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NEW SOCIETY BLOG

It’s Time for Cob Building to Come out of the Woods

Michael G. Smith, co-author of Essential Cob Construction: A Guide to Design, Engineering, and Building has written three books on cob construction… Why would anyone write three books on the same topic, and could this ancient building technique possibly provide enough content to justify three books? Today, Michael addresses just how and why he wrote Essential Cob Construction.

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Understand What Makes Your Farm Money, and Why

Understanding the core revenue streams of your farm is vital for strategic planning and sustainability. It enables informed decision-making on resource allocation, investment, and diversification. By identifying profitable avenues, farmers can optimize operations, mitigate risks, and adapt to market fluctuations, ensuring long-term profitability and resilience in the agricultural sector.

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Revolutionizing Fire: Indigenous Insights for Ecological Harmony

For many of us in North America, the thought of fire season is far away -- a problem for the summer. However, for Osprey Orielle Lake, the memory of the 2018 Camp Fire is never far and it represents several of the overwhelming results of the much wider climate crisis

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Environmental Benefits and Performance of Cob Construction

When you think of cob construction, what comes to mind? For many, it’s the idea of little houses you might see in fairy tales, or depicted in movies of days past. However, when used correctly, cob construction is an extremely efficient and environmentally sound way to build the home of your dreams. Essential Cob Construction sets the new standard for cob construction by incorporating rigorous, up-to-date engineering and building science, along with decades of practical lessons learned. Let's explore the environmental benefits and the performance of cob-constructed buildings in this excerpt below.

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What do I need to know to design a rainwater harvesting system?

Over the past few years, many people have been looking to rainwater harvesting systems to help ease the anxiety of unreliable weather. If this has been something you've been dreaming of adding to your property, Michelle and Rob Avis outline everything you need to get started. Essential Rainwater Harvesting: A Guide to Home-Scale System Design is a comprehensive manual for designing, building, and maintaining water harvesting systems for the warm and cold climates of the world. If you are still in the dreaming phase, this excerpt might help you understand what questions you need to ask and have answered before you start designing your dream rainwater catchment system. Remember all titles* between November 16-23 are 50% off for our 2023 Holiday Sale! Use code Dream50 at checkout! So go ahead, and start that dream project. Our books can show you how!

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Ideas for At-Home Holiday Fun: Winter Scavenger Hunt for Kids

At one point, we all need to get up and take a break from reading. Even the most prolific readers eventually must stretch their legs. Why not learn while you exercise with this great activity from The Big Book of Nature Activities: A Year-Round Guide to Outdoor Learning? Fight the urge to stay inside for all of winter by looking to this book for ideas to get outside and learn. The Big Book of Nature Activities is a guide to help parents, educators, and caretakers ensure children can explore the natural world. Today, we look at how the authors have adapted a nature scavenger hunt to work for winter. The winter scavenger hunt helps to teach children to think about and identify changes that many organisms undergo to help them survive winter.

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The Easiest Recipe for Walnut Ricotta Ever!

Altering your favourite holiday dishes to make them dairy-free, vegan, or vegetarian might not be as difficult as you think. In The Art of Plant-Based Cheesemaking, Karen McAthy shares vegan recipes for many of your favourite (formerly dairy-based) cheeses. It doesn’t require a lot of preparation or effort, and will satisfy even the biggest cheese lovers. Don’t believe us? Try out her recipe for Walnut Ricotta and see for yourself. Remember all titles* between November 16-24 are 50% off for our 2023 Holiday Sale! Use the code Dream50 at checkout!

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Vegan Hot Cocoa with Whipped Cream and a decadent Irish Cream

There is no better way to curl up with your next favourite book than with this recipe for hot cocoa. Taken from a few of our titles, we’ve created what can only be described as “the perfect vegan holiday hot drink” and trust us, that title doesn’t do it justice. During our holiday sale, you can get both Hollyhock and Farmstead Chef for 50% off and enjoy not only access to these recipes but so many more. Remember all titles* between November 16-24 are 50% off for our 2023 Holiday Sale! Use the code Dream50 at checkout!

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Have you ever dreamt of having a roof capable of producing food?

Have you dreamed about having a green roof on your home, garden shed or shop? Many people have successfully designed new and retrofitted old roofs into green roofs to support plant life, insulate homes, and make the world a greener place. Leslie Doyle can show you how to do it in Essential Green Roof Construction: The Complete Step-by-Step Guide. While we move through our holiday sale, today we're dreaming of a green roof that isn't only beautiful and insulating but is also capable of growing food. Places such as Noble Rot Restaurant in Portland, Oregon (USA) and Ryerson Urban Farm in Toronto, Ontario (Canada) are already producing food on their roofs. Check out some of the considerations on food production roofs below! Remember all titles* between November 16-23 are 50% off for our 2023 Holiday Sale! Use code Dream50 at checkout! So go ahead, and start that dream project. Our books can show you how!

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Capital-Labor Relationship

In an ever-evolving world, does it make sense to use a 200-year old theory of trickle-down economics as the primary instrument for our economic system? In the fifth edition of Toward Sustainable Communities, a new tool is introduced to measure the environmental, economic, and social benefits of complex community and regional decisions. Today’s excerpt looks at the relationship between labor and capital through that lens, and provides a glimpse of what a community might be like if we imagined a new tool to measure success.

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Natural Plasters and Climate Change: Plastering in a New Paradigm

Tina Therrien, co-author of Essential Natural Plasters, has been working with natural plasters for decades. Today, Tina examines the role of natural plasters in adapting buildings within the context of global warming and climate change.

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The Best Cast Iron Skillet Sourdough Cinnamon Buns Ever

Did you know there are tons more recipes you can use your sourdough starter with? In DIY Sourdough, John and Jessica Moody provide many of your favorite baking recipes that can be made with sourdough. Whether it’s a cold evening or a lazy weekend morning, cast-iron skillet cinnamon buns are a fun and delicious way to use your starter. Below is the recipe from the book – feed your starter and let’s get baking!

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Let’s Fight the Fire, Not Each Other

Republished with permission from Andrew Boyd: There is so much that is heartbreaking, infuriating, depressing, about the latest gruesome turning of the knife in the ever more tangled story of Palestine/Israel. It feels like it could suck all the hope out of the world, if we let it. So, what do we do?

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Why Is Wealth Important For Community Resilience?

Is there a secret to resilient systems? Laura Lengnick believes there are key behaviors and characteristics in resilient systems that help them operate. In Resilient Agriculture, Second Edition, she outlines these key elements into three rules. They are: * Cultivate diverse networks of reciprocal relationship * Cultivate regional self-reliance * Cultivate the accumulation of community-based wealth. But if a community has regional self-reliance, what is the purpose of community-based wealth? Today, we explore the third rule of Laura Lengnick’s rules of resilience to understand why community-based wealth is a necessary factor of fully functioning resilient systems.

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A Cultural History of Coppice Agroforestry

It’s hard to believe that it’s been one year since Coppice Agroforestry was published! We’re celebrating this milestone by sharing an excerpt from the book. Coppice forestry has a rich history of providing a symbiotic, cooperative relationship between humans and forest ecosystems. While it is an ancient silvicultural practice, with Coppice Agroforestry, author Mark Krawczyk blends it with modern science, systems thinking, and tools to ground it firmly in the 21st Century. Understanding its cultural history is an important piece in understanding how coppice continues to evolve to meet our needs. In an excerpt from his book, Mark Krawcyzk shares a brief overview of that rich history below.

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