[weedwomyn]

Seeds!

My neighbor’s house was being painted and I made friends with the boss; all we talked about was his prior weed growing operation & before he was done with the job he gave me like FIFTY+ SEEDS. It’s getting warm out aka planting season and I am SO PUMPED to start growing.

[afloweroutofstone]

Damn she got an IG? SC?

[tropicalhomestead]

Attention all farmers, gardeners, garden dreamers & wanna-be's:

Johnny Select Seeds has a Growers Library on their website that is filled with tons of free information about growing herbs, fruit, veggies, flowers, you name it!

Need to know your hardiness zone? They have maps!

Want to know how many seeds you need to buy to fill your growing space? They got a calculator for that!

Want to find out what it takes to build a (not kidding) gothic cathedral 14 ft growing tunnel? They have a list of parts needed and where to buy 'em!

Ever wondered what the 5 factors affecting cut flowers vase-life are? Well dadgum it if you can't find out there!

For free!

[coochiequeens]

Curio Wellness launches $30M fund to help women and minorities own a cannabis dispensary – TechCrunch

“We think of diversity as a keystone issue for the cannabis industry,” said Curio WMBE Fund managing director Jerel Registre in a conversation with TechCrunch. Registre’s conviction around this program is obvious as he explains the problem the fund is addressing. The new fund, sta…

“The new fund, started by the Maryland-based medical cannabis company Curio Wellness, aims to help underserved entrepreneurs entering the cannabis market. With $30 million to invest, the Curio WMBE Fund is looking to invest in up to 50 women, minority and disabled veterans seeking to open and operate a Curio Wellness franchise with a path to 100% ownership in three years.”

“Registre tells TechCrunch the goal is to create more diverse ownership through a proven business model. Participants of this program gain access to capital and operational resources.”

One company is trying to help women and other marginalized people enter a lucrative market.

[balkanradfem]

I’m stunned by how much you can learn if you know to ask the right questions. I’ve been rummaging thru youtube, trying to learn skills to be self-sustaining, that I will need to build a separatist tribe of women, and there was very little to be found. But when I had specific goal in mind, like, how to make your own oil at home? How to grow your wheat and make flour? How to make your own yeast? I found answers. And all of this feels doable. I actually feel dumb for buying yeast all this time, since you only need flour and water to make it, I really thought there was something more to it! Just flour and water.

I’ve been watching videos on “food forests” and I’ve been amazed. The concept is to grow a forest by first growing the trees that give nutrition to the soil, like acacia tree (I had no idea they could do that!) and then planting all edible, all useful plants, which would then grow on their own each year, with no need to be replanted every time. A human being could then forage in this forest and be completely set for food. This means we wouldn’t have to take out forests and create fields for growing food, forests and edible plants would be one and the same. Only thing that’s really bothering me here is, wouldn’t animals and pests just eat it all? In forests there are already lots of useful trees and plants growing, but pests do eat them, I can’t imagine pests just ignoring bunch of sweet-smelling edible plants. Still, if there’s an option to get a good light-shadow balance, good balance between food eaten by pests and still left over for humans, and good way to keep the ground nutritious and self-repairing for years and years, I want to plan one of these. I actually got an acacia tree growing on my balcony right now. I feel like it’s going to have a good future.

Women living in food forests, wouldn’t that be the dream?

[womynwhostirsthepot]

These are some “vintage” shots of me at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, circa 1994.  The first Festival I’d attended was with my girlfriend at the time (the cute, short, butchy one) who couldn’t believe I’d grown up in Michigan and had never heard of “Festival” before.  She insisted I come with her and she paid for me.  We went Thurs-Sun.  I thought that was just what one did until I found out it was actually a week long.  Then I always went for the whole week.  I returned to Festival about 10 times over 20 years.  Always with a different girlfriend, until finally, my first wife and I returned together several times and I told her we “broke the curse”.  I mostly ran around in shorts and a bra when I wasn’t wearing other under-clothes like homemade bloomers, cotton nighties and vintage aprons.  I LOVE talking Festival so please get in touch if you would like to know more about what it was like!   Do you see the photos on the lower left?  I’m there in a white nightdress and the woman I’m talking to with the blue shirt and brown hair is the FIRST LESBIAN I ever met.  I went to Michigan State Univ for a year when I was 18.  She was a couple of years older than me and an artist.  When there was open studio, I’d go and hang out near her.  We weren’t really friends or anything but I heard her talking about her girlfriend and I was like, “can I ask you a question? What’s it like to have a girlfriend?” She said it was really nice!  Then 4 years later I run into her by the Acoustic Stage at Festival. And of course there’s seriously a woman walking by naked with just a fanny pack on.  SO MICHIGAN!  

