Lost from the cradle of connection: the high price of driving

September 11, 2015

Nature Awareness, Thoughtstylings, Transportation

...They are magical talismans. They represent us: our souls, our freedom and self-determination. I don’t know if we can escape this kind of blindness. I speak for myself. I drive. I live in a car-centric city. I know better. And still I drive. But I do wonder why, and I wonder what it is doing to our souls. The road is an ugly place and it makes for ugly people. I was on the freeway today, and as usual had a few scary moments and did my obligatory b...

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Garden Like a Pirate

Mr. Homegrown

September 20, 2006

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

1 Comment

...k yards. With more people growing vegetables our neighborhood becomes more self-sufficient and a wasted space has been reclaimed. If all such marginal spaces, parkways, freeway embankments, vacant lots, and median strips were claimed by piratical gardeners and used for growing food, nobody would ever need to buy crappy supermarket produce. It’s time to seize all unused urban land matey and remember the words of Captain Bellamy as you do so, “I am...

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Life in a Pandemic

Mr. Homegrown

April 27, 2020

Thoughtstylings

16 Comments

...future holds. There are simply too many variables to know what will happen in the coming months. Will we have another wave infections? Will governments bail out corporations or individuals? Will we have a recession or depression? Will there be a revived interest in urban homesteading or will we go back to shopping and consuming? I’m wary of suggesting a silver lining in this crisis. For many, around the world, it will just be awful. I’m curious ho...

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Root Simple: 2015 in Review

Mr. Homegrown

December 29, 2015

Thoughtstylings

10 Comments

...p. I’m not optimistic about this but I hope to be proved wrong. Honesty in Urban Homesteading We don’t do nearly enough blogging about the many hair brained notions and failed projects that transpire here at the Root Simple Compound and Labs. We did mange to chronicle a few of our shortcomings, such as our lack of a clothes line (Busted: Drying Racks, Clothes Lines and Cheese Puffs), the train wreck that was our summer garden (Our Disasterous Summ...

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Preparedness Now!

Mr. Homegrown

July 20, 2006

Preparedness, Reviews

2 Comments

...ians and Mormons. Aton is neither and the book has many useful tips for us urban dwellers with chapters on shelter, transportation, self-defense, and a collection of possible disasters we should prepare for. Two things we especially liked – Aton’s advice to start biking, and his advice against running out and buying guns. Plus there is a hilarious passage recalling how he cleverly dealt with some thugs on the A train that’s worth getting the book...

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