Our Footprint

...a small house and don’t drive much. That’s just about it. We can’t afford solar panels, and everything else we’ve done, such as the washing machine greywater system, is DIY and un-permitted. We’re sure that many people in our 1920s era neighborhood would have also won this contest. Folks in apartments would have done even better. The average African would do a thousand times better. But anyways, many thanks to the nice folks at Low Impact Living...

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Arduino Homesteading Projects

...UberFridge Controls Homebrewing Temperatures Cooking Sous-vide cooking Kitchen Timer Security Garage door monitor Arduino Security Hacks Communications Fun with a rotary phone! Miscellaneous Led candle (would look great in my hacked solar light) And a shout out to the amazing bloggers at Holy Scrap, masters of using microcontrollers in clever low-tech ways. Follow their blog! Please leave a comment with a link if you know of other projects that sh...

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Saturday Linkages: Straw Bales and Bike Hacks

...i.ms/10kt1Hf DIY How to fix a bicycle tube http://www.afrigadget.com/2013/02/22/how-to-fix-a-bicycle-tube/ … Bike headlight displays speed: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/20/bike-headlight-displays-speed.html Build-It-Solar Blog: A Inexpensive DIY Blower Door http://www.builditsolarblog.com/2013/02/a-inexpensive-diy-blower-door-that.html?spref=tw … For these links and more, follow Root Simple on Twitter: Follow @rootsimple...

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Our Keyhole Vegetable Bed: What Worked and What Didn’t Work

...to our chickens and the compost pile. Ignore the large pot–that’s a future solar powered fountain that will be incorporated in a new vegetable garden we’re working on. Here’s what the keyhole bed looked like just after I installed it back in October. Note the compost repository in the center of the bed. I used straw wattle (available where professional irrigation supplies are sold) to form the sides of the keyhole. A month later in November a few...

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Learn to Build with Adobe

...mmunity College’s Adobe Construction Department: Class: ADOB 113 – Passive Solar Adobe Design Format: 8-Week Online Class Dates: January 21 to March 15, 2014 Credits: 2 Course #: 31660 Class: ADOB 111 – Adobe Construction Basics Format: 8-Week Online Class Dates: March 24 to May 17, 2014 Credits: 3 Course #: 31268 Class: ADOB 112 – Adobe Wall Construction Format: Web-Blended (4 Weeks Online + 2 Days of Intensive Live Instruction) Dates: April 19 t...

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