Search Results for: label/time banking/page/3/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

742 results

Deodorizing Wash

Mrs. Homegrown
Body Care, Domesticus
4 Comments
Deodorizing wash? Freshening wash? In Making It we called it cleansing spray. I’ve never been quite sure what to call this. It’s not a deodorant, in that it doesn’t really stay on you, deodorizing continuously. It’s not a body wash in that you don’t use it in the shower. This is a little mix I created, a simple blend of water, baking soda and essential oil. It’s something you can splash on and towel off real...

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Los Angeles Bread Bakers Blog

Mr. Homegrown
Bread, Food
RLeave a comment
Just a short time after planting–a field of wheat sprouts in Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles Bread Bakers, that I helped co-found along with Mark Stambler and Teresa Sitz, now has a blog: losangelesbreadbakers.blogspot.com. A big thanks to Saul Alpert-Abrams for putting it together and to Paul Morgan for blogging! Paul has been writing about the wheat we helped plant at Maggie’s Farm in Agoura Hills, a suburb of Los Angeles on t...

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Buddy Burner

Mr. Homegrown
Preparedness
8 Comments
An easy craft project for the family survivalist, taken from the brilliant 70’s Mormon classic: Roughing it Easy, by Dian Thomas. A buddy burner is a heat source for camping or emergencies made out of a tuna can, candle stubs and cardboard. It acts like a Sterno can, will burn for 1 1/2 – 2 hours, and can be recharged and reused. To make a buddy burner you need to gather: a clean tuna can, a piece of corrugated cardboard, a bunch of candle...

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Make a Brigid’s Cross

Mrs. Homegrown
Design, Domesticus, How-to
6 Comments
A little cross hanging on our chicken coop Spring is here. In LA, it’s definitely in full swing, but I suspect even in more northerly places folks may notice a slight change in the air, or find early flowers like snowdrops or crocuses pushing their way through the snow. Spring is stirring. To celebrate spring this year, I made a few Brigid’s crosses to hang in the house and out on the chicken coop. They’re protective s...

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Homegrown Revolution Visits SF

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
1 Comment
Homegrown Revolution will be heading up to San Francisco this week in search of tales of fermentation, backyard chickens, humanure and bikes. We’ll be back in LA just in time for mycologist Paul Stamets‘ lecture “How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World” at the Farmlab. The lecture will be on Friday April 13, at 7:30 pm at 1745 N. Spring Street #4 Los Angeles, CA 90012....

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Do Something Day

Mr. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
4 Comments
In honor of Buy Nothing Day, we present a memorable Craigslist ad found by our comrade, neighbor and art blogger Doug Harvey while looking for a refrigerator to replace the one that got fried in a freak electric storm the other night, “Never used, brand new 2008 GE Energystar fridge in original box. Blessed by his Holiness the Dalai Lama upon his last visit to Los Angeles, this fridge is sure to maintain the temperature and spiritual balan...

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Seaching for Seeds

Mr. Homegrown
Seeds
3 Comments
Old school seed searching: order assembler standing next to racks containing packages at the W. Atlee Burpee Company, 1943 It’s never too early to start planning that garden. And towards that goal, Mother Earth News has created a nice custom Google search engine that scours over 600 seed suppliers. It’s the perfect way to find those obscure plants and varieties not at the local nursery. The search engine even includes our favorite s...

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Gideon Lincecum Virtual Herbarium

Mrs. Homegrown
Herbs
1 Comment
–click to biggify– (If you still can’t read it, it says “Erigeron canadensis, the common hogsweed, bruise and press out the juice from the green plant and take it in tablespoonful dose as often as the stomach will bear, for bleeding lungs, bleeding from the stomach, bowels or womb. It is a powerful agent in stopping hemorrhage from any organ.”) Mrs. Homegrown here: Our friend Nancy gave us some salve made up o...

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How To Design a Garden Step II: Using Google Earth to Draw Up a Plan

Mr. Homegrown
Garden Design, Gardening
5 Comments
So you’ve set the goals for your garden, as we outlined in a post earlier this week, and you’re ready to start putting pen to paper. Google Earth makes it easy to quickly create a plan to scale. Zoom in on the space you want to garden and print out an image. Next, take separate sheets of tracing paper and use them to map out: your goals existing conditions such as trees and buildings future plantings where water flows when it rain...

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Our Happy Foot/Sad Foot Sign

Mrs. Homegrown
Thoughtstylings
16 Comments
Mrs. Homegrown here: Nothing about growing or making today–sorry to go off topic (Erik is wincing a bit as I post this), but I want to talk about our Foot.  It’s a very local sort of story, but isn’t localism what it’s all about? The podiatrist’s sign above marks the entrance to our neighborhood. It charmed us the first time we saw it: It’s a foot–with feet!  And we immediately named it the Happy Foot/S...

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