Southern Maple Syrup: Tapping Silver Maples for Local Sugar Pt 1

This is the first video documenting a cooperative local sugaring effort that happens every year at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage. It’s mid-February and the smallest hint of spring is in the air. The robins are returning, the woodcocks are finding places to nest, and the silver maples are just starting to flow with sap. Sugar maples like a colder climate, but If you live south of the zone where sugar maples can grow, you don’t have do without delicious local maple syrup. Silver maples like warmer climates and produce almost as much sugar in their sap as sugar maples. Continue reading

Natural Refrigerator: The Root Cellar in My Floor

When I built my house I noticed that one corner of the foundation was really deep, so I planned to make it into a root cellar. Now I use this space to keep the food I grow in the summer fresh through the winter, without refrigeration. It was a rather simple design feature, but it saves me a lot of energy in the long run and allows me to eat my harvest year round.

Our economy expends a huge amount of energy on refrigeration, not only to preserve food so that it can be shipped across the world and eaten fresh, but so that the food industry can recreate the climate conditions of a root cellar. Continue reading

My Ten Year Old Toothbrush

Part of a hardcore sustainable lifestyle means reducing waste in every action you take.  That’s why I use a toothbrush that’s over ten years old.  How can you possibly use a toothbrush for ten years? You’ll find out when you watch this video.

In a consumer culture where throwing things out after using them briefly has become the norm, reusing something seen as disposable seems odd.  Disposable products require more extraction and waste of resources, and in many circumstances these products could easily be made to last.  Disposability is just another cultural and economic trend that does incredible damage to the environment.  And it increases corporate profits in the short term for sure, but in the long term, wasting resources is actually bad for the economy.

Fossil fuel free scrubbing with the luffa

Why buy scrubbies and washcloths when you can easily grow your own supply from a small garden plot?  This season I grew two luffa plants and ended up with enough dish washing fiber for the next 5 years.  This unique plant has been selected over the millennia for its fibrous fruit and it should have a space in your garden if you want to be more self sufficient.  Easy to grow and prolific, the luffa provides an alternative to manufactured abrasive cleaning products, many of which are produced from or using fossil fuel.  And when the luffa reaches the end of its useful life, you simply compost it.

The luffa plant looks a lot like a cucumber and it climbs in the same way.  However, it’s more disease resistant and it requires a longer season.  So start the seeds indoors in spring if you want to get a good jump on the season.  Although it has somewhat of a reputation for its high fiber content, in some parts of the world it’s been selected for eating.  It’s only eaten when the fruit is young, before the fibrous skeleton has formed.

4 Season Harvest in My Hoop House

I’ve had a hoop house at Dancing Rabbit for over 5 years.  In that time I’ve grown thousands of pounds of salad greens, tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers.  In this video, I take you on a little tour of my hoop house and its irrigation system.  It uses entirely caught rainwater, solar power, and gravity for irrigation. This hoop house has allowed me to extend the growing season and provide the community fresh local produce year round. Continue reading

Design Details of My Strawbale Tiny House: Beauty and Function

In this video I take you through some of the design features of my strawbale tiny house and explain how designing a house to be efficient, sustainable, and functional can result in a byproduct of beauty.  Tiny house builders and owners know how important it is to conserve space in their homes.  Mine is no different. See how I make use of the space under my stairway.  A walk-in closet on the second floor provides a handy place to store and hide all my stuff. See how using natural finishes to the house add functionality and beauty.

My house’s passive solar design also reduces the amount of fuel I need to heat my home in winter.  I’ll show you how it heats up throughout a chilly day using only the sun’s energy.