The Call to Create: Marguerite Knutzen 1925-2017

...loving, kind and patient mom. To her I owe my life’s calling: the joys of making, doing and teaching. My mom taught junior high art, crafts and ceramics before I was born. She took a break to raise me and then went back to teaching as an elementary school aide. Teaching at the junior high level is no easy task. Schools dump students with academic and home problems into the arts classes just to keep them busy. My mom’s call to be a teacher wasn’t...

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How to Make a Hexagonal Raised Bed

...cessories. Mine has gotten a lot of use over the years for everything from gardening projects to building furniture. The angle at the corners of a hexagon are 60º. Therefore, you will need to set your saw to 30º (90º-60º=30º). With the saw set, you just need to cut 12 sections, each 2’6″ long, with that 30º angle at each end. Secure the pieces together with screws at the corners. Although I did not do this I would recommend reinforcing the bed by...

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In Praise of Disorder

...ofiled in this blog: greywater, backyard poultry, and front yard vegetable gardening, to mention just a few. Ideally you have a balance between order and disorder–neither gunfire nor the prying eyes of city inspectors. Where I’m staying in Houston, with its flocks of loose chickens, packs of feral dogs, and broken down bungalows seems just about right. Our neighborhood in Los Angeles is seeming less ideal with the news from Mrs. Homegrown Evolutio...

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Saturday Tweets: Ascension K-Mart Choppers

...ip: Don’t touch tomato plants while wet. It increases chances of disease. #gardeningtips #growtomatoes pic.twitter.com/6qyL3hDD5d — Gardenerd (@gardenerd1) May 2, 2019 While the question of whether we are truly alone in the universe remains unanswered, this is certainly a bat, eating watermelon. pic.twitter.com/7LApFHJi7e — Paul Bronks (@SlenderSherbet) May 1, 2019 History of CNC Machining, Part 1: by @bantamtools https://t.co/VOoS6W0bXT — Root Si...

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On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs

...which you were paid to do the things you like to read about on this blog: gardening, beer brewing, jam making, beekeeping etc. Or how about a world in which teachers, nurses and caregivers made more money than tech CEOs? Sadly, we don’t live in that utopia. Instead we have an economy that often rewards people who either do nothing all day or whose work degrades our lives. Anthropologist David Graeber takes up these questions in his book Bullshit...

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