Here is another chatty off-grid video shot on site on the 4th floor observation deck of the SkyCastle, the things going on lately are my family and friends visiting, all fun and games :) It’s been a while since we have had any family visiting, it’s been very nice. Enjoy the video.
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Let’s make America Tiny again – like it was back in the days of the orginal settlers.
As the kleptocratic corporatocracy tightened its grip on the masses – finding ever more ways to funnel wealth to the top – rural residents have responded in a number of ways, including the rising popularity of tiny houses – and voting Trump.
These dwellings, typically defined as less than 500 square feet, are a way for people to break free of mortgages, taxes, utility bills and the general trappings of “stuff.” They’re especially attractive to millennials and retirees, or those seeking to live off-grid.
But government and corporations are finding all sorts of ways to block this new lifestyle choice. The global system depends on rampant consumerism and people being connected to the grid. So this really is not in their interest. Politicians dont like off-gridders either – because they are difficult to canvass and control.
Seeking actual freedom through minimalist living should seem like a natural fit for the Donald’s American dream, but the reality is that many governments around the country either ban tiny homes or force them to be connected to the utility grid.
As of now, few cities allow stand-alone tiny houses. Most communities have minimum square footage requirements for single-family homes mandating that smaller dwellings be an “accessory” to a larger, traditional house. Many also have rules requiring that dwellings be hooked up to utilities, which is a problem for tiny-house enthusiasts who want to live off the grid by using alternative energy sources such as solar panels and rainwater catchment systems.
Some of the more recent examples of explicit bans include Etowah, TN and Wasilla, AK, which don’t allow homes less than 600 square feet and 700 square feet, respectively.
Boise, ID doesn’t allow homes less than a few hundred square feet, as Shaun Wheeler of Wheeler Homes found when he built a perfectly good and safe 310 sq. ft. home.
Lawmakers spout slippery slope fallacies, saying that allowing tiny homes will lead to decay and “unsightly little cabins plunked down next to traditional homes.” Using government force to stamp out societal change in response to financial factors is this councilman’s idea of conservatism.
Granted, some cities are actually encouraging tiny homes as a means of freedom or as a solution to homelessness, as in Detroit, MI. Some Los Angeles lawmakers don’t see it that way, calling tiny homes for the homeless “a threat in many ways to our public safety.”
Wasilla residents are baffled by the tiny home ban, which seems to run contrary to Alaska’s wild and free nature. Tundra Tiny Houses is leading a new market of small home construction using renewable energy, and now they’ll have to tell customers Wasilla is not an option, in addition to Anchorage to Eagle River.
A big priority for tiny home dwellers is their …
Nate Murphy enjoys living stealthy in his van, he found a low mileage van and was able to convert it in a quick 17 days, these were full, long days, not a part time endeavor. The bed takes up the lion’s share of the space, looking very comfortable and roomy. I love his kitchen with the built in stove top and sink compartment, Nate is happy with that part of his build as well. He has everything a person could want, with 3 notable exceptions, a fridge, a toilet and shower.
His reason for not having a toilet is simple, he doesn’t fancy the smell associated with having a toilet in such a small enclosed space, he does have a couple of urine bottles for emergencies. He says he is always within reasonable distance of a toilet and so far, it hasn’t been a problem.
Showers add a whole level of expense and complication that he just didn’t want to deal with, the fact that it would take more water than he stores now and would have to heat said water, it’s just not in the cards now.
As far as a fridge is concerned, same issues as above, the expense is the main reason to go fridgeless, and the fact that he doesn’t eat the sorts of foods that require being kept cold. He can always install a cooler if the need ever arises.
Here is the video of his build, it’s not really a “how to”, it’s more of a “this is what I did”, watch and enjoy.
https://youtu.be/wksm1xI1Ms0
Here is Nate’s blog explaining more in dept how he lives and how he converted his van.
https://offgridvan.blogspot.com/
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We’ve been full-timing in our Airstream since April. That’s 6 months of LIB (Living in Beauty). So far, we’ve been visitors of 23 communities in 11 states, and have traveled 4,592 miles. So starts Jim and Carmen Beaubeaux’s latest blog post about living full time in their Airstream RV. They have had quite the adventure and are looking forward to many more.
They started out much like the rest of us, edging toward retirement with a sticks and bricks house, and lots of possessions that they decided were weighing them down and holding them back. Having been backpackers in their earlier life, they were no strangers to living on the road, but at the time they considered big trucks hauling large RVs more of a hazard to pedestrians and cyclists than something to be desired.
You can listen to their latest podcast here:
I love reading about how other people are living their dream, the thing all of these folk have in common is they took a chance, they stepped out of their comfort zone, they didn’t just dream, they DID and they DO.
