We talked about how to set up your land according to permaculture zones a little while ago.  But how do you go about setting up your zones?  They will pretty much set up themselves if you take a good look at your land and all the outside factors that affect …

I just finished reading “The $50 and Up Underground House Book.”  Mike Oehler is the author and designer of this book and the videos that go with it.  We watched those too.  I’m 95% sure that this is the type of house we will be building come spring or summer.  Anyone …

The final style house that we are considering is also my favorite.  I stayed away from this idea for a long time because it just didn’t sound good.  My idea of an underground house was a cave or a cellar.  Not somewhere I wanted to live.  Then I decided to …

First, I want to say that there is so much information to go through on earthships that you really should check out the website: http://earthship.com/.  I will try to give you a simple explanation, but I’m sure I will leave things out.  Earthships are homes that are entirely self sufficient.  They …

Cordwood, like straw bale, is one of the more common natural homes that is built.  I find cordwood to be one of the more beautiful kinds of natural homes.  Just like with the straw bale house I talked about yesterday, I have never built a cordwood house and so I …

Straw bale building was one of the first types of natural homes that we began to look at.  It is one of the more common types of natural construction due to its ease of building and ability to fit to code.  I have not built one myself, so I don’t …

As a huge part of our homestead, we need to build ourselves a house.  It has been my dream for as long as I can remember to build my own house.  Not just any house either.  It has to be functional as well as warm and inviting with as little …

For my birthday this year I decided that I wanted the family to give me gifts of creativity. I asked them all to come with me to a local “paint your own pottery” shop.  These shops are wonderful because you can go in and paint a work of art on …

My solar cooker was easy enough to build, that is, if I did it right.  All there is to my new cooker is two cardboard boxes plus scrap cardboard, tin foil, duct tape, glass or plastic, and newspaper. You take the first (smaller) box and cover it inside and out …

Since permaculture is also organic we don’t use any chemicals on anything.  This means we need another way to control bugs that bother our garden plants.  Birds eat lots of bugs so we should do our best to make friends with some birds.  I put birdhouses all over my yard. …