Search Results for: label/book reviews

330 results

Urban Homestead on Craigslist. Act Now!

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
15 Comments
I’ve always been uneasy with the moniker “urban homestead.” It’s the title of our book (what else could we have called it?), but it’ not really accurate. The activities we describe are also practiced by suburbanites and people in rural places. And “homestead” is not technically accurate–all the readers of our book, I’m fairly certain, either own or rent their property. The term is also load...

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Announcement: Process Media/Feral House Party this Thursday in Los Angeles

Mrs. Homegrown
Events
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Thursday, December 9, 6-9  La Luz de Jesus Gallery,  4633 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.  Free.  (323) 666-7667 Attention Angelinos (and folks nearby): Our incredibly groovy publishers, Process Media, and their sister company, Feral House, are throwing a holiday party this Thursday. We’ll be there, just hanging out. If you don’t know Wacko/La Luz de Jesus, it’s a combo art gallery, book store and novelty shop. You could ge...

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Slaughtering Turkeys for Thanksgiving

Mrs. Homegrown
Animals, Food
25 Comments
...n to the complex emotions that accompany the slaughter, instead of shunting them aside. This, he claims, is the hardest part. And that is why he is our teacher. Erik and I first met Steve when we were researching our upcoming book. It’s a how-to book, and we wanted to include how-to slaughter a chicken instructions, and we wanted to present the most humane technique we could find. Homegrown Neighbor introduced us to Steve, and the day we me...

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Elderly and Barefoot–that’s how I plan to be

Mrs. Homegrown
Fitness, Thoughtstylings
17 Comments
...r at least since our 40′s. No one may agree with me, but I for one plan to be a barefooted elder. And I’m going to start leaning on my mother about it, too. I was pleased to find my thoughstyling backed up in this book Erik bought recently. It’s called Barefoot Running , and has a special section on transitioning to barefoot for the elderly and less mobile. The author makes the same arguments that I am here, just somewhat more a...

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Fish Don’t Fart

Mr. Homegrown
Aquaculture, Preparedness
20 Comments
...ido California and has been working on his aquaponics system for over 37 years. The tag line “Fish Don’t Fart” refers to the benefits of fish over methane generating cattle. We skipped over aquaponics in our book since we considered it too expensive and complicated for most people. But perhaps we should give it closer consideration. Aquaponics is profiled in the pioneering urban homesteading book, The Integral Urban House: Self...

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How to Plan a Vegetable Garden

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening, How-to, Vegetable Gardening
21 Comments
...sing only those veggies that have done well in the past and that we like to eat. A planning form from Ecology Action Deciding How Much to Plant To decide how much to plant I rely on the charts in John Jeavons’ book  How to Grow More Vegetables . I took his three day Biointensive gardening class early last year and recommend it highly, especially for learning how to use the, at first, intimidating charts in the book. Jeavons handed...

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Chicken Goes to Hollywood

Homegrown Neighbor
Animals, Chickens, Events
2 Comments
Homegrown Neighbor here. On Thursday Mr. Homegrown and I escorted my chicken, Peckerella, to her first public appearance. Peckerella was there to assist author Terry Golson, who has written a wonderful children’s book called Tillie Lays An Egg. The book has adorable pictures of her flock and features the adventurous Tillie, who likes to lay her eggs everywhere except her nesting box. Ms. Golson is currently in Los Angeles to share Tillie&#...

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The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes
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We’ve reviewed Tamara Dean’s new book The Human-Powered Home: Choosing Muscles Over Motors in this month’s issue of Yes Magazine. As we say in the review, don’t expect to be able to run your plasma screen with a bicycle (a lot of our favorite appliances take a hell of a lot more energy than pedal power can provide), but you will be able to grind grain, press apples, operate a sewing machine, and shell nuts. Dean’s b...

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Resources

These are our favorite web resources on various topics, and books which you’ll find on our bookshelves: General Home Ec/Appropriate Tech/DIY Living Mother Earth News How to Homestead Backwoods Home Magazine  AfriGadget  The Urban Homestead Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World Radical Homemakers The Integral Urban House Made by Hand Farm City The Natural Kitchen Country Wisdom and Know-How Wendell Berry’s ess...

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Hamlet’s BlackBerry: Dealing With the Crisis of Overconnection

Mr. Homegrown
Reviews, Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
...al Age , is a reasonable, balanced and practical guide to navigating our hyper-connected age (and how ironic it is that the fast pace of technological change makes “BlackBerry” a quaint reference in 2013–the book, however is more relevant than it was in 2010). Powers does not take a finger waving “eat your Brussels sprouts” approach. Rather, he acknowledges the immense potential and usefulness of computers and smart...

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