Energy « Independence Homestead

Archive for the ‘Energy’ Category

Surviving the Snowstorm!

Posted in Animals, Ducks, Energy, Farm, Goats, Hogs, Layers, Rabbits, tagged american guinea hog, ducks, feeder, goats, homestead, snow, tractor, winter on January 27, 2016 | Leave a Comment »

Along with much of the East Coast, we just endured a record-breaking snowstorm. When you live on a homestead with livestock, weather is a big deal. The livestock need to be cared for every day, and that means getting to them, and making sure they can get around, no matter what the weather. As we […]

Read Full Post »

Air-drying laundry

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged air-drying, clothes drying, conservation, energy, homestead on January 1, 2015 | Leave a Comment »

Here is another post we started when we were in the town-house about 2 years ago but it never was published. We have continued to air-dry our laundry almost exclusively in our new homestead, using the dryer only for large items that are urgently needed. Original Article For several months now we have been primarily […]

Read Full Post »

Wood Processing

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged chain saw, garden, maul, shavings, splitting, truck, wedge, wood on January 19, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

The installation of our wood stove brought about a new need, firewood. The first round of wood we struggled to get to our house in the back of our jeep. It took about three trips to get the wood seen in the picture here to our house. That clearly was not very efficient, though the price (free) was right. Now that we had the wood we had to split it. After a few tries with our ax we realized that another tool was needed.

Read Full Post »

Wood Burning Stove

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged energy, fire, heat, stove, wood, wood stove on January 16, 2013 | Leave a Comment »

Last summer we were researching alternate home heating solutions, well we settled on an option! We decided to go with a Jotul Wood Burning Cast-Iron Stove. We were able to pick up a floor model from a company that recently changed locations for a steep discount. We hooked it up through our existing fireplace and obtained a fire/heat resistant floor mat to place in front of the stove to keep our floor from melting.

Read Full Post »

New Windows Coming Soon!

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged energy, heat, homestead, money, windows on August 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

We are about to get new windows! We had a few replaced last year, and this year most of the rest. Here’s a picture of one of the windows we’re replacing:

Read Full Post »

Lining Curtains

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged conservation, energy, homestead, sewing on July 29, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

So one of the benefits of being self-sufficient and doing things yourself is not being restricted by what’s available on the market. Last summer we hung up curtains in our living room. The curtains that matched our style and color scheme were pretty flimsy, though. They weren’t lined, which we wanted. We bought them anyway, […]

Read Full Post »

Candlemaking: Attempt #1

Posted in Energy, Household, tagged beekeeping, bees, beeswax, candlemaking, candles, comb, homestead, reuse, solar energy, solar oven, solar power, wax on July 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

After receiving this wick material and these wick tabs I was anxious to start making candles! Here at Independence Homestead we try to reuse as many materials as possible, so I had the idea that we could make candles in containers using repurposed glass food jars. We have quite the collection of baby food jars, […]

Read Full Post »

Melting Beeswax

Posted in Beekeeping, Energy, Household, tagged bee hives, beekeeping, bees, beeswax, comb, filter, melting, solar oven, wax on July 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

We needed to melt down the beeswax in the comb so that we could use the wax for candles and other potential crafts. George did some research, and found that it was common to use solar ovens to do this. We had been wanting a solar oven for other reasons so it was a good opportunity to go ahead and build a solar oven!

Read Full Post »

Building a Solar Oven

Posted in Energy, Food & Beverage, Household, tagged conservation, homestead, solar energy, solar oven, solar power on July 15, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

For a while now we have been wanting to build a solar oven. This summer we’ve made it happen! First we did some research on solar ovens. There are several different configurations one can build. We went with a box cooker design. This is not the type of solar oven that gets the hottest, but […]

Read Full Post »