Search Results for: label/water conservation

481 results

The Rain Got Real

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Gardening, Thoughtstylings
...ater level was the highest I’ve ever seen it. The rain garden gets all the water from one half of our roof which I calculate to have been about 1,500 gallons of water in the last 24 hours. To briefly get back to the Žižek book I rambled about last week, I was reminded of Lacan’s notion of the “Real”, that which is unrepresentatible, unthinkable. Subjects such as our own deaths and climate change fall into the category of the Real. The incomprehens...

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More on How to Make Clear Ice

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Food
...cooler (also known as “directional freezing”). The distilled water and hot water methods don’t work, according to English. I also learned that the enigmatic David Rees (author of a book on sharpening pencils!), and one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, did a whole National Geographic special on ice that includes a segment on making clear ice. And did you know that clear ice sometimes happens naturally? Behold this viral YouTube hit, “Walking o...

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Three Things I’ve Learned About Baking Bread With Whole Grain

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Bread, Food
25 Comments
...h more water than white flour. Bread recipes are a ratio between flour and water. In bread baking parlance this is called a hydration ratio (to get the hydration ratio you divide the water by the flour–the quirk of baker’s math is that the flour is always 100% ). Old school bread recipes, most of which require a lot of kneading, have hydration ratios in the 65% range. Popular no-knead white bread recipes have hydration ratios in the 75% to 80% ran...

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Practical Backyard Chicken Biosecurity

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Animals, Chickens
10 Comments
...luenza. I’ve never seen a duck land in our yard, but if you have a pool or water feature this could be something to think about. Some other suggestions from Dr. Gallardo: Buy from hatcheries that are National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP) certified. NPIP hatcheries immunize for Mareks disease. Separate sick birds immediately. Quarantine new birds for 30 days. Prevent mosquitoes by draining standing water. Mosquitoes can spread fowl pox and other...

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Day to day, our decisions count

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Back to the Garden
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...ean staggering amounts. For instance, according the NRDC, 80% of our fresh water goes to agriculture. So, when we’re wasting food at this rate, that means that 25% of our fresh water is going directly to waste. Here in the dry West, that kind of extravagance has become unconscionable. In terms of soil, think about this. To grow all the food we waste globally, we use an area of land one and half times larger than the U.S. That’s a lot of soil. And...

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