On the History and Uses of the Router

...vid, guided me through the creation of the through and half-blind dovetail joints you can see above. Don’t forget safety. The thing spins at 27,500 rpm and it takes quite a while for it to come to a stop. And don’t forget to turn the power off when making adjustments. The one minor flaw in my old Porter Cable is the power switch. It’s simultaneously difficult to switch off and easy to accidentally switch on. I’ve heard that the new model’s switch...

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The Wonder of Worms

...oil. Every time you water your plant, the castings will release nutrients. Making tea is just extra work for you. Humans like to complicate things. Worms leave their castings in or on the soil. We should, too. (Leave the worms’ castings, that is, not our own castings. We needn’t alarm the neighbors.) Third, there’s aerated compost tea (ACT), as popularized by Elaine Ingham. This is made by brewing a tea from castings with the help of an air pump,...

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Learn to Build with Adobe

...town headquarters: Making Adobe: The next session of our monthly, half day Making Adobe class in Pioneertown is coming up on Sunday, August 21st. Just a couple minutes from both Sand to Snow National Monument and Joshua Tree National Park, we’ll spend Sunday providing a condensed introduction to making and building with adobe brick. Our final two session this year will be on September 25 and October 23th. Register here, bring your friends, make so...

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Big List of Earth-Friendly (homemade, compostable, recyclable, no-plastic) Holiday Decorations

...ts biodegradable by choosing cotton or wool yarn, and natural fiber cloth. Making little cloth ornaments is a great way to use up scrap cloth and yarn. Save colorful scrap paper for the paper projects. Popcorn/cranberry strings (pro-tip: stale popcorn threads better) Gather a few evergreen branches by the branch ends to make a broom or fan shape, decorate with a spray of berries, tie with a ribbon. Much easier than a wreath! A few cranberries stru...

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George Rector: M.F.K. Fisher’s Dirty Old Uncle

...p. Speaking of befuddled menfolk, Erik is quite fond of this passage about making Hollandaise sauce (from the chapter titled “A Touch of Eggomania”), not least because it has introduced the term “hen fruit” into our lives: For eggs Benedict, you need Hollandaise sauce, an additional contribution of the hen fruit to the pleasures of the palate, and to the confusion of cooks. Hold on to your hats and we’ll round that curve. Add four egg yolks, beate...

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