Look What I Found on the Sustainability Front

Once again it’s time for a post that looks at the amazing work my fellow steemians have been doing, and thankfully there is a great incentive: Another contest by @pifc, the Pay It Forward Contest. How can I not make this a regular habit? And since I focused on travel posts last week, I want to take a closer look at another interest of mine: Sustainability.

A Steem-based Farmers’ Market:

Having been mostly absent from the steemsphere for several months, it seemed like there have been tons of exciting new developments. The one that has been on my mind a lot, ever since discovering it, is the @homesteaderscoop (as in co-operative, not like an ice-cream scoop!) What it is, is an actual producers’ market, where steemians can sell their home-made, natural, organic, products for customers who pay for them in STEEM or SBD. It is an initiative that grew out of the Global Homesteading Collective @ghscollective of homesteaders on steemit. Today there are numerous vendors offering a wide range of products, from organic honey to vermicompost starting kits, from hand-made jewelry to medicinal herbal elixirs.

Homesteaders Co-op: The Model of an Ethical Marketplace

To highlight one of @homesteaderscoop’s recent articles, in this post they discuss money, and how financial interactions can be ethical. Drawing from the three core principles of Permaculture, Nate from the Homesteader’s Co-op explains how the blockchain technology, more specifically Steem, can make these transactions ethical, by being simple, available, and equitable.

Most importantly, they are based on the direct interaction within the community of people, instead of being subject to something imposed on us from the top down. Along with this article, a visit to their website is definitely worthwhile. You may even find some products you’d like to buy, or maybe even join the co-op as a vendor. I personally love the fact that thanks to community co-operatives like this, Steem becomes an actual means of exchange, rising above the vast majority of crypto-coins without any real use.

Our Homesteading Journal: Our first year off grid homesteading in Northern Canada by @harvardhomestead

As the second post I picked for curating is this exciting introduction to a series of posts coming up about the ultimate adventure: moving to an off-grid homestead. What makes this admirable move even more adventurous is its location of Northern Alberta (a place probably covered in deep snow by now). The author has recently completed eight months on her homestead, preparing it for the big move. Now that winter has come she wants to share her story by bits and pieces, making me look forward to her interesting stories.

Some of the teasers she’s mentioned so far include building a rocket-mass-heater out of hempcrete, chasing a jersey bull with a gun, taming a wild cow, and canning a bunch of food without a kitchen. I’m happy that for once I got to come across her introduction now, before all these tales are published, so I can follow them continuously as they come out. She’s also promised lots of pictures and even videos, making me even more psyched about it.

I hope you enjoyed these two posts, opening the doors to lots of other ones. Please stay tuned for my next Look What I Found, most likely next week, as I plan on becoming a regular on @pifc’s weekly Pay It Forward Contest!