Getting up close and personal with several thousand honeybees… it’s a pretty good way to spend a Saturday morning. Round Rock Honey offers introductory beekeeping classes that allow you to learn the basics of raising the buzzy insects and producing your own honey. This past week I got the chance to visit their operation and… Continue reading Mind your beeswax
It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. On Saturday, in part three of The Human Path’s Hunter-Gatherer class, we learned how to kill, field dress and cook a goose and a rabbit. Yes, we learned how to kill animals for food. It was anything but easy. As anyone knows, I’m a huge… Continue reading Your goose (and rabbit) are cooked
When the lights went out, it was unexpected. Probably the product of our blistering drought and huge taxing demands placed on the power grid here; one Sunday night recently, the system sputtered and plunged our area into darkness. At the time, I’d been sitting in a warm tub of water, trying to soothe the effects… Continue reading Never Quite Ready
Modern American society needs to stop worshipping at the altars of St. Augustine and St. Bermuda. I can’t think of anything else besides lawn grasses that we humans grow that requires as much labor, fertilizer, fuel, water and space, and yet produces nothing useful. We spend millions of dollars as a society to make sure… Continue reading What’s so sacred about lawns?
Ever gone to the grocery store just before a hurricane/ice storm/heavy snowfall, or after a serious thunderstorm? If so, you may recall how little milk, bread, and other basic items were left on the shelves. Planning for extreme weather or natural disasters, or even an invasion of zombies, are all great reasons to build up… Continue reading Long-term food storage & zombie prevention
What do you get when you mix a few sheets of cardboard, four tractor buckets (2 yards) of rock, and two tractor buckets of dirt? A lovely spiral garden! As part of The Human Path’s Permaculture classes, Dr. Paul Range and Gloria Haswell led our class through a hands-on construction of a spiral garden. The… Continue reading Spiral garden
Mother Nature knows what we’re doing, and she’s not happy. As readers of this blog will know, this summer I’ve taken classes covering everything from learning wilderness survival skills to investigating my spirituality to understanding the principles of permaculture. All of these classes have a common goal: they teach those of us who live in… Continue reading We need to stop pissing off Mother Nature
It’s always good to pay attention and notice things around you. You never know when something random might make a difference. It’s been a rough week: I’ve had a bunch of projects to work on, personal issues to deal with, and yesterday I was feeling pretty low and stressed out. Topping it all off, I… Continue reading One man’s weed…
Goat’s milk. A three-day-old fawn. And lots of edible and medicinal plants. These are the things you missed if you weren’t at The Human Path’s class on Foraging Wild Foods and Medicinals, held on private land in Leander. As we toured around the property, our teacher, Sam Coffman, identified and described the uses for a… Continue reading Herbs and goats and deer, oh my!
Fun classes. Native plant identification. Bug-out bags. Archery and bow making. Skills competitions with prizes. BBQ. Swimming. And it’s all free! Come out to The Human Path’s free “Skills Day” in the Austin area on July 2nd from 11am-5pm.This is a chance to meet and talk with the instructors at The Human Path and learn… Continue reading THP Skills Fair & BBQ on July 2nd
Surviving the Modern World 