Book Review: What the Robin Knows

...ets of bird sounds and bird motion you see and hear in that place, at that time or day, at that time of year. To facilitate this recognition, he teaches you the five basic types of calls birds make (alarm calls, companion calls, etc.), using online audio files to help with the most common birds. He goes on to teach about behavior, predators, etc. Once you understand the baseline you will be able to tell when the baseline is disturbed, and eventual...

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Time for some comments . . .

Photo by Andreas Gursky. We had thought that we’d just have a few posts about the Age of Limits conference and get back to the appropriate technology and home economics posts that are the norm at Root Simple. But, judging from the comments and emails we’ve been getting, it seems we’ve brought up a topic that needs deeper exploration, so we’re going to do a few more posts related to the Triple Headed Hydra of Despair: Climate Change, Economic Coll...

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Age of Apocalypse

...c of an apocalypse meme should be noted: the insistence that this point in time, this convergence of signs, portents and factors is unique in all of human history. That while sure, other apocalypses haven’t worked out, this time it’s different. One of the apocalypse memes at the conference varied from the classic “chosen survivors” variant, and it is reflect in the writings of Guy McPherson, the speaker who caused the most buzz. In his worldview,...

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So Much Poultry, So Little Time

...to hippify the uniforms a bit . . . -When the economy hits the skids people start thinking about keeping chickens. I spoke to the editor of the always informative Backyard Poultry Magazine about this phenomena. She said that she tries to tell people that you should keep chickens in good times and bad (amen!), but that when the economy tanks Backyard Poultry’s circulation soars. We predict Ben Bernanke will put together a coop behind the Federal Re...

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From the Archives: That Time Kelly Accidentally Ate Hemlock

...be wise to avoid this family entirely. That said, Pascal tells a story of running into a group of older Armenian woman gathering hemlock. When he questioned them they explained that they boil the hemlock and change out the water multiple times to make the leaves edible. I suspect they were using the plant medicinally. Neither Pascal nor Root Simple endorse this. Happy summer foraging and watch out for the hemlock! Let us know in the comments if y...

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