On the History and Uses of the Router

...tick by the part about a router being an entire woodshop in one tool. I’ve used mine mostly for making baseboard molding for our old house. What I did not appreciate, until recently, is that you can do some impressive joinery with a router. Federico Tobon’s discussion of jigs on the Opposable Thumbs Podcast inspired me to increase my familiarity with my router. Of all the power tools in my small shop, the router is probably the one that most needs...

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It Quacks Like a Duck

...of the line was an old comrade of ours, one of the proprietors of Petaluma Urban Homestead, who we know from Mr. Homegrown Revolution’s post grad school sojourn in the dull city of San Diego. In the ten years since we lost contact it turns out that our lives have taken similar paths, including the appreciation of Xtracycles and poultry. Except that the folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead have had the brilliance of exploring the world of ducks in add...

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Water Conservation

...the University of Bonn in Germany concluded that dishwashers use half the energy, one sixth the water, and less soap than hand washing. One last sobering statistic to remember–the average American uses between 80 and 100 gallons per person per day, with the higher consumption coming from folks living in the dry Southwest. The average African uses 5 gallons a day....

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Is the Urban Homesteading Trend Over?

...ikes that coincide with canning at the end of summer. Unsurprisingly, most homesteading topics revolve around seasons. Seasonality, by the way, is one of things I really like about this movement. A digression here–the flatness of time (see Charles Taylor)–is one of the things I don’t like about modernity. “Home canning” searches “Home canning” searches show a more dramatic decline. “Backyard Chickens” searches People research backyard chickens in...

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Casting out the lawn

...with our increasing food troubles, I’d like to think that today, in addition to the vegetables, Jesus would welcome livestock back to the church grounds (cathedrals were used in the Middle Ages as barns, after all). For more info and photos, see Holy Nativity’s Community Garden page....

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