Live Ready Now!

In becoming more sustainable, we are trying to eliminate disposable items such as paper products.  A few months ago (where has the time gone?) I shared how we made a cloth version of a very important paper product (for ladies only) so we never need to purchase them again.  In a project with Grandma and the [...]

It’s slow going starting from scratch and building a new homestead when you’re not hiring any contractors.  Especially when Hubby needs to keep at his landscaping business so we have income in the process.  We knew it would be tough, but we still believe we will be glad in the end if we stick it [...]

Today I have the privilege of featuring a guest post, written by a recent acquaintance from www.tea-maniac.com.  When I read the story, I knew it would be a great asset to what we have been focusing on.  Enjoy! Growing up in central Kansas was interesting…well not really.  What was interesting was taking the annual trip [...]

Converting the hog dog pen into a rabbit hutch Since Silver Oak’s work schedule didn’t allow for time to go out and work on the new property last week we did things here in town to prepare for living there.  Our oldest daughter (16 yrs) has had a hobby for years of raising rabbits to sell at [...]

Several months ago my hubby was inspired by someone else who is downsizing and simplifying.  They had something called a coffee press that made great coffee without electricity. Since Silver Oak loves a good cup of coffee now and then and we’ll soon be off-grid, he got excited and found a great deal on eBay for the [...]

What a week!  Last Monday was Labor Day, and we sure labored!  We’d rented a small Bobcat over the long three-day weekend, and wanted to make the best use of it clearing a driveway for our new homestead.  Our friend Steve volunteered to go out with us.  His experience with construction equipment was a welcome [...]

We knew it would cost an arm and a leg to get power back to the site where we want our house, greenhouse, and disaster shelter on our new 20 acre homestead, but this week we were shocked (get it?) to discover it would be even more than we thought.  According to the local power company [...]

It is hard to believe that this week we actually started work on the new homestead!  It has been our dream for years to have a place of our own to work on the land together, with Silver Oak working mostly at home with the family.  Reaching that goal takes time and we may have hardships in [...]

After our little vacation early this week we plunged right into working on plans for being self-reliant on the new homestead.  We are learning as we go, so we expect to make mistakes, but we’re trying to get as informed as possible to eliminate as many errors as we can. We have a master plan [...]

Lovely breeze, waves breaking on the sand, cicadas singing, children laughing…what a lovely setting, a great vacation for almost nothing.  Is it possible to take a nice vacation on a shoestring budget? A few months ago we carved out several days for vacation this summer, planning it after school started so others would NOT be [...]