131 Learning to Smell the Roses with Kendra Gaeta

...tion Beyond perfume–who works with scent The Smelly Viles Ghost Hunters of Urban Los Angeles Perfumers Apprentice + Flavors Apprentice (An amazing source for small quantities of scents and flavors) The smell of the International Space Station If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. Closing...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Rainy Day Tweets

Great resource for LA County urban farmers! https://t.co/gFgitxww6i — Rachel Surls (@RachelSurls) December 8, 2018 L.A. Adds Lanes For Cyclists To Recover From Getting Hit By Cars https://t.co/wmEvQHwCJM via @theonion — Colin Bogart (@ColinBogart) December 8, 2018 Metaphor alert. https://t.co/NG3LzEazzM — Peter Flax (@Pflax1) December 5, 2018 If You Can't Bike On It, It Doesn't Belong In the City https://t.co/7QXjPmbIRN via @RebelMetropol...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Lost in Translation

...ZqcIgDW — Yasha Levine (@yashalevine) April 6, 2019 Two ways to design the urban form of a corner lot – where would you rather spend your time? pic.twitter.com/ZG3sHozeFz — CreateStreetsAmerica (@CStreetsAmerica) April 5, 2019 Meanwhile in Silicon Valley… pic.twitter.com/XrEMg8j7cG — Best of Nextdoor (@bestofnextdoor) April 6, 2019 “If the feds gave state DOTs a free & easy hand to build highways for the past 60 years, they can finally do the same...

Read…

Allegedly Squirrel Proof Bird Feeder Not Rat Proof

...cilmen! Just kidding. It was rats. This discovery caps off a busy week for urban wildlife in our backyard. A young coyote visited last week and, last night, our indoor cats got in a full on cat fight on either side of a glass door with a visiting outdoor cat. Our new bird (rat?) feeder has a lever that closes when a heavy animal steps on it. This is supposed to deter squirrels. As you can see from the photos, rats easily hacked their way around th...

Read…

Paleo Grift

...eisure before the toil of agriculture is an idea that pops up often in the urban homesteading and permaculture scene. While I’m sympathetic to complaints about modern agriculture, I’ve long thought that this Golden Age narrative sounds too simple, too much like the “noble savage” archetype, the idea that if we can somehow just get back to “nature” all will be okay. This notion of a idyllic distant past was the subject of an excellent episode of th...

Read…