Just after 10 p.m. on the evening of Wednesday January 10, Bimini Place neighbors report hearing a car crash, and seeing a small explosion. Shortly after lights went out briefly.
Deadly car crash on First Street at Bimini Place – photo by Bimini resident
A driver in a white Mercedes car had been travelling fast heading west on First Street. One observer stated that the car was going “like 100 miles per hour.”
Photo of snapped utility pole – via Citizen.com
According to witness accounts, at the north end of Bimini Place at First Street, along Virgil Middle School, the driver crashed into a utility pole (breaking it in half), a parked minivan, an unhoused person’s shopping cart, before striking and killing a person riding a Lime e-scooter.
In what suggests street racing, eyewitnesses report that several nice cars arrived at the scene, and other young men ran to the driver of the white car, and helped him out of the car. They left soon after. (Some other witnesses, posting to Reddit, assert that the driver appeared drunk.)
Bimini Place neighbors report that paramedics treated the driver, who appeared mostly unhurt. They put a neck brace on him, and carried him away in a stretcher.
The paramedics did not attempt any sort of resuscitation of the scooter rider, who lay contorted and motionless on the ground.
The crash victim’s name was Kowshik, a 23-year-old exchange student from Bangladesh, who arrived in L.A. about six months ago. Kowshik died two blocks from his home on New Hampshire Avenue.
Kowshik’s roommate and longtime friend Sazzad described Kowshik as the glue of the friend group of the young exchange students, “the jolly one that brought everyone together.”
Lime e-scooter crash debris spotted that night in the gutter on the south side of First Street (thrown from the crash which took place on the north side of the street). Photo by Bimini resident
(The coroner listing has a couple of apparent errors, including showing the date of death as January 11)
I brought two DIY solar cookers to my cat-sitting gig in “THE VALLEY”. Because they are so portable, and because this home has every modern convenience + solar panels, it’s a cheap thrill to do something low tech and hands on.
How portable are these cookers? The five pieces of poster board form a 14″x14″x1/2″ packet!
4- 14″ sq, 1-10″ sq. posterboard, 4 clothes pegs and a shoelace.
Or, you can fold it like a fig and invert it into a shopping bag.
Invert it into shopping bag
Fold it like a fig
The neighbors gifted me some freshly caught tuna and I had butternut squash from LA EcoVillage garden. I always use a meat thermometer when cooking fish or meat. The covered pan is wrapped in an oven roasting bag to trap heat.
Tuna and squash
Use thermometer for meat or fish
In spite of the cooker’s curled edges, the cooker cooked the cabbage.
Despite the warped pasteboard edges of the cooker on the right, a pot of cabbage was well cooked.
Solar cooker tip: Don’t expose the poster board cooker to moisture – not even over night dew – because the edges will curl. After a few days under heavy books, they resumed their former shape. At the EcoVillage, when I store the cookers outdoors, I wrap them in plastic.
Solar Cooker Demonstrations: It is my intention to plan a solar cooker demonstration to fund raise for Solar Cookers International and for the LA EcoVillage, so stay tuned for that announcement.
I want to begin with a huge public thank you to Federico who built a beautiful cart from upcylced materials for the newest, largest, heavy solar oven. I am so grateful to move it out of my apartment, to store it outdoors so I do not have to navigate stairs while carrying it.
Now it can be easily pulled around the garage area to the current sunny location (just like a cat)
Also, thanks to Jimmy who made his shop and welding skills available to Federico for this project. They both kept it a secret from me until it was ready.
I am so happy with it and hope it will make it easier for others to cook with the sun, too.
After several weeks of cloudy – often rainy – days I decided to binge cook on a sunny day before the afternoon high winds set in.
I put the homemade “fig” solar cooker and the reflector solar cooker in the more protected courtyard. They are both light weight and may blow away in the wind.
Solar cooker on left roasted 4 lbs of carrots, 2 lbs at a time. Solar cooker on left roasted 3/4 lb chicken livers for our resident cat.
Below, the Global Sun Oven roasted a few lbs of chicken on a layered bed of onions and celery. While the oven was still hot after I removed the chicken, I baked a sun-oven appropriate version of Rhian’s g.f., vegan carrot cake. Optimal solar cooking time is 10 am – 2 pm and it was after 1 pm when I was ready to bake the cake. I put it into a wide pan instead of a loaf pan to hasten the baking time. That work-horse oven heated to 350 – 375 degrees.
Last year I taught a few solar cooking/ diy solar cooker construction workshops. I haven’t planned any for this year, yet. Interested people may contact me.
