→ 2010-06-10 08:22:52 (6 Comments)
June 10, 2010
Yesterday, we spent a wonderful afternoon across the street from the urban homestead with some very energetic 3rd graders who, for their science & social studies project, had to build a pizza box solar ovens. Not only did they do a great job of making the pizza box ovens, tbut hey also decorated the ovens [...]
September 21, 2008
by Anais in Cooking & Baking, Cooling, Energy, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Solar Power
FACT: every day the sun shines, an equivalent of 4.25 TRILLION barrels of oil falls on the US alone in the form of solar energy
I have a confession, I been addicted to solar ovens ever since we built our first cardboard, aluminum oven back in the days — 1990 to be exact. Yep, we were [...]
January 1, 2008
by Anais in Bicycle, Challenges, Community, Earthen (Cob) Oven, Garden, Growing for 10K lbs, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Production: Harvest Tally, Solar Oven, Transportation
GROW FOR TEN THOUSAND
Our readers know that that we’ve been hinting for months about a great new project in the works. As we start the new year, the moment has come to reveal our plan, along with a new logo exemplifying the revolutionary spirit of PTF’s Homegrown Revolution™: To harvest 10,000 pounds in 2008 from [...]
November 26, 2007
Answers From the Urban Homestead – Solar Ovens
Q. I would like to start using a solar oven, but the temps are dropping here in PA. Is there a minimum temperature at which the solar oven will work?Thanks for answering my question. And thanks for your work!Kym Helwig
A. Thank you for your question and positive comments, [...]
November 20, 2007
Solar ovens
Peddler’s Wagon Product Review
Practical products for the urban homesteader Sun Ovens
Back in the early 1990’s I remember building our first sun oven using cardboard boxes, aluminum foil and piece of glass. Although homemade ovens are a great diy project (a few years back we built a sturdier sun oven using scraps of plywood [...]
October 18, 2007
Simple Solar Solutions
Hallmark Channel’s New Morning show visits the Dervaes family urban homestead. This family has started a homegrown revolution™ by being the change they wish to see by living the solution.
On today’s show urban homesteader, Anais, show us how to build a simple sun oven using a pizza box. With this diy sun [...]
September 30, 2007
by Anais in Community, Homestead, Journey Reflections, Kitchen, News, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven
Edible landscaping in front yard (basil, marigolds,peppers, calamondin)
Life Interrupted
To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult. — Plutarch
We had hoped to have a few outstanding sustainable projects finished this summer, but we were so busy with the bumper summer harvest and other little things that interrupted our plans. However, [...]
August 31, 2007
by Anais in Compost, Energy, Garden, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Supplies, Water, Water, Weather
Conscious cooking
Hot & Muggy
Whew, it feels as if we are living in a sauna. Temperatures and humidity levels are insane and there’s no relief in relief in sight
The power companies are asking (should be mandatory!) folks to conserve energy and of course, we do our part here on the urban homestead.
Opening doors and windows just [...]
August 23, 2007
Deconstructing SOS Solar Oven
When the sun is shining, break out the solar oven {Globe & Mail}
Solar cooking has long been the domain of wilderness campers looking to harness the sun’s energy to make backwoods brownies.But with global warming in the collective consciousness, a small, growing number of urban dwellers are turning to solar grills and [...]
August 3, 2007
by Anais in Clay Pot Irrigation, Community, Garden, Homestead, Journey Reflections, Kitchen, News, Outreach, Solar Oven, Supplies, Updates, Water, Water
Both Sides Now
When we have time we sneak a peek through the referral statistics from the PTF website and it’s great to see the many sites that link to ours (and if you are one of those linkster who’s reading this post – thanks for spreading the word) Besides the insane amount of traffic (46,000,000 [...]
July 19, 2007
We are down to the last two parts in a series of seven for the online’Healthy Living’ series. In this segment you’ll hear Anais describe how she/we like(s) sun cooking using SOLAR OVENS
View all seven in the ‘Healthy Living’ series which feature the urban eco-pioneers of PTF.
July 13, 2007
Chris Kimball, left, and Harry Smith discuss solar cookers on The Early Show
Monday (CBS/The Early Show)
Q. …we’d like to do some solar cooking and are unsure of how/what to do. – Tia
A. Cooking with the sun is fun, easy and environmentally friendly. We made our first sun oven out of cardboard and aluminum foil over [...]
June 26, 2007
by Anais in Community, Energy, Garden, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Simple Living, Solar Oven, Supplies, Water
Green driveway strip, kombucha mother, this year’s wine crop
- made apricot fruit sauce with homegrown apricots
- bought a few 1 gallon glass jars wholesale so can start kombucha and rejuvalac cultures (have to find ways to use 800 lbs of grain that were given to us by a friend). After sprouting and fermenting the grains [...]
