Sustainable Home

Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, writer and activist William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled.

In light of concerns about food and human health, fraying social ties, economic uncertainty, and rampant consumerism, some people are foregoing a hurried, distracted existence and embracing a mindful way of living. Intentional residential communities across the United States are seeking the freedom to craft their own societies and live based on the values of nonviolence, self-sufficiency, equality, and voluntary simplicity.

A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for - or create - a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

For thousands of years, mending was a deep craft that has for too long been a secret history. But now it's back, bigger and better than ever. In this book, Kate Sekules introduces the art of visible mending as part of an important movement to give fashion back its soul. Part manifesto, part how-to, Mend! calls for bold new ways of keeping clothes and refreshing your style.

You don't have to be an expert to start a thriving, bountiful garden. Any basic guide can show you how. But if you want to figure out how to maximize your crop yield…know how to stretch your growing season beyond traditional limits…and even grow summer crops all year long…basic beginner’s guides won’t be of much help. After all, they’re only meant to cover the basics.

What if you could trade expensive energy bills for solar panels you own forever without spending a dime? Stop paying electricity bills, and turn your home into a monthly income machine. Is it possible? How? Learn how to turbocharge your home's value and your monthly cash-flow using government-funded solar energy on your roof. Solar Energy is a comprehensive resource that reveals the facts about solar energy and makes it easy for you to learn how you can use solar to slash your electric bill, live better, and save the planet!

Finally, a book that simplifies the beginning skills of urban homesteading and provides easy lessons for those ready to be more self-sufficient. We are all different and live in different situations. This book will get you started in ways you might not have thought of, no matter where you are.

For nearly two decades, Lana Stenner and her family have been living their version of the simple life on their small Midwest farmstead—following God, chasing goats, and tending gardens. Join Lana as she shares heartwarming stories, hearty recipes, and some of the valuable lessons she’s learned in her homesteading journey. Though you may not be ready to pack up and move into a 120-year-old farmhouse like Lana, you can experience more grace and authenticity right where you are when you learn to seek beauty in your surroundings and work hand in hand with God.

Lead in lipstick? 1,4-Dioxane in baby soap? Coal tar in shampoo? How is this possible? Simple. The $35 billion cosmetics industry is so powerful they've kept themselves unregulated for decades. Not Just a Pretty Face chronicles the quest that led a group of health and environmental activists to the world's largest cosmetics companies to ask some tough questions....

Le confort d'une vie conventionnelle, ma maison, tout, sauf mon travail ! Et je suis partie vivre en camion, puis équipée seulement d'un hamac, dans les forêts et montagnes alentour. Je m'isolais, pensant que rien ne pouvait m'arriver. J'étais loin de me douter des défis, des rencontres et des émotions qui m'attendaient! Mais surtout, j'ignorais jusqu'à l'existence de l'habitat de mes rêves.

Tips, tools, advice, and activities for raising eco-friendly kids while nurturing compassion, resilience, and community engagement.

Permaculture is the gardening and farming roadmap of the future. It teaches you to work with nature so that the Earth will be your ally, not your foe. It’s a must-have for every person concerned about the environment and sustainable living. It contains valuable lessons and strategies critical for the future of life on Earth.

Do you produce lots of organic waste? Are you tired of seeing all that waste go to...waste? Do you need something homemade to enrich your garden soil and make your plants healthier? Welcome to Composting - you’ve just found your ultimate guide to creating organic compost from kitchen scraps and backyard waste.

Ducks are a great source of meat and eggs. You'll find that ducks are easier to take care of than chickens, and they're perfect for backyard homesteading. Duck eggs are even considered to be better than chicken eggs due to their size and nutritional value. Ducks are also less aggressive and noisy than chickens, making them perfect for your backyard.

From the bedroom mattress and pillows to daily cleaning products for the kitchen and bath, toothbrushes, and even furniture and clothing, toxins are embedded in many products and items used regularly in the home—and they are making us sick. Home Detox is a practical, accessible guide to understanding the problem and how we can address it in our own homes in a manageable and affordable way. Daniella Chace, a professional toxicologist and health writer, teaches listeners how to identify potential toxins, with an easy-to-follow, room-by-room evaluation.

I want to share my life story with you as a way to help others going through a difficult situation. I realize that today many are facing financial and other major life issues. At first I went about my life, enjoying everything I had and none the wiser about how difficult things could become. However, that's when my life changed. It wasn't long after I lost my job that I found myself struggling to support my wife and our six-year-old son. I began to worry about what I was going to do and how I could possibly turn the situation around.

Camas Davis was at an unhappy crossroads. A longtime magazine writer and editor in the food world, she'd returned to her home state of Oregon with her boyfriend from New York City to take an appealing job at a Portland lifestyle magazine. But neither job nor boyfriend delivered on her dreams, and in the span of a year, Davis was unemployed and on her own. Disillusioned by the years she’d spent mediating the lives of others for a living, she had no idea what to do next. She did know one thing: She no longer wanted to write about the real thing; she wanted to be the real thing.

Are you sick and tired of the daily grind? Do you finally want to say good-bye to living in congested towns and cities and discover something that actually works for you? If so, then this audiobook is for you. You see, off-grid living doesn’t have to be difficult. Even if you’ve tried searching for the perfect plot of land and failed. The truth is, it’s much easier than you think. Amazon best-selling author, Bradley Stone provides you with a step-by-step blueprint to becoming self sufficient and living off grid without the worries of sourcing reliable information.

Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste will introduce listeners to the cultural traditions associated with seed saving, as well as the remarkable people who have used grafting practices and hand-by-hand trading to keep alive varieties that would otherwise have been lost. As local efforts to preserve heirloom seeds have become part of a growing national food movement.

Farming, growing your own crops, and raising animals have never been as easy as they are today. With modern technology and access to a plethora of knowledge and resources, farming cannot only be easy, but profitable as well - even for someone who has never stepped out of the city. In fact, you can do it from the comfort of your own home!