Search Results for: label/2011/04/making-it/2010/06/the-urban-homestead

821 results

Primitive Grain Storage Technique

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Appropriate Technology, Food Preservation, How-to, Preparedness
8 Comments
When thinking about technology, I like to play with the idea of what is the absolute minimum you need to get the job done. This may be because I’m not very handy at building things, but yet have survivalist tendencies. So while I’m pretty sure I’ll never actually have any need for these skills, it’s fun to think about how I’d get by in a DIY world. So I was delighted when I ran across this minimalist grain storage technique on the BBC documentary...

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Every Day Carry Revisited

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Preparedness
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...since I reviewed the Everyday Carry (EDC) discourse (Kelly reviewed hers in 2011). A mostly male bastion of the “prepper” subculture, EDC’s highest expression is the “pocket dump,” a picture, posted to the internet, of all the things you carry with you. Pocket dumps range from mundane photos of leather wallets and keys to more provocative displays of handguns, mace and knives. Pocket dump from reddit user ChromeOcelot. They almost always consist o...

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020 Emily Green on the Mow and Blow Landscape Paradigm

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Gardening, Podcasts
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...dependent. She blogs at Chance of Rain. Writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2011 Emily says, What would you do if a neighbor came to you and asked, “For 20 minutes every week, may I turn on your vacuum cleaner, smoke detector and garbage disposal and run them all at once?” Holding that thought, consider if the neighbor added, “Ah, may I also blow noxious dust your way for those same 20 minutes?” Imagine that not just one neighbor on the street ask...

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Planting a Mini-Orchard

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Gardening, Water and Power, Water Conservation
2 Comments
Ignore the bucket in this illustration! See update below. Update 3/13/2011: I met Brad Lancaster last night and he told me that he and Art Ludwig no longer use the upside down bucket described in this post. The reason is that detergents can build up in the hole. In my experience the bucket was also an unnecessary step. While I have a clay soil, the hillside drains fairly well. A properly sized mulch basin should suffice to allow greywater to infi...

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