La Alternativa

...tree. What we like most about Gálvez is that she is a strong proponent of urban gardening, maximizing every available space for food, a contrast to Martha Stewart’s useless pesticide and fertilizer drenched flower gardens. See the the film Power of Community How Cuba Survived Peak Oil for more on Cuba’s inventive urban gardening. While we hope that the US does not face a Cuban style economic crisis, we at SurviveLA believe that it’s time for la a...

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Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities

...they also managed to define the eclectic topics contained within the urban homesteading movement. A confession here: when it came time to write our two books, Kelly and I leafed through our old copy of the Whole Earth Catalog to make sure that we didn’t leave any topic out. Kevin Kelly kept the Whole Earth Catalog ethos alive through his Cool Tools review website. That website has morphed back into print in the form of Cool Tools: A Catalog of Pos...

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Got Real Milk?

...resident of Organic Pastures (our source for Homegrown Revolution‘s cheese making experiments): Where: Audubon Center at Deb’s Park 4700 North Griffin Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90031 (323) 221-2255 www.sustainablehabitats.org When: March 3rd 2007 @ 10:00 AM for Introduction to Pemaculture Class and at 2:00 PM for “Got Real Milk?” Presentation. ************************************************************************ -Sustainable Los Angeles lecture seri...

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I Made a Bee Vacuum

...tially dangerous if the bees are in a cranky mood. For years I’ve resisted making a bee vacuum with the idea that it’s a crutch, somehow an excuse for bad technique. You can use a smoker to herd bees off the comb and, if you’re careful, once the queen is in the bee box the workers will follow. But if a tool makes things go more smoothly, why not give it a try? There are a lot of different bee vacs that you can make or buy. I built mine using instr...

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Lehigh Valley Workshop’s Infinite Subversion

...e past few months I’ve been attempting to lift the hood a bid on the whole urban homesteading thing. As Frederic Jameson says, “We have to name the system.” This mapping and naming process is the first step towards constructive work. LVW is attempting to do just that and the fact that your right wing relatives and your hipster artist types all follow him in Instagram says something about the value of his strategy. You can find LVW on YouTube and I...

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