April 10, 2007
by Anais in Clay Pot Irrigation, Garden, Highlights, Kitchen, News, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Videos, Water
Filming
Last week we heard from someone working with the Hallmark Channel that one of the DIY clips made it to one of the ‘New Morning‘ episodes. They filmed 5 simple “DIY” clips (homemade toothpaste, bioidesel, pizza box sun oven, using ollas, newspaper pots) and the one that has certainly made it to one of [...]
February 18, 2007
Sport Sun Oven
Solar Cooking In Winter? It can be done!
Hey there Guys,I’ve been coming to your web site for a couple of years now, and I absolutely love what you’re doing.I bought a solar oven from Peddler’s Wagon a couple of months ago, and it’s great! I’ve had a cardboard box oven for years, but [...]
November 2, 2006
by Anais in Community, Cooking & Baking, Energy, Heating, Homestead, Kitchen, Laundry, News, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Updates, Water
De-Cluttering
There are so many draft journal postings it’s becoming a cluttered, disorganized mess. So, before the year is out I am going to try to a bit of “cyber cleaning.” Anyhow, feeling a bit posting fatigue at the moment so, the less said/written, the better.
Here are a few new posts with some exciting developments (did [...]
June 20, 2006
by Anais in Barnyard, Chickens, Community, Ducks, Garden, Goats, Homestead, Journey Reflections, Kitchen, Menu Planning, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Rabbits, Solar Oven, Weather
Hot & Busy
It’s been quite warm these last couple of days; however, it’s supposed to cool down slightly today.
The other day I made two lemony sweet jars of lemon verbena syrup. I plan to use the syrup to sweetened lemonades and other fruit desserts. Yesterday, we baked up another batch of blueberry muffins (with our [...]
June 18, 2006
Strawbales
Straw!
One of our clients was having a big shin-dig Texas BBQ on Friday, we happened to be delivering the same time the guy pulled in with a truck full of bales – 20 straw bales as a matter of fact! Of course, I asked the chef what would be done with the bales after [...]
June 15, 2006
by Anais in Barnyard, Energy, Goats, Highlights, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Posts by Anais, Powering Down, Solar Oven
Goat Pedicure
After the animal chores ( feeding, watering, cleaning the enclosure, and gathering eggs )were done early this morning it was time to give the goats a pedicure. While I walked one around the yard, Jordanne with the help of Jules trimmed (and cleaned) each of the goat’s hooves. Actually the goats were quite [...]
June 13, 2006
by Anais in Barnyard, Community, Compost, Garden, Goats, Greywater Reclamation, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Water, Water
Edible “forest” garden “layer” example
It’s another rather cool & somewhat cloudy morning here on the homestead. Yesterday morning we had a bit of drizzle.
We didn’t do the hoof trimming on the goats as we had planned on Sunday because their hooves didn’t really need it yet with all the walking they’ve been doing. However, we [...]
June 6, 2006
by Anais in Energy, Garden, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Powering Down, Simple Living, Solar Oven
A “Berry” Good Year
The fog’s rolled in again this morning so it should be a pretty comfortable day. So far this week, we’ve picked about 15 pounds of huge, juicy blackberries. Of course, you pay the price for picking such tasty treats since the vines are loaded with thorns. This blackberry, produces “larger than [...]
June 5, 2006
by Anais in Barnyard, Community, Garden, Goats, Kitchen, News, Outreach, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Updates
Going for a walk
The Heat is On
The last few days we’ve reached near or above triple digits. Thankfully, there’s a bit of relief today — the fog! Meteorologists are saying things will start to cool down midweek.
The scorching temps mean that the solar shower and solar oven have been put to good use these [...]
May 30, 2006
by Anais in Barnyard, Energy, Goats, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Posts by Anais, Powering Down, Solar Oven
Our neighbor and friend (Jamie) dropped by on Sunday afternoon to see the new goats. After observing and fawning over them, Jordanne put their harnesses on and we walked them down the street to surprise her roommate. Jaime and Jordanne walked the goats around her enclosed front lawn. For fun we took their leashes off, [...]
May 28, 2006
by Anais in Community, Energy, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Outdoor Shower, Posts by Anais, Powering Down, Solar Oven, Solar Power, Water
Solar shower & sun oven
Sorry for the lack of postings this week. It’s been just too nice outside and too many things to do around the urban homestead.
The guys are working on the last phase in the expansion of the animal enclosure. Now that the sun is out, we re-foiled the solar oven panels so [...]
