Austin’s Rhizome Collective Evicted

Buy our book The Urban Homestead on Amazon and you’ll get a message that you may also enjoy the Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guide by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. I own a copy of this wonderful book and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is interested in the topics on this blog or in our book. Kellogg and Pettigrew are co-founders of the Rhizome Collective, an innovative intentional community in Austin, Texas. Sadly, it seems the Rhizome Collective has been evicted from their land due to code enforcement issues.

On Tuesday, March 17, 2009, the Rhizome Collective, including both the individuals and organizations that have called 300 Allen St. home, was barred from the building due to the City of Austin Code Enforcement declaring the building unsafe. This is a tragic loss and has been traumatic for the people who have invested so much in the space, from long nights of hard work repairing bikes and mailing off books to days of tending the garden to evenings of laughter in the kitchen.

The Rhizome collective is asking for donations on their website, www.rhizomecollective.org. I would also suggest buying a copy of their book directly from them. We hope that the Rhizome Collective can find a new home as their work is vital in our uncertain times.

Hummer Driver Runs Down Cyclists LAPD Officer Lets Driver Go

Cellphone Photo by Matt Stilline

In the early morning hours on Friday in downtown Los Angeles a group of around a dozen cyclists were involved in a hit and run incident with a Hummer driver that resulted in minor injuries and three demolished bikes. The driver was pulled over several blocks away by the LAPD only to be let go. Officer Cho came back to speak to the group of cyclists stating, “Get everyone together because I don’t want to say this twice. If anyone says anything I’m gonna walk away and I’m not going to talk to you guys. Based on the evidence right now it looks like the cyclist hit the car, not that the car hit the cyclist.” He added, “if it had been me with my family in that car, I’d have done the same thing, and I carry a gun in my car.”

Read the rest of the ugly details on Westside BikeSIDE! [note: Westside BikeSIDE! seems to be down due to heavy traffic]. Gary Rides Bikes also has the scoop.

Urban Homestead Wins Book Award

Our book, The Urban Homestead just won a gold medal in the Independent Publisher Awards. To celebrate we’ll throw in a back issue of Ripples magazine for the first twenty folks who buy a copy of our book off of this website. Ripples is, “A Revolutionary Journal of Seasonal Delight” published by the nice folks at www.dailyacts.org.

Now that’s enough tooting our own horn. We’ll get back to posting when the dust settles after Earth Day and talk about the hops vines that have just sprouted . . .

Homegrown Evolution on WAMC

Kelly and I will be on WAMC, Northeast Public Radio’s Roundtable show on Earth Day, April 22nd at 9:15 am EST. You can listen in online here.

Earth Day will be a busy one for us as Erik will also be on a panel for the National Conversation on Climate Action at 2 pm PST at MTA headquarters. More info here.

We’ll close the day with a book signing at an innovative new neighborhood market called Locali. We’ll be there at 7 pm PST and hope to see some locals.

Satan’s House Plant: More on Asparagus setaceus/plumosus

Photo by Mr. Subjunctive

It seems like we hit a raw nerve with our mention of one of our least favorite plants, Asparagus setaceus. Just in a case you’d like to know more about this demonic plant, Mr. Subjunctive, a garden center employee with a fantastic blog, Plants are the Strangest People, has a detailed post about Asparagus setaceus (apparently also known as Asparagus plumosus).