magpie

One of the things that I realized during the #Snowtober power outage is that it's a damned good thing we don't have a plug-in electric car. It's one thing to run a handful of appliances off of a small generator, and use candles and batteries, and open the garage door by hand. But I dare say you can't recharge an electric car with a little Subaru generator. So then what? Huh? Stuck until the power company sees fit to restore you to the grid.   Read more >

So you probably think that because I titled this post "Banks" it's going to be all about Occupy Wall Street and dissing capitalist pigs. Wrong! It is about banking, though, but banking at home, not in an institution.  Read more >

There is a little piece of me, the usually dormant compulsively tidy piece, that gets irritated when she digs up worms in the middle of our not very stable lawn-on-a-hill, or builds forts with sticks woven through newly planted shrubs. But I bite my tongue a lot, because really? I like that she's outside communing with nature and making hosta leaf boats for ants and acting as midwife to worms. Digging in the dirt, learning to fish, planting seeds -- it's all part of keeping her connected to the earth, something that is incredibly important for lots of reasons.  Read more >