The garden has been so responsive to the rains that we gardeners are working hard to keep up with the growth and overgrowth. Check out some of the abundance:
Bulb-out garden brightens Bimini Place
Jess’ Onion Abundance
First artichoke: the cooking water looked like it had been dyed brilliant green
Below: Peas were reluctant to germinate this year and required 4 re-plantings. The ones that sprouted flourished. I usually eat 1/2 of the daily harvest while I’m picking them, and we still have plenty to share with neighbors. While the pea vines begin to decline, the Fava (broad) beans are maturing.
I love growing Romanesco broccoli because it is so beautiful. Unlike the broccolini that preceded it, it won’t have side shoots, so that is the cost of beauty. Next year we’ll grow them simultaneously for abundance and beauty.
I can’t say enough about the efficiency of planting sweet potatoes and potatoes. Cut one into several pieces, plant each piece and each piece may yield 1-3 lbs! We harvested sweet potatoes in late fall and we started digging potatoes mid- March.
Some Ecovillage children, led by Autumn, spent hours digging wild onion out of this plot, hauling bricks to frame it and planting.
to the Saibaba Ashram, Maharashtra, India where an enormous solar cooking system produces thousands of meals daily and saves nearly 220,000 lbs of cooking gas per year;
to refugee camps and villages where solar cookers reduce the need for kerosene, charcoal and dangerous wood-gathering forays for cooking and sterilizing drinking water.
I’m on a solar cooking sabbatical
Cookers made from poster board, weigh 8 oz. Disassemble into 14″x14″x1″ easily portable package.
People asked me about solar cooking on camping trips and solar cooking for unhoused people so I brought these DIY solar cookers, made by Sage and me, to my cat-sitting gig. I’m challenging myself to use these cookers in lieu of gas or electric appliances as often as possible because the yard here has all-day sun.
Solar cooking is easy. It’s very forgiving: it doesn’t burn food.
That said, there are some foods- like these chicken thighs and grains – that will sit happily in the heat after they’re safely cooked.
Digital probe read 167℉. Cooker temp was 320℉. Ambient T = 96℉. Pre-soak buckwheat, millet; rinse quinoa to reduce cooking time & cooking water needed.Here’s a quicker alternative. 1 c rice mixture + 2 c. water.
Other foods, like these veggies – want to be monitored a little closer if you want them crispy.
Green beans, chayote and spinach leaves from Eco-village gardenSummer squash, carrots, apples
I searched for some quick cooking vegetarian/vegan protein and found this line of “riced” products made from chickpeas & lentils.
I got 3 servings from this packet. Mixed with veggies it was delicious; on it’s own it’s a little gritty.
Ready to channel the sun?
Get your Eventbrite ticket to join Sage and me on Saturday, August 27 at the LA EcoVillage, as we cook and bake in 4 varieties of solar cookers. We’ll demonstrate how to make a simple cooker and have low cost DIY kits available for purchase. Limited to 12 participants including youth at least 10 y.o.
Why demonstrate a few puny worms munching on food scraps when we’re going to show off our 3 bin hot composting system?
Because building a DIY worm bin from discarded material aligns with 3 of our Core Values:
Celebrate and include joy in all our endeavors. I feel a rush of joy when resources “magically” appear after I envision a project. And I enjoy the magical transmutation of food scraps into rich humus.
Take responsibility for each other and the planet through local environmental and social action.
It doesn’t get much more local than plunking your food waste into your own worm bin
a DIY worm bin is pretty cheap, and
easier to fit into small spaces – indoors or out – than a large composting system.
Learn from nature and live ecologically. (Worms help us) gain a better appreciation of the intricate balance and interdependencies in nature…inviting us to tread more gently upon the Earth, says Mary Applehof, Worms Eat My Garbage.
Gather discarded materialWorm BuffetWorm bin covered with shade cloth in shade of orange & papaya treesWorm bin on blocks = instant sun shade for Taurine, LA Eco-village hardworking cat.
While Sunflower seed heads look raggedy at the end of their season, birds and squirrels feast on them.
Nasturtiums often harbor aphids at the end of their season so I harvest them when they start to die back.
Pickled, nasturtium seeds taste like capers.
1 pint Nasturtium seeds – let them dry a few days
1 pint white vinegar
2 bay leaves (from bay bushes in front of Terraces)
1 tsp. sea salt
Peppercorns (optional)
Boil vinegar, bay leaves, salt & pepper. (This year I boiled vinegar in sun oven). Cool. Pack seeds into clean pint jar & pour cooled vinegar mixture over them. Store several weeks before using them.
Pizza topping: combined with crushed garlic and oil.
Nettles – the plant you love to hate!
