well this sure the fuck is a thing that's happening isn't it

[stunt_muppet]

So. huh. last time I posted here there like. wasn't a worldwide pandemic and it hadn't been a week and a half since I left my house.

I'm okay - I'm actually very fortunate in that I'm able to work from home, I'm still getting paid, we're well-stocked on food and toilet paper, and i have Fiance living with me so I'm not completely alone. no one I know is sick so far, and my family's able to stay home as well; Fiance's family is also safe and well.

I'm scared - of course I am - but in a weird way it feels like the outside world is finally matching how I've been feeling since 2018 with the sense of looming doom and uncertainty/fear of the future, which ironically makes it way easier to talk to people about it and way easier to make logical preparations for emergencies and, i don't know. believe that i might be able to band together with other people and help each other or something.

I've been doing a lot of cooking and freezing soups to stretch out our necessary trips to the grocery, including trying some new recipes, and I'm in the process of disassembling some old bedsheets to make into masks and washrags. Saving scraps for compost and bones to make my own broth, and I was able to get some yeast on our last grocery outing so I can potentially make my own bread for the first time. It's not real self-sufficiency, not by a long shot, but it feels like a start, and one I needed to make. 

Hope you're all holding up okay out there, and if you're stuck working the "essentials" you're able to stay safe.

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

and, i don't know. believe that i might be able to band together with other people and help each other or something.

Aww, I'm really glad.

Meanwhile -- composting, that's awesome! And since you mention making bread, have you seen/would you be interested in the twitter thread about nursing store bought yeast into a self-sustaining starter? I haven't tried it myself, but it just seems so cool.

[stunt_muppet]

I haven't seen the Twitter thread! I'd seen one on how to grow your own yeast with dried fruit, flour, and water, but not one on using store-bought yeast to grow your own. I actually have a thing of dried fruit in my cabinet that I could potentially use for that, but that involved a degree of experimenting that I wasn't quite comfortable with in case it made a huge mess.

I really miss gardening now that I'm living in a condo, so having the compost bucket is actually really comforting. If you balance the materials right, it just smells like dirt, which I miss, it's taught me a lot about soil composition and how to restore potting soil that's already had something growing in it, and on a basic level it's fascinating watching bits of celery and coffee grounds and paper towel break down and combine into something recognizable as soil. I've been using sharewaste.com to find people nearby who have yards or mixers I can take my compost to, so that way I just keep a bucket on my balcony, keep it carbon balanced so it doesn't smell, and drop it off at someone else's house every month or so.

[enemyofperfect]

I'd seen one on how to grow your own yeast with dried fruit, flour, and water, but not one on using store-bought yeast to grow your own.

This turns out to be the same thread I saw, just remembered more accurately by you than by me!

(In figuring that out, I also noticed that in the replies there's another fascinating thread on capturing wild yeast -- really wild, just floating around under a tree wild -- and relentlessly feeding it flour until everything that doesn't eat flour dies off and you can bake with it. I never would have imagined it could be that simple!)

I've been using sharewaste.com to find people nearby who have yards or mixers I can take my compost to, so that way I just keep a bucket on my balcony, keep it carbon balanced so it doesn't smell, and drop it off at someone else's house every month or so.

That is so incredibly cool! I never realized compost didn't have to smell unpleasant if it's well tended, and it's so awesome that you can find people to take yours so it doesn't just keep building up. It makes me wonder if we could manage a little bit too... I'll have to do some reading!

[stunt_muppet]

So I realized I'd emailed you but not replied to this comment! Thank you for linking me to the thread about retrieving wild yeast, because that was both informative and hysterical. Especially the thing with the muntjac, which I had no idea lived in the UK! I don't know where I thought they lived, and tbh if one was to collect wild yeast I hadn't considered that wild animals eating your flour as one of the hazards involved.

As far as the compost, I mentioned it my email, but the number one thing I've done to stop it from stinking is making sure there's enough paper, cardboard, dried leaves, etc. in the bucket. It's made dealing with it a lot more pleasant and therefore makes it easier to keep composting!

[enemyofperfect]

It's amazing to me that deer the size of small dogs are spreading feral over the UK. Sometimes the world is more a really amazing place.

And thank you so much for the composting tips! I am really intrigued by this whole greens versus browns business, and I'm tentatively hopeful about selling other household members on the idea. I will definitely report back if that goes anywhere!