Introducing Knowledge Exchange

Sometimes when I'm online, I just like to browse a website with a collection of interesting articles and videos. This is exactly the kind of site that Knowledge Exchange has set out to be.

You can find articles on a variety of topics, and the two main things that I like about this site are that the articles are clearly categorized under useful descriptive subheadings, and the content on the site is updated every day. I always like a site that promises new content each day--it makes it worthwhile to visit the site to see what's been added since my last visit.

Some of the recent articles on Knowledge Exchange include fall gardening ideas, tips for managing arthritis, and information about the possible benefits of coconut oil. Much of the content on the site focuses on home and health related topics, including cooking, diet, and gardening. There are also articles on business, especially work from home business and ecommerce.

By the way, if you follow Knowledge Exchange on Facebook, you can have little descriptions of new articles posted to your news feed as the website is updated.

This is a site with lots of content, and I think it will continue to grow. I'll be checking back with the site over the next few months to see how it has expanded over time!

Author Spotlight: Deborah Dolen

Author Deborah Dolen is the busy author of 29 books. Her work all seems to share a common thread of working with natural ingredients, such as honey, beeswax to make lip balm, bee pollen to make healing salves, and easy-to-grow flowers that are fun to cut and arrange for the home.

For example, Deborah has written about edible flower petals, and she offers tips for making great salads and wowing your guests with sprinkles of bright orange marigold petals and violet impatiens petals. Deborah helps inspire me to garden with her writing about the ways that flowers are meant to do many things. In designing a garden, I like Deborah's advice to choose some plants designed just for making fresh cut floral designs to bring in the home, plus a selection of herbs for making skin care products and medicinal syrups. Beyond putting flower petals in salads, you can also make floral petal extracts for skin care. Deborah Dolen covers all of these--and more--concepts in her books.

If you have even the slightest interest in beekeeping, you may well find that after reading Deborah's book, The Beekeeper's Digest, you'll really want to be a beekeeper and raise honey bees.

Beekeeping has become more and more popular for backyard gardeners. As Deborah writes in The Beekeeper's Digest, honey bees make so many byproducts it is amazing! And you don't have to be a beekeeper to make natural products using things made by the bees. For instance, you can buy bee pollen from a local beekeeper and make "bee pollen oil" by just soaking the bee pollen in macadamia nut oil. Deborah writes that macadamia nut and jojoba oil is most closest to our own skin chemistry, so she uses these two oils for making almost all body care recipes, including lip products, cleansing creams, and even soap. In fact, it was from Deborah Dolen I learned soap is basically oil. Back to bee pollen oil, you simply soak bee pollen in macadamia nut oil for a week, and you'll find that you suddenly have a beautiful orange oil packed with micronutrients and very healing for the skin. Deborah says marigold petals are also dynamic to infuse if you'd like because marigold oil, also known as Calendula oil, is great for anti-inflammatory purposes and circulation. She highly recommends it for people with edema.

Another interesting point in The Beekeeper's Digest is that the source of the hive is very important. The more remotely the honey and byproducts are produced from a major city pollution the better. There are a lot of interesting beekeeping facts in Deborah's book, and she has a wealth of recipes for products like lip balms and soothing creams. You'll never think about beeswax the same way again!

Aromatherapy is another topic dear to the heart of Deborah Dolen. Her work on the topic helps you understand essential oils and what they are known to do, which is a good topic to research if you want to make your own skin care products. Aromatherapy Basics is Deborah's book designed to help you tlearn how nature and botanicals work. &

Many botanicals are natural healers, and essential oils from them can go into a lip balm type recipe and become a healing "salve." One of Deborah's recipes along this line is for a lavender super-healing burn butter. Another example is her bruise balm using blue chamomile. The book helps you create essential oil blends for specific results. It can be a helpful guide if you want to make your own bath bombs and bath salts, as described in two other of her books, The Self Apothecary and The Bathroom Chemist. These books offer a ton of bath and body products to give as gifts for Christmas or other holidays. The cost is very low compared to buying finished body care products, and you can trust the high quality of products you make yourself.

