Satan’s Easter Basket is Filled with Plastic Easter Grass

Easter baskets, a springtime ritual so loved by kids and adults alike should not have a dark side. So it’s more than a little ironic that this holiday, which in its secular form emphasizes rebirth and celebrates new life and baby animals of all sorts, actually causes accidental pain and suffering to many animals. The culprit is plastic Easter grass. The day after Easter this year, I took an early morning walk down to Echo Park and found Eastermag...

Read…

Saturday Tweets: Root Simple’s Miscellanies

...cutting some grooves. My friends at @rootsimple might enjoy. #jig #router #making pic.twitter.com/bHqtYRjx2l — federico tobon (@wolfCatWorkshop) August 23, 2017 An Experimental Trickle Down Solar Water Heating System: https://t.co/MipsQ2Buj7 — Root Simple (@rootsimple) August 26, 2017 Saying goodbye to a garden: https://t.co/UhQ74Mgeqt — Root Simple (@rootsimple) August 26, 2017 America's Sorriest Bus Stop: Pittsburgh vs. Medford https://t.co/...

Read…

German Rye Bread Recipe

...a thought about, say, accuracy. Sometimes those folks are us. When it came time to teach a German rye bread class for the Los Angeles Bread Bakers, I took another look at the recipe on this blog and sent it to fellow LABBer Dana Morgan for testing and revision. Thanks to Dana I have now revised and re-posted that recipe here. If you’re into sourdough, this is an easy loaf to bake. There’s not much in the way of shaping and you don’t even have to s...

Read…

028 Radical Homemaker Shannon Hayes

...l Homemakers Gender roles Her new book Homespun Mom Comes Unraveled Messes Making relationships work Perfectionism Home schooling Higher education Student debt Occupy Wall Street Reclaiming the holiday season Shannon’s sock knitting machine If you want to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to rootsimple@gmail.com. You can subscribe to our podcast in the iTunes store and on Stitcher. The theme m...

Read…

Ikea Karlstad Couch Hack

...igoths, took to using both arms of the couch as a scratching posts. It was time for an intervention, an “Ikea hack” that would save the couch from the hydraulic jaws of the bulky item pickup truck. I set as my goal to make new arms for the couch that would be sturdy and cat-friendly. The cats are going to want to scratch it anyways, so why not make the ends scratch-able? Permaculture applied to Ikea hacking! But the path to Ikea hacking is not alw...

Read…