023 Cleaning, Spam Poetry and Shoemaking

...w L.A. We’ll add a link for Randy’s website when he finishes it–in the meantime, if you’re within striking distance of Santa Barbara and are interested in shoe making lessons, go ahead and shoot us an email at rootsimple at gmail dot com and we’ll hook you up with Randy. 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 sto...

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Moon Gazing

...we can just all stand outside and howl at the moon. It would do us some good, I think. What is a blood moon anyway, you ask? It’s a moon stained red by the Earth’s shadow. What’s a super moon? It’s a full moon which is as close to Earth as it can be in its elliptical orbit, making it appear extra large in the sky. For more authoritative information on this lunar event, and for best viewing times and the like, check out Sky & Telescope. Erik is a b...

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Timing Sourdough Feeding

...ecent sourdough bread: the amount of time between feeding your starter and making your dough. I keep a small amount of starter on hand since I bake, at most, twice a week under normal circumstances (Under quarantine I’m baking a lot more but the reasons for that would be the subject of another blog post). Just before I go to bed, the night before I’m going to make bread, I take a tablespoon of starer and add it to 50 grams of whole wheat flour and...

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Connect with Nature Project #2: Rediscover Your Feet

...ow can walk confidently in darkness. This opens a whole new world of night-time nature appreciation. When you are blinded by your own flashlight, your field of vision is confined to a small circle of light. The world outside that ghostly circle seems mysterious, even threatening. Walking without light allows you to see the stars, and the shapes of things. You walk slower, yes, so you see and understand more. To anyone seeking closer contact with n...

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Join or Die: Why You Should Join a Club

...a symptom of economic prosperity and political stability? It’s been a long time since I read the book but I recall that Putnam acknowledges economic factors, particularly the need for both parents in most family households to have jobs and how this drastically cuts down on time available for joining groups. That said, I do wonder if the particularly insidious form of capitalism we’re enmeshed in, variously called “neo-liberalism” or “late stage ca...

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