Epic Homesteading Fiascos

...ent. In terms of personal disasters, skunks tearing through our salad beds comes to mind, as well as ruining three five gallon batches of home brewed beer one after the other. These sorts of disasters can be a lesson, particularly if you have the courage, as Eric does, to share them publicly. And, as our guest on the podcast this week Guy Frenkel pointed out, if you’re letting mistakes get you down it means your ego is in the way of the risk takin...

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Jas. Townsend’s 18th Century Cooking

...ickled smelt. Neither of us are historical reenactors, though Kelly sometimes accuses me of trying to relive the 1990s. But you need not be into historical reenactment to appreciate Townsend’s well researched videos. You can tell he’s having a good time making them too. Kelly wanted me to highlight the portable soup video I embedded above. And note that it’s just one of four videos on portable soup! There’s also a fascinating series on 18th centur...

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The Root Simple 2016 Holiday Gift Guide

...sy going. But just grasp a fraction of the content of this book and you’ll understand how $50 concepts like epistemology and ontology underlie assumptions about everything. Yes, such seemingly mundane things like gardening and construction work take on a whole new meaning once you dig into the preconceptions that we make about meaning and reason. I’ve come to enjoy beginning my day with a passage from Kenny’s book. Ship’s Cats in War and Peace The...

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Peter and the Farm

...E We haven’t seen this very “red in tooth and claw” documentary yet but, ladies and gentleman, this is how you do a trailer! From the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s synopsis of Peter and the Farm, Peter Dunning is a rugged individualist in the extreme, a hard-drinking loner and former artist who has burned bridges with his wives and children and whose only company, even on harsh winter nights, are the sheep, cows, and pigs he tends on his Vermon...

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