One of the more commonly seen natural homes out there is the Hobbit House.  Thank you to Being Somewhere for the photos. Natural homes, in my opinion, are the most beautiful homes you coud build.  When our house is done, it will be beautiful just because it is a natural …

The fifth permaculture principle is use and value renewable resources and services.  I know what you’re thinking, solar power! but it is so much more than that. We always try to make the most of our renewable reources here on the homestead for a few reasons.  Anything we can gather …

Our dream home is a fairly complex natural home with lots of fun additions like an attached green house and an amazing masonry stove as the centerpiece of the home.  This house will take a lot of skills to build.  A lot of skills that we do not currently have.  …

The fourth principle of permaculture is to apply self regulation and accept feedback.  Self regulation is about mimicing the systems of nature to form your own living systems.  Natural systems take what they need to grow and reproduce and not more.  These systems can adapt to change, which is accepting …

While the landscape is not quite part of the house, there are many features outside, around the house that will improve our day to day life and the house itself.  From the outdoor kitchen and kitchen garden to the garden pond, all the elements including make a more functional home. …

The most obvious example of “obtain a yield” is to grow food.  You do work planting, growing, maintaining, and harvesting a garden to get a yeild.  Amazing food that you can eat and then store the excess to eat through the winter.  Simple, right? We can make it a little …

Being energy efficient is a must for us here on the homestead.  We don’t have the time to waste energy.  This is going to be very important to keep in mind when we build our cordwood house this spring. The most important energy in our home build is heat.  We …

The second permacuture principle is catch and store energy.  When you think of “catch and store energy,” solar power tends to be the first thing that comes to mind.  This is a great start, but energy that can be caught and stored can be so much more than just solar. …

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 …