Home Tree Map

I very much enjoy spending time outdoors. Doing so puts my mind at peace as if I am supernaturally zapped by some Zen energy. Sometimes I go outside - even if it's blistering hot - to feel revitalized when something has kept me indoors too long. Being in my yard makes me feel spiritually connected to it. I know that a similar effect happens on a larger scale when I spend more time within my town (enjoying its event offerings and people). As I spend time in my yard, my brain comes up with fun activities for me to deepen my connection to my environment. Since I love botany, herbs and working with all kinds of plants, I knew I would have fun with this month's exercise: creating a tree map of my yard.

Of course, I started with a key or guide to the trees in my area. After moving here, I never got around to buying a local plant guide. But I'm lucky to live near all the overachievers who attend Duke University, so I was able to find some great keys through their online projects. Some of the trees were very difficult due to varietals and hybrids.

Once I knew what was growing, I started to draw it out. As I was drawing, I tried to imagine that I would have to hand this guide to someone who didn't live here who had to identify all of the trees. Even still, I'm sure the map has its confusing areas. Though I used graph paper, my drawings are not to scale. My property is wedge-shaped with a stream running down the side, so I made the front yard in landscape orientation and the back in portrait. I tried to use different colors and tree textures to show the trees since some overshadow others.

With the map finished, my next step has been assembly of a plant field guide to my yard. It only has those few plants that grow on my property, but it helps me to connect to my environment one level at a time. As I expand outward, I will begin to add entries for plants in my region of town, then to the physiographic province of my state.

When one composes a work of lore such as a local guide to plants, it is vitally important to have knowledge of the presence and an understanding of the impact of invasive species. Certainly, these species are part of nature. Certainly, they have some right to grow as they do and they can be very useful. But just as human folly allowed these species to take root in areas that permit them to function as super-beings over their comrade plants, it is up to personal human opinion whether or not one wishes to allow the continued growth of these plants.

In these situations, I ask myself these questions:
Is it abundant elsewhere?
Does it have any useful properties that would make me want it around (medicinal, incense, soil stabilization)?
Are there native plants that prefer this particular habitat (slope face, moisture level, drainage, sun/shade levels)?

My purely pagan position is this: if the plant is listed as an invasive by your local extension service, botanical society, or green smarty-pants, you can be sure that it is far from being endangered. Likely, it exists throughout your region in population densities that are detrimental to otherwise native plants. When I find a plant I don't know, I look it up and get to know it. If it has no medicinal or aromatic properties that would bribe me to nurture it or leave it alone, then I pull it up, chop it down, or spray it with killer. Losing it from my property will not endanger the plant community because my city is infested with it! What I've found is that an enormous number of other herbs begin to sprout from the seed bank in the soil. Sometimes more of the invasive plants return, attesting to their invasive nature, but more often I find new colors that have not seen sunlight for quite a long time.

Pokeberry Ink

For some reason I don't understand, I recently got onto an ink-making kick. I've been doing some reading on the different types of homemade inks and exactly how they work. I've run into a few really presumptuous craftsmen trying to make lofty liquids called ink. My opinion is that one can make all kinds of colored fluids using all different things, but an artist should know what they are making and call it what it is without making wild claims. A craft is not a badge you pin on your shirt, it enriches you for its intrinsic value of having made it. You don't need to claim it's the Emperor's new clothes. Okay, that's enough of that soapbox.

The two most common homemade inks out there are oak gall ink and poke berry ink. Different authors on the internet will tell you that the Declaration of Independence was written with each one of these. No one seems to agree which it is. I don't want to declare myself independent, I just think it would be fun to have homemade ink made from local plants - a kind of "ink of the land." My mother told me she used to use poke berries and a twig to write messages to her sister when they were back on the farm. Poke berries are abundant around me right now and oak galls are not, so I went with that color source. The problem is that there is a great deal written on oak gall ink and less written on poke berry ink. I believed that the information for the former would be helpful for the latter. Though it was useful information and I know much more about ink, what I found was that I made my craft more complex than it had to be. Art and science teach us that sometimes.

