The Calendar Pages

Using The Calendar Pages

Designing sustainability and resiliency is a holistic approach to life. Part of this involves conscious consideration in how we create, modify, and manage our living spaces and work spaces. The goal for both sustainability and resiliency is to work towards spaces that are self regulating. It is also important that we produce the food that we need to survive close to where we live, ideally in your own yard or space.

The calendar pages are designed to give you one piece of the information to help with that. On the top right hand side of each month, you will find the length of daylight and the angle of the sun at the beginning of the month. I have done this for roughly central Iowa in the US, but this will hold roughly true for anywhere on the north 42nd parallel. North and south of this line will require some adjustment. This is critical information for designing both garden spaces and structures to make them environmentally efficient.

When you are designing most structures, your highest efficiency for both heating and cooling in temperate climates will be to place on the south side (in the northern hemisphere) to collect winter sun and then to have those windows shaded during hot weather.

This also helps you in the garden. By knowing where your sun is going to be, you can extend the season for both heat loving crops and cool loving crops. By predicting where the sun will be, you can build cold frames to collect that sun for the warm crops. By knowing where the shade is, you can extend the cool season crops into the summer by taking advantage of the shade.

Here are your calendars for the week.

Journal Prompts for the week

The Plant Profile

While I am not an expert on every plant that I will profile, I am trying to provide a complete profile for each plant. For the plants that I know, I will supplement the research information with my experience as a mid-western US gardener and as someone who has gardened in pots in an RV. For those plants that I don’t personally know, this is information that I need as well. My primary focus for 2025 is on useful plants that can be raised in almost any circumstances, from an RV or apartment to a small yard garden, to a permaculture garden.

Each profile includes as much information that I can find and is organized in a reference template that will be the same for each plant.

This is what you can expect to find in each PDF profile:

Identification

Plant growth and the conditions that the plant prefers

How the plant matures and develops

How to use the plant

The medicine and magic of the plant.

And when I know, suitable varieties for small spaces.

Any nutritional, medicinal, and magical properties that I include are intended for your informational purposes only. Always check with a reputable medical provider or herbalist before using an herb medicinally.

The version of the profile that I include in the PDF files here are a manuscript version. I welcome and encourage your input as I edit them for final publication.

5 Minute Hack Break the “Rules’

How many times have you not cooked something you love because it took too much time and energy. Yeah, me too. Sustainability and resiliency sometimes means breaking the “rules” of how things should be. Here are some of my favorite “Rules” to break.

Biscuits - I love home made biscuits! I don’t have time to make nice round biscuits, so I mix up a big batch of biscuits and press them into a greased cake pan instead of rolling and cutting biscuits. A week's worth of biscuits done in 5 or 15 minutes plus bake time. I cut the biscuits into serving sized pieces when they are done.

Pumpkin Pie - I love pumpkin pie. Making pie crust is a time consuming mess, so I don’t. Instead I skip the crust. I make my pumpkin pie custard pie filling (sometimes in the blender). I pour the custard mix into a casserole baking dish and bake it without the crust. Yum! 5 minutes plus baking time.

Cookies - I bake cookies the same way I bake biscuits. 15 minutes plus bake time.

Where can you break the “rules” of expectation in service to making your life more sustainable and efficient?