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NEW BOOK!
“Bigfoot Beyond Belief: A Study in Cultural Anthropology of What People Believe About Bigfoot/Sasquatch
by Sharon Eby

External link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Bigfoot-Beyond-Belief-Anthropology-Sasquatch-dp-1777253837/dp/1777253837/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

Make SunStar Solutions your go-to website for access to articles, FREE e-book downloads, and how-to courses (coming soon… maybe) on DIY survival and solar energy projects. Learn now about how to make solar ovens and solar water distillers, passive solar house design and green building home design for 90% energy efficiency (greatly reduced heating and cooling loads), tiny houses photos (photograph ideas for your cabin, cottage, bungalow, boathouse, beach house, log cabin, hut, or even a cave house, plus pix for kids’ wanting a fort, treehouse or playhouse), how to make a house on the cheap (for the homestead, barter and frugal living, low budget, thrifty folks and outright cheapskates), cheap air conditioning earth tubes, and much more.

Choose one area to explore first:

Do it yourself

Do it yourself

1. DIY – Do It Yourself

Do it yourself projects can be for adults or kids alike. Solar ovens, solar stills, cheap air conditioning, tiny houses, passive solar house design, and more.

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Survival

Survival

2. Survival

Need to cook food without fuel? Purify water using only the sun? Build a cheap house out in the sticks? Design a green home or passive solar home that will help heat itself without electricity? Build a $100K house for $10K? Did you see bigfoot in the woods and want to know more?

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Homestead

Homestead

3. Homestead

Homesteading is akin to sustainable or self-sufficient living. Whether that is designing and building your own home, keeping the heat out of the house during summer by cooking outside, reducing energy bills, gardening or using permaculture principles (like no-work gardening, raised beds or straw bale gardening, organic gardening, perennial forest garden, etc.), or raising animals and their products, and so on, this section will do you well.

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Free ebooks (e-books for free)
on this website can be found here


Are you looking for great resources on these topics and just want to buy a book?

Author, Sharon Buydens, also has these paperback books available below (Kindle versions are FREE if you are an Amazon Prime member or KindleUnlimited member!)

By far my number one, most popular book, is DIY: How to Make a Solar Oven

solar ovens

(click on image to see book cover)

Know how to cook with the sun? This solves the problem of not having fuel, or keeping the heat out of the house during those hot summer days when you don’t want to be slaving over a hot stove. It’s slow cooker style, so practically impossible to burn food!

Do you like camping, hiking, saving energy, survival methods for cooking with alternative methods or renewable fuels, teaching kids how to cook without worrying about them burning the house down? Need some easy science fair project ideas? Building a solar oven can help you in all of these situations, including knowing which few items to keep on hand in an electrical outage or other natural disaster emergency so you can still cook.

This book teaches how to make several types of solar cookers. The exact topics are shown below in the table of contents (chapters and sections, and page #’s). You can access the full TABLE OF CONTENTS (chapters/sections, page numbers) when you click the link below.

See this book DIY: How to Make a Solar Oven: Do It Yourself Solar Cooker Science Fair Ideas for Kids, Cheap and Easy Projects for Adults, Campers, the Survivalist, Frugal Living, and Just About Anyone

You can also learn how to make a solar oven here free.


Another very popular book is DIY: How to Build a Solar Water Distiller

do it yourself

(click on image to see book cover)

Solar water distillers are one of the best ways to purify water. Water purification methods often mean the use of RO (reverse osmosis) units, which are very expensive, or other filtration devices, all of which cost money, plus there is the constant need to replace the filters.

A solar still requires no filters (although flavor may be enhanced with a simple carbon $3 filter if you choose), no pumps, no fans, no electricity, no water pressure, and very little maintenance. You put contaminated water into the basin, and then it just sits there and the sun does all the work!

Be careful about using silicone or other man-made products when you design or build the solar distiller! Unless they are food grade, or do not off-gas, or have a period where off-gassing can occur before you drink the water, then you could be poisoning yourself!

All of this, including safe materials to use when building the still, are covered in this book. Click the image to see the book cover.

See this book DIY: How to Build a Solar Water Distiller: Do It Yourself – Make a Solar Still to Purify H20 Without Electricity or Water Pressure

You can also learn more about how to make a solar water distiller free here.


This next book is great because it is easy to understand. DIY: Simple Passive Solar House

(click on image to see book cover)

(click on image to see book cover)

Is there any other way to design a house that is super energy efficient AND heats itself for free other than through proper passive solar home design? Not really. This book teaches you how.