In addition to making bath and body products for the coming holiday season, Deborah Dolen shares a lot of recipes for food items that make great gifts in her Kitchen Arts Collection. This book contains a selection of dry dip mix recipes and loads of "gifts in a mason jar" recipes. For a sample recipe, check out Deborah's .org site: http://www.deborahdolen.org/.

Introducing iHidroUSA, Distributor of Hydroponics Supplies

A friend of mine who is an avid tomato gardener has become a big fan of hydroponics and built himself a small grow room to start tomato plants from seed. He uses very small setups for each plant, spending only a small amount of money because of very efficient use of light and water.

In some cities, you'll find great specialty shops with hydroponic supplies like grow lights, fans, filters and combo kits. But you can't always find what you want in person, which is why businesses like iHidroUSA have found a strong market online selling supplies for gardeners with an interest in hydroponics.

From herb gardens to fruits and vegetables, people like hydroponics because it allows them to explore gardening even if they have very little space available. You can find a setup to fit most any size of available space. Also, it's a very clean process as you're growing plants without soil and using fans and filters to clear out impurities like mold from the controlled environment.

For those new to the field as well as those who are experienced with this type of gardening, iHidroUSA promises to answer any questions about the process of hydroponics and selecting the best supplies. It's always good to know when a business advertises quality customer service, and iHidroUSA makes that promise very clearly on the company website.

Meet Laura-Marie Taylor, Poet and Independent Publisher

I've been reading Laura-Marie Taylor's writing for many years now, and she's one of my favorite poets writing today. One of the great things about Laura-Marie is that she self-publishes her work through a series of thoughtfully designed, handmade zines. In addition to publishing poetry, she publishes her nonfiction writing about a variety of topics, from her own experiences in mental health care, to recipes she has enjoyed, to details of her participation in anti-nuclear protests. She also blogs regularly about her writing and her daily life, and I hope you'll check out her blog. You can also buy handmade publications and other arts/craft work of hers in Laura-Marie's etsy shop.

Here's a bio provided by Laura-Marie herself: Laura-Marie Taylor is a zinester, poet, permaculturist, and blogger who lives in Sacramento with her partner Ming. [The photo to the left shows a garden plot of theirs.] She enjoys reading, cooking, eating, and walking in the wind.

1. How would you define "zines" in your own words (and based on your own experiences)?

I usually tell people, "Zines are just homemade magazines," as a quick answer. In reality, there's so much more to it. Zines are independent, zines are DIY, zines are subversive, zines are punk rock. My own zines are made of paper and ink and bound with thread. Mine are text-heavy with few images, though I love zines that can do a lot of work with both image and text.

2. When did you first learn about zines, and when and why did you start making them yourself?

I first learned about zines in 1990 and started making my own right away. So I have been making zines for 23 years. A friend at another high school made a zine called Reality Press Weekly--the zine I started in response was called The Ugly Aardvark.

Throughout the years, I have made about 75 zines total--Erik and Laura-Marie Magazine went for 52 issues, and my current main zine, my mental health zine functionally ill, is on issue 14. In grad school I made a zine of my classmates' poetry called Pocket Trick.

Making zines has become a way of life for me. By that I mean that when something important happens in my life, my instinct is to start writing about it, and that writing often makes its way into a zine. Also, I go to zine fests, connect with other zinesters through the mail, and participate in online zine communities.

Mandy, you and I met years ago through zines, and I couldn't be happier about all the goodness you bring to my life.

