Backyard of the “Lee Street Homesteaders”

You know the urban homestead thing has caught on when the phrase shows up in a Craigslist rental ad:

Imagine… living at the edge of a city and at the edge of modern society. Growing your own food and medicine in your backyard. Raising poultry and harvesting your own eggs. Brewing your own beer and kombucha. Fermenting your own raw sauerkraut and pickles. And living within sight of and easy access to all the modern amenities of a chic urban wonderland. If this is your dream for your next home, look no further.

The Lee Street Organic Homestead is seeking a new partner in urban uprising. We’re looking for someone who wants a room and a little slice of the post-American dream. What we have to offer: a bright bedroom with a large walk-in closet for your personal space. A shared bathroom for your bathing needs. A large, well-stocked kitchen for your culinary pleasures. A comfortable living room with a record player instead of a television. A large garage bursting at the seams with all manner of bicycle fixin’s so that you never have to go to a shop again. And a sunny organic garden with a fire pit, compost, drip-irrigation, chickens, and fertile earth waiting for you to grow whatever you want. Other useful toys we have: a dishwasher, a washer and dryer, a clothesline, a fireplace, a bread machine, a wireless router with smoking fast internet, and a deep-fryer (one of us is a southerner).

We are not a co-op – we cook our own meals and live our own busy lives, but we all pitch in to maintain our little homestead. If you don’t mind occasionally turning the garden water on, feeding the chickens, and turning the compost, then this could be beautiful. If you like to drink Budweiser and watch teevee at 3 a.m., well, you can do that in the comfort of your room.

Your roommates will be as follows: a 31 y.o. park ranger who inhabits the upstairs and likes to identify birds by ear and spot clean the floors, a 34 y.o. medic and bike mechanic who likes to brew beer, drink it, and then go on 300-mile rides, and a 30 y.o. outdoor educator who likes to pet her cat and sew up organic undies from reclaimed t-shirts. The last two will be your downstairs co-inhabitants and bathroom buddies.

We are an organic and natural household – meaning we avoid chemical cleaners, reuse, recycle and compost adamantly, and generally try to live easy on the earth. We are looking for a roommate who does the same. You rent will be $650 + utilities, which run from $30 – $60, depending on the season. The room will be available on April 1st.

So if you’re looking to live in Santa Cruz, CA it looks like you’ll have the three “Bs” taken care of: bikes, bird watching and beer. And kudos for the imaginative ad copy, not to mention of cats and organic undies.

I suspect we’ll be seeing more of this kind of informal but intentional housing as the great recession winds on. Not a bad idea to have roommates with skills!

Yesterday’s post on the Natural Products Expo West reminded me that I never published a post I did on a large “Eco” convention I attended last year. I have a secret and embarrassing fondness for conventions of any kind. So, at the risk of never being invited to a convention again, here’s that old post I failed to publish until now:

Most of the “eco” conventions I’ve attended in the past, to be honest, bring out a certain, how shall I put this, tin foil hat type crowd. At one I went to someone was zipping around the parking lot on roller skates with a gas powered fan attached to his back and promoting the idea as a serious transportation solution. So when I was invited to attend an eco convention last year as a blogger I hesitated until I realized I could score some free hemp milk swag.

Now this eco convention (which will remain nameless) was actually quite good. They had a bunch of great speakers and interesting exhibitors. Unfortunately, when I went to review my notes the next day I realized I had written down only the wacky stuff in the form of a diary. I chalk it up to the way my cynical Gen-X brain works. So, in the end, I guess I’m the one wearing the tin-foil hat. For what it’s worth, here’s what that diary contained:

10:15 AM Way overdue for a haircut I throw on my Eisenhower jacket and head down to the convention center on my bicycle. I look like a deranged bus driver crossed with German schlager singer Heino.

10:45 AM I step up to what I think is the press registration booth to get my name tag. Except that it’s the press registration booth for a girl scout convention called “Girltopia” taking place in the adjoining exhibit hall . The Girltopia registrar looks at me as if I’m some kind of pervert and directs me the right direction. I contemplate sneaking into Girltopia later.

11:00 AM Los Angeles Mayor Villaragoasa takes the stage to tepid applause. Every time I see him he seems like he’s been up late the night before (with a hot news babe?). He talks mostly about green initiatives at the port and tries to squeeze some enthusiasm out of the bored crowd saying, “You’re supposed to be green, JESUS!” I guess, by taking the lord’s name in vain, you could say that the mayor broke one of the ten commandments for sake of applause and maybe a few more the night before.

11:15 AM A Native American prayer is recited. Drumming begins and I duck out of the main stage and head over to the press tent for the press buffet (blogging has its perks). After a brief wait in the buffet line (time enough to peruse the press materials), I reach out and grab a gluten-free English muffin. The muffin is so hard, the texture of, literally, a hockey puck, that I sheepishly stick it back and grab a bagel. The buffet is sponsored by a vegan butter and cream cheese substitute concern. I spread a bunch of their cream cheese substitute on my bagel and sit down. The cream cheese substitute seems to be whipped coconut butter and tastes like, well, whipped coconut butter.

