The modern woman-things to put in your apron pocket

Aprons are so cute and oh so functional. I’m often out and about in the yard and around the homestead and I find my apron a very useful accessory. An apron adds a flirty, feminine touch when worn over jeans and is a nice layer of protection for a dress. I tend to get very dirty and need a lot of pockets, so an apron is handy indeed. Whether I am at the farmer’s market, pulling weeds in the backyard or at the chicken coop, here are th...

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Support Locally Sourced Kittens

f medicine–but it’s not at all required. Most important is that they get a home.  Remember, kittens are a most excellent source of low-tech entertainment and chemical-free rodent control, an ideal addition to any homestead–guaranteed to be useful throughout the zombie apocalypse! If you’re interested, send us email at [email protected], and we’ll pass you on to Anne.  Please be sure to pass this on to any cat-s...

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Saturday Linkages: Making Things and Herding Ducks

Herding ducks. Via The Tangled Nest. DIY Simple Swiss fences for the homestead: http:// dirttime.com/?p=2687 via Practical Parsimony Build-It-Solar Blog: Comparing the Performance of Two DIY Solar Water Heaters http://www. builditsolarblog.com/2012/07/compar ing-performance-of-two-diy-solar.html?spref=tw  … Build-It-Solar Blog: Using Your Lawn Sprinkling Water to Cool the House… http://www. builditsolarblog.com/2012/08/using- yo...

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What Do Microbes Have To Do With Homesteading?

  So what are the activities that microbes make possible around the homestead? To name just four: Fermentation Beekeeping Soil Fertility Human beings Pretty important stuff. In fact, new systems thinking, applied to our natural word, is demonstrating that things like human beings are really just symbiotic sacks of microbial life. An article in the Economist, “Microbes maketh man” discusses just how important microbes are to human...

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Plastic or Wood?

plastic on the ocean drives home the point that we need to drastically cut back our consumption of plastics and only use them for essentials] Okay, these are the new rules. We are going to phase as many plastics out of the homestead as we can. We won’t toss what we have in the landfill right now, but when it is time to replace it, this is how it’s going down: Wood and metal utensils instead of plasticGlass storage containers instea...

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Chickens in the House!

Mrs. Homestead here: I’d planned to give you all a progress report on the backyard redesign, which features such wonders as the Germinator ™, the Trough of Garlic ™, the Fan of Pharmacy ™ and the Screens of Discretion (also tm). But the camera crapped out on me. So, until I figure it out (Which means until Erik gets home and I can shove the darn thing at him and say, “Fix your camera!”),  I’m offering u...

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Saturday Linkages: Can Gardens, BOLs and Attack Geese

...oard Bike Rack // http:// korduroy.tv/shows/surf-suf ficient/diy-surfboard-bike-rack  … 80ft Tube Made From VHS Tape http://www. dudecraft.com/2012/08/80ft-t ube-made-from-vhs-tape.html  … Prepping Developing Raw Land into a Homestead or BOL Over Time | The Survival Podcast http:// bit.ly/NoacJJ Beekeeping Bees in a Paris park: http://www. backwardsbeekeepers.com/2012/08/viewer -mail-bees-in-paris-park.html  … Yow! Apple granted patent for loc...

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Notes on Mark Bittman’s “Behind the Scenes of What We Eat”

Last week Erik and I went to see well-known food writer Mark Bittman speak on food policy. He spoke in a huge room in The California Endowment–and it was a full house. Afterward, Erik and I compared it to being in church. We were surrounded by people of the same faith, being told things we already know, and being reminded to be good. And I don’t mean that in a bad way! It never hurts to meditate on how to be better, to do more. Bitt...

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Greywater Guerrillas in LA this Weekend

With the prospect of at least ten more years of drought here in California, greywater is a hot topic. This weekend Oak-town’s fabulous Greywater Guerrillas are heading down to Los Angeles for a weekend of talks and workshops. If you’re not in Southern California, make sure to check out their informative website and their new book Dam Nation. We especially enjoy the GG’s project examples. Here’s the 411 on their LA appeara...

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