Archive for the 'Everything Else' Category
(Chronologically Listed)
- 200 Things: Miscellaneous |
Posted by e4 on Mar 18 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Honeybees have been in a dangerous decline - attract pollinators like mason bees and other wild bees to your home and garden to ensure reliable crops. **** If you are adding a backup heating system (or even if you aren’t - your neighbor might be), don’t neglect ...
- 200 Things: Clothing |
Posted by e4 on Mar 14 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Practice doing laundry without power. There are several ways, including long soaking, using a plunger and a bucket and various devices such as hand washers and pressure washers. But make sure you are not dependent for clean clothes upon power. **** If you are troubled by towels ...
- 200 Things: Animals |
Posted by e4 on Feb 19 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission.**** Grow some food for your animals in your garden. Alfalfa, root crops, even wheat are easy to grow in garden beds, and the animals can sometimes even harvest them themselves. **** Make sure your animals have updated vaccinations, in case the time comes when you are unable ...
- 200 Things: Family |
Posted by e4 on Feb 09 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Talk to your older kids about sex, birth control, responsibility, your values and what you expect of them. Have this conversation early and often, and combine it with a discussion of peak oil, so that they can understand what the implications of early sexual activity ...
- 200 Things: Home |
Posted by e4 on Feb 06 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** If you live in a place where it gets hot in the summer, consider building a screen room (a room with screened windows all around or almost always around), either attached to your house or separate. You can put a wood cookstove in the screenroom ...
- 200 Things: Fall |
Posted by e4 on Feb 04 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Simple, cheap insulating strategies (window quilts and blankets, draft stoppers, etc...) are easily made from cheap or free materials - goodwill, for example, often has jeans, tshirts and shrunken wool sweaters, of quality too poor to sell, that can be used for quilting material and ...
- 200 Things: Summer |
Posted by e4 on Feb 01 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** If you don't can or dehydrate, now is the time to learn. In most climates, you can waterbath can or dehydrate with a minimum of purchased materials, and produce is abundant and cheap. If you don't garden, check out your local farmstand for day-old produce ...
- 200 Things: Spring |
Posted by e4 on Jan 30 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Rethink your seed starting regimen. How will you do it without potting soil, grow lights and warming mats. Consider creating manure heated hotbeds, using your own compost, building a greenhouse, or coldframe, direct seeding early versions of transplanted crops, etc... **** Your local feed store has chicks ...
- 200 Things: Winter |
Posted by e4 on Jan 27 2008
By Sharon Astyk. Reprinted with permission. **** Your local adult education program almost certainly has something useful to teach you - woodworking, crocheting, music training, horseback riding, CPR, herbalism, vegetarian cookery... take advantage of people who want to teach their skills **** Get serious about land use planning - even if you live in ...
- Pedal Power! |
Posted by e4 on Jan 03 2008
David Butcher is a man on a mission. He built a pedal-power generator, with a huge particleboard flywheel for maximum efficiency. His design has powered electric items such as a television, a washing machine, and a bread machine. But he's also able to use it for tasks suited to direct ...