[clit-club]

[friend-o-dorothy]

You know what I've been pondering for a separatist community? Tech (which is my field), but specifically I think having women with remote software jobs on a commune could bring in good income for the community. Also, maybe just being tech support in general. I love gardening and homesteading too mind you! But computers can be a really helpful asset.

This is very old. But YES. I love this. I always just said “I’m bad with technology” but lately I’ve had to learn and learn fast and it’s forcing me to criticize a sexist stereotype I just kind of blindly applied to myself.

[weedwomyn]

adding high speed internet to our plans

[weedwomyn]

This is @clit-club another mod here & I'm working on my IT degree which I'll have <1 year from now. If any women would like to start a tech discord I'd love to connect with fellow women in IT! I also have a small (urban) garden & make my own organic lotions/bodycare/teas/medicinal extracts. I figured the same as anon- tech will allow me independence- a decent income- while also being able to work remotely from a small town instead of having to be stuck in the suburbs or cities. A strong internet connection will also allow us to sell homemade/grown products (THC products are amazing for pain relief, sleep, & way more)/art/fundraise/network/etc. for more income, and the ability to connect with other women and similar communities. Fast internet is integral for my future weedwomyn plans! Weed is a huge money maker already but financial independence is critical for spinsterhood and separatism. The more income the better- the more women we can help and the bigger we can grow.

[friend-o-dorothy]

You know what I've been pondering for a separatist community? Tech (which is my field), but specifically I think having women with remote software jobs on a commune could bring in good income for the community. Also, maybe just being tech support in general. I love gardening and homesteading too mind you! But computers can be a really helpful asset.

This is very old. But YES. I love this. I always just said “I’m bad with technology” but lately I’ve had to learn and learn fast and it’s forcing me to criticize a sexist stereotype I just kind of blindly applied to myself.

[weedwomyn]

adding high speed internet to our plans

[lookataleaf3000]

my religion is other women. this isn’t tongue in cheek. my religion congregates around a fire, in a cramped room we booked to talk, in an idling car for way too long, in someone’s living room, in the cold because there’s more to say and hear. there is a spark of divinity i know to look for when she says something she’s never said out loud before. there is a spiritual rumble in the dehydrated voices of women who aren’t used to saying so much. when i hear another woman articulate something i’ve never been able to, that’s the voice of my god speaking to me. its ancient, forbidden knowledge, and it fills my body with my self. there’s power in our warm red blood.

[cowboyjen68]

The Best Sandwich

I was talking to a friend this morning about hunkering down in the event of a flu pandemic or some such thing. (that part is not important) I was reminded of a story. 

It was many years ago at MichFest.  As it gets in August in Michigan, the temperatures were in the mid 90s and there was not a single cloud to cover the sun - just blue skies. It was the first load-in day of the week and we had been in line all night; we had our gear out of our vehicle and were waiting for a shuttle to take us down into the trees and to our campsite. There was a large shade tent with benches which we saved for our elders or for women who could not stand comfortably. I sat on my gear pile and dug for water. 

The heat had the potential to cause tempers to flare and women to get sick but you know what?  That didn’t happen. Contrary to what Disney says, MichFest was, in fact, the Happiest Place on Earth for those of us there. Those on work shift and the women on the crew were a sweaty mess. Twenty-five women smelling of sweat and dust and it was wonderful. It smelled like home -  cooperation, family. 

I started to help. My circle of friends agreed to handle our gear to get it to the main hub, the Triangle, so I could stay and relieve some of the tired crew. It was near 2pm; that is the hottest part of the day in Midwest America. There was no break in sight. Cars were still moving in the gate and the enthusiasm of the greeting “Welcome Home!” was as big as when they started. Women stopped their cars to jump out and run to a friend they had not seen since the August before. Joy and relief, like falling into the arms of a safe lover after a year of battle. And many of us do fight a battle, every day. MIchFest was the homecoming for a week of taking off the armor, shedding the stiff upper lip and wide legged stance. It was a week of calm and fun and laughter and crying into safe shoulders. 

I had been awake since around 5 am. Who can sleep once daylight breaks?  I was on the edge of my favorite place on Earth and my old friends were all around and new friends were waiting to be met. I had eaten a granola bar and drank coffee cooked by a stranger. She laid out her propane stove in the dust between the back bumper of her 1974 Prowler camper and our 2005 Dodge Pickup loaded with the gear of five lesbians, two bi women, and two teens (my daughter and her very excited friend). We had water, she had coffee, and we dug out enough cups. We shared with those walking seeking to find friends. I don’t remember her name, if she ever said it. I remember she had short messy hair and smelled like pot and pine. I remember she told me stories of fest from before I attended. 

