. If you’re fortunate enough to have a business neighbour, ask to see if they want to share the expense with you.

Depending on the situation, you may need to ask a neighbour for their permission to install a dumpster on the premises anyways. If they do agree to split the costs with you, that’s instant savings on your wallet and without compromising the efficiency of your office waste management strategy.

Do I need junk removal for my Toronto business?

Increasing waste management efficiency can sometimes mean starting with a clean slate. Decluttering an office is a great way to get out the things you don’t need and start anew. Assuming there’s equipment you’re not using, computer or electronics waste that hasn’t yet been addressed, and other objects you want gone, schedule a small business Toronto junk removal.

A junk removal service will drop in and pick up everything you want to part with. Before scheduling the pick-up, give yourself the time to sort through everything in the office. Some office managers may want to allow themselves a weekend to do this. If you have office electronics, chemicals, hazardous materials, or other special items that require special consideration, mention this to the company.

What waste can be recycled in an office?

A lot of what offices produce in waste is recyclable but some waste understandably isn’t. Efforts to reduce waste in landfills from your office involve replacing non-recyclables with recyclable alternatives. Here is a quick list of office recyclables in Toronto.

 Paper products, including newspapers, cardboard, flyers, and shredded documents.  Aluminum.  Electronics such as televisions, computers, monitors, printers, tablets, and phones.  Paints including most aerosols, varnishes, and stains.  Batteries can be recycled through Home Depot or Staples.  Fluorescent light tubes require special handling but can be recycled.

What are some strategies to use to increase office recycling?

The more you recycle, the less landfill waste you create – that’s the bottom line. If you want to own an eco-friendly, environmentally sustainable business, pro-recycling strategies should be a focus of your waste management plan. Here are our best tips on how to increase office recycling.

 Separate organics. If you have an office kitchen, have a separate trash can for food scraps, paper towels and napkins, coffee grinds and tea bags, and compostable plates and cutlery.

 Purchase inventory that is recyclable. Eliminate waste that isn’t. For example, single-use plastics relating to food packaging, straws, and plastic bags have alternatives. Be mindful of what you’re buying for the office. Ask if there’s a pro-recycling alternative that can replace it.

 Have systems in place to collect more recycling so that recyclables aren’t ending up in the trash because of there being no place to put them. Common recycling materials mistaken as waste in offices include electronics, light bulbs, batteries, printer and toner cartridges, cardboard, aluminum cans, and magazines.

 Stop buying disposable coffee cups. The average office worker in Canada uses 500 disposable cups a year. Instead of disposables, provide reusable coffee mugs and water bottles. This cuts out a huge amount of waste going into your waste stream on a daily basis.

 Encourage a paperless office environment. While few offices can go fully paperless, opt for digital communications whenever possible. Edit and proof any documents on the computer before printing. Try to print on both sides of the paper, when you do have to print. Try to switch all paperwork relating to purchasing and invoicing, memos, announcements, and internal communications to email.

Opportunities to increase office recycling exist. Are you ready to take your office waste management to the next level – call Core Mini Bins today.

Source: https://www.garbagebinrentals.ca/waste-collection-removal-disposal-blog/761-tips-on-how-to-increase-waste-management-efficiency-for-a-small-business-or-corporate-office.html

[psychicmedium14]

