Although our little off-grid home feels fairly cushy these days with solar electricity and even internet connection, we still live in a "dry" cabin - our home has no running water. Rather, we have what I like to call "walking water," meaning that we haul buckets of water from our water catchment/pond into the house, and back out again as greywater. While dishes, and even cooking are not much trouble, bathing without running water is a real challenge, especially with two young kids who have an affinity for mud! So, when my husband built an outdoor shower for our homestead, I was THRILLED. This system is perfect for the "swing" seasons - spring and fall - and on days when it is simply too cold … [Read more...]
Baking Without an Oven :: Woodstove Bakes
Because we live in a tiny 350 square foot house, we have not found a way to fit an oven into our small kitchen. However, my husband and I both LOVE to bake. In the summertime, we harness the sun and bake in a Sun Oven. The rest of the year, we experiment with ways to bake without an oven. Last year, we perfected two methods of baking without an oven - stovetop bakes and Dutch oven bakes. This winter, we had great success with yet another method of baking without an oven: Woodstove Bakes. Many of our friends have Amish-style cookstoves with ovens and cook surfaces, but we only have a woodstove for heat. One day I had the idea of baking IN our woodstove. And so the fun experimentation … [Read more...]
Installing a Homestead Solar Electric System
A few months ago, I wrote about the process of selecting a solar electric system for our tiny house. We ordered our equipment from Backwoods Solar in late summer, and the installation was complete by early November, with my husband Brian doing all of the work himself. Today, I welcome Brian to tell about the process of installing our homestead photovoltaic system. * * * * * * * * We chose to install an off-grid photovoltaic system for our electrical needs, partly because we wanted an alternative to the coal-fired electricity of NE Missouri, but also because our home site is about ¼ mile from the road, and the cost of running power lines and poles would have been comparable to what we … [Read more...]
A Homestead Woodstove Warming Shelf
For years we have relied on a woodstove to heat our home. After several years of using a functional, but not great woodstove in our Oregon rental cabin, in 2006 we invested in a Jotul woodstove (I believe it's an older version of this model). Not only did our Jotul burn wood more efficiently, but its top could be used as a cooking surface. We were in heaven! Soups, stews, and kettles of water firmly took their place on the woodstove. When we moved into our tiny house here in Missouri, our woodstove took on a whole new level of importance as we rely on the stove for: Winter cooking Stovetop bakes To heat water for dishwashing and bathing To thaw icy pond water for animal … [Read more...]
Top Living Off the Grid and Homesteading Posts of 2014
2014 has been an amazing year here on Homestead Honey. As I finish my third year of blogging, I am so grateful to have such an incredibly supportive readership, and want to say THANK YOU for joining us on our living off the grid homesteading journey. I look forward to creating informative and inspirational blog content, eBooks, and eCourses for you in the coming year. Let's count down the most popular off-grid living and homesteading posts in 2014! 10. Create an Instant Garden with Sheet Mulching We used the sheet mulching, or lasagna gardening method to create our lower garden, and the results have been impressive! In this post I share how to create a garden that you can plant into … [Read more...]
Selecting a Solar Electric System for our Homestead
As many of you know, we've been living without electricity in our tiny house for the past year. This has been an incredible experience, and one that has brought clarity to our needs and our wants surrounding electricity. While waiting for the time and money to be available to research, purchase, and install a small-scale solar electric (photovoltaic) system for our homestead, we've created strategies to meet our needs for keeping food cold (renting out freezer space at a friend's home), using the computer (trading house-sitting at another friend's house), and running power tools (a Honda EU2000i generator). But all along, our intention has been to have our home powered by solar, … [Read more...]
A Homestead Outdoor Kitchen
Yesterday we did something we've kind of been putting off for a few weeks: We moved our entire indoor kitchen to our outdoor kitchen set-up, in anticipation of the plastering and flooring work that needs to happen this season. If you do a quick Google or Pinterest search for images of "Outdoor Kitchens," you'll find some rather inspiring, attractive, and no doubt, expensive arrangements of stainless steel appliances and grills. Many are centered around warm-season cooking and entertaining and provide space for seating, cooking, and shade. Our outdoor kitchen's shade comes from a large tarp, there is no seating, and we cook over a rocket stove and a two-burner propane stove, but the … [Read more...]
Homestead Waterworks
An area of our homestead infrastructure that we spend A LOT of time thinking about, worrying about, and being creative about, is water. As we are living completely off-grid, we have to figure out ways to source water for drinking, bathing, washing dishes, cooking, watering the garden, watering fruit trees, and watering animals. Over the past year we've developed some homestead water systems that were very successful, like our summer rain water catchment; some that were fairly unsuccessful, like our buried winter water catchment system; and some that work, but require a lot of effort, like carrying buckets of water from the pond to our home. Recently, I've been inspired by an amazing … [Read more...]
A Permaculture Approach to Building
As we create our homestead from scratch, our projects and goals are very heavily weighted toward building and creating infrastructure. Settled into our tiny house for the time being, our next projects include a shop and a smaller tool/garden shed. My husband Brian is our family's builder, and he has collaborated with me on today's post. There is a mindset that lends itself well to homesteading, which is to look around and make best use of what is available. For instance, instead of finding a new recipe that we wish to try and purchasing the necessary ingredients to prepare a meal, we rather look first at what is growing in the garden or stored in the freezer or pantry, and then find a … [Read more...]