[SPEAKER_00]: I like the big idea and all of the projects that I've done from my first book all the way up till this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like there are all big unreasonable things that the average person could not possibly, you know, wouldn't want to attempt and why would they?
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like, so that's where I come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can do the crazy thing and then tell everybody what it was like and tell them why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would I want to be interested in something like growing the flags to make a dress in my backyard?
[SPEAKER_03]: You're listening to the Good Dirt Podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a place where we dig into the nitty-gritty of sustainable living through food, fashion, and lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're your host, Mary and Emma Kingsley, the mother and daughter founder team of Lady Farmer.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're sewing seeds of slow living through our community platform, events, and online marketplace.
[SPEAKER_03]: We started this podcast as a means to share the wealth of information and quality conversations that we're having in our world as we dream up and deliver ways for each of us to live into the new paradigm.
[SPEAKER_03]: One that is regenerative, balanced, and whole.
[SPEAKER_04]: We want to put the microphone in front of the voices that need to be heard the most right now.
[SPEAKER_04]: The farmers, the dreamers, the designers, and the doers.
[SPEAKER_03]: So come call to be a better world with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: We're so glad you're here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, let's dig in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Mom.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hello.
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: Good.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking about with our guest today, Eve Shab.
[SPEAKER_03]: She is so interesting and has done multiple projects.
[SPEAKER_03]: year-long projects, like year of no sugar, year of no clutter.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I was thinking about how you're also the kind of person who likes to take on these long-term projects.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I wonder if you could tell us about maybe currently something that's either going on in your garden or in the house.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was just thinking maybe you could share something about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: One thing new I've been doing this year in the garden.
[SPEAKER_04]: is since I've added my greenhouse and I have more space to do this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have learned to propagate plants from cuttings and I have found that has really leveled up my ability to plant things in the garden because I think before I would think, oh, I want to plant a certain plant and I would go to a garden center and a nice plant would be ten or fifteen dollars and
[SPEAKER_04]: I might buy one or two or three elected plant things in odd numbers.
[SPEAKER_04]: But that gets really expensive.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think I was really reluctant to go whole hog and plant a whole bunch of things.
[SPEAKER_04]: at once because it was just it was expensive and also wasteful buying plants ironically usually generates a lot of plastic waste you know the pot attacks and all that stuff and lots of times plants you get from stores they've had a rough start for whatever reason and they don't survive so I feel like my learning to take cuttings and read those things
[SPEAKER_04]: and grow plants from what already have here in the garden is going to really help me scale up the quantity and the look of it because I'm going to be able to plant a lot more larger clumps of things going to make more of an impact.
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course I can now plant a lot more things from seed too, but the propagation from the cuttings I have found
[SPEAKER_04]: to get way quicker results, particularly in midseason like this.
[SPEAKER_04]: Seed starting is more of a spring thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: But here I am in mid summer and I'm replicating all these plants around me.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's really cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna have more color.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm gonna have more variety.
[SPEAKER_04]: So my project is to expand my plantings more sustainably by using what I have and planting more natives, more pollinator friendly plants and more diversity.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm excited about that.
[SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, that's my new project.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think for this season, what's your project?
[SPEAKER_03]: We just moved houses.
[SPEAKER_03]: So lots of things.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I think my real, the fun that's coming to the top of my head right now, since it's the height of summer and CSA abundance is I really do want to make tomato sauce and freeze it and really make the most of the summer.
[SPEAKER_03]: veggie abundance because every year I say I'm going to do that and honestly the veggies are just so good we just suddenly beating all of them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't get to them fast enough to process them.
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's what I'm thinking about.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then also, yeah, with all the good CSA vegetables, you can ferment them.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's really easy.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's something you can do really quickly and not get as involved as in making saws or canning something.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just something really.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can do if you have just a few extra minutes actually just cut up some vegetables and ferment them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And something that I think about long-term planning like this and long-term thinking is that it does require
[SPEAKER_03]: a certain sense of stability and like, and Mazlo's hierarchy of needs, you need to feel like you have other things in place to be able to think long-term.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's at least been my experience.
[SPEAKER_03]: So for a long time, until I had a place of my own and a kitchen I was responsible for, and a family I was responsible for, I don't know if I could have even thought super long-term in this sort of like,
[SPEAKER_03]: mindset, but it is when you're thinking about sustainability and still living, it definitely requires a lot more long-term thinking.
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I guess that's just to say that I feel for folks who maybe feel like they aren't in a place to where they can even consider these things.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I know what you're saying.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think that's a really good time.
[SPEAKER_04]: to remind everyone, give yourself grace.
[SPEAKER_04]: And in terms of slow living and sustainable living and the things you want to accomplish along those lines, do whatever you can and whatever small way.
