Getting my Ham Radio License

...Angeles’ massive central library on lower level two, where all the how-to books are shelved. This month I’m finally acting on something I’ve contemplated for years: getting my amateur radio (i.e. Ham) technician’s license. I’ll be taking the test in the middle of the smart phone era. Curiously, when I’m deep in the cultural dumpster I often run into fellow scavenger John Michael Greer, a.k.a. the Archdruid. When I met him at the Age of Limits con...

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Fabulous Postcards from HenCam

...without saying! So we thought we’d give a shout out to Terry for her great books. They are heavy, 5″ x 7″ cards bound into books, but bound so that the postcards can be lifted out cleanly and used, in any order. They have a photo on the front and the back has the classic postcard layout. If you’re looking for easy presents for the holidays, or a set of nice postcards, so you can treat your friends to an actual handwritten note, go check them out a...

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How to Answer the Question, “What Should I Do With My Life?”

...could have jumped ahead to what I’m doing now. Unsurprisingly, most of the books on my bookshelf, now and in the past, are how-to tomes relating to the subjects on this blog: gardening, poultry health, beekeeping, food preservation, baking, cooking and self-reliance. There’s another broad category : books relating to symbolism, Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner and media theory. The rest are oddball topics: electronic circuits, 70s land art and fencing ta...

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Who Wants Seconds? Winner Announced

...s one! Thank you all for entering, and thanks to Jennie for giving us this book to share with you all. We’ve also enjoyed seeing how you all self-identify. Eating has become such a complex, even fraught activity. My grandmother would boggle at discussions like this, I suspect. I don’t think she even knew the word vegan. Since we’ve heard from you all, we’ll share our preferences: We eat mostly vegetarian, but will eat meat if it comes from an impe...

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Stern Sprouted Wheat Vegan Cookie or Health Bar Type Things

...closest I’m going to get to dessert for a while. The recipe comes from the book, From the Wood-Fired Oven by Richard Miscovich, where the recipe is used as an example of what you can cook in a bread oven which has almost cooled off, because these bake at very low temps. Actually, they’d be good candidates for a solar oven. Or even dashboard cooking in the summer! There are four ingredients: sprouted wheat, raw almonds, dried fruit and a pinch of s...

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