Wearing gloves, because all parts of the poke berry plant are poisonous and stain everything they touch, I collected about 7-8 ounces of poke berries. I won't go into the identification of the plant, or the other uses of the plant (poke salad), because that is a different entry. I crushed the berries inside a plastic bag to be sure they were all mashed up. I could have just stopped there, but I got caught up in the chemistry of ink, so I will take you down the twisted and unnecessary trail.

I had read that there is a chemical reaction in ink that darkens it in which iron reacts with the acids in the mixture.While I was crushing the berries, I thought to myself, "I bet the poke berry skins have lots of pigment in them -- tannins, like in the skins of grapes -- that I can extract to help make my ink dark!" That meant I didn't want to filter away the skins before the rest of the process. So I put the poke berry mash into a stainless steel pot with one cup of distilled water and started it simmering. I used distilled water to eliminate the possibility of chlorine added to municipal supply water. It also allowed me to prevent any other ions that might interfere with the chemical process that I would start in the next moment. The stainless steel pot should have been relatively inert, but I could have been wrong about that. I added one tablespoon of whole cloves to provide a natural preservative and I also hoped they would help deepen then final color of the ink. The cloves would be one of two herbal antifungal ingredients I would add to prevent any mold from growing in my inkwell.

I then added one teaspoon of iron shavings. These were intended to react with the acids in the ink and darken the color (more on that in a moment). I used the shavings sold as "lodestone food" from the local pagan/gem store. I've heard others use steel wool, which isn't truly steel, a rusty nail, or even pills of an iron supplement from the vitamin store. Now here's where the chemistry of ink comes in. The purpose of the iron was to react with the acid to create a ferrous chemical that is darker than just the acid itself. Here was also where my error, and the error of other ink makers, reared its ugly head.

Oak gall ink is made by reacting iron (II) sulfate with gallic acid. This causes a darkening of the final ink to increase the contrast on the page. This reaction cannot be done with tannic acid, as I originally thought. Even more in error was my thought that tannins and tannic acid are the same thing. Tannins, which are found in grape skins, acorns, and all through the plant kingdom as a natural astringent for plants, are related to but chemically different from tannic acid and gallic acid. It is impossible to make oak gall ink or anything chemically similar using anything other than gallic acid, which is usually found in the galls of oak trees. Now, back to the poke berries.

I simmered the mixture until it was reduced to one third of its original volume. I took the mixture off the heat and allowed it to cool until warm.

Still wearing gloves, I poured the mixture into a square of double-weight muslin draped in a glass bowl.

I gathered the edges together and began to squeeze and twist the bundle until my ink was pushed out.

When I could get no more ink from between my cramped hands, I threw the bundle away and poured my new ink into an old mustard jar that had been given a grander purpose.

As my second and final antifungal, I added a teaspoon of extract of rosemary, which I had made in the past as a medicinal. I used the finished ink to write the label on the outside of the inkwell.

Some inky thoughts:

I didn't add any gum arabic or any other thickening agent, as is used in some other ink recipes I've found. After testing my final product, I'm considering using a little to see if it improves my ink's ability to resist bleeding on low quality papers. I also think I will add my rosemary extract when the product is still hot so as to drive off any alcohol from the final product.

When I learned that there was no gallic acid in the berries, I learned that the iron shavings were useless in this recipe. The fact that there is no gallic acid also means that this ink may not destroy paper and quills as aggressively as will oak gall ink. The simmering of berry skins may have been pointless too, because I don't really know how much color they imparted to my product. I do know that the final ink had a reddish color while the precooked berries left behind a stain that was more purple, and in my opinion, prettier. For the next experiment, I'm more interested in using just crushed berries with an antifungal but no heat. So the next time I make this stuff, my recipe may be just crushed berries, rosemary extract, and whole cloves. I will keep you posted on my homemade ink progress.

Men's Fashion Is Boring!

For this post, there won't be any real craft. I've decided that I want to complain a little about an issue that's been on my mind for a few years. Today I want to lightly explore my angst over the fact that its tough to find sewing resources for men (patterns, blogs, style reports, and the like). The fashion industry is basically built for women's wear. Menswear comprises maybe about 5-10% (my figure) of the industry. I find this frustrating as all get-out.

