The last post I did was about observing and interacting with your environment and I talked a lot about finding free resources on our land to do various projects.  The greatest project so far is going to be salvaging materials to build a cordwood house.  Here’s the story of the …

The first of 12 permaculture principles is observe and interact.  This is about sitting back and looking at what you have before you interact.  Take a walk, sit on a rock, get a portable hammock so you can set it up in various places so you observe your land in …

The permaculture design principles are a set of tools that we are using to design a more efficient and sustainable homestead.  While we are using these principles in a certain way, according to what we have and our climate, these principles can be universally applied to create systems anywhere you …

What is permaculture? Broken down into its parts, permanent agriculture. It is a sustainable living methodology including home, garden, and community. According to Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, it is, “The conscious design and maintenance of cultivated ecosystems which have the diversity, sustainability, and resilience of natural …

On the first day of autumn, we built a bushcraft hut for the kids to play in.  They got a ton of use out of it, but are now bored with it.  They were bored of it until we decided to use it. We had discussed adding a small structure …

Thursday is food day! Happy Thanksgiving! We don’t have an oven, so I haven’t really been able to bake many casseroles.  Or bake at all for that matter.  So we have been experiencing ways to bake on the stove top.  We can make sourdough biscuits by simply flipping the biscuits …

My autumn season has been incredibly busy.  Cut firewood.  Haul materials for new garden beds.  Along with all the regular chores of course.  I am preparing beds now so that the compost can start to rot in its new home and because the leaves are so numerous in the autumn.  …

Corn is a very simple crop to save seed from.  Just be sure you know what makes for good corn seed. Open pollinated variety You need to have your corn 1000 feet away from other varieties if yoy want to produce the same kind of corn next year. Corn is …

Quick note on seed saving:  The kinds of seeds you plant to save seeds from matters a lot.  Check out this link for information. Saving seeds for squash is basically the same for all different kinds, including pumpkins. All you have to do is pull the seeds out of the …

We decided that the best way to start autumn would be to practice our bushcraft skills.  We would build a little hut near the firepit where we could lay out a blanket for picnics, storytime, singalongs, or whatever else the kids came up with.  I am writing this very post …