Saturday Linkages: Well Tended Fires, Gardening Myths and a Spartan House

...m/2014/06/thermal-efficiency-cooking-stoves.html … Grace and Gratitude, an urban homestead in Norfolk http://fw.to/kSevPBG ‘Hobbit house’ set to be knocked down http://bit.ly/1qttpPH 10 Gardening Myths Busted! http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20815937,00.html … One for the honey: Beekeeping frame storage – IKEA Hackers http://po.st/IdBwgN A very low tech hearing aid: http://tinyurl.com/knbhgxr Spartan House http://smallhouseswoon.com/spar...

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Edible Gardening Lecture at the Descanso Gardens

...ens. Here’s the description: Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of “The Urban Homestead” and the blog rootsimple.com, discuss creating a garden that is not only beautiful but delicious! Part of “Get Dirty: A Garden Series by Descanso” on Third Tuesdays. Public admission to the Gardens and the lecture is free of charge the third Tuesday of the month. Hope to see some blog readers there–perhaps we can walk around the garden after the lecture. For...

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Adam Parfrey, RIP

Our first book, The Urban Homestead, was published by Process Media which was, at the time, a collaboration between Jodi Willie and Adam Parfrey (who founded Feral House). I was deeply saddened to hear of Adam’s passing yesterday at the age of 61. Jodi and Adam took a big chance on us as new authors when they commissioned our book back in 2006. Most publishers are unoriginal and afraid to take chances. Not Adam and Jodi. It was a great pleasure t...

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Ridin’ On

...to force our cities and police departments to make cycling safer. It’s an urban homesteader’s duty to be involved with our communities and a big part of that duty is making our cities more bikable. What a tragedy it is to see people who drive to a gym so that they can ride a stationary bicycle! Unfortunately, the City of Los Angeles does not take cycling seriously. Senator Barbara Boxer speaking at the Mobility 21 summit in Los Angeles last month...

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A Plea to End Daylight Savings Time

...an hour late. It’s bad enough that our clocks are an abstraction of solar time. Why do we need to add another layer of abstraction by changing our clocks rather than adjusting our lives to the passage of the seasons? This is the time equivalent of taking honest labor, abstracting it into money and then turning that into a collateralized debt obligation. As the layers of abstraction accrue, we lose touch with the rhythms of the rising and setting...

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