Will We Keep Keeping Chickens?

...operations. There’s a lot of negatives for keeping chickens in our small, urban backyard. We have lead and zinc in the soil, so many predators that the hens have to live in what I call “chicken Guantanamo,” and a small irregular piece of property that makes using a chicken tractor impossible. While I built a generous run for our four hens, I really wish that they could wander more freely, but that’s just not possible where we live. Another big ch...

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Saturday Tweets: Starlings, Chipmunks and Maple Syrup Season Lessons

...com/RvU0ax5Cii — Lyanda Lynn Haupt (@LyandaHaupt) May 12, 2017 Caught raiding birdseed, chipmunk yields haul https://t.co/QUatfa977T — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 12, 2017 Ghost Lanes: Angled “Scarchitecture” Reveals Historic Urban Roads https://t.co/Bbr8h3AbHp — Root Simple (@rootsimple) May 8, 2017 What I Did Wrong This Maple Syrup Season #DIY #homesteading https://t.co/OnXcnVpcbp pic.twitter.com/Ji1xdC6fsD — Eric Rochow (@GardenForkTV) May 12...

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The Technological Disobedience of Ernesto Oroza

...lmost all the engineers had abandoned Cuba forty years earlier during the revolution, so even before the “Special Period” of the early 1990s people had to improvise their own technology with cast-off parts. Oroza and a fellow artist Diango Hernandez collected these improvised objects: things like TV antennas made from aluminum food trays, motorized bicycles and washing machine motors turned into incredibly dangerous fans (and even more dangerous t...

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Saturday Tweets: 12 Hours in an Ikea, Bike Helmets, How to Fix Drywall and Much More

...elmet debate: 'You don’t make it safe by forcing cyclists to dress for urban warfare' https://t.co/TVjtv9SdrK — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 21, 2017 Behind Lucky Peach’s Closing, Colliding Visions https://t.co/jU5RJ7rsMm — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 22, 2017 Fix a Hole in Drywall https://t.co/qxcZfgBxbk — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 23, 2017 Turkey splits up fight between roosters https://t.co/xPqOPqRgMU — Root Simple (@rootsi...

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What’s Your Everyday Carry?

One of the more fetishistic subcultures in the urban homesteading activity playpen is an obsession with “everyday carry,” abbreviated by hip insiders as “EDC.” EDCers peacock their carefully curated sets of survival tools in photos called “pocket dumps.” The internet’s Mecca of pocket dumps is everydaycarry.com. On that site you’ll see color and texture coordinated EDCs reminiscent of the leather and wood appointments of the luxury yachts of Russ...

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