Six ways to build stability in an anxiety-inducing world

Above is a link to a piece I wrote for one of my professional writing gigs.  It's a site owned by a psychiatrist who, while he uses medications, also encourages patients to follow lifestyle and non-medication approaches to living with chronic illness.

A lot of what I write there is layperson interpretations of medical studies, but a lot of it is also more like good advice, which it turns out is a good way to brainwash yourself into following good advice.  If you keep writing that the Mediterranean diet is good, you find yourself reaching for the (more expensive) olive oil in the grocery store more often.  Anyway, the blog could be of interest for a lot of people, not just those with mental illness.

Compost pit update

Here it is, phase one of the compost pit. It took about a month to dig (not every day) and now the next job is to fill it.

The second photo shows the soil that got removed.  Some of it is topsoil that I can sift out and use in the container garden.  Some is clay subsoil that can be used to build up the edges of the pit.  I will look around for manure from grazing water buffaloes to provide nitrogen, and add all the weeds from the garden and a bit of kitchen garbage for "body".

Once it's filled, I will cover it up and dig another one next to it, then the two pits will be traded off, as one matures, the other will be getting filled.

I've read that it takes 8 years to establish a garden, and now I'm in year two, so just imagine how it will look after six more years of digging!  I already got a lot of tomatoes and some mustard greens from the garden this year, so I'm encouraged to go on.

You only need a little bit of encouragement if it's something you really want to happen.