How to Homestead

...ead videos to stream or download. No longer relegated to the rural sphere, homesteading can be done anywhere and we are here to show you how.” With many homesteading activities, from chicken slaughtering to tortellini making, internet based video is a useful resource when you don’t have a friend or relative to show you a skill first hand. Kudos to the How to Homesteaders and we look forward to future episodes on this nicely designed site. To celeb...

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Our new front yard, part 3: design

...cendancy of the lawn and the specimen tree as the be all and end all of suburban landscaping. It is difficult to challenge this model with more naturalistic landscaping. If a design is not going to cause complaints and wrinkled noses, it can’t look “too wild.” This means using hardscaping strategically to make a landscape look well planned, and to also mix in more traditional landscape elements with wilder ones. A good strategy, for instance, is t...

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121 Beekeeping, Fireworks, Solar Power and Extending Wi-Fi with Will of the Weekend Homestead

Will of the Weekend Homestead returns to the Root Simple podcast to talk about how to get into beekeeping without busting the bank, fireworks, rigging up a simple solar power system and extending your wi-fi. During the podcast we discuss: Inexpensive beekeeping. Fireworks. Will’s small solar system. Will on the Garden Fork Podcast discussing his solar power system along with part recommendations. Kill-a-Watt. Cooking with a Sous Vide machine. Bro...

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Urban Homesteading: What Went Wrong

...es of future posts I’d like to look back at the ideas in our two books The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. I’ll consider both the broader ideas in the books as well as what might have changed in terms of specific methods in subjects such as gardening and beekeeping. First let me peel back the curtain for those of you have have never written a book and describe how awkward and weird it can be to read your o...

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iMac Drive Upgrade

...e into possession of. I repaired an iPod and a iPad. Last week I revived my 2010 iMac. In order to upgrade that iMac with a new solid state drive, I had to find an identification number. The i.d. number I needed was printed on the bottom of the “foot” that holds the heavy screen in a microscopic type printed gray on a gray background. Apple has a fetishistic design aesthetic that I’ve come to see as getting in the way of the functioning of the mac...

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