Cactus juice preservative for the cob oven
I’m “cooking up” a batch of Opuntia juice preservative. It is a traditional weather coating used on adobe and cob structures. We will be adding it to the final coat on the Westchester Community Oven when we re-surface it next…
Rainstorms and the cob oven
After months of drought, last Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning we got 1.79 inches of rain within about 6 hours — the tail end of Hurricane Linda. Long story short, the Oven was uncovered during a severe…
Why we’re hosting speakers on death and dying
Over this past year, Peter and I have each separately had someone very close to us encounter end-of-life issues that didn’t necessarily go the way the person would have liked. If the families had known more, or had been better…
The Change-Making Manifesto
What is Change-Making all about? Change-Making is passionately creating positive change. It’s an onging and forever project, because there is simply so much that needs repair and nurturing. That means there’s an element of long-term commitment. But then, what else…
Test firing news from the Westchester Community Oven
Last night a small team tried cooking food in The Westchester Community Oven.
ebook The Secrets of Soil Building now available
You can now get my new ebook, The Secrets of Soil Building, to help you in your gardening journey. At the heart of every successful organic garden is rich, healthy, ALIVE garden soil. The Secrets of Soil Building helps you build it, and…
Making the best of drought and flood
Seems like we’re getting the weather extremes this year. A summer of extreme drought, water rationing, and lawn removal. And winter forecasts are for record-breaking rains (but all that water isn’t here yet). How do we make the best of…
Rainwater harvesting: Infiltration features
One category of rainwater harvesting uses Mother Earth as your “storage device.” You design your landscape, including choices on surface materials and making decisions about the grading (land sculpting), with the goal of making water soak into the ground. Up until fairly…
Tis the season to be planning!
In Martha Stewart’s book Gardening, she described her gardening January as a time to curl up in a favorite chair with all her catalogs and dream about spring. Not so in Southern California! Here in So Cal, January should be…
Rainwater harvesting: Capture and Store devices
I’ve written before about rain barrels. At the Community Garden at Holy Nativity, we have rain tanks. TreePeople has a massive cistern up on Mulholland. All of these devices — rain barrels, rain tanks, cisterns — are what are considered…
