The Lizard House

Family owned, queer run farm in the heart of Eastern Washington. Shop now: https://fish-family-farm.storenvy.com/ Follow us on insta @fishfamfarm

[fishfamfarm]

HI! We need HELP!

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

[fishfamfarm]

Short term goals!

To keep us progressing, we've decided to break the larger goal up into smaller chunks to move forward with.

Right now we need to restock some of our staple soaps (Dad Hugs, Fragrance Free) and get the seasonal summer soap out (U-Pick, Campfire S'More)

AND

Add the remaining planned flavors of lip balm (Lavender, Maple, and Orange Vanilla) to the shop!

To purchase all the supplies, were trying to pull in $300 total by the end of the week. Current sales are sitting at $81, already almost a third of the way there cuz y'all rock!

Other ways you can help: reblog this version of the post. And, if you've bought anything from the shop, tried it and loved it, please leave a rating and review, it helps boost our store on Storenvy's platform and prompts their algorithm to recommend our store in their market place.

Love and thanks!!

[fishfamfarm]

$162/300

More than half way there in just a day, THANK YOU!

Y'all clearing us out of the Dad Hugs, we only have one bar left.

[fionacreates]

The Spinner.

[headspace-hotel]

There is a lot of information out there about weaving, crocheting and knitting, but relatively little about spinning.

Which is a shame, since spinning is really where the "resource provided by the earth" tangibly becomes "object with a use."

Aspects of spinning, such as the amount of twist and the length of the fibers, are impactful upon the thread or yarn created, but lots of fiber crafters don't get to directly play with those variables...

It is so strange how textile production is so utterly dominated by very few fibers, when so many are possible. Industry keeps coming up with new ways to transform bamboo or something into fibers, which is all well and good, but we have yet to run out of easily usable natural fibers that have worked for thousands of years.

Dogbane—Apocyonum cannabinum—was called "Indian hemp" because it was used by Native Americans for ropes, cords and textiles. It's incredibly strong, soft, and easy to collect large amounts of it. But hardly anybody uses it.

[bookwyrmbran]

As far as yarn construction (twist, fiber staple, ply, draw, etc) goes, may I recommend the Spinner's Book of Yarn Designs (Sarah Anderson) and Yarnitecture (Jillian Moreno)? @dirtypuzzle mentioned SpinOff and Fibershed in the comments and those are great magazines and ways to find local groups as well. I've read some great articles on prepping and spinning flax, hemp, cotton, and silk on there in addition to the more popular fleece/fur/hair fibers.

For those especially I can't over-recommend the Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook or the Field Guide to Fleece (Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.) An awful lot of excellent fiber breeds and species are now unknown, under-used, and in danger of going extinct; Shave 'Em to Save 'Em and the Livestock Conservancy in general are good resources for finding local people working with those. There's a chiengora (dog wool) group on Ravelry that's great, too, and lots of easily searchable info on raising silkworms at home and spinning from hankies.

There really is a dearth of information easily available on most plant fibers, I too would love to see more of it for like... almost everything, really. At a guess, most potentials get ignored at an institutional level because they're a pain to grow and process in bulk, which in turn means there's little if any data on how they stand up to modern washing and drying and detergents. Bast fibers tend to be a pain to prep as an interested individual (and often smelly!) and can be hard on the hands while spinning, especially those with extra long fibers. Even so a lot of people would spin old/new/ignored plants if they didn't have to process raw plant into spinnable fiber. I suspect that and not knowing which plants might be good options are the biggest obstacles to at least hobbyist experimentation.

[dirtypuzzle]

Here's a blog post where someone attempts to process and spin milkweed stalks. Keep in mind, milkweed stalks produce a bast fiber whereas milkweed fluff can also be spun but makes a brittle yarn by itself and is often mixed with wool or cotton, though I would assume you could process the stalks and then spin the floss into the fiber from the stalks. Spin Off talks about it here. Milkweed also sustains monarch butterflies, which have been having a rough time. You might have some skin reactions when handling milkweed though, so keep an eye.

