In Praise of Disorder

...club presents just the right level of civic inattention to allow the urban homesteader to get away with many of the illegal projects profiled in this blog: greywater, backyard poultry, and front yard vegetable gardening, to mention just a few. Ideally you have a balance between order and disorder–neither gunfire nor the prying eyes of city inspectors. Where I’m staying in Houston, with its flocks of loose chickens, packs of feral dogs, and broken...

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Gardening in an Apartment Windowsill

...controls or the weight of the food harvested. It’s about a love for beauty, an attention to detail and an appreciation of good food. Imagine if all our unused or neglected urban spaces were as beautiful and useful as Helen’s garden. We’d live in a world transformed, one windowsill at a time....

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Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

...lands of LA (www.islandsofla.org). The artists of Fallen Fruit investigate urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and community all through the lens of fruit. Islands of LA is an art project that is turning traffic islands into territories of art to create community, foster discussion and explore the use and availability of public space. LOVE APPLES is an experiment in public space in the city of Los Angeles, imagi...

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Getting Hardscaping Right

...do it right the first time, rather than re-do badly done projects multiple times. Go where contractors get materials not the big box stores. A recent trip to Home Depot reminded me about how ugly most of their stuff is. Get materials delivered. I once dropped a very heavy load of Trex on a steep hill near our home and watched, in horror, as it slid a hundred feet down the road. Thankfully no one got hurt. But it was not fun to reload the car on a...

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How To Roast Coffee in a Hot Air Popcorn Popper

...One of these days I’ll find a local source for green beans, but until that time I’m very happy with Sweet Maria’s. 2. I roast a couple of days supply of coffee maybe twice a week. I do it with a West Bend Air Crazy popcorn popper. Note that not all hot air poppers will work. Sweet Maria’s has a complete list of the right kind of hot air poppers here. One drawback is that you can only roast a small amount at a time–no more than a half cup. It takes...

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