[SPEAKER_04]: Any small accomplishment is progress.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're even thinking about this stuff, you're ahead of the game.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So speaking of projects and thinking along term,
[SPEAKER_04]: Our guest today, Eve Shobb, she's an internationally published author and humorist who lives in Vermont, and in the past has written about these year-long experiments that she has performed with her family.
[SPEAKER_04]: As you mentioned, she's the author of The Year of No Sugar and The Year of No Clutter, and her third family memoir is The Year of No Garbage, which was published in
[SPEAKER_04]: that book with us here on the Good Dirt two years ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have Eve back as our guest today in a conversation with Mary to talk about her newest year-long project the year of the dress during which she is growing a dress in her backyard.
[SPEAKER_03]: She's growing flags which she'll harvest and then she'll spin it and weave it into cloth and make a linen dress that she can actually wear.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we have really enjoyed getting to know Eve through her amazing projects and we've come to know her as an exceptional human being, not only for her perseverance and her determination and accomplishing what she sets out to do, but for her ability to convey an amazing amount of relevant and important and often difficult information lots of these things are hard to hear.
[SPEAKER_04]: But she delivers all of it with a really healthy dose of good humor.
[SPEAKER_04]: And don't we all need that?
[SPEAKER_03]: Definitely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, this is really fun for us because when we started Lady Farmer, this was just a thought that we had.
[SPEAKER_03]: What if we could source American grown linen and make linen dresses?
[SPEAKER_03]: And it took time to figure out that.
[SPEAKER_03]: wasn't a thing and then in the time that we've been doing this project it has become more of a thing and so it's just so fun that we know Eve and that she's literally writing the book on this crazy idea that it seems like a lot of us collectively had in the past ten years and before I'm sure but just has it's been very activated.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we're so pleased to have her back sharing more of her knowledge and inspiration.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Eve Shob talking about the year of the dress.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Eve is so fun to have you back on today.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we want to catch up with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've been going on since we talked in summer, twenty twenty three.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I believe, head your book, the year of no garbage.
[SPEAKER_04]: Just come out.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm forgetting the timeline there.
[SPEAKER_04]: But catch us up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Anything you want to say about all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, you're a new garbage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: For a while, I've been just talking trash ever since that came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been wonderful to be able to access so many different audiences.
[SPEAKER_00]: People really feel to me like ready to hear that message about trash, garbage, and in particular the message about plastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've been very busy running around and doing talks and talking to everybody who will listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's been great.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I took a little period of time and I also started working on a play, which is random, but I got inspired and has nothing to do with trash.
[SPEAKER_00]: But nevertheless I hope people will be interested when that comes about that's still in the works and then I've had in my mind for the last couple of years this idea for my new project that I just launched and I'm calling it to myself the year of the dress so it's another year long project.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I did promise my family that the year of no garbage was going to be it for family experiments.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is this one's on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I'm going to ask them to help, but they're not required.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they don't have to grow all their own clothes this year.
[SPEAKER_04]: They might be so impressed with the results that they want to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both my girls are now grown.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're not living at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're off at school.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're off living their lives and starting careers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's very exciting for me as a mom, of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm hoping to get them to still come home and maybe help out with the project.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what the project is, I should probably describe, which is that I am growing a dress in my backyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm growing flacks which I am going to harvest in the fall and then turn into linen and I'm going to do all the many steps of processing that there are for that then I'm going to spin it.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'm going to put it on my loom and I'm going to weave it into cloth and then I'm going to cut it up and make a dress that I can actually wear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that I settle, that sounds like a pretty major feat, doesn't it?
[SPEAKER_04]: This is, it's just amazing.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got wind of this from your Instagram account and I thought, oh boy, we have to talk because we have a flex experiment project
[SPEAKER_04]: going on here.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I thought it would be really fun for us to talk about what each other's doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Our resources where we're getting our information, our experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're in upstate New York.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do I remember them correctly?
[SPEAKER_00]: Close.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm right next to the New York border in Vermont.
[SPEAKER_04]: In Vermont.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is very interesting from a geographical standpoint, like what you're able to accomplish up there and we're a little bit sad.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're learning all kinds of things.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is going to be a real conversation and sharing.
[SPEAKER_04]: First of all, tell us about how you got interested in this.
[SPEAKER_04]: What was the aha moment or spark or inspiration that got you thinking about this?
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know with your
[SPEAKER_04]: work with plastics and every all the plastics that go into clothes these days and your struggles with recycling and all that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I know you're like really keen into this love fashion thing, but talk about that talk about your experience and kind of history with this.