Fibershed did a spotlight on dogbane, nettle, and milkweed in comparison to hemp and flax. They talk specifically about Native American techniques and current cultivation of all three, particularly dogbane, and ways to spin yarn and make rope. They aren't super in-depth about processing the fibers, but it seems like it's because they have more tutorials/guides on other pages. Bast fibers all have a similar retting->drying->scutching->hackling->spinning (you also have to ripple flax at the beginning) process, generally speaking.

Of course, flax is a really accessible plant fiber to spin yourself! You can plant it yourself, buy unprocessed flax (locally or online), or buy processed but unspun flax. If you're interested in the whole process, this book is the flax bible: Linen: From Flax Seed to Woven Cloth by Linda Heinrich. There are a lot of youtubers who go through it all, too.

If you're interested in kudzu, then may I suggest Oigawa Kudzu-fu Studio! They're located in Japan, but they have helpfully created an English website, too, where they go over making kudzu-fu (Japanese name for the cloth from kudzu). And if you ever find yourself going to Japan, you can take a class from them.

On Oigawa Studio's info page, they also mention that they work with ramie (plant in the nettle family), linden tree (basswood), and wisteria, so do with that what you will. I assume a lot of those resources are in Japanese.

Finally, hemp. Laws around if and how you can plant hemp, even for personal non-THC uses, vary wildly from state to state and country to country, so do your research. I'm not super familiar with it, and in my state I literally can't grow any of it at all without applying for a permit, so it's not really worth it for me.

[wanderingjunkdrawer]

To the previously mentioned sources I would add Abbey Franquemonty's

Respect the Spindle. Anyone looking for the how's & why's of hand spinning will find answers there. Interest in hand spinning has seen a steady growth in the past 15 yrs since this book's release.

We live in an era where there is a wide availability in tools, raw materials, and instructions. Before 2005 the spinner-wannabe was hard pressed to find the tools & fiber to even become a spinner much less explore the nuisance of rare fibers.

[movementnudge]

Movement nudge, for hands and wrists!

X

[soilthesimpletruth]

That time of year for blueberries.

[fishfamfarm]

Low Stock!

Dad Hugs (lavender, sandalwood and clove) and Fragrance Free soap is low on stock atm. Putting more in the upcoming week but it takes a couple weeks to cure before new batches are ready. If you're interested in either of these soaps, def snag them now!

[fishfamfarm]

THERE IS ONE (1) BAR OF DAD HUGS LEFT FROM THIS BATCH (new batch coming soon but will be a couple weeks before it's ready)! Fragrance Free is down to five (5) bars, and PNW Hike now has nine (9) left.

New batches of staple scents, and the Summer addition of our seasonal scents will arrive in the store soon!

Store front here!

[thepioden]

Someone is selling a Newcomb floor loom for $250 in Council Bluffs and I do not have the space in either my car or my house to go get it

[fishfamfarm]

ask if they'll deliver

[plumslices]

JAR (Joel Arthur Rosenthal) sheep head hair clip

Pearl, sapphire, aluminum, silver, gold

[fishfamfarm]

HI! We need HELP!

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

[fishfamfarm]

Short term goals!

To keep us progressing, we've decided to break the larger goal up into smaller chunks to move forward with.

Right now we need to restock some of our staple soaps (Dad Hugs, Fragrance Free) and get the seasonal summer soap out (U-Pick, Campfire S'More)

AND

Add the remaining planned flavors of lip balm (Lavender, Maple, and Orange Vanilla) to the shop!

To purchase all the supplies, were trying to pull in $300 total by the end of the week. Current sales are sitting at $81, already almost a third of the way there cuz y'all rock!

Other ways you can help: reblog this version of the post. And, if you've bought anything from the shop, tried it and loved it, please leave a rating and review, it helps boost our store on Storenvy's platform and prompts their algorithm to recommend our store in their market place.

Love and thanks!!

[fishfamfarm]

Hi, I just saw the post about your shop. Can I ask what the ingredients for your soap is, for allergy reasons? One of my friends is allergic to a lot, and I've been trying to find her soap she can safely use.

