Chicago’s Urban Bees

May 29, 2009

...hives on a former Sears and Roebucks site. The Co-op provides job training to under-employed folks and sells a variety of products. I didn’t get a chance to visit it on my trip to Chicago, but hope to the next time I’m there. In other Chicago bee news, the Green Roof Growers just got a hive. Urban rooftops and abandoned industrial sites make a lot of sense for beekeeping, as many agricultural areas are contaminated with pesticides. Keeping bees i...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Crowbox, Urban Walking and the War on Cars

Mr. Homegrown

August 25, 2018

Saturday Linkages

...ter.com/YqGqW20JkL — HarvardPublicHealth (@HarvardChanSPH) August 22, 2018 Urban walking isn’t just good for the soul. It could save humanity | Jonn Elledge https://t.co/WzAOB1t99g — Root Simple (@rootsimple) August 21, 2018 Fascinating graphic. The areas in yellow show wild bee declines. Notice that it follows the most intensive agricultural areas: America’s corn belt, Mississippi River floodplains, & California’s central valley. Big ag killing p...

Read…

Zombies!

Mr. Homegrown

November 7, 2006

Thoughtstylings

...evision viewing. What’s the cure? In short, we think it’s the exciting new urban homesteading lifestyle. What’s the strategy to overcome zombieism? We are no fan of the Unabomber, but he may be right about this one – just substitute the word “zombie” for “American” – which is perhaps redundant, anyways: . . . it would be bad strategy for the revolutionaries to condemn Americans for the habits of consumption. Instead, the average American should be...

Read…

How to Organize a Small Workshop

Mr. Homegrown

November 3, 2017

Design

6 Comments

...to go a lot more smoothly. In the past few months I’ve decided to focus on making my tiny workshop both useful and pleasant. The challenge has been that our 1920s garage is tiny–sized for two Model-Ts–and must also accommodate our Honda Fit. At the risk of seeming like I’ve come down from the mountaintop with stone tablets, permit me to share a few things I’ve learned about tiny workshop design: Put everything on wheels. Get some locking wheels at...

Read…

Moonshine

Mr. Homegrown

September 15, 2007

Fermentation, Food

...preferably from a source that will lend itself to a pretty picture on the label — bottle it, and you’re in the vodka business.” As it turns out there is an art to good homemade moonshine — a far cry from the soulless mouthwash Archer-Daniels-Midlands turns out. Here’s some excerpts from an interview of ex-moonshiner John Bowman conducted by the Coal River Folklife Project from “Tending the Commons: Folklife and Landscape in Southern West Virginia...

Read…