“The Butterfly” played by Barak Bruerd on an Overton Low D As an Irish musician (a very flexible term when applied to myself), I have a certain affinity for flutes and whistles. So it’s no small thing for me to have sold my Copeland Low D whistle on ebay. Copeland whistles are the Cadillac of [...]
The alcohol stove, largely unknown in our modern REI world of high-tech camping, dates back more than a hundred years and was the standard cooking device for explorers, adventurers and hobos. Designs vary from an open pool of burning alcohol to double-wall designs that self-pressurizes and a good design will boil water every bit as [...]
A number of years ago I found myself inexorably drawn into the realm of woodwind crafting. A tangent of one of my lesser known, and much neglected skills – flute playing. I started off with classical flute in the 6th grade. No, scratch that… I started off with recorder when I was 7 years old. [...]
Growing up in my house, we had very few traditions; we were a transient family with few roots and somehow traditions seem to require roots before sprouting leaves and maturing into anything permanent and steadfast. However, in the hazy recollection of my childhood memories, there stands the petrified remains of a few bygone traditions which [...]
The community is in the throws of a large-scale water project. While most people have enough water for household needs very few have sufficient water for agricultural purposes. That and hand-liftng water from a 15 feet well and carrying it a couple hundred meters to a garden discourages most people from the 3 – 4 [...]
Written about in Chinese texts 2000 years ago, utilized by the Romans, and now employed across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, clay pitcher irrigation is a low-tech solution that is helping thousands of communities in arid regions of the world cultivate farmland during dry seasons of the year. These buried, unglazed pots allow water to [...]
What Is It? Chitin (kai-tin), one of the three must abundant organic compounds in nature (along with cellulose and starch), is the structural material found in the shells of crustaceans such as shrimp and crabs, and also in insect shells and fungi cell walls. From chitin we derive chitosan (kai-toe-zan). Chitosan is a natural wonder. [...]