Seat Weaving for Fun and Profit

July 26, 2019

Design

...2-pound rolls since I correctly anticipated making some mistakes the first time and I’m planning on making more of these chairs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQkE05DD9_Y I found a helpful seat weaving tutorial on YouTube by Ed Hammond a.k.a. Peerless Rattan. Hammond has sixteen videos on how to weave and cane a variety of chairs. Please note that in addition to ladderback chairs there’s a lot of mid-century Scandinavian chairs that have a sligh...

Read…

How to Keep Skunks Out of the Yard

Mr. Homegrown

March 11, 2014

Gardening, Pests

17 Comments

...Skunk Habitat In the wild skunks dig dens or live in hollowed out logs. In urban areas they like to take up residence in crawl spaces and under decks. (Design tip: avoid creating skunk habitat in the first place by making sure these types of spaces are not accessible.) I suspect that there may be a skunk or two living under our back shed. This shed is as old as the house (almost 100 years) and can’t be skunk proofed on all sides due to its setting...

Read…

How to Cycle Safely

Mr. Homegrown

December 14, 2012

Bikes, How-to, Transportation

4 Comments

...can also be handy. When going through an intersection watch out for people making left tuns. Assume that you are not seen even if you are wearing a florescent pink bunny suit. Also watch out for people making right turns. Always assume the worst is about to happen and have a plan to either turn quickly or slam on the brakes. Avoid the door zone. There are rare exceptions when I will dip into the door zone briefly (only while going very slowly). Bu...

Read…

Be Idle

Mr. Homegrown

December 3, 2006

Thoughtstylings

1 Comment

...Vivre and Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life. Part of the Urban Homesteadin’ thing involves simplifying one’s life, but we just can’t get behind the all the deprivation and mortification that often goes with American’s puritanical approach to the new simplicity. A compelling speaker, Andrews echoed our wariness and used the Slow Food movement as an counter-example to the pitfalls of the simplicity movement. The Slow Food movement began...

Read…

Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)

Mr. Homegrown

July 1, 2009

Herbal Medicine, Herbs

10 Comments

Every time we visit the nice folks at Petaluma Urban Homestead they send us home with some strange plant. Thanks to PUH, who are busy actually doing things as opposed to blogging about doing things, we now have a beautiful flowering mullein plant (Verbascum thapsus). Verbascum thapsus is one of those plants that most people think of as a weed. Native to Europe and Asia, Verbascum thapsus was introduced to North America because of its many medicin...

Read…