To find out more about Jim and Carmen, you can peruse their blog here:
https://livinginbeauty.net/
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Last week, a couple who dreamt of building their own eco family home and living off the land with their children appeared on the British TV show, Grand Designs. With only £500 in the bank, they started the project and didn’t give up.
Simon and Jasemine Dale later managed to save £27,000 after taking a few years out and working. Jasemine ran horticultural courses and sold produce whilst Simon did occasional consultancy work on low impact buildings. They did end up building the three-bedroom home for themselves and their children Elfie and Cosmo, in the sustainable Lammas community Pembrokeshire, UK. In order to move into the community, they first had to prove they could fulfill a strict planning condition and that they could be self-sufficient on their seven-acre plot – or be forced to move out.
They proved that they could though as well as proving that you can build your dream home with recycled materials for a fraction of the cost. Presenter of the Show, Kevin McCloud described it as “the cheapest house ever built in the Western Hemisphere”.
The floors were made of rammed earth, which was polished and hardened with linseed oil and structure of the home was made from timber polls, all grown, felled, prepared and sawn by Simon. But don’t feel sorry for him, he loved every minute of it. He told the show that:
“It’s been hard and I wasn’t asking for an easy life. I like a challenge. To put in a hard day’s graft and be tired at the end of the day. That exhaustion is a nice feeling.”
At the front of the house, they decided to install a greenhouse to preheat air for the house and grown food.
The couple used sheep wool and grass as insulation in the walls and the roof, reclaimed glass for the windows and kitchen fixtures and appliances from car boot sales and eBay.
The Dale’s have proved that a green lifestyle and living off the land can be cheap and still comfortable with their beautiful eco home.
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Two years after moving into his tiny home, Bryce Langston came back for a return visit to see how Brett Sutherland is getting along, what he loves about living tiny, what he would have changed, what he would improve. To me, this is the meat of living tiny, seeing how things are working a few years later. Watch and enjoy
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In times of stress, and SHTF would create a lot of stress, it’s good to have some comfort food to help bring the stress down to bearable levels. While sugar isn’t good to eat in excess, during stressful times, sugar helps release dopamine, which makes you feel good.
I found a cake that can be made with common prepper foods, here it is
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (from canned butter, or use shortening)
1 cup sugar
3 eggs (or 6 tablespoons egg powder + 9 tablespoons water)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup reconstituted powdered milk
Pour everything into a large bowl, mix together (a wire whisk works great here), butter an 8×8 pan (or equivalent), bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or a toothpick comes out clean. Cool and dust with powdered sugar, or mix powdered sugar with a little water or reconstituted powdered milk to make an icing.
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This is a semi-quick video where I’m chatting about what’s been going on this week. The main things are that my daughter and my 2 grandchildren came for a visit, they only stayed overnight but it was nice to have them out. Tomorrow my son is flying in for a longer visit.
It’s easy to forget that we don’t live like “normal” folk, our setup is unconventional at best, not just the off-grid parts, but things like the hot water. If the water gets too hot, you would turn it down, but at our place, you would turn it up to get more water flowing through the propane fire, that cools it off. Our toilet is very unconventional, being a composting potty, and the such.
There are also privacy concerns, basically living in 2 rooms, cleaning up and dressing is something that will have to be coordinated so we don’t embarrass anyone (or ourselves).
It’s been a while since we have had any real visits from far away family & friends. My dad used to come out and stay for a month every summer, I’d say it’s been a good 5 years since the last visit like that.
If you have any questions about how we live, or anything else, please write them below and I’ll do my best to answer them in the next vlog. Enjoy!
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It’s nearly Halloween here in the USA, which means the Christmas merchandise has been in the stores for at least a few weeks now… I am a bit tarnished when it comes to the commercial element of the holidays, mainly caused by the years and years of working in retail and in malls, it tends to bring out the best, and unfortunately the worst in people.
I prefer doing something a little more personal for gift giving, in the past I have created my own Christmas cards for my friends and family, hand drawing and painting each separate one then giving them out, I never had a specific number of them to make, I would just make as many as I could and hand them out to ever increasing circles of friends until I didn’t have anymore to give away.
I think this year I’m going to do something with my photos that I have worked on for the last couple of years. I have been picking the best scenic photos, editing them and uploading them to a printing service (https://www.moo.com) to print out as post cards. I decided on them because I can do small runs, and can even do multiple images per pack, all the others that I have found require one image per pack and for now, I don’t need 100+ of the same post card, at least not yet.
