A Guide to Simple Living?

The latest issue of Yankee magazine arrived yesterday. It includes a "Back to Basics" section that lists where to learn DIY (do it yourself) skills. That fits nicely with my longstanding and growing interest in artisan products, skills and values, but the geographic coverage is understandably limited to New England. In the DIY spirit, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to adapt Yankee's post and beam framework to start, hopefully with your assistance, a list of Minnesota sources for learning these, and similar skills. Here's the list:

artisan bread baking

Photo by J. Harrington

• Cheese Making
• Open Hearth Cooking
• Canning and Food Preservation
• Butchering Meat Processing
• Spinning and Weaving
• Bee Keeping
• Homesteading
• Farming and Gardening
• Carpentry and Building
• Other?

Textile Center: Wisdom Rug

Photo by J. Harrington

We know that the North House Folk School [catalogue] in Grand Marais offers some of these skills plus many that weren't listed in Yankee. I'm going to poke around the Internet and see what turns up in Minnesota. I already know about bee keeping courses through the University, and have read about local wood fired baking and written on these pages about baking home-made bread. Please use the comments [if you can make them work] to let me know of any related courses you're aware of. Maybe we could turn this into some sort of "Angie's List" of DIY skills teaching / training. Not a bad way to start the New Year as far as I'm concerned. What do you think?

Handspun

By Floyd Skloot 

My wife sits in her swivel chair

ringed by skeins of multicolored yarn

that will become the summer sweater

she has imagined since September.

Her hand rests on the spinning wheel

and her foot pauses on the pedals

as she gazes out into the swollen river.

Light larking between wind and current

will be in this sweater. So will a shade

of red she saw when the sun went down.

When she is at her wheel, time moves

like the tune I almost recognize now

that she begins to hum it, a lulling

melody born from the draft of fiber,

clack of spindle and bobbin, soft

breath as the rhythm takes hold.

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