Insteading
Homesteading & Sustainability
Country life (or rural life for some folks): What sort of images come to your mind at this phrase? The beauty of nature on full display? The fresh smell of grass? Large open fields of grain under a …
Continue Reading about Things They Don’t Tell You About Living in the Country →
A particular quote comes to mind when I think of the patience required for a happy, healthy homestead: “The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing …
Summer is here, the air is warm, and you may be feeling the heat! Where I live in the central valley of California, the temperature has been tipping the scales at 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Whether or …
Continue Reading about Off-Grid Tips for Staying Cool Without Electricity →
Now that we've covered how to find your land, build your home, and keep things warm or cold in the previous article, let's get into the nitty gritty of off-grid living and talk about how to get the …
As I type this, my husband Jaeger and I are finally and entirely off-grid. Woo hoo! It started with getting our home's heat off-grid, then our water, then our toilets, and eventually, hand-building …
Continue Reading about Off-Grid Lifestyle Considerations: From Housing to Location to Social Life →
When it comes to living and working on an off-grid homestead, there are a lot of different tasks people need to accomplish. Many of these tasks are in the area of land maintenance. Trust me, if you …
The story I’m about to tell happened more than three years ago, so I feel comfortable finally airing it out, knowing that the places and persons involved have forgotten this conversation and …
When I think of using a clothesline, I think of a conversation I had when I still lived in the city. While hanging my laundry, my neighbor’s little boy poked his head through the fence. ”Whatchoo …
Continue Reading about Why You Should Start Using A Clothesline →
In my experience, it seems that discussions about off-grid water systems only take place in niche communities of homesteaders or preppers. If you were to bring it up in “normal” workplace …
YouTube comment sections are not always the friendliest of stomping grounds. If you reveal that you live off-grid, or worse, you try to teach others how to get started living off-grid, the critics …
Continue Reading about Answering Some Questions About Off-Grid Living →
Lead contamination. Chlorine and fluoride. E.coli. Fracking pollutants. Toxins and pharmaceuticals. There are so many things that might be mixed in the water that flows from the faucet, that turning …
Continue Reading about Rainwater Harvesting: The Basics And Why You Should Start Today →
The first summer my family and I moved to our homestead, we were not able to get a garden into the rocky, wild ground, but somehow we had a fantastic fall harvest and started accumulating jars of dry …
Continue Reading about Eating Acorns: From Foraging To Cooking & Recipes →
Most of us were raised on flush toilets. You go in the bathroom, do what you’ve got to do, and then the press of a shiny lever flushes all your unpleasantries into oblivion, never to be thought of …
Continue Reading about 5 DIY Composting Toilet Ideas And Details To Consider →
Living off the grid - whether by choice or by chance - is all about efficiency. You need to learn to make the most of your land, your water, and even your food waste. That's where worm composting …
Continue Reading about DIY Worm Composting Solution for Under $20 →
Converting a school bus into a permanent residence is a bit like a coming-of-age story. You take a school bus, probably one very similar to the one you rode in elementary school, gut it entirely, and …
I’ve always loved camping, and one of my favorite parts is the outdoor cooking experience. Food cooked over a campfire is something you just can’t replicate at home in your kitchen. A lot of times, …
Continue Reading about 20 Dutch Oven Camping Recipes for Your Next Outdoor Adventure →
"So let me get this straight. You want me to pull the electric pump out so you can put in a manual pump?" My husband and I nodded at the man who had come to remove our broken electric …
When we moved from a city of 200,000 to a homestead in a hilly, Ozark town of 2,000 residents, my husband and I fully anticipated there would be an adjustment period. As I wrote in my first article …
Continue Reading about Moving from City to Country: The Long-Term Transition →
Coffee is something I really used to enjoy. In my memories, that roasted, dark liquid is synonymous with warm cafes, good conversation, and air perfumed with delicious aromas. But now that I'm more …
Continue Reading about Caffeine-Free Coffee Substitutes That You Can Forage In The Backyard →
It’s no secret that modern living is a bit of a morass of consumerism, waste, and debt. In a world where the latest smartphone debuts less than a year after its previous iteration, where the Joneses …
Continue Reading about Frugal Living: Everything You Need To Know →
In our modern day, with cable TV shows banking off of the "weirdness" of living off the grid, the very phrase "Off-Grid" images of end-of-the-world preppers stocking up MREs and ammo, wild-haired …
Continue Reading about Living Off-Grid: What It’s Actually Like →
There's a charm to underground homes and so-called 'hobbit homes', but many former owners of such buildings have moved out due to problems with moisture and related conditions. But, earth might be the …
Some earth homes take advantage of something called thermal mass, which basically means that the mass of a structure has some capacity to store heat. So the mass of a home can stay at a more constant …
Living off the grid might seem like a dream come true for some of us. No longer tied to electricity or natural gas coming for a utility, we have greater choices for locations and saving money over the …
As surprising as it may seem, you actually don't have the right to grow your own fruits and vegetables on your own private property. In some states- Florida, namely- people have been fined …
Continue Reading about California Passes Neighborhood Food Act →
Lightweight, waterproof containers are a miracle of modern technology. You might never know how much you'll need a bucket, or a water jug, or a few dozen little plant pots until you don't have them, …
Continue Reading about How To Grow Microgreens in Tupperware →
Keeping minor cuts and scrapes clean and avoiding infection is just as important as steering clear of disease-carrying mosquitoes in a disaster/survival situation. More often than not, it's the little …
Continue Reading about DIY Hand Sanitizer That’s as Good as Store-bought →
Do you know how much water you'll need to survive if you're ever caught truly off-grid? The US government says you need 1 gallon of water, per person, every 3 days, just to survive. Their recommended …
Continue Reading about How Much Water Do People Need to Drink in a Day? (w/ Video) →
More and more people are turning to the "grow food, not lawns" movement for a variety of reasons. Some of us are urban farming revolutionaries, some of us are preppers, and some of us are just …
Continue Reading about Families Getting Fined for Growing Food Gardens →
If you're in Florida and hope to live a more sustainable lifestyle free from the influence of energy companies and massive agricultural conglomerates by adding solar panels to your home, harvesting …
Continue Reading about Florida Law Makes Living Off The Grid Illegal →
This isn't the first time I've covered DIY teardrop trailers. Over on Gas 2, we even published a how-to manual from Mechanix Illustrated a while back. This, though, is the first time we've seen one of …
Continue Reading about DIY Teardrop Trailer for Camping and Survival →
Solar ovens are long-lasting, zero-emission cooking tools that use no fuel - making them perfect for both off-the-grid cooking and developing countries that don't have access to a reliable grid to …
Italian architect Renzo Piano has come up with a small, simple-living home design that is less of a shiver shack and more of a one-person, off the grid castle - and, if you’re in the market for a …
Continue Reading about Renzo Piano Builds a Haute Shiver Shack For Off-the-Grid Singles →
In most homes and apartments, cooking takes place on a stove, in an oven, or, on those nights when you're just too tired to think, in the microwave. But these aren't the only ways to prepare a meal, …
Continue Reading about Sustainability 101: How To Build A Solar Oven →
When someone mentions living "off the grid," what do you picture? Most people see a remote location with a small, ultra-efficient house and no one else around for miles. For many years, this was …
Continue Reading about Off-Grid vs. Grid-Tied Home Solar Systems →