I am pretty excited about this, not only to give out as Christmas cards, but to sell in town. I live near 3 different towns that rely on tourist dollars, there seems to be a great need for inexpensive souvenirs for the tourists, something they can pick up for their friends and family back home that will remind them of their trip to the towns here. I have seen a few attempts by the locals here to print and sell post cards, when I look at what has been available at random times (nothing consistent), I believe I have a real opportunity. I just need to get this off the ground before it gets much closer to the holidays, that’s when the gift shops in town will be looking to buy from local artists.
I am including some samples of my photography here, they are lower quality than the originals and they have a watermark, some are not fully edited and ready for production. Once I get my first run printed, I’ll post images here of those cards.
If anyone reading this has had any experience with this print company (moo.com), or another print company, I would love to hear your experiences.
What are you doing to celebrate the holidays? Do you create gifts or do you buy them?
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Me neither, but once I discovered it, I am definitely intrigued, it takes the best of rocket stove, thermal mass heaters, masonry heaters and the such puts it together. I have been trying to interest PB into doing a thermal mass rocket stove but I have had very little luck peaking his interest to even consider trying it. His main complaint has been the thought of having to use and continually add small sticks to the combustion chamber, which is one of the hallmarks of a rocket stove. Watching Matt start a fire in his Walker stove/oven, he barely seemed to have the fire going and he packed the combustion chamber with lots of larger wood logs and it took off like crazy. Being able to load the combustion chamber with that amount of real logs, and not just twigs means not having to continually add wood to keep things going.
There will be 3 videos here, one is essentially a commercial for the Walker stove, the other two are about the build of the stove. If you go to his website https://walkerstoves.com/ you will learn more about the Walker stove and discover that he is using a Creative Commons license on at least one of his designs, meaning you can build these for yourself, see the whole licensing agreement here (scroll down to the bottom of the page) https://walkerstoves.com/walker-riser-less-combustion-core.html
Let me know what you think about this… Enjoy!
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The theme of off-grid living is sweeping through Hollywood as it takes a center stage role in upcoming blockbusters.
The newest Bourne movie hits the big screen this week, and lead character Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) immerses himself into off-grid living as he tried to shake loose those who are tracking him. He makes a career for himself on the bare-knuckle fight circuit somewhere in southern and central Europe as old associates reappear throughout the movie. This film is not out yet but it is pretty safe to say that when they refer to Bourne as being off-grid they don’t mean he’s living on a farm using hydropower to decode top CIA Intel. But rather ‘off the radar’; one can guess burner phones and such will be used. His romantic interest Nicky Parsons is back and has downloaded confidential files about Bourne’s former life as David Webb. The film is said to keep you on the edge of your seat once is gets going and definitely is on our list to watch.
Another sequel is soon on it’s way out, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is another part two thriller. Tom Cruise who plays Reacher stumbles upon a grand conspiracy and goes, guess where? Off the grid, according to the press releases. Surfing from motel to motel and covering his back, he tries his hardest not to be tracked as he unwraps this mystery.
Films such as Captain Fantastic, Life of Pi, 127 Hours, Wild have all used the OG word in their PR packs. But what exactly is it about the theme of going ‘off-grid’ that really goes down a treat with audiences? Granted, there’s not much of actual off-grid living in the terms of living a sustained life, living off the food that you grow, using solar power instead of the grid. No, it’s more the mysterious and independent side of living off-grid that really gets the movie audiences going. In times like this, globalization and the rise of technology has interlinked people from across the world. Perhaps it’s the idea that once you go off-grid, you’re technically unknown. These days most people have a phone and on that phone, there is some sort of geo-location software or a software that allows you to be tracked. So maybe it’s the idea of not being tracked that is endearing to people, which is why Hollywood has integrated off-grid living into so many of its film narratives.
Both films are being released this week so keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested in watching them in full.
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You may remember the Steward Community Woodland Group from our previous article ‘Dartmoor community eviction‘. There’s a little summary downpage.
Since then, the Woodlanders have graciously thanked all for their support, but their current situation calls for even more support from the public. The self-sufficient group has decided to challenge their loss at court. Their latest Facebook post reads: “The most important thing happening at the moment is our High Court challenge of the Planning Inspector’s decision. Before our case can go ahead to a full hearing, a judge will decide whether we have a sufficient case to proceed”.
The judge has allowed them to do this orally which apparently indicates that they have a good chance of winning. If they win, they have to pay £10,000 and if they lose, it’ll be £15,000. They have asked anyone who is happy to help fund the legal fees to contact them via their website or Facebook page or call them on 01647 440233.
More updates as they come.
STEWARD WOOD BACKGROUND SUMMARY
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