All DIY and Large Projects Pages (75)

Chisels

If you work with wood, stone, or metal, you’ll need a chisel sooner or later. Chisels are essential for making furniture, installing doors and trim, shaping stone for a foundation or fireplace, or wo… View »

Bringing Home a New Livestock Guardian Dog

Hopefully, you located a healthy pup from a good breeder who chooses her breeding dogs carefully for their working behaviors, temperament, and soundness. Most importantly, if you want a good working… View »

Farm Dogs: Guarding, Herding, and Helping

Learn how to train and care for farm dogs to help with herding and guarding. When I visit a farm for the first time, it is always the farm dogs that greet me first, barking to alert their owners of… View »

HOW TO PROCESS SOIL INTO CLAY FOR POTTERY

How did primitive potters harvest clay? People have been making pottery for millennia, and convenient hobby shops have only been a thing for a few decades at best. Before that, people harvested thei… View »

All About Geothermal Heating Systems and How They Save Energy

Learn how geothermal systems work to deliver earth’s ground-heat indoors and how they can serve as alternative cooling systems. By Donal Blaise Lloyd Like a refrigerator, a geothermal heat pump simpl… View »

Basic Techniques for Shaping Stone by Hand

Story by Brian Post and photos by Tom Hutten People have been shaping stones for millennia. As a natural material, stone varies widely, and a range of methods and tools can be used to achieve a simil… View »

9 Things for the Homesteader to do During Winter

Don’t get me wrong, I love our life on the farm. Even those hardest days like bringing in the hay crop in 95-degree weather, or cleaning out the winter muck build-up, or even the worst days when we l… View »

Homestead Preventive Maintenance For Winter

We all saw the scary reality of a winter freeze last week in the Midwest. When a cold front rolls through your area, your homestead, livestock, and equipment are all at risk. As temperatures drop an… View »

Waterproofing Everyday Materials at Home

Preserve leather, canvas, nylon, and light fabric materials with this simple guide. If you are mindful about the quality of your clothes, shoes, and household items, be mindful also about their prese… View »

DIY Screen Repairs and Replacements

Wire screens accumulate plenty of wear, tear, and punctures throughout their lives, but repairing the damage is a simple task you can learn to do yourself. From patches to replacements, fixing your… View »