Checking in on Kelly’s projects

...it. If I ever do make a mattress, it will be like summiting the Everest of homesteading. On the other hand, if I ever learn how, I think I could make a mint teaching other desperate people how to do it themselves! Shoe making: Shoes are as ambitious as mattresses in their way, and very hard to get your head around. Fortunately I’m going to be taking that turn shoe class I posted about a while back. I’ve finally realized that I am not a lone wolf w...

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New Project: Making Bitters

...I’ll share the recipes I develop as I follow this path. In the meanwhile, making your own bitters is really easy. You may be able to throw a few experiments together just using things you find in your spice cabinet. Since these are flavoring, not medicine, you don’t have to be as careful with the quantities and timing as you must be when tincturing herbs for medicine. Yet at the same time, it’s a great introduction to that essential herbalist’s c...

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Reader Feedback About Facebook

...wess that I don’t possess but it’s the kind of solution that we in the DIY homestead world need to consider. We’re about making and doing things, right? One of those tasks might be creating the open source and decentralized internet we were promised in the 1990s before large, thuggish robber barons like Facebook arrived on the scene. I’ve blogged in the past about mesh networks set up with old routers and, apparently, this is what’s being done in...

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There Will Be Kraut Part II–Full Day Hands-On Fermentation Workshop at the Greystone Mansion

...Lecture + Full-Day Workshop for only $200 ! Erik Knutzen: Co-author of The Urban Homestead and Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World, co-founder of the Los Angeles Bead Bakers collective. Hae Jung Cho: After recovering from a career in nonprofit management, Hae Jung has been working in the food industry since 2003 in high-end restaurants, catering and retail environments. Driven by a passion for foods that require time and patience,...

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041 Sounds of the Homestead

Kelly and Erik discuss some of the unusual sounds heard around the Root Simple compound: chickens, cats, bees and, yes, Kaiser Permanente’s music on hold. 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 music is by Dr. Frankenstein. Additional music by Rho. A downloadable version of this...

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