Waking up on New Year’s Day with the world of long crowing roosters

Now I’m not suggesting these guys for urban situations, but New Year’s Day seems an appropriate moment to survey the world of long crowing roosters. According to poultry expert Gail Damerow, writing in the current issue of Backyard Poultry Magazine, long crowers probably have their origins in Japan and have spread throughout the world through deliberate selection. Here’s a play list for your listening pleasure, consisting of a Turkish long crowin...

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Hay Hooks–The New Hipster Accessory?

...chickens I predict that hay hooks will become just as indispensable to the urban hipster as is the fixed gear bicycle. After years of hauling staw bales up the 30 steps to our house (to use as bedding for the chickens) I just broke down and bought a pair. A vaquero at the feed store intervened with a neat tip when he saw me struggling to use my new hay hooks to load some bales into a friend’s truck. Here’s what he showed me. Note the red arrow in...

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Friday Afternoon Linkages–Some Fun, Some Scary

...pictured on the left. Meanwhile, in a busy month of blogging, the intrepid urban homesteaders over at Ramshackle Solid show you how to make depression style candles, sweet potato and yam chips, and acorn flour. All great projects for our world’s ongoing “deleveraging”. And, speaking of deleveraging, on the oooooh, scary we’re all going to die side of the equation: David Khan of Edendale Farms has a video from peak oil partisan Matthew Simmons on a...

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Picture Sundays: California Bike Map 1895

...Via Paleofuture: The 1895 map rated each road for its condition: Good (G), Fair (F), Poor (P), and Very Poor (VP), as well as rating its grade: Level (L), Rolling (R), Hilly (H), and Mountainous (M). Even a cursory glance at the map below shows that a good, flat road was rare — especially outside of California’s urban areas....

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