From the Compost Heap header. A pencil style illustration of a compost heap with flowers and plants growing around it. A bee buzzes by and a white rabbit hops by.

  • I’ve started printmaking again. You can subscribe for quarterly prints here.

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  • Two view of our chaos garden. First a peek at the “wildflower meadow” a patch of self seeding Bachelor Buttons and Love-in-a-Mist.

    Then, an honest look at the messier parts, as filmed by my 5 year old.

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  • What a dreamy studio!

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  • Transcendence of a Productivity Addict

    Loved this Podcast Episode from Kening Zhu

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  • The wild rabbit that lives under my art studio, which is called The Rabbit Hole, and was named before this beauty moved in.

    Music from the 1985 Alice in Wonderland miniseries.

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  • “In my experience, there is no such thing as “clerical work” in writing: the donkey work is crucial to the process, as is having to sort through the mess of the draft — that’s the art of self-editing, and it’s the art of finding what you didn’t know you were looking for.”

    Austin Kleon on AI

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  • Mood board including maps, trees, spirals, artifacts, hag stones, reflections, yggdrasil, angel oak, and bowl of water. Woven across the image with thread and objects tucked in - a key, a root, a branch of yellow leaves. A photograph printed on cloth shows my grandmother holding my mum as a baby.

    I finally finished the physical mood board for my work in progress.

    Here’s a timelapse.

    You can see earlier timelapse videos here.

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  • “The simple act [of crafting] seemed to push back the gloom. There had been a shadow [on them] lately. As if he couldn’t stand in the Light no matter how he tried. He woke each morning feeling as if someone he loved had died the day before… it could crush you, that despair. But the act of creating something, anything, fought back. That was one way to challenge him. The one none of them spoke of.”

    A Memory of Light, The Wheel of Time

    via Mel

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  • A fig tree freshly planted in our backyard.

    Meet our new tree, Loial.

    I was unmoored after the last episode and wandered around the garden centers until I came home with this fig tree. We planted it in honor of Brother Book.

    Your name sings in our ears @hammedhamz. Thank you for bringing this beloved character to life. His spirit will live on in our garden and perhaps one day bear figs. 🍃

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  • A Gmail Alternative

    I’ve been using Gmail for 20 years, but with their recent launch of AI and recent political leanings I am disentangling from Google products and creating a new digital ecosystem.

    This will take time, but every shift I make gives them less data to mine and less power.

    Open airmail envelope with blue and green stripes

    Fastmail

    This January I switched from Google to Fastmail and I haven’t looked back.

    It’s not free, but this is because they aren’t data mining your email. You pay a reasonable price and they provide a good service.

    Fastmail is $5 a month.

    That price includes using your own domain name (if you have a website) and you can set up multiple email alias.

    For exmaple:

    • lists@yourdomain.com for newsletters
    • admin@yourdomain.com for admin
    • and a private email for friends & family

    I’ve set up alias that are automatically sorted into folders and I am loving it.

    Changing your email address is also a chance to start fresh and only subscribe to what you truly want to read. Leave those spam emails behind!

    I’m an affiliate so if you sign up here a percentage of what you pay will come to me. (As thanks for referring you.)

    If you have any questions drop me a line and let me know!

    Read more: A Gmail Alternative