Three Things I’ve Learned About Baking Bread With Whole Grain

February 19, 2015

...I needed to shorten the first rise (bulk fermentation). The white breads I used to make required a four to five hour bulk fermentation. The whole grain breads I’m baking now seem to do fine with just three hours (depending on the weather, of course). Once I shape my dough, I put it in the fridge to proof overnight. The time in the fridge makes wet dough easier to handle and develops the flavor. And that cold dough can go straight from the fridge a...

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Nextdoor: Monetizing Your Neighbors

Mr. Homegrown

March 10, 2015

Thoughtstylings

23 Comments

...ed Nextdoor. When it began I thought it was a good idea. My neighbors even used it to organize some parties that got us all acquainted. But the Nextdoor folks started dictating to us what the physical boundaries would be of our neighborhood. Those boundaries got too big. Then heated and tedious discussion threads started up. Racist comments appeared. Recently Nextdoor asked Kelly to moderate questionable comments, framing this as a privilege rathe...

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Back to the Garden

Mrs. Homegrown

March 12, 2015

Back to the Garden, Thoughtstylings

22 Comments

...r the pain and loneliness of our estrangement from which we once loved, we used our creative intelligence to pillage all of the resources of the world. Like greedy children we demanded more and more toys, and then broke them all. Now we sit in the debris of our own wastefulness, wanting still more. We want more because we are empty inside, and we think power and things can fill that lonely space in our hearts. Some people think humans are an evolu...

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Root Simple Busted: Drying Racks, Clothes Lines and Cheese Puffs

Mr. Homegrown

March 16, 2015

Appropriate Technology, Water and Power

57 Comments

...our house. But like many clothes lines, it was low quality and eventually broke. I never replaced it. Joanne mentioned going through several flimsy clothes drying racks before settling on a higher quality drying rack that can be used both outside and inside. My question of the week for you, our dear readers, is what kind of drying rack do you like best? Do you use a line? Do you prefer one to the other? Do you have a favorite, non-flimsy rack or...

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Ikea Karlstad Couch Hack

Mr. Homegrown

March 23, 2015

Design

9 Comments

...w minutes to figure out the arm dimensions. I don’t have a table saw, so I used my circular saw and some guides to cut up the plywood sheet. An afternoon of work putting the arms together and another day to coat the wood with polyurethane, the new arms were ready to bolt onto the couch. It worked perfectly and the couch is now much more sturdy. The last step was to “catify” the arms. I cut some strips from an Ikea doormat to the exact dimensions o...

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