Time for some comments . . .

June 3, 2013

Photo by Andreas Gursky. We had thought that we’d just have a few posts about the Age of Limits conference and get back to the appropriate technology and home economics posts that are the norm at Root Simple. But, judging from the comments and emails we’ve been getting, it seems we’ve brought up a topic that needs deeper exploration, so we’re going to do a few more posts related to the Triple Headed Hydra of Despair: Climate Change, Economic Coll...

Read…

Book Review: What the Robin Knows

Mrs. Homegrown

September 9, 2013

Animals, Reviews

14 Comments

...ets of bird sounds and bird motion you see and hear in that place, at that time or day, at that time of year. To facilitate this recognition, he teaches you the five basic types of calls birds make (alarm calls, companion calls, etc.), using online audio files to help with the most common birds. He goes on to teach about behavior, predators, etc. Once you understand the baseline you will be able to tell when the baseline is disturbed, and eventual...

Read…

Self-Righteousness Fail: We Bought a Car

Mr. Homegrown

November 11, 2013

Bikes, Thoughtstylings, Transportation

29 Comments

...d that will happen when it feels safer to do so. Induced demand During the time we had no car we figured out our transportation needs almost effortlessly. Having had only one car for a long time we already knew how to use the public transportation system. When we needed a car to go to a far flung suburb or out of town we rented one. We also perfected the fine art of bumming rides. But when an almost new and well-cared for car dropped into our hand...

Read…

Root Simple’s New CritterCam

Mr. Homegrown

August 18, 2014

Animals

8 Comments

...hat mammal is chewing on our fruit? How often do coyotes visit and at what time? (We’ve seen them two times in the backyard). Are rats visiting our chicken feeder? When does a broody hen get up to eat? What critters are hanging around the chicken coop at night? Use the camera’s time lapse function to look at shade patterns in the yard. I’ll share the results on the blog over the next year. The first night I used the camera I pointed it at the grap...

Read…

On the 100th Birthday of Our House: The Past and Future of Housing in the U.S.

Mr. Homegrown

January 8, 2020

Design

10 Comments

...commodity and convenience has become the oil that lubricates the wheel of time, allowing more activities, to take place either at one time in the same place (i.e. using the cellular car phones while driving), or in a particular time period but in a different place (i.e. doing grocery shopping, while dishes or clothes are machine washed). In the book, The Overworked American, 1991, Juliet Schor suggests that “U.S. employees currently work 320 more...

Read…