So my stomach was empty and I was feeling tired. I kept going, unloading heavy gear. Some women came with a back pack and a smile. Other came with just a few arm loads of gear, a tent, and a cooler. Still others seemed to have a house’s worth of totes and beer and tarps. NO matter. We were all together. All of us. Many women, especially the elders who could not lift and move gear, reminded us constantly to drink. They dug out water from their coolers. Told us to sit and talk when our red faces and sweat-stained shirts indicated we were pushing too hard. Even youth and excitement can’t stop heat strokes.  

6pm came. The line was slowing and the shuttles were doing a great job of getting mountains of green totes, blue tarps and maroon tents moved from the dusty, weedy field to the shady wood chipped path within the trees.  The Shuttle driver, a funny, handsome butch with a light beard and wearing a prom dress, shut off the tractor and took a much-deserved bathroom break. It was quiet. About 50 women milled about - getting a drink, checking on those under the shade and quietly talking. A small bus pulled up and cut the engine. I watched from my perch on a tote. The woman next to me, Barb – she is still my friend to this day - was breathing a bit hard from the fatigue of the day. She shifted her cane from one hand to the other and told me how much she appreciated all the work. That she missed being able to help. 

My stomach was growling and one of my campmates sat down heavily on the ground nearby. A young woman, maybe early 20s, came towards us pulling a Radio Flyer red wagon. Not the new fancy ones but an old metal rusty one that squeaked and rattled behind her. She had snarled brown hair and her face was so clean compared to her dirty white under shirt and tan cargo shorts. I remember there was a big safety pin where the button used to be. She opened a cooler and handed me a sandwich. I don’t remember it being wrapped in anything. Perhaps it had wax paper or plastic wrap or was in a baggie. But I don’t remember any of that. Just a sandwich in my hands. My friend took one and handed it to Barb. Our server friend said, “Welcome Home Sisters. Enjoy.” and moved on. 

I looked at the sandwich. It was the typical Fest Bread. A brownish color speckled with undefinable chunks. Nuts? Spices? Dirt? No idea. We both peeled back the bread. It held one rough cut square of orange cheese. No spread. No lettuce. Just one slice of cheese. I took a bite and then we ate quickly and quietly without pausing for a drink until we clapped the final crumbs away. We both took a drink from the same bottle. We were smiling.

It was and will always be the best sandwich I have ever eaten. It was not the bread or the cheese. It was the care, the realization that even though they were busy in the midst of the festival preparing and serving food for thousands, the women remembered not all of us could share mealtimes in order to keep our temporary village alive. As a village does its people, though, the women took care of us. They fixed the quickest and easiest meal they could transport and sent someone to make sure it made it to us. 

A simple sandwich, made by women, delivered by a woman, in the moment I most needed it.

[hedgehog-moss]

Bonsoir! Can you suggest some books on ecofeminism, that you've read or have on your to-read list?

I would suggest:

Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development, Vandana Shiva

Visionary Women: How Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters Changed Our World, Andrea Barnet

Practising Feminist Political Ecologies: Moving Beyond the “Green Economy”, ed. Wendy Harcourt & Ingrid Nelson

Françoise d’Eaubonne et l’écoféminisme, Caroline Goldblum (I believe Françoise d’Eaubonne coined the term “ecofeminism” in her essay Le féminisme ou la mort—one chapter of Carolyn Merchant’s Ecology provides a translation of some of d’Eaubonne’s thoughts)

Small Town, Big Oil: The Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the Richest Man in the World—And Won, David W. Moore

Ecofeminism, Maria Mies

Women and the Environment: Crisis and Development in the Third World, ed. Sally Sontheimer

Counting for Nothing: What Men Value and What Women Are Worth, Marilyn Waring (the chapter on war and the high economic value men have ascribed to death is particularly good)

Earth follies : coming to feminist terms with the global environmental crisis, Joni Seager

Women Who Dig: Farming, Feminism and the Fight to Feed the World, Trina Moyles

(The bolded links redirect to OpenLibrary for the books that are available there)

On my to-read list:

Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology, Ariel Salleh

Unbowed, Wangari Maathai (I reblogged this article about her the other day, which made me want to check out the memoir she wrote)

Feminism and Ecology, Mary Mellor

Beyond Mothering Earth: Ecological Citizenship and the Politics of Care, Sherilyn McGregor (I’m interested in her critical discussion of how women caring about the environment is often described in maternal, rather than political, terms)

The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy, Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen & Maria Mies

I would also recommend Naomi Klein’s books; although she writes about political ecology rather than ecofeminism, at least she doesn’t forget about women in her books the way male environmentalists often do. Some of the male-authored books on the environment that gave me food for thought lately include Arran Stibbe’s Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories We Live By, Paul Kingsnorth’s Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, David Owen’s The Conundrum, and Ozzie Zehner’s Green Illusions, and only the latter took notice of the fact that women’s subjugation is relevant in climate change discussions—his book contains a chapter on women’s rights and he is the only one who points out that one essential factor to create a ‘green’ and sustainable society is giving women and girls power to make decisions—over their own bodies, as well as in social, economic and political spheres. 

