Steal this Book!

Our book has been released! It’s available wherever books are sold, or you can get an autographed copy from us over on the right side of this page. Tell your friends and family! Blog, twitter, friend, digg and yell! From the press release: The Urban Homestead is the essential handbook for a burgeoning new movement: urbanites are becoming farmers. By growing their own food and harnessing natural energy, city dwellers are reconnecting with t...

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Citified Parched Corn

Dried corn on the left, parched corn with peas and blueberries on right I was thinking about trail food, and wishing for a portable snack which was not based on nuts and chocolate chips (though there’s nothing wrong with that!) or too sugary, like dried fruit or energy bars. Then I recalled parched corn. Parched corn–dried corn which has been roasted–is one of those legendary Native American foods, like pemmican, which you hear...

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Free Introduction to Permaculture

...tory lecture last month and found it thought provoking and informative. Here is Khan’s description of this brief introductory talk: Using ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food, shelter, renewable energy and community. Permaculture is the perfect solution for creating sustainable lifestyles in the city. Learn how to cope with peak oil and the energy descent society of the future. Become the solution! Learn how LA can...

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Make Mag

...tart at home to remake manufacturing, education, food production, transportation, and recreation. In MAKE Volume 18 you’ll learn how to make an automatic garden, heat your water with the sun, monitor and share your home energy usage, and more.” Here’s just a few of the many exciting projects: Chicago comrade Nancy Klehm tells you how to compost human waste. Homegrown Evolution has an article on how to install a drip irrigation...

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Essential System #4 – Illumination

...ber that power plants are America’s single greatest producer of greenhouse gases. And as far as conservation goes, it’s estimated that if every American replaced one bulb with a compact fluorescent it would be the energy equivalent of taking 1.3 million cars off the road. But back to LEDs. For emergency purposes it might be wise to have a Forever Flashlight that requires no batteries. You shake the thing back and forth to run the ligh...

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Book Review: The Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Magic and Peak Oil

...rd spiral of denial and non-action by activism alone. We have to knuckle down and change ourselves. Too often we ask for change, and then point to others and say they have to change. Stop those other people from using so much energy, please. Or we blame politicians. Or we hold on to hope we won’t have to change, not really, because science will save us. We’ll come up with a better energy source, soon right? Or we’ll find more oi...

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Free Preparedness E-Books

...Oven Medicine Making Chinese Herbal Formulas Into Alcohol Extracts  The Ayurveda Encyclopedia Natural Secrets to Healing Prevention and Longevity How to Make Cannabis Foods and Medicines The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees Energy Biogas Biomass Stoves Build your own Rocket Stove Camp Stoves and Fireplaces Transportation Bicycle Know How Zombie Apocalypse Skills (or “ZAS” since everything associated with the zombie apocalypse needs...

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Failed Experiment: Bermuda Buttercup or Sour Grass (Oxalis pes-caprae) as Dye

...long sun steep. I opted for the long steep, put a bowl in the soaking pot to sink the plants beneath the water, and put the pot on the front porch. The day turned out to be cloudy and cool, so I don’t believe that solar energy aided my cause. Then, I ended up leaving the pot out all night long. In the morning some of the Oxalis had turned olive, other parts were still bright green. So I decided it was not done and put it on the stove, bring...

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Airing Our Dirty Laundry

...les, it makes perfect sense to use our region’s free solar power. So why air dry? Let’s do the math. Assuming our (gas powered) dryer uses an average of .22 therms of natural gas per load at our gas company Sempra Energy’s August rate of 59 cents per therm, by using our clothes line we achieve the admittedly not too impressive savings of 17 cents per load. If we had an electric dryer we figure that the cost would be about 44 cen...

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