The Vermont Sail Freight Project

...r baked goods, but also plans on reviving the lost art of shipping freight under sail power. Andrus has a Kickstarter going to fund the the consturction of a 39 foot sailing vesel, the “Ceres” which will carry 12 tons of rice and other shelf-stable goods from Ferrisburgh, Vermont to New York City. The Ceres is already under construction and is due to start sailing by this fall. You can follow progress on the project at: http://vermontsailfreightpr...

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Straw Bale Gardens

...work of buying and prepping a straw bales garden. But, given the idiosyncrasies of our situation, it seems like a good solution. Frankly, I don’t know why we didn’t think of it sooner. Our thanks go out to Michael for reminding us of this possibility with his article. The biggest possible downside with this method is that the straw may contaminated with a persistent herbicide, like Dow Chemical’s Clopyralid. This is a type of herbicide that is not...

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Picture Sundays: An Altoid Box EDC

...y), along some photos, Wanted to let you see my EDCs. enjoyed your posts, and figured I would share my improvised Altoids tin. The dividers are made from empty tins cut and riveted in place. My next addition is a iron thin envelope under the mints containing a mini survival kit. Ben promises an update once the mini-survival kit is assembled. Want to see more EDC “pocket dump” photos? Check out everyday-carry.com. Got a favorite Altoid box project?...

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Arduino Homesteading Projects

...”, that plug into the Arduino–to give the device, for example, GPS or wireless capabilities. And there are vast libraries of programs for Arduinos–useful for non-programmers such as myself. In the class we used the $24 Leonardo model of the Arduino, which is commonly used for prototyping. Once you figure out what inputs and outputs you need for your project you can get a cheaper Arduino with fewer features for use in, let’s say, your automatic chi...

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