Natural Home

Nature abounds with the perfect materials for decorating the home this Christmas season. Pine cones, evergreen sprigs, leaves, berries, branches, birch bark, and more, can often be found right in …

Politics and religion are two topics that generally elicit a strong response when they come up in conversation. These are also two topics in which I rarely participate. Call me …

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, or so the song goes. I tend to agree. Christmas and the holiday season are my favorite time of year. I love …

Are you an avid collector of indoor plants? Has your indoor greenery begun growing in leaps and bounds since you started spending more time at home? Are you running out …

Take a good look around and open your eyes wide. It appears that modern technology has us pressing a lot of plastic buttons and swiping screens at lightning speed. From …

We all know that coconuts can provide a range of yields – from the edible fresh milk and oil, to the coconut coir we can use as a peat compost …

Native to the Middle East, the pistachio tree (Pistacia vera) is a long lived desert plant that bears clusters of small reddish drupes. Pistachio drupes need long, hot, and dry …

Christmas is coming. I don’t know about the goose getting fat, but I sure am. Cooler days and long nights mean I slow down and eat heavier foods. One has …

The sound of the crackling fire, the smell of the burning wood, the dancing flames, and warmth that penetrates deep into your bones – are all perks of heating with …

Sawdust, otherwise referred to as wood shavings, is a beneficial by-product of working with wood that has many applications on both urban and countryside homesteads. The further you get from …

Have you ever seen a simple and elegant wreath at a craft show and thought “I could do that!”? Some people pick it up straight away, while others stumble through …

Whenever I’m wandering through the woods, I always have a basket or a mesh bag with me. There’s rarely a time when the forest doesn’t provide me with some treat …

For many people, the start of fall is signified by an eventful and colorful change in the leaves, as well as darkness arriving earlier and earlier each evening. One of …

I’m a fan of walking in the garden every day, especially in the late afternoon when the sun warms the plants so that all manner of herbal and vegetal smells …

Unless you have a bidet, you likely have a constant stream of toilet paper rolls coming through the home. While you can certainly recycle them or tear them up to …

When you think about washing clothes by hand, you probably conjure up images of someone in a calico dress scrubbing furiously on a washboard, up to their elbows in hot, …

While bees and their remarkable raw honey generally get a lot of buzzingly good press, we often lose sight of the other amazing gifts they have to offer. Beeswax is …

Castile soap is an entirely natural soap. Originally, the term applied to a soap made with olive oil, named for the Castile region in Spain. But nowadays the term is …

Living sustainably is often about finding new ways to use old things. One person’s trash is, after all, another person’s treasure. By reusing and upcycling old tires, for example, we …

Clay is often underneath our very feet, whether we are aware of it or not. Which leads to a somewhat serpentine thought process regarding its ample abundance. Consider for a …

Plastic milk containers or milk jugs can be recycled. But the high quality plastic can also be used in a number of different ways around your home and garden. Before …

You’ve seen bags of it in the health food store and you have pinned images of the fine powder stating its health benefits on Pinterest, but have you gotten around …

Humanity’s quest for cleanliness is nothing new. The first evidence of soap making extends as far back as 2800 BC when ancient Babylonians boiled fats with wood ashes to create …

On a homestead, there are always plenty of things to do. One of the great things about homesteading is that there are almost endless ways to improve your home, garden …