The Horror

Will Campbell (his mileage indicates that he’s got the Kool-aid in those bottle cages), has smacked down Cato institute stormtrooper Randall O’Toole in an ongoing debate on cycling in the pages of the L.A. Times. Urban Velo #5 is available for download and it’s free. Lastly, Commute by Bike has some tips on how to ride in cold weather without opening the wallet for expensive clothing. Here’s this morning’s Vitus cal...

Continue reading…

Out of Water!

n earthquake. This leaves us pondering keeping water in steel drums, which we first learned about in Aton Edward’s book Preparedness Now!, the first book in Process Media’s Self-Reliance series (our book the Urban Homesteader, due out in May, is the third in this series). It’s one of the more expensive options in water storage, with new drums costing several hundred dollars, but avoids the problem of an off taste that plastic ca...

Continue reading…

Birds on a Wire

A neighbor told me this morning that when the house next door to him was for sale the owners asked him not to hang laundry on his clothesline because it would, “bring down their property value.” And, of course, many housing developments have the same anti-clothesline restriction. Is it some distant cultural memory of 19th century tenement buildings, an id-based Ralph Kramden, an intense fear of anything urban? Maybe this clever desi...

Continue reading…

Keeping Chickens by Ashley English

It’s about time someone got around to writing this book. The people have been demanding a concise, clearly illustrated guide to raising chickens for eggs in urban and suburban situations and Ashley English has delivered the goods with Keeping Chickens All You Need to Know to Care for a Happy, Healthy Flock . You may remember Ashley from our first, and so far only, Homegrown Evolution podcast. Keeping Chickens covers breeds, how to get chi...

Continue reading…

Saturday Linkages: From Plastic Bottle Kayaks to Canine Staircases

...Stings. – http://www. backyardecosystem.com/backwards-beek eeping/happy-bees-equals-happy-beekeeper-how-treat-bee-stings/  … Whatever happened to common sense?  Not to be outdone by Canada, another city wants to ruin an urban garden. Please help! http:// chn.ge/RimMiZ   What do USDA inspectors do? Undercover video shutters another dairy cull slaughterhouse in Calif. | barfblog http:// barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/blog/155879/12 /08/21/what-d...

Continue reading…

EDC Part I: Multi-tool and Knife

o clean. And the hollow hilt can accept a stick to turn the knife into a spear should you need to “harvest” a feral pig for lunch, let’s say. But the Bushman is too bulky and sinister for my EDC, at least in urban areas. I wore it around the house one day, but Mrs. Homegrown said she thought I was acting like a preschooler and, frankly, what do I need a big knife like this for blogging, answering emails and trips to the post off...

Continue reading…

It’s Elementary

I’m writing another article for Urban Farm Magazine, this time on elementary school gardens. If you have a hand in running or organizing an elementary school garden, outside of California, send me an email at [email protected] I need another interview or two, though I can’t guarantee I’ll talk to everyone. I took the picture above at a volunteer work day at the 24th Street Elementary School in the West Adams d...

Continue reading…

Bee Fever in Los Angeles

looks promising thanks to the hard work of Honey Love and sympathetic city councilman Bill Rosendahl. The article also neatly sums up the radical “backwards” approach to beekeeping advocated by LA’s maverick urban beekeeper Kirk Anderson, Anderson learned from apiarist Charles Martin Simon, who invented the concept of “beekeeping backwards.” Simon’s approach was stupidly simple: Give the bees a clean box, put t...

Continue reading…