Ian Hamilton Finlay’s Gardening Wisdom

August 18, 2015

...waters are continually flowing in.” Installing is the hard toil of garden making, placing is its pleasure. I think I’ve spent too much time in the installing and not enough time contemplating the placing. In so doing gardening has become more of a chore than a pleasure. Superior gardens are composed of Glooms and Solitudes and not of plants and trees. I take this to mean that a garden should express moods and ideas and not be just a collection of...

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Deep Work

Mr. Homegrown

April 11, 2016

Reviews, Thoughtstylings

3 Comments

...s not to say that there aren’t other benefits to putting aside one day and making it different than all the others. But let’s not kid ourselves that an Internet sabbath is going to cure the crack-like addictiveness of social media and click-bait websites. Newport suggests, “embracing boredom” and not surfing the web even when you’re waiting in line at the post office. Rather than schedule time away from distraction Newport suggests scheduling time...

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How to Design and Fabricate Homestead Projects

Mr. Homegrown

January 14, 2016

Design

6 Comments

...Brain. Once you go through that you’re ready for a fun book I’m currently making my way through called Sketching for Architecture + Interior Design. Modeling Lastly it’s time to get those ideas in the free version of the 3d program Sketchup. You can learn Sketchup in an evening or two and it has really helped separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to my many bad ideas. With Sketchup you can rotate the object and really see if it works ae...

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Satan’s Easter Basket is Filled with Plastic Easter Grass

Mrs. Homegrown

March 29, 2016

Domesticus, Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

...al grass. I think animals may have gotten into the garbage cans overnight, making it all worse, but clearly a lot of that trash, especially the Easter grass and Silly String, was probably on the ground when the picnickers left. One lonely, overburdened city maintenance guy was already raking up the garbage, but it was a Sisyphean task, and I doubt he’ll be so fine tuned as to focus on the Easter grass, but the Easter grass may be the most problema...

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078 Mark Lakeman on City Repair

Mr. Homegrown

March 14, 2016

Design, Permaculture, Podcasts

...t: it starts with a potluck! Mark is the co-founder of the non-profit placemaking organization The City Repair Project, and principal of the community architecture and planning firm Communitecture. He is also an urban place-maker, permaculture designer and community design facilitator. And if you’re on the West Coast of the US, you have a chance to participate in a series of workshops this month. For more information visit marklakeman.net. To find...

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