Shoemaking Advice?

September 13, 2013

...asking for help. Have any of you made your own shoes? I’m looking for good resources on shoe making: books, videos, etc. I’d also love to hear stories of successes or failures or lessons learned. I’d like to make leather, soft-soled shoes as first project perhaps moccasins, perhaps something more structured. I have two books right now. One is Shoes for Free People, by David & Inger Runk, published in 1976 in Santa Cruz. As you might expect, it is...

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Straw Bale Garden Update: Success!

Mr. Homegrown

July 15, 2013

31 Comments

...ipening fruit. Zucchini is on the menu. While it takes an input of outside resources in the form of straw and fertilizer, straw bale gardening is a great solution for beginning gardeners or for those cursed with bad soil. And the skunks that have decimated my previous vegetable gardens are unable to get up on the bales. I’m considering trying another straw bale garden during our winter season. And I’m also pondering building boxes to put the bales...

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Getting Things Done

Mr. Homegrown

July 12, 2013

Age of Limits

4 Comments

...e lifestyles while they’re still here, right? It may be impolite to say this, but it needs to be said: any belief about the future that encourages people to sit on their backsides and do nothing but consume scarce resources, when there’s a huge amount that could be done to make the future a better place and a grave shortage of people doing it, is a luxury this age of the world can’t afford. Amen. Let’s get busy....

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Farm Hack

Mr. Homegrown

July 5, 2013

Appropriate Technology, Gardening, Water and Power

2 Comments

...ckyard gardeners. Recent subjects include a project to develop an infrared camera to monitor plant health, smartphone tools for farmers and open source appropriate technology resources. It’s exactly this kind of innovation that gives me great hope for the future. Thanks to Tommy Berbas for the tip....

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We heal together

Mrs. Homegrown

June 4, 2013

Miscellaneous

34 Comments

...nature as something “out there”. Perhaps as a collection of useful natural resources. Or something pretty to visit before we return to our toilets and hot showers. We see nature as something to manage or control. Even as an enemy. We’ve become schizophrenic. We are nature. Nature is us. Seems to me that keeping this thought close and forward in our consciousness is fundamental to both understanding and healing. I’m going to share with you somethin...

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