Be Idle

December 3, 2006

...Vivre and Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life. Part of the Urban Homesteadin’ thing involves simplifying one’s life, but we just can’t get behind the all the deprivation and mortification that often goes with American’s puritanical approach to the new simplicity. A compelling speaker, Andrews echoed our wariness and used the Slow Food movement as an counter-example to the pitfalls of the simplicity movement. The Slow Food movement began...

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Essential System #10 – Shelter

Mr. Homegrown

August 18, 2006

Preparedness

...ures into our policy of having a back-up system for every necessity at our urban homestead. We like things lightweight for our grab and go bags, so we purchased a three pound backpacking tent, the two person MSR “Missing Link”. This tent is spacious for its low weight and uses either hiking polls or trees to stake it out. On the down side, we’re not sure how this thing would hold up in high winds and it requires a lot of room to stake out. The “Mi...

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Dwelling Portably

Mr. Homegrown

September 6, 2006

Resources

6 Comments

...ctical advice in this publication should be a part of the library of every Urban Homestead. Holly and Bert Davis don’t have much nice to say about computers or the internet and as a result the only way to receive this fine periodical is by mail at $1 per issue 2 for $2, or 6 for $5, or 14 for $10 with back issues available. The P.O. box, which Bert and Holly check when they are away from the yurt is: Dwelling Portably POB 190 Philomath, OR 97370 D...

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Essential System #4 – Illumination

Mr. Homegrown

September 6, 2006

Preparedness

...o bags, but we also are looking into a new generation of LED bulbs for our Urban Homestead’s interior lighting. As far as house lighting goes, while LED efficiency is rapidly advancing, compact fluorescents are still better from an economic perspective even though there are concerns about the trace amounts of mercury that compact fluorescents contain contaminating landfills. Still, compact fluorescents are far better than incandescents since they...

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Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Mr. Homegrown

July 1, 2009

Herbal Medicine, Herbs

10 Comments

Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus). Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medicin...

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