Degraded Land Transformed into Massive Forest

I found this half hour video both encouraging and inspiring. The incredible story of how degraded gorse-infested farmland has been regenerated back into beautiful New Zealand native forest over the course of 30 years. This documentary is about Hinewai Nature Reserve, on New Zealand’s Banks Peninsula, and its kaitiaki/manager of 30 years, botanist Hugh Wilson. … Read more

Deep Winter Greenhouses in Minnesota

Lumber, glass, big rocks, dirt, and sunshine is all you need for a Deep Winter Greenhouse (DWG), first described in a book by Carol Ford and Chuck Waibel in 2009 titled The Northlands Winter Greenhouse Manual. So, what is a DWG? It is a passive solar greenhouse that captures the sun’s light and heat during … Read more

Sheltered: Underground and Off the Grid

This article and documentary film are about building an underground complex that is far from being a natural building project. But I am posting this because I think that there are worthwhile things that can be learned. Sheltered: Underground and Off the Grid is a full-length documentary that chronicles the building of the largest underground … Read more

Living Off-Grid on a Mountain Top

This man built a beautiful off-grid cabin with the help of friends for $65,000 CAD including the cost of the land. There was no road access to his lot so he had to bring in all of the building materials using a 4-wheeler with a small trailer, and then load them on a material elevator … Read more