Author: Mr. Homegrown

Saturday Linkages

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Saturday Linkages
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Not exactly sure if this is a good idea. Maybe if it collected and diluted urine for use as fertilizer!

Combination Urinal Concept Surprisingly Blends Sink & Toilet | Designs & Ideas on Dornob http://dornob.com/combination-urinal-concept-surprisingly-blends-sink-toilet/

Making Shelter Simple: An Interview with Lloyd Kahn: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/making-shelter-simple-an-inte.html

Horticultural myths: http://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~linda chalker-scott/Horticultural Myths_files/

Where Laundry is Garden Art http://bit.ly/JdNs33

Video: Alphabets Heaven beat music and “Private Life of Plants”: http://boingboing.net/2012/05/14/video-alphabets-heaven-beat-m.html

Carpenter builds incredible egg-shaped treehouse hidden from view on Crown land just yards from… http://bit.ly/IkAM7w

Wood fired ovens in Baja California: http://altbuildblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/wood-fired-ovens-in-baja-california-sur.html

Very cool art piece at my Alma mater UCSD: Fallen Star http://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artists/suh.shtml

If you’re in the mood for a long read, something to chew on from Orion: Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

Follow the Root Simple twitter feed for more linkages.

Phoebe Update and a Question: Is Pet Insurance Worthwhile?

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Animals, Cats
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Many of you have asked for an update on our cat Phoebe. She was born with a very defective heart. Instead of being separated into chambers, basically Pheobe’s heart is one big sack. Even her heart valves are defective. If she were a human being, in a prosperous country, she would be waiting for a heart transplant. Cats, however, can’t have heart transplants. Our vet has said that we should enjoy every day we have with her, but that we should not expect her to live for more than nine months from now. She is on a few inexpensive medications to make her days comfortable. She’s slowed down a bit and is showing the first signs of heart failure (an occasional cough), but otherwise acts like a normal cat, playing with Trout and enjoying long afternoon naps.

She is a daily reminder that we should not take life for granted, that we have no control over when our time to pass will come, that we need to celebrate each day as sacred and make the best of the time we have on this earth. The thoughts and prayers readers of this blog have sent our way are greatly appreciated. You, our readers, are people who grow, make, share, and are involved in making this world a better place. We our fortunate to be in communion with you, some in person, others in spirit.

As this blog is practical one, I have a question for you. Thankfully we did not have to make any hard financial decisions regarding her care. There’s simply nothing that can be done. But veterinary expenses raise some real ethical (I’ll leave those ethical questions for philosophers and theologians to parse out) and financial quandaries.  As to those financial questions, I’m curious to hear from blog readers about veterinary insurance. Do you think it’s worthwhile? Have you used it to care for the pets in your own household?

Should Reuseable Bags Be Washed?

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Food, Thoughtstylings
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Root Simple’s stylish new norovirus shopping bag.

Kansas State University’s humorously named Barf Blog has been following the story of a norovirus outbreak related to a reusable grocery bag that sickened 13 members of a soccer team. Norovirus, incidentally, is the most common foodborne illness–when you get food poisoning or the “stomach flu,” odds are that it’s probably norovirus.

So should you wash your reusable bags to prevent norovirus? It’s probably a good idea but, according to Barf Blog, there’s not a lot of evidence about the question–just one study on the matter.

In fact it’s not clear if the bag in this 2010 incident was to blame or the fact that the bag, stuffed with food, spent some time on the floor of the bathroom where, “viral particles likely floated over from the toilet.” Yuck! No wonder the Barf Blog folks avoid potlucks.

So how do you dodge norovirus? Food safety professor Doug Powell, writing for Barf Blog has this list of factoids and suggestions:

1. Norovirus can spread infection through contact with surfaces and objects contaminated by aerosolized particles.
2. Noroviruses are highly contagious, even in low concentration, and the viruses spread efficiently from feces and vomit by direct and indirect contact.
3. Noroviruses are the leading cause of endemic diarrheal disease across all age groups, the leading cause of foodborne disease, and the cause of half of all gastroenteritis outbreaks worldwide.
4. Whenever possible, ill persons should use a separate bathroom to reduce the potential for spread of the virus. Notify family members or cleaning staff about the need for thorough disinfection of surfaces.

There goes my business plan for a combination bathroom/salad bar at the airport! But it does seem like washing hands should be a higher priority than washing reusable bags.

Picture Sundays: Trout Smells Kraut

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Animals, Cats, Picture Sundays
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Somehow, in a post about a handy fermenter from the Farmer’s Kitchen, I failed to put up this shamelessly cute picture of our cat, Trout, interfering with the photo session.

If you’d like more proof that the internet is some kind of million typing monkey/non-linear/collective unconsciousness generation machine, try typing “cat and sauerkraut” into Google. You get a fluffy and deaf white cat who loves sauerkraut. We can now consider that long experiment in human civilization complete.