We’ve taken the flowers out of our hair

August 21, 2007

Animals, Bikes, Chickens, Thoughtstylings

...m San Francisco with a couple of random observations from our trip: 1. The picture above of a gas cap spotted in the Mission District demonstrates, that even in a bike and mass transit friendly city many folks take their cars a little too seriously. Let’s remember folks, we suspect that Jesus rides two wheels and takes the bus and does indeed look anguished every time we open the gas cap. 2. We took our bike with us and enjoyed the numbered bike r...

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An open letter to Trader Joes

Mr. Homegrown

October 16, 2007

Animals, Chickens

16 Comments

...ks were snoozing during their high school biology classes. We replaced the picturesque barn with a windowless industrial shed to show the most prevalent housing for poultry and, more than likely, where these cage free eggs came from. The family poultry farm alluded to in your cover art has long since been replaced by huge industrial operations housing thousands of chickens in enormous sheds. Our relatives, living on a nearly century old family far...

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Beans 101 (Return of Bean Friday!)

Mrs. Homegrown

March 1, 2013

Bean Fest, Food, How-to

21 Comments

...You could cook beans in pre-made stock, but what I like to do is toss the makings of stock into the pot with the beans. In the picture below you see the gleanings from my fridge and garden, ready to go into the pot. An oldish carrot, a couple of stalks of celery, half of an onion leftover from something, a garlic clove (I like more, but ran out), some red chile flakes, and a bundle of herbs. The herbs are just what is in my garden now: fennel, pa...

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A ceramic oil lamp

Mrs. Homegrown

March 4, 2015

Domesticus

15 Comments

...much, I made a little seashell oil lamp the very first project in our book Making It. As a child of the electric age it continuously amazes me that I can make light so easily with cooking oil. Also, in reproducing these lights, I feel a connection to history. I’ve no doubt that my ancestors gathered around fish oil lamps in the north and olive oil lamps in the south. To add to their charms, they aren’t based on petroleum–as paraffin tea candles ar...

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Everything Must Go Part 4: How to Fold Your Clothes

Mrs. Homegrown

January 15, 2015

Cleaning, Domesticus, Tidying up

24 Comments

...may seem a little extreme, but this simple change in behavior seems to be making all the difference in our dresser drawers. Very simply, KonMari politely insists (while flicking her pink glitter cat o’ nine tails) that we shape our all of our foldables into neat rectangular packets and stand them cheek-by-jowl in our drawers, rather like file folders in a standing file. As someone who has always folded clothes into squarish shapes and stacked the...

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