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When Jay and I got a wood stove last fall, he surprised me with his Boy Scout knowledge and made these little wax fire starters to help get the stove rockin’. Remember to be careful when heating up the wax, especially if you are working on a gas stove with a flame.

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We recently had the privledge to make a video about Rainforest Action Network, the non-profit envrionmental change maker. We first met Julie Wolk, RAN Grassroots Organizer, at the Bioneers Conference. Julie explained that RAN works to hold corporations accountable for their environmental practices through an ‘inside-outside’ approach to activism. Having protesters outside a store or shareholders meeting helps to put the pressure on, having a contact meeting directly with CEOs on the inside helps get the demands met, both creating space for each action to make real change.

We were super impressed and moved by the passion and dedication that everyone we interviewed in the organization has. They’ve made incredible changes and continue to train and empower the next generation of environmental activists to get engaged and tell corporations that ‘business as usual is just not OK’.

We’ve been working on this for a few months, going through their extensive video archive, gathering interviews and trying to bring 20 years of RAN’s work into the spotlight. All media in the video (music, photos and original interview footage) is Creative Commons licensed. Thanks to everyone at RAN for letting us come in and document your work!

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I’ve been meaning to make this video for weeks. Check out our place and our gardens. We’re gardening using the Grow Biointensive methods we learned in Willits, CA from John Jeavons and Carol Cox. All hand tilled baby. Everything is growing wonderfully.

Inspired by our tour, Wendy Tremayne, of the infamous Wendy and Mikey, made a tour video too. Click on the picture below to go to their Vimeo page. If you make one, link to it in the comments, I’d love to see what other people are doing.

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 and then looked for someplace warm in this drafty old house of ours. Then I remembered I have an external hard drive that runs very hot. I’ve used it in the past to germinate little pots of seeds, and so I thought – why not?

Thanks Lucy, I’ll be sure to do this next time I makeathebread!

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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 a little soap, dirt (from laundry or skin) or kitchen particles like food or grease. Unlike blackwater, which is water that has touched excrement, like toilet water, greywater is safe to use in watering your garden. As Laura Allen, co-editor of the book Dam Nation: Dispatches from the Water Underground, and our amazing instructor points out in this video:

You don’t want to put the greywater onto the part of the plant that you’re going to eat…if you get the water going into the ground, there are no more health risks than would be [associated with the regular dirt in your garden]. So you want to get the greywater into the ground soaking down to irrigate the roots of your plants.

We were able to do just this in home owner Tara’s backyard. We replaced her kitchen sink pipe with a 3 way valve giving her the choice to send her sink water back to the sewer or out to the greywater system of pipes and mulch basins surrounding four fruit trees. The system was relatively simple and inexpensive. Total price was $200 for all new pipes which included a $60 top of the line 3 way valve, a bunch of 2 way splitters and under a hundred feet of piping. If you live close to a salvage yard or are savvy on Freecycle or Craigslist you can get these materials for way cheaper or even free.

Laura touches on some of the legality of systems like this:

California has a greywater code so greywater theoretically is legal…some states have no code so greywater is not legal. In California, you have the potential to do greywater…that said, the code that’s written down for greywater is very, very wasteful, it’s very bad, most people don’t follow it. In California most people have unpermitted systems which are…technically illegal, just as building anything unpermitted is technically illegal.

There are a few states, like Arizona, that encourage safe and resourceful greywater systems like the one we built here. So find out what your state allows before cutting into your pipes. But if you’re like these Californians and your state codes are no good, you’ll want to find some greywater experts to consult and keep in touch with to help change the codes for better.

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[tags]graywater, green, greywater guerillas, greywayter, ryanishungry, san francisco[/tags]

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 of Chicago are trying to grow heirloom vegetables on our rooftops in cheap homemade earthboxes. It sounds more than a little preposterous to suggest that what we’re doing is a real solution to the huge environmental problems we’re facing, but it might be a tiny piece. We think they’re a great way to build connections in a fragmented social/political landscape. Not selling anything, I’m giving “it” away.

Here’s the Flickr link, along side the pics is a little how-to guide with plenty of relevant links.

We really love to see smart people start taking advantage of resources around them. Americans currently live in such abundance that making a rooftop garden, at first thought, might not make much sense. However, growing food is a great skill to learn and a valuable way to spend your time. Bruce has plenty of good info on his designs and links to online support.

