The Sunburst Front Gate Design

It might seem that I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, talking about the front gate while still awhile away from completing the wall that sits next to the gate. But, I was stuck with inspiration over Thanksgiving while visiting our family in Boulder, CO. I came across an incredibly cool footbridge in the town [...]

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2013 Homestead Goals & 2012 Year in Review

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Hello everyone! It’s been a very busy summer and fall, and I’m a bit ashamed that this is only my second post since we began the earthbag wall project in June. For those of you that are new to Seattle Homestead, we do an annual post that reviews the past year’s accomplishments and lays out [...]

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September 2012 Video Tour: Earthbag Update and More

It’s been a while since I’ve had time to update the site. At this point, I think the quickest way to get you all up to speed is to give you a video tour of the homestead and show you what we’ve been working on all summer long. Take a look: I give a better [...]

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How to Make Your Own Concrete Tamper

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Our Earthbag Building Workshop is about to kick off tomorrow, and I spent the day doing some last minute preparations with our instructor, Scott Howard of Earthen Hand Natural Building. A big portion of the earthbag construction process is tamping the dirt into bags to make sure they’re packed tightly, and then tamping them again [...]

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Concerns With Urban Animal Slaughter

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Photo Credit by VeryGeeky. This article is a response to a Slate.com piece published by James McWilliams on June 6th, 2012. The article, titled “The Butcher Next Door: Why the rise of DIY urban animal slaughter is bad for people and animals,” tries to make the point that animal slaughter by untrained people in an [...]

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Our Earthbag Wall Workshop & Contest

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I’ve mentioned our upcoming wall project a few times on this site. Above is the mockup and overhead drawing of what we’re going to be building in 3 weeks. All of the terracotta-colored wall in that diagram is specifically what we’ll be building. You can click here to take a look at the full-size wall [...]

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The Chicks Have Arrived and Chicken Coop Construction Begins

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I mentioned in our 2012 Homestead Goals that we were planning to get chickens this year. About 4 weeks ago we picked up 2 Barred Rocks and 3 Rhode Island Reds from Jason at Shoreline Farm Supply – who graciously gave them to us for free since he had extra from a customer who decided they [...]

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Seattle Solar Installation Q&A with Amy from West Seattle Natural Energy

Seattle Solar Installation

Seattle Solar Electricity Q&A with Amy Beaudoin I sat down last week with Amy Beaudoin of West Seattle Natural Energy, a solar & wind energy installer based here in West Seattle. We talked about a bunch of questions that I had as well as questions submitted by readers on topics like: Things you can do [...]

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2012 Homestead Goals & 2011 Year in Review

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Photo: Front yard is coming together as the retaining wall takes shape, and most of the yard is sheet-mulched. The bushes are on their way out and so is the chain-link fence, in order to make way for the garden wall. The new year is here and we’re approaching one year of living here at [...]

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Douglas Bullock’s Fruit Tree Recommendations for Seattle

Best Fruit Trees For Seattle

At my permaculture design course last weekend the guest speaker was Douglas Bullock, of the well-known Bullock Brothers Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island. Douglas was lecturing on the overall topic of soil, and specifically spoke about nitrogen-fixing plants, sheet mulching, microclimates, and last but not least, orchard design and his personal fruit tree recommendations for [...]

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