Extension Service Webinars on Organic Agriculture

...n organic farming practices that you can watch here: http://www.extension.org/pages/25242/webinars-by-eorganic. You can watch archived sessions or sign up to participate live. While the webinars are aimed at small farmers, there’s a lot that gardeners can learn. Having co-founded a bread baking club, the Los Angeles Bread Bakers, I was particularly excited to watch the webinar on ancient grains. I’m also planning on watching “Linking Cover Crops,...

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Campfire Cooking: Fish in Clay (& Vegetarian Options!)

...rout we’ve ever eaten. Erik and I are going to try this out at home in our bread oven, perhaps after a pizza course! Veggie Options: I have to admit, I was so obsessed with trout process, I missed some of what was going on at the vegetarian table. But in essence the process is the same. You can dress sturdy veggies like carrots and baby potatoes with fat and herbs, wrap them with leaves, cover that with clay and throw it on the coals. Pascal also...

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2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

...apture at least one swarm of bees and hand them off to a friend who has an urban farm and apiary. Kelly and I have a pet sitting arrangement with some friends of ours. When we go away they watch our menagerie and when they go away I head out to Pomona to look after Harpo the parrot and his dog, cat and gecko companions. Random Wanderings When you see a display of fake plastic corn dogs you have to take a picture. I tried and failed to get through...

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The Sound is Forced, the Notes are Few

...ally deadly disease that is killing people all over the world). As a urban homesteading/DIY blogger and author I’ve attempted a few of those how to “be” under quarantine hot takes and I’ve even spent part of my time making bad watercolors. I even wrote a post about that later effort (part of a longer post about learning old school architectural drawing) but never hit the publish button because it just didn’t feel right. A large part of that bad fe...

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094 The American Woman’s Home

On the podcast this week Kelly and I discuss a 19th century urban homesteading book written by Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home. The book was written mostly by Catherine, with some contributions from Harriet (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin). It’s likely that Catherine realized that attaching her famous sister’s name would sell more copies. Published in 1869, The American Woman’s Home covers a great deal of terri...

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