Tips & Tricks, Vol. 1
Six useful tidbits
Today's newsletter is a grab bag of useful stuff I've compiled over the past week. Topics covered:
Hoarding antibiotics: time is running out!
Getting high on houseplants (and how to propagate them)!
Steep discounts on fruit trees from my favorite mail order nursery
Gardening the Mad Max way!
A forthcoming cooperative alternative to Etsy
An opportunity to get plugged-in to the degrowth movement
Let’s get started!
Starting in June—just over a month away—the FDA will ban the sale of over the counter veterinary antibiotics. This will mostly impact livestock farmers, who are accustomed to buying antibiotics at the feed store (the problem being that they tend to overuse/misuse them, fostering the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria.) But this will impact two other groups: preppers who keep a bunker full of drugs and rural people who keep a quick treatment for lyme disease on hand. Antibiotics are one of the most essential and life-saving items a person can have in a disaster, and getting a prescription filled under difficult circumstances might be tough. Antibiotics don't have a super long shelf life, but the bottle of fish amoxicillin I bought recently expires in November 2025. I also live in tick country and starting antibiotics the moment one finds an attached tick greatly reduces the risk of developing lyme disease. The FDA, of course, advises that humans should never take veterinary medicine, and I agree, so I will not provide a link to buy it. If you have fish and they need amoxicillin, you can Google it.