One of the many benefits of natural building is that they are highly customizable.  You can build any shape or size home that you could possibly want.  Since you can build any shape or size, this allows you to stick a house in any old awkward place you have on …

Think about two different eco systems: a forest and a meadow. The forest is full of larger trees an d larger animals, while the meadow is full of smaller plants and animals. The two habitats provide very different needs for the different animals. Now think about where the meadow meets …

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 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 …

This is the fantastic pile of rich yard waste we have to work with: The purpose of this post is to demonstrate how a pile of twisted up “waste” can be useful for so many different things.  The pile is tree tops left by the logger and pushed aside, twisting …

Last week, I shared some of my spring preparations.  Well, it turns out that all we have done in the past month or two was prepare for spring.  So this week I will share more of what we have done to prepare for this year and some pictures around the …

  I haven’t done any real interesting projects lately due to the urgent need to improve the soil for the gardens this year and every year to come.  We are focusing right now on cleanup and garden soil.  I have been raking leaves, building compost piles, cutting the logs that …

We have bad soil.  The busiest project I have had so far is to try to improve the soil, especially so that we can produce food.  You can’t grow food in clay and rocks.   So I use compost and hugel beds to give the soil a boost.  But this …