114 Will of The Weekend Homestead on Fire Safety

...es. During the podcast we talk about: Christmas fire safety–keep that tree watered! Smoke detectors Fire extinguishers and how to use them Common causes of residential fires What it’s like to be a firefighter Will’s career in fireworks Upcoming and ongoing projects: outhouse, solar power, Instapot, apple orchard, and Will’s SKYBOX You can find The Weekend Homestead on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook. If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Sim...

Read…

How to Homestead

...ead videos to stream or download. No longer relegated to the rural sphere, homesteading can be done anywhere and we are here to show you how.” With many homesteading activities, from chicken slaughtering to tortellini making, internet based video is a useful resource when you don’t have a friend or relative to show you a skill first hand. Kudos to the How to Homesteaders and we look forward to future episodes on this nicely designed site. To celeb...

Read…

Out of Water!

...Now!, the first book in Process Media’s Self-Reliance series (our book the Urban Homesteader, due out in May, is the third in this series). It’s one of the more expensive options in water storage, with new drums costing several hundred dollars, but avoids the problem of an off taste that plastic can impart. But while there’s something to be said for avoiding all sources of potential crankiness when the shit cometh down, stainless steel drums are a...

Read…

DIY Outdoor Shower

...r will soon separate your real friends from superficial hangers-on. But we urban homesteaders don’t need to be stinky since it’s possible and easy to build an outdoor solar shower. There are two reasons this makes sense, particularly in a place with as warm a climate as LA. First of all, you can direct the water straight into the garden and in so doing irrigate some plants and keep that water from uselessly running down the sewer line. Secondly, p...

Read…

The Great Water Conservation Grift

...not a desert yet, and our landscapes can be both lush and not use a lot of water. Plus we might want to use water for things like parks, schools and athletic fields especially when that use is small compared to what the Resnicks extract to make their billions. My big fear is that, while technically the water restrictions don’t apply to trees, in practice people withhold water from trees and we end up with a further destruction of our already stres...

Read…