New Sill Plate and Joists

May 28, 2018

Design

...ld have spent doing the things that normally take up the time of glamorous urban homesteading bloggers in the big city such as pondering avocado toast recipes or dehydrating loquats. After much all caps thinking, I came to the conclusion that we need a kind of time traveling Dr. Who character whose sold mission would be to stop misguided remodeling projects in the past. He’d spend a lot of time in the 1960s and 70s halting bad patio pours, stoppin...

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Essential System #3 – Sew Your Own Damn Clothes

Mr. Homegrown

October 6, 2006

Domesticus

1 Comment

...tart spinning and weaving your own fabric). Some recommendations for brave urban homesteaders who want to take up sewing. Don’t start with stretchy fabric. Don’t even think of using velvet (we learned this the hard way). Choose patterns carefully so you don’t end up looking like, well, folks who sew their own clothes. Consider purchasing a used serger, which cuts the fabric and finishes the seam all at once, which folks in the know tell us makes l...

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What’s Your Everyday Carry?

Mr. Homegrown

May 9, 2017

Preparedness

11 Comments

...Rebar comes with a belt holster which allows me to carry the Rebar at all times, even on occasions when I’m in a suit and tie. Women, who lack pockets and, often, belts might not be able to accommodate the bulky Rebar into their EDC. Leatherman sells a smaller multi-tool called the “Juice” (inadvertent OJ reference?) that Kelly used to carry. Kelly lost her Juice which confirms the advantage of the belt holster (and her rant about women’s pockets...

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Homegrown Revolution at the Alt-Car Expo

Mr. Homegrown

October 19, 2007

Bikes

...battered 1994 Nissan Sentra which spends the overwhelming majority of its time sitting in the garage collecting dust. Around the time we got rid of our second car we put together an Xtracycle. While it’s hard to improve on the basic design of the bicycle, the Xtracycle is a great way to haul cargo. We can easily pack just as many groceries on this bike as we used to in the Sentra. The chief objection that we hear is that cycling is not safe. We u...

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Mistakes we have made . . .

Mr. Homegrown

May 24, 2008

Animals, Chickens, Permaculture, Thoughtstylings

13 Comments

...t is too prodigious, and that’s the kind of problem you can hope for as an urban homesteader. 3. Newspaper seed pots Those newspaper seed starting pots we linked to earlier this year . . . well, there seems to be a problem with them. I think the newspaper is wicking the water away from the soil. While in Houston recently, I took a class from a master gardener in plant propagation and we used regular plastic pots, a thin layer of vermiculite over t...

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