Urban self-reliance: homestead in Oakland's small rented lot

Kirsten Dirksen
Published on Apr 13, 2015

Sheila Cassani began farming her rental home while a college student. She started with a small vegetable patch, but it soon spread to keeping chickens and bees and planting produce on nearly every available patch of the small yard not dedicated to the poultry.

Cassani and her partner Matthew wake up at the crack of dawn to let the chickens go free-range, but she says the garden isn’t a lot of work once you’ve put in the initial investment. Since they're renting they've trying to keep their investments low. They focused on reusing found materials, such as old fence to make raised beds, bamboo that grows on the property for trellises and chicken fencing (even indoors, their furniture was mostly found, including a pallet wood sofa).

They’ve dubbed their East Oakland (California) homestead the “Kansas Street Farm” and they try to keep things as closed loop as possible by catching rainwater, composting, using the chickens to prepare the veggie beds and fermenting leftover produce.

Original story: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/urban-self-reliance-homestead-in-oaklands-small-rented-lot/

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Here’s What Marijuana Looks Like Under The Microscope [Photos]

LeafScience
Apr 22, 2014

Ever wonder what marijuana looks like up close and personal?

Now you can see how cannabis appears to the scientists who study it, thanks to a new book called Cannabis Under The Microscope: A Visual Exploration of Medicinal Sativa and C. Indica by Ford McCann.

The book features over 170 images of cannabis in its full glory, taken with optical and scanning electron microscopes.

Have a peek below:

[center]

Flower of the cannabis plant. Field of view 3.5 mm.
(Photo: Cannabis Under The Microscope/Neatorama)







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US police killed more people in March than UK did in 20th century – report

American Cops Just Killed More People in March than the UK Did in the Entire 20th Century



By Matt Agorist on April 6, 2015



A new report by ThinkProgress.com unearthed disturbing figures when it came to the number of police-related deaths that occurred in America in the month of March alone. Just last month, in the 31 days of March, police in the United States killed more people than the UK did in the entire 20th century. In fact, it was twice as many; police in the UK only killed 52 people during that 100 year period.

According to the report by ThinkProgess, in March alone, 111 people died during police encounters — 36 more than the previous month. As in the past, numerous incidents were spurred by violent threats from suspects, and two officers were shot in Ferguson during a peaceful protest. However, the deaths follow a national pattern: suspects were mostly people of color, mentally ill, or both.

This high number in March increased the average for police killings from every 8.5 hours, to nearly 1 police killing every 6.5 hours in the US. These numbers are staggering and show a serious problem of the violent tendencies within the US policing apparatus.

Let’s look at our immediate neighbors to the north, Canada. The total number of citizens killed by law enforcement officers in the year 2014, was 14; that is 78 times fewer people than the US. From 2010 through 2014, there were four fatal police shootings in England, which has a population of about 52 million. By contrast, Albuquerque, N.M., with a population 1 percent the size of England’s, had 26 fatal police shootings in that same time period.

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