Juliet Kemp – Page 20

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Teas: thyme, dandelion root, and chickweed

17 November, 2009 Juliet Kemp

The other week I harvested some dandelion roots and chickweed, to try out for their medicinal properties. I also tried thyme infusion. Here are the reports.

Thyme infusion

A couple of sprigs of fresh (or dried) thyme in a mug, fill with boiling water, cover, and leave for 5-10 min. Crushing the leaves a little beforehand makes a stronger infusion, I found. It’s supposed to be a good decongestant.

It certainly tastes lovely (you can add a little honey, but I didn’t bother), and both I (a little sniffly at the time) and my cold-ridden test subject found that it did at least temporarily seem to have a de-gunking effect. Cold-ridden test subject also said it made him feel calmer.

Would voluntarily drink again!

Dandelion root decoction

Since dandelion roots are quite tough, this required a decoction, which means that instead of just infusing in boiling water, one simmers it on the stove for a while — in this case, I simmered a couple of smallish roots for about 15 min.

I was expecting bitterness, and was all set to add some honey, but in fact I found it quite pleasantly earthy, and not bitter at all. Certainly less bitter than strong black tea.

It’s supposed to have general tonic effects, and in particular to be good for the liver and kidneys. I didn’t particularly notice a diuretic effect, but I did feel a bit better after drinking it (I had a couple of glasses of wine the night before and was feeling just slightly under the weather). So might make a good hangover cure!

Would drink again but with less enthusiasm than the thyme.

Chickweed infusion

A small handful of dried chickweed; pour boiling water over, cover, and leave for 10-30 min. Supposed to be good for coughs and hoarseness. I didn’t really have either symptom, but my throat’s been a little scratchy of late.

Unlike the thyme tea, I had to strain this, as the chickweed didn’t sink enough for me to drink around it. It doesn’t taste of much at all, and it smells of wet greenery. Not unpleasant, but not actively pleasant, either. Maybe a slightly bittersweet aftertaste? (It does that strange thing whereby the thing itself doesn’t taste of much but your mouth tastes sweet afterwards.)

I didn’t particularly notice a soothing effect, although I did notice a slight degunking effect; but that can just be associated with drinking liquid of any sort. Plus it made my nose tickle.

Would try again if I had a cough or hoarse throat, but wouldn’t drink for pleasure.

I’ve also poured oil over a jar of dried chickweed and put that in the sun for a couple of weeks, to try it as a healing oil for minor skin irritation.

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The Carbon Supermarket

15 November, 2009 Juliet Kemp

You can download Kate Evans’ latest cartoon, The Carbon Supermarket, from her website. It’s a fantastic explanation of why carbon trading just doesn’t work.

After seeing this I went looking through her archives, as well. I particularly liked this one about the Diggers, and this one about privacy rights, but they’re all worth a read.

Update from my last post: that evening I went out to the AGM of the Friends of Galleywall Nature Reserve, a tiny nature reserve just down the road from me; and wound up volunteering as treasurer and to do a couple of other things to recruit volunteers. So if you’re in S London & interested in local wildlife, let me know! There’s an open morning coming up on the 12th December, as well.

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Community and sustainability

10 November, 2009 Juliet Kemp

I wouldn’t entirely describe myself as anti-social; but I’m quite happy spending a fair amount of time on my own, and I can find it quite hard to go out and put myself in new social spaces.

I was interested to read this week two articles about community participation. As Belinda points out, in the long run if you’re expecting a major change in our current society, community is a necessity rather than a luxury.

I absolutely agree with this in principle. In practice, I’m finding it harder to engage at that level than I’d like. I’m increasingly aware that part of the problem is that I feel unsupported. The various groups or community events that I aim to attend (e.g. the local nature reserve meeting tonight) are often also potentially interesting to the people I’m closest. But in practice, those people usually lack the time, energy, or social inclination to go along.

Now, that’s not anyone’s fault, and of course, it doesn’t prevent me from going myself. But it does mean that every time I try to expand my social or community circles, I have to take myself away from my existing social links to do it, rather than being able to integrate them. That by itself makes the whole process harder.