Nettle seeds drop off dried plant
If you’re not dressed for success – long sleeves, socks, long pants and gloves – you may be painfully introduced to nettles. I try to keep them pruned from paths, and let them grow in less traveled areas. Young plants are among the earliest greens to emerge and I enjoy adding them to soups, so I let them re-seed themselves. They can be used to make fertilizer and they help composted material break down. Chickens and other birds are said to deworm themselves by eating nettle seeds. Fibers from nettle plants are used for making rope and are spun into a silky fiber. (Who knows when we may need to harvest nettle fibers?).
Shameless Commerce Division
Sage & Springer, Solar cooker and Garden guides, invite you to explore the water-wise, integrated vegetable and flower gardens, with over fifty fruit trees in our eco-village urban oasis. We’ll demonstrate various composting methods and offer optional composting participation. When the walk-about concludes, we invite you to socialize with us over a solar baked snack and garden-herb tea.Eventbrite tickets
I usually select a few of last season’s sweet potatoes to grow “slips” for the next season’s planting, but the ones I selected this year haven’t sprouted. I was on the verge of buying slips when I noticed sweet potato leaves in two areas of the garden, so I dug really deep and retrieved pieces of last year’s crop that had sprouted. I carefully cut off slips that had a few root hairs and re-buried the potato to see if the rest of the sprouts would develop roots. I harvested 10 slips and planted them. Sweet potatoes grow very well here and I usually harvest 2-5 lbs / plant. Spaced a foot apart and with the foliage staked, they lend themselves well to the practice of vertical growing that conserves space in our urban gardens – and, exposes them to more sunlight in the partially shady areas that I steward.
Mulberries from the damn mulberry tree in front of the terraces.
Rumor has it – and purple tongues confirm – that the kids are enjoying the harvest. Sage and I baked mulberry muffins (vegan, gluten free) in the sun oven. We plan to serve them at the above Solar cooker demonstration.
Backstory to caption: Mulberry roots broke through plumbing pipes and invaded neighboring gardens. Adding insult to injury, mulberry foliage shades those gardens, so many residents are unhappy with it. An arborist from TreeCare,LA recently advised us about strategies for coping with it. We’re waiting for the implementation costs of said strategies. Stay tuned to see if we’ll have mulberry muffins in 2023!
Sage and I were heat-wave opportunists last weekend as we took advantage of 90-100℉ days to try new solar cooked recipes for future Solar Cooking Demonstrations at the Eco-village. We want to use foods in season as often as possible so we hustled to harvest 8 “end of season citrons” from our aka lemon tree. Combining them with last season’s poppy seeds, we made 16 Lemon Poppyseed mini-muffins and had enough batter to also make a loaf. This recipe called for almond flour which was easy to make in a mini-food processor.
I have been delighted to land on Rhian’s Recipes in my search for new vegan, gluten free recipes. Rhian’s recipes are very easy to follow and have lots of useful tips and information.
Carol puts lemon-poppyseed muffins into pre-heated SunTaste oven (250℉) where they baked for 75 min. Temp reached 275℉. After 1 hour, I opened the oven briefly to let steam, then re-sealed it to let muffins brown for additional 15 min.Lemon poppyseed loaf baked in Global sun oven, 275 – 300 ℉ for 90 min.Other meals this week included garlic-roasted chicken thighs on a bed of freshly harvested lemon grass. I’ve also been making lemon-grass tea. It’s calming and helps relax muscles after hours of gardening.Sage requested buckwheat, so I combined pre-soaked buckwheat groats, millet and freshly harvested leeks and cooked them in the reflector solar cooker.
Mulberries are beginning to ripen on the Terrace tree, so this evening, Sage & I spread tarps to catch them. Look out for Mulberry muffins next – hopefully on April 23 – our next solar cooking/ garden walkabout.
Apple-chip, poppyseed upside-down, vegan, gluten-free cornbread baking in solar oven
Dang! I thought DST returned in April, so when the clocks sprung forward last weekend, I realized that I’d have to adjust our solar cooking demonstration plans by cooking some of the food in advance.
Can you see the steam rising out of this cornbread?
No worries. I’ll just demonstrate using the sun to save energy by toasting the cornbread, heating the lentils and cooking the whole grains. We’ll also save time by letting everything heat and cook while we walk about the gardens and work on the compost!
In preparation for this event on Sunday, March 20, Sage and I counted the fruiting shrubs and trees: 26 varieties on the Urban Soil properties! Plus macadamia nuts along the public walkway. While we’ve planted some of these in recent years, we continue to reap the harvest made possible by Eco-villagers who lived here before Sage and I moved in.
Weather permitting, we intend to do this sun-cooking demo/ garden walk-about monthly, so let us know if you’re interested in future events.