11:30 AM A panel discussion begins in the press tent. One of the panelists is the author of a book called Skinny Bitch. I make a mental note to come up with a snappier book title the next time I write one, though Emaciated Middle-Aged Blogger Dude just doesn’t have a ring to it. Another panelist resembles Udo Kier and I have flashbacks to the giant deformed baby scene in The Kingdom.

11: 35 AM The problem with a press badge is that people are constantly gauging your credibility, looking at the badge then looking at your face. I find myself doing the same thing. Someone has a media badge that says, “Fit and Fun”. Another says, “Mar Vista Patch.” The latter makes me feel like the New York fricken Times. At least I’m working for myself for no pay.

11:45 AM I step into the booth of a light bulb manufacturer. I’m more excited by the dimmable LED lights than the sales rep. Maybe he needs a lunch break? I ask where you can get the bulbs. He shoots me a bored look and mumbles, “Home Depot”.

11:50 AM I pass by a booth selling an inflatable hyperbaric chamber. Didn’t Michael Jackson have one of these things? Does Udo Kier have one?

12:00 PM I see Joe Linton holding forth on a panel about the LA River. Joe and I used to lift weights together at the YMCA. If you’re keeping score, Joe can bench press considerably more than I can. Maybe I need to spend some time in a hyperbaric chamber.

12:15 PM I step into the Inner Traditions book booth which is having a half-off sale and go nuts. I pick up a German herbalism book called Witchcraft Medicine: Healing Arts, Shamanic Practices, and Forbidden Plants and Prickly Pear Cactus Medicine: Treatments for Diabetes, Cholesterol, and the Immune System to add to my collection of prickly pear cactus books.

12:30 I’m still hungry–the bagel and whipped coconut butter just didn’t fill this blogger’s groaning stomach.  I head down the food sample aisle grabbing thoughtlessly at every sliced power bar and beverage available. So many are hemp based that I’m thankful the Root Simple H.R. department does not require a regular drug test. Everything that does not contain hemp seems to be acai based.

2:00 PM Lora Hall, aka Homegrown Neighbor, takes the stage and wows the crowd with her extemporaneous speaking. She and I are both hammy when handed a microphone. Colin Bogart, with the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition, delivers a talk at the same time. I find out later that Colin got into Girltopia next door and I grill him later for details. 

4:00 PM I walk down the last aisle in the hall. There is a “Red Tent” set up for those beset by the monthly visitor. I’m so tired I consider asking if I can go in and lie down. It just so happens that I had been “thoughtstyling” with Mrs. Root Simple the night before about making a Red Tent that we could set up at our book appearances. She found the line of conversation tedious and told me to shut up.

4:30 PM I head with Colin and some bike folks to a downtown douchebag bar in the hideous Staples Center to talk bikes and get further information about Girltopia.

6:30 PM I arrive at the Root Simple Compound and collapse in a pile of swag. It takes several days to digest all those hemp and acai power bars.

Ant Farm’s Media Burn

For the last year I’ve been trying, as an experiment, to see what it would be like to cut off the news. That means no newspaper, no Google news, no NPR, no broadcast television of any kind.

At the beginning of my media fast, I was concerned that I would somehow lose touch with reality, with important details of what’s going on in the world. In fact, some news does reach me, filtered through conversations with friends and family. And I have, thanks to local blogs, kept in touch with some neighborhood news. But the torrent of irrelevant details on the scandals, murders, wars and political intrigue of modern life no longer cross the threshold of my consciousness.

Yes, as citizens of whatever country we find ourselves in, we have a duty to be engaged in political change.  But I believe that most of us are better off focusing on politics at the local level where our voices can actually make a difference. I really like the stoic flowchart Mark Frauenfelder posted on BoingBoing some time ago. It works really well for deciding if a particular political situation is worth paying attention to:

I want to be abundantly clear that I am not a Luddite.  Communications technology, especially the internet, have an important role in making this world a better place. But we have the power to be the gatekeeper of that information. What we feed into our higher consciousness has the power to change ourselves and the world for the better.

If you’ve tried a media fast, or disagree completely with the concept, leave a comment.

Inspiration for my media fast came from an episode of the C-Realm podcast–an interview with Neal Kramer, entitled “Grasp the Nettle“.

Photo by Root Simple. We’re not saying who made the eyes.

In the wake of a bad pruning, new love blossoms on the glittering streets of Los Angeles. Will our lovers be able to overcome the palm tree which stands between them? And what shocking secrets will the cactus reveal?

Photo from ebcaswaps.blogspot.com

From Mark Stambler of the Los Angeles Bread Bakers:

AB1616, the California Homemade Food Act, was introduced in the California State Assembly today by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Los Angeles). This cottage food law will finally allow people in California to legally sell bread [and other "non-hazardous" food such as honey, jams and jellies] they bake at home!

The Los Angeles Bread Bakers helped draft the legislation and will be organizing community support for it over the next few months. If all goes well, the bill will be signed into law by the governor by the end of the summer. But, of course, it will take a lot of work to make sure this happens, including visits to elected representatives.

