Search Results for: label/bean fest/page/6/2011/04/making-it

395 results

Mandrake!

Mr. Homegrown
Fermentation, Food
2 Comments
grown Revolution suffered through the first film based on these kid’s books on a transatlantic flight a few years ago, finally falling asleep during an endless video game inspired broom chase scene). Apparently wherever it appears in the world, mandrake (Atropa mandragora) has always inspired unusual beliefs. Buhner says, Though all indigenous cultures know that plants can speak with humankind, mandrake is almost the only plant from indige...

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How to Cycle Safely

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, How-to, Transportation
3 Comments
have a plan to either turn quickly or slam on the brakes. Avoid the door zone. There are rare exceptions when I will dip into the door zone briefly (only while going very slowly). But for the most part you should stay out of it. It is impossible to predict if a door will open. Lane positioning is an art not a science. It comes with experience. At any given spot on a road I might be further to the left or right depending on what time of day it is...

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Interview With Apartment Gardener Helen Kim

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Herbs
1 Comment
We got a lot of emails after posting the image above of Los Angeles based photographer Helen Kim’s astonishing windowsill garden. It’s a great example of what you can do with a small amount of space, and brings to mind William Morris’ advice, “Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”. Helen graciously sat down for an email interview to talk about her beautiful and useful garden...

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Bushcraft Video

Mrs. Homegrown
Appropriate Technology, Preparedness
21 Comments
...e other, ready to share their knowledge with you. And they are almost all men. I’ve only found a couple of women who put their adventures on video. I’m not sure why this is such a male dominated field, except that it is greatly fueled by the love of pointy implements and the display and discussion of such implements–which seems a very masculine past time. But that’s generalizing, because I can attest that around our house,...

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Be a question. Be an answer.

Mrs. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
44 Comments
Kotex Ad from 1971. Is that Susan Dey Cybill Shepherd? And what’s that oddly eroticized blur in the foreground? Okay, time to wrest the blog out of Erik’s hands. He’s gone crazy with the geek-boy subject matter of late. I’m going to bring this baby down to earth with a resounding thud. Let’s talk menstruation. We’re writing a new book, as we may have mentioned. It’s a project book focused on making som...

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Build Your Own Furniture

Mr. Homegrown
Design
5 Comments
We live in a 4 by 8 world. This is why we can’t get all that excited about things like geodesic domes, straw bale and rammed earth houses. All of these innovative architectural ideas may have great potential, but when it comes time to buy supplies at the lumber yard, the overly creative builder will soon realize the difficulty of utopian designs in a world of 4 by 8 sheets of plywood and drywall. That geodesic shape is hip, but what do you...

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Bike Porn

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes
1 Comment
As the Bicycle Film Festival wraps up here in Los Angeles I’m reminded of how exciting it is to feel a part of a subculture not yet discovered by the masses. Perhaps $4 a gallon gasoline will bring a few more converts, but I’m not holding my breath. The joy of riding a bike is a far greater incentive than economic necessity. I’d rather crest a steep hill with a sense of accomplishment rather than a winded desperation. The bik...

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Teflon Coated Light Bulbs Deadly to Chickens

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
19 Comments
...ity of Teflon in cookware. Sylvania, apparently, has a warning label on their Teflon coated bulbs, “WARNING: This product contains PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene–”Teflon” is a brand name). When heated, it creates fumes potentially fatal to confined birds.” GE does not have a warning label. I let the ladies take the winter off of laying and it never dips below 40ºF here so we do not have a light bulb in our coop. But...

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New Health Food Trends at the Natural Products Food Expo West

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Thoughtstylings
17 Comments
This weekend I attended, for or the second year in a row, the Natural Products Expo West. At this massive convention, health food, natural supplement and cosmetic concerns pitch their products to retailers. And, again this year, I did a lot of intemperate sampling. For the sake of you, our dear readers, I ate every known power bar, sports beverage and processed soy/hemp/chia meat substitute so you won’t have to. It was the human equivalen...

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Are Pallets Safe to Reuse?

Mr. Homegrown
Composting, Design, Thoughtstylings
9 Comments
Now you know. Pallet parts have names. As a fan and proponent of reusing pallets in building projects, such as chicken coops and compost containers, I’m often asked if I think they are safe to use given that shippers and manufacturers fumigate them with pesticides. In the United States quarantine regulations require that pallets be treated with methyl bromide, a pesticide being phased out due to its adverse effects on the ozone la...

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