Adding chickens to a small homestead is a very common way to get started with self-sufficiency. They are easy to take care of, will do bug patrol, and turn your kitchen scraps into garden gold. On top of that, you get fresh eggs daily! So, why would you consider adding in ducks?
“The business of procuring the necessities of life has been shifted from the wood lot, the garden, the kitchen and the family to the factory and the large-scale enterprise. In our case, we moved our center back to the land.”
Living life off the grid can keep you busy with so much that has to be done, but there’s far more to the whole experience than just working. I personally love the life in the woods and think it’s amazing. But more often than not I talk about the work aspects within the walls of this series. Today, I want to talk about the ways in which living off grid is fun, and can help connect you with nature.
When living off the grid, you don’t have to be a large-scale farmer in order to make a little cash. Sometimes I barter and work-trade for supplies I need and vice versa. Today I’m going to share with you 7 ways you can generate an income off the land. You may or may not get rich, but one thing’s for sure: you CAN make a living while living off the land.
As we discussed in part one of Solar Panels: A Beginner’s Guide, solar panels and solar systems can be very simple but at the same time very complex. A simple system is designed to take the power produced by the sun and absorb it into the solar panels.
Did you know that maple trees are not the only trees that provide us with the sap necessary to make syrup? There are several different trees that produce a sap sweet and sticky enough to make delicious syrups and sugars. The sugar maple is one of the most well known and most common trees tapped because it has the highest sugar content – which is key to a fine syrup.
One doesn’t truly know the value of something until it is missing from one’s life. Going without and having to work for things brings out the true value in them. Living off of the grid, or even just spending time off of it now and then, can really have a positive impact.
Soap is incredibly amazing and useful. There are many ways to make your own homemade soaps and shampoos, but do you know there are plants out there that do most of the work for you? Some people prefer to make or buy lye to make their soaps, but working with lye in its pure form can be dangerous if not handled properly.
But, fear not: I am not simply referring to the flowers out there that add scents to the soaps. Instead, I am talking about raw fresh soap straight out of nature. In this article, I will teach you about a few plants that can be used to scrub up with.
Pickling a portion of your garden’s fruits and vegetables allows you to bring farm fresh food to the table ALL year . Pickling for preservation may be one of the oldest methods of preserving food, as it traces back to the B.C. time period.
Long before the compass was created by humans, people used nature to find their way around the lands and across the waters. Sailors still use a special instrument called a sextant to navigate the seas. The sextant is designed to measure the angle of the stars above the horizon to find accurate direction and position in terms of the latitude and longitude. Before the sextant was used, Vikings used Sun Stones similar to a sundial that helped them maintain a proper course.