Oh. That’s so nice. I would love to have a powdered starter easily bought. I’ve seen wet starts for sale but not cheaply and at speciality stores

My wife is a therapist and they have a large number of trans and gender nonconforming clients. Earlier this year they had a series of meetings to work through how to change the diagnostics and hide any notions of gender dysphoria of their clients to not tell insurance about it at all. Most therapist offices are doing the same thing.

Just to note if you therapist is a social worker their code of ethics specifically say that they put their clients needs over everything. That includes what the board of social work says or any other legal entity. So protection of privacy and helping you go over almost everything.

If you hate sourdough try something that isn’t San Francisco sourdough. Other sourdoughs aren’t as tart as San Franisco type. I love the French Pain au Levain much more. Try it out if you see it somewhere

Interesting. I might try drying it out. It seems like still will take a bunch of time to reawaken but would be nice for the warm months. I will keep it in mind

Well I have a long term plan to become a Slash worker. I want to be a day job / Herbalist. So have some ideas about how to the last part in a much slower timeline. Need to keep the day job but don’t want it to be my only thing but its mostly talk at this point.

I think my problem is that I will make a loaf once a month in the colder months and then nothing in the warmer months. So it takes forever to wake it back up every time. I think I will need a smaller starter next time

I love everything about sourdough but maintaining and feed it when I don’t need it. We don’t really consume enough bread to make a loaf every time it needs to be fed. The rest of the process and the taste and amazing but I don’t love the Tamagotchi feeding aspect enough.

All the things I do for fun and hobbies I would do a lot more. Which would likely be the following:

• Exercise (running in the warm months and skiing in the cold)
• TTRPGs (I might move from 1 day of the week into two, and assuming everyone else has the same deal play in-person instead of digitally)
• Reading (books and more books)

But mostly I would work on living the permaculture / herbalism fantasy.

• Do a lot more herbal formulation and
• Maybe open the small apothecary to sell things at Art fairs and other makers markets.
• Turn my urban yard into a full food forest to help grow some of my own food, and herbs. (I want to have an urban oasis of edible trees, bushes and other useful plants)
• Volunteer more a local prairie restoration group that I have worked with in the past
• Finally spend some time gorilla gardening on open lots and sides of alleyways around my neighborhood to spread the plant love.

I haven’t got to try mine yet. So I am not sure. Apparently they taste a little like asparagus which I think is used as a comparison for a lot of things. I did have some milkweed stems last year that were similar to asparagus

There are no fruits ripening currently but I did eat some young dandelion greens in a salad this week. They were much less bitter than when I had them last year in the middle of the summer. The next thing I have planned to forage are our ostrich fern fiddleheads which I have missed harvesting it the last year since I waited too long.

We were thinking a thornless variety as well. We love them and they are native to our area so I think we will

Sauces, Sauces and more sauces. I never user the flavor packet (Or just use a little bit) and add my own sauces. Soy sauce, fish sauce, hoisin, oyster sauce, miso etc. They are just sitting there ready to be used to make it delicious

It’s this in you garden or natural? I kind of want to plant one in my garden this year? I know I’ll have to trim and pull but and to know if it’s worth it

Sometimes I think I would love to try playing AD&D in the competitive Gygax method. It would be fun to get a table of skilled players and complete against another table to see how far you can get through a dungeon and get the most gold. It seems like a wildly different way to play and would be kind of fun for a competitive - cooperative method.

We have a raspberry in our bare soil and we only had to pull a few in the spring. Good luck!!!

Also the examples listed here the artifacts are going back to their original owners who have already protected these items for years or decades. I think the curators and other museum people would rather have the items in safe private hands instead of unsafe public hands.

I guess my advice was much more specific to traditional “weeds” which are annuals/ biannual / short lived perennials which thrive in disturbed land and in gardens. Bamboo is woody and might not full under that category. These traditionally “weeds” would be plants like creeping bellflower, motherwort, pigweed, plantains, dock, etc. which are human focused plants who only really thrive around human intervention. Plants like these are ubiquitous around humans (in our gardens and lawns) but can’t penetrated less disturbed areas or at later stages of succession. These are our traditional garden weeds which have a long history of use as food sources and medicinal uses with human cultures. If anyone is interested in learning more I would recommend Weeds: In Defense of Nature’s Most Unloved Plants which does a great overview of weeds and their spread.

Those plant that get fully invasive outside of human contact like Purple loosestrife, Tree of Heaven or other invasive noxious weeds are a different story. These are typically garden escapes, have a longer lifecycle and can outcompete and dominates landscapes. I think bamboo might fall closer to this than traditional weeds.

P.S. added the book to my to read list

The whole conclusion seems to be just try different things which isn’t great. I love smoothies before a run because I don’t have to chew which seems to help but your results may vary. Also I don’t go the same distances so it might not be as calorie dense.

I do know quite a few people who I run with who do full vegan while training and then consume meat products in preparation of their races, during their race and as some recovery days. It is suppose to be great but I have never done it. I don’t think its for gut health specifically

Whenever I don’t know what I want to plant I consult my local university. Since I am in Minnesota it should be similar to your zone which has a great section about planting in the shade. Check your own or see what we have here.

Its mostly azaleas, dogwoods and hydrangea but there are other options. Take a look and pick something fun

Our raspberry bushes only send up runners early in the season. It is pretty easy to just pull those who escape.