What you concentrate on, you will get more of...

There is that something called the universe, there is quantum matter, there is something called the law of resonance ... 

The law of resonance tells us that "where we put our thoughts and feelings, where we put our energy, is what we will get more of".

Therefore I tell the universe: I want a world full of joy for all living beings, I want to have my garden, to grow our food. I want to work with people that think alike.

Matter ... what is matter? Well, Max Planck told us that there is no matter as such, that matter is made from the smallest particles and kept together by vibration - the actual quote in German is on my blog. Similar descriptions and thoughts are known from Albert Einstein, Nicola Tesla, and many other scientists.

Now go and take a picture of the world you love. Publish it on your social network profiles, send it by e-mail to friends. Distribute it how best you feel and get those positive vibes out ...

You believe this doesn't work? Well, what do you have to lose by showing everyone the world you love with one picture a month, or a week, or even a day?

Sabine Wanner
Proofread by Martin Benjamin - visit his project at kamusi.org
27 February 2020

*****
Picture by Albrecht Fietz on Pixabay

Max Planck about consciousness and matter

I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness. (Max Planck)

Bild von InspiredImages auf Pixabay

Origanum vulgare

1) Text in English
2) Text auf Deutsch

English

Oregano is said to be:

• Antirheumatic
• Antiseptic
• Antispasmodic
• Diaphoretic

Hablitzia tamnoides - Caucasian Trailing Spinach

Picture by user Daderot on Wikimedia Commons
License CC-0

Today I received a seed package with a special plant: Hablitzia. It is a trailing plant, the leaves of which can be prepared just like spinach.
There was no way to find out if it is hardy enough for our climate. It is sold as a perennial here in Germany, so it should resist some frost. While here it is sold as an ornamental plant, it is a food plant in the region it comes from, the Caucasus, and therefore I will use it as such. The seeds will go into the soil the coming week-end. Having 10 of it, I will put them in three small pots and then we will see ...

Gardening and Using Less Plastic

Lollo Rosso and some pea shoots I also use
for salad in this case on my balcony.

Like all so often I am connecting various themes: in this case gardening and using less plastic. We are living in a time of rising prices because of different reasons: drought, ecotax (that is eventually going to come), floods in some places, late frosts or whatever else. For many people around the world this means that they cannot afford to buy organic and “nude” vegetables and fruit anymore, since they have to choose the cheaper food. One consequence is that again more food with plastic packaging gets into the shopping cart.

Well, we can do something that

    • provides us with natural and healthy food,
    • makes us carry less stuff home,
    • lets us save money which in turn we may spend for better choices.

Gardening - and up to a certain extent, one can do this also inside - even in the smallest apartment.

To start off, you need just a container with holes in the bottom, some soil, some seeds and water. I would suggest to start off with radishes and salad. When I started many years ago, I buyed some seedlings of salad and grew them on my balcony. I still do this today, even though I do have a small garden - sometimes I buy seedlings, sometimes I use own seeds. If you wish to start with seeds, I suggest to start with radishes, because they sprout fast, which is more satisfying for a beginner.

I nowadays mainly get presents that deal with gardening, so this can be a suggestions for your family, but make sure to exactly tell them, what you are searching for. The best way is a “to-buy-list” on the fridge or somewhere everyone can have a glance :-)

But now let’s take a look at where you avoid plastics:
Salad in 99% of the cases is sold in plastic bags. Rucola and similar small leaves are sold in trays or bags (of plastic). By growing your own salad (I will post articles about single types), let’s suppose you need salad for one meal a week, just to have any number, you will avoid 52 bags plus having a higher amount of nutrients in your food, because you harvest when you eat.

Many other examples of food that is easy to grow is to come … start one step at a time and you will love what you eat and feel good, because you definitely “ARE PART OF THE CHANGE”.

The German version of this blog has been posted on Plastik sparen. License: CC-BY-NC-ND

Magenta Spreen - Tree Spinach - Chenopodium Giganteum

Magenta spreeen, though it is an annual, I do count it among my perennials: seed once, let it grow and go to seed and you will have more than you can eat.

The seeds of this so called tree spinach distribute all over the place. When the plants start to grow I thin them out and, depending from what I am cooking, I use the little plants in salad, stews, soups and when I don't use them right away, I dehydrate them and afterwards put them in my blender to cut them into small pieces. Once done I mainly use the dried parts together with other dehydrated greens in soups or stews.

When I pick them, I choose those that are a bit bigger and I go through my garden beds once a week to harvest.

Lamb's quarters is a close relative to magenta spreen.

Time ago I found a video where someone was substituting part of the wheat flour with magenta spreen flour and made bread ... not sure if I like this, because the green bred looked a bit weird.

Be aware: once you have it in your garden and let it go to seeds, you won't be able to get rid of it again. The seeds survive in the soil more than one year and come up spontaneously, when they feel like doing it.

Cook what you have - May 1st, 2019

Well, yesterday was cook with what you have day ... so I had a look in my vegetable basket for stuff that needs to urgently be eaten. And there was

• one hokkaido
• one huge leek which I bought as being "not so nice anymore"
• one tomato
• one carrot
• sunflower oil
• Salt
• Chilie

And there you go ...

First I added some oil into my pot and then added the leek after having cut it in small pieces.

Then I added the hokkaido cut into small pieces.

