Picture Sunday: Images of Detroit

...s week I discovered that regular reader Jill Nienhuis is not only an urban homesteader, but a talented artist, too. Her paintings and other projects are wonderful – -you can see more at her website : Jill Nienhuis Jill lives in a neighborhood in NW Detroit called Brightmoor. It’s a neighborhood which has fallen on hard times, but is being revitalized, largely through gardening. She and her boyfriend, Michael, are growing a large garden on several...

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How to Build Walls with Pallets

...and jetsam. Mattresses, rotting couches and headboards accumulate, forming urban coral reefs under the blistering sun. It’s difficult to figure out a use for these objects other than as art. For utilitarian needs, such as building walls, we must turn to the many pallets that also litter our streets. Sketchup model by Ron S. But pallets can be tough to work with. The wood splinters easily making disassembly a tricky proposition (watch the Garden Fo...

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The Great Beekeeping Debate

...untry is a different question than how to keep a few hives in a biodiverse urban area. To be fair, the first question is essential since it’s how we currently keep everyone fed. But much of the advice given to large scale beekeepers does not always apply to small scale backyard beekeepers. The hubris can go both ways. Those of us on the natural beekeeping side can also think we understand the whole better than we do. We can fall into the same redu...

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Saturday Tweets: DIY Kayaks, Maps and Dragon Anatomy

...ican #Architecture Profession for your foresight and contributions to the #urban form in the USA! pic.twitter.com/sGucLhJX4p — Erik Griswold (@erik_griswold) July 30, 2016 Dragon anatomy for beginners. Yes, you did read that correctly.https://t.co/F06Qanht14 pic.twitter.com/FJzwhiQzJK — Medieval Manuscripts (@BLMedieval) July 30, 2016 Good Night Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. Germ. 466 pic.twitter.com/ldauWNgffo — Damien Kempf (@DamienKempf) July 30, 2016...

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Satan’s Easter Basket is Filled with Plastic Easter Grass

...round this morning, especially because Echo Park surrounds a lovely little urban lake full of birds. Read on to find out why. 4 Excellent Reasons to Avoid Plastic Easter Grass and use all of your influence to make sure other people avoid it, too: Domestic cats and dogs eat Easter grass and it can cause intestinal obstruction. Cats are particularly attracted to its stringy texture, but dogs might also gobble it up when they raid a kid’s Easter stas...

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