There was a greenhouse near where I used to live in northeast CT. It was an occupational therapy training site. Every year they grew freesias to sell at the beginning of February, and the fragrance enveloped everyone who walked in. You couldn’t arrive much past the moment they bloomed if you expected to buy some because they sold quickly to sensory deprived people facing a few more months of eastern winter. (We had a saying: 30 days hath September, April May and November, all the rest have 31 – except February – which has 60!)
I planted the little freesia bulbs last fall and wondered if they could push their way through our hard-packed clay soil. Hazzah! they did – and I’m very pleased to have them back in my life. If you’re walking through 117 front gate, say howdy to them & give ‘em a sniff.
Butternut Squash from garden and rice for Thanksgiving (2021) prepared in solar cookers in next photo. Cork insulated solar oven from Portugal Collapsible solar reflector
Hartley and I conceived this impromptu Thanksgiving potluck the morning of and we had these meals ready to eat by 12:30. I was eager to test the newly acquired SunTaste solar oven from Portugal.
It was partly overcast and chilly that day, so those are very impressive solar cooking times.
February ’22 -Gotta’ practice cooking food in 90 min. or less for the launch of our Solar Cooker Demonstrations beginning March 20, 2022
Lentils – presoaked overnight – took too long in the round pot but cooked in 90 min. in the small roasting pan.
Grains in 90 min. or less:
Rice (pre-soaked)
Quinoa, Millet, Amaranth
Polenta with corn, coconut and okras
Gluten free foccacia – it’s more of a steamed bread and flavor of garlic topping seemed enhanced.
Beans – I’ve cooked them in the Global Sun Oven but mostly left them there all day. Will try again when sun is stronger to see if they will cook in 90 min.
8 year old Eddie learned to bake cornbread in Global Solar Oven.
Now it’s your turn! Want to see how simple it is to cook without fossil fuels? We’ll demonstrate each of the Solar cookers pictured in this blog beginning Sunday, March 20, 2022, 9:30 – 11:30 – and, if El Sol cooperates, we’ll eat what we cook, so bring your eating wares! Want to know how to sign up? Stay tuned – we’re working on it.
What didn’t work – pasta!
When asked about cooking pasta in a solar oven, the owner of Global Sun Ovens says I only made it once! I agree. Fortunately, the chickens love that gluey pasta. (they also eat grubs!!!)
Excited to let you all know that we have an opening for a new resident manager for our 45 unit Urban Soil-Tierra Urbana limited equity housing co-op. You get to live and work in LAEV plus health benefits and a salary of $24 to $28K depending on qualifications.
The land where our buildings are is the property of a special kind of non-profit organization called a “Community Land Trust”, this LAist article by Zoie Matthew offers a good explanation and includes other examples of Community Land Trusts and some comments by one of our residents.
We thinned out so many fully grown banana plants that I thought they would overwhelm our compost systems. Reluctantly I gave the order, Prepare them for the green bins!
Bagged banana plants
Fortunately, the green bins were full, so every time I passed the bags of plants, I sensed their plea: Don’t sent us away. We’ll help the compost. We’re full of water.
Water leaked from banana plants through the hole in the wheelbarrow until I positioned it over the compost.
And so they changed my mind. I’m chopping them up and adding them to the bottom 2 layers of both the in-ground-lasagna-style compost and the hot compost.
Water thrifty plants get “high” on 2017’s lusty rainfall.
YAY! After thinning out banana suckers and composting, two trees promise bananas.
We’re trellising some thorny plants along the fence to deter fence-climbing.
Pedestrians from many cultures stop to ask about plants and talk about the gardens they have or used to have in their native countries. Along the fence I like to plant crops – like these peas – plus herbs and flowers that they can harvest from the sidewalk.
In the courtyard
Newly mulched path will help to conserve moisture – make the effects of this rain last longer – and eventually break down to feed the soil.
Draught tolerant plants added to “small fruit” garden. Experimenting with clover as a living mulch
Jujube
prickly pear
Goji berries & weeping mulberry and their new signs.
Parsley and lettuce are easily accessible for community to harvest.
Yolanda has planted papayas next to greywater outlets.
Lower level
potatoes & fava beans planted around olla to slowly water plants during dry season.
Papaya, banana and new grape vine against south facing wall will also help shade this apartment.
KCRW’s “Press Play with Madeleine Brand” gave L.A. Eco-Village a nice plug in this fascinating article by Bonnie Johnson about the history of these SoCal utopian communities. Thanks to our long time CRSP Board President and architect Ian McIlvaine. for catching it. Read the article or listen to the 12 minute magazine piece here.
I was delighted to be interviewed by KPCC’s Al Martinez on “Take Two” last week. You can hear the seven minute piece here:
Los Angeles Eco-Village 