Come see us at the fair!

...lion, on the San Vicente side of the park. 1:oo-2:00: We’ll be signing The Urban Homestead at the Feral House Booth/Sexy Groove Lounge with the Feral House Pixies. Other spectacular Feral House/Process authors will be signing throughout the day, too. Location: booths C8 & C9, in the “Imix” zone, which is sort of between the food court and the pool. 2:00-2:30: We’re doing a demo at the booth–making butter! Afterward we’ll just be hanging out for th...

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Bisphenol-A

...the early onset of puberty in girls. We’ve done our best around our little urban homestead to eliminate plastics from our lives, but where we still encounter BPA is in canned foods which we like to have on hand. Next time you pop open a can take a look at the inside–odds are there is a nearly invisible clear plastic lining which is where you’ll find the BPA. So with BPA we have yet another one of those throw up your hands in disgust, anger and des...

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Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus). Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medicin...

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2017 the Year in Review

...out to the Electronic Frontier Foundation for successfully cancelling the urban homestead trademark this year and freeing that phrase for all to use. I’d also like to thank Eric Rochow of Garden Fork for his ongoing support for our blog and podcast. There were many times this year when I did not feel like writing or putting together the podcast. Eric served both as an emergency guest and as an encouraging voice. And, of course, thank you all for...

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A Love Supreme

...te developers. I’m also sticking my neck out because I’ve seen some in the urban homesteading movement drift towards what I’d call a fascist and/or alt-right adjacent ideology and I want to distance myself from that contingent. More on that in another post. I believe that the way we treat the environment, our bodies and our households is on a continuum with the way we take care of all people. Everyone has a right to health care, housing and educat...

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