My little farm.

I started growing my own vegetables on 20 square metres. And I want more!
It is a beautiful experience to see your food grow, to get a feeling for the time and care it takes and for uncomparable freshness when nibbling the radish directly from your garden...
It is also surprisingly easy to produce your own 'best veggies in the world'. Therefore I will definitely work more and more land in the future. And these two videos are encouraging me to follow my hippie-dreams of being a part-time farmer! (as does my dear friend Saskia, by recommending me these videos.)

Behave!

Behaviour Guide
(In order to avoid mere survival)
Intends for younger generations

1. Although apperance shows quite the reverse, the natural trend of the system is to turn you into a slave. Your mission is to remain erect, and never crawl.

2. When learning, you must know how to make the clear distinction between what is ideology and what is genuine knowledge.

3. Be fully aware of the difference there is between making a compromise and compromising yourself.

4. Whatever happens, Heartbreak hotel is sure to be your dwelling place for one or several stays. This is no reason to overindulge in the pangs of love for too long.

5. Learn how to make simple and excellent meals.

6. Fear no gods, whatever appearence they may have.

7. For girls: all boys are more or less the same. For boys: all girls are different.

8. Keep well away from competitive sport that will only cause wounds that will make you suffer when you are over forty.

9. There is no such thing as good and evil. There is what is right and what is bad, what is consistent and what is wrong.

Jean Touitou

Honeybee.

Made by Hand / No 3 The Beekeeper from Made by Hand on Vimeo.

Winter

It is pretty cold, fucking foggy and I am incredibly greatful for the existance of hot chocolate with cream-whip and warmhearted friends.

I'm sorry I can't link to a source this time, please tell me if you know whom to credit.

Procrastination...

... is strolling vimeo for awesome videos.

Procrastination from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

Everyday.

via oldchum

I just ordered a biweekly delivery of fresh veggies and fruits from an ecological farm near Berlin. I love to be surprised by what they will bring and along the way I get to know (and am forced to use) vegetables that I would probably never buy myself because I never heard of them. 

Lately I also learned some about vegan nutrition (as my sister turned vegan, I am not even vegetarian) and stumbeled over raw diet as well, wich I both find very inspiring for my daily cuisine.

Pallet Furniture.

Simply supercool. And the products & the pics show how very basic material can be totally stylish put into a great form and set up in a nice space. My favourite is the lamp. It really motivates my creativity to find shapes and build furniture myself. If you prefer to just copy these please honor the inspiring idea by puchasing the instructions via studiomama for like no money... You can even find the instructions for a pallet-stool *gratis*.

I found the pics via Maurício Arruda

Tarte.

well, it's really a cake for sunny days - and today I heard that the seasons are renamed as: spring, shit, autumn, winter - but I wanted to share this beautiful cake with you since I saw it but not before I tried to make and eat it myself. I finally did and I can only say: I was so proud (no, I don't see a problem with a 'feminist' proud about her cakes...) and it was gi-ga-great and dazzling-delicious, yay. I found the original Stella-Cake (inspired by Stella McCartney's citrus-prints) by appolinas via todayyouinspiredme, I changed the recipie to a more european version (half the amount of butter of the original american version, cream-cheese instead, less sugar, more fruit). I will also soon add my version of the recipie to this post, with all european measures and so on.

Taste the Waste

It’s a system that we all take part in: Supermarkets constantly have the complete selection of merchandise on offer, the bread on the shelves has to be fresh until late in the evening, strawberries are in demand at any time of the year. And everything has to look just right: One withered leaf of lettuce, a crack in a potato or a dent in an apple and the goods are sorted out...

Amazing but true: On the way from the farm to the dining-room table, more than half the food lands on the dump. Most of it before it ever reaches consumers.

When it comes right down to it, no one actually thinks this is okay: Food is not something to be thrown away “because others have nothing to eat”, as younger people would say, and as for the elderly: “I was around during the war and we were glad to get our hands on every crust of bread!” That’s one side of the story. They discover the other side when they venture a look into dumpsters: behind their local supermarket and, if they can summon up enough courage, in the trash cans outside their own door. We’re not talking about chicken bones and potato peels here. The topic at hand is perfectly edible food, some still in the original packaging, and frequently enough not even the ‘best before’ date has expired.

If we were to save merely half of the avoidable garbage, that would have the same effect on the world climate as when we took one out of four cars off our roads.

And on famine, too. My mother always reminded me to eat everything on my plate: “Children in Africa would be glad to have that food.” We children never took her seriously. How were the leftovers on our plates supposed to get to African children? The rising prices of wheat clearly illustrate the point: These days we buy our food on the same world market where developing countries buy theirs. If we threw away less and bought less as a result, the prices would drop and more would be left for the hungry.

(selected quotes from the website to the film, rearranged)

old chum.

via their blog Old Chum, through wich I could scroll for hours and hours I discovered the Old Faithful Shop that "stocks quality goods for simple, everyday living. We are drawn to products that are well-made, classic in design and when possible hand-crafted by a human being. We feel that the best products are the ones that age well and stand the test of time - items that will exist long after we do not."

This principle has an ecological aspect in itself (no, not plastic or nuclear waste that "will exist longer after we do not", but valuable, because practical and beautiful stuff, that can be used over generations).

And I fell in love with these two things: the Totem Cups are my absolute favourite available through their online shop and the bird house I found on the blog, don't know if it was ever available via the shop - if I had a garden to hang it I would hunt it down through all the web immediately.

The blog is really worth a "read" (well, it's more a view), you'll find a lot of 'ethnic' images, nostalgic stuff, wise (yes, really) sayings, uncommon interior design, nature. Just as I like it, as you probably noticed by now.

words by Anthony Carter, from his book "Abundant Rivers"