Erik’s 2012 New Year’s Resolutions in Review

December 31, 2012

...mp on Santa Rosa island again. Return to biodynamic practices in the garden. Learn how to sharpen knives and tools. Create an iPhone or iPad app. Check email only twice a day. Take more time to cook. Keep the kitchen spotless. Ferment vegetables more often. My New Year’s resolution this year is to have a much shorter New Year’s resolution list. I’ll post that list tomorrow. So how did your 2012 go? What did you accomplish on your homestead? Please...

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Black Widow or False Black Widow?

Mrs. Homegrown

May 9, 2013

Animals, Composting, Insects

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...e kind of dangerous, either. This is not reassuring. But then on the handy page Frequently Encountered Spiders in California, I learned about the False black widow. Another European invasive, this spider seems to be displacing our native black widows in urban areas. This spider is roughly the same size and shape as a black widow, but is brown with a faint purple sheen. I like this false black widow option a lot. The false widows don’t have a dange...

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007 RIP Handsome, 3 Power Tools You Should Own and Hipster Compost

Mr. Homegrown

July 9, 2014

Podcasts

4 Comments

...comment on the blog we review an old post on three power tools every urban homesteader should own: drill, circular saw and jigsaw. Lastly, we expand on a recent post about composting brew waste, coffee grounds, juice pulp and coconut husks. In other words, “hipster compost.” During the discussion we answer a reader concern about black solider flies in compost. For more info on soldier flies (they are beneficial in compost but can be a problem in w...

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Scooters? Not a New Idea

Mr. Homegrown

July 1, 2019

Transportation

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Sun, Oct 8, 1916 – Page 58 · New York Herald (New York, New York) · Newspapers.com It turns out the urban scooter craze isn’t a new idea. From a story in an October 8, 1916 newspaper, “Skidding Through Fact and Fancy on an Autoped: Solo Devil Wagon Taken Up in a Serious Way Might Add New Terrors to City Life” is a description of motorized scooter not all that different than the ones we see today: You stand on the cute platform and get your feet n...

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