I made shoes!

October 21, 2014

As regular Root Simple readers know, I’ve been obsessing on making shoes for some time now, but was not able to wrap my mind around the process without help. Help arrived this weekend in the form of the wonderful–and wonderfully patient– Randy Fritz, who taught me and four other intrepid souls how to make turnshoes over the course of the last 4 days. Lesson 1: As we have all suspected, shoes are not easy to make. Seriously not easy. Four full day...

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Our Rocket Stove

Mr. Homegrown

November 21, 2007

Preparedness, Rocket Stove

92 Comments

...ew small branches or twigs. Before we built the rocket stove we considered making a cob oven, a mud domed wood fired oven in which you can cook bread and pizza. There’s a trend in the eco-world to build cob ovens and we felt a certain pressure to keep up with the eco-Joneses. We started to build the base for one and then began to think about how often we would actually build a fire, especially considering that it has to burn for several hours befo...

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Worth Doing From Scratch: Corn Tortillas

Mr. Homegrown

June 3, 2014

Bread, Food

12 Comments

...f that’s easy and economical. Now you should be suspicious of any tortilla making advice dispensed by a gabacho. Let’s just say it’s easy and the results are way better than those dry tortillas you buy at the store. Some things I’ve learned: I have a cast iron tortilla press that works great but my Mexicano friends in the know suggested a wooden press. Making masa from scratch is a huge amount of work and I’ve done just fine with supermarket masa...

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Weeds into Fertilizer

Homegrown Neighbor

January 18, 2010

Gardening

22 Comments

...things that plants need for healthy growth. This makes nettles useful for making your own fertilizer. They can accumulate nutrients and minerals in their biomass. When they break down in a compost pile, or in this case in the water, they release the nutrients. Many of these elements can be difficult for other plants to access in the soil. Nettles just happen to be very good at taking up nutrients from relatively poor soil. The point here is let y...

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Saturday Linkages: Bow Drills and Cramped Apartments

Mr. Homegrown

March 16, 2013

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

...h Magazine Gardening The End of Molasses Malarkey: http://ow.ly/1TC4aU DIY Making Wooden Spoons http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/03/making-wooden-spoons.html#.UUPl2rFofzQ.twitter … Low-Tech Wonders Hand powered drilling tools and machines: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/12/hand-powered-drilling-tools-and-machines.html … Endless Rope Drives: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2013/03/the-mechanical-transmission-of-power-3-wire-ropes.html...

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