Drone Flyover of the Root Simple Compound

...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SplvON5R_Nk Many thanks to Steve Rowell for dropping by last week with his drone and shooting our humble compound. I cobbled together a rough cut of some of the shots that show our house and the neighborhood. Look carefully and you’ll see our chicken coop, adobe oven, the small but growing new planting in our front yard and more. Plus those 100 foot Mexican Fan Palms!...

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Our Grape Arbor

...ant varieties: Vitus Californica “Rogers Red” and Vitis vinifera x V. lambrusca “Pearl River” from LA’s most quirky nursery, Papaya Tree. The Pearl River grapes are tasty and show no signs of Pierce’s. The adobe oven was the last addition. Pizza parties are a frequent occurrence underneath the arbor. Do you have an arbor? What have you planted on it and how do you use the space underneath?...

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Saturday Tweets: Naked Gardening Day Edition

...otsimple) April 29, 2015 Where can you find clay soil near your California adobe project? Check out this great soil map from UC Davis!: http://t.co/2L1ENJOn2a — adobeisnotsoftware (@riseupmud) April 26, 2015 Drought Frames Economic Divide of Californians http://t.co/ndTXBBUtsF — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 28, 2015 So, finally, we've got a thriving downtown with thousands of people on foot, and we're penalizing it? http://t.co/ZVNYFkYN...

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Made in the shade- Passive cooling

...scorching in the summer and freezing in the winter, thick, heavy walls of adobe, strawbales or rammed earth provide protection from extreme weather conditions. Here in the Homegrown neighborhood, most of us live in old houses that are not designed with passive solar features. The Homegrown Evolution house is practically a greenhouse. My house is about 20 degrees hotter at night than it is outside. All of the hot air gets trapped and has no where...

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