Live Ready Now!

If you are a woman I hope you had a great Mother’s Day last week, whether you are a biological mother, a mother through love, service, or adoption, or you have children waiting in heaven. I was blessed to grow up with a wonderful godly mother, which is priceless. I’m blessed with a loving mother-in-law [...]

As our country faces economic collapse, we search for more efficient and economical ways to feed our family and livestock. Moving to our off-grid homestead has been a major learning experience as we look to become more sustainable and less dependent on the fragile food transport system. We are also increasingly concerned about the growing [...]

We dug our well last year with the goal of using a windmill pump. Our idea of living sustainably means we aren’t dependent on the availability of fossil fuels or grid power to exist. Since installing solar panels, we normally run our generator only about 30 minutes daily to fill our water tanks. Our inexpensive [...]

Our central Florida homestead is far enough inland from the warmer coast that we get lots of cold weather (for Florida). We’ve had plenty of freezing temps and frost this winter, dipping into the mid 20’s F (-7 °C), and local nurseries tell us it is too cold for most tropical plants to survive or yield [...]

At first I thought it was a joke. But there really is a soap-growing tree! In fact, other plants also produce natural detergent, but today’s focus is on the soapberry or soapnut tree from India, which produces nuts (actually berries) that contain saponins to make soap. A few years ago I researched these trees and [...]

We have learned a very simple idea that greatly reduces the energy (fuel) needed to cook. Stoves take lots of electricity, gas, or wood, depending on what kind you use. What if you could cut your fuel or electricity usage for cooking by 50-70% using items you already have on hand? An added bonus with [...]

This morning I sat in front of our new fireplace that Silver Oak finished just a few weeks ago and I felt much satisfaction and pleasure watching the flames lick the oak logs cut from fallen trees on our little homestead. The backdrop of antique brick on our lovely big deck, sitting in my comfy [...]

Unlike millions who recently lost power in a storm, we are not affected by power grid failure. But that doesn’t mean we don’t ever have a power crisis. Whether we are on or off the grid we all need to think about being prepared for the unexpected, and not being so dependent on electricity. On [...]

Blossom holds a kid born last winter I was hoping to post this last week, but we rented a skid-steer loader and root rake over Thanksgiving weekend that kept us quite busy accomplishing our list of to-do’s before returning it.  Then we had an energy crisis when all our generators went “kaput” almost at once.  [...]

The past few weeks we’ve been celebrating living one year on our off-grid homestead, memories of moving, and enjoying our tiny house. Just over a year ago our power source was a little 4000 watt generator (leftovers from Y2K), two 6v batteries, and a 350 watt inverter. We had no fridge except the tiny one [...]

A year ago when we moved to our off-grid homestead we thought we’d live in a camper for a few weeks till our tiny house was ready. But we waited a month and a half for it to be delivered, stuck in the sand, unstuck, and properly put into place so we could start remodeling [...]

We lift up in prayer the millions who are experiencing hardship in the cold with no electricity right now.  Let it be a wake up call to the rest of us to be prepared for the unexpected when the systems we trust may let us down. One year ago when we moved to this off-grid homestead we knew we were [...]

Today marks one year since we moved out to our 20 acre homestead on our journey to a sustainable lifestyle. It’s hard to believe it’s gone so fast. Today we looked over all of our goals for the past year and set new ones for the coming year. Our goal was to be relatively sustainable by [...]

We recently made applesauce from apples my parents brought down from Michigan. This is our annual fall tradition, but last year we missed out because we were in the middle of moving here to our new off-grid homestead (can you believe it’s been nearly a year!?!). That means this is the first time we’ve made [...]

If you haven’t already done so, read part one of this series here, and part two here. This post is a summary of the tooth infection story and what worked for us. Silver Oak has had only minor tooth decay the past 20 years, but in his younger years he had many large fillings, especially [...]

This summer has been challenging here on the little homestead God has given us. We knew this path would not always be easy, and this summer has been no exception. Last week we spent a few dinner times praying and fasting as a family, seeking direction and relief from some of the stresses we have [...]

As I write this paragraph I’m enjoying 77° F (25° C) inside our cozy tiny house while Hurricane Isaac brushes past us, blowing and raining. We even uprooted ourselves a few hours ago because a tornado was spotted south of us, and we slugged through the mud holes out to the end of our dirt [...]

During these very hot days it is refreshing to make iced mint tea. I know that is not a common drink to many, but both Silver Oak and I grew up drinking iced tea made from mint grown in the garden. If you think that’s weird you should try it! There’s nothing better on a [...]

Several weeks ago a most unusual thing happened here on our little off-grid homestead…one of the trees beside our long winding lane jumped out and smashed up the front of our Suburban. Well, of course, you know that is not exactly what happened. Actually, the driver was reaching down momentarily to divert a biting rabbit (which [...]

Last week Silver Oak built a permanent fence in front of our house to make a protected area for gardens and landscaping (safe from marauding goats!). It stretches from the big shed bordering the animals’ runway, to the fence on the northern border of our property about 150 feet away. It is mostly done, just [...]