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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 plan to keep documenting this process on Ryan Is Hungry. We also plan to take our mini-documentaries of other folks hacking the sustainable lifestyle to another level. Thanks for the year of total awesomeness. We’ve learned so much from all of you, thanks for following us and contributing back to the conversation!

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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 the San Mateo Eco-Village very much, but we’re feeling the need to start building something of our own. Jay’s dad has land in Virginia that is the perfect spot to put to use what we’ve learned this past year about gardening and sustainable building (thanks to all of you and this here blog!). What a perfect time to re-visit the Swap-O-Rama-Rama video! More to come about the move…
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You might recognize Wendy Tremayne from our Green Acre Series here on RyanIsHungry. Wendy founded Swap-O-Rama-Rama as a way to break out the consumer cycle of shopping for clothes. Utilizing the abundance that just a few people’s closets can bare, adding a little creativity with fancy sewing machines and silkscreen artists for custom modifications, Swap-O-Rama-Rama makes recycling clothes fun and social. This particular swap was part of Maker Faire, an event to celebrate makers of all kinds from robot artists to crafters to computer hackers.

As Wendy says here:

There is no creativity in consumerism…makers don’t make good consumers. The less you know, the less you can make, the more you’re going to buy.

Want to produce a Swap-O-Rama-Rama where you live? You can! Because it’s Creative Commons licensed! Contact Wendy through the site and she’ll get you started!

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[tags] swaporamarama, wendy tremayne, clothing swap, recycle clothes, recycling, green, sustainable, gift economy, maker faire, san francisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

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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 and grow salad greens, root veggies, herbs, squash, tomatoes, peppers, the list goes on and on. In this video we used some scrap wood to build a raised garden bed over a 7′x7′ patch of driveway gravel. Not only do we pluck the greens for dinner, it looks a lot nicer than the dumping ground of found materials that it once was. If every neighborhood had even a few lawns turned into gardens, we could start hyper-localizing our food supplies and getting to know our neighbors- because, after all, you’re going to want to trade gardening tips!

Correction: Thanks to Nicole who commented below that this garden bed is 49 sq feet (or 4.5 sq m), not 14 sq feet (which would be 7+7 not 7×7, duh). Thanks Nicole!

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[tags]urban permaculture, gardening, food security, urban farming, san mateo eco village, ryanishungry[/tags]

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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 bread ever. It’s so damn easy and so damn good, you will never need to buy another loaf of bread from the store (and at about $6 a pop for the “Peasant Bread” at your local grocer, which is pretty much the same thing as this, why would you?). I first heard about it in Miss Bekah Havens’ video Make-A-The-Bread and really, my life has not been the same since. Go make it, you will not be sorry! I promise!

I like to double the recipe for a nice 3 lb. loaf that lasts, oh about 2 days. Just enough time to get another batch started!

No-Knead Bread

from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Yields one 1 1/2 pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
¼ teaspoon instant yeast
1¼ teaspoons salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

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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 grew up in urban areas where there were no chickens but in the grocery store, so this was a learning experience for us both. These babies need tons of food, water and warmth because they grow exponentially in their first months of life. The benefits of having chickens in your backyard are many- they eat veggie food scraps and weeds, they poop instant fertilizer, they lay eggs and, if you’re into it, they’ll eventually make a great organic, free range, home raised meal.

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[tags]chickens, chics, raising chickens, san mateo eco-village, food security, ryanishungry[/tags]

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A Word of Warning: This is a graphic video. If you do not eat meat and think killing animals to do so is bad, you should not watch this video.

We live at The San Mateo Eco-Village, where we know our neighbors, garden together and learn how to live more sustainably. Part of living sustainably is eating local foods. Harvesting food from the garden and raising hens for eggs is about as local as you can get. When our neighbors Amy and Malaki arrived at the Eco-Village, they noticed a lack of eggs coming from the hens. Both have an agricultural background from years of working on a farm in Kenya. What do they do in Kenya when a bird gets too old to lay? They eat it. The whole damn thing! So we, as a community, decided to do just that. Most of us had never experienced living with chickens, let alone killing them for dinner. Growing up in the United States allows us to be vastly ignorant of where our food comes from- meat and vegetables alike. We thought this would be a good education for us city kids.

