Incandescent, Compact Fluorescent or LED?

...sealed, enclosed or recessed lighting fixtures. You also have to check the label and perhaps even call the manufacturer to figure out if a CFL will work in a horizontal, base-up or base-down fixture. CFLs perform poorly if turned on and off without at least 15 to 30 minutes to warm up. CFLs contain mercury and other toxins and must be disposed of responsibly. Stick to major brands. Avoid non-UL-listed cheap import bulbs. A trip to the light bulb a...

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Quince: the “Poster Child of Slowness”

...bor was nice enough to pop by with some she bought local Asian market. The label must have lost something in translation, but refers to a variety called “Pineapple quince”. Karp points out in his article that this is the most prevalent commercial variety. When picked fresh it could conceivably be eaten raw, though the commercial stuff ain’t fresh. Quince is indeed, as one of Karp’s sources notes, “the poster child of slowness.” I tried to make som...

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How to Make a Bee Skep

...s along with Mr. Spock’s Music From Outer Space and a classified 16mm film rocket test film from the 1950s. Should you not be so fortunate as to find a skep in your local thrift store, Modern Farmer Magazine has a post on how you can build your own. Looks like a fun project. How skeps are used The following series of videos show how skeps are used. Part 6 documents the steps leading up to the honey harvest. It’s a labor intensive process. To get a...

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Video Tour of the Root Simple Compound

...QXIwRTDqgE Johnny Sanphillippo from Faircompanies.com shot a nice video tour of our house. Excuses for the audio–it was shot during a very windy day. And I really need to get around to painting the garage! You’ll see our chicken coop. The video also features our rocket stove, horno and emergency potty plus a spin around the pantry. But the real star of this video is our 1920 bungalow. I wish they still build houses like this (sorry Dwell). Thank y...

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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...

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