As I shared in my last video, Hurricane Helene devastated the city of Asheville and the surrounding Western North Carolina region. The destruction I've seen with my own two eyes is unbelievable, though I now believe it, as I've seen it right in front of me. I expected that something like this would cause fear and panic and desperation, but I've seen quite the opposite. I've experienced more love, kindness and generosity from everyone I've encountered, than I've ever experienced before.

The city of Asheville and the surrounded Western North Carolina region were devastated by hurricane Helene. We didn't see it coming. We weren't directly in Helene's path and at least since I've lived here, we typically aren't too badly affected by nearby hurricanes, so we weren't prepared for the destruction that we're dealing with today.

I'm a big fan of Steven Pressfield's book "The War of Art." I had an artist recommend it to me 14 years ago when I claimed to be suffering from artist's block. Although the word art is included in the title, the book is really written for anyone who feels blocked in any area of their lives.

I bought a beautiful book several weeks ago that combines three of my favorite things: foraging, DIY and art supplies. It's a foragers guide to natural ink making, and I made ink from pokeberries from one of its recipes. I share the video here!

I'm so excited to announce that I've begun creating and selling nature observation journals! All of the journals are high-quality printed reproductions of my original hand-painted watercolor and ink artwork.

Something clicked inside of me a few weeks ago. I can't really put a finger on what triggered the click, but I can tell you that there were many years of buildup behind that one single moment. In a moment — or so it seemed — I realized that I was done allowing my attention to be captured by all the fun colored buttons on my phone, and the flashing notifications it displays, and the endless stream of content that's readily available to consume all day every day on a gazillion different web platforms.

I had a quick encounter with a small bear in the forest the other day, and it got me thinking about some topics that I discuss in this post and accompanying video.

There was a noticeable shift in the weather at the start of the week, that I wrote about a couple of days ago. The cooler nights, combined with cool breezes during the day were the first signs of fall. Something that really hit me while writing that post, was my dis-integrating relationship with the natural world, since coming to live in Asheville. So I've made some changes to remedy that.

I had some thoughts come up in my meditation this morning — you know, that activity where you're not supposed to be thinking, HA! But the thoughts were more than the typical anxious chatter, or the song that won't leave my head, or the annoying mental replay of my life's worst moments. The thoughts that appeared came from a much deeper place within me. A place that lives beyond all of that.

Our modern day world is one of immense distraction. And most everyone carries around the ultimate form of distraction everywhere they go — their smart phones (which ironically seem to be dumbing us down). Being constantly distracted with notifications for calls, texts, emails and social media means that our ability to concentrate for any significant length of time has been greatly diminished.

The weather has shifted toward fall. I first felt it three days ago — a cool breeze in the air and much cooler nights. I've actually been using my blanket on the couch, and last night I put on a sweatshirt.

I grew 10 pounds of potatoes in containers, as my first potato growing experiment! I learned about all kinds of new pests and diseases with this project :/ and I'm looking forward to applying what I've learned during next year's potato growing season.

I’ve been on a mission over the past couple of weeks. A very sweaty and laborious mission, but a good one, nonetheless. I had a bit of a weed problem in my backyard. I mean, things were getting pretty jungly out there, and as I don't use chemical sprays, and I didn't want to spend an entire month pulling up weeds, I decided to order some wood chips to drown them out.

I've wanted to learn how to Timelapse plants for a while now, but I always just assumed it would either be complicated or expensive, so I held off. The other day, however, I came across a video on Youtube, where a man showed how he timelapsed his plants, and it wasn't nearly as complicated as I expected it to be, and I had most of the equipment that I needed already, so I gave it a go! This is the story.

Hidden away in a suburban neighborhood is a little garden that was loved into life by a human - me! This little garden isn't impressive, by any means, but it provides hours of enjoyment, and some food for me, while also providing food and shelter to a multitude of local bugs and critters. Before I created my little garden, this area was just a wood chipped patch of earth in front of a parking spot. There was no life there other than weeds in the spring and summer, and nothing that would attract any life.

I befriended a little injured butterfly earlier this week. Unfortunately she only lasted a few days because she couldn't fly, and something eventually got her. But during her time in my garden, I hung out with her quite often and she inspired me to look into her species. I learned about this little butterfly's host plant - nettles - and it inspired me to take a new approach to gardening.

I've been focusing most of my attention on creating a container garden this year, so I've been spending a lot of money on potting soil. In this video, I decided to walk around the yard and look under the house to see what old soil and other ingredients I had available, so I could revive and use the potting soil that I already had, rather than opening up another fresh bag of soil. This ins't a recipe, it's just me doing my best with what I already had available to me and I'm pretty proud of the outcome.

I've been experimenting in the garden! I'm practicing with growing my own potatoes, sweet potatoes and garlic, as my goal is to one day grow the bulk of all the food that I eat. Getting good at growing potatoes will be a major part of that. I still have a lot of practice before I get to that level, but I'm enjoying the learning experience along the way.

This video is about how I learned to become self sufficient. I share stories and photos from childhood, watching my self sufficient parents figuring out how to do everything all on their own. I've carried this desire to always be self sufficient into my adulthood and I often build and repair things all on my own. I believe that any skill can be learned if you have the desire to learn it. And I've learned a lot over my lifetime.

I've been bitten by the organization bug and have been going wild, organizing every single thing I own, so I made a little story about it. Hope you enjoy!