So I’m trying to make folk linen pants from sowing to sewing.
Second post (here’s first)
It’s been about 60 days since sowing (it’s 22nd of June). It’s looking so pretty and started blooming about 55th day. I’ve been watering it one or two wheelbarrows of every 2 weeks, which I thought would be too little but it’s growing pretty good. It’s still not that high (about over the knee) and I doubt it’ll get much higher sadly. That means lower grade of fibers but whatever. It’ll be fine.
Every now and again there are parts laying down and I’ve been seeing some hares running about so they probably hide in it tramping down the plants. But it gets up no problem so all good. Maybe next time I’ll put up a little fence around it.
Also idk when should I harvest it bc all the info is about oil flax, not textile flax, and even then it’s contradictory sometimes. But either way it’s around 100-120th day, so we’re still only halfway.
Next up I need to start thinking about scuthing it, and it requires some equipment. But it’s easy enough to build on my own probably. It should be something like this flax-brake:
And then this kind of metal comb, which I’ll make just by densly putting nails in a blank:
So yeah, that’s the plans for the near future. Here’s a bonus flax video if you stayed till the end ❤️
another random epiphany I had on my drive home from the store was that things that are the most obvious often feel the most profound. I was looking at the sunset through my window. I was like “this is beautiful and it changes all the time so every sunset is a little different and also beautiful.” Which led me to think “if you look at the earth from space, the clouds are never pink or blue or yellow or orange, they are just white and grey all the time. In space perhaps the sunsets are not very different or very beautiful.” Which led me to think “the sunsets are only beautiful because i am so small.” Which led me to think “so many things are only beautiful because i am so small, or if not only then they are at least much more beautiful than they might otherwise be, either because my vantage point of smallness allows me to see details that big things wouldn’t see, like when I see the flash of the sun at sunset with my little eyes on this big planet, or because my briefness finds vastness so incredible cuz it’s so much bigger than me, like when I sit under a very very old and very very tall tree.” And this was all somewhat obvious but it didn’t make the feeling of epiphany go away or diminish at all
Teaching 5-year-olds about animal classification, fingernails dug into my palms, jaw clenched, just barely holding back telling them about how fish are fake fish are fake fish are fake
Fish are just as real as you and me. Because they are you and me. We are them. They is we are am them. Blorp.
It’s fucking killing me that you are a herpetologist, a person who has written papers and named species, and you are talking about how silly the hot takes and shit posts in the taxonomy tag on Tumblr are. You are my new role model I hope you know. I aspire to have your energy one day.
Hot takes with science sauce is my whole vibe, friends
Reminder that every time you see “rip up your lawn” or “kill your lawn” you’re listening to hot garbage from people who don’t know anything about plants, and you will walk away from their advice having actually lost knowledge.
I mean, you’ll still be a happier person than someone who cares too much about fan fiction! But you would’ve destroyed biomass and stripped topsoil for no fucking reason, and released carbon, and killed off a whole root system for being unfashionable.
Repeat after Elodie what we do with lawns that we don’t want:
1. We compost them down, with cardboard and green mulch, and build a bed on top of them - especially if we are converting to vegetable gardening/food production/ flower production where we NEED soil quality and nutrients preserved. We NEED every scrap of carbon to go into our damn nutrients, and we won’t get there by ripping back to dead clay. Or,
2. If the turf is terraformed in a different environmental type i.e. an arid setting and you’re planning to xeriscape, it’s less important to keep nutrients but we still want to lock in what can be preserved and ensure that your actions aren’t REMOVING the soil you need or EXPOSING IT TO INSTANT EROSION WHILE YOUR PLANTINGS ARE ESTABLISHED OH MY GOD. We might section and flip the turf over and expose the roots to kill it off, while preserving the structure and any native soil, and giving native microorganisms the chance to build a new life without being shoved into sacks and taken to landfill. Or,
3. We grow them out and see what components are in them, then style them pleasingly; often the much-derided turf grass actually contains an interesting mixture of plants that are maintaining themselves beautifully with absolutely no inputs, and therefore could make a wonderfully dreamy, low-maintenance step towards a “wildlife corner” if left to flower and seed. Or,
4. We plant over and through them; for example, converting a lawn space into an orchard meadow with successional bulbs and wildflowers is such a delightful choice that produces fruit, flowers, picnic opportunities, forage for pollinators, a pleasant multi-use space and requires so few inputs. Just a few fruit trees provide shade, habitat, carbon sinks, and copious food. Leaving long grass to grow under them brings all the benefits of groundcover (nature abhors bare earth, and so should we, the poor bastards trying to save it) and management can nudge it from a charming burst of crocuses at the end of winter through to a very nice wildflower space in summer, which will do nothing but replenish your soil and soul. Or,
5. If you’re actually rewilding , rather than just throwing sunflower seeds around and patting yourself on the back for it, you’re in touch with local knowledge-keepers who are advising you much better on your specific situation, right? Right? So you’re doing what they advised you, right.
I haven’t even touched on soil health or the carbon cycle.
It isn’t as punchy and REBELLIOUS AGAINST YOUR DAD as ripping/killing language! but DO YOU SEE HOW EVEN AS A JOKE YOU WALK AWAY FROM IT KNOWING LESS ABOUT PLANTS?
Seriously, if you guys can do one thing of utility on social media it could be to mock the “ripping/killing grass is so good and eco” thing until it falls apart. It has no value, it’s just Americans scolding their dads at a safe distance. And even if we just make it more fashionable to replace it with “composting” at least that’s a more valuable word to shove between your ears.
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