Nature Art for Kids

HomesteadLady has an interesting article on making Botanical Prints with kids.  It looks fairly simple, requiring only heavy artist paper, a mallet, parchment paper, and of course colorful plant material.

When You Can't Afford A Berkey....

Water is a basic need, and dirty water kills lots of people every year. Luckily there are lots of ways to make water drinkable.  No-Tech Magazine has a good review of OHorizon's open-source biosand filter plans.  It is a relatively permanent solution, with a concrete case, yet only costs a few dollars each to make in quantity, as the form is made of wood.  If you want the plans directly, go to OHorizons and fill out their form.

Greenhouses without Glass

You may be familiar with the espalier pruning technique where trees are made to grow flat, but did you know that greenhouses had their origins from the same way of growing stuff in climates that were too cold: Fruit Walls.  Low-Tech Magazine has an in-depth article about this technology from the Renaissance.

Old School Warmth

The Wood Trekker has an in-depth discussion on Classic Backpacking Gear - Blankets.  Sometimes the old ways are better, but in the case of wool blankets in the period from 1880 to 1930, it really was a case of just doing the best they could with what they had.  That's still a good attitude to have, but it doesn't mean that we should blindly copy their results.

Dry for Cheap...

You're probably familiar with the simple PVC ponchos and thinner-than-paper Mylar blankets that, while cheap, do not always provide the protection from the elements they promise.  Here is another, repurposed option:

$3 Rain Gear That Doesn’t Act Like $3 Rain Gear

The reviewer includes instructions for making it waterproof with duct tape.

'Dem Dry Bones

You may take supplements for healthy joints, but what would you do if they were no longer available?  The Prepper Pages has instructions for Making Dehydrated Bone Broth.  Not only is this something that can be done with relatively simple equipment, it is shelf stable, so you can start making it up now for use later.

Up All Night?

Having trouble sleeping?  Jeremiah Johnson at ReadyNutrition.com has 12 Natural Ways to Remedy Sleep Disorders: 8 suggestions for changes in behavior and 4 natural remedies to try.

Back From The Dead

I love it when I can pull people off my Zombie Blogroll.  Johnny Max and The Queen are back on The Self-Sufficient Homestead with Episode 202.  (They are up to 205 now.)  It has been a long hiatus, but in the meantime they have finally made the move out to their homestead.

Ulysses's Gaze

The world's attention has been focused on Greece for many months, but as a kind of economic spectacle.  I would like to pay tribute to their culture with this opening to Ulysses's Gaze, a movie with one of the most beautiful soundtracks I have ever heard:

Animal Power

English: Llama trekking experience, Forest of Dean Treks are available, starting from the Speech House Hotel, either with llamas or donkey/pony and trap. Here the animals are resting at Mallards Pike Lake whilst the trekkers take on refreshments. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Theresa Crouse at Survivopedia lists 5 animals to raise for survival transportation: horses, mules, donkeys, llamas, and dogs.  To that I would add goats and oxen.  Green Solutions Magazine points out that camels and elephants are important beasts of burden in some parts of the world.  Mythcreants covers most of these plus using humans or exotic animals -- of course, they're talking about creating fiction, but their goal seems to be making it realistic.

Careful Without That Ax, Eugene

Need to cut some wood but don't have an ax or saw?  If you have a knife, you can use a technique called batoning:


 You do have to be careful, though, or you will break your knife; and if there is another way to split the wood, you want to use that, because no matter how careful you are, you are still making it duller.

It Takes A Village...

Whether the Greeks realized it or not, they did not vote against austerity yesterday.  What they were really voting on was whether the terms of austerity would be dictated by outsiders.  The people in the village of Karataina, at least, knew what they were voting for: the austerity of self-reliance, something which they are prepared for.

Related articles

• Greeks Vote NO To EU-Imposed Austerity Paul Craig Roberts
• Analysts Predict Greek Referendum Will Not Resolve Crisis

Worth A Hill of Beans

When I was younger, my parents and I would go to the New York state border to a restaurant that featured Amish style cooking.  Sadly, after a few years it closed, but Mavis Butterfield over at One Hundred Dollars A Month blog came across a Mennonite recipe for Baked Beans from scratch that looks like the kind I enjoyed so many years ago.  I will have to try making it myself.

Related articles

• Family recipe revealed: Mama's baked beans
• Bok choy & baked beans meal explained

Dome Sweet Dome

Michael Matthews is offering plans for what he calls the "Ultimate Survival Fortress".  I haven't bought it (yet), but it seems to be a fairly standard earth-bag type of dome home.  That said, the price he is asking seems quite reasonable for the knowledge he seems to be providing (and I am not an affiliate, so I am not getting any commissions).  While $1 a square foot is literally a dirt-cheap price for living space, I certainly would not want to make a mistake after putting in dozens or maybe hundreds of hours of heavy labor.

Fast Fresh Food...

Thoreau at Prep-Blog has some tips for saving time in the garden.  While it's a bit short, every bit helps, because if you're serious about growing your own food, it can be extremely time-consuming if you don't know what you're doing.

Hot, Hot, Hot...

M. D. Creekmore at The Survivalist Blog has 6 options for cooking without utilities.  While it is by no means comprehensive, it does give a nice range of possibilities.

Marking Contours with a Simple A-Frame Level

I'm getting ready to make an on-contour hugelkulture bed with upslope swale, so I've been looking for a quick and easy way to mark contours.  One of the best guides I've found is Hesperian's Community Guide to Environmental Health.  The linked page not only describes how make the A-frame level using just sticks, string, rocks, and (optionally) nails and maybe a bottle, but also where and how to make contour barriers to prevent erosion.

Little Free Libraries

Love to read?  Imagine having a box in your front yard where new books show up like magic.  It's not just a dream, it's the Little Free Library movement. 

People of the North: The Long Night

The Long Night was cold.  Of course, when the sun barely peeks over the horizon, it never gets warm, but this year, it was particularly cold.  The elders always talked about how the long nights were getting colder, as their elders had when they were young, probably going back generations.  But now, even the young people were starting to take notice.

At first they just slept closer together.  Then they started sleeping closer to the cooking fire.  When people started keeping the fire going even after the cooking was done, the elders became concerned.  They held a meeting of the tribe.  "We must remember that wood is a gift from our Earth Mother", exhorted Nald, one of the oldest members of the tribe.  "We do not want to foolishly use up more than She gives, like our distant ancestors did.  We have been using the same amount for cooking for generations without diminishing our supply, but if we start using it to keep warm, we may run out."

"Does anyone have any other ideas for keeping warm?" asked Nythia, a woman just a few years younger than Nald.

"We could make blankets out of rabbit skins," chimed in Lek, a young man who had just completed the rite of passage last year.

"Definitely a better idea than burning extra wood, but we still have to be careful about not taking too many rabbits," replied Nald.

They tried hard to come up with better ideas, but decided they were getting nowhere, and agreed to think about it for the night.

Rol roused everyone the next morning.  It was a special day, the halfway point between the Shortest Day and the Day of Equals.  This was the coldest morning anyone could remember.  It was Rol's turn to fetch water from the river, but he came running back, empty-handed.

"Come quick!  You need to see this!," Rol screamed. "I don't know what to do.  The river is solid!"

A Cardboard What?

Izhar Gafni made a bicycle almost entirely out of cardboard:

Inhabitat has the orginal story, but The Flying Tortoise put the article together in a much friendlier way to read.