HOT TIP: when boycotting, try dupe recipes at home to share with friends. Sometimes there isn't a local alternative brand available but there is always someone with a recipe blog on the internet. I can still have doublestuffed mint chocolate sandwich cookies without funding the capitalist machine crushing my American friends ☺️

This recipe I used 1 cup butter substitute (i used a canola spread) 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour ½ cup cocoa powder (i use trade aid or donovans) ½ cup golden syrup 1 teaspoon baking powder ¼ teaspoon salt 1 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix in a food processor then set in the fridge for 25 minutes

Filling: ½ cup vegetable shortening 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup powdered sugar 1/4 cup flour Mint extract to taste

Or just do a small spoonful of peanutbutter as a filling

Roll out the dough to about 5mm thickness. Stamp and cut.

My oven is a joke so not sure the temp but i turn it on and bake for about 8-10 minutes. It will be a low temperature, probably like 170c. They are still soft when i pull them out so I let them sit on the pan to cool before filling and stacking

Mōrena buzzy bees!

I've been off hunting beach treasures on some more remote beaches in the area. The amount of fishing and building waste is unreal! , buoys, treated timber posts and framing. A lot of plastic crab pot pieces and rope ends. We even found a piece of a pontoon which I'll be making into a new garden bed! We also saw a dead albatross, which was fascinating, but with the birdflu, we decided it was best to keep our distance.

Fellow dumpster divers and rubbish gremlins, what has been your favourite find?

Kia ora and happy new year 🎉

What are our hopes and dreams for 2025, and how are we going to work towards making them happen?

Kia ora! I'm just another solarpunk in Aotearoa looking for other like-minded friends, inspiration, and advice on other ways I can green up my life.

I live in an off-grid tiny home I built with my partner in 2016 out of wood and second-hand windows/doors/appliances. We run off solar power, rain water, a composting toilet, and try to repair, mend, make, borrow, and buy 2nd hand or local. Our meat is all hunted, which here in Aotearoa is a huge help for our environment as our only native mammals are seals and bats. Everything else is a pest. We also grow a lot of our own fruit and veggies, but the garden is still a work in progress.

I'm looking at irrigating the garden and automating the process. I saw something about https://www.home-assistant.io/ online but would love any advice you might have. I'd like to automate and chart my watering as well as integrate moisture monitors and a weather monitoring system.

I have an electric bike and an old 1996 honda crv. I'd like to switch to an electric vehicle, something like a Pickman 4x4 or another small farm vehicle, as I only need to get to the village bus stop, neighbouring farms, and the occasional trip into town via back roads.

Clothes are me-made with 2nd hand materials, mostly from the dump shop. I've helped start a collection point for alternative recycling like bottle lids and tetrapaks, a library of things, and a community workshop. We are working towards a bike repair hub and time bank but it might be a couple years before they are operational.

Please share all your inspiration, book recommendations, and thoughts around other ways I can make an impact in my community 😊

Kia ora 😊 We are replacing the software for our community library of things are looking for options. We live in a village so it would be a max of 300 accounts and probably 2000-3000 items in the inventory. I'm having a hard time finding anything open source.

I know it's very niche so no worries if nobody knows of anything 😊

With recessions and political hardship around the globe, this holiday season is feeling a bit rough for a lot of us. I've been thinking of ways we can try and make minor improvements on a microscale. Here are some of my thoughts and please share yours in the comments:

More casual no or low-cost gatherings. As it's summer in Aotearoa, we are doing weekly meet-ups in the local park for shared kai. It's bring what you can and shame free for those who forgot or couldn't afford to bring anything. We are also continuing our workshop events with free reusable gift wrap making and summer holidays sewing and crafts club.

On a more personal mission, this holidays I am starting a new calendar/journal to keep track of birthdays and likes/dislikes of the people around me so I can start my newest project, "Max happiness", where I try to maximise the happiness stats of everyone around me through flowers, baking, and produce from my garden. I plan to focus on growing favourite flowers or produce next year so I have casual low/no cost gifts and can show my appreciation with gifts that are meaningful and not a burden on our planet. I'll be starting with something a bit more achievable in the next 4 weeks with home baking for friends and neighbours.

For those who don't already have an established community, I recommend going to some mutual aid events for distributing food or resources into your community. You might also find shared spaces holiday events through your library, community garden, or community workshop. These are the sorts of places where community thrives and I'm sure you will find yourself right at home 🥰

I saw a lot of interest in personal growth and betterment so this is the place to tell us what you're proud of and hype up other community members 💚

One of the things I'd like to include in thr community garden I'm working on establishing is a food pantry. I'd love to have a place with recycled containers to take home garden goodies, residents to leave extra dry goods, and things like care products/toiletries. I've seen pictures of them online and read articles about them but the closest thing we have here is honesty boxes.

Has anyone made one or used one? Do you have any tips? I'd love to hear some recommendations on practical designs work best or what products you wish yours had more/less of.

Now is a good time to think about a small way you can help, even it it's just making an effort to pick up some rubbish on a walk. For me, it's winter and I start to feel a bit down from the lack of sunlight hours so i like to give myself a very small and achievable goal that can give me a little boost of serotonin. Between winter bugs, storms, and work things, I haven't been getting outside enough. I want to make an effort to go walk the local reserves at least once next month and pick up rubbish. It's small but it leaves me room to do even more if I'm feeling up to it without feeling guilty if I only have one good day of energy.

What small things are you wanting to do?