A Year (and a bit) in the Self Sufficient Life

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Okay, Mrs Dirty Boots here, Madam of this Self Sufficient homestead.  Yep, I know I have been missing in action from this site.  Rest assured I have been doing my bit though (just ran out of words to ramble about it all really!).  Any-hoo, it suddenly dawned on me (over a bowl of barely simmering lemon curd no less) that a whole year (and a bit) had gone by since we started writing here about all things Self Sufficientish and Frugal. How time flies!  We’ve lived off various home-grown veggies, fruits and home-reared (killed) chickens.  Eaten vast quantities of homemade […]

Green Flooring – Eco Friendly Flooring

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Our millions of regular self sufficient readers (well, all 200 of you) will know (if you have been paying attention), that we live in Spain. It is the tradition here in nearly all homes to have tiled floors. Wooden floors are not really the norm and carpets are quite the exception to the rule. This is partly because of the heat during the summer, the number of bugs and woodworm that seem to be present, especially in the countryside, but I think it is mainly down to the fact that little consideration is made for protecting interiors from the rain […]

Is Investing In Green Stocks A Good Idea?

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Today we have a guest post from Bruce here at the self sufficiency site. He makes some interesting points about investing in companies that are maybe more environmentally friendly. Many people have money invested in shares so do you think it is time to re-consider your portfolio to have maybe a slightly more environmentally friendly bias? Or do you think it would be harder to make money with a portfolio of this manner? Interesting to think about at the very least. Wherever you go in the world now, you see evidence that it is going “green”. Whether you believe in […]

Solar Powered Tiki Torches And Eco Hypocrites

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A strange title you may be saying but read on for a very interesting take on the world of the “Eco” movement and a great response to a post I made not so long ago. Here at the Self Sufficiency website we are pleased to have this guest post from John and if you would like to write a guest post of your own feel free to contact us. In response to the article entitled Are you an”Eco” Hypocrite the answer in the widest possible sense is that we are all eco hypocrites or ecocrites. Just being alive requires us […]

I Done A Bad Thing – Cheap Plane Tickets, And Monstrous After Effects

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Well, actually it was a great thing, but with the rather in depth conversation in the last post about what being “eco” really means, it was very bad from that point of view. I took about 3 million flights and flew about as far away as you can possibly go to go to my sisters wedding in New Zealand. Not very eco friendly at all. A great time was had by all and it was great to see my little Sis get married. I was only there for 6 days and then 4 more were spent getting there and back. […]

Are You An “Eco” Hypocrite?

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I was watching something last night on TV about protestors at a power station and it got me thinking. Are we all just “eco hypocrites”. To be honest I am less interested in environmental issues than some of you may think. I am still dubious about Global warming and I know many of you will be sighing in sympathy for my stupidity. Well, that is as may be. The truth is I am more in to being self sufficient than anything else. For me this means: No bills No mortgage Growing veggies Keeping chickens Working for myself Not spending to […]

Make Some Real Compost

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We have now been making compost for years, especially since we began a more self sufficient lifestlye. No fancy setup although I would still have a compost tumbler if we did not have such a large plot that we can use, with pretty much unlimited space. Many people come to this site looking for various snippets of wisdom about how to make compost, what to compost, can you put this, and can you put that on the compost heap. Here I would like to dispel a few myths about what exactly composts and how many people may be missing out […]