We Went to Japan

March 13, 2024

...t in another post). At one of the museums they still burn fires in the old buildings to keep the termites at bay and demonstrate the old ways. There was more nerding out over woodworking to be done at one of the architectural museums. You pull rather than push Japanese saws and planes and they were traditionally used from a seated position. There were a lot of warnings while we were there predicting a possible large earthquake in the Tokyo area an...

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What we think about when we try not to think about global warming

Mrs. Homegrown

October 26, 2015

Reviews

2 Comments

...tlessly, for us to wake up and change our ways for the last 40 years. So in 2011 he gave up on us and wrote 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years. It was not, as he said, a description of an attractive future. He’s a doomer’s doomer, yet in the introduction he says, “This book gave me back the hope I’d lost over forty years of futile struggle.” So, if Stoknes can help me, Brigitte and Jorgen, maybe he can help you, too. Stoknes is organiza...

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020 Emily Green on the Mow and Blow Landscape Paradigm

Mr. Homegrown

October 8, 2014

Gardening, Podcasts

6 Comments

...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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Primitive Grain Storage Technique

Mrs. Homegrown

November 4, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Food Preservation, How-to, Preparedness

8 Comments

...um 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 series, A History of Celtic Britain (2011), hosted by Neil Oliver of the Delicious Scottis...

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A Year after The Age of Limits: 5 Responses to the End Times

Mrs. Homegrown

May 5, 2014

Age of Limits, Thoughtstylings

54 Comments

...and there are other types of resilient communities that we could choose to build if we were building from scratch. All of which is to say that the virtues of independence, resilience, craftiness, land wisdom, etc.– the virtues and skills we admire in our ancestors and which many of us cherish and wish to recover more fully–need not be paired with retrogressive social attitudes. The Good Ol’ Days were not good days for women–nor were they good days...

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