This last Saturday was the second anniversary of the launching of the Low Technology Institute website and blog. It has been another busy year. We’ve finished the roof on our 1850s home in Cooksville, Wisconsin, a historic village 25 min south of Madison. We built a timber-frame chicken coop (see the video here) and have been working on our hour-a-day garden project. Institute staff attended the Nelson Institute’s Earth Day Conference as well as the Wisconsin Permaculture Convergence.
In this year, we’ve held workshops and developed our second and third major research projects: No. 2 – Potato Growing Methods and No. 3 – Mite-Tolerant Bee Breeding. This year, we’ve published 192 blog posts (486 since 2016), 7 new podcast episodes (35 since 2016), 7 new videos. As of this writing, 13,804 people from 133 countries have visited the website. Our most popular posts were Beehives Three Ways: Long Lanstroth, Layens, and Trågkupa (for sale, too!), DIY Project — Making a Broadfork — From Contributor Matt Miles, and The Mudgirls Manifesto — Book Review from Contributor Holly Dressel. This tells me that contributor posts are the most popular so please do consider sending something in for us to publish.
We hope to see continued expansion in the coming year. This spring we’ll be holding the first Sustainability Spring Share (June 1–2) here in Cooksville. We’re currently accepting class proposals and instructor nominations. Growing our member and support base will be a priority this year, and we hope to secure funding to carry out more research. We’re building a home solar hot water system and continuing to look for new research opportunities and partnerships.
If you want a look back at the first blog posts, follow any of the links below.
Sep. 15 — New Book — Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail?
Sep. 16 — Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5 — Summary
Sep. 20 — In Defense of Luddites
Sep. 21 — Introducing the Bee Report — Fall 2016
Sep. 22 — What is Low Tech?