Absolutely! We make our soap using old fashioned cold process soap making to saponify oils with a lye solution. Our current oil combination is olive oil, coconut oil, sweet almond oil and castor oil. We use 100% sheep milk from our sheep here on the farm for the lye solution instead of water. A little splash of sodium lactate when bringing it all together helps the soap harden faster and more thoroughly

We use mica powder for colorant. Most of our soaps use synthetic fragrance oils, but the 'Wise Guy, Eh?' and 'Dad Hugs' soaps use food grade essential oils. We found the synthetic fragrance just couldn't quite replicate the scent correctly. Especially lavender for some reason? I've never found a synthetic version of lavender that actually smells like lavender. Mind boggling.

We don't currently have any soaps that use animal fats (other than the fats found in the sheep milk) as those have a higher tendency to go rancid over seed oils.

There are no parabens or sulfates.

Coconut and almond are the most likely allergen triggers I've seen for people. After that, the essential oils would be most likely as they contain plant compounds that bodies will be more likely to react to. If in doubt, highly recommend just trying the Fragrance Free before anything with other additives.

[fishfamfarm]

Low Stock!

Dad Hugs (lavender, sandalwood and clove) and Fragrance Free soap is low on stock atm. Putting more in the upcoming week but it takes a couple weeks to cure before new batches are ready. If you're interested in either of these soaps, def snag them now!

[samwisethewitch]

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[fishfamfarm]

HI! We need HELP!

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

[lizardlicks]

Ah, important note for anyone who wants to buy soap: stock on the Dad Hugs and Fragrance Free is low (about 5 bars left for each) and we will be vending in person this Sunday, so I can't guarantee the shop will reflect that accurately right away! Will hopefully get a chance to pour more next week but then it takes a couple weeks to cure, so snag em if you want em!

(And if you're in the Spokane area, we'll be at the North Town mall on Sunday, come say hi if you're not already burnt out from pride lol)

[fishfamfarm]

HI! We need HELP!

I don't know where to start this post so uh.

The very basics is that we're being evicted from the land that we've been working for the last five+ years to turn into a profitable farm (*mumblemumble generational trauma and family infighting mumble*)

The good news: there's options near by and I'm relatively confident we can qualify for a farm operations loan to secure new land!

The bad news: since goImagine closed, we've had to completely rebuild the store on a new platform and traffic/sale have cratered because no one knows where to find us. That's where you can help!

Please signal boost this post and check out our store!

We have soap, fiber, stickers and BRAND NEW lip balm! Our stuff is made from things we produce right here on our farm, and other ingredients and equipment sourced from local businesses.

Our current goal is to build up $2500 in capital and use that to fund purchases of more supplies and equipment for operation.

Big ticket items include:

A drum carder

New spinning wheel (in case I can't recover my old one)

An electric milker (I'm milking all of our sheep by hand currently!)

More soap molds

Getting the current back log of fleeces to our local mill to become yarn

This winter's supply of hay

And just various other supplies that are in constant need of reordering I have a LOT more planned, so please reblog this post and add our store to your watch list.

THANK YOU!

[rederiswrites]

There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.

[alexseanchai]

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?

[rederiswrites]

I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!

[pandorasquillandquotes]

Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.

[vaspider]

A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.

Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...

[foxofninetales]

I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.

[electronsprotonscroutons]

Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar

[magneticdeclination]

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come

[doctornerdington]

Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.

[bitchwhoyoukiddin]

DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.

I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.

[calystarose]

Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm

[ariaste]

Can't believe no one's mentioned Consider the Fork yet, which is about how environment/resources shape our ways of eating, which shapes both our culture and our concepts of politeness. So interesting, really recommend!

[great-art-and-a-purple-tongue]

Seven Flowers and How They Shaped Our World by Jennifer Potter

It isn't so much about edible plants as it is about decorative ones, but I think it fits the theme of this growing list enough for me to add it.

[crippled-peeper]

I got this extremely snotty angry reply to one of my gardening related posts once that was to the effect of “the only people who garden are wealthy because it’s entertainment and you don’t have to survive off it” from a communist catgirl anime icon haver and I just looked at my foodstamps-funded collection of garden vegetables in the back yard and fucking screamed at the top of my lungs

[moniquill]

Fellas, is to bourgeoisie to ::checks hand:: till the soil to grow food crops?

[headspace-hotel]

just remembered one of the times this happened, I can't remember if it was a communist (even though they are usually the ones who get mad about gardening, for some reason)

anyway they forgot the word "gardening" completely and said I was "larping cottagecore"

[pnwnativeplants]