Make an Aluminum Can Lamp

...cans. According to the author of that article, Del Gideon, the Vietnamese used to make these lamps back during the war. You can also use these lamps to heat up water. Making one is easy: 1. Remove the top off a can. We like to do this by scoring the inner ring of the top with a razor blade and then using a pair of pliers to bust it out. The fastidious and safety conscious may want to file down the sharp edge. 2. Cut a 2 1/2 inch square window out...

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The Tiny House

...the fact that these structures were meant to be hauled down a highway and used for camping. Trailers often have a transient and less than homey vibe. Between the extremes of conventional housing and trailers there is an interesting, and revolutionary alternative. In 1997 Jay Shafer took it upon himself to try an experiment in radical simplicity and create the smallest possible living space he could. Measuring just 100 square feet, his tiny house...

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Physalis pruinosa a.k.a. “Ground Cherry”

...in the world but is not considered an important crop. It is most commonly used in jams and pies. According to the Horticulture department of Purdue University, In England, the cape gooseberry was first reported in 1774. Since that time, it has been grown there in a small way in home gardens, and after World War II was canned commercially to a limited extent. Despite this background, early in 1952, the Stanford Nursery, of Sussex, announced the “C...

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A Parvati Solar Cooker

...nd affixed the aluminum foil with spray glue. For our first pot of rice we used a black enamel pot to better absorb the heat of the sun’s rays, and wrapped it in a roasting bag to increase the efficiency of the cooker. A five gallon bucket made a convenient stand and did not have to be rotated in the two hours it took to cook the rice. Longer cooking times would require re-aiming the cooker as the sun moves across the sky. Temperature in the pot q...

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Spent Grain Bread–We Brew Econo

...sing the spent grains, the leftover malted barley and crystal malt that we used in the beer recipe, which are strained out before the beer is put away to ferment, as a flavoring for our wild yeast bread (recipe and instructions for making that bread here—we added 4.5 ounces of the spent grains to the dough–and we just threw them in whole without grinding them up as some folks on the internets suggest). The rich, smoky taste and the dark color thes...

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