The interesting part to me was the difference in methods between Brian, co-founder of The Eco-Village and Bay Area Native, and Malaki who grew up on a farm in Kenya. Also I thought it would be way more physically dramatic- you’ve heard the saying “running around like a chicken with its head cut-off”. Well, it’s true. Even after the chicken has died, the body still moves around and spasms. Though it was not the most pleasant experience to watch an animal die at human hands, I do know that these birds had a peaceful life full of good food and loving owners. That’s saying a heck of a lot more than all the meat that is factory farmed and trucked to our grocery stores.

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[tags]local food, sustainable, chickens, hens, permaculture, garden, san mateo ecovillage, ecovillage, co-housing, san mateo, ryanishungry[/tags]

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We were saddened by the death of our first worm bin because of some imbalance of moisture, acidity or bad paper products. We’re super determined to continue the worm composting process with a homemade bin. We took the tray from our old bin (a big kitty litter pan) and gathered some scrap wood from our communal backyard at the San Mateo Eco-Village and got the process going again. The basic set up for a healthy, homemade bin is plenty of ventilation, damp paper bedding, food scraps, green plant stuffs, red wiggler worms and some shredded dry paper topping. We’ll keep monitoring our bin to see how it’s going and hopefully, cross your fingers, our worms survive and make us rich worm castings for our plants. If you make your own bin, let us know how it’s going and what your secrets are!

Music: Santigo (Stuttering Breaks Mix) by DJ Rkod

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[tags]vermicompost, apartment compost, worm bin, compost, worm castings, green, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Burning Man is filled with hackers, artists and makers of all walks. We thought we would search out the energy geeks and see how they were utilizing resources out in the middle of no where. The obvious, most abundant source of energy in Black Rock City is the Sun. Solar arrays ranged from the milk crate supported to the 10,000 watt, “could (and did) power a small village” variety. It was great to see electric art cars charging off the sun! Waste Veggie Oil diesel conversions were also a favorite among burners for powering art cars and generators too. Thanks to Maestro, David and Nick for sharing their desert energy oases with us!

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[tags]burning man, black rock city, solar energy, wvo, svo, veggie oil, biodiesel, electric vehicle, ev, green, diy, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Anyone who knows Ryanne, knows she’s extremely thrifty when it comes to utilities. Growing up in cold wintered New England taught her to keep that thermostat to a minimum or else when spring rolls around, you’ll be in heating bill debt. Living in California allows us to keep our heating bill low to nonexistent. So why are we paying almost $20 a month ($240 a year) for gas? We don’t even have a gas stove! Find out how we were able to cut this amount in half through a little furnace investigation. If you have a newer gas heating system, you might not have this problem. Newer systems have electronic gadgets to help drastically reduce gas usage. Thank Goodness! Our system is from the late 50’s early 60’s, back when energy was cheap(er)!

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[tags]utilities, pilot light, energy conservation, furnace, ryanishungry[/tags]

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The Solar Living Institute, home of Real Goods (one of the first Green Catalogs), is like a big, green playground. The 12 acre plot was developed as a demonstration site for renewable and clean technologies like solar and wind power, green building and permaculture. We were excited to be able to spend some time on the campus while participating in a workshop on how to build an electric vehicle. Although the workshop turned out to be a wee bit overwhelming, we felt we got a pretty good primer into the world of electric vehicles. That said, we encourage y’all to take a workshop or class on some of these green ideas. Meeting people and gathering resources for getting started on this stuff is a good motivator for really making change.

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[tags]real goods, hopland, solar living institute, electric car, ev, solar, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Many people strive for the freedom that working for themselves and freelancing brings. You can work odd hours in your pajamas at home, travel to exotic locals but still be on the job, not have to clock in at an office. After the initial exhilaration of being independent cools a bit, there is something missing- co-workers and the social environment that working for a company can bring. Enter Co-Working. Co-Working is an idea that independent workers still want and need social interaction and structure during working hours. Going stir crazy working in your living room? Can’t stand that Madonna remix album they keep repeating at the cafe? Want to bounce your ideas off some other geeks? Co-Working!