[SPEAKER_04]: realization of the problem in clothes and how you got this idea that you wanted to grow a dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like this is a project that has come at me from several different angles over time.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've always been a hand maker, a person who likes to make stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember being a kid and asking my mom to teach me to knit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was a very busy mom and did not teach me to knit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was very sad.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I grew up and I taught myself to knit when I was in college and Ivy came fascinated.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, so if you teach yourself something from a book, it's probably the hardest thing that you can, the hardest way you can possibly ever learn something like a handcraft like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Super stubborn.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hung in there and with every stitch just pulling it like a knot.
[SPEAKER_04]: You are stubborn, Eve.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know from what I know.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I am not surprised to hear that you persevered through the knitting instruction books.
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't find my people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no knitting community to access at that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't fashionable yet again.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I still fell in love with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I always would seek out the knitting shops everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then later on, I found out a friend of mine was going to a weaving workshop.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over in Putney Vermont so I joined her for that and I ended up going to do that weaving workshop every summer for seven years in a row because I was so enthralled and I think a lot about making things just philosophically like what does it mean to be a person who makes stuff and why do we get such joy out of it?
[SPEAKER_00]: But then of course, then I did this project of a year of no garbage and I learned all kinds of disturbing facts about our clothing, including the fact that sixty percent of the clothing made every year contains synthetic materials, which is to say plastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when people discard these clothes, this vast fashion, as many of your listeners probably are ready or aware because it's being talked about more and more.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gets shuddled off to often to these dumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: It goes to landfills.
[SPEAKER_00]: It goes to the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it sits there and it's horrible for the environment because you've got microplastics and chemicals that are shedding into the environment, into the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they don't go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: They just sit there.
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't degrade the way a natural material would.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I felt being a person who makes stuff who's fascinated with hand crafts and then also being somebody who was super aware of what's going on with the Travis D. of Fast Fashion today.
[SPEAKER_00]: It all made sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I have a backyard.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can plant the material to do what used to be done and find out what that feels like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that idea really captivated.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's so cool.
[SPEAKER_04]: And just to help you emphasize your point about the clothing going to trash.
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a statistic out there.
[SPEAKER_04]: It might be a few years old.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how accurate it is today in twenty twenty five.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it just statistics dates that the average amount of trash per person per year generated in the United States is around eighty two pounds of textile waste.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know this goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, because I'm famous for that.
[SPEAKER_04]: For anyone that thinks that it's going to break down in the landfill, you've just said, no, because it's polyesters most of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you know a percentage of clothing out there that is.
[SPEAKER_04]: blended with synthetics or all synthetics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sixty percent of the coloring produced every year has when it could be acrylic or ray on or polyester, list goes on and on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some of these have really wild names and you look them up and it's all the same.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all plastic when it comes down to it, which means that it's not going to degrade.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not super awesome for
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody, it's not I don't want to wear that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've gotten very conservative about buying new clothes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I generally now only shop at consignment shops, but even in the consignment shops, you got to check the labels because this has been around for a couple of decades now and yes material.
[SPEAKER_00]: It facilitates all kinds of different, for example, that you can wash it at home.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to send it to the dry cleaner.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's convenience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Plastic is always as cheap and convenient.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we pay a price for that, but we don't like to think about what that price actually is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's bad for our bodies.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's getting into our air.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like when we buy fleece or fleece blankets, for example, they have a particular tendency to shed these microfibers into the air, which we then breathe, and then those get stuck in our lungs.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more we find out, the worse it gets.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And first of all, anything you put in the lamp feels not going to break down.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an anaerobic environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no oxygen.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pushed so flat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing can degrade.
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually it was reading a wonderful book that was talking about some, quote, garbage archaeologists.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were unirthing things in the landfill.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were finding containers of guacamole that were still bright green.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the level of no degradation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing's breaking down in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing happening because the landfill's not conducive to that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we do have the runoff that gets into our waterways and that stuff is exceedingly toxic and horrible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we also know that all landfills ultimately will fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: What are we going to do?
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to police these landfills are great grandchildren are going to be standing around making sure that they're still functioning.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, they're going to fail.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these materials will eventually leak out into the environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all bad.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's very sobering.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's really easy to go down the rabbit hole of
[SPEAKER_04]: dreadful hopelessness until you get that little spark of desire and inspiration that tells you about this thing that you can do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it going to shift the whole world?
[SPEAKER_04]: No, but doing it and putting that energy into it and I dare say talking about it on things like the good dirt podcast and everywhere else you go.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're like me, you'll blab it anywhere.
[SPEAKER_04]: that does do something and that does catch people's attention.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this idea you've had apparently pretty independently did you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you run across something that inspired you?
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you do this or someone else is doing this?
[SPEAKER_04]: Because I'm about to tell you about what's going on down our way.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very fortunate because I've got a couple of friends, including my weaving teacher from that course I went to and put me for all those years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they are now my one eight hundred
[SPEAKER_00]: help fiber people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there are some folks around here who have some experience, they're few and far between.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I've already contacted them and said, hey, do you think I can do this?