October 17, 2005
Another night and day of torrential downpours, lightning, thunder and hail. Midday, the skies grew dark, like it was night, as wave after wave of intense storms drenched SoCal. More t-showers are expected tonight and into tomorrow. So much for my planned “cob cooking day” today. Ray’s supposed to be bringing by his [...]
October 2, 2005
by Anais in Clothing, Earthen (Cob) Oven, Highlights, Homebrew Biodiesel, Homestead, Kitchen, News, Posts by Anais, Simple Living, Solar Oven, Transportation, Weather
Early this morning (4:50 am) we were all jolted wide away by a massive explosion that was scarily close by.
Justin ran to the backyard to see a huge pillar of black smoke coming from the what looked to be either the freeway or private school that’s right behind our house. As we scrambled around for [...]
July 19, 2004
HEAT IS ON
Summer is here, bringing to So. CA hot temps and destructive wildfires.
Piles of work are waiting to be tackled in the garden as are the many projects we have going on so we’re trying our best to catch up to everything. PTF’s Urban Diary hasn’t been updated for some time now … here’s [...]
March 10, 2004
THE HEAT IS ON
It appears as if this freak heatwave is not going anywhere soon. It’s hot! The weatherman predicted a drier than normal Spring on the news last night, – if he’s right Southern California’s in deep trouble. We have a deficient in normal rainfall and not much snow in the mountains so we [...]
February 27, 2004
by Anais in Garden, Homestead, Kitchen, Mushrooms, Posts by Anais, Rainwater Harvesting, Solar Oven, Water, Weather
Everywhere I look around….
It’s a lovely day today. The sun’s out, skies are blue, air’s fresh and clean. The rain seems to have hastened the decomposition of the wood chips in the driveway and garden pathways. So we’ve been calling local tree trimmers to see if they have a load of oak or conifer tree [...]
February 24, 2004
The sun is trying its hardest to peak through the grey clouds and after four days of rain and light showers the air is fresh and clean – mmmmm.
More rain is expected on Wed and continuing through Sunday. Boy, it would sure have been nice to have had some sort of rain catchments system installed [...]
January 15, 2004
by Anais in Energy, Homebrew Biodiesel, Homestead, Kitchen, Pedal Power, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven, Transportation
IN FOR REPAIRS
The guys are repainting, adding extra insulation and touching up the sun oven they made two years ago. I’d really love them to make me another one so I can bake many dishes (and desserts) at once.
They are looking at possibly making another one withnew reflective materials sold by Clear Dome. But for [...]
December 30, 2003
BITS & PIECES
We are blessed with such a big garage with three nice large windows and high ceiling… and to think it was such an embarrassing eyesore years ago. A lesson well taken.As you can see from the photo on the left there’s still a bit of work to be done, but we are getting [...]
June 15, 2003
by Anais in Energy, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Recipe Box, Solar Oven, Solar Power, Weather
Corn almost as high as an elephant’s eye? Tomato jungle … machete anyone?
What’s this!?! Could it be? There’s something bright and yellow in the sky…. Yes, the sun finally has come out and decided to stay! Hmmmm, I wonder if this sudden occurrence had anything to do with Melissa’s (akaPioneer Woman) sun dance?
Now [...]
May 29, 2003
Relaxing in the pool
LIKE WATER OFF A DUCK’S BACK…
The duckys, now four weeks old, are finally waterproof! They now spend their days with our other ladies {chickens}, and they are getting along just fine together!. I think, though, the chickens are a bit indignant, asking how come these messy /beasts” have moved in, getting water [...]
April 16, 2002
by Anais in Barnyard, Chickens, Community, Compost, Garden, Homestead, Kitchen, Posts by Anais, Solar Oven
All Things Bright and Beautiful,All Creatures Great and Small,All Things Wild and Wonderful,The Lord God Made Them All. ~ Cecil Francis Alexander
This month has been a busy one! A few weeks ago we received the babybantam chicks through the mail and they neededconstant care and looking after.
Now,two weeks later, they are sprouting wings and [...]
March 16, 2002
We have been enjoying a week of warm and sunny weather aswe continue our spring and summer plantings.
We are still significantly behind in normal rainfall.
Normal is 19“, last yearwe had 16“, and this year we have had only 4“. The rainy season here is from Nov-May. So the window is closing fast for any [...]
January 16, 2002
Already combing through the seed catalogs, we are trying to decide which new varieties tochoose and which old favorites to purchase again of those that did well lastyear. We have to anticipate what the local caterers andrestaurants would purchase and plant accordingly. So much to choose from…
We have already purchased heirloom tomato seeds – [...]
