Homegrown Revolution occasionally gets a laugh reviewing the search phrases that land people on this blog. At times the phrases resemble a kind of random internet haiku. We thought we’d review a few of them and respond.

“is Roundup bad for cats”

YES! Roundup, Monsanto’s ubiquitous herbicide, is bad for all living things.

“how to survive living out of your car”

We’d suggest a subscription to Dwelling Portably for answers to that.

“how to make methamphetamine using a 5 gallon bucket”

Can’t help you there, but we can suggest a healthier use for a 5 gallon bucket.

“pizza dough peak oil flour”

It may be shameless promotion, but we think we’re the only source for a pizza recipe for peak oil fans. Of course, sticklers for detail will point out that we did not grow and grind our own flour. We’ll get to how to do that soon.

“injera get bad without refrigeration”

We made a very successful batch of the Ethiopian bread injera back in March without any refrigeration involved. In fact refrigeration would probably prevent it from fermenting as it’s supposed to. Comrades, it’s time to overcome your food safety paranoias!

“Accidentally flushed tampon applicator”

Our favorite search phrase, and in fact something we’ve witnessed first hand when we paid a visit to a sewage treatment plant back in February.

Thanks to the cinematic revolutionaries at the Echo Park Film Center, Homegrown Revolution’s debut video “How to Build a Self Watering Container” will premiere at the Silver Lake Film Festival, as part of the Sustainable LA program on SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY May 6th at 11:30 a.m. at the LosFeliz 3 (1822 North Vermont Avenue-map).

We’ll be sharing a program with composting Culver City comrade Elon Schoenholz, the Fallen Fruit dudes, and even the illustrious Midnight Ridazz, who have agreed to wake up before noon to attend.

Join us for the after-party, and the after-after-party during which we’ll go find a barricade to storm.

Homegrown Revolution will be heading up to San Francisco this week in search of tales of fermentation, backyard chickens, humanure and bikes. We’ll be back in LA just in time for mycologist Paul Stamets‘ lecture “How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World” at the Farmlab. The lecture will be on Friday April 13, at 7:30 pm at 1745 N. Spring Street #4 Los Angeles, CA 90012.

We interrupt this dull series of articles about rainwater harvesting for important breaking news at our urban homestead–the development of the SurviveLA signature cocktail–the Survivor.

For a long time we’ve cursed the previous owners of our compound for their useless, inedible landscaping. One of the plants they left us that we’ve lived with for all these years is an ornamental pomegranate tree (Punica granatum) that, while attractive, we had previously assumed was useless due to the very small fruit. We’ve tried to eat them, and found the flavor a little too tart, and the seeds difficult to extract. Thanks to a tip on the internets, we discovered that the answer to using ornamental pomegranates is to juice them.

The fresh juice was surprisingly sweet and flavorful, leading us immediately to grab the cocktail shaker and develop the long overdue SurviveLA cocktail:

Now, we’re more the stern gin drinking types around here, but the citrus vodka seemed to provide the right note of tartness to balance out the sweet pomegranate juice. The name, Survivor, is in part a dedication to the plant itself. Pomegranates can survive with little or no water in terrible soil and never seem to need to be fertilized.

As a symbol the pomegranate can be found in all of the cultures of the Mediterranean. From the Wikipedia entry:

In the sixth century BCE, Polykleitos took ivory and gold to sculpt the seated Argive Hera in her temple. She held a scepter in one hand and offered a pomegranate, like a royal orb, in the other. “About the pomegranate I must say nothing,” whispered the traveler Pausanias in the second century AD, “for its story is something of a mystery.”

We propose that Hera ditch her scepter and instead grasp a cold martini glass containing the newest cocktail of 2007, the Survivor.