Poultry Outlaws: Chicken Laws Around the U.S.

...dequately housed, i.e. 2 square feet per adult bird, and their enclosure is 50 feet from the nearest neighbor. Austin: Up to 10 fowl per household, but keep in an enclosure that’s 50 feet away from neighbors. Boston: All residential zones in Boston forbid “auxiliary keeping of animals,” which includes poultry and other livestock. No person shall keep any live fowl of other farm animals, except in accordance with a permit from the Division of Healt...

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Dog Cheese

...nd in our nation’s supermarkets simply isn’t worthy of the table. As urban homesteaders we’re particularly interested in finding sources of food in our dense concrete jungles, and we are not alone. The movement is full of solutions to small scale animal husbandry: from pigmy goats, to pot-bellied pigs, city dwellers are trying to do that farm thing in the city–but sometimes with limited success. So we were thrilled to find out that one of the best...

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A Seed Pokin’ Thingy

...ropagation class we took at Urban Harvest, a non-profit located in Houston, Texas dedicated to, “Working with gardens and orchards to build healthy communities.” A special thanks to instructor Jean Fefer, an organic gardening expert and a Harris County Master Gardener and Plant Propagation Specialist. We heartily recommend Urban Harvest’s programs and classes to anyone interested in learning how to grow your own food....

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Rainwater Harvesting with Joe Linton

...lage’s website. This workshop is part of a continuing series in “hands-on” urban permaculture and includes: An overview presentation on Los Angeles water issues, including local multi-benefit watershed management efforts. A tour of Los Angeles Eco-Village stormwater harvesting landscape features, including the Bimini Slough Nature Park. A hands-on workshop to build terraced swales to detain and infiltrate storm water This workshop focuses on build...

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Fish Don’t Fart

...ve it closer consideration. Aquaponics is profiled in the pioneering urban homesteading book, The Integral Urban House: Self Reliant Living in the City and Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew’s book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A do-it-Ourselves Guide which comes out of their work at Austin’s Rhizome Collective. What all of these efforts have in common is a permacultural design principle of turning a waste product into a resource and closing...

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