Satan’s Easter Basket is Filled with Plastic Easter Grass

...it’s free! Just visit your nearest vacant lot. Pick long green grass and coil it in the bottom of the basket. You could also use hay or straw if you have access to it– both smell fantastic. Use green leaves, vines and short, flexible green branches from trees or bushes and flowers* to make sort of a wild fairy basket. As a Californian, I’m imagining a basket filled with a heady mix of rosemary branches and lavender leaves and buds. Or what about...

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Got Real Milk?

...resident of Organic Pastures (our source for Homegrown Revolution‘s cheese making experiments): Where: Audubon Center at Deb’s Park 4700 North Griffin Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90031 (323) 221-2255 www.sustainablehabitats.org When: March 3rd 2007 @ 10:00 AM for Introduction to Pemaculture Class and at 2:00 PM for “Got Real Milk?” Presentation. ************************************************************************ -Sustainable Los Angeles lecture seri...

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How Much Can You Carry on a Bicycle?

...s to climb hills even with heavy groceries. One need not be car-free to enjoy a cargo bike. For many years Kelly and I shared a car. The Xtracycle was a big part of making that car-light arrangement work. When people ask if urban homesteading saves money, the first thing I point to is the cargo bike, not the chicken coop. The problem? Cargo bikes are not nearly as sexy as the Playboy Land Yacht. That’s a problem I’ll get to in a future post....

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Loquat Season

...of these trees live in public spaces, the parkway and people’s front yards making them prime candidates for urban foraging i.e. free food. The tree itself has a vaguely tropical appearance with waxy leaves that look like the sort of plastic foliage that used to grace dentist office lobbies back in the 1960s. In short it’s a real tree that looks fake with fruit that nobody seems to care about. The loquat tree invites considerable derision from east...

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I Made a Bee Vacuum

...tially dangerous if the bees are in a cranky mood. For years I’ve resisted making a bee vacuum with the idea that it’s a crutch, somehow an excuse for bad technique. You can use a smoker to herd bees off the comb and, if you’re careful, once the queen is in the bee box the workers will follow. But if a tool makes things go more smoothly, why not give it a try? There are a lot of different bee vacs that you can make or buy. I built mine using instr...

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