Bucket Flushing

...ticularly for meat eaters can quickly turn your greywater into rancid blackwater. Greywater systems range from the simple to the complex and we’ll start with the cheap and easy — bucket flushing. Simply keep a bucket next to the shower and collect the water that you run before the shower gets hot. Since you haven’t even stepped into the shower this water is pure water, and not even technically greywater. You can use this water on plants or to flus...

Read…

011 Cleaning, Long Crowing Roosters and Water Storage

...st–the Food Safety Advisor is not free to download, but the information on water storage that I reference can be found here. Amazon link to the water storage container we use. If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme music is by Dr. Frankenstein. Additional music by Rho. A downloada...

Read…

The Unintended Consequences of Water Conservation

...dry, the risk of fires would increase. In changing over landscapes to low-water using plants or to non-planted, non-irrigated areas, labor and material costs for plants, installing or retrofitting irrigation systems, and other materials could be significant. Converting lawns to artificial turf is also expensive. Hodel and Pittenger’s main point is that if we cut off landscape irrigation entirely, we’d only save around 4.5% of all water use in the...

Read…

Meet the Amazing Sierra Newt

...unds and off trails. So imagine my surprise when, hanging out by a stream (Water! Living water! I hadn’t seen any for months) I found one of these guys coiled up and still on the bottom of the stream bed. It looked so out of place–I thought it might be dead, dropped in there by a predator, perhaps? So I poked it with a stick — a favorite primate tool–and was surprised to see Mr. or Ms. Newt jump up all affronted and wander off under water. He (I’m...

Read…

Cold brewed tisanes, teas and coffee: Your summertime best friends

...good simple infusions are to have around. A few cucumber slices, a cup of watermelon chunks, a handful raspberries–all these things make iced water a little more fun. Just use whatever you have leftover on any given day–that spare half of a lemon, a melon slice that no one seems to want, that extra handful of herbs. My favorite Mexican restaurant in Los Angeles, Cacao, puts sprigs of rosemary in its table water. Other herbal experiments Experimen...

Read…