[SPEAKER_00]: And they would you mind if I call you if I have questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm very grateful that they've said yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's absolutely fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yes, we think you can do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm excited at the prospect.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's brilliant because I will tell you as you already know because you've been reading about it that slacks it grows well in North America it grows well in our
[SPEAKER_04]: quadrant of the United States.
[SPEAKER_04]: It takes fairly low inputs.
[SPEAKER_04]: It you don't have to have pesticides or insecticides.
[SPEAKER_04]: What else?
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure you've read about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: What can, you know, what have you read about this, struck you?
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've read, and I hope it's true, is that it's, as you said, that it's fairly easy to grow.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hard part comes with the processing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also that weeds, if you plan it thickly enough, weeds are not in enormous.
[SPEAKER_00]: problem.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm crossing my fingers there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, like, for me, I've been thinking about this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in Vermont.
[SPEAKER_00]: I lived here for the last twenty, eight years.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I grew up in a suburban environment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've never been a plant person.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, like the knitting, I came to Vermont and went, alright, I'm going to become a person who has a garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's been an uphill slug.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like to say that I have a black thumb.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the kind of thing that comes easily to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have a facility for growing stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, it's like, I'm just supposed to figure it out with brute force.
[SPEAKER_00]: So over the years, I have grown things, but I feel like I've made every mistake in the book along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in this process of growing flags, I'm absolutely not trying to present myself as an expert in fact quite the opposite.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm coming to this as a person who I don't know what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm relying on all my resources to leave the way.
[SPEAKER_04]: As you probably know, a hundred years ago, it was very common for people to be growing flags in their backyard, just like you're doing.
[SPEAKER_04]: in processing it and spinning it and weaving it for fabric for their own clothing.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just has disappeared from literally the landscape.
[SPEAKER_04]: And first of all, are you familiar with fiber shed?
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a national nonprofit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am a little bit familiar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, through my non plastic work.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember we had a bunch of folks come and speak to my
[SPEAKER_04]: anti plastic waste fiber shed and I was like fascinated with fabulous yes and their goal is to create local markets for local textiles and to raise awareness of all these problems we've just been talking about particularly the harmful textiles that are being produced and thrown away and all this so if people learn about that they learn about natural fibers and in many cases they learn how to grow fibers and create local markets
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what we're going for.
[SPEAKER_04]: More awareness, more local production, more conscious, consumer decisions about clothing.
[SPEAKER_04]: So a fiber shit is a national nonprofit that has local affiliates.
[SPEAKER_04]: And you probably have one near you looking to whether or not there's a local chapter that you can join.
[SPEAKER_04]: We have a local affiliate here.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the Chesapeake fiber shed.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we have a flex project going on currently.
[SPEAKER_04]: and yours truly is working on that.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is the third season that we have had a community flags project, which is to facilitate people in the area, growing it, learning how to grow it, learning how it behaves, and whatever the pitfalls, the things they have questions about, because it is a fairly easy entry level crop.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then we have held
[SPEAKER_04]: local processing workshops for people to learn the art of it by hand.
[SPEAKER_04]: The art is an aspect of it, which is I assume is what you're going to do because you have a small home backyard plot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, so my garden, which used to be my vegetable garden is about twenty feet by thirty feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now it's all planted with the facts.
[SPEAKER_04]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_04]: And have you calculated how much flex you need for this dress?
[SPEAKER_04]: How many square feet of flex to grow for a dress?
[SPEAKER_04]: Are you just going to wing it?
[SPEAKER_00]: I did try to figure out what the ratio would be and it the numbers seemed to differ widely depending on the different resources.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chat GPT had an opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: So basically just went and said okay I've got five pounds of seed and I'm planting all of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like I'm pretty, pretty good shape.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be a very simple dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not going to be anything really elaborate needing yards and yards of fabric.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm thinking if I end up with three yards, I'll be delighted.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I also want to introduce you to another group that's going on near you.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we've actually partnered with them.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the Pinsalvania Flex project.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was co-founded by Heidi Bar and Emma Delong, Emma's a farmer.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she and Heidi got together and they decided they wanted to bring Flax production back to Pennsylvania for all the reasons we've been discussing.
[SPEAKER_04]: All of those are textile geeks and sustainability geeks and all this.
[SPEAKER_04]: So they started this about five years ago.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then their ultimate goal
[SPEAKER_04]: is to actually build a mill.
[SPEAKER_04]: There used to be a significant textile industry in Pennsylvania, but the equipment and the infrastructure are long gone.
[SPEAKER_04]: So this group is making great headway and is well on its way to this goal of putting four thousand acres annually of fiber flex into production in Pennsylvania and establishing the first co-operatively owned scutching mill in North America by twenty twenty eight.