I also appreciate that his book revolves around the idea that there is too much of a focus in today’s environmentalism on producing new technology and more (but ‘clean’) energy (wind, solar, biofuels, carbon-sequestrating gadgets…)— when, instead of attempting to create the kind of technology that will get our society-as-it-is through the climate crisis, we ought to create the kind of society that has a better chance of adapting to & mitigating it. In other words, realistic and efficient climate activism should focus on women’s rights, antimilitarism, improving democratic institutions and health care, combating consumerism and wealth disparities—things that often don’t register as climate activism, although they have a better chance of improving environmental issues and helping us face related crises than a fixation on potential scientific or technological miracles. I have found in my reading that it is surprisingly rare to find this holistic approach to environmentalism outside of ecofeminist writings.

[lesbianferality]

in the dark, we bring light. we chant and hoot and stomp and kick. we haul dead wood into the fire, and it roars with us. there is a safety in the night here that we have never seen before. some of us breathe easy, and some of us cry out. these woods are ours, and we are playing for keeps.

[balkanradfem]

I’m stunned by how much you can learn if you know to ask the right questions. I’ve been rummaging thru youtube, trying to learn skills to be self-sustaining, that I will need to build a separatist tribe of women, and there was very little to be found. But when I had specific goal in mind, like, how to make your own oil at home? How to grow your wheat and make flour? How to make your own yeast? I found answers. And all of this feels doable. I actually feel dumb for buying yeast all this time, since you only need flour and water to make it, I really thought there was something more to it! Just flour and water.

I’ve been watching videos on “food forests” and I’ve been amazed. The concept is to grow a forest by first growing the trees that give nutrition to the soil, like acacia tree (I had no idea they could do that!) and then planting all edible, all useful plants, which would then grow on their own each year, with no need to be replanted every time. A human being could then forage in this forest and be completely set for food. This means we wouldn’t have to take out forests and create fields for growing food, forests and edible plants would be one and the same. Only thing that’s really bothering me here is, wouldn’t animals and pests just eat it all? In forests there are already lots of useful trees and plants growing, but pests do eat them, I can’t imagine pests just ignoring bunch of sweet-smelling edible plants. Still, if there’s an option to get a good light-shadow balance, good balance between food eaten by pests and still left over for humans, and good way to keep the ground nutritious and self-repairing for years and years, I want to plan one of these. I actually got an acacia tree growing on my balcony right now. I feel like it’s going to have a good future.

Women living in food forests, wouldn’t that be the dream?

[cafab-kayfabe]

I recommend reading The Third Plate, which addresses your question about losing food to pests and animals. Long story short: yes, you’ll lose some yield, but it’s just staying in the food chain. What’s necessary is to view the system as a whole and understand your place in it. You can cultivate food, allow some to be taken, and reap the benefits (well-fed game if you’re a hunter, droppings fertilize your crops etc). It just means a change from the paradigm that humans are not only the top of the food chain, but the center of the ecosystems they participate in. In an ideal situation, neither of these things are true.

Your acacia sounds lovely :)

[balkanradfem]

okay since you all are discussing abt weather we should let males in separatist space (no lol), let me give you a better list of topics to discuss:

how do we make separatism non-relying on capitalism?

is there a way to export products hand-made by women and trade them for things we cannot make on our own, like certain medicine, technology, materials, without using money?

what technology is currently available that can be built out of natural materials and bring no pollution or damage to environment?

what are your views on abusive women in separatism? how big offence should get them kicked out? (i would kick out anyone abusive within a second but it’s unlikely to have women coming out of abusive situations being completely adapted to non-abusive environment, should we have rehabilitation centers for those so they get a better chance?)

what traditions, festivals, holidays and ancient cultures worshiping women could we revive? 

should we dance around a fire every evening as a form of socialization? (i’m very into this)

who can recommend me best type of hand-built house with good insulation? (where i live people are talking about hay-clay combination and say it works well!)

whats the best type of wood to build furniture off, that grows fast enough so we don’t lose any forest ground for the sake of creating resources?

i feel like we should make a few different sister tribes, rather than a big one, i would like an atmosphere of a circle where everyone knows each other and stands together, it’s also easier to sustain smaller tribes, but we should all get together for festivals and guest in other tribes for social events

anyone wishing to join separatism later on, please start collecting seeds, we will grow our own food and we will want any seeds available, especially from old heirlooms and ancient plants!

[krista-venka]

First Blood From COUNTRY♀WOMEN, a feminist country survival manual and creative journal made in the 1970s

[weedwomyn]

Does anyone have resources for natural pest control? I'm compiling resources in a Google doc