Are you sick of paying to heat your neighborhood instead of just your home? Why spend enormous amounts of money on your heating and cooling bills simply because your home’s windows are in the wrong position? Or because your skylights are letting sun and heat into the house during summer, and wasting heat to the outside in winter? Or because your home does not have enough (or the right kind) of thermal mass inside? And because your house is not insulated or airtight enough or has thermal bridges?

This book keeps it simple.

Click on the image to see the book cover.

See this book DIY: Simple Passive Solar House: Design for 90% Energy Efficiency to Save Money on Heating and Cooling

You can also learn more about passive solar house design free here. If you think that “passive solar” means solar energy PV (photovoltaic) panels that produce electricity, then you are mistaken, and should start by asking What is Passive Solar House Design?


This one is for thrifty people who want to build their own house cheaply… Cheapskate’s Passive Solar Home Design for DIY Straw Bale or Green Building

(click on image to see book cover)

(click on image to see book cover)

Rent or mortgage got you bogged down in debt?

Do you have your eyes set on some land, or do you have land that is ready for your own home to be constructed on it?

Are you on a tight budget and need some fresh ideas to build it inexpensively using free, used, recycled, bartered building materials such as wood, windows, doors, etc.?

Design your own house so you can build it the way you want. Whether you are a contractor, or have one help you, or can do all the work yourself, this book explains how to design your home to be not only passive solar but also up to 90% energy efficient to help you save on utility bills. Natural cooling and heating through the design of the home, landscaping, building material choices, orientation of the house to ‘solar south’, overhang length, and other design factors can save you a bundle in energy bills for the lifetime of the house.

Click on the image to see the book cover.

See this book Cheapskate’s Passive Solar Home Design for DIY Straw Bale or Green Building: Thrifty Ways to Barter and Find Cheap Used & Free materials on a Frugal Budget

You can also learn more about the buy-and-barter method of Cheap House Design for owner builders here.


Want to know how to build a healthy house that is up to 90% energy efficient using natural materials? DIY: How to Design Your Own Energy Efficient Green Home

(click to see book cover)

(click to see book cover)

For beginners and owner-builders, you can learn how to design your own home. This book teaches about natural and man-made healthier and eco-friendly “green building” materials, methods, and also touches on passive solar design.

If you like the thought of reducing your heating and cooling bills by significant amounts, then this book covers just how to do that through design and features you can add.

This book is meant to be a set, along with “Simple Passive Solar House”. (shown above)

DIY: How to Design Your Own Energy Efficient Green Home: Construction Alternatives and Sample Passive Solar Straw Bale House

Learn more about green homes here.


Cheap air conditioning via natural cooling earth tubes. DIY: How to Make Cheap Air Conditioning Earth Tubes

(click here to see cover)

(click here to see cover)

Earth tubes are long PVC tubes in the ground that bring in fresh air from outside into your home, with four main features:

1) the air is tempered by the ground (geothermal, so air is cooled in summer, warmed in winter),

2) moisture condenses out and escapes out the bottom of the tube into gravel, allowing cooler dryer air to enter the home,

3) they work via natural convection (no electricity or fans needed), and

4) they are cheap–earthtubes can be installed for about $150 each (great for new construction, but they can be retrofitted to a home if there’s enough yard space)

See the book DIY: How to Make Cheap Air Conditioning Earth Tubes: Do It Yourself Homemade Air Conditioner – Non-Electric Sustainable Design – Geothermal Energy – Passive Heating and Cooling

Earth tubes can also be closed off in winter except to feed tempered air into an HRV unit, and to provide external combustion air to your fireplace/woodstove. Open them all in summer and let them cool your house naturally without the need to turn on your A/C! See the Q&A about earth tubes here.


Do you like tiny houses and need home design ideas? Tiny House Photobook: B/W Pix

(click to see book cover)

(click to see book cover)

You can often find books and sites for floor plans and other house plans, but rarely do you just see a huge book full of nothing but photographs of tiny homes (almost no text)!

Here is that book–it’s well over 300 pages of black-and-white photos of small homes…

Cottages, bungalows, beach homes, boathouses, log cabins, dirt / adobe and mud huts, cave dwellings, rock houses, yurts and tipis (tee pees), thatch roof and bamboo huts, playhouses, treehouses, and even privies! Plus more…

This is a full size 8.5×11″ book that is fat with itsy bitsy home ideas, and is perfect for your coffee table.