It also means I’m always going to these things on my own. Which isn’t usually a problem for me; I spent 10 months pottering around the world on my own, meeting people and going to things with no problems. But I didn’t expect any social support then, because I had no existing social circle.

The only option (other than to give up!) is to keep looking for new opportunities, keep pushing myself to do this on my own, and to try to find the places where I feel comfortable and can make new friends and acquaintances. I think it’s important to do all of that. I could just wish I found it a little easier.

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It’s the little things

5 November, 2009 Juliet Kemp

Minor changes or things I have done to reduce my environmental footprint recently:

Stopped using rubber gloves to do the washing up. Instead I made up some hand-cream (aqueous cream, a little almond oil, some aloe vera sap, and a few drops of lavender and frankincense essential oils) and put that in an old moisturiser jar by the sink.
Started using handkerchiefs rather than tissues.
Switched to (fair-trade) tealeaves rather than tea-bags. I have a per-cup teaball that makes this easier. Not particularly impressed with the quality of the Co-op’s tealeaves, though.
Did not buy a dog-bed when we got Finlay; instead he sleeps on a pile of old blankets (and an old coat and jumper) that were too knackered to be of use for their intended purpose. Actually overnight he sleeps on the landing with no blanket at all; and half the time during the day he eschews both blanket piles in favour of sprawling all over the floor; but hey, that’s his decision.
Patched my slightly-split rear bike tyre (from the inside, using a piece of another old tyre) rather than replacing what is otherwise a perfectly decent tyre. (Safety note: it’s not a big split, nor is it on the sidewall, so it’s not dangerous to ride on; it’s just a place where punctures are more likely.)
Darned two holes in one of my nice thick black stockings. (This also affected by the fact that these are no longer available at all, so I need to keep them going for as long as possible!).
Bought a book I wanted (on woodworking by hand, which I want to try out) second-hand instead of new.

Do I think any of these have a major impact on my carbon footprint? No. But I do think that making small daily-life changes is part of making larger changes; that it helps to remind you to think about sustainability. One of the main things I’m working on at the moment is simply not buying things; reducing my footprint by reducing my consumption. (Hence the second-hand book; and on realising that I really do need some specific warm clothing for cycle-instructing purposes over the winter, I went hunting & found the organic fair-trade version of that.) That’s a daily decision, but it’s not really one you can point at.

food

We are weeds, vegetation…

29 October, 2009 Juliet Kemp

Yesterday I went down the allotment to harvest weeds.*

Specifically, I dug up a bunch of dandelion roots, and gathered a handful of what I suspected was (and now am sure is) chickweed. I’ve been reading this fantastic herbalism zine, which told me that both of these are medicinally useful.

Dandelion root can be used to stimulate the liver, gallbladder, and kidneys; or just as a general tonic containing lots of minerals (including iron, potassium, and calcium, all particularly useful if you’re vegan). To preserve it, dry the roots (wash them and leave them somewhere dark; if you split larger roots down the middle they’ll dry faster), and store them in a sealed container in a cool, dark place. To use it, make a decoction by putting 1oz of root and 1pt of water in a pan and simmering until the water has reduced by 50%. Strain and drink.

Chickweed is good as an infusion of dried herb for coughs and hoarseness; and as an infused oil to treat minor skin problems (burns, rashes, itching, dryness). Alternatively you can just eat the leaves as a salad leaf. I tried my sample plants after I’d IDed them, and found it quite tasty. To dry it, it’s best to hang it somewhere dark and warm (but spread on a windowsill is fine if that’s the easiest option for you). To make an infusion, pour boiling water over the dried herb, cover, and leave for 10-30 min. To make an infused oil, macerate the dried herb in olive oil, place in a warm sunny window for 2 weeks, strain, and bottle in a dark glass bottle. (You can make a stronger oil by adding more herbs and leaving for another fortnight.)

