There's no better way to become a Rural Independent than to get informed in all the skills and crafts needed to live on your own as freely as possible. Visit our Forums and learn from others and share your successes and tips as well. Among some of our Forum Topics are: Gardening, Cooking, Fi
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I woke up early this morning, around six. It was dark and foggy, and very warm out. Sitting in the yard with the dogs for a few moments listening to the roosters crow, my birthday wind chime sounded like the bell buoy that I used to be able to hear lying in my childhood bed on the island. Such
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If you were going to sit down and figure out one of the simplest ways to build a shelter, cordwood would have to be near the top choices you would arrive at. Cordwood construction is the perfect family project and it also offers some of the best insulation values you can achieve. The one
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Many people say that owning and cooking on a wood stove is like having a temperamental child. In the beginning you will need to give your wood stove encouragement and patience. It will need damping and you will find it hard to start. But after you have mastered the ways of your wood stove, you w
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Talk about amazing technology - behold the "Zeer Pot." The following is excerpted from the website of Practical Action, a non-profit group that helps the Sudanese people construct these amazing devices. "In the hot weather of Sudan, Hawa Abbas used to lose half of her tomato, okra and carro
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Sure potatoes are great mashed and creamy with lots of butter and maybe a dash of horse radish for the more adventuresome among us, but did you know that this versatile food can be used to polish your shoes? How about using a spud as a sleep aid? This inexpensive and always at the ready staple
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Part of country living in many parts of the world is those cute but pesky deer. If you are fortunate enough to live in the country or even in one of those ever increasing urban areas that have encroached upon deer habitat, chances are deer represent more than just something pretty to look at a
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Constructing Garden Wicking Beds – Mairéid Sullivan "The wicking worm bed is a highly productive growing system which not only produces more food from limited water, but also recycles waste organic material to provide plant nutrient and capture carbon. The essence is to form an underground
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Composting with redworms is great for apartment dwellers who don't have yard space, or for those who don't want to hike to a backyard compost bin with their food scraps. Some kids like to keep worms for pets! By letting worms eat your food wastes, you'll end up with one of the b
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Seldom do we at the Rural Independent have a product leap out of the computer monitor and grab us by the throat, but this one surely did. The Aquaduct is a tricycle with a built in water filtration system. At the back end there is a large water container for unfiltered water. When you start riding
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"I have really enjoyed the scythe and found it a very effective addition to my bushwhacking arsenal. I have chronic low back trouble and scything is very therapeutic! My back always feels much better after a couple of hours at it. The bush s
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We’ve all seen it… or, at least, heard about it… the homeschooled child who wins the geography bee, or the one who graduates at the age of 15, or the one who excels in musical accomplishments… Now, obviously, a student does not have to be homeschooled in order to accomplish one of the
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True Homesteading is a thing of the past but other options do exist. Oklahoma Sooners, the term was given to those who jumped the gun in the race to stake their claim to free land in Oklahoma. On April 22, 1889 people seeking free land lined up on the Cherokee Strip. At the sound of the gun,
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If you're going to live as a Rural Independent, then you need to be able to react and react quickly in the event someone has an accident or becomes seriously ill. Having a well thought out and thorough First Aid Kit should be one of your top priorities. "Appropriate members of the househo
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I discovered this powerful video while Googling up on the subject of Homesteading. What a joy it was to have come across it. Being an American, I had never heard of Smoky Dawson, but if you are an Australian you most certainly know of him. Smoky seems to be the Aussie equivalent of our
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Did you know that the tomato has a checkered past as a food? Long before it was considered fit to eat by man, it was grown only as an ornamental garden plant, sometimes called "love apple." In fact in its early years, the tomato was considered by the wealthy to be a vile thing and poisonous to
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If a person is going to "go green" there probably is no better place to begin than with their choice of cooking implements. Cooking over wood pollutes our air, natural gas or propane depletes reserves of natural resources, oil - well what needs to be said about that. All of these options
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Solar hot water systems use basic principles and components to capture incoming solar radiation and heat water for domestic and other uses. Over the years, a variety of system designs have been developed and tested to meet specifi
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Straw has been used for centuries to build shelter of one form or another. In Europe there are straw built homes still standing after hundreds of years of use. Straw bales provide very dense, strong walls and are extremely impervious to rot and rodent infestation when properly placed and sea
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We have to admit to being somewhat addicted to those corny old films produced by governments to inform their citizenry about chosen topics. We probably won't post any of those old dating videos, but will try to stay with ones that are more relevant in subject to the genre of our web site.
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