Book Review: The Urban Bestiary

...I am a creature of nature, living in a vast human habitat which exists as part of a web with the entire ecosystem. Remembering that I am not apart from nature sometimes requires a little mental judo–and some well chosen bedside reading. Thus my recent reading has included books like Being Animal and What the Robin Knows (reviewed here) and most recently The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild by Lyanda Lynn Haupt, author of the excellen...

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Salsa Dancing in a World Without Oil

...vated citizen artists. The festival doubles as a thank you to the range of artists, arts and community organizers whose assistance in response to the Department of Public Works’ concerns helped rescue the project. These include: Dorit Cypis (Foreign Exchanges), Jenna Didier of Materials & Applications, Jon Lapointe & Otoño Luján of Side Street Projects, Jay Belloli from The Armory Center for the Arts, and Zazu Faure & the others in the Glassell Pa...

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Compost and Pharmaceuticals

...mple research department! I was able to find a few studies that, at least partially, address these questions. If you know of more please leave a link in the comments. A 2010 study looked at the degradation of salinomycin, used on chickens to prevent coccidiosis. The study concluded, On the basis of the results obtained in this study, it appears that the composting technique is effective in reducing salinomycin in manure. Another 2010 study looked...

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What’s Buried in Your Backyard?

...e’s a handy page for dating bottles, scans of antique bottle catalogs, and page after page of bottle types. My unintended archaeological efforts have yielded no Spanish doubloons, viking graves or Anasazi ruins, but I have found lots of glassware, mostly broken milk bottles. I’ve also discovered what I think are cheap perfume bottles like the one above. If you know what this bottle contained please leave a comment. I suspect perfume, because this...

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Tippy Tap, Beta Version

...rope around the body and secure that rope to the branch or cross bar. My particular variation on support My tippy tap hangs from a tree branch. I passed a rope over the branch, and slipped a pad under the rope to protect the bark. Now, on the lower end, where the rope meets the jug, I could have just knotted the rope around the handle itself, but if I did, when I wanted to refill the tippy tap I would have to untie and retie that knot — or bring...

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