http://ryanishungry.com Hacking Everyday Life. Exchanging Notes on Survival. Compost, Vermicompost, Biofuels, SVO, Green, Solar, Electric Vehicle, DIY, Gardening Tue, 06 May 2008 14:18:32 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en On our way across the country to Virginia (our new home!), we stopped by Erik Nelson's place in Vermont to help tear down a barn. He's salvaging the wood to build a house on his land. Very exciting and a lot of hard work. Check out the video Jay made ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/05/06/barn-wreck-and-salvage/ As some of you might remember, we traversed through T or C last year and taped a bunch with Mikey and Wendy of Green Acre Hotsprings. On our way over to Virginia, we have stopped by again to catch up and meet some new folks hacking out here in the ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/04/05/truth-or-consequences-new-mexico-land-of-pioneers/ We got an email from another No Knead Bread Fan, Lucy from New Bedford, MA. She showed us her ultra geeky method of getting her dough to rise in a drafty, New England house- put it on top of the hard drive! Me and the girls threw it together last night ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/17/no-knead-bread-lucys-hard-drive-rise/ Can I get a 'hell yeah!'? I was reading this article in the New York Times today about the resurgence of young farmers when I saw a link to The Greenhorns film. Talking to our friend Chris from Wanna Farm he asked there sure is a lot going on in ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/16/the-greenhorns-a-documentary-about-young-farmers/ We had the privilege of attending a very hands on greywater workshop courtesy of The Greywater Guerillas, a local Bay Area crew of experts who are passionate about teaching folks to use their water (twice) wisely. Greywater is water that has been used once in your home and only contains ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/14/rethinking-water-greywater-guerillas-workshop/ Bruce F. left a comment on our Alemany Farm video last week and pointed us to a pretty amazing rooftop garden that he and his friends have built. After seeing the pictures, I think you'll agree he's being too modest. He says: A few of us who live in the city ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/13/diy-rooftop-garden-in-chicago/ Jamais Cascio is all about solutions. He considers himself an ethical futurist- one who designs and executes resilient and sustainable solutions that will not adversely effect present and future generations. On his blog, OpenTheFuture.com, Jamais writes about three cornerstone issues that will make or break this planet: Global Warming, Global ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/09/the-future-is-now-jamais-cascio-co-founder-of-world-changing/ The Rainforest Action Network recently started a video segment called The Greenwash of the Week. This was their first post and we thought it was clever, funny and it informed us of Virgin Atlantic's most recent greenwashing campaign. It seems that as 'being green' becomes the most obvious and urgent ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/07/rainforest-action-network-greenwash-of-the-week/ Our friend, Erik Nelson, is famous for the Carp Caviar and Wreck and Salvage video projects. He has also recently bought land in Vermont where he starts a new life with his wife and kids. In a smart move, he plans to build with as much reused material as he ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/03/03/old-barn-free-lumber/ Our friend, Mikey Skylar, recently bought himself a diesel car which he converted to veggie oil. He found that he wanted a better way to know when to switch his diesel tank to a the vegetable oil tank. You do this because the veggie oil must be warmed up before ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/28/how-to-monitor-your-grease/ Yep, it's true. We're moving back across the country to the mountains of Virginia. You might remember our video about recycled paper insulation that we were installing at Jay's dad's garage in Virginia...well, that's the place! We're excited to continue to learn more about living a sustainable life and we ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/27/big-announcement-were-moving-to-the-mountainsliterally/ I ran across this mention of this subterranean farm in an old bank vault under the busiest part of Tokyo . This blog explains how the farm works has has lots of great pictures showing the different grow rooms. Though walled in from sunlight, weather and geology, it's unbelievably verdant. Tomatoes, ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/25/underground-japanese-garden/ As Jay and I prepare for a big move back to the East Coast (Rural Virginia/DC area to be exact-we're officially bi-coastal now!), we're dispersing most of our possessions back into the world via Craigslist, Freecycle and Etsy. Yep, we're moving again. We still love the SF Bay area and ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/23/revisiting-swap-o-rama-rama-dont-commodify-modify/ Our friend Chris at WannaFarm is now making videos about the details of farming. With his wife and new kid, they are farming FOR REAL up in Portland. We can't wait to see more web savvy folks grow food or farmers using the web to share their experience. Can you ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/18/wanna-farm/ The folks at Frogdesign have launched a challenge: "For the next two weeks, I will be living without a garbage can. Where will my trash go? I am going to start needing to think about that before I buy something because, according to the rules I have set up for myself, ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/16/trash-talk/ OMG! I love Etsy.com. How have I not heard of this site before now? Etsy is an online marketplace where only handmade, original goods are sold. Search by catagory, location or by color (that's awesome!!). It's not just for crafters either, there's also a nice selection of edible goods. Next ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/02/02/etsycom-the-best-way-to-shop-handmade-online/ Fellow videoblogger, Beth Tilston lives in an apartment in Brighton, England and she totally vermicomposts! She sent us this video recently asking if we thought it was ok because it was a little sludgy. If the worms are alive and thriving, then it's good! Inspired by this conversation, she started ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/01/30/beth-tilson-uk-apartment-vermicompost/ Right now, Jay and I are touring Europe- basically we're couch hopping at videobloggers' houses! We took a short detour and stayed in a hostel in Edinburgh, Scotland. One of the cool things about this hostel was its energy conserving light systems (besides these LEDs, they had motion sensor hallway ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/01/20/led-lights-replacing-halogens-in-scotland/ Beth Kanter's son, Harry, is learning what a lot of adults don't even seem to notice- that the things we use every day are made out of something and end up somewhere, but what, where and why? What are the smarter choices that we can make that are less wasteful? ... http://ryanishungry.com/2008/01/01/beths-blog-teach-them-young/ Alemany Farm is a 4 acre, fully functioning urban farm nestled between a major highway intersection, a newly gentrified neighborhood on a hill and a housing project- the perfect place to grow some food! We got a tour (and some amazing fruit) from Antonio Roman-Alcalá, Volunteer Coordinator and soon ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/31/alemany-farm-san-francisco-urban-farming/ Ever since we started living in a place were every square inch is growing something useful (to people and other creatures), our eyes are opened to the possibility of transforming lawns and other unused green space to grow food. Why water a lawn full of grass when you could water ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/29/food-not-lawns-no-lawn-left-behind/ The infamous, most blogged, most twittered bread recipe of the last year has to be Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread, which was originally published in The New York Times and then spread like wild fire on the blog-o-sphere. This recipe has officially taken over my life. This is the best ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/28/no-knead-bread-food-of-the-gods/ You might remember from our Stone Soup video that our little eco-village has started to cull our chicken flock to make room for new birds. For the last 2 months we've been learning what it takes to be mother hens and raise two dozen newly hatched chics. Jay and I ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/26/raising-chics-from-scratch/ Bryant Terry, co-author of the book GRUB: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, and Jason Harvey, founder of Oakland Food Connection, teamed up recently to have a totally organic soul food brunch. Hanging out with food justice foodies as of late, we've been hearing a similar idea that to encourage ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/18/grub-bryant-terrys-organic-soul-party/ I'm so sick of getting my utility bill and seeing that a huge majority of my money goes to pay for energy from Natural Gas and Nuclear (and in many places in the US, Coal). I want my money to go towards renewables and I'm not the only one. Many ... http://ryanishungry.com/2007/12/14/community-choice-aggregation-power-by-the-people/