What Equipment do I Need to Keep Bees?

May 12, 2017

...ou need to get stung! Dadant has an integrated hat/veil jumpsuit that I’ve used for years. This suit is one piece, meaning that there’s no gap between your veil and suit for bees to climb up in and I like that it covers your whole body. Tuck the pant legs into boots and you’re good to go. Bees can still do a kind of half sting through the material, so I wear long sleeve shirts and long pants if I’m doing something where the bees could get angry, s...

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Kitchen KonMari Session, Illustrated

Mr. Homegrown

March 9, 2017

Domesticus, Tidying up

20 Comments

...roject. After some tense moments, we managed to purge a decent number of unused kitchen items and Kelly rearranged the cabinet to place frequently used items on more accessible shelves. Ironically, the kitchen cleaning session overlapped with the lunch hour preventing meal preparation. We decamped to a local Mexican restaurant for a meeting with a friend and Kelly finished this KonMari session on her own later. I’d call it a victory but we’ve stil...

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There she goes, my beautiful world

Mr. Homegrown

June 24, 2020

Design

6 Comments

.... They are safer, produce less dust and, while taking some practice to get used to, are just as precise if not more so and lead to fewer catastrophic mistakes. Lastly, I can’t minimize how important it is to have a proper workbench. Other crafts such as sewing, metal work, electronics etc. are greatly facilitated by a proper and dedicated work surface as well. While expensive to set up, the workshop has paid for itself many times over. I’ve used i...

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Cat Scratch Fever: How to Make Your Own Cat Scratching Posts

Mr. Homegrown

January 28, 2016

Animals, Cats

15 Comments

...our Ikea couch. Here’s what you’ll need: 3/8 inch sisal rope scrap wood (I used a 4×4) [I have revised this post: nails work better than staples!] #17 x 1 inch wire nails hot glue (optional, but a few dabs will keep the sisal on the post longer) Wrapping the wood is straightforwards, if tedious. I used some clamps to hold the post down to my work bench while I did the wrapping. Put a few nails in the sisal as you begin to wrap it around the wood....

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Is Purslane the New Kale?

Mr. Homegrown

June 27, 2014

Food, Foraging, Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

29 Comments

...le fame. We planted some this year in our summer vegetable garden and I’ve used it in a lot of salads this week. Purslane is a common weed in North America. We’d love to be able to forage it in the neighborhood but, for some reason, it only tends to appear in unappetizing locations: usually the gutter (I think it needs a bit more water than what falls naturally from the sky here). You can eat the whole plant: stems and leaves. It has a salty and s...

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