Build a Giant Woodshed from Pallets and Trash!

I wanted to make a quick post about a super easy and super cheap woodshed we built back in the Fall of 2011. Using mostly materials we salvaged from the trash or re-used, we threw up this shed in a little more than a weekend. It has a capacity of around 8 cords, but we [...]

Dacha Work Party Weekend

It’s fall and we dacha squirrels need to start organizing our nuts. We need your help as we finish up some dacha projects before winter. Come toil, take a tour, and have lunch with us, maybe play some horseshoes. Possible projects include plastering, building a small structure out of pallets, berming and putting a small [...]

Septic Surprise

So here at the Dacha we have a septic system. As we were planning to have a number of guests for the weekend we decided to check it out. The person who installed our septic predicted that we would need to pump it out after all this time (about 3 years) but we weren’t so [...]

Video Series: Building the Straw Bale Cottage

Wow, I miss the days when we still had time to make mini-films about what we were up to. Maybe soon we will acquire a media intern to help us get back on that train! For now, check out this series from when we had a kickin’ camera, and some time. It’s all about the [...]

Sun Worship and its Benefits to You as a Religion

(For benefits of it as a religion scroll to the bottom) –what a sunny day in mid-November means for the main dacha house, a passive-solar, earth-bermed structure, and its inhabitants. The sun is out after vacationing elsewhere for almost a week, and its brightening things up over here in many ways. Let’s review. 1. It’s [...]

Thanks Fall, for Holding Out

Every extra hour that the weather holds out, is very possibly an extra hour of serious outdoor business getting done at the homestead-in-progress. Check out this photo essay of vital last minute projects, and some less vital – but still very nice projects, we’ve been up to. We put windows in the sun room, goodbye [...]

First Snow Meets Shining Orb in the Sky

Our very first snow stuck, until midday the next day, when the shining orb in the sky worked it out that it turn back into water. The sunny day heated up the house to 70 degrees. At this time of year the direct sunlight comes more than half way in, heating up the floor, and [...]

West Wing Time Lapse

This is the time lapse of how we built the addition to our common house. Watch the subtle changes of each stage of the building process from just a pile of dirt to our fabu west wing addition.

Friendlies Visit Dacha Project, take Photo + Blog Us.

Friendlies Visit Dacha Project, take Photo + Blog us.

Yes We Can-vas Tent

One of the living structures at the Dacha is a canvas tent that is designed to withstand a real winter with snow flakes, snow cones, snowmen and women.

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