For those of you who need more info about it, please visit cottagefood.org.

Many states have cottage food bills already (see a pdf of those states and the laws they have on the books). Those that don’t need one! In California, AB 1616 will help many people with home-based businesses in a time of economic uncertainty. Please consider making a donation to the Sustainable Economies Law Center to help pass AB 1616. See cottagefood.org for details of the bill and for a complete list of the foods that are covered under the legislation.

Time to take down those “certified wildlife habitat” signs as it seems the National Wildlife Federation has entered into a “partnership” with Scotts, manufacturers of a host of wildlife unfriendly synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Some thoughts:

Scotts products do grave injury to microbial and fungal life in the soil to say nothing of insects. The NWF has too narrow an idea of what constitutes “wildlife”.

And perhaps the era of big non-profit organizations like the NWF, that are little more than a mailing list, is over. We need more grass roots organizations at the community level that consist of actual people meeting face to face to do things like building school gardens, teaching permaculture and making our neighborhoods safer.

For more background on this controversy see Garden Rant.  And leave a comment on the NWF’s Facebook page.

Update: NWF has announced that they are giving up on this partnership citing Scott’s legal troubles  “related to events in 2008 that predate our partnership.” I’m still going to find an alternate use for my NWF wildlife habitat sign for even contemplating this partnership in the first place.

The original smart phone?

When Kelly and I do a book appearance one of the most common questions is, “How do you have time for all this stuff?” Our response is two parts. The first is to say that we don’t recommend people try to do everything in our book but, instead, focus on the things you like to do most. The time will appear as your interests and priorities shift. The second is that we don’t watch TV.

That being said, there are many places in modern life from which to “harvest” some time other than from evening TV-viewing hours. Email is where I’ve begun my time harvesting lately. While incredibly useful, email has become a daily, herculean task. It’s also a medium that’s as addictive as crack (there has been debate about including email addiction in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). Like lab rats waiting for a treat to shoot down a slot, we get rewarded via stimulation for for checking it constantly.

This is where a suggestion in a book I otherwise strongly dislike¹, Timothy Ferris’ The 4-Hour Workweek,  comes in handy. Ferris suggests checking your email twice a day, at 11 AM and 4 PM. Why these two times? He believes that we get our best work done early in the morning and that it’s best to have that morning period uninterrupted by distractions such as email. Ferris suggests that if you were to map out a day in which you checked email constantly you would see a huge amount of time wasted just through the short but high frequency of interruptions.

By checking email once at 11 and 4 you have a chance of getting a response before the end of the day. To do this you “train” your family, friends and co-workers by placing a footer at the bottom of your email to inform them when you check your email. Mine reads,

I check my email at noon and after the sun sets. If your needs are more urgent please give me a call at [HOME NUMBER]. Bloggin’ at www.rootsimple.com. Co-author (with Kelly Coyne) of the Urban Homestead (Process Media) and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (Rodale).

It would be cranky, but I’ve thought about reminding people that my phone number connects you to this device:

I may have to add on to that email footer:

I check my email at noon and after the sun sets. If your needs are more urgent, lease give me a call at [HOME NUMBER]. Regarding my communication device, the Western Electric 500 desktop telephone: It does not allow me to see what your number is, so do not be surprised if I don’t know who is calling. It is wired to the wall and, thus, not “mobile”. If you hear a “busy signal” (oldsters can tell you what that sounds like) it means I’m talking to someone else and don’t even know you’re trying to call. You should call again later.  The Western Electric 500 does not function as a map, camera, meat thermometer or allow me to update my Facebook page.  But it has a nice ring, and I do love hearing the sound of your voice. Bloggin’ at www.rootsimple.com. Co-author (with Kelly Coyne) of some books printed on paper.

But that would be rude.  Plus I do have a “mobile” communicator though I don’t give that number out, because I hate getting calls on it while I’m out and about and doing things.

But I digress. I’ve also worked on reducing email before it gets to me by sending many a newsletter and press release to my crack spam detection unit. And I deleted my email-generating Linkedin account (someone please explain Linkedin to me). If I could delete my Facebook profile I would, but I still find it useful for keeping in touch with friends and readers. And if I could shorten my emails to the length of the typical Morse code transaction I would, but that strategy, I fear, would get misinterpreted as brusqueness.

My new email twice a day regime seems to be working. I’m getting a lot more work done. Now I want to be clear that I’m not anti–technology. I like email and find cellphones useful in many circumstances. I just think that we need, as Douglas Rushkoff put it, a “time out” to sort out what’s useful and what is a time suck. I’d rather use email and cellphones as a tool to help other people, to garden, to do all the things I love to do. Taming the email beast has been a useful first time management step for me.

Leave a comment and tell us how you deal with email!

_____________

1. Why do I dislike The Four Hour Work Week? I think with this book and The 4-Hour Body, Ferris simply sat down and asked, “how do I write a best selling book?” Let’s see, what topics should I cover? What do people care most about? Flat abs? check. Money? check. Sex? check, etc. Sort through the hyperbole in these two hefty tomes and you’re left with a few sentences of decent advice.