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....

Read…

Gourmet Foraging and Advanced Acorn Processing

...scal and Mia are high caliber foragers and foodies. Check out their sites, Urban Outdoor Skills and Transitional Gastronomy, and if you live in the Los Angeles area, you’ll definitely want to experience their forages and food workshops. It’s rare to find folks who combine deep food know-how with a love of wild foods. Too often wild foods are considered mere survival foods. Pascal and Mia are using them to develop a uniquely Californian cuisine. On...

Read…

Black Widow or False Black Widow?

...an invasive, this spider seems to be displacing our native black widows in urban areas. This spider is roughly the same size and shape as a black widow, but is brown with a faint purple sheen. I like this false black widow option a lot. The false widows don’t have a dangerous sting. The spiders in my box are pretty shy, but insofar as I can tell, they are all sort of an eggplant color–not that true, bad-ass black of a classic widow. Nor have I see...

Read…

Monday Linkages: The Blob, Urine Soaked Acorns

...ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/09/real-adventures-alastair-humphreys.html … Sailboats Made of Corrugated Metal in Australia http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/09/sailboats-made-of-corrugated-metal-in.html … Bikes New issue of Urban Velo: http://www.urbanvelo.org/issue39/urbanvelo39.pdf … What To Do After an Accident When the Police Fail to Respond? http://la.streetsblog.org/2013/09/04/what-to-do-after-an-accident-when-the-police-fail-to-respond...

Read…

City of Angels Permaculture Academy Design Course Series

...r for the whole series. Elegant Home and Gardens- DIY Design & Build Learn Urban Homesteading Skills Community Projects Starting a Neighborhood Business Hands-On Natural Building / Sustainable Landscaping Permaculture in Schools and more. With Larry Santoyo, Toby Hemenway, Scott Pittman, John Valenzuela and Local Guests. For all the course details- and how to get yourself registered please go to: http://cityofangelspermaculture.com/design-courses....

Read…