Search Results for: label/time banking/page/2/2011/04/making-it

691 results

Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider

Mrs. Homegrown
Reviews
4 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: I fell into temptation and bought Seaweed, Salmon and Manzanita Cider: A California Indian Feast at the Theodore Payne Foundation this week. I should know by now not to look around that book store. Like Ulysses, I should tie myself to the mast–pay for my native plants and get out. Somehow it never works. Seaweed, Salmon is a pretty little book. Paperback, thin, but coffee table worthy, because it’s so interesti...

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Nasturtium Powder

Mr. Homegrown
Food, Food Preservation, Foraging
15 Comments
Around this time of year Nasturtium becomes a kind of massive monocrop in our yard. We’re always trying to figure out uses for it. Of course it does well in salads, both the greens and the flowers, and we’ve made capers of the pods. Also, the flowers make a particularly beautiful pesto. But this year, inspired by the culinary experiments of forager Pascal Baudar and his partner Mia Wasilevich (friend them in Facebook if you want a d...

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Help Me Fix My Runner’s Knee

Mr. Homegrown
Fitness
42 Comments
...n one is a valuable part of the homesteader’s fitness toolkit. As least during this encounter with knee pain I have better doctors than I did the last time–a few years ago the diagnosis was arthritis (incorrect as it turns out) and the treatment consisted of a bottle of ibuprofen. Right now the orthopedist has asked me to: take it easy for six weeks (gonna be hard but I’ll do it) perform quad strengthening exercises with ankle...

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Is Cycling Too Dangerous?

Mr. Homegrown
Bikes, Fitness, Miscellaneous, Thoughtstylings, Transportation
35 Comments
Photo by Dru Marland. I’ve been hit by cars twice cycling around Los Angeles. In the first accident a medical delivery driver made a left turn in front of me and I collided with the rear panel of his car. It was his fault but, initially, the driver’s employer tried to come after me for $900 worth of damage. Fortunately, their insurance company took my side in the matter and even replaced my bent fork. In the second accident, a motori...

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Moving Bees Out of a Meter Box

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Bees
3 Comments
Nuc box (new home) on left–utility box enclosure (old home) on right. I got an email the other day from someone who had a beehive in his electric meter box, a popular destination for bees in this area. It was a very small hive that had taken up residence just a few weeks ago. The house was about to be put up for sale so I had to get them out pronto. I brought along a cardboard nuc box–a temporary hive box used to transport b...

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The Perfect Chicken Coop?

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
7 Comments
Do a Google image search for “chicken coop” and a solid majority of the results will look very much like this nearly 100 year old coop featured in The Gardener’s and Poultry Keeper’s Guide and Illustrated Catalog. Why is this basic design still with us? The attached run gives chickens some space to scratch around in while keeping them safe from predators if you can’t make it home by dark. You can hang a feeder in...

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Waking up on New Year’s Day with the world of long crowing roosters

Mr. Homegrown
Animals, Chickens
9 Comments
...tenko (red crower) and a Tomaru. Somewhat perversely, the long crowing trait makes for lower fertility in eggs and greater susceptibility to disease in chicks. As Humans have bred long crowing roosters for thousands of years, it’s a reminder that people have been placing fun and entertainment before utility for a long time. An anthropology professor I once had speculated that the musical bow came before the hunting bow. Other anthropologis...

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Easy To Make Furniture: Sunset DIY Manual From the 1970s

Mr. Homegrown
Design
10 Comments
...on their hands and an eye for discarded materials could make use of some of the concepts in this book. So start dumpster diving! Let’s take those scavenged materials and revisit the bean bag. Easy-to-Make furniture has its own unique twist on the concept. Say hello to the “Multiposition Tube Seat”: And yes you can have a particle board chair:   With a built-in magazine rack: Scope out this book in its entirety here....

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Garden Amendments as Placebos

Mr. Homegrown
Gardening, Soil, Thoughtstylings
9 Comments
I just finished writing an article for Urban Farm Magazine on the subject of aerated compost tea (ACT for short). It proved to be one of the most contentious subjects on which I’ve ever tried to, as Mark Twain liked to say, “corral the truth.” It got me thinking about other controversial soil additives popular in organic gardening and farming circles right now such as rock dust, mycorrhizae additives, and biochar. Now I pr...

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The Barrier Method

Mrs. Homegrown
Gardening, Pests
6 Comments
Over the years we’ve lost countless plants to digging, chewing, trampling and sucking critters, mammals and insects both. We finally got smart. It makes sense to invest a little extra time and money to protect your crops and your livestock with physical barriers. This practice started sort of piecemeal around here, with us only exerting ourselves over particularly problem-prone situations. Nowadays protection is standard for every bed we p...

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