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

...t 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, bringing it to a bare simmer as described for the direct heat method. In the meanwhile, I rose above my lazy half-assery and scoured my fabric–two whit...

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Arduino Homesteading Projects

...UberFridge Controls Homebrewing Temperatures Cooking Sous-vide cooking Kitchen Timer Security Garage door monitor Arduino Security Hacks Communications Fun with a rotary phone! Miscellaneous Led candle (would look great in my hacked solar light) And a shout out to the amazing bloggers at Holy Scrap, masters of using microcontrollers in clever low-tech ways. Follow their blog! Please leave a comment with a link if you know of other projects that sh...

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Saturday Linkages: Straw Bales and Bike Hacks

...i.ms/10kt1Hf DIY How to fix a bicycle tube http://www.afrigadget.com/2013/02/22/how-to-fix-a-bicycle-tube/ … Bike headlight displays speed: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/20/bike-headlight-displays-speed.html Build-It-Solar Blog: A Inexpensive DIY Blower Door http://www.builditsolarblog.com/2013/02/a-inexpensive-diy-blower-door-that.html?spref=tw … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter: Follow @rootsimple...

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Our Keyhole Vegetable Bed: What Worked and What Didn’t Work

...to our chickens and the compost pile. Ignore the large pot–that’s a future solar powered fountain that will be incorporated in a new vegetable garden we’re working on. Here’s what the keyhole bed looked like just after I installed it back in October. Note the compost repository in the center of the bed. I used straw wattle (available where professional irrigation supplies are sold) to form the sides of the keyhole. A month later in November a few...

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Learn to Build with Adobe

...mmunity College’s Adobe Construction Department: Class: ADOB 113 – Passive Solar Adobe Design Format: 8-Week Online Class Dates: January 21 to March 15, 2014 Credits: 2 Course #: 31660 Class: ADOB 111 – Adobe Construction Basics Format: 8-Week Online Class Dates: March 24 to May 17, 2014 Credits: 3 Course #: 31268 Class: ADOB 112 – Adobe Wall Construction Format: Web-Blended (4 Weeks Online + 2 Days of Intensive Live Instruction) Dates: April 19 t...

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