Brother, My Cup is Empty

...why. In short it’s pathetic to explain why I don’t feel like writing a new rocket stove post when much better writers easily accessed the muses under far more difficult circumstances. As Cave puts it, John Wilmot penned his poetry Riddled with the pox Nabokov wrote on index cards At a lectern, in his socks St. John of the Cross did his best stuff Imprisoned in a box And Johnny Thunders was half alive When he wrote Chinese Rocks Our excuses? A kidn...

Read…

Seat Weaving for Fun and Profit

...ble with a nice set of inexpensive, second-hand chairs. Seat weaving ain’t rocket science and it’s a whole lot more useful than sending idiots to mars. Traditionally, this type of woven seat was made with cordage harvested from water plants. Beginning in the early 20th century, in the U.S., most rush seats were made from a rush substitute called fiber rush which is made out of spun paper, the same paper used for grocery bags. This is what I used s...

Read…

093 Micheal Judd on Edible Landscaping with a Permaculture Twist

...ntour Dealing with homeowner’s associations Pawpaws Custard apples InStove rocket stove Cocktails American persimmons Mulberries and grafting mulberries Jujubes Growing mushrooms Source for mushroom spawn: Field and Forest and Fungi Perfecti A permacultural approach to death and home burial If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our pod...

Read…

California’s New Greywater Code: Common Sense Legalized!

...imes spur more innovation like this. Originally slated to go into effect in 2010, the plumbing code was updated as an emergency measure to deal with drought conditions that have plagued the southwestern US for years. Under the new California greywater code: 1. In most cases you won’t need a permit. 2. Allows discharge into a simple mulch basin rather than the expensive and complicated sub-surface emitters required under the old regulations. 3. No...

Read…

Let’s Talk About the Holidays

...tension between tradition and its conflict with modern life (note Habermas’ 2010 dialog with Jesuit scholars if you want to fall down a ponderous and inconclusive philosophical rabbit hole). Then there’s what I call the fake snow on Hollywood Boulevard problem. Living in a Mediterranean climate, as we do, is confusing. The days are short, but the hills are green. The fake snow gets coated in smog. Here’s the problem. The Christmas story is overlai...

Read…