One popular blog for men who sew is Male Pattern Boldness. Peter, the gentleman who runs that blog, posted an interesting article on why he thinks more men don't sew. This article was reprinted at other blogs and, in my opinion, hit the nail on the head. Newer generations that are not as tied to the old gender roles are making their way into sewing and design, but the information ABOUT menswear and the resources FOR men's fashion remain slim. One popular craft site incorporating a great deal of sewing is Threadbangers. It has a large male membership, mostly young people, but most of its clothing archives deal with women's clothes. Even MPB, mentioned above, seems to be largely focused on creating clothes for women. The ever popular television show Project Runway had many male designers, but had only a handful of menswear challenges in the show's entire run.

The biggest and most frustrating reason why the menswear industry isn't quite as well-formed as its female counterpart may be that menswear isn't as creatively flexible. Women can walk outside their door in huge hats, big skirts, wild ties, bows, scarves or shoe-monsters. Men have a basic look - a simple silhouette from which they dare not deviate - and little use of color or pattern. Despite that men run our patriarchal society, they nevertheless restrict themselves to the most limited style pathways. Variety seems to be something that men fear. (Lest this become a discussion on the actual limited power of men to operate as they please - an act that would display true inner strength - I will table this facet of the discussion.)

In recent years, some effort has been made to push the limited male style standards outside the box. A effort to widen the look of kilts has succeeded among some gay men and alternative communities. An adoption of softer Asian styles is also making a jump to the west. More men are also wearing scarves and wraps than ever before. But as male fashion takes time to stretch just its pinky toe, women's fashion is busy sprinting down the field.

Men who sew are missing a real opportunity. A sewing machine is essentially a power tool like any other. Instead of cutting wood, it joins cloth. Men who are great at cabinetry, carving, and welding would do very well with sewing. Maybe if more men did sew, and were not afraid to claim that they did, we would have more resources available for men. Maybe then the men who sew wouldn't tolerate the limited pattern offerings for boxer shorts, bathrobes and boring button-ups; maybe then there would be more sites for suggestions and creative techniques. Maybe then men's fashion would expand beyond just the suit and tie.

Ultimately, I would be okay being one of the few men who sew (or the only one), if I could find more resources for making men's clothes. I just wish I didn't have to spend so much of my time reading between the lines and sifting through women's wear blogs, transposing concepts from women's wear to menswear, just to come up with a new way of looking at men's clothes.

Reuse for Seed Sprouting

I decided to start some seeds this year, despite a very shady yard. Casey and I have been finding a some new varieties of vegetables on the market and we wanted the chance to produce them ourselves to save some money. I staked my claim for the garden plot and went shopping for seed starter trays.

Wouldn't you know it: so few people are starting their own seeds these days that the local nurseries didn't provide segmented plastic trays, and Lowe's has stopped carrying peat-pots completely. Home Depot still sells stacks of square pots and a starter tray, but they don't carry a clear lid. I decided to try to make do with some household plastic wrap. Boy, was that a big mistake!

As you can see, the peat-pots are exactly as tall as the tray, which means that my plastic wrap lays too close to allow my seedlings to grow strong. I needed more head space.

While on a return trip to Home Depot, the answer occurred to me. Lately, I have been intentionally failing to put my recycling bin at the curb so it can completely fill up, preventing the city from using extra gass to stop for a half-full bin. In my recycling bin was all manner of plastic trays that delivered berries, grapes, tomatoes, and salad greens into my home. I decided to make use of these as my new seed-starter trays.

Not just any tray would do, however. Berry trays wouldn't work because they had drainage holes in their bottoms, preventing me from watering my peat-pots from below - an important ability when your seeds are smaller than a grain of sand. The trays for salad and tomatoes seemed to be better.

I broke out my scissors and began the puzzle of fitting as many peat-pots into my trays as possible. My first tray was a salad greens tray and it sealed completely. A paper punch helped to add tiny vents in the corners so the air wouldn't become stagnant. It provided plenty of head room for the seedlings to get started.