[SPEAKER_04]: they received a grant, a federal grant last year, I believe, that has let them hire a staff and provide financial incentives for farmers to actually want to be part of this experiment.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's just a great thing.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going great guns for guidance, for mentorship, for information, resources, even some in-person events.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, it's kind of a trick from Vermont.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, it's not observable to the Philadelphia areas where this is.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's doable.
[SPEAKER_04]: They have many in-person events.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's Pennsylvania Flax Project.
[SPEAKER_04]: I will put you in touch with Heidi Barr.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's a good friend and just gonna love this community and they're mission and they're vibe.
[SPEAKER_04]: I have this theory.
[SPEAKER_04]: that great ideas float around and they land on people.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, like it's in the ethers.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_04]: And some people grab it and do something with it and others down.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: But if there's a receptive human being that gets the idea and does something with it and others, then eventually they'll find each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's something in the air.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think there is.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so when I found out you were doing this, I just, I got so excited.
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought, oh, she's in the tribe.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's in the flag's tribe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I think it's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to make sure that we mention also it's not just a conversation about the materials that we're buying and putting on our bodies, but it's also a conversation about the people who are making those goods.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're getting ferretreatment and adequate compensation and when we're outsourcing these things all over the world, but that's not definitely not always the case.
[SPEAKER_00]: So bringing these things back into balance where things make more sense and people are getting treated well.
[SPEAKER_00]: as well as the materials being good for us, good for the planet, good for our bodies.
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this goes from the growing of the material, the harvesting of the material, the processing, the manufacturing all along the supply chain.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is really something that's really lacking in our public awareness.
[SPEAKER_04]: And who even ever thinks about the supply chain of like literally every object you pick up during your day.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, you're swimming against the tide when you start getting these questions and looking into these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's something that I remember we talked about on our previous conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Back in twenty twenty three we talked about, I feel like there's this thread that's been flowing through all my books and continues in this current project, which is this idea of slowing down and being more thoughtful in our everyday lives, like thinking about the choices we make and the assumptions that our culture makes for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you go to the coffee shop and they're immediately giving you a disposable
[SPEAKER_00]: plastic lined cup with your coffee and I say, hey, can I have that in a real cup?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have a ceramic cup?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's this moment that's a little uncomfortable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, especially since COVID, disposables are more prevalent than ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for, I can understand why during COVID that happened, but now I feel like it's time to start working that backward.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can do the same thing with our clothing and ask questions and say, why is it that this is what we accept as normal?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, and when Emma and I began Lady Farmer back in twenty sixteen, we began as a slow fashion brand.
[SPEAKER_04]: This was the idea we wanted to manufacture our own sustainable line of clothing.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we did.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we created the essential collection and there was no plastic and it was really hard to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: Responsibly sourced.
[SPEAKER_04]: It was so hard to do.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was so fantastic for us to just
[SPEAKER_04]: walk that talk because we said okay we're going to do this kind of like you like I'm going to do this and then you start the process and then all the obstacles that you run into are the reason you're doing it actually and to find out why why this isn't like everyday life and funny story about linen and flags the very first thing we did I say we're going to do this we're going to do we know anything about manufacturing clothing
[SPEAKER_04]: No, minor detail, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, somebody said, oh, first thing you need to do is go to the magic conference or show, like a trade show out in Las Vegas.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we got on the plane and went to Las Vegas and we got, oh, this is great.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to source our fabrics here for our clothing line.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we walk into this gigantic place, Muslim five football fields of just merchant after vendors from everywhere.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we walk up to someone and say, so where's the United States section?
[SPEAKER_04]: We want, and they look at us like, there's a couple of boots over there, and they were like the little information base, but there was really no textiles to speak of.
[SPEAKER_04]: There might have been one or two males, but we said, we want American grown-in men, linen, linen, Polish, yeah, more local.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, nothing whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're looking at each other going, our project is already off track, because we wanted
[SPEAKER_04]: domestic linen, and there isn't any.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I bet back then nobody was really talking about.
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, no, not much.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it has grown a lot that segment of the market, if you're, we all have different algorithms on our social media feeds.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: But of course, we get, and you will start getting them now too, probably, because you're talking about flex.
[SPEAKER_04]: We get lots and lots of posts from sustainable brands and more and more people are using that verbage.
[SPEAKER_04]: appealing to this growing awareness, which we have found that's great.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's great that the awareness is growing, but it... There's a lot of greenwashing too.
[SPEAKER_04]: You took the words right out of my mouth.
[SPEAKER_04]: It puts the onus on the consider even more to know what to look for and to know what's what's really going on out there because words like it's sustainable and earth friendly, environmentally friendly, all those catch words
[SPEAKER_04]: there's no one policing the use of so anyone can say virtually anything and maybe it's true maybe it's not true and what is your definition of sustainable versus some right it's there it's actually a very personal thing but it's also I guess it's the consumer responsibility to decide what their own goals are what are you going for you might like like you were talking about shopping and consignment thrift stores yes so
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a great place to start for me personally.
