Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities

...cent and it’s convenient. The BBC’s amazing podcast In Our Time. Advice on self publishing (I’m working on that whole grain bread book). With both Cool Tools and the Whole Earth Catalog, there’s also a lot of stuff that fits into the fantasy category: fun to read about but I’ll probably never do. I’d include igloo making, boat living and camouflage here. But you never know . . . And, thanks to Cool Tools editors Elon Shoenholz and Mark Frauenfelde...

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Journal of the New Alchemists

...) covers mostly their agricultural experiments, but occasionally dips into urban planning and other subjects. Biodome. Image: Journal of the New Alchemy. It’s interesting to look back at their work to see what ideas went mainstream and what faded away. What didn’t stick is what Nassim Taleb would call “top-down” approaches to design epitomized by the 70s fixation on geodesic domes and self contained ecosystems (though we’re starting to see a resur...

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Campfire Cooking: Fish in Clay (& Vegetarian Options!)

...ls, you should use clay packs instead. Pascal said that cooked this way, carrots should be done in about 15 minutes, small potatoes in about 25 minutes, full sized potatoes in an hour. To find out more about Pascal and Mia’s classes, check out Urban Outdoor Skills and Transitional Gastronomy. It’s worth a trip to Los Angeles to take a class. Their Meetup groups are The Los Angeles Wild Food and Self-Reliance Group and Foraging Foodies LA. Friend t...

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The Three Sisters

Due to the rigors of finishing our book The Urban Homesteader due out from Process Media next spring we were late getting around to planting our parkway vegetable garden. To review, the parkway is that space between the sidewalk and the street that belongs to the city but is the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain. The city, of course, wants us all to plant a lawn so that fat people can easily plop out of their Escalades unimpeded. We dec...

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How Much Can You Carry on a Bicycle?

...s to climb hills even with heavy groceries. One need not be car-free to enjoy a cargo bike. For many years Kelly and I shared a car. The Xtracycle was a big part of making that car-light arrangement work. When people ask if urban homesteading saves money, the first thing I point to is the cargo bike, not the chicken coop. The problem? Cargo bikes are not nearly as sexy as the Playboy Land Yacht. That’s a problem I’ll get to in a future post....

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