Selfsufficientish.com

River Cottage do an online pig course. Not a freebie but maybe worth the £20 fee?

http://www.rivercottage.net/shop/produc ... rk-course/

We regularly order from SUMA wholesale (every 2 months) and have never had a problem with the deliveries. They are always very friendly and will give you the mobile number of the driver who is delivering to you. I usually ring up the driver on the morning of the delivery and get a more acurate time ...

it is great for making herbal tinctures-just pack the herb into the vodka- I made some great comfrey tincture that way, I also use it to make tinctures. Last year I made yarrow, motherwort and St John's wort tinctures. I would definitely recommend having a go at St John's wort tincture - the beauti...

dave45 wrote:zero sun hours is quite normal here in Lancashire. At any time of year.

As we are on day two of our 3 day PV array installation and we live in Lancs I find this a little worrying

In addition to the toxic overload info with which I agree, in our rush to modernise we have all but lost the traditional ways of preparing and eating foodstuffs that have nourished us for generations. The book "Nourishing Traditions" http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges...

Come to think about it the same sort of crap stops people keeping a couple of goats in a large back garden,not that much different to having a couple of big(useful) dogs. Possibly another good reason to get together with some like-minded people and rent a bit of land to keep your goats etc on. Shar...

IMHO if I didn't have any mortgage or rent payments and had a super insulated house with a renewable energy supply - so minimum bills - I would be very happy with £12,000 pa (£1,000 pm) . We are fortunate enough to not have any mortgage or rent payments and live in a super insulated house with a ce...

This site should help:

http://www.naturalbeekeepingtrust.org

We love it Spider8. We started with a hand grinder and felt very worthy not using electric but I make a batch of sourdough loaves once a week and it was taking over an hour and a half of hand grinding :shock: on bread baking days, in addition to the daily grind :lol: when I refreshed the starter. So...

Definitely let go. I'd buy some fruit trees/bushes so I could enjoy that smug feeling year after year

We buy ours from SUMA http://sumawholesale.com along with the bulk of our shopping. The minimum order for the wholesale site is £250. We buy in bulk from them once every 2 months along with a couple of friends and meet the minimum order that way.

We also struggled with this for a while and then decided to start to mill our own grain. If you scroll down a little on the following link it gives some interesting info about all commercially milled flour and the benefits of milling your own. http://www.browfarmwheatproducts.co.uk/bread_wheat.htm#i...

I'm in the process of deciding whether or not to add another goat to my herd of 2 and you've pushed me over the edge SusieGee - I think Santa will have to bring another two at least

I firmly believe that we will only get through the difficult years ahead by pulling together as communities whilst being as self-reliant as possible. I feel that it is so important to make as many links as possible in our local communities even though you feel like you are banging your head against ...

We are thinking of fitting home-made external shutters to help insulate an existing pre-fab building that we use for an office and music room. Does anyone have any good links or information about the insulating performance and any pitfalls of various types of DIY shutters? Thanks