Up-cycling is an important and valuable part of permaculture but not one that is easy to do for everyone and is seldom done to a higher standard than purchased goods. This year we have reached the point at which our permaculture food system is producing higher amounts of produce with considerably reduced inputs to the early day of growing our own food. This has caused us some issues with storage the last thing we want to do is raise our energy consumption to store food by buying another freezer. Fiona my wife has always used the residual heat from our wood-fired Rayburn cooker to bottle food. Once our evening meal…

While I have been involved in craft work for over twenty-five years now most of that has involved taking the raw material of wood and making new items. Over the last ten years or so of our permaculture journey in to self-imposed simplicity we have had less money at times and that has made us more creative. We have also come to value older hand-operated machines which are often more efficient and certainly more beautiful. Below is a picture of our milk separator in use by Erin, skimmed milk is pouring in to the bottle and cream in to the jug. This is permanently set up in our cellar so…