Urban Homesteading: What Went Wrong

...es of future posts I’d like to look back at the ideas in our two books The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World. I’ll consider both the broader ideas in the books as well as what might have changed in terms of specific methods in subjects such as gardening and beekeeping. First let me peel back the curtain for those of you have have never written a book and describe how awkward and weird it can be to read your o...

Read…

iMac Drive Upgrade

...e cult is called Apple and I’m in deep and have been for a long time. Since 2010, most of the thousands of posts on this blog have their origins on the dusty drive you see above. I always think of the way Umberto Eco described the Apple cult and its main competitor, Indeed, the Macintosh is counterreformist and has been influenced by the “ratio studiorum” of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must p...

Read…

How to Design and Fabricate Homestead Projects

...nce lots of high and low culture. I drew on those experiences when it came time to come up with a cage for the veggies. Due to my fascination with out-of-favor 80’s postmodernism, I remembered Robert Venturi’s Franklin Court from an architectural history class I took as an undergrad: Impressed that I remembered a small detail from a slide show in a class I took 30 years ago, I Googled Franklin Court and showed it to Kelly. She countered with Wonde...

Read…

Homestead Academy: A Two Day Course in Kitchen Self-Reliance

...ead baking, vinegar brewing, yogurt making and more. The event, which will take place on July 6th and 7th is presented by Growcology and the Emerald Village and will take place in Vista, CA. This weekend intensive is designed to catapult you into a life of self-reliance through homesteading. Join Growcology and the Emerald Village Volunteers as we share the simple and effective ways to make: yogurt, cheese, butter, bread, home cleaning products, b...

Read…

Fashion on the Homestead

...to wear will be obvious. Does that mean a chicken coop casual Fridays? And for part two of this post I need to cajole Kelly into blogging about her outré homesteading uniform idea. In the meantime, how do you approach the way you dress?...

Read…