Beyond Eggs – 8 Advantages of Deep Litter Housing for Chickens

Deep litter bedding for chickens mimics the forest floor environment they evolved in, builds their health, provides them with entertainment, and captures fertility for soil building. Here is why we decided to try confinement on deep litter with no outside foraging.

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Beyond Eggs – Pros and Cons of Free Range and Mobile Pens

Chickens can either be very helpful to gardeners, or incredibly destructive. How can we harvest all that chickens have to offer, in ways that keep everybody happy, healthy, and productive?

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Raising Pigs – Fence Training

Electric fencing works very effectively for pigs, but only if they get the right first impressions of it. Here are the steps we take to train our piglets to stay behind electric fences, without terrifying them in the process.

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7 Easy Substitutes for When Lettuce Won’t Grow

6 ​Salad bowl contenders that can handle heat and high humidity. ​The 7th plant can make a nutritious salad by itself if you have the right growing niche for it. Plus a tip on getting the most nutrition from your salad greens. UPDATED July 2023.

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Raising Pigs – Can pigs learn table manners?

Feeding ​the pigs, as they grow bigger, ​can ​easily degenerate into a full body contact sport in which the pig ​wins and the amateur pig-raiser ​gets discouraged and gives up on homegrown pork. Is there a way to keep pig-raising ​enjoyable when those cute little piglets are no longer cute?

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Raising Pigs – New Piglets

Why we buy piglets rather than breeding our own; preparing for their arrival and minimizing the stress of their transition; what to feed them; a few thoughts on choosing heritage breeds versus modern breeds.

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Raising Pigs – Mobile Pens vs Pigs in One Place

What we have (so far) found to be the pros and cons of mobile versus stationary pig raising systems, and why we are currently trailing a stationary arrangement for our pigs.

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Two Different Kinds of Healthcare – Part 2

Why the modern healthcare system undermines our families and communities, and how we came to be so dependent on it.

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Two Different Kinds of Healthcare – Part 1

A brief discussion about modern, quick-fix healthcare versus the slow lane – at-home healthcare that calls for a foundation of healthy living and a healthy social network (not the Twitter kind).

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Real Food does not come from Supermarkets: 6 Steps from Bare Ground to Homegrown Veggies

How I got from “I don’t think I could grow brassicas,” to “Ooh look – a cauliflower!”

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