Please do never throw away the seeds of squash ... I will show you in nother blog, what you can do with them.

Then I cut the tomato and the carrot into small pieces.

And added them in my pot.

I just kept stir-frying all for a couple of minutes.

Then I added salt. A tablespoon full of salt I would say.

And a teaspoon of chilie.

I mixed it well and had everything stir-fry some more.

Since my family loves creamy stews, I added three tablespoons of flour.

And again I went on stirring ... and frying :-)

As next step I added aprroximately 1,5 litres of water and let the vegetables boil until they are almost fine to eat.

That's the moment, when my Italian years come throug ... I added approximately 300 grams of noodles (also spaghetti broken into small pieces are fine). And let everything cook until the noodles are how you prefer them (mine are always rather al dente ...).

Well, and here you go ... that's what it looks like just before eating. I just sprinkled some dried parsley on top. Btw. I always get parsley from a neighbour, since it simply doesn't like my garden ... it won't grow.

P.S.: And yes, this is a one pot meal - I truly love to cook things in just "one pot" :-)

A really sunny day ... instead of lots of rain :-)

Weather forecasts were like "you can be almost sure, that it will be raining all day long" for your wedding ... well, I had a fairly serious conversation with someone up there ... I told Thor that he may of course give his consent, but only for a short time, because anything else would not be fair ... 

... and yes, we had a wonderful sunny day and the occasion to see family members we do not often meet, since they live too far away ...

... we had sun, loads of it and only during lunch time there was a heavy thunderstorm with quite a lot of rain. In the evening we could still sit outside until 10:00 p.m. 

Definitely a memorable day for the rest of our life on mother earth!

Wikis of the Wikimedia foundation - Wikipedia and Commons in particular

Well, by chance I was on one of the many Wikipedias today where I did not edit anymore for years. Last year I got a message claiming copyright violation. The funny part is that in 2006 I wrote the original text, which I also took to Wikipedia, to donate my work. Afterwards my text was taken up by different other places and really I did not care if they mentioned me as a source or not, because it was fairly short stuff and information for people. Now I get a copyright infringement claim and should put the situation right. The same happened for quite a bunch of my pictures on Commons which, at the time I uploaded them, were well accepted. Now I should edit all of them (quite a number) in order to not have them deleted. By all means: delete them, I am not going to take the time to give additional proof. But this makes one thing very clear: time invested in open projects might not be time invested well ... Actually right now I would not even have time. If my stuff was good at that time, it should be good even now.

Hippocrates on food - Hippokrates zur Nahrung - Ippocrate parla del cibo

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. (Hippocrates) - Lass die Nahrung deine Medizin sein und Medizin deine Nahrung. (Hippokrates) - Fa’ che il cibo sia la tua medicina e che la medicina sia il tuo cibo. (Ippocrate)

Some more ready spun Coburg Fox yarn

International Mother Language Day 2015

You go to a meeting for one very specific thing and go home with something completely different: here we go ... we are starting NOW to program our event around International Mother Language Day 2015 :-) - you think it's too erarly? Well ... I don't think so ... it's going to be a fairly busy task. And yes please: start to think about what you are going to do on 21st of February 2015 :-)

First Steps - Scarf following a Pattern from the Civil War Era

Blog or Separate Website? How to spend time?

At a certain stage you wonder: "Where's my time going?" ... Well, life takes it, the more you really to the less time you have and there it comes: you need to decide how relevant maintaining your website actually is. In the end one needs a small website presenting the business and a place where to write a blog. And of course you can write your blog on your own website. But there's the challenge of software updates - well it's part of my work and I do this for other businesses, but is is really suited for me? Actually one website should be enough, the central one which is more or less static. And yes, of course it is nicer to have "clean pages" with the layout you program, with the menu you desire etc. It takes quite some time one can use differently with more sense than rushing after software updates. This is the reason for me to transfer data back here to blogger and take the time I have to care for what is relevant for me, which certainly is not keeping online software and modules up to date.

My favourite themes:

• Less resourced languages and the online dictionary. (I really don't feel good that there is hardly any time to contribute). So OmegaWiki, I'll try to get back to you.
• Rare crops, that are typical to this region
• Medicinal herbs - there are so many of them, some also having the power to cure illnesses that are told to be incurable - I strongly believe they are there
• Organic food and recipes that can be cooked even on a small budget
• Some gardening
• Well and of course the cultures I lived with during my life from Franconian to Neapolitan having some touches of other worlds as well. 
• Oh and not to forget the crafts of the middle ages from weaving to nailbinding (or naalbinding)

This is more than one human being actually can care about in his/her free time. Therefore not necessary things that take my time are going to be "deleted". 

Weather afghan

There's a German group on Facebook I joined lately: Wetterdecke 2014 (weather afghan 2014). Actually 2014 has already started and 365 pieces is a weird number for a blanket - or it gets REALLY long if you make rows or it gets VERY huge if you make 10 cm squares. I suppose I will go a different way: I'll create very normal granny squares, starting with the weather of today, 18th February, just adding one a day until the blanket is done. In case one colour runs out it simply gets substituted by another .... so for now we are at -1°C and that will be the square of today. Pictures will follow when I have some time ... and yes, probably there will be more needlework around on this blog.

A quote ... but really funny

"Ein Zahnrad è quella cosa che fa funzionare i clock." - origin: my daughter Luna ... mixing three languages in one sentence ... :-D