Grow the Change: The End

We have decided to let this blog go inactive, but hope that it continues to be a valuable archive of our homesteading experiences. Thank you to all of those who interacted and contributed to this blog.

The way we live

Just in case you are curious about the way we live... We produce enough income from a half-acre market garden to live a simple, debt-free lifestyle. We are off-grid and produce our power from an 80 Watt solar panel to run the things we need. We hydro-cool our perishables, and can, dry or cellar our food instead of running a fridge or freezer. We cook and heat water with wood, year-round, which means getting a fire going each morning, even in the heat of our two week long summer, and doing all the cooking and washing before the heat of the day. We ride bicycles to get where we need to go, especially to the Community Internet Access Center, and barter for rides into town for shopping a few times a year. In our Northern garden, Zone 4, we produce and preserve our own vegetables, herbs and most of our grains in a half-acre garden and acre grain field. We keep a small herd of goats, and a small flock of hens, to produce our meat, dairy products and eggs. We live seasonally, our daily life in the spring centers on planting and cultivating, our daily life in summer centers on harvesting and preserving, our daily life in fall centers on preparing for winter, and our daily life in winter centers on reading, learning, writing, philosophizing, planning and crafting. We are always looking for ways to innovate the tools and techniques for growing food on a home-scale. And we are always looking for ways to strengthen the effect of our lifestyle choices by connecting what we do with the larger community.