3. What inspires you to write poetry, and what have you been working on lately in your writing?

Writing poems is something I have been doing for longer than I've been making zines. It's a way of life for me too. I rarely sit down to write a poem in a self-disciplining way--I usually write poems when I'm inspired, when an interesting phrase or idea strikes me, often as part of a conversation. A few mornings ago I wrote a poem about a grandparent.

the way she fell asleep in cars

the way she fell asleep in cars
and at the dinner table
might be
narcolepsy
or just having seven kids
her secrets are buried
in a cemetery in Lompoc
where Mom goes birthdays
Thanksgivings
to put a flower
oh I miss you
unconditional love
can't remember

Lately in my writing I'm talking about the past. This poem is a good example of that. Or feelings in the present about the past. I am inspired by the sounds of our language and by little things. I've enjoyed writing six word poems lately. Here's an example.

misdiagnosis awesome
coniferous flume
awesome awesome

I would say that my poems are very personal and always written to satisfy myself but also always to communicate. I'm happy to share my poems, and a zine / chapbook I made called suicide notes is available on my etsy. It consists of suicide notes I wrote to friends and family in poem form.

4. How have you found community through sharing your writing about highly personal topics like mental health?

My mental health zine functionally ill has helped me find so much community. I've received a lot of touching feedback through email and letters. And there's a good handful of people making mental health zines--we trade with one another. The Icarus Project (radical mental health by and for the mad community) is a big part of my life too. Being a mental health zinester connects me to so many vibrant people. It is highly personal, and that's a risk, putting myself out there and vulnerable. It's also a great way to foster intimacy.

5. Would you talk a little about your current/emerging interests in jewelry making and gardening and how these creative pursuits connect to (or inform) your work as a writer?

Making jewelry is something I enjoy doing for friends and family as well as for myself. Gardening is something I have done for many years, but only recently has it become central to my life. My boyfriend Ming is a permaculturist, and now I am too. I enjoy growing onions, kale, herbs, yarrow, borage, asparagus, tomatoes, peppers, beans...

Poems are fun in a different way. My loves of writing, jewelry making, and gardening are all related in that I want to produce beautiful things for myself and for the world. Cooking is like that too. Some of the things I make are more lasting than others, and I like the way poems can take on a life of their own.

Thanks, Laura-Marie!

Carolyn Holland: A Follow-Up Interview

After completing this interview with author Carolyn Holland, I was pleased to learn that she wanted to share more about her life experiences and her work as a writer. Below, please find five more questions with detailed responses from this thought-provoking writer. Carolyn is an author of fiction and poetry whose novel, The Genesis Project: Seeds of Transition, is forthcoming from Books, Authors and Artists (BAA).

1. What has been your personal experience related to weather-related disasters?

Growing up on the coast, in southeastern North Carolina, there were numerous threats by hurricanes coming off the Atlantic. Every year, I would hear grown-up discussions about how we were "due" a bad storm, and I would listen to older people talk about Hazel, a category 4 hurricane, which struck the east coast between the North and South Carolina border in 1954 after devastating Haiti. Our small community never quite recovered from that one. Our area was known for its large number of pecan trees at that time, but Hazel destroyed most of them, taking income from the locals who sold them for extra income.

Red Tide 1984

When I was sixteen, the Red Tide came to our coastline for the first time in the memory of anyone that I knew. The river, which provided fish, oysters, clams, scallops, shrimp, and various other fish, was plagued by the red algae. I remember how badly my eyes burned while standing on the shore and the red hue that came off the surface of the water. A fishing community, where everyone made their living harvesting and selling seafood from the New River, was virtually shut down for a year. People lost their homes, some people went hungry, and all of us suffered. Some small businesses that served the community had to shut their doors. It was an entire year before the river was restored and people could start working again, and for many, that year was far too long, a lot of folks never recovered.

Hurricane Hugo 1989

My mother's family lives in Charleston County, South Carolina. In 1989, her father was very ill, and we were not sure that he was going to make it. I went with her, along with my two young daughters to help out; we were all taking turns sitting with him in the VA hospital in Charleston. Hurricane Hugo was on the way, and we were keeping a close eye on the storm as it went from a category 5 to a category 4 when it crossed over Guadalupe and St. Croix and down to a category 3 when it went across Puerto Rico. As it hovered off the coast of South Carolina, it became strong again and soon regained its status as category 4. We all knew that we had to evacuate as my grandmother's home was at sea level. We received a phone call that the VA hospital was evacuating and that my grandfather was being taken by helicopter to Augusta, Georgia. I came back to North Carolina that same morning. My mother and grandmother went to my aunt's house which was a little further inland in Summerville. Other family members moved further inland to ride out the storm with friends.

