Common Sense for the New Times
Common Sense for the New Times
One of my comfort foods is whole-wheat macaroni with vegetables. Since I am a lazy cook and reluctant dishwasher I have always just grated cheese and sprinkled it on top of the noodles then stirred it into a clumpy and…
We have honeybees flying in our backyard again, and they have brought our family a noticeable sense of comfort. Our bees died last fall. Likely it was the varroa destructor mite, archvillain of many news stories. Carmen has noticed our…
Well over a decade ago, I owned a restaurant, and in the restaurant I sold pickled eggs. I also had a fully waxed handlebar moustache—so there are at least two reasons why I find hipsters to be Johnny-come-lately poseurs. Anyhow,…
The slices of bread on my sandwich were not loaf-shaped, they were round—perfectly round—and it was bursting with alfalfa sprouts. Eaten by a young boy with long, wavy hair and often-repaired glasses, this circular sandwich was part of a pretty…
I watched a deer die this week. It took about ninety seconds, which is a lot longer than I hope for, and the deer fought hard to live. The shock, pain and fear it was experiencing as it struggled against…
In British Columbia—where we live the Small and Delicious Life—it has been just twelve hours since the election was called for the expand-business-as-usual B.C. Liberal Party. For a little excitement, the leader of the party lost her riding, and so…
Victoria, B.C. is a lovely town to bike in; it is fairly flat, gets quite a bit less rain than nearby Vancouver, and is a fairly compact little city. You can access most services you need on most days, even…
We occasionally get a gallon of fresh cow’s milk from a charming Jersey named Sultana; it is a deliciously heart-breaking reminder of hedonism lost. The milk is not homogenized so the cream floats on top and the consistency of the cream…
When I collected my first swarm last year, I arrived at a well-manicured suburban home to find a cluster of bees the size of a Christmas Ham clumped on a branch about ten feet in the air. It is hard…
As I say in my blogroll, TreeHugger is where I go to get enraged. In what should be an innocuous Top Nine Products for Healthy Soil post, I managed to flip my lid twice. Peat is bad and Coir is…
Making sauerkraut is something for the fall, when the cabbages are fresh and cheap. But, having made my ‘kraut last October and skimmed its scum all winter,⊕To good effect. No less a luminary than James MacKinnon said—and I am quoting…
It is easy to think the Small and Delicious Life is only so delicious because it is spiced with achievement—but independent taste testers agree the greens are crisper, the bacon more flavourful, the bread nuttier. And you get the sweet…
We met Andrew Plotsky in a roundabout way—he made a short film about B. for diy.org. Naturally, when we heard he was coming up, we googled him up and watched a bunch of his stuff. I encourage you to do…
Orginally published on the Glenbrook North Zero Waste Blog (more about them at the end). I keep a lot of my dry goods in glass jars to keep them fresh and safe from insects. And, of course I hate garbage, so…
This was one of my first posts on TreeHugger.com. One day I tried to figure out why no one knows how to do anything anymore. We can’t understand, let alone repair, most of the gadgets we use everyday. We increasingly…