My war against the perfect lawn started with a confrontation over dandelions. Not my dandelions, mind you—Mrs. Petersham’s next door. She caught me one spring morning reverently photographing a particularly…
So there I was, staring at what used to be my vegetable garden, watching a particularly smug-looking chicken dust herself in what had been my carefully planted herb spiral just…
Never thought I'd be the guy telling people to stop mowing their grass, but here we are. Three years ago, if you'd told me I'd be knee-deep in grassland restoration…
You know what's funny? I've got about fifteen different company shirts hanging in my closet right now – promotional stuff from electrical suppliers, old uniforms from jobs I worked years…
You know what nobody warns you about when you buy a house in the suburbs? How much your electricity bill jumps in winter. I mean, I knew it would go…
You know that moment when you realize you're surrounded by the same mass-produced junk as literally everyone else? I had that epiphany about two years ago when I was at…
I'll be honest – I used to be that person with a cleaning cabinet that looked like a chemistry lab exploded. You know the type. Bleach for this, ammonia-based stuff…
Last month I finally convinced my building manager to let me check out the rooftop – you know, that mysterious space above our apartments that nobody ever talks about. What…
Look, I never thought I’d become one of those people who talks about “sustainable fitness,” but here we are. Two years ago, if you’d told me I’d be writing about…
You know, when my granddaughter Emma started talking about all the food waste Americans generate – something like 80 billion pounds a year, she told me – I felt this…
You know what's funny? Five years ago, if someone had told me I'd be passionate about native plants, I would've laughed. I mean, a plant's a plant, right? Wrong. So…
You know what's funny? I never gave much thought to washing dishes until I started this whole sustainability thing four years ago. Used to just throw everything in the dishwasher…
When my sister called me last spring to say she was moving back to Austin with my three-year-old nephew, my first thought wasn't "yay, family time!" It was more like…
You know how sometimes your kid asks you a question that just stops you cold? That's exactly what happened when my middle daughter – she's five now – came home…
Been working on houses for over two decades now, and I gotta tell you – some of the most challenging jobs I've ever done have been in these beautiful old…