Making the Shed Great Yet Again

February 17, 2020

Here’s a picture from May of 1999 showing our late doberman Spike guarding me while I worked on our then 90 now 100 year old shed. Guess what I’m doing over 20 years later? Working on the same shed. Me in 1999. In 2020 I need glasses. The shed has gone through two previous improvement battles starting with shoving a foundation under it, electrification and strengthening the floor followed by a somewhat misguided attempt at insulation and ceiling...

Read…

Making Mistakes and an Update

Mr. Homegrown

April 12, 2019

Podcasts, Thoughtstylings

7 Comments

A big thanks to Erik Volkman who let me know that I had accidentally re-released episode 127 of the podcast (an interview with Fr. Mark Kowalewski on apocalyptic thinking) instead of episode 128 (an interview with James Heard and Ashton Hamm of UXO Architects). I’ve fixed the problem but due to the kludgy way that podcasts propagate your podcast app may still play the audio from episode 127 instead of the interview with the architects. You can he...

Read…

Adventures in Extreme Making: The White Rose

Mr. Homegrown

February 9, 2017

Design

2 Comments

For reasons I can’t fully articulate, I often think about an obscure film by the artist Bruce Conner called “The White Rose.” Conner’s film documents the moving of a huge and mysterious painting by the artist Jay DeFeo. The painting is so large that the moving company had to cut a hole in the wall of DeFeo’s second second floor apartment to get it out. Perhaps the appeal of this film is the problem solving or the obsessiveness of DeFeo. Or maybe...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Eating Crickets and Making Coffee

Mr. Homegrown

October 17, 2015

Saturday Linkages

..., according to new research. Via @keatleygarvey http://t.co/jfoJVN5JNB — UCUrbanAg (@UCUrbanAg) October 16, 2015 Banana Spook Cake – A Vintage Halloween Recipe Re-Run http://t.co/zYOyLPuW6p — Root Simple (@rootsimple) October 15, 2015 Top 33 Coffee Projects http://t.co/eWy4mIES5L — Root Simple (@rootsimple) October 15, 2015 Sitting for long periods doesn't make death more imminent, study suggests http://t.co/JoT6NiV3x8 — Root Simple (@rootsimp...

Read…

How to Keep Skunks Out of the Yard

Mr. Homegrown

March 11, 2014

Gardening, Pests

17 Comments

...Skunk Habitat In the wild skunks dig dens or live in hollowed out logs. In urban areas they like to take up residence in crawl spaces and under decks. (Design tip: avoid creating skunk habitat in the first place by making sure these types of spaces are not accessible.) I suspect that there may be a skunk or two living under our back shed. This shed is as old as the house (almost 100 years) and can’t be skunk proofed on all sides due to its setting...

Read…