The Rat of the Land

...ry and Global Positioning System (GPS) rarely work because of interference from buildings and hard surfaces. At the end of his blog post Frye has a nice collection of research papers on urban wildlife. I highly recommend one of those articles, which was published in Science a few years ago, Evolution of life in urban environments....

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The Great Water Conservation Grift

...onceived water conservation policies have gone poorly when it comes to our urban landscapes. Take, for instance, LA’s horrible lawn replacement rebate program that ended up in the hands of fly by night operators who exploited their workers and left us with acres of gravel and plastic lawns. Or, since most homeowners don’t have any understanding of climate or horticulture, we just get dead lawns or, at best, decomposed granite and a few sad cacti....

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California Dreaming

...o fall into the gloomy, apocalyptic trap of some of the other folks in the urban homesteading movement. After a enjoyable evening last night at a fundraiser for the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, my dark mood lifted as I was reminded that good things are happening out there. Change comes slowly, one step at a time, requiring great patience. Like gardening, bread baking and home brewing there will be mistakes and setbacks. But there will als...

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Saturday Tweets: Happy Feet and Sad Feet

...triot @GeorgeMonbiot tells it like it is: Driving a gas guzzler is killing urban life and the least cool thing you can do!https://t.co/hZcF20OBxd — MonkeyWrenchGang (@M_WrenchGang) June 23, 2019 “At a certain point, if you’re playing Dr. Pangloss to people who administer a monstrous social order, then at some point you’re going to rub shoulders with and do favors for actual monsters,” https://t.co/JiGukRJXfi — Root Simple (@rootsimple) July 17, 20...

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Digital Farming- What’s The Deal?

...astoral life. I’m not sure I get this. I spend all day outside in the dirt making things grow. At sundown, I lock up the chickens. Then I harvest something to make into dinner or on a special evening, I’ll make a big batch of jam or sauce and spend hours canning. I’d rather spend as little time online as possible. I can’t wrap my head around how a video game can in any way replicate the experience of farming. I may be an urban dweller, but I get m...

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