D.I.Y.

Kinder Currency

In February we spent the month buzzing about Real Food to support our local communities. We had great success with that, and so now, although I will never stop buzzing about Real Food, it is time to focus on another topic. I just finished watching a very informative interview with Woody Tasch talking about the concept of Slow Money. I also nearly attended a conference here in Vancouver about Community Way which seems to be a new type of community chest. The open source community also has a new currency going called bitcoin which I would like to find out more about. There is a lot of discussion going on all around the world about how capitalism and exponential growth are on a collision course with our ability to survive. One example of this is an article I posted earlier this year about the Student Loan Swindle that is way out of control. One comment in particular stood out:

Friday Bloghop

Friday Bloghop

I have just teamed up with Alex over at www.amoderatelife.com and April of 21st Century Housewife to host the Feed Me! Tweet Me! Follow Me Home Friday Friend Builder Linky. Scroll to the bottom of this page to link up your Real food lovin' blog so we can all get to know each other. Don't you love ...

A Year on the GAPS Diet

A Year on the GAPS Diet

I was recently looking at some of my first posts about the GAPS diet and realized...it's been a year! I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. So let me see if I can manage to say something coherent about our experiences over this past year. I still feel that my gut needs to do some serious ...

Make Your Own Yogurt Incubator

Make Your Own Yogurt Incubator

I originally stumbled across this great Instructable detailing how to make a straw slow-cooker, and was so thrilled by it that I soon made one myself. After the first attempt I discovered that it made a great incubator for home-made yogurt (I currently incubate my yogurt for around 24 hours for maxi ...

Handcraft Business of the Month – Feb 2011

Handcraft Business of the Month – Feb 2011

I got a lovely, delicate handmade necklace and earring combo in exchange for sending this Teya Danel of Dangles Jewellery a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast) so she could start making her own kombucha. She lives out on Vancouver Island and makes very cool jewellery. Please send her a n ...

Modern Homesteading

Modern Homesteading

The world is too much with us; Late and soon, Getting and spending, We lay waste our powers. - Wordsworth This is a great little video from a practical fellow who seems to be one of the ole' sourdoughs from the gold-rush days, returned to tell us how to live more practically. We really don't n ...

A Favorite Community Blog Tool

A Favorite Community Blog Tool

Although I have been blogging since 2006, I have been a little late to the linky game. Last year I finally figured it out and started joining some of the wonderful bloghops (or blog carnivals) that have sprung up all over the internet. I generally find the most useful ones to be the ones that collec ...

DIY Earth Bread Oven

DIY Earth Bread Oven

Just had a fun encounter on twitter when I was twittering about books I wished I had...I mentioned the Earth Oven book, and got something even better--a description from someone who has already done all the research and put it into action, even documenting it with great photos! They have posted it h ...

Real Milk Revolution

Real Milk Revolution

Please feel free to copy and post any or all of this information and images. (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License) The grassroots Real Milk movement was begun years ago, by Sally Fallon Morell in the US. Here in Canada, Michael Schmidt gave the movement an opportunity wh ...

Homemade Tooth Powder

I was having some trouble with cyclical vomiting syndrome for a couple years and perhaps as a result of that I have holes in my teeth now which I have never had before. This year I am focusing on remineralising my teeth, so I will be posting ways to get more dietary calcium soon too. In reading about remineralising your teeth I came across some information that indicated that glycerin might actually damage your tooth enamel. Most of the herbal toothpastes that I have been using over the past couple years have glycerin in them. I have never had a filling and prior to these recent health issues, I never even had a hole in my teeth. Over the last couple years I switched to herbal toothpastes, so it is possible that the glycerin could have caused additional damage.

It seems the jury is still out about the glycerin, but I am not taking any risks, therefore I have started making my own tooth powder. I have been using it for about a month now and things are going pretty well. I combine this with oil pulling for two weeks out of every month. While on the GAPS diet when going through detoxification processes it is common to get really bad breath. The oil pulling helps a lot with this and I have also gotten in the habit of carrying a little case of fennel seeds with me wherever I go in case of emergencies.