So, I bought this little place in my early 20's. I wasn't sold on the house, per se, but I liked the fact that it was isolated, had an acre of land, was pretty small and efficient, and had 2x6 construction with great insulation. I didn't expect to stay for long.
I've done a number of improvements over the years and watched the land get eaten up around me by the exports of Chicago's bowels. A little while back I was able to gain another acre from my neighbor so now I'm up to two acres of woodland. I've cleared a small amount to put up some solar panels which produce about 4 times the electricity that I use.
Prior to that, I put some water heating panels up on the roof to supply my hot water.
Here's the controls for the solar water heating. It heats my hot water and floors, and I can back-up heat the tank with my wood stove:
You can see the temp of the tank in the photo is at 138*. Not bad for free energy. Hot enough to burn yourself!!!
Because of the rocky ground up here on the bluffs, gardening is pretty limited. I do put a big garden in at a friends house every year, but my goal is to move it to my house this year. This will require a lot of dirt moving, aka... shoveling by hand. Otherwise, I survive on hunted and foraged food mainly, with some trips to the grocery store once in a while. I trade a lot, too! I like my free range organic food, trouble is I don't like the grocery store.... so I get my free range organic out of the woods. A few turkey and deer each year, and as much fish as I can catch. Morels when in season, black raspberries, apples, and of course the garden stuff.
I put in a raised bed 10 years or so ago with garlic and asparagus. The asparagus has been producing prolifically for the last 5 years and I always have enough garlic around.
I rummaging around at the garbage dump last week and found this cedar bookcase. I thought I could use the boards for something but finally decided to fill it with dirt and plant my cold-weather greens in it.
You can see what the bluff soils look like around it.
Somewhere along the way I added a bee hive:
It yields about 60# of honey a year for me. I use about 15# myself which leaves the rest for trading. I used to have chickens and ducks but I finally realized that they were costing me more than they're worth. So now I just trade honey for eggs and it works out well. My friends with birds are still willing to give away the manure. That and my scraps and ash go into the compost.
The pile finally thawed enough to start digging some dirt out of the bottom to add to my raised beds. I like this picture b/c it shows the cross section of the pile as it sat all winter... crap on top, good stuff on the bottom... brings to mind Gary Snyder's poem, but that's another story.I've been cultivating mushrooms too. Is anybody else on here doing this? I've got shitakes growing on oak:
and oysters growing on boxelder: 
Like the honey, they supply more than I can use so it makes for good trading too.
The idea of having solar electric is truly fascinating to me. I like what you have done with you heating. The way you use your excess to barter is the way it used to be. That is truly amazing. You have done a lot with a little. I enjoyed the furniture, if I can get a picture of that my neighbor is doing I will post it for you. I have a few pieces like that, my mantel is solid walnut with the bark on, and I have a bench that is from the same piece. I tried to take some pictures of them to share, but I could not get that done. 
as a matter of fact, I don't know what happened to the rest of my pictures. 
