Be Idle

...Vivre and Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life. Part of the Urban Homesteadin’ thing involves simplifying one’s life, but we just can’t get behind the all the deprivation and mortification that often goes with American’s puritanical approach to the new simplicity. A compelling speaker, Andrews echoed our wariness and used the Slow Food movement as an counter-example to the pitfalls of the simplicity movement. The Slow Food movement began...

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Essential System #10 – Shelter

...ures into our policy of having a back-up system for every necessity at our urban homestead. We like things lightweight for our grab and go bags, so we purchased a three pound backpacking tent, the two person MSR “Missing Link”. This tent is spacious for its low weight and uses either hiking polls or trees to stake it out. On the down side, we’re not sure how this thing would hold up in high winds and it requires a lot of room to stake out. The “Mi...

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Random Covid Thoughts

...world, the DSA-LA has a Zoom meeting this Saturday I’m noticing that this “urban homestead” lifestyle thing sure is handy right now. Wish I had some citrus growing but I’m grateful for the eggs and avocados. Lastly, I used a sprayer to paint Kelly’s shed interior yesterday. I didn’t pull up the hood on my painting jumpsuit all the way. When I came into the house and looked in the mirror I had gone prematurely gray. Counting my blessings that this...

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Erik on HuffPost Live Tonight

...activities and sustainable living are back. Say Hello to Victory Gardens 2.0!” You can watch here. Guests include: Barbara Finnin Executive Director of City Slicker Farms Erik Knutzen Author of “The Urban Homestead” and Founder of Root Simple Rob Ludlow Owner of BackYardChickens.com The show will be archived and I’ll post a link when it appears on the HuffPost website....

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Edible Gardening Lecture at the Descanso Gardens

...ens. Here’s the description: Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of “The Urban Homestead” and the blog rootsimple.com, discuss creating a garden that is not only beautiful but delicious! Part of “Get Dirty: A Garden Series by Descanso” on Third Tuesdays. Public admission to the Gardens and the lecture is free of charge the third Tuesday of the month. Hope to see some blog readers there–perhaps we can walk around the garden after the lecture. For...

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