self sufficiency

Aren’t you all bored with mass consumerism, marketing and corporations selling us products that we don't actually need for our hard earned money?

Melting ice caps, unchecked global oil consumption, mind-boggling volumes of trash accumulating in landfills — the problems facing our planet are so overwhelming, it’s tempting to tune them out. They’re just so big.

Make 2008 be the year you finally plant a vegetable garden. Here are a few tips for starting from scratch.

Making preserves is a great way to reduce food miles, take control of what you eat, and get back in touch with the cycles of nature. Chutneys are the easiest preserves of all.

PASADENA - For Jules Dervaes and his three adult children, each branch sagging with fleshy eggplant and every lick of sun-generated energy are small steps along the "path to freedom."

Laboring full time at their urban homestead in Northwest Pasadena, the Dervaeses cook up their own biodiesel fuel in their garage, while outside, pygmy goats trim their lawn and provide fertilizer.

The family has invested seven years of ingenuity, sweat and sacrifice decoupling from the status quo and connecting to the world at large.