After Hugo made landfall, all phone communications in and out of the area went down. I was unable to reach family members to see if they were all right. Glued to the news in the days shortly after the storm, I saw footage shot in the village where my family lived--to my amazement, I actually saw my grandparents' and uncles' houses sitting on the ground 20 feet from their foundations. The storm surge had washed them there. In Summerville, my mother and her family had no electricity, water or phone. I actually had news from their hometown before they did.

Hurricanes Bertha and Fran 1996

In 1996, Hurricane Bertha bore down on our area. Though the storm had maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, it was pushing a hefty storm surge and carried with it a lot of rain. Many piers and boats were lost between Wrightsville Beach and Topsail Island, but it was certainly not as bad in our opinion as it could have been. The ground in my area was saturated, and the temperatures were higher than usual as we were in the middle of a heat wave. We were without power for a week, but other than losing our gardens and a few shingles, we made it through.

A few weeks after Bertha, and while the ground was still completely saturated, Fran arrived. She was a much stronger, more organized storm. Following the same path as Bertha, she made landfall near the Cape Fear River, about 20 miles from Bertha's strike point. Fran was a category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph. As my home was surrounded with large oak trees, my children and I rode out the storm at my parents' home, just down the road. I remember that when the eye passed over that night, and my father and I went outside to assess what damage had occurred so far, we could hear the trees falling in the woods behind their home.

The backside of the storm was much more frightening than the front. The winds were stronger, the power was out, it was dark, and we could hear tornadoes passing overhead. We made it through the night; it was about three days before the roads were clear enough for me to return to my home to assess the damages there, and when I did, I discovered that the 200 year old oak tree that shaded my backyard had fallen on my house, splitting it in two.

Because of the storm surge and the overwhelming amount of rain on an already flooded area, the county deemed the water contaminated, and the main was shut off. We were without power for two weeks and without water for most of that time. The phones were back up in a week, and I received news that my place of employment on Topsail Island had been washed away by the storm surge. I was quite devastated to have lost my home and my job to Fran.

The beautiful Southern Pecan trees that filled our area suffered terribly; they were down everywhere. Most of them were no older than 50 years because Hazel had wiped them out in ’54 and here again, the Pecan industry for my area was lost.

Hurricane Floyd 1999

Hurricane Floyd visited us in 1999. Just as Bertha and Fran had done three years before, Floyd came ashore at the Cape Fear River Basin as a strong category 2 storm; we were quite relieved as the day before it made landfall, it hovered near the coast as a category 5. My family and I knew that we could not ride this one out and made preparations to evacuate, but when the time came to leave, Interstate 40 was so backed up and congested with evacuees that we turned around and went home. As the news that the storm was weakening reached us, we were thankful as we were stuck here with no choice but to ride it out.

Although we were fortunate this time--our power was back up and running in just a few days and damage to our homes was minimal--folks living inland from us were not so fortunate. The hurricane had produced torrential rainfall in Eastern North Carolina, adding more rain to our area as Hurricane Dennis had just come through a few weeks earlier. The rains caused widespread flooding over a period of several weeks; nearly every river basin in the eastern part of the state exceeded 500-year flood levels and thousands of people lost their homes. The communities along the Neuse River were the hardest hit. FEMA camps were set up all over to house the displaced people and that area has still not recovered today. As a lot of the area most affected by the flooding was not considered high risk flood zones, most of these people did not have flood insurance: they were never able to rebuild.

2. How have your personal experiences led you to research climate change, and what are some of books you've found especially compelling on this topic?

