I’m sick. I’ve been sick and more-or-less in bed for three days. Shout out to my husband for keeping everything running around here while I’ve been down for the count. So this week’s 5 Things Friday is really 3 Things Friday. I’m cutting it off short so I can go crawl back into bed with my tea….
Fasting, Booze, Lent and The Hedonic Treadmill
Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. You’ve probably heard of giving something up for Lent. Traditionally, Catholics who are better Catholics than me use the 40 days (not including Sundays) between today and Good Friday (that’s the Friday before Easter) to fast, pray, do charity and reflect on the sacrifices of Christ. But…
Are LED Grow Lights Worth The Money?
Reader Chris wrote in several weeks ago, asking about LED Grow Lights. Have you revisited LED Grow Lights lately? I want to start some transplants earlier than usual this year, and my normal method of raising transplants won’t work. I need to invest in some grow lights and I really don’t want to buy fluorescent tubes…
5 Things Friday: 2/5/16
Time for the weekly-ish round-up of randomness! 5 Things Friday is my way of shoe-horning in and discussing things that don’t necessarily belong on an urban homesteading blog, just because I’ve been thinking about them the past week. This week: George Carlin is my kind of life philosopher, how to get one over on the internet, a…
Lacto Fermented Spicy Korean Kraut
Think of this as kimchi for wimps. It’s more accessible in flavor than a traditional Korean, long-fermented pungent cabbage or turnip ferment. But it’s not so unlike kimchi that it won’t stand in well as a spicy, pungent addition to rice bowls, soups, and noodle dishes of all kinds. For the best results on this…
The Corpse Reviver No. 2
Back in the late 1800s, Corpse Reviver drinks were promoted as hangover cures – think “hair of the dog” for the 19th century inebriate. There were all number of drinks that claimed the potency to bring even the most hungover “corpse” of a drinker back to life. Only a few of the Corpse Reviver recipes survive – and of these, the…
3 Easy Steps To The Juiciest Lemons Ever
It’s citrus season, which means a couple of things around here. One, any pretension of even halfass locavorism goes out the window. I’ll take all the citrus California, Texas and Florida can manage, please, for as long as they’ll ship it up to me. Two, I start going crazy making lemon curd, salt-preserved lemons and limoncello. (I also…
When Chicken Keeping Was Patriotic
A hundred years ago Europe was in the middle of one of the ugliest, bloodiest wars the world had seen. Battlefield technology had advanced; battlefield medicine had not. Trench warfare saw millions of men killed for territory gains you could measure with a yardstick. This was World War I, definitively called The Great War by people who didn’t…
5 Things Friday: 1/22/16
Time for the weekly-ish round-up of randomness! This is my way of shoe-horning in and discussing things that don’t necessarily belong on an urban homesteading blog, just because I’ve been thinking about them the past week. This week: my new favorite TV show tackles baking like a Victorian, I probably love my napkins way too…
5 Must-See Permaculture and Agroforestry Videos
I shared a video called Life in Syntropy on my Facebook page a few days ago, but it’s so good I wanted to share it with folks who don’t do The Facebook, and also “tuck it away” for me to watch again later. You know how easy it is to lose something on the internet. If…
Why Your Spring Greens Bolt And How To Stop It
Gardeners all over the Northern Hemisphere are rubbing their hands together, just waiting for the moment the soil has warmed enough to get going. And when it comes to early spring plantings, most of us turn to hardy greens – those plants that will germinate in cooler soils, grow happily in partial sun, and reward…
Maple and Spice Old Fashioned Cocktail for Winter
Like people, cocktails can be organized into families. There are the sours, the champagne cocktails, the duos, the trios….many families. And the great, great, great granddaddy of them all is the Old Fashioned. The first known definition of the word cocktail was in 1806. Back then a cocktail was spirits, bitters, water, and sugar. Nothing more, nothing less….