Hay Hooks–The New Hipster Accessory?

...chickens I predict that hay hooks will become just as indispensable to the urban hipster as is the fixed gear bicycle. After years of hauling staw bales up the 30 steps to our house (to use as bedding for the chickens) I just broke down and bought a pair. A vaquero at the feed store intervened with a neat tip when he saw me struggling to use my new hay hooks to load some bales into a friend’s truck. Here’s what he showed me. Note the red arrow in...

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On why our vegetable garden is such a disaster this year . . .

...h little enthusiasm for ongoing gardening maintenance. Ego–forgetting that urban homesteading is not about self-sufficiency—to chase self-sufficiency is a fool’s errand. I should be happy just to have a few good salads and be thankful that I can buy good vegetables at a local farmer’s market. I don’t think self-sufficiency is a good goal even on a large piece of land. We humans are meant to work together, hang out in groups and share goods and kno...

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Piet Oudolf’s Enhanced Nature

...at’s pragmatic, recognizing both the need for natural ecosystems within an urban environment, while at the same time providing visual interest. Oudolf’s imprint is on the landscape, but to most people that human touch will remain on a subliminal level. It’s a brilliant “third way” strategy outside of the dualistic smackdown between the simulated nature of English style gardening and the rectilinear hedges of Versailles. Oudolf’s plan for the Serpe...

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I Made an Enzo Mari Table and So Can You

...s fantasy plays out in the furniture I’ve build for the inside of the house. Such is the fate of attempts at revolutionary design within our post-modern age. Everything gets subsumed within a vast parade of styles and one can easily imagine this table on sale at Urban Outfitters at your local mall. Mari, who we lost to COVID in 2020, had the genius and grace to acknowledge the contradictions in his own work while not letting this discourse get in...

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