See the book Tiny House Photobook: B/W Pix – Cottage, Bungalow, Beach & Boathouse, Log Cabin, Mud Hut, Cave & Rock Dwelling, Yurt, the Privy

You can learn more about tiny houses here.


Take the best photos from the “Tiny House Photobook” (above) and pack them into a full cover (and much smaller, 50-pages) version and you get: Best of Tiny House Photobook: Color Pix

(click to see book cover)

(click to see book cover)

This is a popular version because the photos are in full color.

This version is also a coffee table book, but much skinner and lighter than its black-and-white predecessor.

Sit down, enjoy some coffee, and browse through your favorite tiny house images for great small house building ideas.

See the book Best of Tiny House Photobook: Color Pix – Cottage, Bungalow, Beach & Boathouse, Log Cabin, Mud Hut, Cave & Rock Dwelling, Yurt, the Privy

For more information you can see the tiny houses page here. (coming soon)


Do you love barn owls? Barn Owl Photobook: Royalty Free Color Pix

(click to view book cover)

(click to view book cover)

Here is a picture book of nothing but barn owls.

All images are royalty-free, which means you can use the photos for anything you like, even commercial purposes, without having to give credit or worrying about infringing copyright laws.

50 pages – full color

See the book Barn Owl Photobook: Royalty Free Color Pix of the Common Barn Owl, Family Tytonidae (Tyto Alba) Plus Talons & Owl Drawings

Enjoy! 🙂


Did you see a something in the woods that looked like a Bigfoot / Sasquatch? 3 Bigfoot Sightings Maps in 7 States

Bigfoot Sightings Maps

Bigfoot Sightings Maps

Eye witnesses exist in almost every state in the union for sightings of a large bipedal hairy creature that resembles a cross between a man and an ape. In fact, different versions of this type of being exist on every continent in the world, and in almost every country, and are not a new phenomenon.

Natives had names for these, as well as through oral history and folklore of most cultures around the globe.

This collection of 3 Bigfoot Sightings Maps in 7 states is in a short booklet. The states are Texas; Washington, Oregon, and California; plus Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.

The book is on 8.5×11″ paper size for the largest copy of the map possible, and also in full color.

See the book 3 Bigfoot Sightings Maps in 7 States: Booklet of Sasquatch Beings & Footprints Seen in TX – WA, OR, CA – AR, MO, OK

I am writing a book on what people believe about Bigfoot… keep watch!

NEWLY PUBLISHED!
“Bigfoot Beyond Belief: A Study in Cultural Anthropology of What People Believe About Bigfoot/Sasquatch

by Sharon Eby

book cover

Book Description: 

This book is an ethnographic exploration and general overview of what people believe about the cryptid called Bigfoot, otherwise known in North America as Sasquatch. This anthropological study covers how and what people understand about Bigfoot and cryptozoology, but focuses on the perspective of believers. Those within the Bigfoot subculture have unique cosmologies, views, experiences, and biases that help them learn. understand, and define reality in their own ways, which colors their perspectives and aids them in their narratives to explain the phenomenon.

The ethno-historical viewpoint, including Native/First Nations beliefs, are covered in this book, which describes folklore, legends, and myths about these Wildmen of the forest. Included are place-names maps, the ‘five types of people’, true skeptics, the Parks and Forest Service viewpoint, Bigfoot organizations and their research, cultural geography, the alleged new owner of the PG Film, what people think about physical and anecdotal evidence, the paranormal aspect, PTSD/trauma related incidences, the rhetoric around Bigfoot culture and language/communication, habituation techniques, the Relict Hominoid Inquiry, orang-pendek, Bigfoot in popular culture, as well as a deeper look into the symbolic-cultural projection effect, the pro-kill ‘type’ of Bigfoot believer, and more.

This book is not set out to prove or disprove the existence of Bigfoot and is purposefully neutral in that regard. What the author does look for is the emic (inside) view of what believers believe, plus why and how that happens, presenting a strong cultural aspect behind these beliefs through cultural sharing and enculturation. But this also raises questions as to what people think Bigfoot might be based on eyewitness testimonies, especially in light of physical evidence or personal sighting accounts, and focuses on how people describe their experiences, which sometimes causes a liminal state where they go from ‘unbeliever’ to becoming a true ‘believer’.

Amazon link to book: https://www.amazon.com/Bigfoot-Beyond-Belief-Anthropology-Sasquatch-dp-1777253837/dp/1777253837/ref=dp_ob_title_bk


More coming soon…

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(yes, even my newly published books)

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