Saturday Tweets: Your Own Personal Disney Castle

February 16, 2019

...the 210th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. Here’s his theory of evolution in pictoral form: pic.twitter.com/IWfL36bf2A — Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) February 12, 2019 Westminster Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, built in 1887 and demolished in 1960. An excellent example of a mid-rise Victorian building, which one could just as easily imagine as an apartment building. I can't imagine too many complaints if new apartment buildings look...

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Meet the Amazing Sierra Newt

Mrs. Homegrown

March 22, 2016

Animals, Nature Awareness

12 Comments

...imes, though, they get stepped on or run over in busy campgrounds, because evolution did not factor in hiking boots, distracted campers and Subaru Outbacks when designing the defensive systems of the newt. When they decide it is time to meet a special friend and lay some eggs together, the newt returns to the pool from which they hatched–or tries to, since it might be difficult with all the pools in the Sierras drying up–but my guy found his way t...

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Make a Rain Barrel

Mr. Homegrown

October 8, 2008

Design, rainwater harvesting, Water and Power, Water Conservation

11 Comments

...fitting. A few more PVC parts from the sprinkler section of your hardware store, a brass hose fitting with a valve, and you’ll have this: Glue that up with some PVC cement, wrap the threads with teflon tape, and you’re almost ready to collect rainwater. But first, turn the barrel upside down, drill a hole for the down spout another hole to insert an overflow pipe made out of a threaded 3″ waste pipe fitting: The last step is to prop the barrel up...

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Of Gnomes and Peak Oil

Mr. Homegrown

April 2, 2013

Thoughtstylings

...of canned tomatoes. At any given moment, there may be a dozen cases in the store, but that inventory is constantly being replenished with the money the customers pay for the cans they remove, and the more tomatoes that customers buy, the bigger an inventory the store will carry. Paracelsus uses a more poetic metaphor. Instead of ordering shipments of tomatoes, it’s our task to command gnomes, The earth is filled by gnomes even to its center, creat...

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Dramm’s Breaker Nozzle: My Favorite Watering Implement

Mr. Homegrown

October 17, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

12 Comments

...s we’ve gone through since we bought this house fifteen years ago. Big box store watering widgets seem to last just a few weeks before heading to the landfill. I think I’ve found a solution. During the Garden Blogger’s Fling I attended back in June there was a demo by a Dramm Company representative. What impressed me most at the demo was Dramm’s simplest products, the Heavy-Duty Aluminum Water Breaker Nozzle combined with their Aluminum Shut-Off V...

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