We started our Co-Working experience at The Hat Factory here in San Francisco. The most unexpected benefit, besides meeting great people, was the ability to separate work time from relax time- not an easy task for a freelancer. Our day schedule looked like this: Get up, go to Hat Factory, work for 6-8 hours, come home, put the computer to sleep, cook dinner, watch a movie. Hey, we didn’t end up working for 12 hours today! We have a sustainable, not-burnt out life outside our work! Thanks Co-Working!

Thanks to Brad Neuberg and Chris Messina and Tara Hunt, from Citizen Space, for sitting down with us and explaining how Co-Working got started and what it all means. Get involved in starting your own Co-Working space by connecting to the folks already doing it! Check out the Co-Working Wiki, Blog and E-mail list.

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[tags]coworking, barcamp, brad neuberg, chris messina, tara hunt, citizen space, citizen agency, san francisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Have you ever cooked with a non-stick skillet and had the non-stick surface flake off after a few months? That super slick surface is made up of many harmful chemicals that should absolutely not be eaten! What’s the alternative to cheap-o, toxic frying pans? Your grandma’s grandma had the secret in her kitchen- Cast Iron! You might be thinking ‘Hey isn’t cast iron archaic cookware from the pioneer days?’. Well, yeah, but they had the right idea, cook with heavily oiled metal and never have nasty non-stick chemicals peeling off into your food. Cast iron cookware has been used for generations because it literally lasts that long! It’s also fully recyclable since it’s one big hunk of iron which can be melted down by a scrap yard. You can nab a high quality cast iron skillet for under $20 and it will probably have at least a 10 year warranty. What other frying pan can top that?

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[tags]cast iron, cast iron cookware, green, cooking, DIY, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Your bathroom is a sacred place where you clean your body inside and out (literally). What better way to treat yourself than to green it up a bit? There are so many little things that can be done to make sure that every thing coming in (water, soap, humans) and every thing going out (water, soap, poop) is clean and green. Thanks to Cheryl Colan from Node101 Phoenix for sharing her green bathroom secrets too! Our favorite green products mentioned: Dr. Bronner’s Soaps and Bio-Clean.

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[tags]green bathroom, green, biodegradable, compost, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Keith aka Skeeter is living totally off the grid. Starting with a raw plot of land, he built his house from scratch, dug a well, created a solar power system and is completely responsible for all his waste. Keith is a good example of someone who got tired of paying utilities and mortgages to live on earth. He took matters into his own hands and decided to be as independent as possible. Deciding to live out in the wilderness is one way to go off the grid. We’ll be exploring other ways of being independent in urban environments in some of our next posts. Thanks Keith!

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[tags]off the grid, new mexico, solar, composting toilet, skeeter, green, sustainable, sustainability, solar power, ryanishungry[/tags]

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Seeing a lot of furniture and used junk on the sidewalk? Must be moving day in your neighborhood! With a little extra pre-planning and the right resources, you can make moving a green experience. Go through your closet, your desk, your entire apartment- decide what you absolutely need and recycle the rest! Recycling can take the form of reselling on Craigslist or eBay. Donations to Goodwill and Salvation Army are perfect examples of re-use. Find electronics and battery recycling centers near you through Earth911.org.

We’ve moved 3 times in the last 3 years and have become experts at selling all our stuff online. If we find that we need a certain item again after we’ve moved (like a desk or some chairs) we cruise Craigslist for cheap or free deals. When we move again and can’t fit them in our car, we put them back into the cycle and sell or give away!

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[tags]green, moving, sustainable, craigslist, ebay, resell, recycle, reuse, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry[/tags]

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UPDATE:

We have modified this original design to a shallower, more airy worm bin. Check out our new design here, Born Again Worm Bin and its progress here Vermicompost: Our Worm Bin Rocks!. Cheers! Good Luck!
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Barb Finnin is part of the amazing Freshtopia team. She’s a certified master composter- her specialty is Vermicomposting with worms. We were super excited to learn that we could compost in our city apartment with a homemade worm bin even though we don’t have a yard. Throwing food scraps away in the garbage is not something either of us enjoys, so having a green alternative has been more than satisfying for our sustainability goals. After 4 weeks, our worms are happy and thriving.

Find out more about Vermicomposting and other forms of composting on Wikipedia. Visit Barb at Freshtopia.net.

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[tags]vermicomposting, vermiculture, worm compost, compost, apartment composting, indoor composting, diy, barb finnin, freshtopia, sanfrancisco, ryanishungry[/tags]