Got a Critter Question?

...Our guest on the next episode of the Root Simple Podcast will be Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild. We’re interviewing her tomorrow (Thursday) so if you have a question about coyotes, moles, raccoons, opossums, squirrels, rats or any of the other creatures that visit our urban backyards, leave a comment....

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Hipster Compost

An updated, urban version of the soil food web. In the nearly sixteen years we’ve lived here we’ve seen our local stretch of Sunset Boulevard go from boarded up storefronts and auto body shops to restaurants, bars and cafes. Along with those new businesses and artisinal facial hair, comes a great new set of compost sources. Some of my enterprising neighbors, one in particular, have been creating what could be called hipster compost or, at least,...

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Saturday Linkages: Sedum Stumps, Chicken Steadycams and the End of the World

Sedum stump via The Garden Professor’s Blog. Gardening Cool gift idea–plant a sedum stump: http://ow.ly/1PQqq2 Nature Meets Video Chicken as steadycam: http://n.pr/11bA7gl Fantastic slow motion video of sprinting cheetahs – Boing Boing http://boingboing.net/2012/11/26/fantastic-flow-motion-video-of.html … DIY Livin’ Sun Ray Kelly: An Ungated Community http://nyti.ms/Ut6Tb5 Modest Student Micro-Cottage is a Mere 12 Square Meters | Designs & Ideas...

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How to Get Skunks Out of Your Basement and Yard

Basements and crawl spaces under houses make idea dens for urban critters. If we could charge rent for all the skunks, raccoons and feral cats that have taken up residence under the house we’d have paid off the mortgage by now. Our particular crawl space critter B&B was opened by virtue of a flimsy access door. Some animal, most likely a raccoon, pried it open. The problem with this situation is that you can’t just close up the door. Some poor cr...

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Gourmet Foraging and Advanced Acorn Processing

...scal and Mia are high caliber foragers and foodies. Check out their sites, Urban Outdoor Skills and Transitional Gastronomy, and if you live in the Los Angeles area, you’ll definitely want to experience their forages and food workshops. It’s rare to find folks who combine deep food know-how with a love of wild foods. Too often wild foods are considered mere survival foods. Pascal and Mia are using them to develop a uniquely Californian cuisine. On...

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