A Time Machine That Also Cuts Grass -- a fun article from The Christain Science Monitor about the joys of mowing with a reel mower. No… I’m not obsessed.

The lease for my country home states that I have to mow my lawn. I prefer to have a shaggy lawn with lots of wild flowers, but with the recent warm weather, it’s getting to be too shaggy for the owner’s taste. So… I need to get a lawnmower. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it (hi mom!), but I’ve decided that I’d really prefer a reel manual mower to a motorized one. The Reel Lawn Mower History & Preservation Project has a listing of current manufacturers, and CleanAirGardening.com is currently having a sale that includes free shipping on a tried-and-true model with sharpener and clipping catcher. I’ll see if I can’t find one used somewhere, but if not, maybe CleanAirGardening is the place for me. Actually, it looks like I can save at least $10 shopping elsewhere.

I’ve seen this on a few other weblogs this past week, and it’s worth repeating here. The Nation has a very readable article damning General Motors, Du Pont and Standard Oil for adding lead to gasoline for profit alone and using dirty tactics to hide the effects and smother any alternatives.

Middlefinger MP3s and Free Radicals MP3s. Good stuff! I know you could have easily found them on your own from the previous links, but hey – I’m excited about these.

Speaking of Sprawl, back in the day I really enjoyed a “ska-klezmer-whatever” band from Houston named Sprawl (no, I can’t explain that link to you. sorry.). Marjorie and I were in Albuquerque looking for something to do one night and we noticed posters for “Punk-Funk-Reggae from Houston” at an all-ages place. Had a great time, bought recordings, saw them again when they came through over the years. After one crazy show, lead singer Matt Kelly came down and shared a loaf of banana bread from his grandma with us. I’ve wondered what happened to them since then. It seems after the band split up, the members grouped together in two other bands, The Free Radicals and Middlefinger. Matt, now with Middlefinger, has had three surgeries to repair injuries sustained during shows, including the near-fatal accidental slashing of an artery with a broken beer bottle.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any anti-sprawl links, so here’s three I’ve run across recently. First, an article from Feed magazine is a nice overview of the problem, with several illustrative examples. Second, The Congress for the New Urbanism is dedicated to fighting sprawl where ever and how ever it can. Third, Scientific American currently has a homey article about Andres Duany, the father of New Urbanism.

Wow. Thanks, Jorn!

It was a real homesteading kind of day here at the country home. After getting laundry out of the way, I weeded the garden and mixed some unplanted beds. I’d wanted to plant several root vegetables (radishes, beets, carrots, turnips, parsnips), but the beds were still too wet from yesterday’s storms. I baked two loaves of sourdough bread. I started a small wheel of gouda cheese (ob cheese making link) and made several pounds of cottage cheese. I roasted a chicken and potatoes (lunches for the week!) using a new recipe that involved butterflying the whole chicken and roasting at 500 degrees. I collected a bunch of pecans from the front yard and made two loaves of sourdough banana nut bread. Finally, I read in the new book I have, The Encyclopedia of Country Living (as recommended by Mike Gunderloy of LarkFarm), on growing and processing grains. Several of my friends have a running joke inspired by my homemade pizzas – I make the mozzarella, grow the basil & tomatoes, make the crust from scratch (using whey from the cheese). “What, " they say “you didn’t grind the wheat into flour yourself, too? " It’s coming, though this year it’ll be amaranth, quinoa, and corn.

Charles Gray, the narrator of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (and known for many, many other roles), has passed on.

Nick Park and Steven Spielberg have officially announced the release of a full-length Wallace & Gromit movie. In 2004.