Search Results for: label/time banking/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

707 results

Urban Livestock and Bikes!

Mr. Homegrown
Events
1 Comment
India: chickens and bikes in a photo by Shabbir Siraj Urban Livestock Workshop Homegrown Evolution will be hosting an urban livestock workshop at our humble abode in Silver Lake on March 1st from 1-4pm. We’ll be talkin’ chicken, permaculturist Joan Stevens will be rapping about rabbits and Leonardo Chalupowicz will share his recent experience of becoming a “backwards” beekeeper. We’ll discuss how to integrate thes...

Continue reading…

Back to the Ranch

Mr. Homegrown
Events
7 Comments
Ranch photo from the Huntington’s Ranch blog. I’ve never had so much fun at a symposium as I did at the Huntington’s urban agriculture blow-out this weekend. The two day event launched the Huntington’s new experimental urban agricultural station known as the “Ranch” and featured a diverse bunch of speakers. The Ranch will provide much needed information on edible landscapes and food forestry, particul...

Continue reading…

Urban Foraging with Nance Klehm

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Foraging
RLeave a comment
Via The Little Green People Show, a podcast with Chicago’s urban forager Nance Klehm: “We’re not talking gardens or dumpster diving. This is a discussion of the riches that grow in our highway medians, city planters, backyards and rail lines. Expert forager, Nance Klehm, sheds light on the city’s bounty, from medicinal plants to tasty greens. Getting to know the foraging landscape takes some time and energy, but gives bac...

Continue reading…

Chicago’s Urban Bees

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
RLeave a comment
Founded in 2004, the Chicago Honey Co-op tends over a hundred hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there. In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping,...

Continue reading…

Roundin’ up the Summer Urban Homesteading Disasters

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food, Gardening, Mistakes, Vegetable Gardening
16 Comments
Everyday loaf on the left, “charity” loaf on the right. As we’ve noted in our books, part of the deal with this lifestyle is persevering through the inevitable disasters. Which means it’s time for a regular blog feature, the disaster roundup.   Loafing Around I agreed to bake a few baguettes for a charity function this evening. Problem #1 is that I can’t do baguettes in my small oven so I decided to do a s...

Continue reading…

Do Hens Make Noise?

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
8 Comments
Yes, indeed hens make noise. Far less than a rooster, but when it comes time to lay an egg you often get the stereotypical hen vocalization, technically known as “cackling,” which goes something like, “cluck, cluck, cluck, CLUCKAAAAAWWWWK!” Thankfully this only happens around laying time, which for our three productive hens is no more than once a day, and usually at a respectable time between around 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. Som...

Continue reading…

Thoughts on Samhain

Mrs. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
10 Comments
Image from the beautiful book, Haunted Air by Ossian Brown  Mrs. Homegrown here: I celebrate Samhain on November 1st because I enjoy marking the changing seasons of the year by making these old festivals my own. It’s so easy to lose track of time in an electronic culture. It’s even easier to lose track when you live in Los Angeles, land of the perpetual sunshine. Samhain marks the last harvest of the year. The weather is...

Continue reading…

Return of Bean Friday! Chickpea, Pasta and Tomato Soup

Mrs. Homegrown
Bean Fest, Food, Recipes
3 Comments
This is the soup at day two, when the pasta started to fall apart. It was prettier day one, with all the pasta whole and springy. But you get the idea. This one is a keeper. I had to share. We forget how good chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) can be. They get relegated to hummus duty and not much else. This is a mistake. When cooked right, chickpeas take on a sweet creaminess that ought to make them the queen of beans. This recipe highligh...

Continue reading…

Keeping it Local

Mr. Homegrown
Miscellaneous
7 Comments
A depression ear local currency The Wall Street Journal had a fascinating article, Cash-Strapped California’s IOUs: Just the Latest Sub for Dollars on the history of IOUs and local currencies. It seems that Depression 1.0 spurred quite a few improvised currencies, including the “Minneapolis Sauerkraut Note”, for a good reason. Just as today, a lot of people want the rewards for our labor tied to tangibles rather than moneti...

Continue reading…