“Urban Homesteading” belongs to us all

...gistered trademark on both terms. Beyond that, some people found their web pages or social media sites removed when their hosting services responded to take-down notices issued by the Dervaes Institute, including Denver Urban Steading and Process Media/Feral House, the publisher of our book, The Urban Homestead. The good folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) stepped forward to help. One of their interests is protecting the commons of l...

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Creating a Perpetual Garden Journal

...just commit to the lines. I would recommend finding a journal with enough pages to devote a spread of two pages to each week. I have only one page per week and I think the results will be a little cramped. Are my drawings great? Nope. But I’ve decided to embrace my slightly wonky draftsmanship and just roll with it. It’s the act of seeing, after all, that’s more important. Lara Call Gastinger’s Instagram is a great introduction to the perpetual j...

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The Hugelkultur Question

...out when writing a magazine article. A civil discussion ensued on that Facebook page, proving that Facebook is good for something other than angry political screeds and cat videos. A summary of some of the points made: There is no peer reviewed research on hugelkultur. The concept seems to date back only to 2007 or so, most likely to Sepp Holzer. Chalker-Scott suggested that you could get the same benefits with surface mulch with a lot less effort...

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Tolkien and Trees

...ut artists who can’t draw trees, and has many trees of significance in his books, which he mentions in passing, but the following are the more direct defenses of trees: #165 To the Houghton Mifflin Co. , 1955 : I am (obviously) much in love with plants and above all trees, and always have been; and I find human maltreatment of them as hard to bear as some find ill-treatment of animals. #83 From a letter to Christopher Tolkien, 6 October 1944: It i...

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Community Power! Elect Hugo Soto-Martinez!

...ary working people. He supports building social housing, jobs programs and making our streets safer for everyone. You can read more about his platform on his website. Electing Hugo is just the beginning. There’s a lot of work to do to turn this city around. Thankfully, more people are starting to pay attention to local elections. You can help out by going to my fundraising page for Hugo and chipping in a few dollars. Wherever you are you can be a...

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