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Sustainable Living

Green Homes

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The Best Portable Sawmills for Your Homesteading Projects

When was the last time you bought new tools? How is your machinery looking? Being a DIY homesteader means creating tons of fun projects, but it also requires proper upkeep of your equipment. Maybe you're buying your first portable sawmill or need a replacement for an old model. Either way, you've come to the right place. It's time to explore the market and see what your favorite ...

Kayla Matthews

Energy Efficiency

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Build Better Energy Habits

My wife and I enjoy a well-built home on the edge of town, with a large yard and a lot of trees. Our electricity comes from a pole in the street, our water from the city water utility, and our natural gas from the natural gas supply company. We live in South Texas, the energy center of the world, so what’s there to worry about? That’s what a lot of folks thought until a ...

Staff

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Green Transportation

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DIY Home Biodiesel Production: Make Your Own Fuel

If you’re steering your household toward a more self-sufficient lifestyle, maybe you’d like to add do-it-yourself fuel to your list of goals. Biodiesel can be brewed from waste vegetable oil or animal fats, which you can collect free from restaurants, or you can grow soybeans or canola to press your own oil. Process the oil with a couple of chemicals to produce homemade fuel ...

Lyle Estill

Home Organization

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Garage Sale Tips: How to Sell Your Junk

Spring is here, and for most of us that means clearing our homes of clutter we’ve acquired over the winter. If you find yourself with items you don’t need, consider throwing a yard sale. When organized well, a yard sale is a great way to recycle your stuff and make some cash. Having a successful sale takes a little extra effort, but you’ll make back your energy investment in ...

Beth Beavers

Nature And Environment

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Shooting Trash: Become a Better Nature Photographer with These Expert Tips

Photography has a deep, dark secret — one people don’t realize, especially when they look at other photographers’ work, whether in a gallery or on Instagram. It’s one of those best-kept secrets because…there’s no secret. It’s just that no one thinks about it. So here it is: Everyone shoots trash. Everyone. I shoot trash. You shoot trash (yes, I said it). Anyone who ...

Staff

Renewable Energy

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Make Your Own Fuel! Alcohol Fuel Basics

What if there were a fuel that was affordable, renewable, and produced right in your own community? If you’d lived 100 years ago, you would have known all about such a fuel. It was called alcohol, and it was a clean-burning fluid generally sold as lamp fuel. Only recently have we taken a renewed look at alcohol fuel — now more commonly known as ethanol — and its potential as a ...

Richard Freudenberger

Natural Home

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Harvest Pond Ice to Fill an Ice House for a Year of Off-Grid Refrigeration

Last week, our good friend William, along with his wife and nine children,  invited us over for dinner at their homestead. This was an honor and turned out to be an amazing (and perhaps life-changing) experience. Watch the video. You see, William and his family are the ultimate homesteaders. They grow all of their own food. They heat their home with wood they harvest. ...

Kerry Mann