Category: homesteading

This Cheap, Easy Solar Power System Cut My Electric Bill A LOT

I recently decided to expand my solar power system because I’ve begun implementing more electric appliances in my house to get me off of propane, the only fossil fuel I use in the home. The system I used was super easy and incorporated a microinverter, which allows a connection without a charge controller and some of the expensive components required for a traditional power system. For about $500 I was able to add 810W to my system. As of the posting of this video I’d already made back about $100 of that investment in utility bill savings.

I have a tiny power system compared to most, but that’s because I live simply and sustainably in a small house in an ecovillage. But this system can be upscaled for any application anywhere. The benefits are that all you need to buy is the panels, a microinverter, wiring, and fuses. It’s basically plug and play, as I demonstrate in this video.

#solarpower #microinverter #easysolarpower #offgridsolar

Radical Self Suffiency on the Homestead

Last year I captured a swarm of bees and set myself up a new hive. I’ve never done beekeeping so this was a learning experience. But considering how little effort it’s required so far, I’m in for the long haul. Maybe I’m naive, but so far I haven’t had any problems and all I’ve gotten was a huge harvest of delicious natural local sugar.

In this vlog we head out to my vineyard to check on the hive and do some stuff with the grapes. I’ll also explain some of the ways I’m making use of the honey I harvested this season.

#beekeeping #honey #organichoney #selfsufficiency #homestead #homesteading #localsugar

I Hated the 9-5 RAT RACE | Now I Homestead

Many years ago I left the city life and the rat race to homestead in an ecovillage in rural Missouri. Now I set my own schedule as a digital homesteader, working part time to make ends meet while I grow as much of my own food as possible.

In so many homesteading videos they seem to talk about their gardens and give you a tour, but rarely do they seem to show you what they’re actually harvesting and eating. Many will also exaggerate the amount of food they’re growing for themselves. I don’t do that. I’ll show you what I harvest and I’ll be realistic about the limits of what I can produce for myself.

I always hope my videos will give inspiration to some to ditch the 9-5 and live a simpler life off the land. And don’t forget to cooperate with your neighbors because it’s impossible to go it alone.

#selfsufficiency #homesteading #sustainableliving #ditchthe9to5 #ecovillage

Radical Self-Sufficiency | Living Off Our Land

This video is all about self sufficiency. I get so much food coming in from my garden that I have to have ways to preserve it. There’s canning, there’s fermentation, there’s turning one form of food into another, and I do it all in this video. From making cheese from raw organic local milk to canning tomatoes, to making sauerkraut, it’s all here in a typical day in my life living hardcore sustainable in an ecovillage.

Vamos Haciendo La Historia music at the end by Grupo Pancasan

#homemadeCheese #canning #organicgardening #selfsufficiency #cheesemaking #sauerkraut #homesteading #homestead

Most OFF-GRID Homesteaders Get This Wrong




Someone I live with at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage calls off-grid homesteading a Ponzi scheme. I’ve often thought the same thing. Because our crazy consumer society is so destructive both personally and environmentally, because we are made to feel like just numbers working our lives away until we die, a lot of people are understandably attracted to this way of life that we’re told involves disconnecting, living off the land, living a peaceful, easier life in the country away from the hustle and bustle of society and the city.

And most of what we see in the advertising and propaganda about off-grid homesteading is praising a life of rugged individualism, making do by yourself, free from grid dependence, producing your own electricity, heat, water, and food.

But is it real? Can it really be done? Or do the majority of people fail at this or live miserable lives because they can’t produce all these things for themselves? Do they actually end up disconnecting from the grid, or do they just connect to the grid in a slightly different way? Are they being made to feel like failures if they can’t make it alone in the wilderness, or is this an unrealistic expectation set for them by the propaganda that attracts them to the life in the first place?

I think off grid homesteading is very possible, and a lot more of those who take the plunge into this lifestyle would succeed if they just stop listening to this one bit of the propaganda, if they stopped making this same mistake that is based on one major aspect of the romance of off-grid homesteading.