A Digital Fast For The Whole Family: Unplugging To Reconnect

The custom of shared family meals is common across most cultures. In all likelihood, our ancestors sat down together for shared meals as families, clans or tribes, before they could be called anatomically modern humans. Shared family meals are a universal and ancient tradition and one that has many benefits. It seems like elements of […]

A man can stretch food. He can sleep cold. He can work through pain. But when water turns bad, runs low, or disappears, the clock starts ticking fast. That truth was understood long before bottled water, electric pumps, and plastic filters. Native tribes, pioneer families, and Amish communities all survived by learning one lesson well: […]

Virtually every culture practices routines of hygiene to prevent illness. Homesteaders and survivalists must implement procedures for washing hands, showering or bathing, laundering clothing and washing dishes with minimal water in order to prevent illness off grid. I grew up backpacking in the deserts of Arizona and Southern Utah and never stopped. Where possible, travel […]

When Plans Fall Apart Whether it’s a known threat, such as a natural disaster or a failed crop season or a Black Swan (an event that you failed to anticipate that harms you), resilience and antifragility are built through adaptation and trust in the process. It is a fact that things don’t always go as […]

A few weeks ago, Alec Deacon asked me to test the ArcShield 3000, and I went into it with the same question most preppers would have: Would this actually help my family during a real blackout? Not a quick power flicker. Not a comfortable camping weekend. I mean a real outage where the fridge is […]

Hand Tools Animals Water Wheel Windmill Which of these can be realistically adopted now on a small homestead? Hand Tools All historical cultures that I am aware of used hand tools and many of the tools that they used can be, and still are, used on homesteads today. Using tinkering and cultural memory, they discovered […]