Let’s Talk About the Holidays

December 23, 2014

...s season in the US presents challenges to folks who are on the radical homemaking path. One action that’s helped around our household was to cut off commercial television, something we did many years ago. A number of people mentioned that they really enjoyed hearing Shannon Hayes on our podcast talking about how her family celebrates the holidays. She has also written a blog post on the subject, “Murdering Santa and Other Tips for Enjoying the Hol...

Read…

Return of the Walkman?

Mr. Homegrown

February 2, 2015

Appropriate Technology, Water and Power

15 Comments

...(Sport WM-FS397, to be exact). Here’s an “exploded” view: The BBC, back in 2010, gave a 13 year-old a Walkman to review. Here’s what the kid said: It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassett...

Read…

Two apps for choosing bike routes: one good, one bad

Mr. Homegrown

April 18, 2016

Bikes, Transportation

6 Comments

...anes and paths were. Now, there are apps for that. The Good: Google Maps In 2010, a bike option was added to Google Maps. While not perfect, it works surprisingly well. Combined with a little familiarity with what streets are good and bad to ride on, I now find that I rarely look at the city’s bike maps anymore. Here’s an example: one weekend this month, Kelly needed the car and I had to across town, from the La Brea Expo line station to the new W...

Read…

Saturday Linkages: Garden Hoses, Planners and IKEA Hacks . . .

Mr. Homegrown

January 12, 2013

Saturday Linkages

1 Comment

Ikea meets aquaponics. Gardening Finding the Garden Hose of my Dreams Garden Rant http://gardenrant.com/2013/01/garden-hose-of-my-d1reams.html … Home Ec On Planners, Productivity, and Idle Pleasures http://thetanglednest.com/2013/01/on-planners-productivity-and-idle-pleasures/ … DIY Barn Door Track Tutorail http://shar.es/47h3M How Google Earth Revealed Chicago’s Hidden Farms: http://ow.ly/gJRrS Bad News Department Florida couple may have to give...

Read…

Tracking the Mood of the Gardener

Mr. Homegrown

February 18, 2013

Gardening, Vegetable Gardening

7 Comments

Swiss chard from the winter of 2010 A Root Simple reader I ran into this weekend took issue with my assertion that fall is the best time to start a vegetable garden in Southern California. Thinking about it some more I think she may have a point. Some of you may have noticed that we have a new feature on the blog–if you click on an individual blog post you’ll see a list of related posts at the bottom. Looking at some of those older posts showed t...

Read…