[SPEAKER_04]: It takes away so many decisions and when shopping or when I need something, I'm going to always go to the thrift store first.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then you go into a thrift store and there's a bazillion items.
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you near that down?
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, you look at the labels and if it's not a natural, all natural,
[SPEAKER_04]: textile, I'm probably not going to buy it.
[SPEAKER_04]: There might be some musicians.
[SPEAKER_04]: I just leave myself a literally right, but in general, you know, I'm only buying the hundred percent whatever, because I wanted to go back to the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you can find such wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's sweaters and only a few decades ago, things were made much
[SPEAKER_00]: better, constructed better, finished, they last.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a dress.
[SPEAKER_00]: My family left to make fun of me because I have this pull over jumper dress that I've had since I was seventeen years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still wear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's awesome.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was made of this sort of rough stiff material that has softened over time, but the construction was such.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if I was seventeen that would have been nineteen eighty seven,
[SPEAKER_00]: Even back then, the clothes were made better.
[SPEAKER_00]: In many cases, then they are today.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sewing, everything about it, and now you buy things that a button will fall off the first time you wear it, it's just it's shocking how poorly the majority of the clothes that we buy new today are.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I look for, okay, that quality, you can feel the material, it's thicker, it's better made, it's better everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're saving money, too, because you're trying to sell and it's five dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I, there's nothing bad about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do have to, you have to look.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to be willing to have a little bit of patience to find your size and something you actually, like, yeah, I would wear that, that looks like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Treasure hunt to me.
[SPEAKER_04]: And when you find that in the rack, the stuffed packed rack and you're flipping through there,
[SPEAKER_04]: And you say, oh, this looks like something you pull it out.
[SPEAKER_04]: And oh, this is a hundred percent silk blouse.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, like, woo, bingo.
[SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't freeze so much fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's so much fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's three dollars in, wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you're like, I'm saving this thing, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes I'll be at these shops.
[SPEAKER_00]: The consignment shops and they'll have these beautiful handed sweaters or needlepoint pillows.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're selling everything for a couple bucks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, oh, I gotta save this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gotta say, even if it's not for me, I gotta bring it home and save it because someone invested
[SPEAKER_00]: their time, their love into this object into this article of clothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of the things I want to explore over the course of the next year too is the spiritual side, the spirituality of making things and why we're driven as humans to form things with our hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we have a choice not to, we don't have to.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that brings in to a story aspect of the things around us, the things we use and our lives.
[SPEAKER_04]: And speaking of the clothing, just yesterday, someone stopped me and they said, I really love your top.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was, it was a linen top that had been my mother's.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got she had it for, I'm sure, just years and years.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, maybe decades.
[SPEAKER_04]: I really don't know how long she had it.
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was something in her closet when we cleaned it out after she passed.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have a lot of items like that.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I was able to say, Oh, thank you.
[SPEAKER_04]: This was my mother's.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was like, Oh, wow.
[SPEAKER_04]: It has a story.
[SPEAKER_04]: It just enhances.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's slow living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the story, the narrative, the connections.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, more than a garment.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it sparked this little conversation.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, oh, that was your mom's.
[SPEAKER_04]: I said, yeah, it's been about a year since she passed a really.
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, yeah, she lived to be nonexious.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it just started this just this conversation of connecting with someone that it was just magical.
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it also speaks to how well that linen has held up.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do I?
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's the perfect way for these spring days.
[SPEAKER_04]: It sometimes get a little cool and
[SPEAKER_04]: It has pockets.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just great.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is so fun.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love talking about this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear about where you are in this.
[SPEAKER_04]: What has happened so far?
[SPEAKER_04]: What are your learnings?
[SPEAKER_04]: What are your stumbling blogs?
[SPEAKER_04]: Just tell us where you are in this and the story so far.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I would like to encourage anyone who's at all interested in following me on my journey to follow me on either Instagram or Facebook because every week I post a new real detailing what happened in the last seven days.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I started out, I've now posted three reals.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been four weeks since we planted the flags and it is yay, hi, it's about an inch, maybe a little more.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I did get some help
[SPEAKER_00]: from a friend who came and helped me till the land because I am not strong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you probably would have taken me a couple months just to till the land in the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: But beyond that, it's all me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we planted this, he showed me my friend how to use a seed spreader and don't live pounds in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I made a horrible mess of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was dumping it everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just, I loved that this was a whole new territory for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was gaining so much respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: of all the people who plant things and grow them and do so successfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so much involved.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so much knowledge.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're so much wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I respect that expertise.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're growing the flags.
