Transforming a Tiny House for Airbnb Rental

This project has been a long time coming but now it’s finally done. I’ve had this tiny house for over 15 years and have been renting it out at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage for most of that time. But it needed a facelift. Years of abuse by tenants and general wear and tear wore the house down. Now, with some major improvements it’s ready for short term rentals and will be host for experiences in self sufficiency.

13 Years Living in an Ecovillage

Our entire economy is based on finite fossil fuel resources and wholesale destruction of the environment in the interest of providing for an ever growing human population. Of course, most of the “wealth” created by this economic model goes to a small fraction of the human population, so essentially we are destroying our planet to make a very small segment of the human population so rich they don’t even know what to do with all their wealth. But there are some who are trying to change the way humanity interacts with the planet.

I’ve lived in a model for a more sustainable way of living in community for over 13 years now. My impact on the planet is about a tenth the impact of the average American. It’s taken a while to get set up to live this way, and living this way hasn’t been easy. It’s a struggle to try to live in a way that mostly defies everything every American has come to depend on to make their lives easier. Technology provides many sustainable alternatives to replace fossil fuel equivalents. But inevitably living sustainably requires harder work and doing things the old fashioned way. Having lived this way for 13 years, I have a story to tell. Sustainable living may be a different way of life in many unrecognizable and unimaginable ways to the average American, but the average American might not imagine any of these could be positive on a personal level. They can only imagine negatives in a life without luxuries and conveniences they have become utterly dependent on, but there are so many benefits to living this way above and beyond the direct and indirect ecological impact. It’s a holistic way of living that doesn’t just apply to reducing your environmental impact, it restores your energy and life force in many ways on a daily basis.

https://www.instagram.com/hardcoresustainable/ https://www.facebook.com/HardcoreSustainable/ http://hardcoresustainable.com

Tiny House Fest Attracts Thousands to St Pete Ecovillage Pt 1

Tiny houses are a big thing in Florida. The St Pete Ecovillage put itself on the map in a lot of ways by hosting their first tiny house festival on April 1st this year. It was a great demonstration of living lighter on the planet and was part of a larger effort to make tiny living more viable in St Petersburg. I was at the festival, since that’s where I was living, and have made a couple videos about my experience.

Comparing Two Ecovillages: Dancing Rabbit and St. Pete

This is a little video of my musings on the differences between, positive and negative, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage and the newly started St Pete Ecovillage. Both of these villages are providing a great model for living more sustainably, but they are located in completely different places geographically, demographically, and politically. What are the benefits and drawbacks of each location? Find out in this exploration of different factors.

I’ve Never Eaten Fruit Like This Before: The Bounty of the Tropics

One of the big reasons I wanted to go to Florida for the winter was to be able to eat delicious tropical fruit in season. Like most other places, because of our inefficient market-driven food system, it’s difficult to find locally grown fruit in any local stores. I had to search everywhere. Even the St Pete farmers market had a sparse selection of in season local fruit–oranges, grapefruit, and the occasional papaya. Like most places, using land to grow food just doesn’t pay compared with using it for high rise condos and shopping malls, so even when you can find “local” produce, it comes from over a hundred miles away. Fortunately, I made it to ECHO farms (see future videos for the tour), and one of the local flea markets also featured a wide assortment of unusual, but easily locally grown, tropical fruit thanks to some southeast Asian vendors.