The space to discuss Solarpunk itself and Solarpunk related stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere.
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Hello all, happy early spring to those of you who are experiencing it! Here in western Colorado, we've got our tiny rainy season going on. what are you doing in your communities, in your gardens, in your organizing spaces? what kind of cool praxis have you got going on?
First year I get to use the greenhouse space I built last year in fall. Nice to start planting early and getting those herbs for cooking and tea going.
I have been also working on refurbishing an old Xeon server, still need one more part and then it should be good to go.
We've been planting native trees. The acorns and chestnuts spent all winter resting in sawdust/sand. Now they are sprouting and we replant them in recycled milk cartons, to be planted out next year. Bf has another raised bed built and already planted with strawberries, and he seeded a lot of plants for the garden.
When we are not busy we are setting up a framework for a real-life community center and are currently inquiring about a space for it. I'm building some online documentation/presentation for the project and we will be starting to contact possible participants and supporters. All this is still very vague but I plan to document our steps so if things don't work out we can analyze to improve, and also help others to create similar spaces. If it wasn't for this very SLRPNK instance where I find inspiration and resources this project would still be stuck in my head but some bits are actually materializing.
Now that the roads aren't icy anymore I'm trying to bike to work more often. Did the trip in the rain for the first time today, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!
Growing native plants. I'm going to propagate the natives to try and fill all the ecology gaps the weeds have taken over. So far, having great success with California Poppies, hoping to grow on that with some Yerba Santa, Coffeberry, and assorted native wildflowers.
Once I've got a little room in my grow tent, I'm going to start propagating native clump grasses, owl clovers, and Triteleias.
I've never heard of coffeeberry, but I'm intrigued! I'll need to look it up.
Disclaimer: you cannot make coffee with it. People have been trying for years because of the name and the similar appearance of the fruit and seeds. It just doesn't work. But the fruits are edible!
for me, since i live in the high desert of the Colorado Plateau, i have hooked up the first rain barrel of the season to start catching moisture. my plan for this coming weekend is to lay down more cardboard and mulch on our front "lawn" to suppress weeds and allow for the growth of native cover cops we're planting. i also got a decent gift certificate to a local nursery for Christmas so once they open, soon, i will be excitedly acquiring a Mormon tea bush for my native pollinators garden.
on a different front, my wife and i are practicing living with one car. it should be easy for us, but we've never had to think about some of the implications of the single-car life until now, so we are trying a practical experiment in February and March, and if we can make it okay we plan to sell our second car in the late spring or early summer.
Ah, I’m also planning on hooking up a rain barrel before summer starts and everything in Dalmatia dries out. Good luck with yours!
I’m also looking into using mulch, but haven’t researched it at all so I’m unsure what exactly I can do with it in my garden. I was thinking of using last year’s grass to cover the plots of land I’m going to plant stuff in.
i'm no expert, but what we ended up using as mulch were wood chips from a tree we had to get removed from a fenceline. it seems to have worked for us.
What does praxis mean in this context? I know it to be a certification test, but I don't think that what is meant here. Maybe I am not participating in this community enough. It's pretty much still winter here, also. Sunny this weekend!!
that's a good question! my understanding is that praxis means the practical application of a theory; like, for example, if you're a socialist then praxis could involve sharing those ideas with friends/family, creating socialist spaces like community gardens or little free libraries/etc, or organizing your workplace. and it doesn't just have to be socialism, though that's the context i've heard it used in the most. for me, solarpunk is the theory and these practical application questions give me ideas about praxis. does that help? hope i don't come off as too mansplain-y!
Thanks for the explanation! Your explanation, and what @auzas_1337 shared, make sense. The certification I mentioned has to do with teaching and is maybe like a practicum. If it isn't obvious by now, my Latin is not great haha.
oh yeah, the Praxis test! I remember that from back in the day when i was in school to be a teacher. that's the subject-matter test, right? like, if you're going to be a math teacher it's the test that proves you can do math?
Well it is funny you say math teacher, my elderly mother was that, but went to school in the 90s to get a degree. This is probably where I remember this from. Maybe not a thing now. She can definitely math haha. She could teach folks to multiply and divide in abnormal ways, trying to meet their learning needs.
In my language (Latvian) we use praxis if not daily then often. It just means “a way of doing things”. In educational terms it’s an internship.
So it’s not necessarily an application of theory because it doesn’t imply you know any theory. It’s just practical action.
That said what you said isn’t wrong, I just wanted to expand on it since it’s a common term I use.
Planting my own veggies for the first time and cleaning the overgrown space in my backyard that was once a garden.
I also got my grandma to send me blackcurrant cuttings across half of Europe and they took to the soil here surprisingly well. I essentially just dug a hole, put higher quality soil into it and stuck the branches into the soil. The rain and the sun did the rest of the work and within a week I’m seeing small leaves.
The plan for this month is to dig up the land in the backyard, prepare plots for the veggies and create a fence from the branches that come from the laurel trees that we cleared about a month ago.
I’m also letting the lawn do its own thing in the part of the property that’s facing the street. It’s spectecular. Short vid here.