The other tray had the opposite problem. Because it had holes in the lid and the lid didn't seal completely, too much air flow would make me lose too much moisture. Packing tape helped to close up the holes on top allowing the space along the edge of the lid to give just enough ventilation.

So there you have it! Two seed-starter trays made from reused plastic produce boxes. The cost was minimal and my seedlings will have the head space they need to grow before they get moved to the ground! Now I just have to get my garden plot ready.

The Bounty under the Stairs

The new house into which my boyfriend and I have moved was built long ago. I estimate it was built somewhere around the 50's. It was built as a vacation home and has a few elements that make it not very efficient in winter, but it's quaint and warm in spirit.

The area that is lacking most for me is the kitchen. It is terribly small and there is no storage. When we arrived, there was a "pantry" (the marketing of the landlords), which was nothing more than the unused space under the stairs. It had a rickety shelf pushed to the back of the space, so it wasn't really a pantry at all. Both of us had ideas that we wanted to try our hand at canning foods to put away for the winter. Storage would definitely be a concern.

I took a trip to the lumber store and picked up a few L-brackets and about 6 one-by-four boards. The boards were relatively smooth finish and only cost $1 each. With some quick cutting, I was able to put up a series of shelves just wide enough to hold a mason jar or a soup can. I wanted the boards to be slim so we weren't knocking everything off the shelved when we turned around inside the pantry. I varied the spacing so we could stack cans or shelf tall bottles. At the back, where the space under the stairs got short, I put in a few deep shelves for cereal boxes. Concerned about vibrations from the overhead stairway possibly shaking down the goods, I squeezed a bead of almond-colored caulk along the front of each shelf. The cans will not walk past the caulk and after 4 months, not a single can has fallen. Hurray for our walk-in pantry!

The result cost less than $40 total, but has greatly increased our storage. The best part is that we have a place to put our canning next year!

Winter Pity

This year, as we approached winter and the days

got colder, a bird began to appear in a corner of our porch roof line. It arrived every evening at dusk and was gone by dawn. As it perched, it

huddled against the house and fluffed out its feathers to conserve warmth. Its huddled form inspired me to do a bit of homework to find out what it was all about.

It turns out that some birds that don't like to fly south, spend their winter bouncing from one shelter to another trying to stay warm until Spring returns. They may find a nice spot that isn't going anywhere and they will try to return to it regularly. If the winter weather worsens suddenly, their shelter may be destroyed, inadequate, or just perfect for survival. Long story short: winters are quite a gamble for birds.

To provide them with assistance, it can be a fun project to provide them with a winter roost box. This differs from a standard birdhouse. A roost box has its entry hole at the bottom, instead of the top, to allow birds to generate rising heat inside. This also prevents birds from becoming smothered at the bottom of the box if they dog-pile. It has a row of perch pegs running up both right and left interior walls so that several birds can use it at the same time, and this prevents birds from crowding into the cavity haphazardly. It is painted black and mounted so that the morning sun will warm it. The birds who use it will not nest in it because winter time is not the time when they want to build nests. They will simply use it to roost at night, and then will go about their foraging business during the day.

I decided to use up some of the scrap wood that I had laying around by making a roost box. I designed it so it was generally flat to the house. It has a sloping roof that overhangs the entry-perch. The entrance is only 2 inches across so that larger birds won't want to use it. I highlighted the entrance with a ring of white paint. Its bottom was put on last so that I can easily back out the screws to clean it or repair the interior perch pegs. Lastly, the box is mounted with a stable but simple mounting plate so I can take it down in spring, just in case a wren decides to overstay his welcome.

WELCOME WRENS AND FINCHES!

Craft Fair Fundown for May and June

Here are some of the crafty events in and around Athens that I'd like to try to visit before the end of June:
Indie Craft Experience, May 30-31 at Centennial Park in Atlanta
Virginia Highland Summerfest, June 5-7 at John Howell Park in Atlanta
Walton County Crepe Myrtle Festival, June 13 at Hammond Park in Monroe, GA
Stone Mountain Village Arts & Crafts Festival, June 20 on Main Street in Stone Mountain, GA
Athfest, June 25-28 in downtown Athens, GA

Pass on the info and get your buddies to road trip with you.

Craft Harder!