I can’t yet report back on how these work (or taste!) as I’m still in the drying stage. I’ll update in a couple of weeks.

The best bit about all of this is that these are not plants which I have any trouble at all in growing. Currently the chickweed is popping up all over the squash bed as the squash dies down. I’m incredibly pleased to find out that there’s something useful (beyond just chucking it in the compost heap) that I can do with it.

Next task: try to establish whether any of my other weeds are useful. Sadly I’m not sure we have any yarrow.

* I planted some broad beans and early dwarf peas, as well — we have an Aphid Problem which means that the only chance to get any actual broad beans is to get the plants up and producing in the spring before the aphids have woken up. Which in turn means overwintering them.

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What counts as work?

27 October, 2009 Juliet Kemp

At the Anarchist Bookfair at the weekend I picked up a book called Making Stuff and Doing Things. Among the collection of useful bits and pieces was an article by CrimethInc about getting active. Point 2 — spend less to work less! — really spoke to me. That’s what I’m trying to do at the moment: reduce my costs so I don’t have to work full-time and have more time to do the things that I want to do.

This raises questions about what counts as ‘work’. I don’t get paid for the time I put in at the allotment (which at least in theory frees up cash as I don’t have to spend so much on food), and I enjoy it; but it’s physically tough (especially today as I spent yet another hour hacking away at the Blackberry Tangle). I’ve just started a (paid) part-time job teaching cycling; something which I enjoy enough and think is important enough that in the past I’ve done it for free. I do various volunteer things that don’t attract payment but are certainly ‘work’ in another sense (I do some sysadmin work, which in the past I’ve been paid for, for free at the moment).

Feeding into this is perhaps the idea that ‘women’s work’ tends to be undervalued. Growing things, making things, handcrafts, helping others, teaching… often, these things are not defined as ‘work’. Unless you make money at it, anyway, in which case it may qualify as work. Of course, it’s still more likely to be taken seriously if you’re male.

I find myself wanting to broaden the idea of ‘work’, and to blur the boundaries between that and ‘play’. The CrimethInc article above is fundamentally saying something a lot like that: take yourself out of the traditional paid-labour market (as far as is possible), and support yourself by doing other sorts of work. Support yourself directly rather than with paid labour. Work out how to make that sustainable. Create an alternative that doesn’t fit into that old joke about work being the unpleasant things you’re paid to do.

That’s my sort of anarchism.

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350 reasons why carbon trading won’t work

22 October, 2009 Juliet Kemp

Rising Tide have just launched a new campaign: 350 reasons why carbon trading won’t work. Well worth a read.

The theory behind carbon trading is that it encourages innovation and carbon reduction funded by the market. The argument goes like this. Imagine that you have a carbon limit of 100 units (for the sake of the argument, it doesn’t matter what your units are). Company A and Company B both currently emit 110 units. Company A, however, can easily reduce their carbon output; Company B would really struggle a lot to do so. If all you do is charge for carbon output above 100, then A will reduce to 100, and B will reduce to maybe 105 (because they can’t reduce any further that quickly): total 205.

Under carbon trading, the argument goes, A will reduce further, because suddenly a reduction below 100 units will be worth something. Because they still have some easy wins, they reduce to 90 units, and sell their extra 10 units of permits to Company B. Company B don’t bother reducing at all, because it’s cheaper just to buy permits, so they still output 110 units: total 200 units. Hurrah, that is less than 205 units, carbon trading wins!

What strikes me is that carbon trading assumes that the problem with the first scenario (i.e. why it doesn’t maximise the reduction) is to do with the lack of a market mechanism. My suggestion would be that it is instead to do with where the limit is set. What happens if we set the limit at 0, and companies have to pay for all carbon output? Company A will (at least) reduce to that 90 that was their easy win. Company B will reduce to the 105 that was all they could manage initially. Total output: 195.

In fact, under carbon trading, Company A may be discouraged from reducing as far as they can — because if they reduce too far, then their permits will reduce in value (supply/demand)*. Under a more draconian limit system, they have the absolute encouragement to reduce as far as possible.