The December New Moon falls in the fiery sign of Sagittarius on the 18th and is the last lunar cycle of the calendar year. In order to really harness the cosmic energy of this time and to prepare for the year ahead, this New Moon ritual is designed to be completed over 7-days. Think of this like your advent calendar for the holidays. You can start this 7-day ritual at any time, but to really embrace and harness the energy of the New Moon, it is best to start this ritual on the 18th. This ritual includes 7 small and simple practices to be conducted on a daily basis. The aim of this ritual is to help you prepare for the energies of 2018 by purging, cleansing and aligning. Feel free to adapt the ritual according to your needs. Here is your 7-Day New Moon Ritual Day 1- Intention You will need: pen, paper, your favourite crystal Over the course of the 7-days you are going to be clearing and releasing the past and also welcoming in the new. We have all been reborn in some way this year, and it is important to honor where we are and embrace the current season of our lives. The only way to do this is to surrender the past, and to let go of all that no longer serves. We do this so we can enter 2018 with a clean slate and not fall into the trap of repeating certain habits, patterns and behaviours. We do this so we can grow and shift out of old habits and into a higher place of consciousness. When thinking of your intention for this 7-day ritual know that there are no limits. Take a moment to clear your mind and get still with yourself. Hold your favourite crystal and meditate or just breathe deeply for 10-30 minutes. Once you feel relaxed, ask yourself- What do I most need right now? What is the one thing that I would really like help/guidance/clarity on? With this question in mind, you can formulate an intention. Here is an example to get you started- “My intention over the next 7 days is to let go of past regrets and to forgive myself for all that I did and didn’t do. I want to clear these regrets and replace them with hope for the future. I want to feel inspired and energized again so I can make 2018 a good year.” Once you have your intention written down, place your hand over your heart and repeat your intention out loud three times followed by a “Thank You”. Really allow the words to sink in and put meaning behind them. You can decorate your intention and make it really colourful if you like. This is a good meditative practice that you can do to some music or even in silence. Once you have your intention written down, place it somewhere you can see it daily for the next 7-days alongside your crystal. Day 2- Purge You will need: pen, paper, your favourite crystal, candle, timer (smartphone timer works fine) This ritual is best done first thing in the morning or last thing before bed. Find a quiet place where you can’t be disturbed. Light your candle and sit comfortably with your crystal in your hand. Repeat your intention from day 1 and then breathe in and out for 10 breaths. Once you feel calm get your pen and paper and write at the top of the page- “Here is what I want to release from my life….” Set your timer for 20 minutes and then begin free flow writing whatever comes to your mind. The idea with this is that you don’t want the pen to lift off the page. This means that even if you don’t know what to write, just keep writing nonsense, random thoughts, or whatever comes to your head. Just give yourself permission to write whatever flows out of you. If you find yourself really getting of track, just silently repeat “here’s what I want to release from my life”, and see what flows. Once the 20 minutes are done, pause and reflect on any feelings or emotions that have been stirred for you. You may wish to go back and read over what you wrote or make a note of all the things that you wish to release. Note: if you want to keep writing for more than 20 minutes go for it! When ready, take your papers in your hand and repeat- “I am ready to let go of all of this, I am ready for the new. I am ready to purge all of this and so it is true. Angels and higher self from above, please guide me to release these things from my life, please steer me in the right direction so I may find peace from all that no longer serves.” Now start ripping up the paper as a sign that you are ready and willing to release all from your life. Once the paper is in shreds, discard of it in the recycling bin/compost. Holding your crystal again, sit comfortably and take 10 deep breaths in and out. As you do this, you can gently bring your gaze to the candle in front of you or close your eyes and visualise a brilliant white light. See the light and repeat – “I now fill myself with light” 10 times. As you do this, visualise a healing and protective white light surrounding you and running through you. Once completed, snuff out the candle and place your crystal back next to your intention. Day 3- Cleanse You will need: sage/other smudging tool This ritual works best if you have a clean house, but if you are strapped for time, don’t worry too much about it. Before you begin this ritual, be sure you have a door or window open. Take your sage or other smudging tool (oils, palo santo etc.) and begin by cleansing your aura. As you wave the smoke around your body repeat (or write your own)- “I am cleansing and purifying myself body, mind and soul. I am cleansed, I am renewed.” Now go around your entire home and cleanse everything using the smudging tool. Repeat the following mantra- “I cleanse my space and purify my surroundings. My space is cleansed, it is renewed.” Once you have cleansed your surroundings, meditate for 10-30 minutes, basking in the beautiful fresh energy. Day 4- Forgiveness You will need: mirror, pen and paper, timer (smartphone is fine) Sit in a comfortable position with your mirror and timer nearby. You are going to do another free flow writing exercise beginning with – “I just cannot forgive myself for…..” Set your timer for 20 minutes and just start free flow writing whatever comes to your mind. Again, try not to let the pen lift off the paper and keep writing until the timer stops. Just trust whatever flows and allow your imagination and subconscious mind to take over. Once the 20 minutes is over, reflect on what you have written and honor any emotions that may be lingering. Go back through what you have written and observe without judgement what thoughts or beliefs you are holding onto about forgiveness. Highlight any main areas that you are struggling to forgive yourself for. Once you have identified these areas, you are going to work on forgiving yourself for each and every one of them. Take your mirror and look at yourself in the eyes and repeat- “I forgive you” at least 10 times. Try to keep eye contact the whole time. Just be gentle with yourself if any emotions arise. Next, go through what you have written and forgive yourself for all of it. You deserve to be forgiven, you deserve to be released of these regrets. Look at yourself in the mirror as you forgive yourself for each and every one of them. Once you are done, give yourself a big warm bear hug and repeat to yourself- “I love you. Thank you. I love you.” Just be really gentle with yourself for the remainder of the day. Be sure to drink lots of water and get a good night of rest. Day 5- Purify You will need: pen, paper, your favourite crystal Start by repeating your intention to yourself. Perhaps observe the progress you have made or the new space that is now opening up in your life. Take your crystal, lie down and place it over your third eye or heart centre- just follow your instincts. Take 3-5 deep breaths here just to still your mind. You are now going to take yourself on a guided meditation with the help of your crystal. Think about the colour of your crystal and the shape. Visualize it in your mind. Once you have a clear visual, imagine the crystal floating just an inch or so above the top of your head. Visualize the crystal hovering above the crown of your head. See that crystal and all the colours and imagine that your body is soaking in and receiving energy from the crystal straight from the top of your head, all the way to the bottom of your feet. See if you can visualize the current of energy moving from the crystal at the top of your head all the way through your body and out at the ends of your feet. Now see the crystal moving around the outside of your body, around the neck, your arms, torso etc. Watch the crystal move around the outside of your body and visualize the colour and energy soaking into your body. Take yourself on this guided mediation until the crystal reaches the top of your head again. Open your eyes, stand up and shake or move lightly to get the energy flowing through your body. Day 6- Self Love You will need: mirror Read over your intention and acknowledge any progress you have made over the last few days. Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself in the eyes. Place your hand on your shoulder (doesn’t matter which one) and repeat- “You are worthy and you deserve to be loved. I love you and you are worthy.” Now take your hand and place it on your other shoulder and repeat the same mantra again. Be sure to look at yourself in the eyes as you say it. Now wrap your arms around yourself and repeat the mantra one final time. With your arms still wrapped around yourself repeat- “I promise to love you and look after you. I love you.” Day 7- Gratitude You will need: pen and paper (optional) The final day of your ritual is here! Take your intention and reflect on how far you have come! You can continue to keep the intention until you feel like you are done working with it. Take your favourite crystal that you have been using and sit comfortably. Take 10 breaths here just to still your mind. You can choose to write down your thoughts or just state them to yourself. Ask yourself the following- • What are 3 experiences that I feel the most grateful for this year? • Who are 5 people I feel most grateful to have in my life? • What am I most thankful for this year? Then complete these sentences: • I feel so lucky because….. • I am so happy when…..I • n 2018, I want to feel…… Once you are done, place your hands into prayer position and thank yourself, your angels, your guides and your higher self. You’re done! Merry Christmas!