Saturday Linkages: Let Them Eat Cake

March 7, 2020

...Coronovirus plans: stay home and make a cat cake. Coronovirus – Things You Can Do Our Economic Model Is Making Us More Vulnerable to Coronavirus How to Make a Garden Fountain Out Of, Well, Anything You Want You Already Live in Quarantine The One Defense Against Weaponized Memes ‘The best thing about Wellington’: Mittens the cat has paws all over New Zealand capital Visit the Chocolate Shop...

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Unflipping the Gentrifence

Mr. Homegrown

January 24, 2020

Design

8 Comments

...n essential resource for anyone interested in historical preservation. I recycled all of the old gentrifence, but had to buy some more lumber to complete the project. To make the oddly shaped pickets, I used a combo of table saw cuts along with a jig for my jigsaw. Making jigs increases speed and safety. I’m not entirely happy with the metal handrail but, since I had it already, I didn’t want to let it go to waste. It’s functional and I don’t have...

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Fixing a Door Strike Plate With Repair Realism

Mr. Homegrown

January 10, 2020

Design

8 Comments

I’ve been struggling to find a word or phrase for those many times, especially in an old house, when you just resign yourself to a repair solution that just kinda works without fixing the underlying problem. I’m thinking of calling it “repair realism” as a nod to Mark Fisher’s idea of capitalist realism (the sense that we can’t imagine a way out of our current mess and we’ll just have to accept it). We’ve got this door that moves up and down with...

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A Question About Freezing and Canning Home Grown Vegetables

Mr. Homegrown

June 22, 2018

Food, Food Preservation

12 Comments

...s sort of preservation. Frozen berries, for example, are fantastic for jam making. If I need to make some peach jam out of season, I head straight to the frozen fruit section of the grocery store. Your caller was asking about vegetables, of course, and there would be some nuances. First, they will want to be sure to freeze the vegetables properly, such as blanching certain veggies to set color and stop enzymatic reactions. Following the guidelines...

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Make Your Own Landscape Lighting

Mr. Homegrown

February 15, 2024

Design, Gardening

...s in our pomegranate tree and wired them into the system which is set on a timer to turn on at sunset and go off a few hours later. I placed these lights to help illuminate the treacherous and irregular 1920s staircase leading up to the house. I also have a few pro style downlights along the stairs and another light hanging over the entrance arbor. The entrance arbor light was a 12 volt path light that I turned into a hanging light. In general I l...

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