On Living in Los Angeles Without a Car: A Debate

...ay with the issue at hand, which is whether or not we buy a new car. Erik: Making cities safe for walking and biking is exactly the kind of issue where individuals, working with city officials, can make a difference. In short, we need more moms to show up with their kids at meetings and demand safer streets. Kelly: Great. I’ll just live my Grey Gardens existence until the moms of LA mobilize and make this city into the Amsterdam of the West. Credi...

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2022 in Review: Cats, Mushrooms and Politics

...inez campaign. Thankfully Hugo won in November and has already got to work making our streets safer and helping tenants and unhoused people. Tech I put up a 10 meter and 2 meter radio and did a little bit of amateur radio stuff. I’m not great at it but did manage to make digital contacts as far away as Indonesia with ancient Radio Shack equipment. I also figured out how to decode airline data transmissions but did not figure out why I would want t...

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Ways to Critter Proof Your Vegetable Beds: A Competition

...F.A., and is a blistering in-house art and design critic around our little homestead. Participants can leave a comment on this post linking to an image, or send us an email at rootsimple@gmail.com. The winner will get a package of our newest publication–a series of booklets we wrote in collaboration with the Ecology Center in San Juan Capistrano. I will also be participating in this competition which does seem unfair, but we’ll let Mrs. Homegrown...

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133 Trees of Power with Akiva Silver

...lk to Akiva Silver of Twisted Tree Farm, described in his author bio as a “homestead, nut orchard and nursery located in Spencer, New York where he grows around 20,000 trees a year using practices that go beyond organic.” Akiva’s background is in “foraging, wilderness survival and primitive skills.” He is also the author of Trees of Power: Ten Essential Arboreal Allies (Amazon, library) just published by Chelsea Green. In our conversation we discu...

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Saturday Tweets: Cats, Silicon Valley and DIY Bus Benches

...s living on 11 acres in the midwest without electricity or running water! #homestead pic.twitter.com/n00fv7UsBd — Gardenerd (@gardenerd1) November 29, 2018 UK retailer offers Christmas trees for cat lovers https://t.co/jem0367EEh — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 29, 2018 Laugh/cry! https://t.co/sXT6C6aPz1 — Mollie Stratton (@MollieStratton) November 29, 2018 👏 Two Swedish mums have managed to persuade 10,000 people not to fly next year. Are yo...

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