As a southeastern North Carolina native and having witnessed the devastation that hurricanes can cause, I became interested in the extreme weather consequences of climate change, as it would pertain to and affect the area that I call home. It has been a while since we had a major hurricane in my area, and as the old timers used to talk about Hazel, so have I and others in our hometown began to speak about Fran and Floyd: we are coming due. As water temperatures increase off our coast, the likelihood that a category 4 or 5 storm could come in and finish off the area also increases, and every hurricane season catches me holding my breath, wondering if this will be the year.

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger in 1997 was especially compelling as it came out shortly after we had experienced Bertha and Fran. Although the non-fiction book was primarily about the crew of the Andrea Gail, the impact of that terrible storm on that community is clearly depicted. The fact is that a storm of that magnitude and strength is possible here, or on any part of the east coast if the conditions are just so.

In doing research for The Genesis Project, I stumbled across another very interesting book called Rough Winds: Extreme Weather and Climate Change by geologist James Lawrence Powell. Powell has used real science as the basis for his book, and has done a great job writing in such a way that we non-scientist types can understand it. The message is clear; he plainly writes about what we can expect in weather due to climate change. The bottom line, and what I think is the most important message in this publication is that, what we know to be normal in regard to weather, what we have come to expect to see happen, is not the way it is anymore. Climate change is changing the weather patterns, and our ability to predict them.

3. In fiction, we often see changes which seem to happen quickly, but your book addresses slower, gradual change--what were the challenges in covering this kind of scope in your novel?

I simply wanted to make this story as realistic as possible. A lot of "climate" fiction sensationalizes extreme weather for the "action" factor. I wanted to base this story on what is true, which is that these things are happening gradually, so gradually in fact that we still have people in power who say it's not happening! It is my opinion that the dangers we are facing as a result of climate change are multiplied by the fact that it is a gradual process, because it's just too easy to "not think about it." It is my goal, my hope, that this book will make people think about it, and writing about it in a way that sends a message and entertains simultaneously is quite a challenge.

4. You write fiction and poetry but read a great deal of nonfiction. Why do you think it's important for writers to read work in other genres than the genre in which they write?

I believe that we educate ourselves every time we open a book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction. I think that every author, if he is to be well rounded, should be familiar with multiple genres and the audience they reach. It is also my opinion that all good fiction has some base in fact, and research is absolutely essential to a good story. Personally, I lose interest in a fiction story very quickly if I discover that the author has not done his homework.

5. What project(s) are you currently working on, both as a writer and in other parts of your life (as a gardener, etc)?

I am working on a novel--actually been in the process for a couple of years now--that I hope to publish soon after The Genesis Project is completed and released. I really did not have plans to publish it, and was in no actual hurry to complete it even until I began this project. I don't want to give too much of it away this far in advance, but I will say that it is about the survival of mankind--and more importantly, the survival of humanity.

As always, I am dreaming up new pottery projects. I have plans in the future to build and install an underground wood fired kiln and try my hand at some of the "old" glazing and firing techniques. It will be some time before I am able to find the time to implement this project, but it is definitely a goal of mine. I am extremely fascinated by the Sea Grove Potters of North Carolina who are still using these types of kilns today.

We are expanding our garden this year and planning to experiment with some new techniques to increase production. We want to see how much food we can get out of a half acre, and how many people can be fed from that little piece of land. All irrigation will be from rain water this year, we've added a couple more barrels, and we will be planting seeds we gathered from last year's plants. New to this year's garden will be strawberries, a family favorite that in the past I have purchased locally and used to make jam that we enjoy all year, and a mushroom garden that we will have in the woods behind the house.

We have been raising chickens for a couple of years now, and our eggs, which we give away to the entire neighborhood, have become quite popular. This spring, we plan to expand our flock of layers. We very much enjoy knowing that the neighborhood kids are eating our organic eggs for breakfast before school; we just get a kick out of it. I am also trying to talk my husband into letting me get a milk goat, which will give us lots of wonderful chevre’.