Submission guidelines
Do
you have something you'd like to share with our audience?
Although the Walden Effect
is primarily a personal account of our own journey toward
sustainability, we like to spice it up from time to time with tidbits
from our readers. Here's a quick rundown on what we are and
aren't looking for.
We
value brevity.
Can you
sum up everything you want to say in one to five paragraphs? If
not, you're probably trying to cover too much ground for one blog
post.
Good
visuals are key.
Whip out that digital camera and document your story with relevant,
personal photos. You may have noticed that every one of our posts
has at least one photo included, and longer posts tend to include two
or more photos. We don't accept posts that completely lack
visuals.
We're
looking for first person experiences.
Write about your own garden, your experience meeting a permaculture
guru, or some other personal account. Our readers want to know
about something you've actually tried and are excited about. That
said, failures are
just as interesting as successes, so if your pedal power project
tanked, let us know why.
We don't publish
infomercials.
If your primary goal in writing a guest post is to sell a product,
please look elsewhere. However, we are quite willing to add a
short biography at the end of an information post, with a link
to the website of your choice.
Our
subject matter is homesteading and simple living.
We can and do include a lot of sub-headings within that subject matter,
such as gardening, permaculture, alternative energy, urban foraging,
livestock, mushrooms, and much more. However, we're less keen on
greenwashing --- alternative cleaning products aren't going to interest
us much.
Read our blog and you'll see what we
write about and how we write it. Think short, fun, and
informative, and you're halfway there.
Do
you have an article you want to share? Drop
me an email
with the the article in the body or attached in any regular format, and
include photos up to a total of 4 MB in size. Mention that you
read these submission guidelines and I'll get back to
you within a couple of days.
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Car batteries are designed to have high cranking amps, that stores little power, and needs frequent recharging, over-charging and complete discharging can damage them. (This has to do with the size and shape of the lead terminals- it is a function of surface area.)
While marine batteries are designed to store more power, and give a more steady current output. Because the lead terminals on deep-cycle batteries are more robust they are more tolerant of complete discharges.
The process of charging and discharging a lead battery oxidizes the lead during discharge. Oxidizing (aka rust) means the lead is more fragile and can be broken off easily during a discharged state.
Have you guys thought of using a ram pump, i found out about them off youtube. Ram pumps require no electricity and it pumps water uphill. I am not sure if you have the requirements needed to get it to work for you but I wanted to see if you knew about it, just type ram pump on youtube and you'll see what i am talking about. I hope everything is going great for you guys, I have read up to march in year 2009. Love the pictures and stories that go with them.
My grandparents farmed. How did I find you two? A blessing I guess. I would like to live more simply. I was just sitting here rebuilding a moped, so I could use less energy. My job precludes me being too far from a highway (I repair CB radios) I am fascinated and encouraged by your efforts! I will read and learn. God bless you two. -Kurt Van Luven, Fontana, Ca. KI6VST
I thought you'd really enjoy this article about recent experiments into how beans use subsoil fungal networks to communicate.
http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21580443-vegetables-employ-fungi-carry-messages-between-them-beans-talk
Hi! Just found your website and discovered you live in SW VA. I'm in NE TN (Tricities area). I've been here for 15 years and having a lot of trouble storing root veggies in the ground due to the freeze/thaw climate and the very short springs. I was wondering how you store root veggies up there in SW VA which has a similar climate to NE TN. I've noticed that some of the neighbors use storage cellars, but those cellars were from 60 to 100 years ago when the climate was a lot colder and had a lot more snow. Nowadays and certainly within the last 15 years the climate has warmed up considerably and many of my neighbors comment on the lack of snow. I've taken to canning them, but I'd really like to have them as fresh as possible.
Got any suggestions?
Hi all, I can't find the recent post about your still too damp forest garden. But reading the following article made me think of your struggles with that area of your property. Maybe this will give you some ideas:
http://permaculturenews.org/2014/11/06/experimenting-overflowing-circles-slow-flow-swales-panama/
Also, what have you thought of tall hugelculture mounds?