Our Missouri Life

An Earthship is a radically sustainable home made of recycled materials.

* Electricity is from the sun with solar panels and wind with wind modules.
* Water is caught on the roof from rain and snow melt.
* Sewage is treated on site in interior and external botanical planters.
* Heating and Cooling is from the sun and the earth.
* Food is grown inside and outside.

Earthships are constructed with recycled materials and perform as expected in any part of the world, in any climate and still provide you with what you need to survive.

Earthship Biotecture is a global company, based on 40 years of research and development by Michael Reynolds, principal architect of Earthship Biotecture.

This home has some really neat features, some of which we may be able to apply to the house plan to add some additional savings.

Designing and building a home in the high desert is challenging enough thanks to extreme temperature shifts, but all the more so for those who do not want to simply shut themselves off from their surroundings and live in an air-conditioned box – like the engaged clients who hired architect Lloyd Russell to design their sustainable desert residence.

A humble rusted metal canopy covers the house itself, providing essential shade to the entire structure as well as all exterior porches and patios. Combined with full-height sliding walls and windows, this plan enables the home to be cooled passively but also lends it a rustic aesthetic shell that blends it with the surrounding landscape and historical desert industrial and farm buildings.

The home is populated with all kinds of quirky recycled materials and fixtures, a strange blend of modern and traditional in its look as well as its structure and other physical components. The net effect is a home that looks comfortable and traditional but is also modern and functional, combining conventional aesthetics with green strategies to create an inexpensive an eco-friendly hybrid form.

Anyone have any experience with them? There’s many brands out there that all purport to do the same thing (with varying yields).

This is one of the only articles I’ve found describing the use of them after storage: http://www.utahpreppers.com/2009/05/survival-seeds-in-a-can-9-years-later/

Original post I read: http://simple-green-frugal-co-op.blogspot.com/2010/02/survival-seeds.html Source for the ones mentioned in this article: http://www.hometownseeds.com/best-sellers-c-215/survival-seeds-peace-of-mind-for-your-family-p-35

Back in November, I posted a piece about Pioneer Nights. Seeing this piece from Jamie Lee Curtis about an incident at her families mountain get away home made me both laugh and sad all at one time.

Seems there really is a value to being without some niceties even if it is only for one night.

from kk_ct

Why Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day? Literally five minutes of effort. Throw the ingredients together, mix, pop the dough into a bucket and then into the fridge. After a couple hours of rising, I have enough for three big loaves. The dough keeps very well in the refrigerator for a couple weeks (and tastes noticeably better the longer it’s been sitting, though mine rarely makes it that long). When I want fresh bread I pull out a bit of dough, get the oven heated up and bake away. There are plenty of no-knead recipes about, but Jeff Hertzberg and Zoe Francois perfected a process that works for me.

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day
by Jeff Hertzberg, Zoe Francois
2007, 242 pages
$15
Available from Amazon

Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day
Jeff Hertzberg,Zoe Francois
2009, 336 pages
$15
Available from Amazon

Straw Bale Construction Portal
Nice site, great info!

We’re having a few DNS issues this morning. I’m working on getting them resolved.

This may also trigger some delays in email to us, so please be patient and if you haven’t heard back after a day or so, send it again

A NatGeo special – close to home for me.