[SPEAKER_00]: I went outside one day, two weeks later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let out a squeal because it was actually growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course it's growing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You put seats on the ground usually they grow but it felt miraculous because I don't know what I'm doing and I've never done this before and it was just a wonderful moment of, yes, I really am doing this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've dreamed about it for actually the last few years while I was finishing up my previous project.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just had it in my head and it just was Mary
[SPEAKER_00]: all encompassing when you have an idea and you just feel like you can't think about anything else and so to have it finally happening felt so wonderful and I'm learning a lot all the time I've got several books that I have found and some of them from antique shops and others recommended to me that are still in print and how what comes next and what I need to worry about and all the different steps so that I've seen in your Instagram real there's a book you're referring to that written by
[SPEAKER_04]: Cindy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: What's her name?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I don't remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's Cindy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I always want to say Cindy Connor.
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not it, Cindy.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not it, because that sounds like it.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to have to say this again.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to write that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a wonderful book.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually got the chance to meet her because last, last year, the year before, I think it might have been the year before or my gosh, I was at Rhinebeck, which has been wool festival that for so many knitters is like,
[SPEAKER_00]: and you will pilgrimage to Rhine back New York to go to the sheep and wool festival.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I go and my daughters who I have taught to knit also go and it's just, it's like Disney land for fiber people.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we went and Cindy was there with her book and I was like, oh, this is exactly what I need.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Flaxon cotton to cloth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should grab it because I should have the kids.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, right.
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it's, yeah, it's a homegrown Flaxon cotton by Cindy Connor.
[SPEAKER_04]: Cindy Connor at home, place earth.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, and she's from down our way.
[SPEAKER_04]: She's in Virginia, actually.
[SPEAKER_04]: And yes, you would have run into her at Ryan Beck, and you probably also ran into a contingent from the Chesapeake Fiber Ship because they always go up there.
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't been yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's on point.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's usually in September, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Or into the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Over.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and it's just it's great fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's enormous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Biggest by far of any fiber festival I've ever attended.
[SPEAKER_04]: So Cindy's in our community, Flax Creeper.
[SPEAKER_04]: She has been in New Year's past.
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's
[SPEAKER_04]: speaks to us about her experience and has done some demonstrations in the area.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so yeah, she has seen as a local expert for sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I saw you using that book and I thought, oh, great.
[SPEAKER_04]: Mine's come together.
[SPEAKER_04]: And another thing I wanted to ask you is something we've been learning a lot about in our local experiment here, our small scale one here in the Chesapeake Fiber Shed is that there's different varieties of seed.
[SPEAKER_04]: And they behave quite differently.
[SPEAKER_04]: You would think
[SPEAKER_04]: Flex is Flex, but it's actually not.
[SPEAKER_04]: And wondering, where did you source your seed and which variety did you pick?
[SPEAKER_00]: I bought it from Landis Valley Village and Farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the Lenore variety.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've planted that before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I don't really know, but I was reading the site, the website, and they were telling me, okay, this is an heirloom seed, and it is good for fiber.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a learning process and you get better at it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going, but that's not how I do my projects.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do them in a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have one shot.
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say when you were speaking a minute ago, you're going to grow this flag and then you're going to process it and don't be discouraged.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you need to go into next season, maybe it'll all come up great.
[SPEAKER_04]: And what we've learned around here is that the actual planting of it when it starts coming up,
[SPEAKER_04]: If the germination level is not like really high, then you've got these bare spots and patches of it.
[SPEAKER_04]: Flacks needs to be like, grow very densely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you wanted to go straight up and not branch, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: So those bare patches caused it to flop over and that you'd that compromise of the quality of the fiber.
[SPEAKER_04]: You want a dense thick patch.
[SPEAKER_04]: On a large scale, you say, oh, we'll just plant it more thickly, but on a large scale, that can get very costly with extras seed.
[SPEAKER_04]: So you want to get that right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this was my third year and it's still catchy.
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have a huge patch.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm still just kind of learning like how does this work and I plan a different varieties and different methods.
[SPEAKER_04]: And there is a lot of experimentation, but I will say this.
[SPEAKER_04]: normally in these communities and at these events, people have redded flags that they can either sell or give away.
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if you don't get enough of your own, you might consider including a caveat in the project to saying, if I didn't have enough backyard flags this year, I'm going to be local or it's going to someone's backyard or someone with the same mission and values.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And falls.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: No idea how it's going to, how it's going to proceed and what's going to happen next.
