A Year After the Age of Limits: Mr. Homegrown’s Take

...out the conference he held court outside the tent and discussed many of my favorite topics: organic gardening, Ham radio, appropriate technology, fraternal societies and even letterpress printing. When a talk or activity annoyed me, I’d walk out and find Greer. What I would have liked to have seen at the Age of Limits was a wider range of voices. A few mainstream climate scientists would have been a good start. Instead, we were only hearing the mo...

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The Primitive Technology Guy

...of Queensland, Australia uses a “show me don’t tell me” philosophy of film making that I greatly admire. No long, babbling intros! Kelly was especially impressed with his pump drill fire starting technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEl-Y1NvBVI He has a blog that describes the content of his videos in more detail. People like John Townsend and the Primitive Technology guy are the good side of the internet, producing quality work that’s a lot...

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Help! I’ve got Paper Wasps

...beneficial insect. They eat beetle larvae, caterpillars, flies and nectar (making them pollinators). They are your friends in the garden. Right now I have a large colony living in the eave of our front porch right over my favorite chair. I’ve sat in that chair, with my head a mere four feet from my paper wasp buddies, for many hours and have never once been bothered. Biology Like honeybees, paper wasp are social insects. A mated queen lays eggs. B...

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A Thanksgiving Debriefing

...the turkey. Ask around and you’ll find out it’s probably not most people’s favorite food. Why not serve something else? If you are going to serve turkey butcher it first and then roast it. Roasting it whole leads to dry meat. While we’re at it how about ditching the traditional side dishes? They have the taste and texture of baby food. What would happen if we gave the women in our lives a day off and had the men folk do all the work? Women seem to...

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Dovetails by Hand

...nsive Lie Nielsen tapered dovetail saw for this purpose and it’s one of my favorite tools. I used to use a router jig to cut my dovetails but I now prefer doing it by hand. There’s a lot less dust and noise and that router jig was a real pain to set up. Plus I’m beginning to enjoy accumulating odd, outdated hand skills just for the sake of those skills. You can make perfectly serviceable drawers entirely by machine but if you have the time and are...

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