Of course, this means that the operating costs of all non-carbon-neutral companies will rise, possibly by quite a lot. Which in turn presumably means that the cost of whatever product or service they’re providing will rise. From where I’m standing, that’s a further positive outcome. Currently, carbon output costs: it just doesn’t cost the polluters. It costs everyone (and disproportionately, it costs the poor), just indirectly. Currently, polluting companies are treated as if they have a right to pollute, which is (very) slowly being curtailed. Let’s turn it around, and make them actually pay for their polluting activities.

Yes, that will have a knock-on economic effect. Some companies may even go out of business, if it turns out that when customers are asked to pay the true cost of their goods, that those goods aren’t worth it. Again: that doesn’t sound to me like a bad thing. That implies that currently, the rest of the world is subsidising something which the purchasers themselves don’t actually value enough to pay for in full.**

Let’s start valuing our environment properly. Carbon trading is just a way of putting that off — quite probably until it’s too late.

* This is basically what has already happened: too many permits were issued at the start of the scheme, so permit costs are through the floor and no one has any encouragement to make any reductions at all. This might have something to do with the fact that the basis on which numbers of permits were issued was calculated from numbers provided by…. the polluting companies themselves. Um.
** OK, maybe some of those goods or services will have a social value such that they shouldn’t be let go under. In which case, governments may wish to subsidise them. But again, let’s do that openly and explicitly, and without invisibly handing value from the world as a whole over to private shareholders.

growing things

Allotment plans for the next few weeks

20 October, 2009 Juliet Kemp

I’m feeling a little unfocussed about a lot of things right at the moment. For the food-growing, at least, one solution to this is to make a list of what I need to do before the end of November.

Allotment

Planting:

broad beans, meteor pea, early dwarf pea. Probably one lot of each this week, and another lot in a fortnight.
more kale and mustard greens; the germination rate for the last lot was a little low. In fact I may start these off inside, then move to the balcony, then plant out in the cold frame on the allotment.

Harvesting

more raspberries!
dig up the rest of the damn potatoes.
sweetcorn and squashes.

Tidying up:

finish cutting back the blackberry.
cut back the autumn rasps, once they’re actually finished (still going at the moment!).
check for any seed that can be saved.

Infrastructure:

build the cold frame for the mustard greens and kale. I want to at least start this this weekend.
get more planks down for the raised beds.
finish deconstructing the pallets so they’re out of the way.
dig over the compost heap, incorporating some of the blackberry cuttings.
amalgamate the extra compost heap (mostly consisting of blackberry cuttings…) into one location.
go out to collect leaves from the park for mulching down (needs to happen soon; easiest way to do this would be to use one of my old compost bags & take it round the park when I go round with the dog!).

Planning:

keep reading the Permaculture Book and actually take some notes.

Balcony

Planting:

? another batch of salad veg? Don’t have any more room in the cold frame though!
maybe some meteor peas.

Harvesting:

keep eating the salad leaves.
dig up the potatoes.

Tidying up:

sort out all the old pots and work out where they should go.
work out where to put the salad veg cold frame that isn’t “on top of the wormery”.
bring the basil inside.
take up the dead peas.

Planning:

the best thing I could do this month, I think, is establish a routine of checking up on the balcony daily.
decide what to do about the wormery – the answer probably is “dig some worms out of the allotment compost heap and relocate them”.

Ha, turns out that that’s quite a lot of things to be going on with.

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Climate Change – take action this weekend!

15 October, 2009 Juliet Kemp

At a loose end this weekend? Based in the UK?

Come on down to Nottingham and close down a power station for the weekend! There’s something for everyone, whatever your direct action comfort level, from the Footsteps to the Future march to the Bike Bloc Critical Mass and the Take Back The Power bloc’s get-to-the-control-room mission.

And to prove that this sort of direct action does work: we’ve already stopped Kingsnorth, and BAA have shelved plans for the third runway at Heathrow. Come and help make a difference!