Fire has rightly earned its reputation as one of the most important aspects of survival. Anyone with experience in bushcraft and primitive living will tell you fire is not only essential for the direct benefits it offers, but also ...
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9 More ‘Pioneer Tools’ You’ll Need If The Grid Fails
To read the first story in this series, click here. The modern homestead is heavily dependent on electricity and gasoline – for everything from lawnmowers to tractors to chainsaws to electric drills. But during a power outage, particularly a ...
Read More »Hugelkultur: The Centuries-Old, Weed-Free, German Way To Garden
Hugelkultur, the German word for “hill culture,” is the ideal method for the farmer/grower looking for a unique and practical way to grow a weed-free and healthy garden. This method of planting has been used for centuries in Germany and ...
Read More »5 Easy Ways To Make Your Fire Burn Longer (And More Efficiently)
How do you keep your house warm during winter? If you are like me and millions of other Americans, you use wood. Figures in a recent Census showed that the number of homes heating with wood grew 34 percent between ...
Read More »Backup Heat: 5 Things You Can Burn In The Stove When There’s No Firewood
It might be a bit simplistic to say that a wood-burning stove or fireplace is the only heat alternative in winter. However, for many people affected by the North American Ice Storm of 1998, it was their only heating source ...
Read More »Log Splitters 101: What You Should Know Before Shopping
Temperatures are cold, and your stack of already-prepared logs is getting smaller and smaller. You find yourself dreading heading out to split more logs. Perhaps this year is the time to make that purchase — you know, that log splitter ...
Read More »The Ancient Off-Grid Heater That’s Far Better Than A Wood Stove
It’s the most reliable, safe and efficient way to produce heat with wood. So why do so few homes nowadays have them? Masonry stoves have been used for centuries — across Scandinavia, France, Germany and Poland. But they were seldom ...
Read More »8 Ingenious Off-Grid Ways To Split Wood (Without An Ax)
I’ve had a pile of firewood sitting in the backyard for a while — actually for a few years. This pile was made up of branches that I’d cut off our various trees, either because the branches were dead or ...
Read More »Firewood 101: How To Ensure You Have More Than Enough Fuel For Winter
For people who have lived with wood heat for years, firewood is pretty much a no-brainer – just another part of living in the country. But people who have just moved to a home that relies on wood heat or ...
Read More »A Ban On Heating Your Home With Wood? It’s Happening
Starting next fall it will be illegal to install wood-burning heaters and stoves in new homes in at least one major American city: San Francisco. Even wood stoves certified as low emission by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be ...
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