Are Miniature Books the New Smartphone?

October 17, 2016

...y. Loeb books are handsome, small and sturdy hardbacks with English on one page and Latin or Greek on the opposite page. Marcellinus is an entertaining Roman historian whose extant books chronicle the tumultuous years around the time of Constantine. So far it’s even more lurid than the updates on our current presidential election I get when I glace at the iPhone. Yes, you can read books on a smartphone, but I still think that the medium of a paper...

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Creating a Perpetual Garden Journal

Mr. Homegrown

October 5, 2021

Gardening

12 Comments

...just commit to the lines. I would recommend finding a journal with enough pages to devote a spread of two pages to each week. I have only one page per week and I think the results will be a little cramped. Are my drawings great? Nope. But I’ve decided to embrace my slightly wonky draftsmanship and just roll with it. It’s the act of seeing, after all, that’s more important. Lara Call Gastinger’s Instagram is a great introduction to the perpetual j...

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The Hugelkultur Question

Mr. Homegrown

November 17, 2014

Gardening, Permaculture

48 Comments

...ecided to post the hugelkultur question to the Garden Professor’s Facebook page. One of those horticulture professors, Linda Chalker-Scott is someone who I seek out when writing a magazine article. A civil discussion ensued on that Facebook page, proving that Facebook is good for something other than angry political screeds and cat videos. A summary of some of the points made: There is no peer reviewed research on hugelkultur. The concept seems to...

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Black Widow or False Black Widow?

Mrs. Homegrown

May 9, 2013

Animals, Composting, Insects

73 Comments

...e kind of dangerous, either. This is not reassuring. But then on the handy page Frequently Encountered Spiders in California, I learned about the False black widow. Another European invasive, this spider seems to be displacing our native black widows in urban areas. This spider is roughly the same size and shape as a black widow, but is brown with a faint purple sheen. I like this false black widow option a lot. The false widows don’t have a dange...

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089 The New Wildcrafted Cuisine with Pascal Baudar

Mr. Homegrown

July 14, 2016

Food, Foraging, Podcasts

3 Comments

...ing in a drought in August in Southern California Pascal’s $350 energy bar Native American foraging practices Kat Anderson Tending the Wild foraging controversy what to do with broadleaf plantain (Plantago major) lerp sugar eating insects harvesting your own sea salt fermenting with sea salt primitive fermentation rosin baked potatoes fermented hot sauces ethics of foraging You can take a class with Pascal via urbanoutdoorskills.com and make sure...

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