Moonshine

...preferably from a source that will lend itself to a pretty picture on the label — bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business.” As it turns out there is an art to good homemade moonshine — a far cry from the soulless mouthwash Archer-Daniels-Midlands turns out. Here’s some excerpts from an interview of ex-moonshiner John Bowman conducted by the Coal River Folklife Project from “Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia...

Read…

Plum Lemon Tomato Power’s Heirloom Tomato

...1,840 confirmed cases of food-borne illnesses in domestic tomatoes. Again, urban homesteading revolutionaries, GROW YOUR OWN! We found that label and it’s a tomato called “Power’s Heirloom”. Here’s how the Seed Saver’s exchange catalog copy describes it, “First offered in the 1990 SSE Yearbook by Bruce McAllister from Freedom, Indiana. His seed originated in Scott County in southwest Virginia over 100 years ago. Heavy yields of 3-5 oz. yellow past...

Read…

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...

Read…

Book Review: The Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Magic and Peak Oil

...ders. Greer explores these ideas in more depth, but I think you’ll get the picture: Learn One Thing: Learn a practical skill, so that you have something trade in a barter economy. Give Up One Thing: Choose one material possession that you believe you depend on, and that you also know is quite dependent itself on our complex, petroleum-fueled industrial system. Go without it now, so you know it’s possible. And that really, it’s not that bad to go w...

Read…

Kickstart the North Memphis Farmers Collective

...stories, there’s a happy ending. What began in one yard has grown into an urban farming movement transforming vacant lots into sources of food and jobs. There’s a Kickstarter: The City of Memphis faces many challenges. Among them are blighted vacant lots, food deserts, health challenges, and unemployment. North Memphis Farmer’s Collective seeks to take these challenges and turn them into solutions by using what others see as waste as the fertiliz...

Read…