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I love the sense of community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, because I often living in the country sometimes and especially during the times of the pandemic, you can sometimes start to feel isolated.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I feel, and especially being a writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: My whole MO is spending hours by myself with a keyboard.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea of connecting with people and talking with them about my experiences or getting advice from them, everybody, it feels wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a terrific exchange that takes place of knowledge and passion and excitement.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and it's pretty nerdy, but it... Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're just all a glue.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the idea and... We hard to explain to someone who really doesn't, they're like, yeah, I don't get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would you want to do that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because it's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just so excited.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Tomorrow we'll go over to the farm where we have our community patch and we didn't intend it and see how well it's come up.
[SPEAKER_04]: I imagine it's come up very well because we've had a ton of rain.
[SPEAKER_04]: How about you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've had lots and lots of rain.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's probably going to be weeds in there, too.
[SPEAKER_04]: And to your point earlier about you've heard that weeds are not a big problem.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not a big problem if you get it dense enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I need to watch out for the patchiness.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it doesn't mean you failed or it's not good.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just you're going to get weeds in those bare patches.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, something to be aware of.
[SPEAKER_04]: You have to really play with it.
[SPEAKER_04]: You might have to play with this two or three years or you might do whatever you can do the first year and then you're often running.
[SPEAKER_04]: wherever it takes you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it'll be really exciting to see how it plays out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's always been in each of my projects.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first one being your if no sugar.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: That one was also like, I don't know what I'm doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we kept learning more things as we went.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same with your if no garbage.
[SPEAKER_00]: We kept learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: That actually is not a good thing to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're trying to recycle our plastic, for example.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thought we were being really good.
[SPEAKER_00]: It turns out when we found out what happens when you recycle plastic is actually really bad plastic is not an inherently recyclable material and bad things happen when you try to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as you go, I find you're constantly pivoting as you get information.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that's exactly what's going to happen here again.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and I want to tell everybody that's listening that
[SPEAKER_04]: our initial conversation with Eve two years ago was really an important one for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: I learned so much first from reading your book, year of no garbage, and then talking to you as a follow up to having read it.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so Eve, you're probably not aware of this, but I think if you often
[SPEAKER_04]: You're coming to my mind so often as I'm walking around trying to conduct myself in a responsible way and evaluate what I'm using.
[SPEAKER_04]: And all of this, you're in my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, but I'm a good way, right?
[SPEAKER_04]: And a good way.
[SPEAKER_04]: And as always, you deliver your information with great humor and humility.
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is everything because we all need to understand
[SPEAKER_04]: None of us are perfect.
[SPEAKER_04]: None of us are even near perfect.
[SPEAKER_04]: We are all doing this against great odds as giant system and culture and way of doing things that tells us every minute of every day how we should do things and but we know in our hearts that things need to shift and we are to the best of our ability to
[SPEAKER_04]: trying to do that and trying to tell others how to do it and trying to talk about it in a way that doesn't make people feel overwhelmed or like a failure, shame, no shame, no shame.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like to say, if you're even thinking about this stuff, you're ahead of the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: A hundred percent, I agree.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: So before we close here, anything else you would like to say about this project and we will definitely get you back on after
[SPEAKER_04]: the years up and see how it went.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Wonderful.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to say if there are folks out there who have advice for me, I would love to hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyone who has done this before and has some tips or tricks or advice, please come find me on social media and send me a comment or a message.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would be delighted.
[SPEAKER_00]: because I'm these as usual.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an uncharted waters and it's exciting, but I also I love the community and the sense of I'm not alone in my project.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing it here by myself, but I'm not alone.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, and just to sum up that resources we've mentioned for anybody else, it's interesting once to dip into it a little bit.
[SPEAKER_04]: Check out fiber shed.
[SPEAKER_04]: Check out your local regional fiber shed on the main fiber shed website.
[SPEAKER_04]: It gives you all the local chapters.
[SPEAKER_04]: You can look up and
[SPEAKER_04]: find if you're in one, and Landis Valley Village and Farm Museum, look them up, and Pennsylvania Flax Project, check them out.
[SPEAKER_04]: They are now inviting participants from other regions, and they have wonderful online resources as well as in-person resources.
[SPEAKER_04]: And, yeah, just keep tuned to the Chesapeake Fiber Shed.
[SPEAKER_04]: chapter, which is my local chapter is what we're doing in own local flags experiment and yeah there's a lot of energy around this around the country right now and it's very exciting and it's not just about flags and linen it's about so many things are included in this effort mainly
[SPEAKER_04]: talking about and encouraging people to make decisions and live in a way that's more compatible with a thriving earth and thriving life on earth.
[SPEAKER_04]: And that includes humans and non-humans and bugs and the soil and all of it and the good dirt.
[SPEAKER_04]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_04]: So thanks again, it was really fun catching up with you.
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm excited about this and I can't wait to catch up with you later to see how it's going.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been so much fun Mary, thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, we'll talk later.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, bye.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This show is produced by Lady Farmer, a slow living lifestyle community.
[SPEAKER_04]: And the original music is composed and performed by John King's Lady.
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