Everything Must Go Part 3: Clothing

January 13, 2015

Cats love the chaos of cleaning In this post we continue the tale of our tidying up using the KonMari Method discussed in this post. Clothing is the first category Marie Kondo (KonMari) recommends for sorting, presumably because her clients find it least confusing category to tackle–and also, I suspect, because it is the most immediately rewarding as well. It’s really pleasing to see your shirts hanging in a tidy row, your drawers brought to orde...

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The Primitive Technology Guy

Mr. Homegrown

December 27, 2016

Appropriate Technology, Water and Power

7 Comments

...send and Son 18th century YouTube cooking hole, where we’re learning about cleaning pots with brick dust and how to make Norfolk dumplings on the go. Australian reader Jampotts reminded me of another wildly popular YouTuber who just goes by the handle “Primitive Technology.” The anonymous creator of the these wordless videos, shot in northern extreme of Queensland, Australia uses a “show me don’t tell me” philosophy of film making that I greatly a...

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The Secret of Tidiness Revealed

Mr. Homegrown

December 14, 2016

Domesticus, Tidying up

18 Comments

...gotta be put away. The result? Clear surfaces and floors makes for easier cleaning. That’s it. We’ve seen and tried a lot of housekeeping schedules and schemes. In my humble opinion they are too complicated, hard to stick to and, in the end, doomed to failure. Clearing the deck, on the other hand, is both savage and simple. Marie Kondo, the reining prophetess of getting rid of stuff, would likely argue that de-cluttering is a necessary first step...

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How to Remove Bees from a Wall

Mr. Homegrown

October 5, 2015

Animals, Bees

4 Comments

...p made with a 50/50 mix of water and white sugar. This keeps the bees busy cleaning themselves so that you can gently brush them into a dust pan and transfer them into their new bee box. Some people use specially adapted vacuums to suck the bees off the comb and out of cavities. You have to be careful if you do this as it’s easy to injure the bees. Once the comb and as many stray worker bees as you can coax out of the wall cavity were in the box,...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

Homegrown Neighbor

January 18, 2010

Gardening

22 Comments

...hat stinky things, when applied in the garden, are often very good things. Cleaning the chicken coop always produces a good product for the garden. Nettles, like comfrey, are good at taking up minerals and other nutrients from the soil. Nettles are rich in iron, silica, calcium, nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus. These are all things that plants need for healthy growth. This makes nettles useful for making your own fertilizer. They can accumulate...

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