Of Skunks, Sauerkraut and Stoicism

...We were honored when the nice folks behind Stoic Week 2013 asked us to write a blog post. It begins, Practicality is why stoicism works so well as the philosophical operating system of urban homesteading. While Foucault and Hegel might help me navigate the epistemological frontier, when I’m staring at a carefully tended vegetable bed that just got destroyed by a skunk, you can bet I’ll reach for the Seneca. Read the rest here....

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Help us With a Fodder System for our Hens

.../run. Ideally they’d be grazing on green pasture all day. But our abundant urban predators, lack of space and dry climate make the vision of hens clucking on verdant fields a challenge. I’m thinking of building a DIY fodder system but I’m a bit confused by the instructions I’ve seen floating about the interwebs. Which is where you come in. Have you built a fodder system? Do you know any good instructions? How big should it be for five hens? Or do...

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How To Calculate Anything

...ate Ohm’s law? Convert women’s clothing sizes? Calculate the area of a circle? Figure out whether its better to buy or rent a home? It’s all at www.calculatoredge.com. The site has lots of formulas for the urban homsteader even if you never have to perform a Sallen-Key Butterworth Low Pass Filter equation (except, perhaps, for recreational reasons). Thanks to Bruce Nolte, N1BN for the tip....

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007 RIP Handsome, 3 Power Tools You Should Own and Hipster Compost

...ecent comment on the blog we review an old post on three power tools every urban homesteader should own: drill, circular saw and jigsaw. Lastly, we expand on a recent post about composting brew waste, coffee grounds, juice pulp and coconut husks. In other words, “hipster compost.” During the discussion we answer a reader concern about black solider flies in compost. For more info on soldier flies (they are beneficial in compost but can be a proble...

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