Michael Janzen

Ran across this article on The Oil Drum today that summarizes how to get started with setting up an edible landscape. This is something I keep talking about doing so running across articles like this helps move me in the right direction.

Edible Landscape

I was doing a little research on long term food storage and found a couple good resources. The first is this very detailed resource on survival-center.com which catalogs many different types of food that are good for this kind of disaster preparedness. The other is a blog called the Bear Ridge Project. The blogger, Big Bear, explains a simple approach to food prep on a tight budget.

I just ran across this incredible little list of edible items and when they are in season. This would be very useful to any freegan for sure, or a great knowledge prep for hard times. There are 12 PDF files to download, one for each month of the year.  Foraging Guide

A chicken tractor is a simple portable chicken coop designed to easily move your feathered egg laying friends around the yard while keeping them safe and sound from predators and visits to your not so understanding neighbors. Here’s an instructable on how to build a simple chicken tractor. I first learned of it on Make.

Chicken Tractor Instructable

This is an excellent article on how America in general got so fat and why we should never eat processed food loaded with salt, fat, and sugar. I also want to point out that there’s no conspiracy here; food manufacturers are simply trying to make us want to eat more and more of their food while reducing their costs. Unfortunately the methods they are using to make themselves more profitable are unethical and extremely dangerous to our health.

How We Became a Society of Gluttonous Junk Food Addicts

It seems some things havn’t changed much in a few thousand years. This is a link to a recreation of the oldest known olive oil press which ironically resembles modern equiptment. It makes me think I should be sure to plant some olive trees on my future sustsinable homestead and learn to make olive oil in the mean time.

A little cardboard box won a solar oven contest recently and thegoodhuman.com made this solar oven for $1.50. You could probably make one with stuff in your house right now. I think I’m going to make one too. Follow thegoodhuman on twitter, I do.

This sounds tasty and easy to make. Definitely a recipe to try… no-work bread recipe. Just in case it disappears offline I’m going to quote the text here.

Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is browned. Cool on a rack.

A local sustainable organic food finder… Eat Well Guide… this is definitely cool. First saw it in a tweet from follownathan.

Spotted this tweeted by thistinyhouse… cool website that helps you find local farms that permit picking your own food. pickyourown.org