Coffee Roasting Demo at Summer Nights in the Garden July 8

June 20, 2016

Events

The Los Angeles County Natural History Museum puts on a fun and free series every summer called Summer Nights in the Garden. It’s a fun mix of hands-on science demos, crafts, food trucks, music and cocktails in the museum’s beautiful garden. We’ve been a part of it each year and we’re returning on July 8th from 5-9 p.m. to do a home coffee roasting demo. Of all the crazy home ec things we do around the Root Simple compound, coffee roasting is one...

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Stoicism as a Toolkit for Modern Life

Mr. Homegrown

June 6, 2013

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

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Lucius Annaeus Seneca ca. 4 BC – AD 65. This is the first in a series of posts focusing on positive techniques for keeping our heads screwed on straight in troubled times. Growing food, doing stuff with your hands, drinking homebrew with friends–all these kinds of things help keep us grounded and hopeful. But sometimes you need a little more help. Maybe we’ll call these posts “When chickens aren’t enough.” Whether the world is ending or not, it’s...

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Our new front yard, part 6: it’s all potential at this point

Mrs. Homegrown

December 21, 2015

Back to the Garden, front yard series, Garden Design, Gardening

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...wonderful this spring. So stay tuned. In the meantime, I will update this series if anything comes up– any new mistakes or discoveries or victories on the road to developing a meadow community. Doing this project has made me aware of how often we expect instant results with our landscaping, and how this haste often comes at a price. I don’t mean money, though that is true as well. So often the homeowner or the designer installs way too many plant...

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My Marie Kondo Obsession

Mr. Homegrown

January 11, 2017

Domesticus, Tidying up

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...the budget you can bet we’d be flying a crew over to Japan to shoot a web series with Takahashi. At least you get to see her DIY, foaming stove cleaner tip. Last night, in our nightly YouTube hole viewing experience that’s part of Kelly’s recovery process (and mine too!), we watched Kondo take on an American family with kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21sWodZgFxM As usual the kids and the man of the house seem to have disappeared while the...

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Toggler Snaptoggle® Heavy-Duty Toggle Bolts

Mr. Homegrown

February 6, 2017

How-to

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...Toggle Bolt? In those years of suffering, how many times have I punched a series of holes in a wall in a hopeless attempt to find a stud? And how many times have I unsuccessfully tried to use a conventional metal toggle bolt? Those years of confusion have ended thanks to Eric of Garden Fork TV who alerted me to this miracle of the hardware aisle. Some background. The dudes that built our house in 1920 determined the stud spacing with a roll of di...

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