Paper Wasps: Your New BFFs

...joying lemonade on the porch. They don’t like our food. Wasps are seasonal creatures. They build their nests in the spring and the colony disperses in the fall. You can solve your wasp “problem” by simply waiting it out. If you don’t bother them, they won’t bother you! Wait til they die off in the fall, knock the old nest down, and next spring, keep your eye out for any single wasps trying to establish nests in your space. That would be a queen tr...

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Gluten Intolerance . . . Is It All In Your Head?

..., and so they did. The finding led Gibson to the opposite conclusion of his 2011 research: “In contrast to our first study… we could find absolutely no specific response to gluten.” Nocebos, incidentally are placebos with a negative effect. If I tell you you are going to get sick there’s a good chance you will. All human beings are highly suggestible. How powerful are placebos/nocebos? A recent study showed that placebos/nocebos work even if you t...

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Make Your Own Chalkboard Paint II

...e Root Simple compound was making our own chalkboard paint and using it to label all of the cabinets in our garage workshop. In the past month, inspired by a visit from über-maker Federico Tobon, I’ve taken up the task of pimping out the workshop with a proper workbench and table saw. I’ll blog about Workshop 2.0 when I’m finished with the renovation, but the chalkboard paint hack is worth a repeat mention. Thanks to the chalkboard paint, when I w...

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There Will Be Kraut Part II–Full Day Hands-On Fermentation Workshop at the Greystone Mansion

...orkshop for only $200 ! Erik Knutzen: Co-author of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, co-founder of the Los Angeles Bead Bakers collective. Hae Jung Cho: After recovering from a career in nonprofit management, Hae Jung has been working in the food industry since 2003 in high-end restaurants, catering and retail environments. Driven by a passion for foods that require time and patience, she became a Master...

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Bike Lane Blocking, An Angry Rant and Something You Can Do

...xy and often politically unpalatable work of installing bus only lanes and making the city more pedestrian and bike friendly, seems to think that the future lies in a techno-optimist future of flying cars and private tubes as peddled by Elon Musk. Instead of improvements we could have right now (all a bus lane takes is a line of paint) we’re waiting for a future that will never come. I’ve held off writing this post for years but I can’t stay silen...

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