Urban Hayseedrecommendations | Urban Hayseed

Two in One Day?! Is He Insane?!

Rian — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:22:32 +0000

Got a new zoom for the camera. Now, to be fair to the lens, you should know that I accidentally set the camera to a film speed of ISO1600 all day. I told you I didn’t know what all the buttons did. That’s why the pictures look a little like they were printed [...]

Cistus Nursery

Rian — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:08:51 +0000

I’ve been bad about visiting all these excellent (and not so excellent) local nurseries in the Portland area– mostly because I really don’t like to drive and Portland Nursery is about a block from my house. I spend a fortune there, and, to be honest, I don’t even particularly like the place. If [...]

Backyard Food Processor

Rian — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 07:25:36 +0000

I just bought one of these:

It’s a McCullough Electric Chipper Shredder. Now, I have to say that I fully expected it to fail. I made a point of asking the customer service person at Fred Meyer if I could return it dirty if it turned out not to work. (They said [...]

Growing Potatoes in Tires

Rian — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:18:29 +0000

I was listening to my friends over at Wiggly Wigglers last night. (Note: We’ve never met, but I’ve gone to bed with Heather, Ricardo, and Phil a couple of times a week for months. Very pleasant people. A bit crowded.)

Anyway, they were talking about growing potatoes in tires (or as they like [...]

Gurney’s

Rian — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:56:15 +0000

I decided to take Gurney’s up on a coupon they sent me recently. I’d only ever ordered an apple tree from them, and I thought I’d see how their other stuff was.

Wow. It showed up this morning and was the worst example of mail order nursery stock I’ve ever seen. Not only [...]

The Urban Hayseed on Vacation

Rian — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:59:49 +0000

Aloha. I figured I should report in from the Big Island of Hawai’i while I’m here. Once a year, wifey and I like to make a run for it to the sun in the deepest darkest winter. We couldn’t have timed it better, apparently. I’ve gotten reports that it’s been raining solid (and [...]

Rian’s Book Club: The One Straw Revolution

Rian — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 06:18:07 +0000

I’d long heard of this one. It rang multiple of my bells. It’s by a Japanese guy, it’s about farming, and it’s about organic philosophy. Sweet.

Sadly, I have to report that more accurately it’s by a smug, crotchety Japanese guy, it’s about grain farming, and it’s about how everyone else is [...]

Rian’s Book Club

Rian — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:08:02 +0000

Move over, Oprah.

I’ve recently been reading:

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan

One of the last books that I read was Pollan’s Botany of Desire. In both, I appreciated Pollan’s generally successful attempts to remain accessible as a character. Often authors get carried away with their damn selves while providing scientific [...]