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1. Hot off the press: "Out Of The Fire". A lavishly illustrated selection of 24 metal workers that you will find around the Salish Sea*. I'm 10 mm into it, looks like welders and blacksmiths so far. * Salish Sea: That part of the Pacific Ocean sort of between the south end of Vancouver...

There's a reason for stripping the bark which Toddy didn't mention: Go ahead and weave your magnificent fruit basket. Wait a week or two. All the willow twigs will sprout and you will have quite a shrub growing in your kitchen corner.

Two more power failures of a couple of hours each in the pitch dark and I have bought a pair of glass oil lamps from Home Hardware #4360-907 12" oil lamp pair $21.99 Recommended lamp oil fuel #4360-383 710ml clear lamp fuel $12.99 They sell replacement wicks and chimneys, too. Their...

You are bound to have suitable emergency pyrotechnics approved for your country. Maybe a phone call to your nearest chandler on the coast would turn up some marine pyro devices.

Pick and freeze, pick and freeze. Let the cache build up. I'd cook some down as a condiment over birds, ice cream and pancakes.

Accelerant to turn a weak smoldering fire into a torch. Big hydrocarbon like paint thinner or car parts washing petrol. Even in the boat, back with the fuel tanks, Dad always had a bottle of "Varsol," shop cleaner to start fires no matter how wet the wood was. Big red highway emergency flares...

I guess it's 15 years or more now. My little photovoltaic system has helped me many times. 12VDC solar panels connected through a charge controller to a bank of deep cycle storage batteries. 24/7, those supply the juice when you need it. The batteries supply 12VDC (more like 13.7VDC when...

Back in a south window of my old lab, we grew lots of potted ginger with magnificent clusters of violet & white flowers. Tall, grassy/bamboo-looking thing. The leaves and stems diced very nicely for a ginger accent to any suitable dish.

In between the dotted communities, nobody lives along the British Columbia highways that so many of us drive. Highway 16 (east-west) is a classic example. Turn off on any logging road and you are faced with 1,000 square miles of wildlife-populated wilderness. There's a peace and a calm to it...

So far, I have given my twin grandsons each a compass and a respectable pair of binoculars. At age 9, I know that they have been on tenting camp trips and they are learning fire setting and fire lighting to cook on. I think their hand-eye coordination is good, they play different field sports...

The house is full of food, drink and fuel to get Rumpuss-cat and myself into winter. The grapes are really coloring up, I have a picker family all set to take off the crop to barter for root vegetables. The mountain ranges which form the valley sides cut off about an hour at each end of the day...

In Vancouver BC, there's a nursery garden which sells apple trees which have 6 scion varieties grafted on the one stock. Looks particularly silly as the apples fill out and mature. Keep it clean. Keep it snug with a little pressure. Match the cambium layers of the scion twigs with the stock...

Thanks. First, I need to consider using the zipper pulls that I can harvest from another very old winter coat.

I don't trust my poor sense of balance in the total darkness of a power failure to get me down 2 flights of stairs to start the solar power system (upstairs power points). So I ordered a pair of coal-oil/kerosene/lamp oil, glass wick lamps and the suitable fuel. I'll keep a AA x LED light with...

Thanks, T. I'll use far heavier split rings on a new Carhartt winter coat. Is that sort of paracord size? My partner complained that I looked sort of homeless so she bought me a new coat that needs trimmings.

You need rechargeable big storage batteries to really take advantage of photovoltaic output. Plate surface area determines charging capacity. I use pairs of 6VDC in series instead of single 12VDC batteries for that reason. Space and weight are not issues. You need to decide if you can get...

6PM - 9PM last night was the wildest wind (100kph gusts)/ rain (25mm)/thunder and lightning storm I have experienced here since I bought this place back in 2000. Lots of green house damage, total power failures with broken trees on the lines all over the district. Most repaired by noon today...

We've got several species of butterflies which over winter as adults. Mate in the spring, all the caterpillar stages, pupation and then again crisp, fresh adults in September. Lots of them bouncing around the past few days. Absolutely wild slashing rain/thunder/lightning storm 9PM just at...

I have a compendium titled: The Essential Cuisines of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. She suggests an alternative spelling: Cuiclacoche. Used for soups casseroles and quesadilla filling. I guess it's like all the other fungi, the gourmet mushrooms that we might forage for, that we prize so highly.

I do the majority of my wood carvings in western red cedar, yellow cedar and paper birch. I have what I call "try sticks," just lengths of each wood for testing knife edges and practicing cuts like textured surfaces. I had to have an apron made as I got hit in the chest a few times too often...