Butter Making Demo at the Natural History Museum

Join us for what I promise will be the Burning Man of butter making this Friday evening at the Natural History Museum. We’ll be doing a hands-on shake your own butter demo with live drummers. Best of all it’s freeeeeeeeeeeee, but you need to RSVP. And there’s more: MUSIC with COASTIN (5-7 pm) and Evan Weiss from Junk (7-9pm) BUTTER MAKING with authors, Erik Knutzen & Kelly Coyne (*timed-ticket required) POTTING SUCCULENTS (*timed-ticket required)...

Read…

Making It Available in Overdrive App

...ecreational library visit, my favorite librarian informed me that our book Making It is available for download in the Overdrive app. Ego boosted! Many public libraries, in addition to books, now have a long list of digital gewgaws, apps and resources. One of those apps is Overdrive, which allows you to download eBooks, videos and audio books to your digital devices for free. Over 30,000 libraries worldwide use Overdrive to distribute materials. To...

Read…

Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS)

...r with just a PET plastic bottle. The diagram, developed by Unicef, pretty much speaks for itself. Too much gunk in the water? Let it settle and filter through some cloth. At least six hours of sunlight will be enough UV to kill bad buggies. Using solar water disinfection, or “SODIS”, replaces the need to boil water, thus reducing deforestation to supply fire wood. Obviously, this is not a long term solution. Drinking water out of heated plastic b...

Read…

Saturday Linkages: The Calm After the Storm

...rblog.com/2012/10/a-unique-diy-solar-pool-heating.html?spref=tw … Build-It-Solar Blog: Large DIY Solar Space and Water Heating System in … http://www.builditsolarblog.com/2012/10/large-diy-solar-space-and-water-heating.html?spref=tw … Primitive Skills Roland Trevino of Altadena Makes and Uses the Ancient Atlatl: http://dirttime.com/?p=2741 Gardening What to do with storm damaged trees: http://www.treesaregood.org/pressrelease/press/firstaid.aspx …...

Read…

How to Put Together a Small Scale Solar System

How can you use solar panels to power a few lights, run a fountain or charge some tools? It seems like a simple question, and yet I can’t tell you how many books/magazines/websites I’ve combed through in search of a basic tutorial for anything less than wiring up a whole house. Now I know how thanks to a podcast conversation between Eric of Garden Fork and Will of the Weekend Homestead. Will describes how he rigged up a few panels and batteries t...

Read…